Ben's crib!

We weren't planning on getting a crib for Ben at first. When Kaylee outgrew the bassinet we just put her on the floor on a little mattress, and we were going to do the same for Ben. But then I got nervous, because the kids have been sharing a room for a while now and I'm not sure that I trust Kaylee with him in the morning when they wake up. I'm afraid of her putting blankets on his head, things like that. So we decided it would be a good idea to get a crib. That way I only have to worry about her throwing toys into it and perhaps climbing on or into it. :/

Conveniently, a friend of mine was giving one away a few weeks ago, so we snatched it right up. It was in pretty good shape, but a little chipped so it needed a new coat of paint. Anyone that knows me knows a coat of paint for something is NOT a problem. I welcome it.

Here it is before: 

I sanded down all the loose paint and roughed up the glossy finish. Then I went to Lowe's and got a quart of the best paint I could find. Paint and primer in one, low odor, zero VOC, in a nice chocolate brown.

I needed to do 3 coats of paint, and then touch up a few spots that I missed after that. I used a little foam brush roller. I seriously swear by those when I want a nice, smooth finish. A paint brush just doesn't measure up. Not even close!

Here's after:

We rearranged their room a bit and Kaylee's bed is now in the opposite corner. I LOVE the brown with the yellow and green. I think I might actually change the color scheme of the room to have brown instead of white, I like it so much. The quilt I made for Kaylee before she was born, but she has long since outgrown it, and it works perfectly with the room colors, and brings everything together. I love it!

Ben likes it too. :)

Stuck, Mommy...

 I think this one is completely self-explanatory.
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 She climbed in, buckled herself, and put the tray on. Then called me to help. She loves to buckle, but can't usually get herself unbuckled.

 She's ALWAYS climbing in here. She can sometimes get out, sometimes not so much...

 She was playing in Ben's car seat and started rocking it a little too hard, I guess, and fell over backwards.

This, I believe, is the winner. It's kind of hard to see, but she climbed into the bottom of Ben's bassinet and zipped herself in. Yeah, all she could get out was a finger...

My "easy" child

http://www.homeschooling.net/blog/childraising/how-to-make-your-kids-deaf/

This article really hit home with me. I have people tell me how easy my toddler is. And then turn around and let their kid dump food all over, spill their drink, hit their friend, have a tantrum about something, and they say 'Oh, stop that." and do nothing. Nothing at all. And then turn to me, and say "See? This kid is crazy. He's so hard!"

My child is not "easy." She's very smart, which makes it easier for her to understand what I'm asking of her, but you know what? She is STILL a toddler. She still has tantrums, she still gets mad and hits, she still won't always eat what I give her, she's not an magical angel child. I promise. But she listens to me. Because I talk to her, in ways that are appropriate for her age, and I follow through with the things I say. Of course I'm not perfect, and we've had some really tough times. I have my weaknesses too, things I really need to work on, and things I am working on. But for us, that's enough. For now. ;)

Recent projects...

I've had tons of projects I've been working on lately. I tend to think of about 500 different things I want to do, then start 20 of them all at the same time, finish a couple, get bored of the rest of them and stuff them into the closet. And then start 20 NEW projects! (If my mom is reading this, she's probably laughing because I've done that same thing for years...)

So of course a couple of weeks ago I realized I had a ton of half-finished projects hidden away somewhere. I was working on ruffled pillowcases, four bibs for Ben, a fleece pullover for Kaylee, little ties for Ben, four pairs of Christmas pajamas, winter hats for Ben and Kaylee, a wall picture arrangement and then fixing all the holes in the wall that I made in the process of getting the wall arrangement up (yes, that was a project for sure :O), finishing a small table that I just made, painting the living room lamp shades, sanding and repainting a crib we just got from a friend for Ben, making a canvas for a painting in the living room and painting said canvas.

I decided I needed to really finish all of my current projects before I started any new ones. I don't know if I've ever actually finished all my projects, but I'm working on it now. I'm resolved to not start any new ones till I'm done with these. Well, except for maybe a couple of little ones. Like the winter hats were kind of an afterthought when it snowed 8 inches the last couple of days.

Show off time!

Here is my table I just made. We needed a real home for our fish tank, and Will put me up to the task of designing and building one. I think it turned out alright. It's just cheap pine boards stained with ebony Rustoleum stain and finished with a water base polyurethane. I pieced the top with 1x3's and I love the rustic look.

These are the bibs I made for Ben. The only one I don't like is the train one because I made the border too wide and it got kind of wrinkly after washing it, but overall I think they turned out cute. The main purpose is to keep him dry anyway, so I don't really care that they're not perfect. I've never done edging around something curvy, so it was good to learn how to do that.

My picture arrangement - These were all cheap frames from DI. I painted almost all of them. The yellow ones were a pain to paint because they needed like...20 coats, or they looked green.

And the winter hats. Both hats are made from leftovers from other projects (haha!).

This is Kaylee's sweatshirt. It said on the pattern that it was "loose fitting." Well, they weren't lying. It will probably fit her till she's like, 10. But it's warm and cozy for her, so it works.


I've been having a lot of fun around here if you can't tell. :) I also finished all four pairs of our Christmas pajamas which of course I can't post pictures yet, but they are SUPER cute!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

I've always loved cinnamon rolls. Like...really, really loved them. It took me a while to get them right, but I finally found a good recipe and changed it to my liking. This year I decided to tweak it a bit more and make pumpkin cinnamon rolls. Here is the recipe:

Dough:

1 C       warm milk (1 minute in the microwave is about right)

1/4 C    warm water

1 T       sugar

1 T       yeast

 2          eggs, beaten

1/2 C   sugar

1/2       cup pumpkin (I use a 15 oz can and separate it)

1 t        vanilla extract

1/2 t     salt

1 t        cinnamon

1/4 t     nutmeg

Dash    allspice

5 C      bread flour

1. Dissolve the sugar in the warm milk and water. Sprinkle the yeast on top, swirl with a fork, and let it get nice and foamy.
2. Add all other ingredients, mixing well after each one. Add the flour one cup at a time, and when it gets close to the right consistency, only add a tiny bit at a time. You want the dough to be soft, smooth, and sticky to touch, but it shouldn't get stuck ON your finger. Does that make sense?? You don't want it dry or you'll have heavy, dense rolls.
3. Lightly coat with oil, if desired, and let rise for an hour or two or until doubled in size.
4. Grease your work area with nonstick spray or light oil. Plop the dough out onto the greased area, but don't knead it or punch it down. Simply start rolling it out. That way it's still really soft and easy to work with and you can get it in the right shape and size easily. As you can see from my picture below, I don't worry too much about the shape. Umm...it's not very pretty. But it works.

Filling:
1/2 C   pumpkin (or whatever is left in your can if you used the 15 oz size)
1 C      brown sugar
2 T      cinnamon
1/4 t     nutmeg
Dash    allspice

1. Spread the pumpkin by itself evenly over the rolled out dough. Mix together the rest of the ingredients. Sprinkle on the top of the pumpkin and lightly pat with your fingers. (Now I want to warn you that if you mix all those ingredients together and spread them on at once, you might have a drippy mess. I don't think I need to tell you how I know that.)
2. Roll up the dough loosely and pinch to seal. I like to cut my rolls with a bread knife, but you can use dental floss too. Either way works very well. And don't worry if your dental floss is mint flavored - it's not enough to rub off on the rolls!

 
3. Arrange in two greased 9x13" pans, making sure the rolls are not touching each other. Or at least, not squished together. It's okay if some of the edges are lightly touching. Let rise until they look nice and puffy.
4. Bake in a 350 oven for around 20-25 minutes. You want them to be nice and golden brown. If you don't cook them quite long enough you'll have doughy middles, which some people like, but I can't stand doughy bread. Especially in cinnamon rolls, because not only is it doughy, but kind of soggy as well. Yuck!

Icing:
This is the best part!!!
3 oz       cream cheese, room temperature
6 T        butter, softened
2 t         vanilla extract
1 1/2 C  powdered sugar

Mix together till creamy and smooth (you can add more or less powdered sugar depending on your taste and preference). Spread over hot rolls, and serve! Enjoy!!

Notes:

If you want to make regular cinnamon rolls, use butter instead of pumpkin in both the filling and the dough. Omit all the spices in the dough. Take out the allspice and nutmeg in the filling, and instead of 2 tablespoons of cinnamon, add 3.

This recipe makes quite a lot of cinnamon rolls. I always want to make a lot, because I feel if you're going to go through ALL the work of making them, you may as well make a ton! Problem is, after a day or two, they're not so yummy anymore, and it's hard to eat 2 dozen cinnamon rolls in a day. But I came up with the perfect solution. After they are all cooked, frosted, and cooled, take them out of the pan, put them on a jelly roll pan and flash freeze them (30 minutes works). Them put them in a bag and stick them in the freezer. Now whenever anyone wants a hot cinnamon roll, zap it in the microwave for about 40 seconds. It tastes like it just came out of the oven! I'm not even kidding, it's amazing. I've tried freezing them uncooked, but they just never taste as good, plus it takes a LOT longer to cook when you want them. And you have to make the frosting on top of that! So I much prefer the other way.

Halloween

Halloween was SO fun this year!! I've really never been hugely into Halloween honestly - I always liked dressing up and getting candy as a kid, but it's never been super fun for me I guess. Living out in the middle of nowhere in MN made it hard to go trick-or-treating, not to mention it was always freezing cold.

Kaylee loved the whole idea of going to knock on people's doors, saying "dookie-dook" (LOL!) and getting candy for it. She has a little trouble with enunciation sometimes, but it worked.

I never dress up anymore (though I kind of wanted to this year, just didn't bother...maybe next year I'll consider it if Will agrees to joining me), but it's getting to be more fun with little kids. Our neighborhood was AWESOME this year! There were lots of trick-or-treaters, but the best part was the Derricott's haunted house and train rides. They are a family in our ward. The train was a riding lawn mower all decked out and fixed up to look like a train with barrels as the train cars - I don't have a picture but now I wish I did, because it's hard to describe. Anyway, it was very cool, and Kaylee loved it.

We had a friend in the ward watch our kids while we went through the haunted house. The scariest part for me was the clown following us and practically breathing down our neck while smacking the wall. I. Hate. Clowns. It was very fun. I'm seriously not sure how they did it, but it was much bigger and longer than I expected for a homemade haunted house.

The best part? I was wearing shorts, a light long sleeved shirt, and flip-flops and I was comfortable. Perfect weather for trick-or-treating. All in all I would say it was probably the best Halloween I've had, and it makes me want to be more fun next year and actually dress up...

After trick-or-treating and everything, Will and I put the kids to bed and ate candy, cuddled, and finished the last movie in our Harry Potter marathon. What a perfect evening!