Snow Day!

You know all that warm "winter" weather we've been enjoying all season long...well to make up for lost time, March 26th (it's technically Spring now, ya know!) decided to dump over a foot of snow on us. I played Christmas music in the morning, had some friends over to help make cinnamon rolls, and enjoyed Taylor coming home at 1PM since his office closed early. It was a great day. And today has been just about as wonderful. Tay slept in, and we went outside and played while he shoveled snow. And this afternoon, I made homemade soft pretzels - SO yum. Warren helped me dump all the ingredients, stir it, and "punch" the dough. In his words - "Super dumping, Warren!". Thanks Lindsay Moss for hooking me up with the recipe. I'll never eat a mall pretzel again! (Recipe at the bottom for those who share my love of soft, buttery pretzels)

It's a little deep for Warren to handle.

"Why are you taking a picture!? Help me!"

Check it out!

I've already had 3...maybe 3 more for dinner??

Buttery and Soft Pretzels

4 teaspoons active dry yeast

1 teaspoon white sugar

1 1/4 cups warm water

5 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup white sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1/2 cup baking soda

4 cups hot water

1/4 cup kosher salt, for topping

1. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
2. In a large bowl, mix together flour, 1/2 cup sugar, and salt. Make a well in the center; add the oil and yeast mixture. Mix and form into a dough. If the mixture is dry, add one or two tablespoons of water. Knead the dough until smooth, about 7 to 8 minutes. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
3. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). In a large bowl, dissolve baking soda in hot water.
4. When risen, turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a rope and twist into a pretzel shape. Once all of the dough is all shaped, dip each pretzel into the baking soda solution and place on a greased baking sheet. Sprinkle with kosher salt.
5. Bake in preheated oven for 8 minutes, until browned.
6. Spread a little butter on right as they come out of the oven and let it melt in. :) Or top however you'd like - parmesan, cinnamon/sugar, etc.
   

Warren...

With Warren about to be de-throned by a cute little baby, I thought I'd try to get a few Warren posts in this week and next. Here he is being excited about his CHOCOLATE MONEY that Laura sent him from Disneyworld. If you need to get in W's good graces, chocolate money is the way to go. Doesn't he look so old in these pictures? My baby is growing up...



We visited some friends, the Mangeris family, on Sunday. It was great catching up with them, we hadn't seen them in almost 2 years. They had a nice, big stash of action figures and Coleson let W have a Woody and Buzz. This kid is in heaven. Here he is having a cookout with them (just like Sid in the movie tells Woody they'll have when he tosses him on the BBQ) Since there isn't a grill to use in the kitchen, a toaster oven will have to do. Funny kid.

My Monday Night

Taylor here. So I was having constant chest pains all last weekend -- nothing terribly painful; just a constant pressure. Of course, that meant the whole weekend I was thinking thoughts like "should I jack up my life insurance?" and "Which one of my friends is Steph going to marry when my heart stops this week?"

Finally, the pain worsened enough to scare me into submission. Monday night I spent three hours in the emergency room, where I explained my symptoms to at least 15 people, was prepped for an IV (on both arms b/c they screwed up the first drilling site) to which I was never hooked up, got an EKG and a chest x-ray, and read the latest issue of Probate & Property (riveting, of course). Oh, and I spent at least twenty minutes throughout the night staring at my heart and blood-oxygen monitors, seeing if I could make the numbers go up or down just by thinking about it. (For the curious among you, it worked.)

After all my tests were done, the doctor (who could not have been more than two years older than me -- is that not scary?) came in to give me my prognosis. I have to admit, for a few seconds I was terrified. Then he uttered those glorious words: "You have pneumonia."

Hallelujah!

I never thought I'd be so happy to hear that I had contracted the eighth-most deadly disease in America. Of course, when you're thinking that your bad heart is about to make you another government statistic, the mind finds joy in strange places.

And, to make things even better, it looks like I have a bacterial infection, meaning they loaded me up with all sorts of wonderful pills. Pills are good -- they make it so I'm not contagious and they let me go to work when I probably should be home resting. If everything works out, I'll be clear before the baby comes.

All in all I feel fine -- just playing the waiting game while my lungs drain themselves. And, yes, I am accepting sympathy cookies for anyone who's thinking of dropping them off.

25 Things I Hate About Facebook

This was on my brother and SIL's blog. Too funny.

Bumps

Don't call social services; our beloved child did this to himself. Today was a clumsy day for our dear W. Things started off by him trying to open up all the shutters in his room. To do so required him to climb on his bookshelf. He fell at least three feet onto a pile of cars - ouch. He now has a nice bruise and scrape on his hip from that. He also whacked his head on the corner of the sink. And to top the night off he decided to stand on a chair, rock the chair, knock the chair over, and land head first on the floor (all while his loving father watched). Check out that egg on his head!

A frozen pack of peas and a bath later, he's feeling better.

War - HUH!

Warren really likes that 70's song by Edwin Starr, "War"! He kept asking to listen to it, and would run around the house grunting. Funny kid.

What's Next - "Fer Sure"?

I was just looking through some past posts of mine and came to a realization - my vocabulary skills are seriously lacking. Why didn't any of you (my "friends") tell me that I use the words SWEET and TOTALLY every other sentence?? How embarrassing. I'm off to read a book. Hopefully I can curb the usage of these two words without replacing them with another, even lamer, word. Like AWESOME.

PS - I also use LAME quite frequently. I'm afraid this is a bigger problem than I originally imagined...

76 degrees + Sun + Pasty Skin =

SUNBURNDon't you love my self-timer portrait?

Luckily, Warren escaped the wrath of the sun. Maybe his skin is less susceptible than mine, cause bad mama Steph didn't put sunscreen on either of us. But somehow it makes me incredibly happy to have been sunburned on March 3rd. I love the sunshine!

BIG BOY BED!

W is actually doing pretty well with the big boy bed. It's been a whole week, and it's gone better than expected. Half the time he gets out of bed periodically until 10PM, but the other half, he stays in there and goes right to bed. Naps have been pushed to 3PM since he has to be exhausted before he'll willingly stop playing with toys and rest, but that's not so bad. And even though he's gotten up a few times in the middle of the night, or wakes up at 6AM, there's something I love about him coming in my room to get me. I'm sure it'll eventually get old, but I think it's sweet. He needs his mama. I love getting to read to him in bed, too. And sometimes he wants mama to "rest with me in big boy bed". And who am I to pass up a nap? I've taken 2 naps in the big boy bed this week, and it was pretty sweet.

whispering..."It's soooo dark out there"

Oh, and to make room for little girl's crib and things (that's right, we still don't have a name for her...) we put the computer out in the living room. At first I was annoyed cause it crowded the room, but I like having it in a more public place. It's nice to be on while Warren plays right next to me. And I can keep an eye on him when he gets on to "type" or watch orca movies (and make sure that's the only thing he's checking out on youtube)

Paint a Rental House? Totally Worth It

We (as in Stephanie) decided that white walls in the kids' rooms was too boring to stand. Our landlord said painting would be ok as long as we painted it back to white whenever we move out. Lame, but still totally worth it. I didn't take any before pictures, just imagine ugly walls.

W didn't get to help, but he did get to watch Toy Story 2 times in a row while we worked. Thanks TV, for babysitting my child so I could ignore him for almost 3 hours. :)

Just don't look toooo closely if you come to visit. It was both of our first attempts at painting. We definitely got better as we went along, but there are a couple spots that are a little rough. Ah well, nice to experiment on a house that isn't yours that has to be painted back to white anyways. :)

Note to self - don't touch the walls with your butt when you're painting. Good thing that butt of mine is so dang small, or we could have been in worse trouble.

We'll need to put some things on her walls, but so far I think it's looking alright. :)

"Tay Tay and Steph"

Warren has picked up on the fact that Mom and Dad have other names; names that they call each other. And he thinks it's fun to use these new names. Like when W and I were getting in the car and Taylor was still in the house - "Where's Tay Tay?? I want Tay Tay to come!" Or last night when he was being grumpy in his bed because Taylor wouldn't give him another drink of water - "WANT STEPH!". It isn't consistent, but it's funny to hear him use our real (well, sorta real) names. Let's just hope he grows out of it by the time he's a teenager.