Charlie's First Birthday

So, I’m a couple weeks behind on posting this, but it’s only ‘cause we didn’t have the internet at our new house until yesterday. (Yes, we bought a home! I’ll blog about that later.)

I had been looking forward to Charlie’s birthday for MONTHS! I was so excited, and the experience lived up to all my expectations. We kept things pretty simple and just had family and friends over for some cake and ice cream. I am actually really proud of the cake I made. It’s a banana cake with chocolate frosting. I chose to do it as a monkey because Charlie’s been our little monkey from the beginning. When he was just a month or so old, if his blanket got pushed down, he would grab it with his toes, pull it up to his hands, and cover himself. It was cute. So a monkey cake for our little monkey.

Charlie got lots of excellent toys and books. And he did a good job opening his presents without eating too much paper. I’m also proud of the fact that Charlie blew out his candle by himself even though I can’t take the credit—my mom coached him on that one.

Now for an overview of Charlie. As is pretty typical of one-year-olds, Charlie is interested in EVERYTHING. Every day is an exploration which unfortunately tends to turn into a lot of no’s. Often when we tell Charlie no, he’ll turn around, shake his finger, and say, “no” as if to instruct some unseen entity. If his uncle Shawn is around, he’s the one that gets instructed. Charlie also has a pretty good vocabulary—there are a lot of words he can say. Whether or not he will is the issue. More and more I see a strong personality trait manifesting itself in Charlie: if he doesn’t want to do something, he will not do it. No amount of coaxing or bribing works. (He’s so much like his father.) The words he says most often are no, oh no, shoes, book, juice, mom, dad, and Shawn. The animal sounds he makes most often are woof and roar. What I think is especially cute about his roar is that it’s quiet—not a lion making his presence known, a lion chuckling mischievously to himself in the tall grass before he attacks. Charlie loves to eat, and he’ll eat just about everything, which explains why he’s over 25 pounds. It was funny to watch him eat his birthday cake, because he wasn’t playing in it and occasionally eating or just mashing it against his face. He strategically maneuvered large pieces of cake into his mouth maximizing the cake devoured; he actually left very little mess.

In general Charlie is a very happy kid. He loves to be around and play with other kids but will also play by himself happily for 30-45 minutes at a time. He’s a mover and doesn’t stay in one spot long. He only cuddles when he is very tired or very sad.

Charlie is a huge blessing in our lives, and I am excited to see what his next year brings!

Pink Sheep Cake

We celebrated the October birthdays on my side of the family, and I designed this beautiful pink sheep cake. “Why a pink sheep cake?” you ask. Well, I will tell you.

We celebrated two birthdays: my cousin’s and my brother-in-laws. My cousin’s favorite color is pink, and my brother-in-law’s family has a sheep ranch. Viola. Pink sheep cake. I’m a genius.

My mom actually made the cake and frosting, but I put it all together. The brown frosting for the sheep’s face and ears is not the typical chocolate frosting we usually make; we used Hershey’s Dark Chocolate Cocoa. This was my first experience with it, and I thought it was delicious! Personally, I love the wiggly eyes. They may be my favorite part of the cake, and I will be using them again in the future. And I used a peanut M&M for the nose.

It may not look exactly like a sheep, but I think it’s pretty close, and it was a lot of fun to make.

Honey Lime Chicken

chicken
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons honey
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
4 tablespoons chicken broth
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

1. Place chicken in crock pot. 2. Melt butter in a small saucepan, and add lime, honey, and garlic powder until warm. Add chicken broth, salt and pepper. 3. Pour lime mixture over chicken. Cover and cook on low 8 to 10 hours.

I had my first experience with honey lime chicken just after Charlie was born when my sister-in-law brought us dinner: honey lime chicken enchiladas. They were awesome! The leftovers were even awesome! Mmmm. Unfortunately, I never got the recipe from her, but I found this recipe online and think it would make excellent enchiladas.

I have used this recipe, and it is good. My side of the family got together for dinner and did our own version of Cafe Rio (for those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a Mexican restaurant in which you go through a cafeteria-like line and they build your burrito/salad/nachos to your specifications—fresh and delicious). The honey lime chicken was a huge success, and I definitely recommend it. Enjoy!

Housing Madness

In May we started house hunting. It’s a buyer’s market, and we decided that instead of spending our money on rent, we wanted to invest it. So the house hunt began, and it was exciting! We saw lots of great places (and some crappy places) that were more than reasonably priced.

We put in our first offer! It didn’t work out. We put in our second offer, but had to wait and wait and wait and . . . wait and wait some more, because it was a short sale. In the meantime, we put in our third offer on another short sale and thought we’d have to wait, but—whammy—two weeks later our offer is accepted! Hooray! Rejoicing! We start telling people that we’re going to be homeowners. I start looking at appliances. I start looking at wood flooring. I make decisions about paint (without purchasing). We schedule our inspection. We meet our loan officer and get the ball rolling. Whammy. The property doesn’t actually qualify for the conditions of our loan, which is the opposite of what the original listing stated. Whammy. We’re back at square one.

I cry.

I dry my tears and put on a brave face.

I cry some more.

Damn you, brave face!

I cry again.

Our realtor, in her infinite wisdom, doesn’t waste any time and just a few hours after the incredibly depressing news has a new long list of properties for us to check out. We decide not to wallow but to jump back into the hunt with both feet. (I wallow a little.) We see some crappy places. (I wallow a little more.) Then we see some really great places. (I wallow a little less.) Then more crap. (Wallow.) But we decide to put in our fourth offer (on one of the great places). Yikes. Anxiety. It is NOT a short sale; short sales are of the devil. Hooray? They counteroffer. Yikes. Anxiety. We counteroffer. They accept. Anxiety. Hooray! Anxiety. Hooray!

ARGH! I’m going crazy!

We’ve scheduled to meet with our loan officer to get the ball rolling—again. Hooray! Anxiety. We’ve scheduled our inspection. Hooray! Anxiety.

This is the current state of my life.

If all goes well, at the end of November we will own a beautiful, spacious townhome.

If I’m lucky at all, at the end of November I will still be sane.

(Was I ever sane?)

Fablehaven

I recently finished the Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull. While the completion is recent, I think I started reading the series a couple years ago. Why did it take me two years to read five preteen/young adult books? Excellent question. Well, there are a couple reasons. First, I didn’t find the first one interesting enough to quickly pick up the second one. Second, I borrowed them from my mother-in-law who was also loaning them to a friend. So I had to wait until her friend finished, and then I had to wait until either she or I remembered to give/ask for the next one. And third, I was simultaneously reading another, more interesting, series (which when I finish I will blog about, but it’s like 15 books long, and while I’m on book 11 or 12 they’re each at least 600 pages, and I’ve still got a while).

So why didn’t I find the first one interesting enough to quickly pick up the second one? The scope of the book was narrow. For those who don’t know the premise of the series, allow me a quick summary: the books follow two young siblings who discover that their grandparents are caretakers over a magical preserve, and then these two kids proceed to have a variety of adventures interacting with the magical community. So the scope of the book was narrow because all the action in the first book was centered at the magical preserve, Fablehaven, which for a first book introducing the reader to a new world is kind of understandable. But at the same time, the first book didn’t leaving me anxiously wanting more.

The next question is: did the later books get any better than the first? Yes! And I would say the rest were all significantly better than the first and all at about the same quality as each other. The later books very rapidly began integrating characters and events from outside Fablehaven, and then the two main characters themselves began encountering magical creatures in the “real” world (outside of Fablehaven)—and throughout the world. Which satisfied my dislike of the narrowness of the first book.

Personally, I think the series’ greatest strength is the pacing. Brandon Mull gets things started and keeps things going. I may have encountered passages that made me want to stop reading maybe once or twice after the first book. But while the books are set at a good pace, they aren’t so intense I couldn’t ever stop if I needed to do something else. And it was easy to get back into them once I put them down.

The series greatest weakness is that the books tend to be a bit didactic. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy learning from literature and I appreciate books that support good morals and values, but I don’t like it when an adult character gives a kid character a lecture on how they can improve (which probably happens a little more than once per book in this series). I see it as a failing of the author. A good author should be able to show good morals and values and principles like repentance and redemption instead of just talking about them.

Now, I must concede that in my mid twenties I am not the author’s target audience. The books are intended for preteens and young adults. If I try to imagine twelve-year-old me, I think I would have devoured this series with reckless abandon.

Overall, the books are entertaining and fun to read. I would recommend the series to anyone looking for a fun bit of light reading.

Crawling on All Fours

Warning:

Lower or mute your volume control before watching this video;

there are bursts of white noise that could be painful to the unsuspecting ear.

I’m pretty confident that I’ve established in previous posts that my baby is a little bit . . . differenter. And here is yet another example: the all-fours crawl.

While Charlie usually crawls on his hands and knees, there are certain circumstances that lead him to crawl on his hands and feet. In the above video you can see him doing this on grass; he also does this on hard wood, tile, and linoleum. While I guess he’s doing this for the comfort of his knees, crawling on all fours looks kind of weird. He also moves slower. But to each his own.

Charlie’s been crawling for about a month and a half now, and he’s getting closer to walking every day. In fact, he stood up completely on his own—in the middle of the lawn, he just stood up. And then proceeded to fall on his butt. Of course. But he got full leg extension, supporting himself by himself. It was impressive. (But then, I am his mom and prone to bias—I even think his snot bubbles are impressive, so . . . )

Anywho, I don’t know if standing on one’s own is actually connected to walking, if it is a precursor, but it’s another exciting development, so I thought I’d share.