Good Intentions

Can you believe that I am typing a blog post on my phone while sitting on a bench at the park, watching the girls, and rocking Kye in his carseat so that he will stay sleeping? This is all written by one thumb, so please excuse any typos. :)

I had the very best intentions to blog weekly updates about the house, rooms we've painted, and things we have decorated. However, between painting all the rooms, taking care of three kids, not sleeping through the night, and worrying over a dog who is still not house trained, I just don't have time. Or energy. I have a list of things that seems to grow longer by the day instead of shorter.

Not to mention, I completely forgot about Kye's three and four month blog checkins. He's doing great. Still gassy, still not sleeping through the night, but I have never enjoyed a baby as much as this one. Note: I didn't say love, I said enjoyed. Of course I loved my girls as babies, but different life, different circumstances, and a different baby have made this last one so precious and enjoyable. Everyday with him is a good day. He is laughing all the time now, and not just little giggles but full blown belly laughs - which might be the best sound in the whole world. His first real laugh was also at me, with Steve's help I will admit, but at me nonetheless. Kyeson and I have a lot of fun together. :) A few other things I know about Kye is that he is overdue for his four month checkup, he has outgrown his 0-3 month clothes, he doesn't like loud noises or too much noise, and he still has a few of his original baby hairs on top of his head that are about 4 inches long.

That's all for now! Here's to hoping for more time to blog over the next few months - at least more than I've done the last few! :)

Best Banana Bread Ever

I have to post this recipe to my blog because every time I want to make it I have to search for a few different recipes to get all the "restructions" as Berlin calls them. So, I am just writing this down because it's faster than writing out all the restructions by hand. PLUS, you should try this recipe. I am not kidding - best banana bread ever.

I took some ingredients from a few different recipes and made this up myself, so really this could be called Heidi's Best Banana Bread Ever, although I didn't totally make it up myself - I never would have thought to add the secretly weird secret ingredient. :)

Here goes:

1 stick of butter
1/2 cup of unsweetened applesauce
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons mayonnaise (secretly weird secret ingredient!)
4-5 very ripe bananas, mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4-1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg, depending on how much you like the taste :)
1 cup 60% cacao Ghirardelli chocolate chips (the only kind you should ever use, ever.)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease two 9x5 inch loaf pans.
In a large bowl, cream together the shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in the eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition. Stir in the mayonnaise, bananas, and vanilla. Stir together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and nutmeg. Blend the flour mixture into the banana mixture; stir just enough to evenly combine. Fold in the chocolate chips
.
Bake at 350 degrees F until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean, about 50 to 75 minutes.

Try it. Seriously.

Best Boys

These are my best boys, my favorite men in the whole wide world.


Head scratch anyone?

I don't know which one is cuter.

I love them both so much.

It's Fall

It's Fall. Obviously. But with the new house and everything that has happened in our lives since June, it will be amazing if I will even be able to remember this time of life a few years from now. With the lack of sleep combined with the amount of things there are and have been to do, I feel a little bit like my brain has been on auto pilot for the past four months. It was suddenly August and I was thinking, "We had summer? What? When did that happen?" and I feel like I was thinking that yesterday and now it's mid-fall. And someone was talking about November yesterday like it's coming up soon. And some darn company sent me an email last week saying there are only 8 weeks left before the real holiday shopping begins. Meanwhile, I think my brain turned off the day Kyeson was born, so all this time passing is blurry to me.

So, it's Fall. Not obvious to all of us I guess :) During the past 4 months the times that feel real to me, that stand out, are the days where we did something besides pack or unpack boxes or go from project to kids to project to kids all day long. Such as the day my lovely friend Becky suggested that we visit an apple orchard.

It was a perfect fall day. Between the three of us (Steve, Becky, and me) we took about 200 pictures on my camera. I've only downloaded 150 so far because - yet again - I have run out of room on my computer and need to delete more stuff before I can download more pictures. I have already deleted everything in iTunes so I could add more pics...and have now completely filled up that space. New computer? Yes, please.

Anyway. Here are some of my favorites from what I have so far.



A family picture? These NEVER happen for us, so I am super excited that we have one! Even if we didn't plan our outfits and Kyeson is in a sleeper (lazy bum). At least we have a picture of all 5 of us together that isn't the one of us sitting on my hospital bed! :)



These are two of my most favorite pictures of the day for sure.




This is funny. Steve told Berlin to put her arm around Tryn...who said it had to go around her back? Also, Trynie's cheek has a wad of caramel in it, so it's just all together funny cuteness to me.



Me and Becky, laughing at Steve :)



It was a great, great afternoon.

Differences...

I love it when I see very clear differences between my kids. It just makes them seem more and more like their own person and I like figuring out what their personalities are like.

Tryn continues to be fairly timid. For example, we wait at the bus stop every morning with two other mom's who have sons who are in second grade. When the bus pulls up, even if she is standing closest to the bus, Tryn will move out of the way and let the boys get on the bus first. She will not get on before they do. She's like that on the playground too. If a bunch of kids come past her while she is standing near a slide she will just move out of the way and let them all go ahead of her. She'll just stand there and watch them.

Berlin, on the other hand, was playing out in our front yard with Tryn yesterday and a neighbor boy rode by on his bike. Seeing an opportunity Berlin yelled out, "Hey! HEY! Do you want to be our friend?"

She also didn't seem to mind much as he just looked at her and rode on by.

A short time later he rode by again, "Hey! Hey boy! Can we be your friend?" I don't think he was very interested.

Later that night we went to a friends house and a boy the girls had never met walked up to them and said, "Hi! My name is Owen. What's your name?"

Tryn just stared at him and didn't say a thing, so Berlin jumped in, "I'm Berlin...and this is Tryn."

I can already see who is going to be looking out for who in the future. :)