It's so frustrating to be dumb

And that's all I have to say about that.

But look how cute this smartie pants is:

What was lost now is found

Evelyn found Eli's blanket this afternoon. It was in a little toy washing machine that we have. I checked it, I swear, but it was there. Jake and I talked about not giving it to him now that he's over it, but Evelyn was so excited and I couldn't make up my mind in the moment. She gave it to him and he was really happy to see it. All that lamenting for nothing...

Mourning the Passing of an Era

It's official. Eli's blanket is gone forever. I honestly feel a loss with it being gone. It's just been a part of him since he was born.

Funny thing is, he's fine. He cried a long time for the first night and the first nap. Then Jake wrapped him up in his new Christmas blanket from Grandma, sang him lullabies, and talked to him about how wonderful his new blanket is. (Isn't that so sweet of Jake?) Eli's been fine ever since. He even rubbed his new blanket over his face and called it his blankie. Today he saw some pictures and said, "Where's my blankie?" but he wasn't too sad.
So this post is dedicated to his blanket, and then I'll move on. If he can, I can, right? :)

He liked to hold it up over his nose, or rub it on our face when he thought it would make us feel better.

Goodbye, old friend.

Very Exciting

Yesterday I was reading to Eleyna, and she said, "No, I want to do it." So, I started reading the words to have her say it back to me, which she sometimes likes to do and can make books really long. But she said, "No, I want to do it." She pointed to a word and sounded it out just like that. We then pulled out some beginner reading books I made for Evelyn and she read all of them. I was astonished! She was so enthusiastic, too. She'd read a word, then make all these crazy excited sounds and look at me with the most excited cross-eyed face, then sometimes punch me in the nose which for some reason she does when she's excited.

On another cute note, we went to pick up Evelyn from school and Eli said, "EVELYN!!!! Hug? Missed you." They have such a cute relationship. Whenever Evelyn is sad or in trouble, Eli will give her hugs which involves the cutest little pat on the back.

On a semi-tragic note, I lost Eli's blanky. I think it's gone for good. I only went one place yesterday after his nap, and I called there and then went and looked there and left my number so they could call if it showed up. It must have fallen into the street, even though we were parked RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE STORE which was 4 steps away!!! It's definitely not in our house, because I looked all day and cleaned all day. (Hey, come on over, our house is actually clean!) Yes, I cried and Jake did not understand why. It's a sad, sad, day.

I have some really cute pictures of the kids playing in the snow. I'm sure you're just dying to see them, so maybe I'll post them some time.

Wow, I had fun italicizing a lot.

What are they thinking?

The other morning, Evelyn got mad at Eleyna because, "She won't stop spinning and it's making my head dizzy." A few minutes later, Eleyna, still spinning, got tears in her eyes and said, "Eli made me cough!" He was across the room.

Later that day Eli pointed at the moon and said, "Look, a baseball!"

Merry Christmas... finally

We had a really great time over Christmas. We spent a week up in Idaho with our family.
This is what Christmas morning looked like for us at my Mom's house:

Every Christmas Eve we open up Christmas jammies. Christmas morning we eat cereal from our stocking, and my parents always have Captain Crunch cereal. (because of my dad and my brother)

Santa brought a marble tower building set, and Eli spent most of the day playing with it. The girls got a dollhouse and some other exciting things.



My parents with the girls and their new dolls from my mom:



Other exciting adventures included playing in the snow, a ski/snowboarding trip with Jake and I and my brother Jon at night in near 0 degree weather. I haven't been in 10 years and I loved it even though my toes froze.
We also had a great time with Jake's family, but no pictures to prove it since we forgot our camera.
Sorry about no Christmas card this year. I even printed up our family picture to mail out to people, but it didn't happen. Maybe for Martin Luther King's Day? Valentine's Day?

Babies Laughing

I saw this a few years ago and just found it again. It is so funny!

Funny things

Here are some funny things Eli has said recently. To picture how funny it is, you have to remember that he's barely 2 and he's always VERY enthusiastic.

While twirling his blanket, "Look, Mom, my blanket's dancing!"

After Jake wrapped his blanket around him like a toga: "Look at me, I'm a princess!"

While driving around looking at lights, (for which you've never seen a kid so excited): "Mom, go that way!" (To have me drive by some lights he sees. This is the only one he imitated from his sisters)

His most common phrase lately, "Can I, Mommy? Please?" He's very polite and always says "Excuse me!" after burping, which he picked up on his own.

Then the other day we were at PetSmart and Santa was there to take pictures with people's pets. Eli saw him and said, as nonchalantly as possible, "Hi, Santa." and walked away.

Cute picture

Potluck Pan Rolls ***UPDATED***

This is my favorite roll recipe, although I think making rolls is more a technique than a recipe. My sister-in-law said something that really helped me make better rolls. She said to make the dough as sticky as you can, then use flour on your hands when shaping them into balls.

Potluck Pan Rolls
makes 24 yummy rolls

1 package, or 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (I always use instant yeast)
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups warm water (110 - 115 degrees)
1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted then cooled a little
2 eggs
1/4 cup powdered milk
1 1/4 tsp salt
5 1/2 - 6 cups flour

If you're using active dry yeast, dissolve yeast and 1 tsp sugar in 1/2 cup water until it does it's yeast thing.
Add butter, eggs, milk powder, 3 cups flour, sugar, and either 1 1/2 cups water and the instant yeast or 1 cup water and the yeast mixture.
Beat on medium speed for 3 minutes or until smooth.
Add the salt and remaining flour (you can add the salt before, but I heard it's better to add it later. Just don't forget to add it.) Add the remaining flour slowly. You'll probably need only 2 more cups if you are kneading it in a mixer. Probably more if for some sad reason you have to mix it by hand. With a mixer, just add enough flour that it pulls away from the sides and isn't wet anymore. It doesn't have to pull all together off the bottom of the mixer, though.
Knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours. (It seems to take longer to rise for me, but maybe my yeast is getting old.) When it's done rising, punch down and let rest for a few minutes.
Shape into 24 balls. When I shape them, I pinch off a bit of dough, then roll it in the palms of my hands until it's a smooth ball shape. I like my rolls more fluffy than crusty, so I put 12 in 2 13x9 pans*. Let rise until doubled. Cook at 375 for 17-20 minutes or until golden brown. Rub butter on top and cool on wire racks.

*Usually I just cook 12 and freeze 12 for later. Or I roll out the dough into Orange Rolls, which are like cinnamon rolls but with an orange filling and really good orange frosting. Then I put them in the fridge to rise until the next morning.

(I forgot to write that the rolls should rise after being shaped. My mom called an hour before dinner and asked if they were supposed to rise. Yikes! I hope her rolls are done in time!)

Skwee Scoo

Eli is terribly excited for preschool. When Eleyna first started preschool, he said, as I dropped her off, "I go in there!" A few weeks ago, I think he thought he was going because on the way there he said, "School's fun!" Then he cried when Eleyna got out of the car and he was stuck in his chair. Last week, he took his new white shirt still on the hanger, draped it over his arm like a purse, walked to the front door and said, "I go skwee scoo!"
All morning today he kept saying, "Mom, I ready for skwee scoo!" I took him over to someone's house so they could watch him while I went somewhere, and I think he thought he was at preschool. The lady who watched him said he kept talking about it.

Sorry, buddy, you've got two more years.

Do you know the colors of a rainbow?

Here is our sweet Eleyna from color days at preschool. I've been meaning to post these since August, but the pictures were scattered across three different computers.

First Book Review

Yesterday Evelyn read books to Eleyna for over an hour! I couldn't believe it! They were just books off our bookshelf, not even the easy readers from the library. She's totally taken off with reading, without me doing much more than reading with her a lot. ** I did have to help her overcome the stress of seeing too many words on a page, which we did by reading "Dick and Jane".
Recently we read her first chapter book together, "Ruby the Red Fairy", where we each took turns reading a page.

Here is her review, which also turned into a review of the second book, "Amber the Orange Fairy":
Evelyn: "I like that they found Ruby... I like all of it. I like Amber the Orange Fairy. I like that they found her in a clam."
Me: "Is it interesting or exciting?"
Evelyn: "No, I just like the Rainbow Fairies because they have pretty stuff on their costumes and in their hair."
Hey, I'm all for that if it gets her to read.

My sister-in-law posted about all of the books she's read recently. If I did a similar post, it would be something like this:




**(Really, I think the reason she loves to read so much is because I just don't like playing toys, so we read together instead. It's not working out with Eleyna, though. She would rather play toys.)

Here's Eli first showing interest in books:

A little bit scary, a little bit cute

Happy Halloween! As you can see, we all dressed up in Peter Pan costumes, except Eli was Peter Pirate because he was convinced that he was a pirate. On our way to trick or treat at Jake's office, he just randomly grinned when he realized his hat was still on and said, "I'm a pirate!"
We had a great time trick or treating at Jake's work, which was 2 buildings with three stories each. Each side of each floor was decorated very extravagantly with different themes, including "Nightmare on Wall Street", "Teletubbies", "Willy Wonka", and "Mario Land". If you can stand looking at any more pictures, here they are:


(I had to add the Rainbow Brite picture because that's what I was in Kindergarten. My mom made my costume and we were just reminiscing about how sad it was she sold it a garage sale. This one looked almost as good as my mom's, but not quite.)

Eli's New Best Friend

This is Eli's new friend named "Bop" after a stuffed turkey we own that does a "Thanksgiving Bop" and scares Eli to tears every time it does its little dance.
We've heard this new Halloween friend sing his song about a thousand times now. Don't you want in on the fun?



I did a little video editing so you could see the little body jiggle at the beginning and the look of adoration at the end. Unfortunately I didn't capture Eli's scream of "Ow!" that made Jake yell from downstairs, "Was that Eli?!?!"