Do Alligators Use Pillows?

Apparently they do!

3 Years

From Baby to Baby Mama in 3 years flat. My girl loves nothing more than to play Mommy to her favorite babies: Bear, Baby Cali, Jodgie, and Jodgie's twin (formerly known as the swimming baby). This week she told me she wanted a double stroller for her birthday, she asked Grandma Francine and got to pick one out at T 'r' U yesterday. She was excited to find it in her room when she woke up, surrounded by balloons that the "birthday fairy" delivered. Dave had to work today so we just made it "whatever Cali wants to do" day.

She wanted to go to the park with her new stroller. Lucky me the stroller seats can be rearranged about 5 different ways so we spent every 2 minutes doing that plus switching who got to sit in which seat. Bear, Baby Cali, and Jodgie all got to sit in each position at least once (Cali considers the storage basket a seat too) plus the babies each wanted to be carried at various times too. It took probably an hour to walk 1/4 mile. Of course Cali was loving it. Even better, the seats come off the stroller to be used as carseats. This was like her dream come true. A couple months ago she out-of-the-blue told me she wanted more carseats so all her babies could ride in the car with us. I told her that would be a lot of seats, we'd need a bigger car, and it would cost a lot of money. I asked "where would we get the money for all that?" She didn't hesitate to answer: "Daddy."

A Good Use for Herbs

I have a nice herb garden outback. It was the first raised bed Dave built and planted when we moved into this house almost 3 years ago. I have some nice mature plants including Basil, Oregano, Thyme, Lemon Thyme, Sage, Rosemary & Lavendar. I don't use them nearly as often as I could so there's more than enough to spare and yesterday we discovered a great use for them.

Yes I Know her shirt is inside-out and backwards... She's also wearing monkey pajama shorts.

Yuck! Grubs

Here in Texas its about time to plant a fall garden. After a succesful squash and cucumber season we're excited to get started. Last night we scrounged up some seeds. They're harder to find this time of year but we found most of what we wanted: leaf lettuce, mixed greens, spinach, radishes, broccoli, and garlic chives (Cali loves to eat the chives straight from the garden). I'd like to find some peas too and onions should do well too.

So, after lunch today we went out back and I started to work up one of our raised beds to get ready for the seeds. Unfortunately it was chock full of horrible, disgusting white grubs. Yuck! I can't stand these things they're so awful. There were 5 or 6 churning up every time I took a swipe with my little hand trowel. It was disgusting. I had a little plastic applesauce cup from the kids' sandbox and ended up picking out (with a shovel) as many as I could. The little cup was packed full and still more in the garden. I had to dump them in a bigger plastic tub as they were crawling out the top of the other. Ick! So of course I Googled the problem and found this link with some helpful advice. Just hope I can find the products ASAP so we can get our garden started!

PS I figured I'd spare you all the horrible picture. I could barely stand to look at them as it is.

Orange Roasted Salmon

I gave this recipe 5 stars. It was so tasty and easy to make too. I had all the ingredients on-hand and did all the prep work while the kids were napping so I had plenty of time to play when they woke up. My favorite kind of recipe! I served it with brown rice and asparagus (for us.. edamame for the kids.)

Click here for the recipe.

Lucky Me

Remember a while back I posted about winning the new Laurie Berkner CD from Goodyblog?

Well, I did it again. This time I won a fantastic prize pack from the nice folks over at Simple Scrapbooks. I'm always on there checking out the Gallery and following the new SS Group. I posted an answer to a poll question and was surprised to see I had been randomly selected as the winner... Check out my loot!

And how appropriate that a bunch of it is travel-themed.

The Journey Home

• Traveling back south was so much faster! Only 11 hours travel time vs. 15 hours heading north. I will NEVER fly to Alaska via Atlanta again. That was ridiculous. I don't recommend taking toddlers on any flight over 3 hours.
• Benadryl really works, I recommend it. I thought some homeopathic stuff would be good enough, it wasn't.
  
• Of all the little toys, books, coloring books I took for entertainment... Cali's favorite activity was taking care of her baby. A box of Band-Aids, a tiny tube of diaper cream, some Orajel, a travel size baby lotion and she was all set.
• Miracles do happen. Despite having only 35 minutes from touchdown to takeoff in Salt Lake City we all made it to our plane just in time for boarding and even better every single piece of luggage made it too!!
  

Miss Manners

Cali: Mommy!! (calling from the bathroom)
Me: Yes dear?
Cali: I tooted and I burped so I said "excuse me, excuse me".

What We've Been Up To

Toddler Travel

15+ Hours of Travel with two toddlers? Yep we did it. Left our home approx. 8:30 AM for 1.5 hour drive to the airport. Checked in, handed off our 2 suitcases and one cooler, headed for security with 5 carry-ons, a Graco stroller, a very active 18 month old and an almost-3-yr-old who was already asking to "go home". Cali cried when we had to put her favorite doll "Jodgie" on the security belt and asked "why" about 20 times when we had to take all our shoes off. Next we found some lunch (Scholtzsky's, which I'd never had - it was delicious!) then parked in an empty gate next to our boarding gate where the kids could watch all the action out the windows.

Flight 1: Austin to Atlanta approx. 2 hrs. Lots of squirming, looking out the window at clouds which Cali said was "snow", reading books and snacking. Not so bad. Arrive at Atlanta, ride the train to our terminal, find more food (Crystal Burger because it was closest, wouldn't recommend), more entertainment out the airport windows.

Flight 2: Atlanta to Seattle approx. 5 hours. Since D didn't take advantage of his usual naptime on the first flight I was hoping this one would involve a lot of sleeping and I could keep Cali entertained with all the books, etc. I had brought along. He wasn't interested in sleep. Not even with the Calms Forte, Tylenol or Teething Tablets we tried to "drug" him with. Note to self: Buy Benadryl for return trip! Finally after much unhappiness I stood up and lulled him to sleep then passed him off to Dave to hold. Cali started crying she wanted to "get out right now" and wanted to "go home" while we were still 10,000 feet in the air, still more than 2 hours away from Seattle. Once D fell asleep we got some peace though. Dave and I even entertained ourselves with the in-flight trivia game via the back of the headrest monitors. Cali made herself happy digging through my first-aid/toiletry items and tending to "Jodgie". Note to other parents: Bring empty medicine bottles, little tubes of diaper cream, and lots of band-aids! Also, fly Delta. They don't charge for the first checked bag, they still have free snacks and drinks, and one flight attendant was nice enough to offer us extra snacks, juice, and slipped a free bottle of wine to Mommy!!

Finally arrived at Seattle airport, found the awesome kid's play area and let them go wild. It was near midnight our time back home but they ran around like wild monkeys to their hearts content. Dave & I shared a delicious Mahi Mahi fish taco then we changed everyone into comfy long sleeves, put on socks & shoes (vs. sandals) and got our hats and jackets handy.

Flight 3: Seattle to Fairbanks approx. 3 hours. Cali was out like a light before we even took off. Diego wanted to bounce off the walls. Luckily there were empty seats so we got to spread out some. Finally got D to sleep by standing up again then he slept the rest of the way and I tried to make myself comfy. By the time we got the luggage and drove to my parent's home it was 1AM, making it 4AM back home. So I guess that's more like 20 hours of travel from our driveway to my parents.

Juice Train & The Lorax Project

On the way to storytime at our new Barnes & Noble we had to wait for a train. It was a tanker train and I've told Cali before that they carry "liquids" she asked "what is a liquid?" so I explained "things like water, juice, milk, and fuel are liquids." So today she decided that the train was on its way to storytime too and said the tanks were full of juice, "the train is bringing juice to storytime for us!"

At storytime we read The Lorax by Dr. Seuss and learned a little about The Lorax Project and that some (maybe all, it wasn't clear) Dr. Seuss books are now printed on recyced paper. Check out the Lorax Project details by clicking here.

Also, you may notice a new feature on my sidebar. I went back and started labeling a lot of my older posts so you'll be able to keep up with my random postings and go back and browse through them while I'm away.

Make Your Own Matching Game

I almost forgot I was going to do this as one of Cali's travel activities. It only took me about 30 min. to make a whole set of 18 pairs (36 cards total).



Here's how you can make your own:

1. Gather materials

• Various patterened papers
• Large sheet of thin cardboard
  
• Paper cutter
  
• Craft knife
• Cutting mat
• Glue stick
• Corner Rounder (optional)

2. Cut cardboard into 2"x2" squares. I had a sheet of approx. 12"x12" cardboard that came with some paper packaging. A cereal box would work well too.

3. Cover one side of cardboard square with glue paying close attention to the edges and corners. Adhere to back side of patterned paper*. Trim around the card with craft knife. Make two of each pattern.

4. Round corners if you like**.

There you go, a simple matching game or memory game for your little ones.

Notes:
*Be aware of the pattern, some patterns my be too large and the individual squares won't really "match".
** If the paper and/or cardboard is too thick your corner rounder may not work.

Schlitterbahn: German for "slippery road"

Thanks to our very friendly bus driver I learned what Schlitterbahn actually means today. It also happens to be the World's Best Water Park and its a mere 2 hour drive from where we live. We visited all three sections Schlitterbahn West, Blastenhoff, and Surfenburg. The kids probably did well over 100 slides between them, D took a very peaceful nap in a tube while I floated with him around the Torrent for probably an hour. The Torrent is like a cross between a lazy river and a wave pool, you just float around and around but waves come and push you along. D looked so funny with his head completely covered by his lifejacket and just one foot sticking out. Everyone said "oh look at the baby sleeping in there!" Dave and Cali were off trying to go on the BIG slides but I guess Cali didn't feel like waiting in line so they climbed back down and played at the 5-story Pirate Ship instead. My favorite part was taking the whole family down the Raging River (World's Longest Tube Chute, a 30-45 min ride). The kids had to sit in their own tubes (with bottoms) but they did great and Cali totally loved it, especially the "fast" parts. We also went in the Family Blaster which is a big round raft that we all sat in together; it goes down a fast curvy hill then pushes you back up the hill just as fast. Very fun! Last time we were here Cali was not-quite one and I was pregnant with Diego so it was really fun to do more as a family this time. Not so many pictures of the really fun stuff -- we have too much fun to take pictures here! But here are a couple...

Sam's Club Auctions

Never knew this existed. Figured most people didn't. Went to get a specific camera bag set they had on their website and seemed like they would have at the store; didn't see it so asked someone working in electronics if they had them. He told us they hadn't been selling so they were pulled from the shelf and sent off to auction and we could check for them there. Go to http://auctions.samsclub.com/ to check it out. They didn't have the camera bags yet though.

Kodak Customer Service

My fairly new Kodak EasyShare 5100 All-In-One printer had a problem earlier this week. It started printing streaks through my photos which was so not cool. I searched their website for help, it said they would email me with an answer to my problem. They did right away and I followed the helpful instructions but still had the streaks. At the end of the email they said if the problem still existed to give them my address and they'd send a new printhead within 1-2 business days. No charge. Wow! It arrived today and the box also contained two new print cartridges and a sample pack of their photo paper! Just wanted to say yay for good customer service, since its getting harder to find these days.

Make a Book & Water Your Plants

How to make a little book with one sheet of paper. This is amazing, fantastic, so easy and so cool! Thanks to Alexandra S.M. from Art Scrap & More for posting this link to the Hero Arts blog.



Tip that Dave read in a magazine (or somewhere): quickly and easily water your houseplants by placing a few ice cubes on top of the soil. Clever huh?

Custom White Balance on Canon Rebel

I've already set to work teaching myself about this camera. I really want to use it to its full potential, or at least not rely solely on the Auto function. So here' s the two major things I learned last night (and if you have a Canon Rebel this may benefit you too).

First, on the new XSi model one of the exciting new features is a live-view preview screen. This is a pretty new feature to DSLR so I thought it would be great. Well it is great, but not as simple as you might think. There is a full page of instructions on the Canon website on how to use the Live View feature. The instructions were easy to follow though and I'm now fully informed on this feature. Click here for the link.

Second, I learned a wonderfully easy way to custom adjust the white balance. This is especially useful for bad-lighting situations like indoors in artificial light (i.e. my living room and bathroom). Click here for the youtube video link. Look at the difference in these photos with the white balance on "auto" vs "custom"...


Dave trying to work (notice how yellow the first one is)


Clean laundry sitting next to me I was supposed to be folding (notice how blue the first one is)

Both of the first shots were done on Full Automatic, the Second shots with the Custom white balance set.

Post 100 = Big News

I just saw this was post #100 for this blog. Just so happens I have some very exciting new to share on this milestone. We got a DSLR camera yesterday!!! They had a great deal on the Canon Rebel 12.2 megapixel @ Office Depot, it even came with 2 lenses. Pretty exciting. Thanks to the State of Alaska, Christmas came early for us. Dave has been wanting one for quite awhile but I was nervous to spend that much money not to mention all the crazy buttons and gizmos to figure out. I have a lot of learning to do on it but here are some of my fave shots so far. PS If you have any links to good online tutorials, tips, etc. please share.