24 Carrots Baby!

Pallas has been trying baby foods for a few weeks now and she seems to be happy with this new development. It’s been a new experience for me too since I decided to make baby food for her instead of buying all those jars . I’ve armed myself with some new supplies (believe it or not, I actually didn’t have any ice cube trays to freeze the food in. I guess they aren’t big sellers either because when I went to Wal-Mart to buy them I had to ask where to find them, and when we did find them they were covered in a layer of dust), and I was pleased to discover that it’s really not much of a hassle to fix the food for a baby - they like things like overcooked carrots and potatoes or a boiled or baked apples and pears -so it pretty well suits my cooking style of starting the pot, then promptly forgetting about it until someone walks into the kitchen and says, "Hey - what’s this cooking?" And because they like things soft and runny at first, my blender is seeing the most action it’s had since last Cinco De Mayo (Banana Colada anyone?)
I am a little disturbed however about the fact I seem to be obsessed with checking the recipes before working with each new single flavor food - after all there’s no seasoning involved and pretty much every recipe reads the same (wash, cut, boil or steam 8-10 minutes, puree…) but I keep checking my book anyway - I’ve even checked the internet for second opinions, to make sure I’m using the best recipe I guess, but after finding this applesauce recipe for slightly older babies -
Best Baby Applesauce
· One sweet apple, such as a Red Delicious or a Gala apple
· Heaping cup of Mother love
METHOD
Peel one half of a fresh apple. Hold the apple in your hand on the unpeeled side. Scrape the peeled side of the apple slowly with a spoon. This will puree the apple. Feed spoonfuls to the baby.
Babies eat slowly. By the time the first spoonful has been swallowed, you will have more ready. You are now in the same time zone with the child.
Relax and enjoy this moment with the baby.
I think I’ll just stick with the book.

And Tayne, well as you can see, he isn’t taking all this as well as Pallas - but we have reached a compromise. He’s agreed to try new foods that aren’t yucky - I for one can’t wait to discover what will meet that qualification.

Almost March Madness

Its almost March, and that means something important is coming up soon here in Texas. Something that has our family eager to participate and energized in a way that makes the senders of promotional mailings proud of their work. Sorry Hillary and Barack, I’m not talking about the Texas primary - I’m talking about the 20th Anniversary season of Sea World Texas.
Personally, I can’t believe it’s been 20 years - I don’t like to think about it too much, because then I have to reconcile my age with memories of going to the park when it first opened here in Texas, and I clearly have memories of being a teenager instead of being the 7 or 8 years old the age I currently like to consider myself would require me to have been at the time…er, uh -enough about me! It's about the kids...
Since the day the flyer came in the mail Tayne has been planning - Swimsuits have been tried on, the official park season calendar consulted, and the official Sea World Texas website mysteriously added to my homepage tabs. Not to mention the frequent reminders to, "Buy season passes today!" -the price of which, a mere $219 plus tax for 4 when purchased on the website, Tayne felt was a little steep until he realized that each person only had to come up with $55 (an amount right around what he has saved up in the bank) - after this in addition to the frequent calls to "buy now, so we don’t miss a minute of the fun!" (Never mind the fact that he specifically refused to consider any of those minutes that the park is open the entire month of March because the Lost Lagoon water park doesn’t open until April- it seems he’s discovered arguments provided by advertisers can be a strong ally when making your case to the unconvinced ) came the questions, -Do you have $55 dollars saved? Do you think Grandma Dee has $55 dollars? Do you think that’s a lot of money? Does Sea World like a lot of money?… So, when Grandma Dee called last night to say she was buying the tickets (online no less!) Tayne had a new hero!
So get ready whales, and photo department at Wal-Mart, we’re coming back to San Antonio - and this year Pallas is ready for the fun!

What goes on in a week that we don't speak about...

Here's a quick review of some of the things I didn't get around to blogging about this week -

*Went out to see if I could snap a photo of some of the birds who come to our feeder and instead I found this -
-Not exactly a ninja are you there squirrel.


*Helped to finish off these -
Why yes, it is a significantly larger than normal box of chocolates, but there is much love in our home when it can be expressed by chocolate. Besides, it was 50% off on Saturday after Valentine’s - sadly not 50% off calories.

*Remembered I planted this about two weeks ago -
What is it, you say? Why it's a gooseberry bush! They aren't supposed to do well here in the heat, but he's tucked away somewhere that get's afternoon shade so we'll just see how he does come summer. The soil seems to agree with him so far -am I a great gardener or what!?!


*Cooked and ate some of these - Rutabags of course- don't feel bad if you didn't get it, I'd never had one either. But apparently babies are supposed to love the taste of them. To me they tasted like a potato with a slight cabbage taste (Troy said potato and squash, but he doesn't eat a lot of vegetables, and I've never once seen him eat squash since we've been together, so I'm not sure what he's basing that on.)The guy at the checkout didn't know what they were either - when he asked me if they were turnips, I said no, they were rutabagas, so he saved them until the last thing to scan - looked it up on the little code chart they had - typed it in super fast and hit total even faster (yep, he counted them as turnips). -Why ask if you aren't going to believe me???


*And started work on these -I'm crocheting crazy chickens/birds for Easter. They cover a large plastic egg, and are just super cute. The second from the left is the original that I'm basing them off of. I'll show them off again when I finish them.

See, this is the type of stuff going on when I say, "I've been busy." Now, the kids are up so I've really got to go. Today is Thursday, those are always pretty busy...

Nintendo has done it again

Yes, Nintendo has done it again - Tayne is now convinced that Pallas needs a Nintendo DS and that he will save his own money to buy her one. I can’t image where he got the idea he could save $129.95 on his non-existent income, perhaps it’s from playing these Nintendo games full of characters running around collecting gold coins from sewers, clouds, oceans, etc. as a means of getting rich. Needless to say, such a noble goal deserves a little help, so we’ve decided to start giving him an allowance -sort of. I guess you could consider it more tipping, than a salary or allowance, because he really doesn’t have a choice whether or not to complete whatever we are asking him to do - the tasks/chores are not optional -but we decided to offer him payment for excellence or hassle free completion (doing the task independently without constant reminders, or having a good attitude and/or prompt attention to the given task when asked to complete it). Hopefully it will teach him a few things like: 1) to recognize the difference between quality work and just completed work. 2)Even if you aren’t that into a task faking a good attitude and just getting it done and over with takes a lot less time and is more rewarding than complaining endlessly about the injustice and being forced to eventually complete it anyway. 3) Even when the pay is small, if you work hard for enough of it things start to add up. And believe me the pay is pretty small - we’ve talked him into accepting 50 cents per task (quite a fine negotiation down from the initial figure of $10 per task he felt his services were worth) that we deem payable (obviously we aren’t going to pay him to do everything) - and bottom line - he has the potential to earn about $15 a week. Another requirement we’ve placed on him is savings. So we don’t have to lug around endless supplies of quarters we’ve agreed to cash him out once a week and he is required to put at least 1 / 2 in the bank to save for long term projects - the only problem he could see with this arrangement was that he didn’t have a bank account, so Saturday it was off to the credit union to open a new account! He had a great time setting up his account. As Troy filled out the paperwork Tayne supplied the information such as birthday, address, phone number, and any time Troy came to a space that he could leave blank or skip Tayne would insist (much to the amusement of the bank officer), "Just draw a line through it!" -gee, it’s nice to know he’s learned something from doing the written portion of his school work (sigh!). Even though he had to leave his money in the bank, he came out of there pretty well off - not only did he get the receipt for his deposit (very important for his home bookkeeping as he is keeping a running total of cash in bank and cash on hand while saving for his goal) he got a free t-shirt as well. I was a little miffed about that because I’ve been banking at the same place for over 7 years and they’ve never offered me a free t-shirt, come to think of it I don’t even think my first box of checks were free. I wonder why these mini-customers get all the perks- not just the free t-shirts, they have huge bowls of suckers everywhere in there - it’s like little piles of rainbows at the teller windows and the tables where you fill out deposit slips -the kids don’t even have to ask for one,they are just there for the taking. Meanwhile,here I am stuck using a pen that’s attached to the counter with a chain. I guess adults are supposed to find fiscal solvency fun in itself. - Yay!?!

On a totally unrelated note - it occured to me that I don't think I ever took any pictures of Pallas' butterfly crib bumper after I finished it. Just Chillin' in her crib...
If you squint maybe you can see her in there!

My funny Val & Tayne

Happy Valentine’s Day - When Tayne was little we used to call it Val & Tayne’s Day, but now that has to work on spelling and grammar every day he doesn’t think that’s cute, and he tells us we are incorrect, which I don’t think is cute, so we are back to the more traditional spelling and pronunciation.Most of the surprises were given last night - both Troy and Tayne bought me flowers -Troy bought a dozen roses for me (well, there were 11 the same shape and color and one mismatched one stuck in the back and off to the side that when commented on was hastily deemed representative of the uniqueness of our love, or possibly meant for Pallas - I think someone just screwed up making the arrangements (I'm more of a cynic than a romantic -which is probably why I don't get flowers all that often), but a rose is a rose I guess...) Tayne is a guy after my own heart - whenever he picks out the flowers he always brings me something that looks like a sad little bundle of weeds - I’m always surprised the flowers he brings home are even for sale - but I really kind of enjoy them because secretly dandelions are my favorite flowers - they are so cheery and you can’t just get them at a store - it’s really the effort I enjoy more than the flowers & Tayne always seems to find a way to combine the two (effort and sad flowers) in a way only a mother could love; seriously though if he ever brings flowers to a girl I think it would be a deal breaker…
There were also treats to be made - Tayne picked out some peel and bake cookies from the store where he got the flowers, so we made those up before bedtime. They didn’t turn out so stellar, they looked about the same uncooked as they did when cooked (although less floppy) and they tasted heavily of the excess red dye pumped into them - but it was a fun activity with the kids.
I did discover something puzzling though - the tray on the highchair is as big as a cookie sheet. Why? Why does and infant or even a toddler need that much space for food? Their food comes in tiny jars, and the store is full of toddler size food accessories that are tiny and therefore somehow more appealing and friendly then my full sized dinnerware and utensils… but that’s a rant for another day - The kids are up, and I’m sure we’ve got plans, hopefully we can all survive the love!

Cameras and Kids

Exciting day all around! I finally have a new camera -which explains the close up flower photo (testing out the macro function in outdoor light)-Granted, I don't really know what I'm doing,and I therefore I'm not sure if this shot is impressive or not, but even if you aren't impressed with the photo, you can marvel at the fact that I have blooming hibiscus in early Feburary -I'm probably even less talented at and knowledgable about gardening than photography, so I was pretty pleased with both the subject of the photo and the outcome of my camera work.
The camera actually arrived last night (after riding around all day on the UPS truck leaving around 4:18 am - thank you online tracking info -from the depot literally right across the highway from our house, extra annoying to me because it was supposed to be here last Friday BEFORE Tayne's birthday (didn't happen - lazy UPS!) and they don't deliver on the weekends...so much ranting, but I'll let it go, because at least it's here now) but by the time the battery charged up - no one was in the mood to help me test out action shots. (This in fact is probably the most opposite of action you can get)

-at least it takes good shots with indoor lighting at night....

Morning wasn't much better - it seems I have a family of slow risers Rest up kids, no really, I'm sure your day is going to get tougher...

And it did by the way - today was Dr. appointments all around, and *BONUS* everybody needed at least one shot! (No, I didn't photograph the saddness) Turns out everyone is healthy - Pallas is up to 15 pounds and 25 inches long. ~ It won't be long until she can try solid food!

(I wonder if they make a waterproof case for my camera...)

7 is the new 30

Today is Tayne’s birthday! He’s turning 7. There’s no cake today – because we had a party last weekend with his cousin and did all that stuff (the singing, the cake, the candles…) he didn’t want to do it again (a direct quote from when we tried to talk him into picking out a cake yesterday – “Didn’t we already do that?”) What?!? Who refuses a reason for cake, especially when you get to pick it out? I guess it’s a good thing I never got around to setting up a local party and inviting people over, and when did 7 become the new 30? We talked him into birthday doughnuts at least (he didn’t want the candles, but I couldn’t resist!) – Anyway, here's a few picts from the "other" party...

Dino cakes (the fearsomeness was somehow not translated in the decorating process, instead of fighting, the are just sort of waving hello to each other.
Here's what we did already.
Can you see the crazy fun?
here they are with Uncle Scott (YOu can see Pallas' hair is about the same color as Tayne's)
Posing with Aunt Tammy - hum, maybe I should stop saying I don't know where Tayne's red hair comes from...

The Singer and the Song, Oh -and the Symphony...

Yes, that is a picture of Air Supply, the band who’s been making love out of nothing at all since the mid-70’s, that Pallas is holding and shamelessly drooling over. She was too young to go to the concert in Austin this past weekend, so she had to settle for a souvenir photo. I’m sure the die-hard fan her great aunt Tammy will be so pleased. The concert was very interesting to say the least – I suppose see how it was a symphony pops concert, I was expecting something a little more subdued and utilizing the orchestra than the show they put on (which consisted of the band crammed onstage in front of the orchestra with about a 3-4 foot wide path for the two leads Graham and Russell to pace back and forth while singing/connecting with the audience (ie -Who's my special lady? -why yes, it is you - smile/wink!) while performing a show that was pretty much I gather, like their normal set complete with mood lighting, wardrobe changes, forays into the audience, etc…) but all in all it was a fun show, although I don’t think they’ll be invited back to play with the Austin symphony again anytime soon (did I mention that near the end of the show they invited the audience to “move closer” –ie rush the stage (and people did by the way, much to the horror of the little old ladies ushering for the symphony, who to their credit did their best to at least keep the fans off the steps to the stage while apologizing to symphony season ticket holders about how somewhere they seem to have lost control of both the crowd and the artists –ha ha ha.)) The music was pretty good though, Russell has a wonderful voice and a presence that makes you either love him or grudgingly like him/loath yourself for it – I really don’t think you could dislike the man if you met him in person; and Graham is fun to watch because you can tell he’s very passionate about his music (he really tries to sell the notion that it is rock, not just fluffy soft rock, the way he jumps up and down and plays those guitars of his – if you need a mental picture think air guitar competition). They performed lots of their songs that people know, I like to joke that my favorite one was the one about love (funny, because it’s pretty much all they sing about and it’s somewhere in the title of most of them; “All out of love,” “Lost in Love,” “Making love out of nothing at all,” “The one that you love,” “Faith in Love” – well, you get the idea) and there were times they wanted the audience to sing along – I did not – my policy when it comes to audience participation at concerts has always been, “Hey band, stop being lazy and sing your own songs,” after all, that’s what we paid for, and since they are the professionals we are just going to sound horrid when you start singing with us again –but then again maybe that’s the point they are trying to get across – either way, the fans in the crowd seemed to love it. I don’t know, maybe I’m just jaded, being about three months out from a reminder of what all that “love” gets a woman while the men can just keep on rockin’/singin’ about it to be a super fan of this group, but the concert was fun & annoyingly now I may have to go see a regular show by these guys to see what they could possibly do if this was their idea of what to do at a symphony pops show. To their credit, live they did seem more edgy than their CD's portray them - hum, maybe I need better speakers or a bass boost or something …So when are they playing in Vegas???