Early Birthday Present

Yesterday Hubby SURPRISED me with the BEST birthday present EVER...

A KitchenAid Classic Plus! Angels everywhere are singing!

I have wanted one of these since we got married, and I am so excited that I now own one! I can barely stand it! I'm just dying to use it! In fact, I'm surprised that every inch of my counter space is not yet covered in baked goods! Apparently I do have some self control.

And though this purchase exceeded the budget that we set for each other's birthdays, Hubby had been saving his Starbucks tip money to add to the gift. What a sweetie! (Especially since I know he wanted to save that money for a new yard shed!) Honestly I don't think any other hubby could compare!

To the BEST HUBBY EVER, thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Under My Couch

I reached under the sofa this afternoon to retrieve a sorting block that I noticed while vacuuming. Here is what else I found:

-3 sorting blocks
-3 balls
-2 cat toys
-1 Cheerio
-1 Fisher Price pilot
-1 wooden, kid-sized golf club
-1 padded, toddler-sized Cubs bat

Following that, I was afraid to look under the love seat.

What's under your couch?

Sound Bytes from the Baby Monitor

Occasionally, when I need to sleep a few minutes longer, I turn the baby monitor up so that I can hear Little Boy's happy waking sounds but can be alerted to when he's losing patience with his crib before he actually starts crying. This morning, the lights on the monitor were going ballistic at 6:15am, so I knew he was awake, but I was certainly not ready to brave the cold morning yet. So I cranked up the monitor as usual, but rather than hearing happy cooing noises or humming, I was treated to a morning conversation my 2 year old was having with himself:

"A liverbug (ladybug) and the kitties and a liverbug and...BOOM!" (Hmmm. I haven't seen a ladybug recently, but he must have seen the cats pounce on some kind of bug in the past few days.)

"And fun with kids and play with kids and fun with kids...and vacuums!" (Little Boy currently has an obsession with vacuums. Whenever he visits a friend or childcare situation where he plays with a toy vacuum, we hear about it for days...I mean, weeks!)

"Count? Count? One, two, three, six, seven, eight.........TEN!" (Little Boy's version of counting. He skips his least favorite numbers and, after an eternal pause, he positively shouts "ten," followed by clapping for himself.)

"Heater on. Heater on. Heater on." (The space heater must have just kicked on.)

"Mom? Mom? All done bed. All done bed!" (Uh oh. Time to hop in the shower! How did he know I was listening?!)

How I Feel Today

Off to a Retreat

So Hubby, Little Boy, and I are off to a retreat in Williamsburg, VA for ministers and their families. I'm looking forward to the brief time away, to staying in a nice hotel, to not having to cook for three days, and, of course, to enjoying worship and hearing different speakers.

I expect Little Boy will be foregoing some sleep during these next few days, but between his naps and early bedtimes, I hope to have time to read while away. I stocked up books from the library this morning and now have them stowed safely in my suitcase.

Books I'm looking forward to reading while away: Among the Hidden, a Shadow Children book. I love children's lit, and my mom recently recommended that I read the Shadow Children series. Based on a futuristic world suffering from a supposed food crisis, families are only permitted to have two children. Third, fourth, fifth children are hidden away to escape serious consequences enforced by the Population Police. These children, shadow children, find each other, bind together, and set out to change their world. I'm excited to start reading!

(I also looked for Twilight by Stephanie Meyers and Brisinger by Christopher Paolini, but both had ridiculously long wait lists. I wonder what that says about the kind of children and youth lit I gravitate towards. Illegal, hidden children? Vampires? Dragons? Hmmm...)

Books I'm not looking forward to reading while away but need to read anyway: The No-Cry Potty Training Solution by Elizabeth Pantley and Mommy, I have to go potty! by Jan Faull. Yes, friends, we are entering the scary, uncharted waters of potty training! I can't say I'm that excited, but Little Boy passed both books' readiness quizzes with flying colors. What I want to know is...where are the mommy readiness quizzes? Because he might be ready but I'm certainly not! I'll keep you updated!

Be back in a couple of days!

Baby on the move!

I can feel the baby kicking! I knew that you can feel the movement earlier the second time, but I still expected to need to wait a week or two more. I felt Little Boy move between 18-19 weeks, and I'm currently approaching week 16 with this new baby. I guess he or she really likes pumpkin spice chais since I had just finished a grande when I started feeling clear, soft thumps!

Yes, I said thumps. I most often hear baby movements described as flutters. My babies don't flutter. They thump. No graceful swan strokes here. My babies practice karate kicks. A perfectly fine practice when they're 3-4 inches long, like now. A little less pleasant when they're 20 inches long. But I enjoy the feeling far too much to complain, even when that tiny foot is jammed in my ribs.

With my last pregnancy, people told me that, after I feel those first kicks, I would realize that I've been feeling them for weeks. Nope. One day all is quiet down below, and the next...thump, thump, thump. No mistaking that feeling for anything else but baby!

My only concern this second time around is that I'll be taking abuse inside and out. Little Boy currently has no regard for personal space and thinks nothing of elbowing me, stepping on me, crawling all over me. Sigh. But I'm determined to cherish this time with my two little ones, knowing how fast the time passes and realizing that, before I know it, my babies are going to be running off to school exclaiming, "Mom! You can't hug me in front of my friends!" Sigh. Sniff. Wipe a tear away.

Why do children have to grow up so fast?

Everything Apple

The weathermen are not endearing themselves to me this week.

After canceling our apple picking adventure last weekend due to the supposed rain, we decided to head out this past Tuesday, our last free day to go this month. The forecast read sunny, clear, with a high of 80 degrees. We woke up on Tuesday, excited, and started dressing, packing lunches, making plans. We opened the window to let in a breeze and, to our great surprise, saw the cloudiest dark sky letting loose sheets and sheets of...rain. RAIN! We ultimately decided that we were going to get our apples rain or shine, so after running several errands, we headed up to Charlottesville.

Thankfully Charlottesville did not experience any of the rain that Richmond felt, and we enjoyed a perfectly warm, dry, sunny afternoon in the apple orchards. We picked bags and bags of apples while Little Boy sat in a borrowed Radio Flyer wagon, his feet propped up on the fruits of our labor, crunching away on the only apple he picked the entire day. We bought cold apple cider and warm apple cider donuts, ate a leisurely lunch, and took in the beautiful view of the city from the top of Carter Mountain. I love fall!

For me, part of the fun in apple picking is not just pulling the apples from the tree but in using them once at home. We eat our fair share of fresh, crisp apples, but since we tend to go overboard in our picking (30lbs, anyone?) I also cook up grand plans to bake apple pies, can applesauce, make apple spice bread. Yum, yum, yum!

I made and canned 8 quarts of applesauce and 2 pints of apple butter last year, surprised at how easy the whole process is. And contrary to my belief, you do not need any special canning equipment.

Homemade Applesauce
8-10 apples
1/2 cup water
Cinnamon, ginger, vanilla, 1-2 tsp each (optional)

Peel, core, and slice the apples. In a crockpot, combine apples, water, and desired spices. If using extra juicy apples, decrease water by half. Cook on high for 2-3 hours. Blend with a hand mixer until sauce reaches desired consistency. (We love chunky!)

Canning Applesauce
Pour applesauce in to clean canning jars. Cover with lid seals and rings. Bring a large stock pot of water to a full boil. The pot needs to be large enough to cover the tops of the jars in 1-2 inches of boiling water. Once the water is at full boil, ease the covered jars in to the water using canning tongs or a large serving spoon. Boil small jars for 5-8 minutes and large jars for 8-10 minutes. Pull hot jars carefully out of the water and place on a cooling rack. As the jars cool, you will hear the seals pop, confirming that they have fully sealed and locked. Eat at your leisure throughout the year!