I think I might be turning into Martha Stewart...

and I am VERY very scared.



Today I made blondies. I have never made these before but YUM, yum, YUM. Instead of pure chocolate for brownies, you add walnuts and chocolate chips, some flour sugar and vanilla, bake them for 45 minutes and out comes this hybrid chocolate chip cookie/ brownie concoction that is the yummiest.



I made them with Norah this morning while Harvey was sleeping. She whisked the batter for me and them licked the spoon.

Harvey woke up in time to enjoy them after lunch. He loved them. After finishing one, he grunted and pointed to another and another. This is fast becoming a very successful form of communicating for him--pointing and whining until he gets the object he desires.

Moving on, today Norah found my knitting--the picot edging on a dress I am making for her. She grabbed it and holding onto the wire of the circular needles, she said, "This is a dinosaur!" and, after looking for only a moment, I realized that it did rather look like a dinosaur. Then, she held the string above her head and said it was an umbrella. Wow. WOW. wow. Brian swears that their imaginations would flourish if we took away their toys and I do wonder about this. I really wonder.

Back In The Saddle

I no longer have the excuse that Norah and Harvey are sick so I can not cloth diaper. Yes, we are back on the cloth diaper train as of today. In fact, I have decided to try gdiapers for going out as it is really hard for me to use cloth when we are outside of the house. gdiapers biodegrade and are flushable. The wet diapers can even go into your compost pile. As we will likely be leaving the house soon and it takes 50 days for them to break-down, I will probably not compost them but I will look forward to doing that in our new abode. I have tried all kinds of cloth diaper combinations-prefolds, fitteds, and all-in-ones. I have come to terms with the fact that I am a lazy cloth diaperer, therefor the all-in-ones are for me. I just ordered three more Bum Genius All-in-Ones from 1800diapers today. So here we go again. I am hitting my second stride.

Bye Bye Bottles

Today I packed up the eight glass bottles (and all of their accoutrements) and made room for tea in our bottle cabinet. It might sound weird but it was pretty hard for me to do it. Bottles have been such a fundamental part of my life for the past two years. I mean, once Norah was finished with hers, I was two months away from delivering Harvey. They didn't come back out again immediately but they didn't get much of a break either. These bottles are going away for a good, long time. No more babies in our house for a couple years. Sad and relieving but true.

I made another attempt at soaking black beans today and was mildly successful. My kids have really put me between a rock and a hard place here as neither are heating very well. When Norah does eat, she eats beans. However, Harvey wants nothing to do with them. Ahhhh.

Baby Loves Disco

We went today with our friends from Montclair. Into the great big ol' New York City with our two babies. Harvey started with the"'s'that"s (What's that?) as soon as we got through the Lincoln Tunnel and he did not stop until we reached the disco. We discovered that he has a newly developed fear of tunnels--the crying started at the started of the Lincoln and eneded when we emerged into NYC. Funny because Norah had this same fear at his age and then grew out of it. He probably will too. When we first got there, Norah was a little scared and hung close to both of us but as she got more comfortable she began to LOVE it. She grabbed flowing scarves and danced around, hugged one man that she thought was her dad, roamed freely about the joint with absolutely no concern as to where her parents were (much to our consternation). Harvey also enjoyed his time there, but he wanted to crawl on what was a very very dirty floor. We left at closing time and headed to Katz's with another couple. I got a hot open-faced turkey sandwich. Yum! Norah crawled around on the floor with Ayden and get very very dirty, made friends with two waitresses, and generally enjoyed herself. Baths and to bed when we got home with no cooking and cleaning up for Mama. An all around very good day.

A New Hobby

I think I want to learn to sew.

This means I need...
a sewing machine
some sewing lessons
a place to put a sewing machine

I have not even mastered knitting yet and here I am wanting to sew. AND I want to figure out how to make this blog beautiful. I am going to the library tomorrow to check out some books on blogging. I will get there, I will.

Crying Snowmen

Before leaving for Portland, we got a heavy, heavy snowfall here in New Jersey--so heavy in fact that my mom and aunt's flight was cancelled. Sad as we were, we tried to take advantage of the sparkling white fluff gracing our lawn--and covering up our rather disgusting lawn (with the pee stains from Stormy and all). Norah and Brian made her first snowman and what a beautiful snowman he was. He has wilted down to a couple of sticks in our lawn right now. Maybe she will dream of where snowmen go when the snow is gone.

Portland, Oregon

wow.

What a truly amazing city. Brian and I arrived last Monday and stayed for a week, looking at houses, discovering the city, discovering the state, talking with residents of Portland, and generally enjoying our time together. Although I must say, 7 days was entirely too long to spend away from Norah and Harvey. And I think my mom would agree. Harvey had a hard time the first four days and Norah had a hard time the last three so, essentially, my mom had a hard time the entire seven days.

I have not spent a great deal of time in the kitchen lately as I have been preparing to go out of town or going out of town. We ate at some fantastic restaurants in Portland. The Tin Shed is in the Alberta district. We stumbled upon this one with Brodie and Marla on their first night there. The menu is seasonal and rotating and simply delicious. The Farm is more upscale and not necessarily better but also delicious. We had a civilized dinner there with wine, roasted hazelnuts for appetizers, and pastas for dinner.

Knitting wise, I finished my mystery socks. I finished Brian's stocking. I have begun finishing Shack's cardigan and I have started Norah's sundress. I LOVE love LOVE Blue Sky Alpaca's cotton. Love it. Pictures of all of these to follow.