Saturday, October 30, 2010

Puppy Chow

Puppy chow is a really good treat that is easy to make and very addicting!  I made it today to take to a fall festival because it's easy to fill up a cup and eat it while walking around.  Here's the recipe if you want to give it a try.  Bonus:  It's a yummy gluten free dessert, too!

1 C chocolate chips
1/2 C creamy peanut butter
1/4 C butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla
10 C Corn Chex cereal
2 C powdered sugar

Combine chocolate chips, peanut butter, and butter in a microwaveable bowl.  Heat on high for 1 min., then stir.  Add vanilla and stir well. 
Place cereal in large bowl.  Pour chocolate mixture over ceral and toss lightly to coat.  Sprinkle 1 C of powdered sugar, toss to coat, then repeat with the remaining sugar. 
YUM!  Here's what the finished product looks like:

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

James' Words at almost 2 years old

It's so interesting to see the difference between boys and girls.  It really is neat to see how from the very beginning of their existence, they display different characteristics.  James and Anna Ruth have been so different, it blows me away!  James is so into vehicles of all varieties--cars, trucks, airplanes, trains, tractors, etc.  He plays with his cars ALL DAY LONG!  He rolls them on different surfaces, pushes them across the kitchen floor, and rams them into stuff.  When he's not doing that, he's climbing, throwing, running, or destroying.  He also loves to be outside digging in the dirt or throwing and kicking balls.  He is obsessed with Pop-Pop (my dad) and his Daddy.  So with all that activity, he doesn't have much time for talking.  Now, he certainly gets his point across, just not necessarily with words.  I remember at this age, Anna Ruth was speaking in complete sentences and already talked incessantly.  I don't think I even attempted to make a list of her vocabulary, because it would have been such a long list.  But I'm finally getting together a small list of James' words now that he's almost 2 years old!  Lately, he has started trying more, instead of just shaking his head when we would ask him to say a word.  So, a lot of these are pretty recent new words.
Here's the list:
Mama
Dada
Anna (for Anna Ruth)
Pop-Pop
Bi-buh (Bible)
bye-bye
eyes
all done
mine
ni-ni (night-night)
hi
bus
ball
boo-dah (he says this for shoe, and we have no idea why)
nana (banana)
buzzzz (birds)
uh-oh
Hun (he calls me this sometimes, because he hears Rich saying it)
gah-gah (lollipop)
my-min (vitamin and medicine)
Amen
He will also answer the first two catechism questions:
Who made you?  Gah (God)
What else did God make?  Aaaall tins (all things)

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Blue or Pink?

You can see the arm and hand above the head.
On Monday I had my ultrasound to find out if the baby is a boy or girl as well as to make sure everything is developing normally.  It went well; so far everything looks good.  She did have trouble getting a good look at the face, so I am scheduled for another ultrasound in a month to look at that again.  The baby will be a good bit bigger and so it will be hard for him to hide then! :)  They want to check for cleft lip and palate, but she said she doesn't suspect anything, it's just routine to check it.  Anyway, during the ultrasound the baby was moving all around and I was thinking to myself that it probably was a boy because of how active he was.  But I asked the ultrasound technician to write the gender down in an envelope and put the pictures in another envelope for me to keep.  I then took the envelope to Bi-Lo where I got them to make a cake with white icing and either a blue or pink inside.  They don't technically do that, but when they heard what it was about, one of the ladies in the bakery said she would bring her own stuff from home to make the cake since she thought it was such a fun idea.  She did a great job, and it was funny because all the ladies in the bakery were telling me to come back with pictures so they could see the reactions.  They really got into it!
 
The pretty cake from Bi-Lo

The next night my parents and Rich's parents and us all went out to dinner at Sesame Burgers & Beer.  If you've never been, you should try it!  Tuesday night is $3 burger night, so it's a great deal for a huge, really good burger.  And they let you choose how you want it cooked, so it's not a well-done dried out burger.  I always get sweet potato fries to go with it, and they are so good!  Anyway, after eating, we cut open the cake to find out all together what this next baby will be.  It was a fun and exciting way to discover it was a boy! 

Rich and I cutting the cake

We pulled up the piece and it was blue!

We are all excited about another little boy!