beth_leonard

Hi,

Do any friends have an unused Massage seat topper that they'd like to sell? Peter wants to buy one with his birthday money, and I said I'd go halvsies with him. We're looking for something sort of like this:
http://www.brookstone.com/SHIATSU-SEAT-TOPPER-WITH-HEAT_10629633_2?bkiid=SearchResults|CategoryProductList|680454p

Part of the bedtime routine is me giving him a massage, and he does have pretty tense muscles, so I think he'd use it and like it (as would I). I've looked at Craigslist and there is nothing local that looks like it would work, and I'd rather go new than trust eBay used items.

--Beth

Today turned out to be a pretty good day, despite it being one of those days where I don't get a chance to sit down at my computer and veg out until 9:30pm.

Now that the kids are in school and my number of projects is down to a reasonable number, I've gotten spoiled in that for many hours of the day I get to choose what I want to be doing at any given moment. Today was not one of those days. What I needed to be doing was dictated by the schedule or by a desire to please those around me. When I can make it work so that pleasing others pleases me too, the day can turn out all right.

The kids made their own pizzas at a pizza parlor with the Cub Scouts last night, and they wanted to make more pizza dough today. We got it made, kneeded, and rising between karate camp and Peter's theater practice, but there wasn't time to actually make pizza for dinner. After dinner we decided to turn it into cinnamon raison bread instead.

I let the kids stay up a few minutes late to be able to taste it hot out of the oven, and despite being made with a pizza-crust recipe, I think it turned out pretty yummy.

--Beth

Girl Scouting turns 100 today! Happy Birthday!!

My ultimate goal in life is to get my Girl Scouting 100 year membership pin. I wonder how many people will do it before I do? I visited a lady who got her 75th 18 years ago who was still quite active in her nursing home, so I'm pretty sure I won't be the first. Girl Scouting just touches some people that way, and I happen to be one of them.

Next Fall Amber can start daisies! In the centennial year! I'm so excited!

...
Peter managed to make himself puke yesterday (it looked like he ate about a quarter of a pan of fudge) so no school for him today. I've got a Cub Scout Pack meeting tonight, so I'm not really doing much to celebrate Girl Scouts today other than blog about it.

--Beth

Somehow it came to be November already. Mid-November even. Today is Jon's birthday, happy Birthday Jon!

I had this plan to post daily Thanksgivings every day of November. Better late than never? I'll post several today to make up for it.

I'm thankful for Jon.
I'm thankful that Disneyland has a "get in free on your birthday" policy, and that Jon thought he'd enjoy taking Peter.
I'm thankful that Jon & I both recovered from our illnesses and it appears Jon & Peter had a good time at Disneyland today.

I'm thankful for Amber. I'm thankful for the image I have of her in my head right now from earlier in the evening. She wanted to wear her Tigger outfit -- which at 12M size is far too small for her -- and play outside. She put her cup "way up high" on the spa cover. She had to stand on her tippy-toes in her gear boots to reach it. The image of her both being too big for her clothes but nearly to small to reach her cup and so proud of everything is a photo I want to hold dear in my heart because I couldn't get the camera in time.

I'm thankful for Peter. As he's getting older he's getting more and more capable. On Tuesday when I was so sick he was able to get the honey down from the shelf all by himself and heat it in the microwave to serve with dinner.

I'm thankful for my parents and my in-laws, that they all live so near and love my children so much. My parents watched the kids last weekend so I could go on my church women's retreat, and my in-laws watched Amber yesterday so I could take a class in San Francisco.
I'm thankful they are all wonderful people I love so much and trust with my children.

I'm thankful the class went well and I learned quite a lot of interesting and useful things that will save me time.

I'm thankful for computers that keep me in touch with my friends and family.

I'm thankful for digital photos and video. I want to remember and relive it all, and this ability to snap a photo and hold on helps me to let go and let my children grow.

I'm thankful for sanitation and garbage collection.

I'm thankful that food, so basic and fundamental a need, is so plentiful in my life that like the air I breathe I didn't even think to be thankful about it until I re-read everything and was about to hit "post" and I realized something was missing from a Thanksgiving day post.

--Beth

We had an awesome Halloween. I didn't get any stills of the kids going trick-or-treating with 7 friends and everyone all decked out in glow bracelets, (I took some video, but it wasn't light enough to get good shots). I did get pictures of my kids before school in their costumes and of the cranberry pie I made entirely from scratch using only cranberries, apples, sugar, water, flour, salt, and butter. Mmm, mmm, good. The pie didn't last until our party started. I felt very domestic that day, I cleaned the bathrooms and made a pie.



( The rest of the photos are behind the cut. )

Unfortunately at the party, I forgot (again) to actually get out the dry ice I'd bought. I think I did that last year too.

--Beth

Friday afternoon the kids and I made pizza from scratch. It was my first time as an adult doing this, and the result was delicious, so I'm recording the recipe.

1 pkg yeast (I didn't use rapid rise, I used regular)
1 tsp sugar
1 cup warm water (100-110F)
2 cups flour
1/2 to 1 cup more flour
3/4 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp corn meal

Proof the yeast
Put 1/4 c. water in large warm bowl. Add yeast, stir until dissolved. Add sugar. Set aside for 10 minutes. When you come back the yeast should be bubbling.

Make the raw dough
Add the rest of the water, salt, oil, and 2 cups of flour to the bowl. Stir. Add enough extra flour to make it soft.

Knead the dough
Kneed the dough. Add flour as needed to keep it from getting too sticky -- about 4-6 minutes according to the recipe I was using. With the kids helping each kneading half at a time, we spent about 15 minutes on it. Place kneaded dough in greased bowl, turning it to grease the whole ball of dough (I used a few more drops of olive oil.)

Rising
Cover, let rise 45 minutes. I turned the oven on and waited until the internal temperature was 80 F. I put the covered bowl in the oven. At 30 minutes it was bigger but didn't quite look big enough to have doubled, so I let it go 45 minutes. The recipe says 30-60. When it's done, punch the dough down.

Shaping
Spread the corn meal on a pizza stone. I gave a small ball to Peter to make his own pizza just like curious George (This ended up on the floor a few times.) I tried tossing the rest in the air like Tony the Baker, but that didn't work so well. I re-kneaded once or twice to remove the holes, and then spread it out on my pizza stone. It looked really thin in several places, but in the end it was quite thick nearly everywhere after baking.

Topping
I topped with tomato sauce to which Amber had added some spices (oregano and italian spices). We let that warm on the stove while the dough was rising. It looks like during baking the sauce all slid to the lowest parts on the bread, even though it was fairly even when I put it in the oven. I used about a cup of mozzarella cheese and added some olives and fresh pineapple.

Cook
Pre-heat oven to 425. Bake for 10-15 minutes. I left it in until the cheese started to brown. The crust puffed up really thick everywhere, despite how thin it was when I put it in. It was the best pizza I think I've ever had.

--
The whole process took about 2 hours. As Jon said, "It's a craft project that produces food at the end." The kids enjoyed it and I think we'll do it again some time.

--Beth

I'm finally breaking my LJ vow of silence (I started commenting on other's posts a few days ago actually) because I've shipped products!! Yay!

Pent-up posts:
* Peter at 4 1/2
* Amber turns 2
* Other People's Children sleep in the car, why don't mine?
* I'm re-reading the Positive Discipline book and loving it just as much this time.
* Amber had a 1-day fever on Thursday. She also had really red gums where her top teeth are coming in, coincidence? I think not.
* Skating with Peter is good for my health
* Brief bout with Ants.
* Managing screen time

I'm not going to get to those tonight (and I may never get to some, but I hope I at least do the first ones.) Tonight it's more important to do some paperwork. Whee!

--Beth

Fishey Liloandstich (Peter's name) didn't survive the night. It was alive and swimming at 2am for the 2am potty break, but at 4:30am Peter came running into my bedroom terrified for a non-specific reason. (For those not on my kids filter, Peter usually wakes once/night, but twice is getting rarer luckily).

I hugged him, calmed him, and put him back to bed. Then I checked on the fish.

Hmm, it's dark. I don't see the fish.

Look closer. Still no fish. I had seen it earlier in the evening.

Look around fishbowl. Still no fish. Peter wonders what I'm doing. I say I'm checking on Liloandstitch and can't find him. We turn on the light. Still no fish.

To make a long story short(er) after 45 minutes of searching I finally found the fish under Peter's bed next to the wall, about 4 feet horizontally from the fishbowl. DOA. It must have been flopping around under his bed and woke him up. Poor kid. He threw it in the garbage before bed tonight.

I didn't know goldfish could jump 2 inches vertically out of the water pitcher.

My nieces also won a fish at the same place, so they might give us theirs if it survives the week before they head home to Boston.

--Beth

We arrived home this evening from a great trip to visit my brother and his family. His daughter is 9 months older than Amber and absolutely adorable. We went to different zoos in the area both weekend days, and she loves the bears and other animals. The weather was great. The kids were able to play outside in the sprinklers in the evening, yet it was comfortably cool in the morning.

Jon was concerned before the trip because they have a dog and he has allergies, but the place was *spotless*. I have no idea how they manage to keep a house so clean with both a toddler and a dog.

Amber's fever finally broke on the trip. I think Sunday morning was the last time I gave her anything. On Saturday her doctor's office called as promised and informed me that the lab results came back, and no, she doesn't have a urinary tract infection. We have no idea why she had a 7-day fever that spiked to 106 last Monday night. I hope it really is just a generic viral illness and not a sign of something more serious.

They introduced us to the wii after the kids went to bed. At first we played wii bowling, which was fun, but not something I'd go out and spend money on. The second night as we were putting things away I said "what's this?" pointing to a white case-like object.

"Oh, that's the wii fit" my brother replied. "Want to see?"

An hour and a half later, I'm hooked. The snowboarding was my favorite. It steers even better than the simulators they have in arcades. In the morning Peter gave it a try. He was adorable shaking his body to the hoola-hoop game. He tied my best score on the marble-ball tilt balance game the first time he tried it. (Cleared 4 levels.)

Peter was sad the trip was ending so soon and me too. It was nice to be able to just hang out with family and I hope we do it again some time.

--Beth

1 year ago today I attended malacissation and motleypolitico's wedding in Vegas. We had a great time, and my parents took Peter for our first two nights away without him since his birth 2 1/4 years prior.

10 months ago today Amber was born.

With Peter, every day of those first two years was a struggle. Sometimes late at night I get an unwritten country song stuck in my head "one more day; one more minute; one more hour" waiting for him to grow up.

With Amber, I've experienced more conventional feelings of the time flying by way too fast. We've seen some newborns recently, and I know Amber was that small once, but I can hardly remember it. She was such a happy newborn and a happy baby.

Now she's getting a little older and protesting a little more if things don't go her way, but she's still so easy to appease and comfort that she spoils me. I hope I don't end up spoiling her. Each child is different.

I'm looking through my photos of this past year, and I don't have nearly enough baby pictures of Amber. I've been enjoying more time with her but each older experience crowds out the memories of the little baby she used to be.

It's been a good 10 months. I am still glad not to be pregnant. Every once in a while when we ponder finances I consider being a surrogate-mom-for-money (pregnancy as a form of birth control?) In the grand scheme of things my pregnancies haven't been so bad, but I don't think we're that desperate. The going rate seems to be about $20K, and while there is a rate I think I'd accept, I think it's much much higher.

I took some pictures this evening with the intent of posting them to this blog entry. Then I set down the camera. Somewhere. I'll find it later.
--Beth