Friday, October 31, 2008

Crystal Conquers All (sort of)

Right now, I feel invincible! I have conquered the most daunting of tasks! Ok maybe not the most daunting, but I have jumped some pretty big hurdles lately! The first hurdle, was finding some great remedies for a fussy baby that don't involve food. At 4 months and 18 lbs, she doesn't need to be eating more! The first remedy is her binky in her mouth with her super soft blanket rubbed on her face. Works like a charm! The second remedy is her Rain Forest Mobile that I found at a garage sale in California (Thanks Ali!) Here are some of Clara's reactions to her mobile:



She coos and talks and sings with the music, but mostly just stares at it with her mouth open in wonder. She loves it!



My second hurdle was making curtains for Clara's room. I made them out of fabric from the tablecloths at our wedding. The colors matched with so many other blankets that Clara has, so I thought they would go well, just don't look too closely at the seams, I am not a great sewer yet!



The last hurdle has been for me to bake ANYTHING successfully. I know! I am sure a lot of you are saying Yeah Right! But it is true! EVERYTHING I have made since living in Ohio was been dreadful! I was beginning to think I lost my touch, but don't worry, I figured out the problem, my brand new oven is broken. When I preheat it to 350 degrees it heats up to 425 degrees. No wonder everything was horrible! I had a repair man come, but he didn't fix it, he just replaced a part and said the problem was fixed. He is coming back Monday because I was NOT a happy camper. However, I LAUGH in the face of such issues! Now that I have a handy dandy oven thermometer, I can deal with such problems! Oh you want proof huh! Well look at this bread and these cookies and tell me if they don't make your mouth water! It feels good to bake successfully again!



Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Fall Fun

Since we now live where there is a certifiable Fall season, we have partaken in some very fall activities this year. We harvested apples and made apple sauce, apple butter and apple cider. We don't have any great pictures of that, but our next activity was the Circleville Pumpkin Festival. It is the biggest pumpkin festival in the country and apparently people come from all over the world to see it. It was quite the experience. We went with Megan, her mom and Harry and we tried some fun pumpkin food. We tried a pumpkin cream puff, pumpkin ice cream, fried pumpkin blossoms, pumpkin pizza and pumpkin buckeyes. The largest pumpkin at the festival was 1325.5 lbs.


From Fall 2008


Our next activity was to go to a pumpkin patch. It was SUPER cold. Clara wasn't too sure about the wind and the cold, but she was a trooper and posed for the camera for us. We didn't get any pumpkins at the patch, but we did get some black raspberry preserves that we will be enjoying all winter long! Now we just need to carve some pumpkins and eat some good pumpkin treats!(My oven was broken so I haven't been able to bake ANYTHING for quite a while. We just got it fixed, so hopefully I can start baking some good fall treats to go along with our fall activities!)

From Fall 2008


(With some wonderful coaching from my oh so patient husband, I have now learned how to make picture collages and put them on our blog! Hopefully there will be more of these in the future!)

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Ali's Pictures


Our friend Ali is a great photographer. She gets asked frequently if she is professional and if she gives out her card to people.

While we were in California, we got to go to the beach, and Ali graciously (this is a play on her middle name, which is Grace) offered to take some family pictures for us.

She captured some wonderful moments of our family, for which we are grateful. Clara's pictures are absolutely darling!

Enjoy!

(And no making fun of Jordan for being afraid of the water!)






Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Disneyland With the Fam

As I am sure you all know from my last blog post, Jordan and I just spent a week in California, visiting family, friends and of course going to DISNEYLAND!!! My whole family (minus my sister Heather and her family) were able to come. We met at Disney's Grand California Hotel on Sunday afternoon where we had two suites so the whole family could stay together. My friend Kelsey came up from Corona to see me and we had a blast just sitting around the hotel talking. That night Disneyland was hosting Miley Cyrus' 16th Birthday party, so the hotel was crawling with celebrities. Steve Carell was there, Vanessa Williams was in the room next to ours, and my brother-in-law held the door open for Cindy Crawford. Kelsey and I sat in the lobby for a while trying to catch a glimpse of someone famous, but we weren't so lucky. The whole family had fun that night just being together and hanging out.

The next day, Monday, was our first day in the park. I was so excited to show Clara all the fun stuff to do at Disneyland. For the most part she couldn't care less where we were, but I know as she gets older she will grow to appreciate that magical place as much as I do! The first ride we went on was Pirates of the Carribean. I hadn't been on it since they changed it to add things from the movies. I really liked the changes! We spent the whole day running around the park as a family and enjoying our time together. There is a new Jedi training event at Disneyland that kids can be a part of. My nephews LOVE Star Wars, so we all went to watch them at that. Benjamin was the last kid to get picked to be a part of the show and it was so much fun watching him fight Darth Vader. He was in heaven! That night, the whole family went to dinner at The Blue Bayou, the restaurant inside Pirates and my dad's favorite part of Disneyland. It was Sorensen Party of 24! We had so much fun, and Jordan really enjoyed his surf and turf! Thank you dad!!

The next day was another full day at the park. We got to go into the park an hour early that day, so we got up bright and early and started the day off in Fantasyland and hit all those rides with Clara. Then we met up with some friends from Ogden, Dee and Julie Cox, and spent a couple of hours with them. It was so fun to see people from Ogden and hear about all our friends from there. While Julie and I were on Splash Mountain, Dee and Jordan took Clara on Winnie the Pooh. When they got off the ride, they were handed passes to stay in the park an hour extra. Sweet deal! We played the whole day, then sent Clara back to the hotel with my mom so she could have some grandma time, and we played in the park for an extra hour, with all the rides open and no lines on any of them! We were so tired when we got back to the hotel, but it was worth it! Thanks for babysitting mom!

On Wednesday, we had to pack all our stuff up and store it at the concierge desk of the hotel before going to California Adventures for the day. The first ride we went on in the park was Tower of Terror. I LOVE that ride. It is one of the only rides that still gives me that stomach lurching feeling. We had a great day hanging out with the family and going on tons of rides, but alas, all good things must come to an end! Our friends, Jeff and Ali came and picked us up. We got our beloved In n Out for dinner, then spent one last night in California before heading back to reality.

One very important lesson I learned on this trip is that I need to take more pictures! We were so wrapped up in playing that we didn't take very many photos to document it, so here is a selection from my meager Disneyland Collection!






Thursday, October 2, 2008

Disneyland, HERE I COME!!!!!

Today we fly to California for a little time with family and friends and to go to the Big D! Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE Disneyland. I would live in the park if I could. It has been a while since I have been there, but still, I feel like I am traveling back in time to my childhood, which is a little weird since I have a child of my own, but so exciting none the less. The other day, Clara and I visited the Disneyland website and I showed her all the rides she can go on. Yeah she is only 3 months old. She doesn't care-yet. I will raise her to love Disneyland as much as I do! I could barely sleep last night, and all I can think right now is that it is only 4 1/2 hours until we leave for the airport! Here I come Disneyland! Your biggest fan is on its way! Oh, and one more shout out. Here I come IN n Out, I will visit you too!