by popular request

The kitchen.
On Christmas morning.




This is the best that I caught of Cumorah's initial reaction to the kitchen. I wasn't quite ready with the camera, but I do like that little smile. She was SUPER pleased. She tried the faucet first. I think she expected water to come out, but she wasn't disappointed when it didn't.


The oven is my absolute favorite. I want to cook in it. The refrigerator is my second favorite. It is so perfect. The plate rack is close behind as my third favorite. It was my special request.



The kitchen is amazing. Brian is amazing. Towards the end of the summer, I told him my plans to buy an old piece of furniture and refinish it and make it into a kitchen for Cumorah's christmas present. He bahumbugged my idea in a big way at first (like usual) and then a little while later he decided maybe my idea wasn't so stupid as he first thought (like usual), jumped on board (like usual) took my idea and turned it into something completely insane and complicated (like usual) but also incredibly cool (like usual). Brian built this kitchen from scratch all by himself. I was consulted for design purposes and other minor details like what color (out of what we had on hand) to paint it. He used a lot of materials we already had and we got some other things for free, but it actually did end up costing a bit more than we expected what with some of the hardware and what not. And of course because of all the super cool plans in the works for the burners to light up with LED lights when you turn the knobs. Out of control if you ask me. But I'm not complaining, really I'm not. It is an extraordinarily beautiful play kitchen. The burners and the knobs are from ovens being thrown out (Brian's not too proud to go dumpster diving for his little girl) and the faucet is from some nice plumber in town (he answered Brian's add on Craig's list and gave it to us for free, how nice is that?). It was really fun to give our little girl something so special. I think our girls are going to love playing with it through the years.

I would be jealous, but I actually have very fond memories of the kitchen my daddy made for me. I'm guessing I didn't have it for a terribly long time because I only have memories of it in Livermore. I didn't realize that it was made out of an old kitchen cupboard. I just remember that it had a sink and a faucet and that it was pretty cool.


So I don't really have a whole lot of neat pictures of us on Christmas. We really didn't do a whole lot of exciting things. We stayed in our pajamas all day, ate sugar cereal for breakfast, opened presents, played with the kitchen and took a 'family' nap in the afternoon. Brian got about 45 minutes of sleep Christmas Eve because he was finishing up the kitchen. I got about two hours of sleep. So we all slept through the afternoon. Yep. Not terribly exciting. It was really nice to stay home in Iowa this year for Christmas. However, we do really miss our families and all the fun things we'd be doing if we were out in Cali. It's just really nice to not have to travel with the girls and to feel like a real 'grown-up' family having our own Christmas celebration.



Cumorah and Mommy helped Rivers open her present. Cumorah pretty much helped everybody open their presents.




















Like Father,
Like Daughter

joy

Go look and listen.

joy to everyone

genius

So... maybe she's not always quite as quick and smart as I think she is.

2

Two years ago I became a mother.



One year ago Cumorah had her first sugar-sweet.



Another year (and many sugar-sweets) later, Cumorah turns two.




Cumorah is an amazing little girl. She is so sweet and cute and smart and loving and stubborn and intense. She still freaks out. She still has a serious anger management problem. Woe be unto the dolly who does not sit up just as she desires. She is difficult to discipline. Sometimes, the more you tell her 'No', the more she does what she's not supposed to. It's kind of strange, she's not really doing it to spite us. She has an uncontrollable, highly emotional response to reprimands. However, in some situations she responds very well. There has been a few times when she has hurt Rivers that she apologized and then put herself in her own room. We finally happened upon the most effective (usually) discipline tactic (besides just removing her from the situation by putting her in her room for a minute or two). It is telling her, "I'm not happy." She desperately wants us to be happy. We make it a point to tell her that we are so happy when she is being good and also that we are so happy to be a family. She asks us all the time, "You happy now?" She is intense and aggressive with her play and affections with her sister, but fortunately she doesn't get into a rage like she does with her dolls. She is also very sweet with her sister, bringing her toys, giving her lots of kisses. The other night Rivers was crying as they were going to sleep. I heard Cumorah telling her, "Calm down, calm down, baby!" Cumorah loves to be a big girl and help Mommy and Daddy. She puts dishes away, matches her pajamas, finds her panties in the laundry basket and generally helps to put laundry away, picks up and puts away toys and her dirty clothes, gets her own dishes out for meal time, gets new diapers for Rivers, and mixes (and tastes) a lot when we cook. She is quick and smart. It's a little scary sometimes. It's been getting easier to have an actual conversation with her lately. One of her new words is 'automatic', a result of automatic toilets and faucets in public restrooms. She remembers things very well. Today, she was telling me about going to the pumpkin patch and riding the tractors. She loves dancing and singing and drawing. Her favorite things to draw are circles, fruits, and just recently, kites. She picks up on new songs really quickly and has been requesting 'Away in a Manger' lately. She likes to play with her baby doll, little people, play-do, dishes, and stacking cups. She also likes to read books. She is growing up so fast. She likes to do things herself. She MUST pick out her own pajamas, panties and leg warmers. She is really into kisses, hugs and saying 'I love you'. Brian cannot leave in the morning until she has given him a kiss and a hug right before he walks out the door.


We had a birthday party on Sunday for Cumorah since Brian was going to be busy with studying on Monday. We had a few friends over for dinner. She got to skype (video conference) both sets of grandparents as she opened her gifts from them.

When I asked Cumorah what kind of birthday cake she wanted she said, "Pupple." She really stuck with that decision. So purple it was, inside and out.



Cumorah was so concerned at first about the fire. Not sure how Rivers ended up there. She started out from the living room carpet. Yes, she did get it, a fist full of purple frosting. Nice.



Cumorah's ineffective candle blowing, Mommy's ineffective helping. We finally did get them out a couple of singed hairs later.

acclimating

Friday the girls and I went shopping. The grocery variety of shopping, the only type of shopping we ever do. While in the store a nice old man in a wheel chair struck up a friendly conversation with us. Part of the conversation turned to the weather. "It sure is a nice day out today," said the man. "It really is quite beautiful," I replied. It dawned on me soon after I said farewell and continued pushing the cart down the freezer aisle what I had just said and really truly believed. Last year if someone had said that it was a nice day out, I would have been thinking, "Who are these crazy people? Nice? Temperatures in the low 30's. Ice covered parking lots. That is nice?" This year I was enjoying the slight thaw that was taking place as the temperature creeped up to 34 and even a little higher. It was sunny, and even better, it was NOT windy. So 34 really felt like 34. A beautiful day. Really, truly. Even if I did have a monster puddle to walk through to get in the car where there had only been ice when I first arrived at the store.

The weather continued to get warmer and Saturday felt like April. This morning when we went to church it was a balmy 46. I skipped the tights and was relishing the warmth. It was lovely just breathing in the air. When we went outside after church we realized that the "arctic blast" the weather forecasters had talked about coming in for Monday was already here. It had dropped to 17. And it was windy. About a quarter of the way to the car it hit Cumorah that it was not the same temperature as it had been in the morning. She started to cry and Mommy had to rescue her and carry her to the car. It is now 12 degrees. I'm glad I don't live in Minnesota.

La Aprovechona

"What would you like for Christmas little girl?"

I want a new puppy.

....and I want a new bike, and a sled, and a playhouse, and a turtle, but my daddy says turtles give you salmonella so I want a salmonella-free turtle, and a 24 megapixel digital camera and...

"Here we go again."

...a swing set, a cotton candy machine, an accordion, some new leg warmers, a tractor, a hot air balloon, a trampoline, an erector set...

How about you little girl?

Somebody get this scary old man away from me!

...and a ruby necklace with matching earrings, and some shiny red shoes, and a train set, and a tea set, and some coloring books, and a princess pony...

momma's girl

So I think I've mentioned before what a daddy's girl Cumorah is. These last few vacation days that Brian has been home Cumorah hasn't let me do anything for her. She wants Daddy to wash her face after eating, help her with her shoes, read her a story, wipe her bum (hee, hee), comfort her when she runs into something. Mommy is just not really wanted. Screaming, crying, hysteria...the world is going to end if Daddy leaves. If Mommy goes we smile and sweetly say, "Bye, bye Mommy." But I know what she's thinking, "I'm so glad you're going, don't hurry back Mom." OK, so she doesn't always scream and cry when Brian leaves. Anymore. But she used to. And I still always give the baths when Brian is home or not. But Daddy's girl she is, completely and totally unapologetically a Daddy's girl.

Enter Rivers. Now we have a daughter on the extreme opposite of the spectrum. Brian is a bit sensitive about it. I was a bit smug about it for about ten hours or so. It only took that long for me to realize that I'm really not so sure I would mind having two daddy's girls. When Brian is holding her, Rivers starts to smile and kick when I walk in the room and starts to cry as soon as she realizes I'm not going to pick her up. She reaches for me and whines pitifully. She follows me around with her eyes. She just wants her mommy. Here is some proof of how much of a Mommy's girl she is. Brian was taking some video of her a few Saturday's ago while I was out and about on errands during nap time. She had woken up early and was down in the basement with him when I called to see if I had time to run another errand. Be forewarned, it's kind of long. If you're not one of her grandmothers, you might get bored.

mmmmmmmm, chockit meelk

It was hot chocolate, actually. A recipe from my dear friend Garian's blog. I mixed up a bag of instant hot chocolate mix last night. Cumorah got to try it after church with her lunch. We all thought it was super yummy. All I had was dark cocoa and so it was a kind of dark-chocolatey-not-too-sweet yumminess. Just like my mother likes it, hot chocolate that has the tastes-like-dirt edge to it. With a squirt of whip cream it was heaven. I do recommend trying it out. Of course, you don't have to make the tastes-like-dirt version. (The link was up above on 'recipe' if you missed it.) It was super easy to mix up a batch in a Ziploc bag and even easier to mix up a cup with boiling water from the tea kettle. Powdered milk is a good thing to have a little of in a food storage pantry, but to most people not such a tasty good thing to actually consume. What better way to rotate powdered milk through food storage than hot chocolate?

And if you need any more convincing to give it a try then just remember...
it has the prestigious honor of being Cumorah Approved.

cooking with Amy

This last month I was finally a contributor to my fantastic sister-in-law's cooking blog. ('Fantastic' was originally meant to describe my sister-in-law, however it does apply to her cooking blog as well. Just thought I'd clarify.) I realized that I never put a link to it from here. So, a link is coming and I thought I would just let everyone know about it.

Amy is a fabulous cook. A lot of my recipes are ones that she tried and perfected first. (For those of you in Iowa that have asked me for the recipe for the salad I bring to everything, you know, the one I still haven't gotten around to giving you, it's a recipe from Amy, but don't get your hopes up it's not on the blog yet.) Anyway, it's worth taking a look at.

My Grandma Madsen's Meatballs are on there. The Barbeque Roasted Salmon has been a favorite of mine for years. Amy's Black Bottom Cupcakes are delicious. I remember the discovery of the Dilled Potato Salad a couple summers ago. All other potato salads have been ruined for at least the salty-pickle-loving women in the family. If you've never brined your pork chops, you really have to try the Maple Brined Pork Chops. I've never been a pork chop fan until Amy made Buttermilk Brined Pork Chops (not on the blog) the maple ones are equally yummy.

My contributions? Chocolate Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Raisin Cookies and Split Pea, Beef and Barley Soup. Strange combinations? Yes, I know. But also tasty.

remember the sprinkles

It's been a little while since we've sprinkled anything, but Cumorah must have noticed our little shaker of magic again sitting on the top shelf of our corner hutch. She asked for them on her lunch of applesauce and waffle (leftovers from dinner last night). It took me a minute to figure out what she was asking for, but Cumorah isn't one to give up when she really wants something. She was just as pleased as ever with her sprinkled food and insisted on more for her second helping of applesauce.

nice weather

Yesterday morning it was 15 degrees outside when Brian left for school. In the late afternoon when Cumorah was bundled up outside helping Brian rake the leaves it was in the 30's. Brian raked 13 huge bags of leaves. Cumorah helped quite a bit I was told but had to come in early because of the cold. She was pink cheeked and very happy that she got to be Daddy's big helper when she came in. Today I looked at the temperature right after lunch and was surprised to see that it was 51 degrees. Just one short year ago 51 seemed pretty cold to me. Not anymore. All I could think about was how we had to take advantage of the warmth and go outside, so we walked the five blocks to the library. We had a good time at the library and we walked a little more before returning home for nap. Apparently we didn't make it home before nap started...

jumpy

Brian put a strong hook in the wall so that we could actually use the Johnny-jump-up with Rivers. They're designed to hook over the trim around a doorway, but we didn't want to tuck it away in the hall where nobody is around. Our only other idea was the doorway at the top of the stairs to the basement. Being the responsible parents that we are, after a few minutes consideration we determined that it was probably NOT the best choice.

spooky

The long awaited (by at least my mother, who wanted to see the costume pictures) Halloween post...


At the very beginning of October when our neighbors across the street tied a big white sheet over their lampost equipped with a green lightbulb, Brian took Cumorah out on a night walk to see the spooky ghost up close. Since then she has been obsessed. Everything became 'pookie' (spooky). She began to notice and love everything ghost, pumpkin, bat, black cat, etc. etc. She also caught on very quickly to candy corn. Ghosts were probably the favorite. Every night she would point out the window and say, "Oooo, pooky. Ghost. Got me. Heeheehee..." When Rivers received a present in the mail from Auntie Amy, her very own GHOST trick-or-treat bag from pottery barn kids (name embroidered and all), it was fortunate that the neighbors had put up additional decorations as Cumorah's trick-or-treat bag from Auntie Amy last year is a jack-o-lantern. We were able to nip jealousy issues in the bud by pointing out the jack-o-lanterns across the street.

The ghost came down a couple nights after Halloween. Very sad. Cumorah kept talking about it and even mentioned it in her prayers that evening. In fact, she even said something about it last night, "Ghost gone?" Halloween was especially fun this year since Cumorah was old enough to know what was going on. Here's a taste of some of the festivities...




A couple weeks before Halloween we had the missionaries, Abram (a new friend from church) and Leilani over for dinner. I had this fantabulous idea to make haunted houses out of chocolate graham crackers. OK so it wasn't ALL my fantabulous idea, I saw a picture in a HyVee magazine when I was grocery shopping. Anyway, I made Brian and our guests make one. They were a little hesitant at first, but once they got started it was awesome. They seemed to enjoy themselves. Everyone's creativity was alive and well, so were all their sugar-cravings. Elder Norris was sitting too close to the candy corn. Elder Noriss' companion (sorry, if you ever see this, I'm horrible at remembering missionaries' last names) was River's personal holder for the evening. She wasn't feeling too well, poor thing. Abram became a master haunted tower embellisher. The detail on the finished product far exceeded my expectations. We got the table cleared for a picture and then right before I could click, the tower collapsed inward. Eventually the top fell off onto the table. It was an amazing work of art while it lasted. (You were right about hot gluing the graham crackers, Lisa. A stroke of genius. Nobody eats the thing anyway.)











Cumorah had a ton of fun decorating her very own haunted house that her daddy helped her build. At first she carefully placed each M&M in the frosting. By the time she was finished, the marshmallow ghost who took up residence inside the spooky house was buried in a monstrous pile of Count Chocula cereal.






We also carved pumpkins that night. Brian saw the eyes for the alien pumpkin on his favorite site, OhGizmo. He made them. Right now they have yellow bulbs hooked up and are the eyes for a turkey drawn on a cardboard box. Cumorah loved to point at the "spooky eyes" when they were in the pumpkin and is now equally pleased with our spooky turkey.








Cumorah and I made ghost cupcakes to share with our neighbors. Can you tell which one Cumorah decorated? Hers ended up with a mommy and a baby ghost cupcake, but I didn't realize until too late. Her baby ghost is without a face. Fortunately, she handled the disappointment pretty well.








On the 29th we went to the little Halloween Party that DMU (Brian's school) puts on for the families. It was really fun. They had little games set up for the kids to play, they had prizes and they had kid-friendly snacks. Since Cumorah was dressed as a chicken and Rivers an egg, Brian and I naturally dressed as egg farmers. Brian came downstairs from the library with his straw hat and his egg carton to join us at the party. We feel so blessed to be attending such a family-friendly school. It is very thoughtful of them to facilitate family activities.






See the other little chicken we met at the party? I just think he's really cute. We tried to get a picture of both Cumorah and him, but Cumorah was too busy with other things.




After the school party, Brian went back to the library to study and the girls and I went to trunk-or-treat at the church. Since I was by myself and we hadn't had dinner yet (so I wanted to be able to leave early if needed) and I hadn't planned on decorations, I did not decorate our trunk. Instead we just walked around to about five cars to give Cumorah her first experience at trick-or-treating. Then we found some friends, gave Rivers away for a while, and settled down between their cars with a our bowl of treat-sized cans of play-do. This was when the fun really started for Cumorah. She started calling out like a street vendor, "Kids, kids, play-d0! Boys! Girl! Play-do!" She put the cans of play-do in all the treat bags that came her way. It was really fun to hear her calling to everyone, and it was really nice to not go home with a bag too, too full of candy. She got just enough prizes and treats from the day's activities to pour out on the floor and play with before bedtime.











In Des Moines, no one goes trick-or-treating on Halloween. They go the night before, Beggar's Night. A bit different. They've been doing it since the 1930's or so. I like it because it has a time limit. Trick-or-Treating from 6pm to 8pm. I didn't plan on taking the girls trick-or-treating. I dressed them up for pictures and for passing out candy. While we were taking pictures out on the lawn a little before six, our neighbors across the street and our next door neighbor saw us. They told us we had to come over after we were done. So we went and got Cumorah's treat bag and visited our sweet neighbor Karen next door and our fun Grandma and Grandpa neighbors across the street and their nice next-door-neighbor Valerie whom we met for the first time that night. I really enjoyed that.










The actual day of Halloween found us making two pizzas for Pizza Night since Grandmommy and Auntie Crystal were going to be making it into Des Moines just in time for dinner. The only Halloween-type fun we had were pumpkin straws with dinner and Halloween marshmallow smore's nuked in the microwave.