Tour Guides for a Day

Merrick's mom and sister Lindsey came in town for a few days on their way to move Lindsey to Washington D.C. We wanted to make the detour worth their while so we drove around Milwaukee and showed them some sights. It was a nice excuse to go some places that we haven't gone to yet. Our first stop was Holy Hill which is a Shrine of Mary on the highest point in southest Wisconsin.

The Basilica is really beautiful and it gives some great views. Unfortunately the highest tower was closed due to some off-and-on rain but we still got to see some beautiful sights.

Then later in the day we drove through downtown Milwaukee and stopped at Bradford Beach to walk around in the sand for a little while and take some pictures.

We also went on a tour of the Sprecher Brewing Company. In addition to brewing beer, they make a variety of gourmet sodas. At times it was so loud we had a hard time hearing everything and Avery had a difficult time standing still for the 20 minute tour. But it was overall really interesting to learn some of the history and process.

The coolest part was that we got to sample all of the sodas (and we could have had beer too but of course we didn't). There were seven different kinds and we could go back for refills as often as we liked. After a while all that carbonation made me really full!

Our favorites were the root beer and the cream soda. They also had orange dream (tastes like a dreamsicle), Puma Kola, Cherry Cola, Ravin' Red (cherry cran), and ginger ale. Yum! We even got to keep our beer tasting glasses.

A few other things we did while they were here: a little shopping at Bayshore Town Center, Bowling at Sussex Bowl, lunch at Panera Bread, and Merrick took his mom and sister to see Angels & Demons, and what would be a foursome of Smith's getting together without a late night match of Pinochle! We had a great time and were sad that they had to get back on the road. Julie and Lindsey fell in love with our kids all over again and the kids couldn't get enough of the extra attention.

Ten Cent Snack

Last night Avery runs to me crying like she was in pain. I asked her what happened and, pointing to her mouth, she said, "Money!" I realized she had swallowed a coin! Ah! What do you do? She obviously wasn't choking but it must have hurt going down. So we gave her a drink of water, and that seemed to calm her down a little. Then I got out one of each kind of coin and she pointed to the dime to show me which one she swallowed.

I then looked online to get some tips and ended up calling an after hours nurse. She told us to give her some bread to eat and if she could get that down fine, then she would be okay and we could just watch for it to come out the other end. That should be interesting...

This was actually our second call to the after hours nurse for Avery in one week. I'm not sure why she's more accident prone after hours, but it always seems to work out that way. So the call earlier this week was because she fell on something and severed that little flap of tissue between her gums and her top lip. Apparently it's not something that requires stitches, thank goodness. But it will probably never heal back to normal.

And so my on-the-job mom training continues...

AVERY

Age: 34 1/2 months. Turning three soon! It seems like she's been almost three forever!!

She loves to: Play outside, go to the park, play with play doh, watercolor, draw, read books, sing, play games, go to nursery, go to the library, watch movies, and above all DRESS UP. She wears her princess dress up clothes 24/7. I'm not kidding. I'm lucky to get regular clothes on her for a few hours a day. And it's not just the dress- she has to have the whole ensemble. The earrings, the necklace, the crown, the shoes.

Her favorite food: She likes really strange things sometimes - cold hot dogs, uncooked pasta, frozen ravioli, frozen peas. Anything that she can much on immediately. And I thought I liked food that was quick to put together!

Her favorite shows: Enchanted, The Little Mermaid II, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Dora, Olivia, Dragon Tales... etc. She's enjoyed watching new things lately, which is a welcome respite from her Dora 24/7 phase.

Words: She's a great talker, coming up with all kinds of things we'd never thought we'd hear her say. Merrick told her what her job was the other night and she said, "It's my job NOT to help." She cracks us up a lot. She's also got a great memory. She can read about 50+ words now just by visual memorization. She knows all the colors, shapes, some animals, lots of foods, everyone's names, and just all the basic words you see a lot (family, book, tree, milk, etc.). We just write them down and she can tell us what they are. Pretty impressive.

Hooray for: A potty trained 2 year old! She did AWESOME. It seems like every week since we potty trained her she's gotten more comfortable with it. After mastering sleeping without a pullup, she is now comfortable going potty at church, the library, Kohl's, etc. which is really nice. And now she doesn't hardly want to use her step or her potty insert. She's a big girl all the way now. We're pretty stoked.

Avery developed some good fine motor skills early on and was able to draw a face several months ago. Here's a picture of a mouse she drew on her magnadoodle a month or so ago:
I was pretty impressed. Anyways, we think she's pretty dang smart. She's a pretty happy girl most of the time too. We do have our challenges with her (she's two isn't she?) but we love having her in our family. It's so amazing to see your baby grow up a little bit every day. And, boy, do they grow up fast!

Ahh... Springtime

What a relief that spring is here in full bloom. It took forever to get here. Here's a little comparison for you. This is what the tree by our backdoor looked like in January:
I took a picture of it because the deadly icicles dripping off of it were over a foot long. Now compare that with what the tree looks like today:
Beautiful aromatic lilacs for Avery to taste test. We've been enjoying weather in the 60's and 70's for the past few weeks. I don't think we've turned on our A/C or heat at all in that time. Perfect! It's been rainy here and there and it looks like more T-storms tonight, but hey whatever it takes to make everything neon green! The kids have been loving the good temps, going outside all the time. I started an 8 week walkIT challenge with some ladies from Curves and so we've been taking long walks every day and the weather has been fabulous for that.

And so I think it's safe to say spring has finally sprung in Sussex, Wisconsin. I don't want to see any snow til December. Who am I kidding? It'll probably come in October so we'd better enjoy this weather while it lasts!

Pie #1- Strawberry Pie

Last week we went to a Scout Auction and Merrick was wanting to bid on six months of pies - someone was going to make one pie a month for you for six months. I told him that I would make him some pies instead of him spending like $50. So yesterday I made my first pie, his request was Strawberry Pie. I've never made a strawberry pie before so this was fun to try out. In fact, I think the only pies I've ever made from scratch before were apple and pecan, so this will be a good (and yummy!) learning experience for me. Here is the recipe I came up with:

Fresh Strawberry Pie:

3 c water

1 c sugar

1 small (3 oz) package of strawberry gelatin

3 T cornstarch

3 c fresh strawberries, washed and hulled

1 baked pie shell

In a medium saucepan, bring water and sugar to boil. Mix gelatin with cornstarch, gradually add to boiling mixture. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, for 5 minutes or until mixture is clear and slightly thickened. Let stand at room temperature until just warm, about 15 minutes. While mixture is cooling, wash and hull strawberries (I also sliced mine because they were really big. If you had small ones you can leave them whole). Place berries in a large mixing bowl. Pour gelatin mixture over strawberries and gently fold together. Scoop into baked pie shell (don't just pour the whole thing in, that's what I did and it was too full. I left about 1 1/2 c of the gelatin mixture out). Chill for at least 1 hour before serving. Top with whipped topping, if desired. Makes 8 servings.

I made my own crust with the recipe below. You can use any basic pie crust recipe from your cookbook at home, or you can buy one of those pillsbury pie crusts if you want to make it really simple. I like making my own crust because it makes me feel like a good cook.

Single Pie Crust Recipe:

1 1/4 c flour
1/4 t salt
1/3 shortening
4-5 T cold water

1. In a medium bowl stir together flour and salt. Using a pastry blender (I just use my fingers), cut in shortening until pieces are pea-size.
2. Sprinkle 1 T of the water over part of the flour mixture; gently toss with a fork. Push moistened dough to the side of the bowl. Repeat moistening flour mixture, using 1 T of water at a time, until all the flour mixture is moistened. Form dough into a ball.
3. On a lightly floured surface, use your hands to slightly flatten dough. Roll dough from center to edges into a circle about 12 inches in diameter.
4. To transfer pastry, wrap it around the rolling pin. Unroll pastry into a 9-inch pie plate. Ease pastry into pie plate without stretching it.
5. Trim pastry to 1/2 inch beyond edge of pie plate. Fold under extra pastry. Crimp edge as desired. Prick bottom and sides of pastry with a fork. Line with a double thickness of foil.
6. Bake in a 450'F oven for 8 minutes. Remove foil. Bake 5-6 minutes more or until golden. Cool on a wire rack.

You can also just buy a tub of Cool Whip but I think it's fun to make your own whipped cream so here's the recipe I used for that too.

Whipped Cream:
1/2 c heavy cream
1 T sugar
1/4 t vanilla

Combine in a medium bowl (optional: chill the bowl and beaters ahead of time) and beat on medium speed until soft peaks form.


It was really yummy. Not a ton of ingredients, only took about an hour to make total, and it wasn't too difficult for this beginning pie chef. Try it out!

Any suggestions for Pie #2?

Update: I found a picture online that came the closest to what mine looked like, just in case you wanted a better idea. Oh and I totally forgot to mention my best tip!!! Merrick's grandma once made a peach pie and put a thin layer of cream cheese on top of the bottom crust before she put the filling in and it helped the crust to not get soggy. So I tried this. I only used about 2 oz cream cheese for the whole thing and you couldn't taste it very much so maybe next time I'll try a little more, but I think it did make the crust extra yummy.

CAMRYN

I thought I'd give an update on the kids individually. Here's what Camryn has been up to.

Age: Almost 14 months
She loves to: Bring us coats, shoes, any kind of clothing and says "Uh! Uh!" until we put it on her. (She's starting the dress up thing young!) She also loves to take baths, play outside, go down the slide, and pull all the cushions off the couch.
Her favorite food: Pasta. She likes this all the time but most everything else she's moody about. One day she loves bananas, the next it's cheese, and the next day she doesn't like anything.
Her favorite toys: purses and BABIES. She loves to bring us a baby doll and a blanket and we'll wrap it up for her and she'll cuddle it and get SO excited. Yes, she's all girl.
Words: Dada, hi, ga ga, mama, Jesus, cheese, two (like when I say "one..." she says "two")
Hooray for: Sleeping through the night! She does awesome and once I lay her down awake at night she never cries and never wakes up in the middle of the night, ever since I stopped nursing a couple months ago. It's been GREAT!
Personality: She's a really happy kid most of the time. Loves to smile, is very photogenic, and charms everyone she sees at stores, at church, anywhere. I think it's those big brown eyes of hers! But she has also developed quite the temper. Avery's been stealing toys from her from day one but now she's starting to notice! She screams and arches her back when she's upset and it's kind of scary sometimes because she gets so mad that she throws herself on the ground and hurts herself sometimes! I think it's mainly a frustration with not being able to communicate as well as she'd like. But at least it's giving us an opportunity to teach Avery how to share better.
Signs: We're teaching her some sign language like we did with Avery, but it's definitely more difficult with the second child. So far she knows the signs for - bath, milk, bye-bye, and dog. Her favorite is bath. It's super cute to see her do it.

She also understands a lot. I can tell her to go in the kitchen and get her binky or bring me her baby doll and she can find it and bring it to me. It's so fun to see her grow up and learn so much!

That's all I can think of for now. I'll write about Avery in the next couple of days.

Shopping With Children

Saturday we all went shopping at Kohl's for Associate Shop Days (we got 30% off everything). It's never very fun browsing a store with two children. Avery has also gotten very brave about running away from us. We think she's just a few racks down and then we're combing the store for the fifth time shouting her name. She's usually in the toy section organizing all the toys her way on the floor, or in the girls accessories section trying on headbands and necklaces. Funny how she can be across the store and still find her favorite departments.

So this particular shopping day we had had enough so I pried Avery away from whatever she wanted to buy and started carrying her out of the store so Merrick could check out. She was pretty tired so she started crying and wiggling to try to get down. I held tight and started making my way towards the exit. She wasn't liking that so she started yelling really loud, "YOU'RE NOT MY FAMILY!! YOU'RE NOT MY FAMILY!"

I honestly don't know where she got that from. All I know is, if I saw another woman rushing to carry a screaming child out of the store and she was screaming that it was NOT her mom, I'd get pretty concerned about a possible kidnapping. Good thing there weren't any cops around. And good thing she looks kind of like me.

Potty Obsession

Yes, Avery is now potty trained (including at night, yay!!!) but Camryn is the one obsessed with the potty! I have to keep the bathroom doors closed or I find her either a) Fishing around with her hands in the water - yuck! or b) Climbing up Avery's step to stand on the potty - Ahhh!

What am I going to do with her?!