Bread and Jam for Jamie

oatmeal caramelitas

2012-02-07T15:34:00.000-05:00

We had these at a friend's house last year, and they were so good that I had to get the recipe. I made them last week and they are as delicious as I remembered! While they are pretty good right out of the oven while they're still hot, they taste waaaay better after they've completely cooled and you can taste all the flavors.

Ingredients:

1 c. flour
1 c. quick oats
3/4 c. brown sugar
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 c. melted butter
chocolate chips to taste
chopped pecans to taste
3/4 c. caramel topping
3 T. flour

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease 9x13 pan.
Combine flour, oats, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt. Stir in melted butter until well combined.
Press half of the mixture into the pan and bake for 10 min.
Remove from oven and sprinkle on chocolate chips and pecans.
Mix caramel topping and 3 T. flour and drizzle on top (you can pop it in the microwave for a few seconds to make it softer).
Top with remaining oatmeal mixture.
Bake an additional 15-20 minutes.

Enjoy!

Jamie-isms

2012-02-05T14:58:00.001-05:00

As Jamie has been talking more and more, he keeps saying things that surprise me or that I just find hilarious.

One day soon after we got home from our Christmas travels, I told him we were going to play at his friend Teague's house. All day (and many days after) he kept saying "Teague house Teague house." Then he would start panting, which is how he says dog, because there is a dog at Teague's house. And then he said "water," because he apparently remembered that he once spent an entire afternoon putting Cheerios in the dog's water bowl. I believe that happened in October - I was so surprised that he remembered!

One day at dinner, Jamie randomly said "book." I didn't know why, there were no books around that I could see and Thomas and I weren't talking about them, but I just went with it. I told him, "Book? Sure, I like books." He replied, "Me too." I about fell out of my chair.

Last time we went to the zoo, he said "hi" to all the animals and waved to them. It was stinking cute. When we saw the gorillas, he called them "Daddy."

He plays with our phones a lot and holds them up to his ear as though he is talking to someone. Invariably when I ask who he is calling, he says "Matt." He likes to say his other uncle's names a lot too, and "pa" which is how he now says Grandpa. It seems everyone made a big impression on him at Christmas!

Jamie now says "ABC" a lot and sometimes even "ABCD." He'll repeat the entire alphabet after us, letter by letter. W is definitely the hardest to say. He has counted to 5 entirely on his own a couple times, and he knows 8, 9, 10 very well. His favorite numbers to say are "2, 3," which he repeats constantly. He really doesn't like to say 7. Often if I have him repeat numbers after me, he'll repeat 1 through 6, and then when I say 7, he'll skip to 8. Then I'll say 9 and he'll say 10.

Jamie had some diarrhea last week and I had to get up to change him in the night a few times. One of those times, as I was putting him back to sleep, he suddenly pulled out his paci and said "red ah-ah" and repeated it several times (that is how he says panda, thanks to Thomas). There are red pandas at the zoo and apparently he was thinking about them in the middle of the night. He likes to say "zoo" a lot and then list animals: "red ah-ah" and "rhino" and then he makes elephant and monkey noises.

One morning when I was holding him right after I got him out of his crib, he said "love Mommy." Possibly the best moment of my entire life.

Recently, while I was giving him a bath, he decided he was done. He clambered over the side of the tub into my arms and demanded "hug baby!" So I did. :)

Once when I had the fridge open, Jamie kept pointing to the pickle jar. I asked if he wanted to try one at lunch. All morning he went around saying "try pick." Then at lunch when I gave him one, he tasted it and almost immediately made a face and said "all done." Can't say I blame him, I'm not too fond of pickles myself.

When I ask what state we live in, he says "Tennessee" (pronounced Ten-see) and he can point out both Tennessee and Missouri on a map. He has a board book of the presidents and he can point out George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln - when he's cooperating, that is. A lot of the time he likes to point to different presidents and have me tell him about them. I love it so much.

He says his name a lot now, though it's pronounced "Bamie" and he also refers to himself as "baby." When he really wants something, he points at it and says "have!" over and over. Or alternatively he'll point to himself and say "baby" or "Jamie." When he wants to be held, he says very insistently, "Up! Up! Up! Up!" When I tell him it's time for lunch, he runs to the fridge and demands "Open! Open!" When he's carrying something heavy, he'll exclaim "Heavy!" in a very strained voice.

Jamie loves croutons. We had salad for dinner last night so they were on the table and he really wanted some. I told him he could have just one. He ate it happily and then looked at me and said "Two?"

He asks for specific songs by name. His favorites are "Baa Baa Black Sheep" ("baa baa") and "Row Row Your Boat" ("row boat").

Sometimes when I say, "Jamie, you're so cute," he'll say, "I cute! I cute!"

I love getting these little insights into his mind. He keeps me laughing, which is good because he can also drive me crazy sometimes. That is probably too many stories all at once for most
people . . . but at least the grandparents will appreciate them :)

recent projects

2012-02-04T10:44:00.002-05:00

I have always wanted to learn to sew. I took home ec in junior high and made some pillows and an apron, but I haven't done much since then at all. A couple years ago, Thomas and Emily got me a sewing machine for my birthday and I intended to start using it right away. But then less than a week later I found out I was pregnant, and that combined with school kind of pushed the whole learning-to-sew project to the side. Then Jamie came along and spent most of his first year napping horribly, meaning I had little time to myself. Finally, though, when Jamie went down to one nap this past summer, he started consistently napping well, and I have found myself with some me-time each day. Hooray! Obviously I use that time to clean and prep food for dinner and read (and update the blog, like I am right now), and I have also found time to start teaching myself to sew.

I already posted pictures of a couple projects I've worked on in the last few months:

Jamie's Jedi Halloween costume

Jamie's Christmas stocking

I also made Jamie a fleece sleepsack. His room is the coldest in the apartment, and it is very tricky to keep blankets on him. He already had a Halo sleepsack, but it is very thin and and wasn't going to do much to keep him warm. I found a fleece one online, but it cost about $25, not including shipping. I made this one for about $8. I had no pattern, I just traced around the sleepsack he already had. It was my first time sewing in a zipper and it was particularly tricky, as I was putting in an upside-down separating zipper in a garment that wasn't going to separate the whole way. It is far from perfect, but it works!

I made several Christmas gifts as well. Using this tutorial, I made quilted rag letters for Jamie, his cousins, and some friends.

Pinterest gave me lots of good ideas (probably too many) for gifts I could make myself. That's where I stumbled upon these monogrammed ornaments. I made sets of them for several families. These particular ones were for my brother Hyrum's family.

For most of Thomas's professors and friends, I made treats (almond poppyseed bread, pretzel turtles, homemade marshmallows . . . YUM), but one lady was pregnant and had gestational diabetes, so instead I made her a few burp cloths. Again I found the tutorial on Pinterest. The only hard thing about these was trying to find general neutral fabric. I made them out of flannel. So easy and so soft and snuggly! Too bad they'll soon smell of sour milk :)

I made several gifts for Thomas's sister Emily, but for some reason I only took a picture of this ear warmer (yes I think I may be addicted to Pinterest).

I also made her a going away present as she heads off to Korea (in just a couple weeks!!). This is a travel organizer with pockets for passport, boarding pass, etc. The zippers were a little tricky. I really love how it turned out, especially the contrasting fabric as the pocket lining.

And finally (for those of you who made it all the way to the end), I just recently designed and made these file pocket holder things to hold art supplies next to Jamie's little table. I used some interfacing to make them a bit sturdier. I'm very pleased with how they turned out!

Thomas turns 27

2012-01-30T19:45:00.003-05:00

Thomas turned 27 last weekend, and we had such a fun time celebrating his birthday. Emily was still there in the morning but she had to head back that day. Before she left, we had a yummy breakfast (baked oatmeal with craisins and walnuts)

yummmm

and Thomas opened his presents. Someone got seriously spoiled this year.

Jamie checks out the new presents

In the afternoon, we went to the zoo. We got a zoo membership in the summer, ostensibly for Jamie's birthday, but really it was mostly for Thomas :) Jamie had the most fun he's ever had! Ever since then, he's gone around saying "zoo" and listing all the animals he remembers seeing. Too cute!

We had pot roast for dinner and strawberry rhubarb pie for dessert.

Jamie particularly enjoyed the ice cream and has also been talking about that ever since!

We also had a birthday party for Thomas with some of his friends from school. We had dinner and cupcakes (plus I also made cupcakes for him to take to school. . . you know, like a 3rd grader :) I get really into birthdays and holidays, plus I'll take any excuse to bake!) and once again played my new literature board game (who's got 2 thumbs and totally won? This girl!). It was so much fun.

Happy birthday Thomas! We love you.

good bye Auntie Em

2012-01-29T15:19:00.002-05:00

Thomas's sister Emily is leaving next month to teach English in Korea for a year! Last week she came and visited us one last time before she goes. We are so excited for her, but we'll definitely miss her! Jamie especially. He loves his auntie.

Also: Thomas's mom got me this board game for Christmas, and I think we played it at least 5 times while Emily was here. We LOVE it!

Anyway, we loved having Emily here, and while we hope she has the best time ever in Korea, we can't wait til we can have her back again. Good luck, Emily!

funny boy

2012-01-12T21:06:00.001-05:00

I bought a potty for Jamie. No, I'm not going to try potty training any time soon, probably not for a year, but I knew we'd need one eventually and I wanted him to be used to it when we do get to that point. Plus this one was pretty cheap, cute, and had good reviews. I put it in our bathroom today, and he was so excited to have his own potty. He sat right down and grabbed a magazine (this picture was not posed!).

And of course his rabbit had to have a turn . . .

Tonight when I was putting him to bed, he pulled out his pacifier, looked up at me, and said "potty." Apparently it made a big impression.

He has been such a funny boy lately. Here are some other recent stories:

I mentioned this on facebook but those of you not on there might appreciate it too. Jamie has really been into tickling lately. He tries to tickle everything . . . his stuffed animals, books, the washing machine, you name it.

The other night we were looking at a world map together, and I asked Jamie where he'd like to go. He pointed at Australia, and I asked him why. He said "baby." Who knew the Australian babies were such a big draw?

He has been talking up a storm recently! In the past few weeks, he has started saying EVERYTHING. He will try to repeat anything we say. It is amazing how quickly it all happened! A couple nights ago Thomas was eating something and Jamie came up to him and said "more more please food." And at dinner a day or two ago he said "too hot." That time I think he was just repeating what we had said but it has been really neat to hear him putting more than one word together.

Jamie really doesn't like potatoes. He'll eat some mashed potatoes but pretty much won't touch them otherwise. Tonight for dinner we had baked potatoes, but he wouldn't try them. Instead his dinner consisted entirely of broccoli. That's right, my 19-month-old chose to eat nothing but broccoli for dinner. How did I get so lucky?

We love this boy so much!

Christmas Break part 3

2012-01-11T19:41:00.001-05:00

The day after Christmas, we went to the Woehlk's Christmas party. We had so much fun! I think Jamie was slightly overwhelmed at first but he got over it and had a really good time.

The next day, most of my family left to drive to Utah for my grandpa's funeral. It was a difficult decision but we decided not to go because Jamie was sick. Jamie got to play with his cousins one last morning.

The one and only good thing about missing the funeral was that we got to spend a lot of concentrated time with Thomas's family while mine was away. Jamie loved playing with his Grammy so much (and his aunt and Papy but Grammy got the royal treatment). My family got back just in time for New Year's Eve and we got to spend a couple more days with them before everyone went their separate ways.

We also stopped by the Davis's for their New Years party.

Between Jamie's sickness (and the fun fun time of spending the morning of New Year's Day in the ER because no doctors were going to be open for a couple days), his passing it on to Thomas, my grandfather's death, missing his funeral, and seeing my siblings for a considerably shorter time than planned, our break did not quite go as we would have hoped. But we are very thankful for the time we did get to spend with everyone! Can't wait til we can see you all again.

Oh, and by the way, we took Jamie to the doctor as soon as we got home. Turned out he was starting to get an ear infection. They put him on antibiotics and within 2 days, all the horrible congestion, coughing, and eye goopiness that we'd been dealing with for 2 weeks cleared up. It is so nice to have a healthy boy again!

Christmas Break part 2

2012-01-09T14:53:00.000-05:00

We loved getting to see my brothers and sisters-in-law over Christmas! We only get to see most of them once or (if we're lucky) twice a year. It is especially fun now because Jamie gets to play with his cousins!

(and of course with Grandpa too)

We always acted out the Nativity on Christmas Eve growing up, so this year we had the kiddos do it. It was pretty hilarious because 3 of the 4 kids are about 1 1/2 and had no clue what they were doing. Additionally, Mary and Baby Jesus were played by twins. Pretty great stuff.

Jamie played Joseph

Abigail as Mary

Elena as Baby Jesus

Adriana as the Angel

Mary and Joseph ride the donkey

Jamie actually sat still through the whole thing because he spent the ENTIRE time playing with Mr. Potato Head.

After we woke up on Christmas morning, we checked out what Santa brought at my house.

Then we went over to Thomas's house to open presents there. Thomas really enjoys waking Emily up by throwing Jamie on top of her. It has become a Christmas tradition.

Then we headed back to my house to open presents there. Jamie continued playing with Mr. Potato Head.

After Jamie's nap there was even more back-and-forth between the two houses. The day ended with our traditional pizza dinner, although I think Jamie just had leftover turkey. He did enjoy spreading out the dough with Grandma. Our main gift from Christmas was our new table and chairs but you couldn't really tell that based on how many other presents we got! We feel very spoiled and had such a fun Christmas. We feel lucky to have both families in the same town so we don't have to choose who to spend the day with!

Christmas Break part 1

2012-01-07T22:11:00.000-05:00

I took way too many pictures over our break to fit into just one post, so it's going to have to be broken up a bit. While it was not the best vacation we've ever had (my grandpa died and Jamie got sick, causing us to miss the funeral), we really enjoyed being home and seeing everyone! Jamie especially loved getting to play with his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I really wish we lived closer to everyone. He loves everyone so much; it would be nicer if he got to see them more often.

Since Thomas is in school, we have a more flexible schedule than most of my siblings, and we got to Kirksville about a week before everyone else. We had a lot of fun that week.

We set up the nativity,

made a gingerbread house,

played in the snow and built snowmen (Jamie's first time in the snow - he loved it!),

and just played around!

Thomas and I even got to go on a date! Gotta love free babysitting :)

home for the holidays

2011-12-16T19:18:00.000-05:00

We made it to Kirksville last night. It was the best road trip that we have ever had since we had Jamie. He is so much more interested in books and toys than the last time we took a trip that he was much easier to entertain. We took a huge stack of books, and I sat in the back and read him stories most of the day. I LOVE that he loves books so much! Between those, his toys, and extra snacks, he barely fussed the entire day. It made the day go by so fast! We are happy to be here and looking forward to seeing everyone and celebrating Christmas!

words

2011-12-04T15:15:00.001-05:00

Jamie's vocabulary has recently exploded. To be completely honest, I don't know if anyone but me and usually Thomas would be able to understand most of his words (most of them are just the first syllable or an approximation thereof), but he is now saying or trying to say the following:

Momma
Dadda
no
banana
yuck
boo
boom
uh-oh
apple
rabbit
ball
more
moon
water
food
Elmo
bye-bye
dart
down
door
dirt
Popple
Max
popcorn
baby
bread
bed
fish
key
ho ho ho
beep
mad
sock
whoa
yay

. . .and maybe some more that I don't remember right now! I am more thankful than ever we've done signing with him because, for example, when he says "baba," he might be saying "bye-bye," "baby," "ball," "rabbit," or making a sheep noise, which could be confusing, but he usually does the sign at the same time. Some other words are much more clear, though. It has been so amazing watching (hearing?) him learn to talk in the past few months! At 15 months he was only saying 5 or 6 words!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree . . .

2011-11-26T12:49:00.001-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-25T13:29:00.001-05:00

Jamie the Thanksgiving chef

Happy Thanksgiving yesterday! We sure had a great day. Though it was Jamie's second Thanksgiving, it was his first where he could eat the food. He LOVED the turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, applesauce, cranberry sauce, rolls, and pie, but did not like the stuffing or green bean casserole. One of Thomas's friends from school came over and had dinner with us, and we all got stuffed. We had a wonderful time, but we did miss our families.

One of the things we were most thankful for this Thanksgiving: our new table!

We purchased our former table and chairs at Goodwill right after we got married, and they were seriously falling apart, so we decided to ask for a new table as a combined Christmas present this year. It's a long story, but we had some problems with the table not being delivered when it was supposed to be and ended up with no table at all for 2 weeks. It was only just delivered on Wednesday, and 3 of our chairs are still on back order. I am so grateful that we were able to get a new one and that we didn't have to eat Thanksgiving dinner while sitting on the floor around the coffee table.

dinner time!

It just so happens that Jamie also got a new table for Christmas this year. He loves it and looks so cute sitting in the little chairs! Since I can sit in the chairs and remain reasonably comfortable, I'm pretty sure it's going to last him a long time. Thanks Grammy!

Though the table is wonderful, I believe his favorite part has been the box that the chairs came in.

Thomas still had school the day before Thanksgiving, so I sent him to class with some treats I wanted to try making. These were taken straight from my favorite food blog, Our Best Bites.

Oreo Turkeys

pilgrim hats

And finally, just because they're cute, a couple more shots of our little man.

Jamie's posed smile

why are babies in overalls so stinking cute??

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We are putting up our Christmas tree today. This is my favorite time of year!!

turkey day

2011-11-24T08:32:00.001-05:00

why I can't get good videos of Jamie

2011-11-22T15:18:00.000-05:00

Jamie's first haircut

2011-11-21T19:35:00.000-05:00

Jamie FINALLY had his first haircut today. It was seriously overdue. He had some very cute curls for a while, but recently it has just been scraggly in the back and, worse, his bangs (which reached all the way to his mouth) were constantly in his face. I tried to get some before pictures today but he didn't really cooperate. These are the best I got.

front

back

This one is from a couple of weeks ago, but this is pretty much how his hair was all the time. I had to push it out of his eyes all day long.

Jamie did a great job today! I made sure he had his rabbit and his pacifier, and he was totally good to go. He kept moving his head around to try and see what was going on, but otherwise he sat still, and he didn't fuss at all.

I was sad at first after the cut, even though I hadn't been beforehand. He just didn't look like my baby anymore! But I'm very happy with it now that I've gotten a little more used to it. He looks great, it's not in his face, and he shouldn't get mistaken for a girl now!

all done!

Halloween festivities

2011-11-01T15:06:00.000-04:00

Last year, Jamie wore his Halloween costume for a couple hours, we took several pictures, and that was the extent of our Halloween activities. This year, we did so much more! We went to a Halloween themed story time, a community Halloween event, Boo at the Zoo, and a corn maze, and we made Jack-o-lanterns and roasted the seeds. We had such a fun weekend!

Jamie was a Jedi. I made his costume, and for those of you unfamiliar with Star Wars, this is basically what I was going for:

Here is our little Jedi:

We go to story time at the library every Friday morning, and this past week, all the kids dressed up.

On Friday evening, we went to a community Halloween event. Jamie's favorites were the golf and the bean bag toss.

We let Jamie have some candy for the first time ever. He loved it (and drooled like mad with this dum-dum).

Jack-o-lanterns! So much more fun with a 1 year old! He loved helping pull out the seeds.

Jamie drew a "face" on his

We also went to Boo at the Zoo.

They had tons of different characters dressed up everywhere, including from Star Wars! It was so perfect.

At the corn maze we went to, we went on a hay ride to a pumpkin patch (didn't get pumpkins this time), went through the maze, and played on their slides and sandpit, etc. Jamie was so cute in the maze, darting down each path and directing where we should go. What a fun afternoon.

On Halloween itself, Jamie wore his costume to the park.

Jamie's new favorite activity. He is throwing
rocks in the creek.

We had our traditional chili and cornbread for dinner, and Thomas and I watched Psycho after Jamie went to bed. We would've given out candy if we had had any trick-or-treaters. We've never had any! You'd think apartments would be good for trick-or-treating, being so close together. Oh well. Otherwise it was a great Halloween!

getting crafty

2011-10-27T17:45:00.001-04:00

Lately I've been trying to make playtime at home more fun. I feel like Jamie and I usually do the same thing day after day, and it's pretty fun stuff (going to the park, reading stories, making towers with blocks and knocking them over, that kind of thing) so that's okay. But he's old enough now that we can do a little bit more. Last week I made homemade playdough and we have been having a lot of fun playing with it! His attention span for it only lasts about 10 minutes, but it's an awfully fun 10 minutes.

Yesterday I made some homemade finger paints too. These were fun too but less successful. The mess was HUGE after just a couple minutes . . . and then he stuck his hands in his hair. Um, yikes. Someone had an extra bath that day!

Though not for playtime, I also finished another project today: Jamie's Christmas stocking! Just 10 months late. Oh well, he had no idea what was going on last year anyway. The stitching is far from perfect, but I decided I like it that way. Gives it a more personal touch. I really enjoyed making it for him. Thomas is jealous and wants one for himself.

And just because it's cute, this is how I found Jamie during his nap the other day.

I love this boy!

October-ness

2011-10-22T15:06:00.000-04:00

October is more than two-thirds over. How did that happen??? I remember being surprised it was already August. This year is going by very quickly to say the least.

We have had a busy and fun month! Well, mostly fun. Jamie did have a cold for a little over a week which was not so much fun. He threw a fit every time I had to wipe his nose so I tried to make the rest of the time more fun for him. We even made a fort.

He loved it, but it only lasted about 10 or 15 minutes before he pulled it down.

Thomas's parents visited us last weekend. We had so much fun while they were here, especially Jamie, who loves his grandmothers above everyone else, including Momma. I didn't get too many pictures while they were here. I guess we were just having such a good time I didn't think about pulling out the camera.

this is what Jamie does now if you ask him to smile

eating a muffin at the farmer's market

Jamie's first game of Make-a-Million

And a little about what Jamie's up to these days. He has started saying even more words, but he has such a limited number of sounds he can make that they all sound alike. Example: He can say "moon," "more," "Elmo," and "moo" but they all sound exactly the same and really not too different from "momma" and "meow." Context is very important.

He recently has started "singing" along with me to songs that have actions like The Itsy-Bitsy Spider and Five Little Monkeys. It is unbelievably cute.

He has really gotten into trying on shoes lately.

He has become completely obsessed with Elmo. We don't let him watch TV, so he hasn't even seen him on Sesame Street, but he got an Elmo toy for his birthday and fell in love. Now when we're out and about and he sees other kids with Elmo stuff (we've seen an Elmo backpack, an Elmo book, even Elmo shoes), he gets so excited. Sometimes he tries to steal their stuff.

He spent about 30 seconds in the dryer the other day and was utterly delighted.

Thomas is at a conference this weekend, and while he was packing, Jamie decided he wanted to go too. Tough luck, kid.

I have finished making Jamie's Halloween costume! He is going to be a Jedi. We're VERY excited for Halloween this year. Last year he was so small that we didn't really do anything. We put him in his costume for a couple hours and that was about it! I don't think we're actually going to take him trick-or-treating but we do have several other Halloween activities to take part in. Should be fun!

This is actually the longest I've ever been alone with Jamie, and it's been going okay. Other than the hour or two around dinnertime, it's not too different from normal. Thank goodness for naps and sleeping through the night so I do still get some time to myself. I'll be glad when Thomas is home.

pumpkin patch

2011-10-09T13:29:00.001-04:00

birthday weekend

2011-10-02T14:00:00.000-04:00

The University of Tennessee was very kind when planning their academic calendar this year: they planned fall break for my birthday! I turned 26 on Thursday, and I got to have Thomas home two extra days, which was the best birthday present of all.

On my birthday, we had a fun morning together, eating pancakes for breakfast and then playing at the park. We attempted a picnic lunch, which was fun but Jamie didn't quite get it. It is hard for him to sit still long enough to eat--or do anything else, for that matter--unless he is confined somewhere like his high chair. He still had fun; he just didn't eat all that much. He particularly enjoyed taking everything in and out of the picnic basket over and over.

For dinner, we went to P. F. Chang's. Yum! We don't eat out hardly ever anymore so it was really nice for a change. Afterwards we went home for cake.

Not the prettiest frosting job in the world, but it does the trick.

I made my own birthday cake this year. This seemed to surprise everyone, but I had a chocolate cake recipe I'd been wanting to try and I really don't have a good reason to be making cake most of the time, so this seemed like a good time for it. Plus I like baking. It turned out super delicious and super duper chocolately. Too chocolately to eat too much at one time. There's now some in the freezer, so it's going to last me a while. A little while, perhaps.

Jamie chows down on cake.

I got so many nice presents! Thomas and Jamie got me a really nice new wallet, which I desperately needed. I love it! I also got a lot of money and gift cards, some of which have already been used on upgrading some things in the kitchen. Yay!!

It has been really nice to have Thomas home the rest of the weekend too. Yesterday morning we went to the zoo and had so much fun! We have gone several times, but this was the most fun we've had. Jamie has been really into looking at books with animals lately and knows lots of animal noises. He would excitedly point out the animals to us and make the noise if he knew it. And they have 3 new red panda cubs on display. They were SO cute, and Jamie got really excited about them. He stood peering through the window at them, and one of the pandas came over to the window and pulled up on the sill, staring out right at Jamie. I about died of the cuteness. OF COURSE that was the one time we've gone to the zoo without the camera. Oh well. I had such a fun time with my boys. :)

a crazy semester so far

2011-09-25T14:41:00.000-04:00

UT's first week of class was half a week.
Thomas spent the second week in Bulgaria.
During the third week, he had to drive to Nashville to pick me and Jamie up from the airport.
The next week he had a day off for Labor Day.
The weekend after that we went to New Orleans, and he missed that Monday too.
This past week, Thomas finally had his first full week of class where he didn't miss any days.

And this coming weekend is fall break.

pleasure reading

2011-09-18T10:39:00.000-04:00

The main thing I remember from my summers growing up is going to the library and checking out huge stacks of books. I have always loved reading. That love was one of my main motivations for becoming an English major in college, and I spent 6 straight years studying the subject. This had an unfortunate consequence: I basically stopped reading for fun. Not entirely, I did find some time for pleasure reading, particularly on breaks, but most of the time, when I finally finished all the assigned reading I had to do for my classes, the last thing I wanted to do was pick up yet another book.

So when I, a book lover whose professed favorite hobby was reading, finally finished school, I discovered that I had not in fact read much of my own choosing since I was about 18.

The absolute best thing about not being in school anymore has been being able to read whatever I want, whenever I want. If I start a book and don't like it, I don't have to finish it. I can read books from all different genres and for all different age groups and reread my favorites as often as I want. Just for fun, I decided to keep track of how many books I read this year. So far in 2011, I have finished 57 books. I wouldn't be surprised if that was twice as many as I read for fun in all of undergrad and grad school combined. Now, that 57 does include some rereads of children's books like The Westing Game and the Little House books, but there is a much broader spectrum than that, including everything from The Lord of the Rings to Wuthering Heights to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (that's right, it even includes some (gasp) non-fiction), and in any case I'm pretty sure that the last time I read 57 books for fun in 9 months, two-thirds of them were from The Baby-Sitters Club.

By far my favorite new book I've read this year is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Others I have really loved include 84, Charing Cross Road, The Glass Castle, The Hand That First Held Mine (though I don't know if I would have liked it quite so much had I not just had a baby myself), and The Year of Living Biblically. Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project has probably had the greatest effect on me and been the one I've thought the most about. I reread Harry Potter once again and was happy as a clam doing so (happier, probably). I'm currently reading Angela's Ashes, and A Tale of Two Cities is next on the list. [Somehow, despite having been an English major with a British Literature concentration and having taken 4 classes dealing with the Victorian period, the one and only Dickens book I was ever assigned to read was A Christmas Carol. I intend to fix that.]

I love finding new books to enjoy. I love rereading, reliving, and discovering new things in the ones I love best. I love that no one is telling me what to read anymore, and I love that I don't have to try and find potential paper topics in the books I do read. I love that places as amazing as libraries exist. Most of all, I just really, really love books.

15 months

2011-09-15T13:38:00.002-04:00

Our little monkey is 15 months old today!

At 15 months, Jamie can:

say several words: momma, dadda, no no, banana (sounds a lot like no no), yuck. He also has said "dart" and possibly "grandma" when we were staying in Kirksville.
sign many more words! These include milk, more, food, all done, rabbit, dog, mouse, bath, ball, rain, book, swing, please, tree, glasses, momma (he doesn't do that one anymore but he used to), bear, swim, fan, light, baby, butterfly, phone, walk, pig, fish, brushing teeth, wash, shoe, hat, car, and key. There are probably more that I'm not thinking of right now. Some are his own version that doesn't really match the ASL one, but I know what he means. And some look very similar when he does them (like walk, rain, all done, and car, or ball, more, and shoe) but I can usually tell which one he means.
identify numerous body parts: nose, ears, mouth, tongue, teeth, eyes, hair, head, hands, feet, toes, fingers, tummy, belly button (but usually only on other people), etc. Some of them he points to, and others he uses (he'll click his tongue if you ask where it is). There are others he's still a little shaky on -- if you ask him where his chin is, he'll point to his neck. We have a few to work on :)
make animal noises: elephant, monkey, lion, cat, dog (he thinks they make a panting noise), snake, sheep, cow. He also has funny bird and horse sounds that don't actually sound much like a bird or horse, but I know that's what he's trying to do! He refers to animals by their sound. When we were in New Orleans, the people we stayed with had 2 cats, and he was constantly pointing to them and saying "mow!"
hold up 1 finger if you ask him how old he is.
"sing" along if you ask him to. He just makes a lot of noise. Except if you're singing John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, in which case he will actually say "na na na" along with the chorus.
"count." Okay, not really, but if we're reading a book and I ask him to count something, he will poke the page over and over the way I do if we're actually counting something. It's one of my favorite things he does right now.

Jamie's current favorite activities include

stories! He loves stories. He has favorite books and wants to hear them over and over. If you start saying the words to a book, he'll go find that particular one. He also has favorite pages in some of the books, which is too cute. One of his favorite books, The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear, has a page with the words "Boom! Boom! Boom!" that is his favorite. He will bring the book to me and say "boom boom." He is adorable.
pointing out trash and saying "yuck" over and over everywhere we go (it sounds more like "uck"). He will also throw something out if you tell him it goes in the trash.
going to the park to swing, go down the slide, play in the rocks, pull bark off trees, etc. There's also a little playground at our apartment complex that has sand, and he LOVES using a stick to write in the sand.

watching ants. He notices so many tiny things!
helping with laundry. He will grab clothes out of the basket and have me hold him up to throw them in the washer, or he'll stand by the dryer and I'll hand him clothes to put in. He sometimes gets tired of it before we're all the way done, but it's really cute while it lasts! He also loves putting clothes in laundry baskets, which is sometimes a problem because he does not discriminate between dirty and clean clothes.
coloring, but sometimes he gets too distracted by the prospect of taking all of the crayons out of the box and putting them back in over and over. He does better if he only has a couple to choose from. He also has a problem with wanting to eat the crayons.
playing with fridge magnets and pots and pans and anything else he can get his hands on in the kitchen.
going to story time at the library. If it's not too crowded, he'll go over and stand right in front of the story lady, but if it's too busy (last week there were probably 40 some kids there. It was a zoo!), he gets a little shy and comes and sits on my lap the whole time. But he still gets very excited about the stories, particularly if they involve animal noises.
tickles. Usually when I stop tickling him, he asks for more.
playing on our bed and getting flopped down onto the pillows.
smelling things. If I ask him what you do with a flower, he'll start sniffing, and he'll also start sniffing if he sees the spice jars in the kitchen because he knows that they're fun to smell.
anything involving shoes! He is obsessed. He loves to try and put shoes on himself and other people. If he notices other people not wearing shoes, he will bring them some to put on. For some reason, he really likes trying on my rain boots, even though they go all the way up his leg!

I could go on forever about all the cute things Jamie does, but these are some of our favorites right now. In the past 3 or 4 months, he has just gotten more and more fun! Though he is also more stubborn now and more capable of getting into mischief, I couldn't be happier with him overall. We think he's the best boy in the whole world (and we're pretty sure we're right!) :)

a weekend in New Orleans

2011-09-14T13:12:00.000-04:00

This weekend we were in New Orleans. We went down for the wedding of one of Thomas's Tulane friends. The wedding was really fun and nothing like any other wedding I've been to. It was a Jewish wedding and included a lot of Jewish wedding traditions, but it was also not traditional at all in that the rabbi seriously started the wedding with the "Mawidge. Mawidge is what bwings us togevah today..." speech from The Princess Bride and the ceremony also included references to Voodoo Fest, the Green Lantern, and Netflix. I barely know the couple, but Thomas said it was perfect for his friend Marisa.

Thomas (in blue) participates in the Hora. Too bad his
yarmulke fell off - it covered up his thinning hair!

Jamie got to try on Thomas's yarmulke the next day.

We spent the next morning in the French Quarter. We ate beignets at Cafe du Monde, and Jamie made a HUGE mess with the excess powdered sugar. He's not allowed to eat very much sugar, so it was a big treat for him. And for us. Because beignets are delicious.

Jamie in Jackson Square

at Cafe du Monde

beignets!

In the afternoon, we went to a place called Story Land at City Park with some friends. They have life size versions of lots of stories and nurseries rhymes, and it was really fun.

Jamie's favorite part was the fire truck. Not sure that
had anything to do with any stories.

Monday morning before we headed back, we went to Tulane and walked around campus. Jamie was being extra cute while we were there.

And then we had another long day of traveling, which included the scariest moment I've ever had on a plane. The plane was going through some rough air and suddenly dropped quite dramatically. It was over in a few seconds and we were totally fine, but a couple people who hadn't had their seat belts on were thrown up into the overhead bins and got hurt. No fun, but at least Jamie didn't seem to notice anything happened.

It was a great trip, but we are glad to be home and not traveling again for a while!

we love FALL

2011-09-09T13:14:00.001-04:00

I love fall.

I love crunchy leaves, wearing sweaters, not running the AC anymore, making soup and chili for dinner, eating pumpkin bread (really, pumpkin everything!), burrowing under warm blankets on crisp nights, and of course celebrating my birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and starting the Christmas season. So a year ago, our first September in Knoxville, I was really disappointed. The high stayed in the 90s for over half the month, and it was hot on my birthday. We didn't get very fall-like weather until close to Thanksgiving. Super lame.

But not this year! Thanks to Tropical Storm Lee, we went from a record high of 98 degrees on Saturday, to a high of about 68 on Monday. We had heavy rain all day on Monday, and all week it has been cloudy and the high has been hovering around 70 degrees. I have been in HEAVEN. I know this isn't going to last (in fact, the high tomorrow is back in the 80s), so I have tried to make the most of it. This week we have had both chili and potato soup for dinner, and I have baked 2 loaves of pumpkin bread, homemade french bread, and a loaf of banana bread. Jamie and I have gone out to play and enjoyed the weather every day except for that crazy rainy day. Actually, that's no different from normal, but the weather has made it even more pleasant.

Jamie out enjoying the weather

I just hope it doesn't get too hot again before we have fall for good. I definitely want to end up living somewhere with seasons!

pictures from Kirksville

2011-09-04T15:42:00.000-04:00

Thomas spent a week at a conference in Bulgaria last month, and Jamie and I headed back to Kirksville while he was gone. He was a LOT trickier to fly with this time! Jamie absolutely loved playing with his grandparents; I'm pretty sure by the end of the trip he liked them better than me. I'm also pretty sure he completely wore them out. That boy has more energy than I know what to do with! We had a really fun trip.

Grandmas let you do things that Momma wouldn't

first time with the sprinkler - he did
not know what to think

practicing piano with Uncle Johnny

sometimes Peter Rabbit ends up in unexpected places

playing with Grammy

How We Spent Our Summer Vacation

2011-08-17T13:39:00.002-04:00

UT started school today, so summer break is officially over. (Though Jamie and I are actually heading to Kirksville tomorrow, and Thomas leaves for Bulgaria on Saturday . . . so we're sneaking in a little extra vacation time.) We really had a great summer. I've already written all about our trips to Missouri and Utah, Jamie's birthday, moving to a new place, and all the visitors we had. But most of our time was not spent in such exciting endeavors. Thomas was in school (he took classes in Latin and German), and he was very busy with homework, particularly for German. I divided most of my time between hanging out at home and taking Jamie to the park, the pool, or the mall play area on rainy days. I tried a variety of new recipes, some of which were keepers (like strawberry freezer jam, whole wheat blender pancakes, and beef tacos with homemade seasoning and taco shells -- yum!) and others which were not (like a new tuna casserole recipe -- I don't like tuna. Thomas barely tolerates it. What possessed me to try this recipe??). Jamie had a very busy summer, turning one, learning to walk, and learning to say a few words (mostly just momma and dada, though). Thomas's summer classes ended last Tuesday, so we got a week to spend as a family. We tried to make the most of it by:

Going to the park

how Jamie spent most of his summer

Going to the zoo, where Jamie got to meet a red panda :)

Going swimming

Going to the park some more (seriously I spent half of my summer at the park)

and going bowling (Jamie's first time : He LOVED it!)

story time

2011-08-01T19:05:00.003-04:00

Let's face it, we are kind of obsessed with books. So we are thrilled that Jamie is starting to love them too!

We have been reading to Jamie since before he was born, and he has always loved books . . . they are, after all, great for pulling off shelves, chewing on, and throwing in the laundry basket. Just in the past couple weeks, he has started bringing us books and climbing into our laps to have a story. He doesn't always stay for the whole story, but that's okay. Nothing has EVER made me happier.

At any given time he has a few favorites that he keeps bringing us over and over. Right now, those include
Good Night, Gorilla
The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear
The Teddy Bears' Picnic
Ten Little Ladybugs
Roly Poly Pangolin

I hope he always loves books this much!

our new digs

2011-07-31T11:23:00.000-04:00

We've been here about a month and we LOVE it. We were unpacked super quickly (nothing like a steady stream of visitors to motivate you!), but our walls are still mostly bare. I'm working on it. Thought it was high time to share some pictures . . . (and this doesn't even show all of our closets. We have more closet space than we know what to do with. That has NEVER happened before!)

living room

other side of living room

view from our balcony - on clear days you can see all
the way to the Smokies

dining room

huge closet in dining room

kitchen, view #1

kitchen, view #2

hall bathroom

master bedroom

master bath

our huge walk-in closet

Jamie's room

. . . and from the other side

Jamie's huge closet

study #1

study #2

the reason we need a study

naptime

2011-07-22T13:56:00.001-04:00

For most of the past year, naptime was my least favorite time of day. Of course it was always nice when Jamie was sleeping . . . time to relax or get things done that I couldn't with a wakeful baby. But actually getting him to nap was miserable. He has never been able to put himself to sleep for a nap, even though he can at bedtime, and he never took very long naps, usually only 30-45 minutes. For months, it took me just as much time to get him to sleep as he ended up sleeping. And when he needed several naps a day, I thought it was going to drive me batty.

But fortunately "this too shall pass" is 100% true. Jamie's napping improved greatly over the past few months, and he started taking closer to 1 1/2 hour naps most days. Recently, he went down to one nap, and it has dramatically improved our daily routine. Eight, nine, ten months ago, I never would have believed that Jamie would ever be capable of napping for 2-3 hours straight, but it is now almost a daily occurrence.

Jamie still can't put himself to sleep at naptime, though. I think now that he is down to one nap, I could pretty quickly train him to, but I find myself not wanting to, even though I would have done just about anything to get him to last year. We have a short nap routine after lunch - a short book, a song - and then I rock him to sleep. With one nap, he's tired enough by then that it takes about a minute (or sometimes less) for him to fall asleep. And then I get to rock my cuddly, sleepy boy for 10ish minutes before putting him down in his crib. When he has had a fussy day--unfortunately a common thing this week, molars are the worst--it is so nice to have that peaceful time with him so I can be reminded of how sweet he is and how lucky I am to have him. And right now, I have the time. I doubt I'll be able to do this even if I want to with any future children. It is still hard to believe it, but putting Jamie down for his nap has become just about my favorite time of day.

"Naughty and noisy as they might be by day, [asleep] they look like cherubs; all children do."

-Madeleine L'Engle

strawberry freezer JAM

2011-07-18T13:39:00.002-04:00

I love the new title I chose for this blog a few months ago, but though there has been an awful lot about Jamie, I haven't written much at all about bread or jam.

Until now! (on the jam part, at least)

YUM

A couple days ago, we were at the grocery store looking at jam. Strawberry is far and away my favorite kind. Not that I eat a whole lot of jam, actually, but we've been having a lot of whole wheat pancakes lately and I don't like to eat them with syrup because it's too sugary and either fake or super expensive.

Digression: I didn't used to like whole wheat pancakes very much, which is weird because they are about the only thing I prefer white instead of wheat. But I can't bring myself to serve Jamie food with white flour, so I've been making them anyway, and I found a recipe I actually really like! I'll share it one of these days.

Anyway. I was having a hard time deciding what kind to get because it appeared that every kind either had high fructose corn syrup or was really expensive--not good options. So I chose neither one! Instead I got some strawberries and low sugar fruit pectin and made homemade strawberry freezer jam last night. I just used the recipe that came in the Sure-Jell box. It took less than an hour start to finish, and when I put some on my toast today, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. It was THAT GOOD. And now I'm super motivated to try some other homemade jams and jellies. I don't think I can ever eat store-bought jam again!

Grammy and Papy come for a visit

2011-07-17T15:41:00.002-04:00

Last weekend, Thomas's parents came to visit Jamie . . . er, I mean, us. We know who the main attraction was. :) I hope they had a fun visit; we sure had fun having them here! Most of the visit was spent playing with Jamie, but we also made time for going out to brunch, going to the park and the mall, and playing games after Jamie went to bed. We had a blast showing them how to play Cranium (one of our favorite games but sadly one we can't play just the 2 of us). I didn't have my camera out most of the weekend, but we did get a few pictures.

out for brunch at La Costa in Market Square

I think that wraps up our visitors for a bit. Now we are settling into our new routine: new apartment (have I mentioned I LOVE our new apartment??? Because I do.) and a one nap baby. Both good changes.

I don't think I mentioned it on the blog, but about a month ago, Thomas shaved his face completely clean for the first time in 6 1/2 years. Here he is with one month's worth of beard growth . . .

photo editing

2011-07-06T14:18:00.001-04:00

I am picking out some pictures to put in some some new frames I have, and I decided to play a little with the color/brightness/etc of some of the pictures. I cannot believe the difference in some of them! Here is an example. I took this picture of Jamie and his cousins in May:

And here it is after a little editing:

And one more example. Before:

After:

It's like they suddenly come to life! I don't have any fancy editing software or anything; I just used the tools on the Windows Photo Gallery, and it made that much of a difference. Now I am kicking myself that I've been satisfied with unedited pictures . . . Oh well, now I know I can fix them!

4th of July

2011-07-06T13:41:00.000-04:00

We sadly had a pretty disappointing 4th of July. Jamie's nap schedule has been unpredictable in the last month or two because he is transitioning from two naps to one. Most days he takes 2 solid naps, but occasionally he'll refuse to take his afternoon nap. Those days are the worst because his morning nap will end by noon, so there's an 8 hour stretch til his normal bedtime . . . He consequently gets pretty cranky on those days and crashes early.

Well, Knoxville has a big 4th of July celebration downtown at World's Fair Park that we were planning to go to. We were going to keep Jamie up a bit later than normal so we could see the fireworks. But of course he chose that day to refuse his afternoon nap, even though he'd been taking two naps every day without fail for the past couple weeks. Without that nap there was NO WAY we could keep him up late. In fact, he was fast asleep by about 7:30. I was really disappointed that we didn't get to go. I wanted to watch Jamie watch the fireworks. Not to mention that Brian was still visiting and I feel bad that we didn't end up doing much of anything for the holiday. But on the bright side, Knoxville has a big Labor Day fireworks display, so I hopefully won't have to wait an entire year before our next chance.

And we did have a nice morning. We all went to the park, and then after Jamie's successful morning nap, we had a big lunch: hamburgers, hot dogs, corn-on-the-cob, baked beans, etc. Yum. Just wish the rest of the day had gone well too!

Jamie watches as Brian and Thomas play frisbee

Jamie wants to play too!

Jamie joins the game

corn-on-the-cob: delicious!

a visit from Auntie Em

2011-07-05T11:36:00.000-04:00

I mentioned last time that Thomas's sister Emily was visiting. She spent the past semester studying abroad in South Korea and came to visit us almost as soon as she was back. We loved having her and I hope she had a good time! We didn't really do much of anything special during her stay, but that was okay because the biggest draw for her was getting to spend time with Mr. James. We of course went to the park a couple of times and also went to the Ijams Nature Center, which we'd never been to, and to the zoo. Our friend Brian arrived a day or so before she left (we are feeling very popular this month. Tons of visitors), so he went to the zoo with us too! Mostly, though, we just spent our time playing at home and hanging out. Jamie, as usual, was super cute and friendly, showing off his walking and signing skills and playing peek-a-boo like it was going out of style.

I didn't get too many pictures (I completely forgot my camera when we went to Ijams...oops), but I did get a few cute ones.

being cute at the park

petting a doggy! Jamie LOVES seeing dogs.

stroller peek-a-boo with Aunt Emily

making a break for it

Emily and a giant tortoise at the zoo

Emily was forced into this. I think you can tell.

all of us at the zoo

brief update

2011-06-30T11:55:00.001-04:00

We moved to our new apartment on Saturday. Hooray! A couple of Thomas's friends from school helped with the move (thank goodness, no way we could have done it on our own -- moving in upstairs and with a baby to watch). We are almost unpacked and getting settled in. We LOVE it here! There are a few nitpicky things that I don't really like (such as the shower has separate knobs for hot and cold . . . little things like that), but overall it is just a wonderful apartment and without a doubt the nicest place we've ever lived. We plan on staying here til we are done with Knoxville, so hopefully no more moving for several years!

Thomas's sister Emily is visiting this week -- she has been in Korea for the last four months and couldn't wait to come see her nephew. The last time she saw him, he was barely crawling, couldn't sign anything, had pretty short hair, and was several inches shorter. It's nice to have her here, and we are looking forward to more visitors in the next couple weeks.

I will put up pictures of the apartment once the unpacking is completely done.

power outages stink

2011-06-23T11:07:00.002-04:00

Tuesday night just after 8 there was a crazy storm. Our power went out for a few seconds three or four times, and then it went out and stayed out. Jamie was thankfully already in bed asleep, but it meant we couldn't watch a movie like we were planning or keep packing/cleaning like we should have been planning. We played some flashlight Skip-bo (during which Thomas was not amused by either my flashlight/skip-bo card strobe light or my shadow-puppet dog that I dubbed "Sparky") and went to bed early.

The power came back on around 4:30 Wednesday morning, but our internet was still off for the entire day. Then Wednesday evening our power went out AGAIN. This time there was no storm, just a little rain, and Jamie was still up, so we had to give him his bath by flashlight. Once again we could not do any packing or cleaning after he was in bed, and we are moving in 2 days so that was LAME. Thomas went to the library to do homework and I got in bed and read Harry Potter--again by flashlight--until I got tired enough to go to sleep. It's hard to go to bed that much earlier than you're used to! The power came back on about 5 a.m., and our internet finally came back this morning.

I know we're lucky it wasn't off for longer and that it was on during the day, but it was unfortunate timing for us. We've never had a long power outage before while living in apartments. I hope we don't again for a long time . . .

In other news: We are signing the lease at our new place TODAY (though we won't be really moving til Saturday). And this morning while packing up a box, I had my back turned on Jamie for about 1 minute, and I turned around to discover him standing on one of our kitchen chairs! How he managed to get up there on his own, I have no idea. This boy is turning into a little climbing monkey.

At the park

2011-06-21T10:35:00.001-04:00

Jamie and I love to go to the park in the morning before it gets too hot. Today we played with his ball, pulled bark off a tree, met a friendly dog (and he signed "doggy" for the first time!), and of course went on the swings. Here are some pictures from today's expedition.

having a snack

just being cute

Jamie's favorite new park activity:

Jamie at 12 months

2011-06-20T10:51:00.034-04:00

At one year old, Jamie can:

walk! He gets better at it every day.
sign about 10 different words.
understand tons of what we say.
maybe say "momma" (and mean it).
climb. Or at least, he's starting to learn. I think we may be doomed.
drink from a straw--but not from a regular sippy cup.
dance (cutest thing EVER).

He loves:

pulling books off his shelves.
opening drawers and taking out their contents (sometimes putting the contents into a different drawer).
opening the kitchen cabinets and taking out dishes.
throwing his food on the floor once he's full.
generally making messes.
toys that make noises.
eating almost everything, but especially bread, pasta, avocado, meat, applesauce, yogurt, rice crackers, and soft fruits (ripe bananas and pears, etc).

putting anything and everything in his mouth.
making silly noises.
tickles.
being thrown in the air or hung upside down.
hiding toys beneath the couch or underneath cushions.
going swimming.
swinging at the park.
seeing new places and hanging out with people.
banging away at the keys on the computer keyboard.
dancing to music.
splashing in the bath -- and drinking the bath water.
shoes (eating them, not wearing them).
touch-and-feel books and lift-the-flap books (though he tends to rip the flaps off).

He dislikes:

having his hair washed.
getting his diaper changed.
being forced to hold still for any length of time.

having solid food mixed with not-solid food (like chunks of pears in his cereal. He is not a fan).
tortillas.
when we don't let him do what we're doing or have what we have.
the red light our camera makes before it takes a picture.
having a hat put on him . . . but he forgets about it once it's on (usually).

12 month stats:

24 lbs, 6 oz (75th percentile)
30.5 inches (also 75th percentile)
8 teeth, with some molars on the way
sleeps 10-11 hours at night and is kind of in between 1 and 2 naps

He is definitely a handful, but he is the cutest boy we've ever seen and we feel so lucky to have him!

ONE

2011-06-17T10:42:00.001-04:00

My baby is one! In a year, Jamie has gone from this:

to this:

It has been AMAZING watching him grow and develop over this year!

For his birthday, we went to the zoo! We had never been to the Knoxville zoo before, and we LOVED it. Because it cost about the same as going twice, we got a membership, so we'll definitely be going back! We got really lucky with the weather. It has been in the 90s nearly every day for the past several weeks, but his birthday was cloudy and in the high 70s. It started pouring down rain right as we were leaving, so we were also lucky with the timing!

our favorite exhibit:
the red panda village

watching the river otters

Jamie's wingspan: smaller than a condor's

making friends with the white alligator

carousel ride

petting zoo

camels

elephants

zebras

Jamie the zebra!

After we got home and Jamie had a nap, it was time for presents! He was really excited about unwrapping the first couple, but after that he lost interest and preferred playing with the unwrapped gifts. He got a lot of great new toys and books and cards, etc. We got him a set of nice blocks and a ball, and we have already been having a lot of fun building towers and knocking them down.

We had a yummy dinner of chicken, mashed potatoes, and broccoli. Afterwards, it was finally time for cake! Jamie was very tentative at first, taking delicate swipes at the frosting, but after a while he got into it and demolished the cake. I don't think he ate more than maybe one bite of the cake itself . . . but he definitely had more than enough frosting! SO FUN.

the cake matched his new blocks

We sure love this boy! I think he had a very happy first birthday.

rainbow cupcakes

2011-06-15T10:07:00.001-04:00

My sweet baby boy is 1 today! I can't believe it's been a year since he was born. We have a lot of fun planned for the day and I will share all about it later on.

Yesterday I made his birthday cake (see previous post), and then after he went to bed I also made these fabulous cupcakes. I got the idea and instructions here. Thomas is taking some to school just for fun . . . and we're eating the rest. YUM.

I used the same gel colors I used to decorate his cake to color the cake batter. Then I layered the colors in rainbow order in cupcake wrappers. I did some starting with blue on the bottom and some starting with red. I am SUPER happy with how they turned out! I can't wait to make these when Jamie's old enough to appreciate them.

birthday cake

2011-06-14T19:19:00.001-04:00

Today I made Jamie's first birthday cake! I am so excited about it! I stole the idea for a block cake from my sister-in-law Sarah who made them for Jamie's cousins a couple months ago. I have never taken a cake decorating class or anything, but I have decorated scores (okay maybe just one score) of gingerbread houses and grew up watching my mom making super awesome birthday cakes. I made a carrot cake because it is dairy free, has vegetables in it, and calls for oil (I used olive oil), so it's not quite as terrible for you as most cakes.

I made the cake during Jamie's morning nap and then let it cool.

I finished it during his afternoon (well, actually he woke up earlier than normal so Thomas took him to the park until dinner time and I was able to finish everything). I cut into four regularish pieces

And then I made three of them level. Thomas got to eat the extra one.

cake scraps!

Thomas ate those too.

For the frosting, I used a recipe from the dairy-free cook book my sister-in-law Emily got me for Christmas. It had a specific variation to use if you're decorating with the frosting, so I used that and it worked out great.

Next I assembled my pieces. I tried to make it as close to a cube as I could. It wasn't perfect and was lopsided, but I tried to fix it as best I could. The lopsidedness never did get fixed to my satisfaction.

And then I frosted the whole thing. This was the hardest part for me. I couldn't get it to look as smooth as I wanted it to. Fortunately once it came together, you couldn't really tell anymore.

For the sides of the block, I used Jamie's initials, the number 1, and a star. I did each side in a different color. I used Wilton's gel colors which I purchased for some cupcakes I'm planning to make later. Apparently if you're using red, you have to get a special one that says "no taste." I can't understand why they bother making the normal red if it makes everything taste gross. Walmart was out of that when I went, so I had to go to another store, and I actually found this great cake decorating store. If I did more cakes I bet I'd be there all the time! I will definitely keep it in mind for Jamie's next birthday.

Once the frosting was colored (I had to use a LOT of red before I was satisfied it wasn't pink), I went to town on each side. I used a toothpick to outline them before I used any frosting, and then I outlined each letter with frosting before filling it in. It was a lot easier than I expected it to be!

Ta-da!

I can't wait to give it to him tomorrow!

Jamie takes steps

2011-06-11T09:17:00.001-04:00

a preview of the new apartment

2011-06-10T18:58:00.000-04:00

We are not moving for 2 more weeks, but today we went to see our new apartment so we could start figuring out how we want to arrange our furniture and things. WE ARE SO EXCITED. We consider basically everything about this apartment an improvement. I took some pictures -- they are not great, but here is an idea. I will put up better ones when we get moved in!

Obviously this is a terrible picture, but you can see our balcony/patio off the living room -- and the great view!

the living room from the other direction

the dining room (they aren't quite done cleaning/touching it up, which is why all that stuff is there) -- That door on the left is a nice big extra closet.

the kitchen -- some day I will have the big open kitchen I want, but not while we're living in apartments. Our washer and dryer will be in here too, to the right.

bathroom #1

our bedroom -- I LOVE the big windows! And they don't look out over a parking lot, they just look into some pine trees. It is going to be such a nice change!

our walk-in closet

bathroom #2, off of our bedroom

Jamie's room (there is a window on that wall to the right)

Jamie's closet (I get really excited about closet space, if you can't tell)

. . . and the third bedroom, which will be our study!!

walking update

2011-06-08T20:30:00.001-04:00

Jamie took his first steps last week, but after that he didn't seem very interested in it. That is apparently often the case for babies who are really good at crawling, so I wasn't surprised but I wanted to see more walking. It was just so darn cute! So I kind of tricked him into taking 2 or 3 steps a few times by putting something desirable (like my phone) on a chair just out of his reach, but for the most part there was no more walking . . . until today! Probably 7 or 8 different times today he took 3 or 4 steps on his own, either after I set him down standing or after he pulled himself up, let go, and took a few steps. It was so exciting!

the cutest boy around!

who's making that mess?

2011-06-07T10:32:00.001-04:00

Jamie has been pulling books off shelves basically since he started crawling and could get himself to the shelves. That was about 5 months ago, and, oh, has he mastered the skill since then.

He is no longer content pulling one book down at a time; instead, he grabs fistfuls and flings four or five off at once.

Putting the books back, much like laundry or dishes, is a constant task that needs to be done again almost as soon as you've finished.

At least he likes books!

3 years

2011-06-06T18:17:00.001-04:00

Who's got two thumbs and the best husband?

my 3rd anniversary gift from Thomas

This girl!

(Those are real pearls! But we don't really have this kind of money. When Thomas got rid of tons of his old books when we were in Kirksville, he sold a bunch to Hastings, and he bought this with the money he got. What a sweetie. I am so lucky!)

vacation part 2: Utah (or There and Back Again)

2011-06-03T11:17:00.001-04:00

I have about a zillion pictures from this part of the trip, so this is pretty picture-heavy. Consider yourself warned.

We took 2 days to drive from Kirksville to Utah. We had some crazy weather . . . on the first day, we drove through Nebraska in record heat. It was 100 degrees most of the day. But the next day, as we drove through Wyoming and into Utah, it was in the 40s. How are you supposed to pack for such widely varying temperatures? Ridiculous. In any case, we were very glad to get to Provo and get out of the car!

He may look happy, but don't let that fool you.
This boy wanted OUT.

On our first full day there, we mostly visited with my grandma, uncles, and my sister-in-law Sarah. My dad took us on a small tour of Springville, his home town, and my parents took us out to dinner. It was nice to have a relaxing day after the drive.

The next day, we went up to Salt Lake City and visited Temple Square. Thomas had never been there, of course, since he'd never been to Utah at all. We went on a tour of the conference center, saw a lot of other buildings, and had a really nice lunch. We got lucky, the weather was perfect that day.

Two of my siblings live in Utah and three more ended up coming to visit at the same time we did, so we had a mini-family reunion. It was pretty great. I loved having so many of us together, and it was especially fun to have so many babies together! My uncle Ralph and aunt Linda had everyone over to their house for dinner, and we got a lot of pictures of everyone. It was also my brother Mark's birthday that day, but he was sick, poor guy.

3 sets of twins

babies!

my favorite picture from the trip

The next day was spent at my grandpa's house. He is 93 and is unfortunately not able to live on his own anymore, but my dad and Thomas went and picked him up from his nursing home to come spend the day at his house. Thomas really enjoyed getting to meet and talk to him.

4 generations

Uncle Thomas and the babies

We had everyone together again at my brother Hyrum's house that Saturday. It was so fun to have everybody there!

all 15 cousins

Jamie & Abigail playing a duet

That same day, my old roommate Shyla got married, and we went to her reception in the evening. I was so glad I was able to be there! It was a lot of fun to see her and also to see other old roommates and friends who were also there. It had been a really long time since I'd seen anyone.

On Sunday we went to hear the Tabernacle Choir in the morning. It was pretty great.

Jamie at 11 months

another 4 generation picture

My brothers who don't live in Utah left that day. My sister-in-law Sarah was still there, so we got to spend time with her (and of course her cute babies) on her birthday. We also spent some time with more friends. It was so good to see everyone!!

I gave Thomas and Jamie a tour around BYU. It was pretty fun to show them everything, and we also got to see two really awesome exhibits. One of them was in the special collections at the library, and the other was the Museum of Art. Pretty much fabulous.

We spent our last couple days at Hyrum & Kim's house (we had been staying with my grandma before that) and we had a lot of fun! Thomas is such a good uncle and had a blast playing with Zealan and Caslea, and I think Rivers and Jamie enjoyed making messes together. . . And I think Thomas and Hyrum had fun playing Magic and talking about fantasy books. We also got to go to Caslea's first grade play. It was pretty darn cute.

badger badger badger

We had more crazy weather on our drive out of Utah.

taken May 19th

We spent 2 days driving back to Missouri. We stayed in St. Louis and went to the wedding of a friend of ours from high school. It was a lot of fun, and there were a lot of people from back home there. Congrats Maggie & Danny!

One more day of driving and we were finally back to Knoxville and more importantly out of the car! We loved being on vacation, but one of the nicest things about it was how nice it made it feel to be home and back on our normal routine.

We loved seeing everyone and can't wait til the next time we get to!

he walks!

2011-05-31T10:27:00.000-04:00

Yesterday Jamie took his first steps! He had tried a few times but had always immediately fallen over. This time he got three steps in a row before falling into me! It was just about the cutest thing I've ever seen. He hasn't tried again yet, but I'm sure he will soon.

And while we're on the subject of Jamie doing cute things . . . He can now sign milk, more, food, all done, book, ball, light, fan, wash, and diaper, and he can wave bye-bye and blow kisses. He can understand a lot more words, including rabbit, dance (he starts bopping whenever music comes on; it is the cutest thing!), momma and daddy, and glasses (definitely a favorite!). He can also locate the nose, toes, tummy, hair, and tongue. It is AMAZING watching him learn new things!

vacation part 1: Kirksville

2011-05-25T11:06:00.000-04:00

We went on such a long trip that writing about the whole thing seems overwhelming, so I am breaking it into sections. It's actually been nearly a month since we first left!

We spent just over a week back home in Kirksville before heading west. It was so nice to be back and so relaxing! When we were home over spring break, we tried to see so many people in such a short period of time that we felt horribly rushed. Not this time: We did visit friends, but we spent most of the week playing and not stressing about anything.

On days with nice weather, we ate outside on the deck. [side note: Weather was crazy on this trip--we left high 80s in Knoxville and came to drizzly, cold 50 degree Kirksville, but we lucked out and it warmed up for at least part of the time.Weather was even crazier on the Utah half of the trip, but more on that later.]

We stayed with Thomas's parents again because my parents were going with us to Utah so we knew we'd have more time with them. Jamie's Grammy loves to buy him presents; by far his favorite this time was his new bus that he can walk with. We all got a little sick of listening to the song it plays, but we never got sick of watching Jamie delightedly walking behind it.

Besides visiting friends & family, we took Jamie to the library [another side note: I hate Knoxville's library set-up. There are things I like about it (mainly there are plenty of books available), but mostly it drives me crazy. Instead of having one big library, they have a whole bunch of smaller branches. Now, I don't know about all the branches, but the one near us is smaller than Kirksville's library and has a random smattering of books. I can easily order books from other libraries, but I hate that I can't really browse the shelves or find books there. Also, the children's section is super lame--the books are fine, but there's nothing else--no big toys or bean bags to read on or play mats or anything. Kirksville's is way better. That shouldn't be the case.] and swimming at the Aquatic Center. All the lifeguards and the water aerobics ladies were thrilled to see Jamie!

Our biggest accomplishment on this trip, without a doubt, was cleaning out Thomas's bedroom. I wish so badly I had taken before and after pictures because the change was so, so drastic. He has had the same bedroom since he was 2 and as far as I can tell never threw anything away . . . until now! The room is now clean and decluttered, with the stuff he decided to keep neatly packed and labeled in plastic tubs. I LOVE throwing things away and cleaning up cluttered spaces. It was awesome.

a portion of the stuff that got thrown out

Our last day in Kirksville was also my first Mother's Day (although last year I was 8+ months pregnant, so I did get some flowers then too). Thomas surprised me with flowers in the morning. He and Jamie got me some nice presents and the three of us went out to dinner. It was one of the really nice days weather-wise. I had a wonderful day.

The next morning we left for Utah . . .and I will leave that for another day.

produce mania

2011-05-24T12:34:00.000-04:00

We are home from vacation! We had a wonderful time and will be posting all about it (complete with pictures) soon.

Incidentally, today is our 3rd anniversary. But I'll write about that later as well.

Today I am writing about PRODUCE.

When we got home, our fridge was basically empty. When I went shopping to restock it, I kind of went a little bit crazy on the fresh fruits and veggies. We have been eating on the road so much that I was just hungry for healthier food, plus a lot of things are looking a little tastier now that it's almost summer and they're coming back into season. In no particular order, I purchased:

Pears
Apples
Sweet potatoes
Avocado
Zucchini
Kiwis
Grapes
Carrots
Peaches
Tomatoes
Bananas
Strawberries
Romaine lettuce
Green onions
Various colors of bell peppers
Cantaloupe
Broccoli
Onions
Corn on the cob
Potatoes

My goal now is for us to eat all of them without having to throw anything out. Bring on the salads!

vacation!

2011-04-27T10:59:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow we are leaving on vacation! I'm so excited to get out of here. We're going to Kirksville first for a couple of weeks and then we're going to Utah. I haven't been to Utah in 5 years, by far the longest time away in my life. Thomas and Jamie have never been.

So for the next few weeks, this blog will probably not get updated nearly as much as it has been lately, but expect to see us if we are coming through your neck of the woods. We are really looking forward to seeing everyone!!

Jamie's first Easter

2011-04-26T11:13:00.000-04:00

On Easter morning, Jamie discovered that the Easter bunny had made a visit.

It was a beautiful day, so we spent the afternoon at the park.
Jamie had fun swinging...

and we had fun taking pictures of him playing.

He practiced some standing--he is getting pretty good at it, though he still loses his balance after probably 10 or 15 seconds.

We had a yummy Easter dinner (thanks for taking the picture Brian!)

that Jamie certainly seemed to enjoy.

I'm sure next year, when Jamie will hopefully understand a little more, will be even more fun!

A Day in the Smokies

2011-04-25T08:57:00.000-04:00

Our friend Brian came to visit over Easter weekend, and we spent a day in Smoky Mountain National Park (about an hour away). It was our second time there and his first. Once we got there, we had a picnic lunch.

this is the cutest face I have ever seen

The main event was a four hour (round trip) hike to a waterfall. Thankfully it was mostly shaded because it was a very warm day. Jamie rode in style on Thomas's back.

There were several of these bridges along the way, just a log with a little handrail. Crossing them made me glad I wasn't the one carrying Jamie.

The path bordered a river.

We were glad to make it to the waterfall and rest for a while. It was pretty impressive. Thomas and I took off our shoes and put our feet in the water. It was so cold! It felt great. There were some people wading in quite far; they must have been freezing!

Jamie got a little unhappy on the way back but finally crashed. What a sweetheart.

We saw a couple of black bears on our way out, which was kind of neat, but mostly it was a nuisance. Tons of people stopped and got out of their cars to take pictures, backing up the traffic and making it take an extra half hour to get out of the park. Lame. But the rest of the day was really fun. We're lucky to have the Smokies so close and plan to take more advantage of them!

Lord of the Rings

2011-04-24T10:17:00.000-04:00

*Disclaimer: I am sure that all of this has been discussed better and more in depth elsewhere. I am no LOTR expert or enthusiast. These are all just my opinions.*

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I had just finished reading The Lord of the Rings. After I finished each book, Thomas and I then watched the corresponding movie.

If you know me at all, you probably know that I tend to have a big problem with movies adapted from books. I'll just never understand what's fun about watching a mutilated, choppy version of a good story. However, the LOTR movies were always safe from the unadulterated hatred I feel for, say, the Harry Potter movies, by virtue of the facts that 1) I saw the movies before I read the books and I liked them, and 2) they are not among my most favorite books.

In some ways, I actually like the movies better. Main reason: Chronology. I hated that the books are so segmented. By the time I finished the first half of The Two Towers, it had been so long since I had read about Frodo and Sam that I'd almost stopped caring, and it was frustrating to know I wouldn't read another word about Merry, Pippin, Gandalf, etc until I got to the next book. This happened over and over. The movies took care of that by toggling back and forth between the story lines, so I like their structure better. This did have one funny effect: The story lines aren't given an equal amount of material in the books, so almost all of the Frodo-and-Sam section in the movie of Return of the King is actually from the book The Two Towers.

The other reason I prefer the movies: Character development. I am all about character development. It's why I usually prefer TV shows to movies and is one of my main problems with most book-adapted movies. When I was reading the books, I didn't feel like character development was on the forefront of Tolkien's mind. I think he was a lot more interested in the mythology, and that's what mostly got cut out from the movies. More time on characters and less time on random Celtic mythology is okay by me.

So what did I dislike about the movies this time through? Not much, but a few things stuck out. Somehow, they all seemed to come from The Two Towers.

When a movie is made from a book, the biggest change is usually that some material gets left out. That can be annoying if they cut parts you love or think are important, but even with a 4 hour movie, there's no way you can include everything from books of this length. I think LOTR handles cuts pretty well. The movies abridge an awful lot, but that allowed them to focus on important scenes and to have a good flow, rather than jumping from scene to scene in an effort to cram in as much material as possible. I hate that choppy feeling, and these movies thankfully didn't have it. Thomas hates that they cut the scouring of the Shire at the end, but I actually didn't like that part of the book, so I didn't miss it.

What I hate the most is when movies change stuff for no good reason. This is where all the problems come from:

Faramir. Why did Faramir have to become all creepy and try to take the ring for Gondor? He was pretty universally awesome in the books. This has always been one of Thomas's biggest complaints, and I totally agree.

Helm's Deep. Make the Battle of Helm's Deep the climax of the movie, sure, but why why why did the elves show up? What was wrong with Men defending themselves?

The Ents. First of all, Treebeard was waaaay too hasty for my taste. More importantly, though, why did they initially decide not to help defeat Saruman? I loved the Ents in the books but not so much in the movies.

One last change that really irritated me happened in the movie Return of the King but would have been in The Two Towers - if it had actually happened, that is. I hated the scene when Gollum tricks Frodo into thinking Sam ate all the lembas and Frodo then tells Sam to leave and go home. I didn't think it was true to Frodo and Sam's relationship at all, even when Frodo was being taken over by the ring. Totally lame.

There were plenty of other changes, but these particularly bothered me.

In conclusion:

I enjoyed reading the books, but I doubt I'll do it again any time soon.
I still really enjoy the movies too but like Return of the King and Fellowship a lot better than Two Towers.
And I definitely think it's about time we planned a trip to New Zealand.

dogwoods

2011-04-22T15:08:00.000-04:00

Every April, Knoxville has a Dogwood Arts Festival, which involves lots of art displays and fairs, a music festival called Rhythm and Blooms, and specially designated dogwood trails throughout the city. We didn't participate in much, thanks to a combination of Jamie keeping us at home in the evening and April being Thomas's last month of class (and consequently a very busy one), but we did walk a couple of the dogwood trails. These pictures don't really do them justice--they were so pretty and in really nice neighborhoods, so we were also oohing and aahing over the houses. I love spring when everything is in bloom like this!

the pink ones are my favorite

Knoxville seems to have a thing for festivals. Stay tuned for next month, when we will be celebrating the Biscuit Festival. That's right, biscuits.

The Rabbit and His Boy

2011-04-20T16:43:00.000-04:00

why we can't wait to move

2011-04-19T16:16:00.002-04:00

Warning: this is kind of a long post. I've had a lot to rant about.

We are moving to a new apartment in 2 months and 5 days. Yes, I am counting down. WE CAN'T WAIT.

Last May, we came to Knoxville to find an apartment. We had all of two days, were only able to see a limited number of places, and really had no idea where to start. We thought we had found a couple of good options, and we were relatively pleased with the apartment complex we eventually ended up choosing. Even right after we'd moved in, we thought it was an improvement (see this post).

We were so, so wrong.

The major problems with this apartment can be divided into 3 issues: the neighbors, the windows, and the bugs.

The Neighbors
Our neighbors have changed a lot since we first moved in and they're better now than they ever have been, but wow did we have some trashy neighbors at the beginning! One couple who lives upstairs liked to have really loud arguments in the parking lot. We called them the "Maury couple" because they reminded us of the people who go on that show. They would scream and scream for all the world to hear about their relationship problems, most of which, in case you're interested, seemed to come from the girl. She would frequently come running down the building stairs, slam the door open, rush to her car, and turn it on like she was going to leave. And then she'd wait for her boyfriend to follow her, so she could scream at him from the driver's seat about how, among other things, he never waited for her to have a cigarette (this is a direct quote). Their fights were often obscenity laden, and we're pretty sure that she hit him a good number of times. At least once someone called the cops because of them. When they weren't fighting, they would sit on the building's porch and smoke. All day. In recent months, the boyfriend seems to be out of the picture. Maybe he finally decided never to come back (goodness knows he threatened it often enough) or maybe he blew up in a meth lab explosion (a serious possibility). We will probably never know.

The apartment directly above us was initially empty, but after a couple weeks three 18 year olds with a bulldog moved in. While they were at work, they would leave the dog locked in the room directly above Jamie's, and it would spend all day howling and whining and flinging himself at the door to get out. That was really fun when I was trying to get Jamie down for naps. They also liked to play super loud music at 3 a.m. and play some skateboard video game that required them to fall or jump or something a lot (with our paper thin ceiling it sounded like they were dropping bowling balls). A few months ago they were evicted because 1) the cops who were called for the Maury couple found pot in their apartment and 2) they later were discovered to be harboring meth heads. We couldn't have been happier to see them go. We thought it was going to get a lot quieter, but then management decided to give that apartment washer/dryer hookups, so the next month was filled with a lot of sawing, pounding, and yelling. At least it wasn't happening at night. A new couple lives up there now, and though they have a dog, they are all a lot quieter.

There's no way to know what our neighbors will be like at our next complex, but we will be on the top floor, so at least there will be no one above us. And, honestly, I doubt they could be worse.

The Windows
Our windows have no insulation, from sound or temperatures, and they all face due west and are about 3 feet away from the parking lot. I can hear conversations people have at normal volumes in the parking lot, so imagine how much fun it was when that couple would have their scream fests. It's also great when people pull into parking spots in the middle of the night and their headlights stream into our bedroom or when car alarms go off at any hour. It is just ridiculous. In the mornings our apartment is freezing (well, not as much anymore. This is Tennessee after all) and in the afternoons, it is like an oven because of the sunlight coming directly in. They also somehow let bugs in even when they're closed (see next section).

The Bugs
In order to understand what a problem the bugs have been, you need to know that I have a serious phobia of bugs. As in, I cannot function if I am in the same room as them. I feel paralyzed. Not all bugs, mind you, it's really only the ones that would crunch if you stepped on them. I can handle flies and ants and ladybugs and even small spiders and the like. But those aren't the ones we've had problems with.

As soon as we moved in, it became clear we had a roach problem. I have never lived anywhere with roaches before and I sure hope I never do again. We would find several in the kitchen every day and they were often lurking elsewhere too (twice I found them in the shower. I nearly died). They were already here when we moved in so it wasn't anything we did that brought them. The apartment complex sprays for bugs every month but it made no difference. We had them come extra times and we tried a variety of other ways to get rid of them. Finally something seemed to have worked (maybe it was just the cold weather) because we have only rare sightings now. I'm just worried that as it gets hotter they're going to come back.

Recently we've also had a problem with wasps. Somehow they manage to get into the apartment through our closed living room windows. This has happened about 5 or 6 times in the past few weeks, usually when I'm home alone with Jamie. We complained after the first couple and maintenance came to reseal the windows, but it has continued to happen. One got in yesterday afternoon and another this morning (which is what prompted this rant).

There are plenty of other small annoyances (including the fun fact that they have apparently scheduled all lawn care to be done at Jamie's nap times), but these are the big ones. I am sure the new apartment will have its own set of problems, but from everything we've read/heard/seen about the place, it seems to be a lot nicer. They don't allow pets, and like I said we'll be on the top floor which should help with some of the noise problem and the bug problem. We are paying double rent in July, but it is worth it to get out of here as soon as possible!

10 months

2011-04-17T22:30:00.000-04:00

In honor of Jamie's turning 10 months on Friday (I can't believe he'll be a year old in just 2 more months!!), here is a silly video of us playing. If you can believe it, he was laughing even more hysterically before I brought out the camera. Sorry for the jerkiness; it's not easy to play peek-a-boo behind a couch and record it at the same time.

primavera chicken

2011-04-17T21:05:00.005-04:00

When I ran across this recipe, I thought it sounded tasty but didn't plan on making it because it called for heavy cream and I'm not eating dairy right now. But then I decided to see what would happen if I simply substituted soy milk for the cream, even though they don't have the same consistency. It turned out so yummy, and it was healthier without the cream too! On a side note, I'm not sure why it's called primavera chicken, since it's not much like any other pasta primavera I've ever experienced (it is a little bit spicy), but it is really good.

Ingredients:

1 1/3 lb boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into strips (that's a pretty specific amount. I just used 2 really big chicken breasts we had, I don't know how much they weighed)
1 tsp. salt, divided
1/2 tsp. pepper, divided
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 medium sweet red pepper, julienned
1 c. sliced fresh mushrooms
2 green onions, chopped
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
2/3 c. soy milk (like I said, this was originally cream)
1/2 c. chicken broth
8 oz linguini, prepared according to pkg directions
2/3 c. pine nuts, toasted
1/2 c. frozen peas, thawed

Directions:

Sprinkle chicken with 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. In a large skillet, cook the chicken in oil over medium-high heat for 8-10 minutes or until no longer pink. Remove and keep warm.
In the same skillet, saute the red pepper, mushrooms, onions, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper just until vegetables are tender. Add cream and broth. Bring to a boil; cook until sauce is reduced by a third.
Add chicken, linguini, pine nuts, peas, and remaining salt and pepper to sauce; heat through.

The recipe also gave the optional suggestion of sprinkling parmesan cheese on top (which obviously I didn't do).

I didn't think of taking a picture til after we had already eaten, but here's what our leftovers look like. Yum!

Harry Potter and the Introduction Conundrum

2011-04-17T09:21:00.000-04:00

It is no secret that I love Harry Potter.

I adore Harry Potter.

I delight in Harry Potter.

I treasure Harry Potter.

I cherish Harry Potter.

In short, I am obsessed with Harry Potter.

Now that I have Jamie, I CANNOT WAIT to share these books with him. But I'm not quite sure how to do that.

Here's the problem: I simply cannot comprehend being born into a world with Harry Potter. When Jamie was born, not only had the entire series been written, but there were also six movies and an entire Harry Potter theme park. My experience was a wee bit different . . .

When I first read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (that's right, no silly sorcerer's stone for me), I had never even heard of Harry Potter. I had zero expectations and no idea of what to expect. It was all a wonderful, glorious surprise.

Also, in The Philosopher's Stone, Harry is 11, and I was 11 when it was published. When Chamber of Secrets was published, Harry and I were both 12. Prisoner of Azkaban - both 13. And with Goblet of Fire, we were both 14. Now after that, I started to age a bit more quickly than he did (I was 21 to his 17 when the last book was published), but I never lost the feeling that Harry and I kind of grew up together. What if I had read them all at the same time? I would have been done with the entire series in a matter of weeks, rather than savoring them over the course of my entire adolescence.

Plus, having them come a year or more apart allowed me to grow up between books. I was about 12 when I started the series, but the first book--or even the first few books--would also have been great had I been a few years younger. But scenes from some later books are probably too intense or scary for a younger kid. And in Order of the Phoenix, when Harry was going through some serious teenage angst, so was I. I could relate, because, again, we were growing up together.

I want Jamie to have as wonderful an experience with these books as I did, but I'm afraid if he hears about them for his whole life, goes into them expecting them to be amazing, and reads them all in one sitting, he just won't have a chance. So what to do?

Here's my current plan: Home school him so he never hears about them from other kids, hide my copies and never mention them, and then one day, when he's about 10, leave Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on his pillow for him to find and enjoy all on his own.

Yes, it is that important.

5 funny things

2011-04-13T16:47:00.000-04:00

Oh, Mr. James.

As he gets older, this little boy gets to be a lot more work (I can't get ANYTHING done while he's awake now. I spend all my time saving either him or our belongings--or most often both--from impending doom), but he is also getting to be more and more fun. He has been cracking us up a lot recently. Here's just a sample of the things he's been doing.

#1. In the morning when Jamie wakes up, I nurse him and then usually bring him back to bed with us for a few minutes. We want a little more time before we have to get up, and Jamie spends the time crawling all over us and playing peek-a-boo with the blankets. A few days ago during this time, he started crawling over Thomas's belly, then put his head down and started blowing raspberries. We do this to his tummy all the time; it was SO cute to see him doing it back!

#2. Jamie crawls around all day, finding and trying to eat every tiny crumb and dust mote on the floor. It makes me feel like I need to vacuum three times a day. Sometimes, though, he thinks he has picked something up when he hasn't . . . and he still tries to put it in his mouth. This happens a lot with sunlight coming through cracks in the blinds and also with freckles. It is just too funny to see him trying to eat freckles.

#3. Jamie has a lot of rubber duckies that he plays with in the bath. His new thing is to set them all up on the side of the tub. No clue where he got the idea to do this.

#4. After his bath, we wrap him up in a hooded towel. I guess I got in the habit of looking in the mirror with him after he's wrapped up because now he expects it. As soon as he's got the towel on, he leans in the direction of the mirror, trying to look in, and as soon as he sees himself, he gets the biggest grin. I'd want to look in the mirror all the time too if I were as cute as he is!

#5. Our computer desk has a slide-out keyboard tray, which Jamie loves to pull out. Mommy doesn't love it so much because there are sharp corners right about his eye level. Even if I don't let him pull it out, though, he reaches up and tries to click the keys on both the keyboard and the mouse. He already knows that's what you do with them.

At the library

2011-04-12T17:39:00.000-04:00

What are we doing here, Mom?

What's this?

What could I possibly want with a book
that's already off the shelf?

I'm gonna go play.

Three whole shelves full of books to pull down??

I could do this all day.

Escape!

Fine, you caught me. Guess I'll climb up here
and yell instead.

oh, is this what we came for?

redesign

2011-04-12T08:28:00.000-04:00

You may have noticed I revamped the blog over the weekend. I'm pretty happy with the new design (even though some people *cough*Nathaniel*cough* may not be thrilled with the font. Too bad, I love it)!

I also have a new goal to write on here more often. I spent so many years in English classes being forced to write stuff that I didn't really enjoy or care about that I forgot that I actually used to like writing. I don't know if very much I have to say will interest other people, but I'm glad I have a forum where I can keep working on writing all the same. Plus the grandmas like to be kept up-to-date on the little one.

Mommy's little helper

2011-04-11T13:45:00.000-04:00

It's laundry day. Thank goodness I've got such a good helper.

spaghetti sauce part deux

2011-04-10T17:39:00.000-04:00

Remember this spaghetti sauce recipe that I proclaimed to be the best I'd ever had?

Since posting the recipe, I have made this sauce many, many times. We have done a few variations of the recipe as well:

ground turkey

I personally didn't like it as much with ground turkey. The sauce itself was still delicious, but every time I bit into a chunk of turkey, I wished it was beef. I know turkey is healthier, but I just don't really like it. I'd rather have beef less often instead. My brother Ben, however, makes everything with ground turkey, so I'm sure he likes it that way.

vegetarian

A while back, Thomas and I decided to have red meat only once a week and to eat at least one meatless meal a week too. Consequently, I've adapated a number of our recipes to be made with chicken or without meat at all. To make this recipe vegetarian, I (obviously) cut out the beef and add extra onion, a red pepper as well as a green, and a zucchini. It is DELICIOUS. We don't even miss the meat when we have it this way.

half beef/half pork

Tonight, at the recommendation of some friends, we are making the sauce with a mixture of ground beef and ground pork. I tasted it a few minutes ago, and I think it's going to be amazing! We're also planning to try it just with ground pork. I'll let you know how it goes.

Update: The beef/pork combination was super tasty. I didn't know how Jamie would do with the chunks in the sauce, so I blended some sauce for him and put it on macaroni noodles (they are easier to pick up than spaghetti). He gobbled it down and made the biggest mess!

Is Jamie secretly from Lord of the Rings?

2011-04-09T18:50:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time. This has left me with a few questions, most of which fall into the "what was Peter Jackson thinking when he made The Two Towers??" category. One perhaps more pressing question, however, is this:

Is this baby

actually this creature?

I know they don't look much alike at first glance, but they actually have a number of similarities...

Jamie often trots around on all fours in nothing but a diaper.

He is extremely interested in my wedding ring.

And he frequently tries to bite off my fingers.

On the other hand, he sounds more like a nazgul . . .

Jamie's spring break

2011-03-20T15:53:00.000-04:00

This past week was UT's spring break, so we were able to go home! We stayed at Thomas's parents' house since we stayed at my parents' over Christmas. It was an insanely busy week--we had so many people we wanted to see, especially since Jamie's sickness over Christmas break kept us from seeing very many people then. We had a great trip, and Jamie especially had tons of fun. He wanted to share his week with you...

Over break, Jamie played with his friends:

met lots of people--including another Jamie!

sat in his great-grandpa's chair:

played all around the house:

went out to lunch:

practiced climbing stairs:

turned 9 months old:

made lots of noise:

went on a Daddy ride:

celebrated St. Patrick's Day:

ate lots of nummy food:

played in the bath:

chewed on everything he could get his hands on:

spent time with his grandparents:

foolishly chose Tennessee to win the NCAA basketball tournament,

cut his 7th tooth,

and was generally the cutest boy around.

Jamie update!

2011-02-16T06:20:00.001-05:00

As of yesterday, Jamie is 8 months old!

And since it's been a while since I did an update, here he is at at 6 months:

and 7 months:
So much has changed since I last wrote a Jamie post. For one thing, he is crazy mobile now. Right around 6 months, he started sitting up unsupported. He was quite wobbily at first, but within a couple weeks he was pretty steady. He had been pushing up on his hands and knees for quite a while, and while we were home over Christmas, he started kind of inching his way forward by pushing up, scooting his knees forward, and flopping on his belly. Right after we got home from Christmas, a few days before he turned 7 months, he started full on crawling and was a pro shortly thereafter!
And it seemed like the minute he started crawling he started pulling himself up on everything in sight.
One of his favorite places to pull up is on bookcases, and he LOVES pulling books off the shelf.

On Christmas Eve, Jamie had his first taste of solid foods. We started with sweet potatoes. He did okay with them that day... but this picture gives a pretty good indication of how it's been going since:
He doesn't like purees, and he basically won't eat anything that he can't put in his mouth himself. We use the fresh feeder a lot, and I keep trying with cereal and purees, but I never get more than one bite in. I'll be glad when we can try more finger foods. Also, he will not under any circumstances drink from a sippy cup...but he LOVES drinking from a regular cup (with help obviously). Of course, I don't know how much he's actually swallowing; I think most of it just ends up down his front.

On the day he turned 6 months, Jamie cut his third tooth. Within about 2 weeks, he cut 3 more. They are ridiculously sharp, and in the past couple weeks he has become a biter. Fortunately not so much while he's nursing (we did have an issue with that for a couple of days in December, but I think I managed to teach him that if he was going to bite, he wasn't going to be eating), but he likes to bite everything else. Particularly my forearms and shoulders. I'm guessing he's teething again, but I can't feel any new teeth yet.

Jamie babbles and shrieks and squawks all the time; it is too cute! He also has started clapping in the past few weeks and I can't get enough of it. He loves to play peek-a-boo and to look in the mirror. Since it's been nice out recently, we've been playing at the park a lot. He enjoys the baby swings, and I am kept busy trying to keep him from eating dead leaves and grass.

some miscellaneous pictures of our cutie:

Christmas

2011-02-15T12:51:00.001-05:00

As you can see above, Jamie was very excited for Christmas.

And we were excited to be in Kirksville and not be traveling anymore! We only had one day in between getting back from France and leaving for Kirksville.

While we were home, we spent most of our time hanging out with our families. It was so good to see everyone, and it was the first time that most of my siblings had met Jamie. He also got to meet some of his cousins, and it was so fun to watch them play together (or really, watch them crawl over each other). Unfortunately, towards the end of our trip, Jamie got really sick. He had pink eye in both eyes and a terrible cough and runny nose. When we took him to the doctor, she said it looked like he was starting to get an ear infection, so she started him on both antibiotics and antibiotic eye drops. The antibiotics wreaked havoc on his digestive system, so we had to start giving him probiotics too. Trying to get him to take ANY of these things was an absolute nightmare. In any case, we didn't get to spend much time visiting friends because of his illness, which was a bummer, but overall we had a wonderful time and were so glad to see our families!

And now for the pictures...

Christmas day!

Visiting with friends

Cousins!

and some cute shots of our little man :)

France

2011-02-15T06:18:00.000-05:00

In December, the three of us went to France! We spent about half our time in Paris and half in Dampierre, where Thomas's family has a house. It is the cutest little French village. I LOVE walking around it; I always expect people to pop out of the windows and start singing "Bonjour" from Beauty and the Beast. Anyway. We mainly went so that Jamie could meet his French relatives (and vice versa). Thomas's cousin Vincent has a baby a few months younger than Jamie, so it was pretty much all about the babies!

Jamie and Adam meeting for the first time

cousins & second cousins

Papy with his 2 great-grandsons

Here we are with Thomas's aunt and uncle...

...and with his grandparents.

We didn't do much sight-seeing since we weren't there very long and wanted to spend most of our time just with family. But Thomas & I and Vincent & Juliette (and the babies, of course) did make one day trip to Orleans, where we had never been (though it is no real surprise that I had never been there). We went to the cathedral and walked around the city. It was very cold but we bundled up the babies and had a lot of fun.

We also were able to go out by ourselves a couple of times while Thomas's grandparents watched Jamie (how ridiculous is it that it's easier for us to go on a date in France than in Knoxville??). Here we are in Montmartre, with all of Paris behind us.

More pictures of the babies...

of course, Jamie tried to roll over on Adam

Just a note about our flights. Jamie was a fabulous traveler, far better than I anticipated on such long flights. He got plenty fussy at times, but really only when he was tired. It is so hard to get a baby to take a nap in a busy airport. Anyway, we had the worst luck on the way there. Our first flight, from Knoxville to Chicago, was delayed by about an hour for no good reason...and we only had an hour layover before the next flight. After arriving in Chicago and literally running through the airport (while pushing a stroller AND pulling a suitcase, I might add), we missed our flight to Paris by about 5 minutes. That five minutes ended up costing us about 12 hours worth of further delays and missed flights. On the plus side, Jamie has an unexpected extra stamp in his passport from the several hours we spent in Manchester.

We thought we were going to have an equally ridiculous time of it getting home because the entire airport was closed when we got there, no flights in or out because of a few inches of a snow, but we ended up only being a little bit delayed and still made our connecting flight to Knoxville. We were extremely lucky; Thomas's dad got stuck in London for like 4 extra DAYS because Heathrow completely shut down over 4 inches of snow. If there is anything this trip taught me, it is that, for some reason, Europe isn't really equipped to handle snow.

Other than the nonsense with our flights and all the neige, it was a wonderful trip!

Jamie at Charles de Gaulle

Thanksgiving

2011-02-04T11:14:00.000-05:00

I am afraid I have been woefully negligent of updating this blog in the past few months. I am slowly but surely going to get it up-to-date, but that means the next few posts will be a little old.

For some reason, I never posted anything from our trip to a corn maze in early November. We had a lot of fun, but the most memorable part of the trip was definitely when we got back to the car afterwards and Thomas reached into his pocket to pull out the car keys. . .and they WEREN'T THERE. That's right, they were lost somewhere in the maze. It's hard to think of a worse place to lose your keys. We were EXTREMELY lucky because we found them unbelievably quickly. Next time we will be a little more careful! It's really hard to get a good picture of all three of us when there's no one else to take it. We did not succeed that day, but I thought this picture was funny because of Jamie's little eyes peeking over the bottom edge.

Unfortunately, UT only gets Thursday and Friday off for Thanksgiving break, so we couldn't go home, but since Truman gets the whole week, Thomas's parents came for a visit the weekend before. It was nice to see them, and they were thrilled to get to play with Jamie. They also spoiled us rotten by taking us out to eat and taking us grocery shopping for our Thanksgiving dinner ingredients.
I have always helped out a lot with Thanksgiving dinner at home, but I had never before made the entire meal by myself. It's a lot of work! It was even more work than normal because I was making a dairy-free Thanksgiving. When Jamie was a couple months old, I realized that every time I ate a lot of dairy, he would get extremely fussy when he nursed. So I stopped eating dairy in August. It didn't make a huge difference for most of the meal, but I had to make homemade non-dairy cream of mushroom soup for the green bean casserole, which was definitely a lot more work than opening a can! I also learned from my pumpkin pies that soy milk is way better for baking than rice milk. Anyway, we had a really nice meal with enough food to feed us for the entire 4 day weekend, and we got to use some of the really nice dishes we got for our wedding for the first time.

And we were able to get a picture of all 3 of us with the camera's timer. Too bad Jamie wouldn't look at the camera no matter how many times we tried.

After Thanksgiving is over, it is officially Christmastime! Jamie got to see Santa at a craft fair we went to. I didn't know how he'd react--or if he'd react at all...he often looks quite stoic in public--but he turned and looked at Santa and tried to grab his beard. It was super cute.

We put up our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. It's a good thing Jamie wasn't crawling yet then, or I'm pretty sure he would have tried to climb it and eat all the ornaments. Can't wait to see what he does with it next year....

5 months

2010-11-22T15:08:00.001-05:00

Our little boy turned 5 months last week! He is just the cutest little man. Well...not that little, we're estimating he weighs about 20 pounds now!

At 5 months, Jamie loves playing with and trying to eat his feet, and we can't keep him on his back. He rolls over all the time, and he can push his chest and tummy all the way off the floor. He is also very good at spinning himself in circles while on his tummy. He tries to grab anything and everything within his reach (and out of his reach too), but once he gets ahold of one thing, he quickly loses interest and reaches for something else...but only after shoving it in his mouth first, of course. He has 2 very cute but very sharp little teeth, which he uses to gnaw on our fingers (ouch!). He loves going for walks and seeing new places. If he's being particularly fussy, I can pop him in the stroller and go for a walk and it almost always calms him down. Jamie has the cutest smile and the most adorable laugh, even if he doesn't laugh as often as I'd like. I could listen to it all day! He's pretty ticklish; the best way to make him squeal and giggle is to give him kisses on his tummy and his side.

Our biggest problem with Jamie is his sleep habits. He usually does pretty well at night, waking up just once (we've had a few bad nights lately, but last night he slept for 9 hours before waking up!), but he only lets Mommy put him to bed, and it can take several tries before he'll stay asleep. He is a TERRIBLE napper. It's rare for him to nap longer than 45 minutes, and sometimes he won't even go that long. If I hold him through the whole nap, I can get him to sleep longer but then I have no chance to get anything done. It can be very frustrating, but he usually wakes up with the biggest smile on his face, so that helps make up for it. I swear, if he took good naps, he would be such an easy baby. I just got a book called The No Cry Nap Solution, which has some good ideas I want to try out, but as we're going to France in just a couple weeks and then straight to Kirksville for Christmas, I feel like the jet lag and being away from home would screw up what little progress we'd be able to make by then, so I may wait til January to start them. I'll keep you posted, though... Any suggestions would also be appreciated (as long as they're not of the cry-it-out variety)!

We love our little man so much and feel so lucky to have him!