Mopping

Last time I mopped, it was one of Jay’s more traumatic days because I barricaded him in the carpeted bedroom while the floor was all wet. He wailed and wailed, and stressed me out. My wise, innovative, dear mother reminded me how SHE dealt with similar issues:

[That’s my little sister Melody about 10 years ago]

So I dug out our only two old rags and improvised a similar solution for Jay. I had to rubber band them to his feet, and they got wet pretty fast, but I managed to mop most of the house before he figured out how to take them off!

Crisis averted: Jay was a happy camper while I mopped, which helped me do one of my least favorite chores with a little less unpleasantness. Another thing that helped me was: I cranked up Handel’s Messiah and sang along while I did the “dip-squeeze- slap-squelch-scrub-repeat” mopping cycle.

“All we like sheep!”

“Commmmmmmm-fort ye my people.”

“And he shall purify-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-yyyyyy!”

Mopping was bearable for the FIRST TIME EVER!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

We have had SUCH a cold November—there has been snow on the ground for a whole WEEK! Since I grew up in Tennessee, the lengthy stay of our snow here astounds me. I’m not complaining, though, because snow makes me feel FESTIVE!

It was super duper foggy all day yesterday, and I think the thick fog got stuck in the trees and froze there last night. Meteorologists may disagree, but that’s what SEEMS to have happened! Pretty crystalized trees.

Are you tired of seeing our park yet? Everything is so white! I walked the 4 blocks to the grocery store today (burr) and it was a very white winter wonderland out there. Except I don’t know how you can really WALK in a winter wonderland—I was sliding all over the ice, gripping the stroller for dear life!

Jay is still not a fan of the cold. He kept taking his mitten-socks off, so no wonder he was boo-hooing by the time we got home!

How could I resist—have you ever seen a big ole tumbleweed covered in ice?? This is currently in our front yard.

We got out our little skinny fake Christmas tree this weekend. I would love to have a real tree, but we are going to be visiting my family for Christmas so it seemed smarter to put up the old fake again. In spite of its lack of life and piney-licious fragrance, I’m still happy every time I look at our tree. Jay loves it! [by the way, don’t our diplomas look so…official on that wall? Maybe I should hang a family picture somewhere too.]

And the stockings are hung…with safety pins, rubber bands, and masking tape! I wish I had put “Ma” and “Pa” and “Jay” on them instead of these boring names, but oh well. I also wish our fireplace wasn’t covered in that giant black wood stove thing, but then again, that may cause even MORE spiders to defile our couch, so I’ll be content.

Jay has his own ideas about how this tree should be decorated…

Thank-FULL

Happy Thanksgiving! We braved the snowy Snoqualmie Pass and drove to my family’s house to visit for 2 1/2 days. It was my first time being HOME for Thanksgiving since 2004!

Jeff got a little lost while running on trails in the snow. He also ate about 9/10ths of a pumpkin pie. [Pie Heaven]

Rose is crowding my stomach out so I had to be selective in what feast foods I ate. My favorite this year: Mom’s  baked yams and apples. To me, they were even better than pie!

Jay did not really eat that huge turkey leg. He liked the homemade rolls best. He had a happy reunion with his favorites: Aunt Mel and Grama Meri. It got a little confusing because he called me and my Mom “Mama,” and he called Mel “Meh Meh.”

On Friday, I got to go to the temple with my parents! Jeff and I took advantage of one Black Friday sale that night and we got a Christmas present for Jay. Another, more exciting thing that happened on Friday was a certain phone call from my brother Brad. He proposed to his gorgeous girl Dani and they are getting married in June!!! HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY!!!!!!!

Now that I’ve paid my Thanksgiving respects, BRING ON THE CHRISTMAS MUSIC!!!!

White Stuff

Even though we still have 11 weeks till Rose comes, we put Jay’s mattress on the floor this weekend! So far he’s doing great without the ole crib. He usually falls off the mattress once or twice each time he sleeps on it, but I rescue him and he goes back to sleep. He likes having the freedom to get out of bed when he wakes up, and I love it when he pitter-patters into our room to find us in the morning!

Sunday Jay turned officially 18 months old!  He is fearless in nursery at church, and it’s a good thing too, because Jeff and I both have callings now! Jeff is a primary teacher and I am the primary secretary. I’ve been teaching in primary for the past 2 years, so this is something NEW for me. Yay!

It snowed late last night!!! I can’t remember a pre-Thanksgiving snow in my lifetime, and let me just say it is putting my “wait till after Thanksgiving to listen to Christmas music” policy to the test. I’ve had Winter Wonderland and all those great snowy Christmas tunes in my head all day!  Still resisting…

Jay and I went outside to play in the snow this morning, and it was still only in the 20’s out there. Burrrrr! I have been meaning to get Jay a pair of boots, but alas, the snow fell before that happened. He only has one pair of shoes (our little pauper) and I didn’t want them to get soaked in the snow, so I tied plastic grocery bags to his feet. I thought it made him look like a doctor! I dug up a scrap of fleece this morning, and sewed a quick hat for Jay too. Thankfully he actually kept it on his head while we were outside! (that’s a first). I tried making Jay some fleece mittens too, but they failed, so he wore socks on his hands.

Sadface! I thought Jay would love playing in the snow, but I was wrong. Maybe it was too cold for him, or maybe he didn’t like slipping and falling on the ice so many times. Whatever it was, he was moaning and crying for most of the time we were outside!

Assuming that the reason for Jay’s crying was the cold, I let him back inside while I finished up our snowman. He cried the whole time, little goober! But I made our 12-inch little snow guy anyways: newborn baby hat, marbles for eyes, baby carrot nose, felt smiley mouth, fleece scrap scarf, and stick arms.

Good thing my coat can still zip up over my tummy because otherwise I would have FROZEN to death out there. It was rather difficult bending down low enough to get myself in the picture with the tiny snowman (smoosh baby in belly). Huzzah for the first snowfall of the winter!

My Boeuf Experiment

This is not a food blog. BUT, every now and then I attempt a new recipe get a good story out of it. Usually when I’m pregnant, I’m too picky and easily grossed out to experiment in the kitchen. But, I’m on a Julia Child kick right now (I just finished her autobiography—she had a fascinating life) so I decided to try one of the famous recipes from her first cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I chose to make Boeuf Bourguignon, a beef stew in red wine with bacon, onions, and mushrooms.

The first hurdle:

WINE. At first I tried to figure out how to substitute the 3 cups of red wine in the recipe, but after much research and a valuable consultation with my favorite, most knowledgeable “cousin in-law-in-law,” (Jeff’s cousin’s wife, Whitney—she has a culinary degree), I decided to—gasp—just use the real stuff. In case you’re interested, here’s what I learned that made me feel ok about using REAL WINE:

1. Whitney put it best: “You can make it so alcohol-free that you will not have to feel bad about eating it. (After all, we consume raw alcohols at times--vanilla extract has the same proof as vodka, higher than rum, and many LDS toss it willy-nilly into smoothies not realizing they've just added a shot to their orange julius!).”
2. “So, here's the deal. Three cups, 24 ounces of wine. Most red wine hovers around 11% alcohol by volume. That means you have 2.64 ounces of pure alcohol to get rid of for your recipe. Measure about three and a half cups of wine into a saucepan. Bring it to a boil, then boil the heck out of it! (Literally, too, right? Hehe.)”
3. This chart from the US Department of Agriculture’s Nutrient Data Laboratory shows how cooking affects alcohol content. After just 15 minutes, only 40% alcohol remains. (That's 1 ounce, or 2 tablespoons, for 3 cups of wine).

Alcohol Burn-off Chart
Preparation Method	Percent Retained
alcohol added to boiling liquid & removed from heat	85%
alcohol flamed	75%
no heat, stored overnight	70%
baked, 25 minutes, alcohol not stirred into mixture	45%
Baked/simmered dishes with alcohol stirred into mixture:
15 minutes cooking time	40%
30 minutes cooking time	35%
1 hour cooking time	25%
1.5 hours cooking time	20%
2 hours cooking time	10%
2.5 hours cooking time	5%

4. Therefore, after 20 minutes of boiling and 4 hours in the crock pot, there was less than 2 tablespoons of alcohol in the whole huge pot and I felt OK about consuming the wine laced stew. Are you bored or lost yet?

So the first time I bought wine was with a big ole pregnant belly!

Monday night after an Family Home Evening lesson on the Word of Wisdom, we went to the store and bought a $9 bottle of red wine. It was a very weird experience—Jeff and I know nothing about wine!

Tuesday during Jay’s nap I got down to business. Problem: we don’t own a cork screw! I looked up at least 10 different ways to open a bottle of wine without a cork screw, but none of them worked! After nearly an hour of fruitless pounding, scraping, plucking, and hammering, I had to admit defeat. That cork was not coming out.

So, I did everything else to prepare the Boeuf instead: blanch the bacon, brown the beef, brown the veggies, and brown-braise the mini onions. WHEW! That took almost 3 hours! Then I had to turn around and fix something else quick for dinner since the Boeuf wasn’t ready! I was EXHAUSTED. No wonder Julia Child never had any kids—you really can’t be a Pregnant French Chef easily! The backache! The foot ache! That night, Jeff went and got a cork screw.

Wednesday during Jay’s nap time: While the wine boiled and filled our house with that sickly alcoholic scent, I sauteed the mushrooms in butter, following Julia’s careful instructions. WOW they were GOOD! I snacked down plenty. Then I dumped all of this stuff into my trusty crock pot, and voila! It simmered for 4 hrs.

I was looking forward to having a fun, 4 course French meal with Jeff that night, but alas, his newest job kicked in and he had to go in to the community college to man the computer lab till 9pm that night. So, Jay and I were the first to experience the finished Boeuf Bourguignon.

[The 4 courses we would have had include: salad (or salade verte I think it is), le Boeuf, sour cream apple pie (I’ll call it tarte aux pommes to Frenchify it), and the grand finale: some soft Camembert fromage avec pain (bread and cheese). Ah, it was a good idea. But alas, my stomach can only hold so much at one time now because of a certain little baby smooshing it, so all I ate was a modest bowl of the stew. Jeff came home and had some after 9pm.]

HOW WE LIKED IT: Jay hated it. Jeff loved it. First general impression for me=RICH! The stew was so rich I couldn’t have eaten much of it even with a normal shaped stomach. I loved the braised onions and the carefully prepared mushrooms in it, but I didn’t do the beef justice. It was still kind of dry after all that. I also didn’t like how I could taste that wine-y quality. It reminded me of the yucky smell that pervaded our house while I was boiling the wine. Bottom line: if I ever have the time/energy to try this recipe again, I’ll make sure I’m not pregnant so my taste buds are back to normal.

SUMMARY: Boeuf Bourguignon was intense and time consuming to make, ULTRA flavorful, and expensive—it cost at least $25 for this one meal! The good part is that Julia Child never claims that her recipes are fast, easy, healthy, kid-friendly, or cheap. In the foreword to Mastering the Art of French Cooking, she does warn you:

“This is a book for the servantless American cook who can be unconcerned on occasion with budgets, waistlines, time schedules, children’s meals, the parent-chauffeur-den-mother syndrome, or anything else which might interfere with the enjoyment of producing something wonderful to eat. ...Elimination of steps, combination of processes, or skimping on ingredients such as butter, cream, and time, … “Too much trouble,” “Too expensive,” or “Who will know the difference” are death knells for good food.”

Bon appetit!

PS pardon the lack of pictures, but brown, chunky beef stew is not very photogenic.

The Bread Bucket

Recognize the backboard? It’s half of Jay’s cardboard PB-Jay Halloween costume! I thought it was funnier to leave it in the bitten-bread shape rather than trim it down because it’s pretty ugly in general, so it needed a fun nickname: the Bread Bucket! All I did was cut out the bucket bottom, poke holes in the side, and tie it to the cardboard. Then I added the red square and we hung it on the wall!

While we were in Missouri last week, Jay fell in love with his cousin Steve’s little basket ball hoop. He loves to “dua, dua, dua, dua!” (dunk). I hung this hoop out of his reach on purpose so he wouldn’t accidentally yank it down. So we have to lift him up so he can do a dunk. New favorite game.

I think he inherited some Brown family Basketball genes after all! They were definitely very dormant and deep down in my DNA if they did come from me! His Grampa and uncles will be proud. Now he just needs a basketball!

Video of the fun:

Happy Shaina-Day!

November 4th was my 24th birthday! It was a good day. Jeff got all dressed up for work as usual and left as usual that morning. But around 10am, he walked in the front door holding a lovely bunch of flowers and a glorious bag of peanut butter M&M’s! He decided to surprise me and pretend he had a subbing job that day, when really there were parent-teacher conferences that day, (so no sub-jobs). Yay! Some things we did:

• We walked to the library, where Jeff supervised Jay while I browsed books unhampered—that seems like a small thing, but it was SO enjoyable for me!
• Jeff gave me a sweet new running watch (my old one was 4 years old and duct taped together). I’m wearing it in the cake picture above. Can I just take this opportunity to say I CAN’T WAIT TO GO RUNNING AGAIN!!!! For now, I just use my watch as a timer when I cook.
• We ate peanut butter M&M’s
• Jeff took Jay to the park while I lounged luxuriously on the couch and read my library book. (another small but heavenly gift)
• I opened cards from dear family members.
• The Whites gave me my favorite Disney movie of all time: Beauty and the Beast!  Yippeeeee!!!
• I made my birthday dinner and cake before my birthday so there was no cooking on the big day and so I could enjoy it at least twice before…
• …I went to Missouri the day after my birthday to visit my dear sister and her family!!!! That was what my parents gave me for my birthday—a plane ticket to Em’s house! Awesome gift.

My flowers and peanut butter M&M’s (and my library book).

A blurry action shot of me huffing and puffing. That’s what was left of my pumpkin roll birthday cake by my actual birthday. This is the first time in like my whole life that I haven’t chosen chocolate cheesecake for my birthday cake. Darned pregnancy taste buds. At least there was plenty of cream cheese in the pumpkin roll’s frosting! and now on to…

Visiting Missouri

Jay and I made it to MO in one piece—it was his first time on a plane! He loved looking out the window during take-off, but flying during nap time did turn out to be a challenge. (20 minute nap!) I love my sister Em. We had tons of fun hanging out for a whole week. It’s been almost 2 years since I’ve been to Missouri (we used to live there!), and when I left, I was pregnant with Jay!

Cousins! Jay, Dan, and Steve were quite the trio. They worked on sharing toys with each other all week. It was a challenge at times. One thing they all shared easily was a stuffy runny nose, sadly. Jay picked it up a day or two after we got there, and he still has it!

No trip to Missouri would be the same without a visit to my Grandma and Grandpa Brown! Em and I have 3 1/2 of their 7 1/2 great grandkids. Grandma had us over for Sunday dinner and even took us out to lunch one day too!

No sister time would be complete without major craftiness. This time we managed to choose ALL sewing projects. If you can’t tell by the look on my face, I’m not in love with sewing. BUT, the things we made turned out great anyway! I made a sweet high-tech nursing cover (complete with a buckle), a maternity shirt, and 2 pairs of PJ pants for Jay.

We basically traced one of Em’s shirts and made it up as we went along…and after some long hours of tricky sewing and seam-picking, it turned out! It’s actually huge and comfy. I may even attempt to make more. (Em made the cute flower embellishments—I love them).

Here are some of the things Em made: baby booties for Rose!!!! I adore them. Why do we have to wait nearly 3 more months before Rose can wear them?

All of that sewing required 2 trips to Joann Fabric Store (45 minutes from Em’s house). 3 little boys plus fabric store equals zzzzzzzzz.

They all loved playing the piano together.

We went to the park one day. I was surprised that Jay managed to climb these stairs without help. He’s getting so grown up! Em and I also tried to make pumpkin spice donuts, but they were a greasy, miserable failure so I won’t even post the pictures from that venture. (shudder)

The Trip Home

Our flight home was Friday evening. When I got to the airport, I found out it was delayed nearly 2 hours! The airline gave us a $20 meal voucher, and we hung out in the airport for 3 1/2 hours! The only dinner-y place I could find in our part of the airport was this place called Beers of the World. Seriously. That was the restaurant’s name. Can you see it on the menu? (We had a hamburger and water). I was surprised at HOW MANY people stopped and told me how cute Jay is while we were eating! I mean, I know he’s cute, but at least 7 or 8 people who were walking through the airport took the time to stop, lean over the restaurant railing, and tell me what a cutie I have. Warm heart.

Jay was quite the little trooper. In the airport, he ran around playing happily and rarely wandered too far from me. Our flight didn’t leave until 2 hours past his bed time, so he got pretty droopy on the plane. We were lucky to have an extra seat so he didn’t have to sit on my lap the whole time.

Next sleeping position. The flight from St. Louis to Pasco, WA had one stop in Salt Lake City. We got there an hour AFTER our connecting flight left! I quickly borrowed someone’s cell phone when we landed, and managed to call Jeff before he made the hour long drive to pick us up at the airport. Whew. Anyways, the airline gave us a hotel room voucher plus a $6 snack voucher. We sat out in the cold for at least 20 minutes waiting for the hotel shuttle to pick us up. It was almost 1am when we got there, and Jay was a sad looking little red-eyed boy. He didn’t make a sound from the time we got off the airplane till the time he was snuggled in his hotel bed!

Tired cheeks! Our room had 2 queen sized beds, so Jay took one of them. It was his first time sleeping in a non-crib, and he didn’t even roll close to the edge! (I think he was too tired to move much at all, poor boy). Let me take a minute to describe our RIG: I had one carry-on sized rolly suitcase, a backpack, a belly, and a stroller to maneuver through the airport. Jay and I got pretty good at it by the end, but we were a wide load.

Saturday morning, after a hotel breakfast, I let Jay watch some Nick Jr. while sitting up in bed. I remember LOVING hotels when I was little because we got to watch cartoons in bed! Jay liked it too. Can you tell? Our last flight was on time, and it only lasted an hour. We had a spare seat again, even though it was a tiny airplane. Blessing. My big stomach is not comfy for Jay to lean on, and it hurts when he elbows and knees me. I’m so thankful that we had extra space on 3 of the 4 total flights we took on this trip! I’m so glad we made it HOME AT LAST!!!

Basically, I had an awesome, exciting week-long birthday celebration!

Autumn in the park

Is it just me or is the sun more golden and glorious in the fall? I absolutely adore how much richer the yellow leaves look against a blue sky with that thick fall sunshine pouring all over them!

This is how one of the gorgeous trees in our park looks today. Even though I miss my dear Appalachian fall colors at this time of year, I’m still thankful that we have SOME deciduous trees around here in the desert of central Washington!

Crisp, fresh fall weather makes me giddy! When Jay and I went to the park yesterday it was super windy, so there was a carpet of newly fallen leaves to frolic in. So, we frolicked!!!! Jay thought throwing leaves into the wind and letting them blow onto his face was great fun, and he squealed and giggled with delight while we played. I even tried making a “leaf angel,” but sadly this does not work quite as well as a snow angel (not worth a picture).

On Saturday morning, Jeff came with us to the park. It was cold and our feet were freezing and wet by the time we left , but we had fun blowing bubbles anyway:

The ground was so dewy that the bubbles just stuck all over the place without popping!

mmmmmm soap

King of the Mountain! (or picnic table)

   

As you can see, we spend plenty of time at the park. Unfortunately, some idiotic people drew and wrote obscene, offensive things all over the playground. So I took a Sharpie of my  own out there one day and did a little editing. There is still plenty that I didn’t cover (and I think they came back after me and did more—grrr) but I need a fatter marker before I even attempt to tackle it!

And now, for a video of Jay going down the slide like a big boy! I am bummed that I didn’t record the time[s] that I didn’t managed to catch him at the bottom—he never cried, even though he flipped around and landed on his back in the mulch! Tough guy. [By the way, Jay is definitely the only cute person in this video]