Our Bonifide Vacation to the Black Hills (which was already over a month ago...)

It is snowing for the third consecutive day, so I'm in a bloggy mood but my conscience keeps pricking me and saying I need to update the church website and church blog before I attend my own blog.  But updating would require scanning pictures and our scanner is slightly dying and when I try to upload pictures to the website it freaks out and the pics vanish and I say "forget it! I'll go to my blog!  They love me there!"  I can't tell you how often that has happened.  I'm not complaining....well, okay, yes I am.  And I'm making horrible excuses.  So, anyway, moving on...because I won't be guilty to update my own blog.  So there.  I think.

October was a very busy and happy month.  The biggest highlight was that we went on vacation.  This is truly amazing.  I don't think we have been on an actual vacation as a family since Charissa was one.  For a couple years, there, we would only go on vacation if Doug could talk a couple family members into coming up with an odd job or two and/or our vacations would coincide with some kind of event be that a holiday or graduation or some such.  So we went on an actual vacation to the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming.  It was the perfect time of year to be there.

Playing at a park in South Dakota on our way to Hot Springs where we spent the night.

The hotel we stayed at the first night had a buffalo in the lobby.  

Brandt about flipped his lid.  

(Notice his pursed lips - "Whoo-whoo!!")

 

 Charissa and Brandt arrive at Mt. Rushmore.

 Charissa planks a bench at Bear Country U.S.A., which is a very cool place, by the way.

It's a drive-thru park with all kinds of animals but especially bears.

They have a little zoo afterward with baby animals and the smaller critters that would be hard to see just driving by.  Here are the baby bear cubs sound asleep.  Sorry it's such a bad picture, but see the blonde bear?

A buffalo welded out of random metal - notice horns made of brake handles.

 A fishery in Spearfish, SD.  The metal box is spraying food into the water.  See the feeding frenzy?

 Right along the SD and WY border - I love all the colors!

 Devil's Tower, WY!  Talk about a strange formation!  

It was made from the cone of an extinct volcano that has had much of the base eroded away by the nearby river. 

 The Sundance Kid meets Doug in Sundance, WY.

We had such a wonderful time and saw lots of neat sights.

The best part, of course, was being together.

(Although Charissa would probably say it was the hotel hot tubs...)

Can't Help Lovin' That (little) Man

 Brandt stands in the living room, eyes riveted to "The Tigger Movie", his plaid shirt partially covered by his ever-present overalls.  In his hand, a limp piece of bacon he has snitched from the table.  He absently lifts it to his mouth where six little chompers manage to take a tiny bite.  By the looks of the bacon, he is actually making good progress.  Chuckling, I take the bacon and wipe his hands with a paper towel.  I ask if he wants to sit in his chair and he slowly backs up until his fat diaper bumps into the little chair.  

He sits down.  His eyes never leave the screen.

I love this kid.

Pumpkin Puree! (repost)

 I thought with our current season and the shortage of canned pumpkin, this would be a good one to repost!  I've been blogging for over a year now so I can look back at all the archives.  It's fun ;-)

Enjoy!

I love pumpkins.

I really do.  They are so iconic of all things fall.  They make me feel comfortable.  And hungry.

A couple weeks ago, a group of my friends got together and we took our kiddos to a pumpkin patch.  The kids had a blast and I was able to gather four pumpkins, cut fresh from the vine.  Mmmmm...

I love having fresh pumpkin puree for cakes, pies, breads, soups and baby food.  Now, people recommend baking your pumpkins all sorts of ways.  Some bake them upside down without water, some cut them into wedges and bake them upright but both result in dry and tough pumpkin.  And the words "dry" and "tough" have no place in pumpkin puree vocabulary.  

This is how my Mama taught me.

*****************

 Wash those pumpkins then cut them in half.  Let your toddler hold the knife and feel the power.

Or not.  My knives are extremely dull - but I guess they are sharp enough to cut a pumpkin.

So pretty :-)  Scoop out all the seeds and SAVE THEM.

Do not throw out the pumpkin seeds.  They are delicious roasted.

Take your scooped-out pumpkin halves and place them cut side down in a 9x13 baking pan.

Run a good inch of water into the bottom.

Place the pan into a 350* oven for an hour.  They will be nice and golden brown.  I had to do my 4 pumpkins in two batches.

If you want to let them set for a while, the cooling will create a vacuum and all the water will be sucked into the pumpkin hollow.  It makes a nifty sound when you pull out the pumpkins. 

Anyway, lift them out and let them cool for a while.  Save that water!  Once they are easy to handle, scoop out the innards with your left hand as you try to take a picture.  Then get pumpkin goo on your camera and wonder how actual food bloggers do it.

All's you have left is the shell.

"Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater, had a wife and couldn't keep her.  

He put her in a pumpkin shell and there he kept her very well." 

I have a toddler, mm'k?  Nursery rhymes are my life.

Put all that delicious pumpkin goodness in a bowl along with the saved water from the pans.  You DID save that water, didn't you?  I like to use the same water because it contains nutrients from the pumpkin - so why waste it?

Set up your food processor then have a stroke of genius and use your immersion blender.  

Oh, how I love thee, immersion blender. 

It took a while blending, but it worked quite well!  If you don't have an immersion blender, buy one right now, you can use your food processor or a blender.  A blender might require some additional water.

Here is the finished product.  My four, smallish pumpkins produced 16 cups of puree. That's four cups per pumpkin.  Not bad for $2 per pumpkin!  That means $0.50 a cup.  It's cheaper than the canned - and it's far fresher than anything you can buy in the store.

I like to freeze my puree either in wide-mouthed glass jars (appropriate for freezing) or quart ziplock bags.  If you put it in ziplocks, be sure it's completely chilled first, so all those weird plastic-y things don't leach into your puree!  I've heard you should use it before a year passes, but I've never had a problem with that.

Now go forth and bake some scrumptious pumpkin goodies!  

You can certainly use this as baby food.  Just make sure it's completely blended before serving.

If you want to roast those seeds, mix them up with some coarse salt and a light drizzle of olive oil.  Put them in a pan and bake at 350* for about 15 minutes.  Once they are toasty brown, they are ready.  Eat as a snack, throw on salads, use as a garnish on soup - get down that yummy fiber!

Kiddo Poems

Charissa is fun,

Charissa is cute,

 Charissa blows bubbles,

It sounds like a toot.

Brandt is a gentleman,

refined and deferential,

When eating his snack,

His feet cross at the ankle.

A (lotta) Little Puppy Love

I have been working part-time housekeeping at Antlers Lodge these past couple weeks.  It has been fun to get out and get to work a couple hours each day.  Doug studies in the morning so the kids usually stay home but Charissa has joined me a couple times, carrying soap, scrubbing floors and feeling very, very important ;-)

Early this summer, Antlers lost a beloved friend and mascot, Jackson the St. Bernard.  While he will never be replaced, Antlers just wasn't complete without a gentle giant.  And so, Jackson Junior aka. "J.J." came to bring his own life, love and playfulness to the people of Cooke City.

This puppy is so much fun!  I love coming to work and seeing just how much he grew during the night - which seems to be about an inch per 24 hours.  It was hard to get a picture of him since he wanted to sprawl out in my lap but once he found this chunk of wood to chew on, he was preoccupied enough to get my camera within focusing distance.

"Yummy, yummy wood!"

Check out this paw!  It's the size of my whole palm!

This face makes me want to buy stock in dog food and go get one of my own.  I can hardly stand his cute, floppy, huggable-ness!

There is a lotta, little puppy love right here.

J.J., you will go far, sweet puppy friend!

Of Children and Sleep

Yes, I realize this title seems...er...mutually exclusive?  If you're a parent, you know what I mean - unless of course, you're one of those with a "he slept ever since the day he was born - he was even born at a normal waking hour!" parents.  In that case, praise God from whom all blessings flow and maybe our kids should talk.  But anyway...

Before my first was born, I thought crying it out was basically the most horrifying thing I could think of.  I would actually tear up picturing the poor children with "cry it out" parents.  Only heartless people would ever listen to their child without running to their aid.  Of course, I agonized over different sleep methods and devoured books:  "Ferberize" (please come up with a better name, someone) or "No-Cry" (doesn't that sound nice? Ha!) or the "Attachment Parenting Method" (which was my standard of perfection).  But then came the end of all my idealized notions...I had a child. 

Now really, Charissa wasn't a bad sleeper.  At least, I don't think she was - I can't seem to remember all that clearly...  She was up about every 3 hours to eat, like any other healthy child, and would conk right back to sleep afterward.  Nap time was a dream - I would lie her down and wouldn't hear from her again for a good 2 hours. 

But once she hit about 3 months, she started what we would call "The Screaming Time".  I don't think she was overstimulated considering we hardly left the house except for our perfectly scheduled walk at 10am.  I know she wasn't sick, or hungry, or feeling unloved.  I changed my diet all to shreds and nothing seemed to work.  I don't know what was going on; I guess it's called "colic".  All I know is, she would start screaming at 5pm and it would go on until 10pm when she would finally fall asleep in an exhausted pile.  We would take turns walking with her.  The one not walking would follow the other with a plate of food and spoon dinner into the others mouth. 

I wanted to be with her in her time of need, but after a few days of this (it lasted about 2 weeks - which is forever, by the way) I was feeling it.  Like, a LOT.  Eventually, after the first two hours or so, we would kiss her, pray for her and lay her in bed where she would scream for multiple hours.  I guess you could say I "Ferberized" (please, change the name) since I would check on her intermittently.  This was, of course, the "heartless" method of my past but it was better than my throwing her out the window - which is what would have happened.  Putting her in her bed to scream for hours was the most loving decision I could come up with.  I could have tried to grit my teeth and bear it, but the resentment and anger were more tear inducing and scarring for me than to simply place her in bed with all my love and goodwill. So, I struck out of the "Attachment Parenting" category.  And we were happy...eventually.

After "The Screaming Time" miraculously vanished, my baby girl was the most perfect sleeper you could imagine.  I mean, she didn't sleep through the night until after she was one, but as soon as I would lie her down in bed, she would go right to sleep, no fuss about it.  She still does.

Take 2: The Brandtinator

Mr. Brandt is a whole new animal.  I don't think I could have gotten two more different personalities.  Brandt never would lie right down and go to sleep like his big sis.  Ever since birth, he has had to "sing" himself to sleep.  It's hardly crying, more of a wailing, sing-song with an almost preoccupied note - like his heart isn't really in it.  But cry he must.  If I were to hold him, he would never fall asleep.  He would far rather have a conversation until he died of sleep exhaustion.  Believe me, I tried.  Sometimes I would rock him and he'd drift off but the minute he'd hit the pillow, it would be the end of all things.  There was no defined "Scream Time" this go around because "Scream Time" was every. single. night.  And again, I failed the attachment, "no-cry" parenting camp.  Sorry, ladies.  I gave it my all, but it just wasn't meant to be.  He would go through phases of sleeping 10 hours at a time and then after a road trip or a move, we would start at square one again waking every 3 hours.  At 16 months, he's finally sleeping through the night most of the time. 


Sorry I can't give you my sure-fire method to getting your baby to sleep.  Obviously, I haven't figured it out yet but when I DO, I will let you know.  If anyone saw Charissa at 6 months, they would have been in awe.  I thought about writing a book then - no joke.

All my hopes and dreams have been dashed about writing a no-fail sleep method book.  However, this is what I want to do: I want to encourage anyone in motherhood or expecting motherhood to learn flexibility in "methodology".  Don't read one book and be completely sold on it preaching from the rooftops.  Each baby is different, each one will do well with a different method and perhaps a pick and choose of methods.  I've seen babies absolutely thrive on the Babywise method, I've seen them hospitalized.  I've seen babies thrive on Attachment Parenting, I've seen them become a horribly spoiled full-time job with a "martyr mom".  All of these children had loving parents with nothing less than their child's well-being in mind.  But we have to keep this in mind: a baby is an individual with different needs, different tendencies, and different ways of saying things.  They have gifts, they have purpose, they have a sin nature.  Parents are the same way.  What "worked" for sister might not "work" for brother.  What "worked" for your neighbor might not "work" for you.  It's kind of a guessing game.  It keeps us humble.

I can't find a sleep method in the Bible, even though I've heard various "Biblical" arguments to support one or the other.  But I do know this: seeking to show your children Christ, and our need for Christ in all things, must be the goal of parenting.  That doesn't always mean life will be easy, and it definitely won't be "no-fail" on our part.  In fact, I think that's the whole point - we will fail. 

And the failure that will hopefully spur us on to seek Him more.

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(Plugged toilet + 10 towels = mopped floor)