something new

betsy had a ride on a new (to her) toy today - the excersaucer came out of storage and she is loving its exciting ride. she absolutely loves to be sitting upright and other than balance issues has a really strong upper body and holds her head and shoulders up, no problem. pete being totally enthralled with it and her in it (i only had to get HIM out of it once today) gives her a little extra wiggling to contend with. 

and for pete, this is his new "look" - a tshirt and big boy underwear. he's doing a great job with potty training and wears underwear all day long except for naptime (and was dry after his nap today). we're still working with some anxiety about #2 in the potty but he absolutely "gets" it. he calls poo "yuck" when he sees it. there were several times he was trying at it today while on the potty but then got freaked out at the last minute and said all done. we'll get it one of these days. its so exciting to see him at least understanding the #1 option in the toilet consistently. every time he sits on the potty he makes that happen. maybe he'll get the whole shebang figured out as a welcome home present to daddy?!?!?!

two little fish

betsy joined pete in the pool today for swim lessons and she most definitely enjoyed the experience. her head was on the swivel the entire time watching all the action around her and she even seemed to be pleased with the way she felt bobbing around in the water.  by the end of class, she wasn't even flinching when water ran down her face in tiny gentle trickles. and yes, i managed to get all of us dry, clothed and home in less than half an hour and with much less trouble than i expected. thank you to the staff at floaties for helping us out!  miss tracy, our swim teacher, distracted pete while i got betsy changed and in the stroller and one of the sweet girls at the front desk took a photo and a video of betsy's first swim instruction for daddy (and the rest of you readers) to enjoy.  watching her first experiences with the swimming pool made me reminisce about pete's first time doing the same thing and it really does feel like it was only a couple of months ago that we were bringing our chubby little 5 month old baby petey to the pool. and now he's swimming along like a pro.  if you look closely you can see pete in the background of the video taking his turn and playing with the other little boy in our class. enjoy!

grandmother

i know, i know. i'm a mother of two under 2. and i plan to have more. but after my visit with my grandmother this weekend, i am even more excited to have a big family of babies....so that someday i may be a grandmother to all of THEIR babies. its a long way off but i am so grateful for the lifetime of memories i've shared with my grandmother. what a special relationship grandmothers have with their grandbabies.  petey definitely bonded with his great-grandma this weekend and spent the entire afternoon after we dropped her off at the airport looking around the house for "maw-maw". he even went into my room where she'd been sleeping during her stay - it was pretty dark in there - and said into the darkness, "hellllooooo???" as though she might be hiding in there somewhere and would jump out to tickle him any moment. we all miss her, to be sure. thanks again grandma for such a wonderful trip and for being the lovely, caring and wise grandmother to all of us. and thanks for teaching me all of those sewing tricks! they have gotten me all jazzed up about sewing more.  also, please tell grandpa about my plan to have you two come move in next door to us. that'd be swell!

a video of amazing kid "tricks"

both our kiddos are learning new tricks so i thought i'd share a little video to brag on the babies.  click here to see the magic!

reading his mail from Aunt Annie - he loved the new stickers!

trying on her swim suit so she's ready for swim class tomorrow :)

a day out with grandma

saturday was a lovely "day off" from being a mom. we were literally running around the entire day. and its funny how you can crave time away from your babies and time to just do your own thing. and then as soon as you have it, you miss them and finding yourself running to hold the first baby you see to get your fix.  i really love those kids of mine.  we started the day out with a morning at Marine Corps Recruit Depot for the Boot Camp Challenge - a 3 mile race with obstacles to conquer and real live drill instructors screaming at you as you went.  What a riot. I enjoyed racing with some Red Devil Ladies as my teammates and grandma enjoyed people watching from a lawnchair in the shade while we raced.

after the race we came home to eat lunch, snuggle the kids for a minute and freshen up before hitting the mall for a few hours (wow, what a luxury to try on clothes without trying to beat the clock when the kids hit meltdown hour - i literally never go to the mall with my kids so i very much enjoyed this opportunity). and then we headed north to Camp Pendleton to my darling friend Bev's retirement party.  She recently concluded a long beautiful chapter of her life with the Navy and is now going on to try on her new stay-at-home-mom hat as her husband finishes out his career with the Marines.  She's such a great gal. Congratulations, Bev! 
i love having my grandmother here. i wish she lived on my street so we could see her every day. its so very fun having her here, enjoying her company, soaking up her wisdom and making wonderful memories watching her love my babies. please come back again, grandma! you are always welcome here!

rolling, rolling, rolling!

miss lady bug betsy rolled over today!!!! and over and over and over! its so fun to watch her in motion. and yes, here's the movie.   
she will be 5 months old in 9 days. now that is just unbelievable to me. and so begins the very exciting time of baby development - the rolling over transition to sitting up and then crawling and then pulling to standing and then walking and running. this period absolutely amazes me.  i forgot to mention swimming - she is starting swim lessons next week!

great grandma maxine's egg noodles

i only remember a few things about my great grandma max.  i absolutely remember her face and the way her hair was always just so and beautiful.  she always had one big beautiful aprons. she was an amazing cook (i particularly remember her chicken and noodles and her ginger cookies) and the way she always sat in her chair across from great grandpa topper watching me somersault my way across her living room. they'd chuckle as i showed off and great grandpa would always say "i bet you can't do that, maxine" and she'd laugh. she and my great grandpa had a master bedroom with his and her twin beds. and she had a really interesting toilet paper storage system.  there are surely a handful of scatterbrained memories of this woman whose home i loved visiting -  i wish i remembered more, but those are the things a young child remembers.  anyway.  awhile ago i found out my grandma jan (maxine's daughter), who i consider the queen of all things domestic, had never made noodles in her entire life. she says her mom always brought the noodles when they were making anything involving noodles since it was her specialty. and since grandma jan was visiting and i wanted to learn the art, we decided to embark upon this culinary adventure together. and boy was it e-a-s-y.  we were both expecting some big, drawn out, messy process. but really, its quite simple. you make a super simple dough. you roll it out and let it dry. you cut it and let it dry some more.  we haven't sampled the final results yet but the uncooked noodles were fantastic (which my grandpa virgil remembers was a favorite childhood activity of his and was disappointed to hear petey didn't get to eat any of the raw dough).  so here are the pictures and the recipe is at the end:

Maxine's Homemade Egg Noodles
*makes about 6 cups*
2 cups all purpose flour
3 egg yolks
1 egg
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 to 1/2 cup water

1. Measure flour into mixing bowl. Make a well in the center and add egg yolks, whole egg and salt.
2. With hands, thoroughly mix egg into flour.  Add water, 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition. (Add only enough water to form dough into a ball)
3. Turn dough onto well-floured surface, knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Cover; let rest 10 minutes.
4. Divide dough into 3 equal parts. Roll dough, 1 part at a time, into paper-thin rectangle, keeping remaining dough covered (we rolled them into circles because grandma jan remembers that great grandma maxine always rolled hers into circles and we ladies sometimes just do things because our mother's did them that way and that's a fact).
5. Let dry (we used cooling racks used for baking) for about 2 hours until edges are dry and cracking a bit.
6. Cut into 1/8 inch or smaller strips using pizza cutter (before every kitchen had a rolling pizza cutter apparently they'd roll them loosly up and then slice them with a knife) and drop helter skelter onto a cookie sheet to dry.
7. Every once in awhile walk by and "wooshle" the pile of noodles to check how they are drying and break apart the longer strands.  When dry, break dry strips into smaller pieces.
8. Cook in 3 quarts boiling salted water (1 tablespoon salt) 12 to 15 minutes or until tender. Drain thoroughly.

how great grandmothers spend their vacations

whipping up a delicious batch of the-best-ever sugar cookie dough

a little snuggle with betsy and petey snuck in too

pete loves his "maw-maw"

working on a little project for betsy's room

enjoying pete's antics

teaching pete how to wield a rolling pin

thanks for the sweet airplane cookie cutters, deedee!

he even made appropriate airplane noises as he swooshed the cookie through the air and into his mouth

who is that baby?

oil cleansing method

i need to gush a bit about a new miraculous discovery. if you regularly read my ramblings here you know i've been trying to get back to basics, get rid of chemicals and toxins, practice the art of homemade and look for healthier, safer alternatives to the "norm".  i guess after discovering the magic of childbirth sans hospitals i've gone down the road even farther searching for more truths that are tucked away and hidden behind tall tales and scary stereotypes.

so last night i washed my face with oil.
let me say it again.
i. washed. my. face. with. oil.

and let me tell you, my skin has never ever EVER in 28 years looked or felt so magnificent after a face wash as it did last night.  if you are even remotely intrigued or interested, please read this article in its entirety, be inspired and when your face soap (which is probably causing some of the skin problems its claims to eliminate) runs out, try this out. just try it. i dare you to try it once and i think you will be sold.  i am swooning over how great my skin looks and feels.

i know it sounds scary and disgusting and totally counter to logical thinking. but....if you need motivation in addition to me rambling on and on about how amazing it feels, think about this: think about how much money you spend monthly or annually on face soap, moisturizer, astringent....it adds up. think about how much money you would SAVE monthly or annually if you could buy a big bottle of sunflower seed oil and an big bottle of caster oil and make your own all-in-one magical face soap solution that would eliminate the need for all of those store bought chemically based, abrasive facial "cleansers".

here's the 4-11:  you create a mix of sunflower seed oil and castor oil.  the sunflower seed is moisturizing and the castor oil is cleansing.  you need to get the mix right based on your skin type (which the article discusses). i used 3/4 cup sunflower seed oil and 1/4 cup castor oil, blended them to emulsify the two oils and poured them into an old (very well cleaned) face soap bottle with a flip top. pour a quarter sized amount of the oil mixture into your hand and rub together to warm it up and then you rub it all over your face. (the article claims it will remove even water proof mascara so no worries about removing makeup first-i didn't have makeup on yesterday so i can't confirm or deny but i believe it) you rub it in for a good 3-5 minutes until you feel like every centimeter of your face has had the oil mixture rubbed into it. then you use a washcloth soaked in hot (but not hot enough to scald your face, you are going for one step up from warm) water and hold it over your face until it feels cool. you are basically creating your own steam machine. once the washcloth feels cool, gently wipe your face and repeat this process 5-6 more times.  the steam opens your pores, the oil does its magic to cleans out all the things have plugged up your pores.  the whole process takes about 10 minutes but wow. i mean, wow, my face felt magical afterwards. the sensation of cleanliness, open pores and lightness coupled by how smooth and soft it felt to the touch far exceeded my expectations of this homemade remedy of a trick.  you only need to do it once a day. if your face feels a little dry after you rub a teeny tiny amount of the mixture into your face as a moisturizer (or you need to change your ratios of oils in your mixture). i can't wait to do it again tonight! they warn that in the first 2-3 days now that your pores are opened and really unclogged that you may experience a little oiliness while your face gets used to regulating its normal oil production again now that you aren't using harsh abrasive chemicals to "clean" your face and strip away all those healthy oils that actually keep your skin healthy and radiant.  so far i haven't experienced that.

anyway, i LOVE this process. this is probably my favorite change i've made.  yep, i'm gaga over this. i dare you to try it. just once. instead of your normal face regimen, give it a go. your life may be changed forever!  let me know if you try it, i want to hear about your experience. who knew rubbing oil all over your face could be so amazing.


***disclaimer, i'm not trying to justify these changes. some of the changes i've made (all natural deoderant did not do the trick, i haven't tried homemade yet) have not been up to par and i've gone on to find a different product. but this one, this one is just....wowza. you need to try it right now.  i wish i had known about this back in 5th grade when my skin was really out of whack. imagine how great it'd look if i had been using it since then!***

great grandma is coming!

hip hip great grandma jan is coming! we're so excited to spend a whole week together with her. i love watching her love on my babies and i love having her here to chat to all through the day.  she is my domestic goddess resource manual and my my, does she have some wonderful stories to share from her life.  i am one of the lucky ones, old enough to finally realize how important it is to take the time to get to know the lovely woman who has always showered me with love and homemade goodness. one of the lucky ones, old enough to actually realize how much life experience and wisdom she has to share.  one of the lucky ones, old enough to understand how great it is to call this wonderful woman my grandmother! i definitely won the granny lottery. :)
do you see the big blue-ish lump in the middle of my poor boy's forehead? that's called head-meets-metal. he caught himself with his forehead on our workout station in the garage. his little feet move faster than his eyes these days and he is a calamity-on-the-move.

bye bye muhnon

we'll miss you....until next time, sweet puppy friend! :)

poway days parade

pete and i enjoyed his first parade together this morning. he was really into it and especially loved the motorcycles, fire engines, horses and tractors! i loved watching his face light up with recognition each time a new exciting thing rolled past.

everybody needs a best friend

the cutest kids

am hosting a 'cutest kids' contest. all other applicants need not apply. these two crack me up.