Memorable Moments Monday

Alan's First Haircut

I don't know what other people do for their babies' first haircut... I imagine it has something to do with an appointment and a barber's chair? I really have no idea.

Around here, we are the ultimate do-it-yourselfers. This includes the realm of just about anything hair-related. Of course, my mom gets most of the credit. She really has a knack with the scissors. You oughta see what she does for me! (Not that I'm braggin' or nothin', but between the good genes and the good haircuts, there are times in my life that I go around sportin' a pretty kickin' haircut. So good, in fact, it apparently makes me forget how to use the 'ing' suffix... hmmm.)

Anyway, since Mimi can do things with scissors that looks professional, that means we don't have to go and sit (or pay!) for a professional to do it. Which means Baby's First Haircut can happen whenever the urge strikes. For Alan, that was this past Thursday night. (Well, the urge struck us, not him, but.... you know.)

Anyway (again) - moving ahead with the story...
After a competent barber/stylist, the next important element of of Baby's First Haircut is something to keep the
patient
victim subject still. For Dale, this was easy: ice cream! He probably got spoon fed ice cream (usually by Gramps) for every haircut the first 2 years of his life. Worked like a charm.
Alan? Not such a fan of ice cream. Or being spoon fed. Or just eating in general. So he posed a little more of a challenge.
For his ultimate distraction & entertainment, I pulled down a box of odds & ends toys from the top of Dale's closet - most of them with wheels.

So:
Mimi did the cutting, Gramps did the entertaining, Dale played on the computer and talked - a lot. And me? Oh I'm pretty useless - I ran around doing this & that - keeping Dale busy, retrieving toys & cutting supplies. And taking pictures. :)

Can you count how many hands are in this pic? I see 5. :)

So there it is, the first haircut, ready to go down in the history books. Or at least the baby book. :)
To read more memorable moments, or to share your own, be sure & visit Kara at Eskimo Kisses & Air Hugs! :)

Sunday Scones

Some of my cooking is planned. But often, something comes on a whim.

This morning (maybe it was the time change?) I woke up in the mood for something good for breakfast.

I Googled "scones" and made the first recipe I found. They were sooooo good.


· 2 cups all-purpose flour
· 1/3 cup sugar
· 1 teaspoon baking powder
· 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
· 1/2 teaspoon salt
· 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, frozen
· 1/2 cup raisins (or dried currants)
· 1/2 cup sour cream
· 1 large egg

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a medium bowl, mix flour, 1/3 cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Grate butter into flour mixture on the large holes of a box grater; use your fingers to work in butter (mixture should resemble coarse meal), then stir in raisins.
3. In a small bowl, whisk sour cream and egg until smooth.
4. Using a fork, stir sour cream mixture into flour mixture until large dough clumps form. Use your hands to press the dough against the bowl into a ball. (The dough will be sticky in places, and there may not seem to be enough liquid at first, but as you press, the dough will come together.)
5. Place on a lightly floured surface and pat into a 7- to 8-inch circle about 3/4-inch thick. Sprinkle with remaining 1 tsp. of sugar. Use a sharp knife to cut into 8 triangles; place on a cookie sheet (preferably lined with parchment paper), about 1 inch apart. Bake until golden, about 15 to 17 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes and serve warm or at room temperature.
Cranberry-Orange Scones
Follow the recipe for Simple Scones, adding a generous teaspoon of finely grated orange rind (zest) to the dry ingredients and substituting dried cranberries for the raisins.

Of course, I can rarely stick to a recipe (probably explains why my baking is hit & miss... ), so here is how I changed this one:
I made the Cranberry-Orange scones, but instead of orange rind I added about a Tablespoon of orange marmalade, because that is what I had. I also added the faintest sprinkle of cinnamon.

Oh. my. goodness.
Some warm, buttery, holiday-ish goodness.
I was going to take a picture, but I forgot. And now they're all gone. :)
But you can see a picture here, where I got the recipe.

One great thing about them was they needed no butter or jelly/jam/honey. They were perfect just like they were, fresh & warm from the oven, or sitting out on the counter after church. (Who needs Sunday dinner when you can just have a leftover baked yummy?)

If I was going to make these for more than just us (say...a ladies brunch?) I might try dividing the dough into two lumps, so I would have 16 little scones instead of 8 bigger ones.
Mmm-mm-mm.... they were sooooo good!

Ta-Da!!

What do you think?

Now go here and pick one out for your own blog! :)

It is very fun, and oh-so-good for your blog-esteem! ;)

Extreme Makover - Blog Edition

Y'all! Guess what.

Last week Shannon of Rocks in my Dryer hosted her annual Fall Y'all Bloggy Giveaway at her other site, bloggygiveaways.com. Basically over 600 bloggers left a link to their own blog giving you the chance to go sign up for something free. There was tons of stuff to enter for: CD's, books, candles, Bath & Body Works, & Gift Cards from places like Target, Starbucks, & Amazon.
I don't know how many giveaways I actually entered... I "only" read through about 100-150 names on the list of links.

And then....? Today...? I found out I WON SOMETHING!! I won a blog makeover!
Jennisa of Jennisa's Bloggie Designs left a comment in this post to let me know I had won. I was happy excited acting like Charlie when he came home with the last golden ticket!
Jennisa is, as we speak (well... you know... figuratively speaking) creating a new design for my blog! Header, background, fun stuff like that. I'm so excited!

So one day soon when you stop by and things look a little (little, ha!) different, just look for the buffaloes, and you'll know you're in the right place! ;)

What would you do?

I can't believe I am posting a picture of my bathroom sink for the second time in a week. I couldn't believe it when I took a picture of my bathroom sink two days in a row. What can I say... the bathroom is apparently a busy place!

Nevertheless, here goes.

Last week, as I was packing to go on our camping trip, I went into the bathroom and found this:

That is Dale's hairgel. And it was more than it looks like in the picture.

At first I was just stunned. Then I was perplexed. Hmmm... how to handle this one? Sometimes I wonder if I am too lenient on things that fall under the category of "classic childhood exploration".. or something like that. I mean, can you imagine how fun it was to squeeze & squeeze & see that pile of gooey, shiny, yellow stuff pile up?

And yet... I wasn't happy about the mess & potential waste.

My first instinct was that Dale needed to clean it up. That is often the rule around here... you make the mess, you clean it up. But I wanted to salvage as much of that gel as I could, so I decided to do it myself. I felt like I was on some kind of gameshow: how fast can you scoop all of this back into the bottle, using nothing but a baby spoon!?

My next question was whether or not to punish Dale. In the end I opted for a Good Solid Threat of a Very Specific Punishment if he ever emptied, squeezed, poured, dumped, etc soap, lotion, hairgel, toothpaste, candlwax, etc down the sink again. I think he got the message.

But I'll be keeping all soaps, lotions, hairgels, toothpastes, etc out of reach for a while. And keeping myself on standby to quickly administer the Very Specific Punishment if needed. :)

So, ye parents of childhood explorers both past & present ... what would you have done with this one?

Noodly tubes

One of the ways liver disease has affected Alan is his appetite. He is only interested in a few solid foods and sometimes doesn't seem hungry for them at all. (He gets most of his nutrition from breast milk and his over-night high-calorie formula feeds through the NG tube). However, one thing he will usually eat is pasta (sounds a lot like another liver kid I know! ;). He almost always digs right in when we have spaghetti. We got tickled this week when this piece got stuck to his head. Hmmm.... which long yellow stringy thing is feeding tube and which is spaghetti?! :)

Oh Happy Day!

After a couple of harrowing car trips with Alan recently, we began to suspect part of the problem was that he was riding backwards - kind of a restricted view, and, oh yeah, he couldn't see me, the one person he must keep in his sights at (almost) all times.

Thanks to Dale, who talks all - the - time (he happened to point out a poster about carseats on the wall of the exam room), I thought to ask the pediatrician last week when we could turn Alan around and found out he was already ready! Yay! If I had the know-how I would have switched out seats right there in the dr's office parking lot! As it was, we had to wait for Daddy to come home and hook us up.

And Alan? He loves it. The first several trips riding forward were so fun! I'd look back at him and he would smile and kick and laugh. He's starting to get used to it now, and he's still had a couple of pretty fussy trips, but it's better.

Just goes to show it pays to listen (and really hear!) your kids... even when they're talking your ear off! :)