Intrepid Murmurings

I know its been a long long time since I posted!  So much is happening around here! 

Three days ago, Emma realized she could walk.  She has been able to since her birthday, about a month and a half ago.  But she has been really hesitant, and only would do it with lots of encouragement, outstretched arms, and cheering.  Now, she has suddenly occurred to her that she doesn't need all that and is one proud girl.  She is thrilled with herself, and beams as she toddles around.  She still gets down to crawl sometimes, but is walking a lot on her own, as well.  Hooray!  

She is also talking up a storm!  I was planning on keeping track of words but its really hard, because she seems to learn 3-4 each day!  With a lot of them she is just repeating us, and doesn't bring up on her own, but its pretty obvious and clear what she is saying, so I figure it counts.  Her big one now is Aiko, or "I-kee" as she says it.  Pretty cute.  She is loving up the dog like crazy even more now that she is walking.  Aiko is very very patient, thank goodness!   Another recent word is "icky", with regards to things like the bathroom garbage, or sucking on shampoo bottles.  Ha!

Her signing is also picking up, and I find myself constantly wishing I knew more when the moment hits.  I am in search of a good kid sign language dictionary, that has either photos or real-ish looking drawings of lots of baby/kid related signs.  It would be ideal if it is set up dictionary style, alphabetically, so its easy to look up, though words in related groupings would be fine too.  I went to Powells while we were down in PDX, and couldn't even find something that looked good there.  Odd!  Emma's newest and frequently used signs -- "airplane", "fish", "hear", and "all done".  The latter, is All The Time, as in "all done (diaper change)!!!", "all done (carseat)!", all done (sitting in the stroller)!", "all done (eating, if you are only going to feed me this disgusting yogurt)!", etc, etc, etc.

She is now eating wheat, soy, and dairy! Woohoo!  We have been gradually introducing them over the past two months.  Dairy was the most recent addition, just in the past week.  She seems to be doing fine with it, though a little diaper weirdness which I think is pretty normal.  She isn't eating lots of dairy yet -- she mostly still drinks breastmilk or water, and she refuses (!) the delicious whole fat yogurt I have been trying to give her.  She won't even eat something thats mixed with it, if she sees me doing it!  She does really enjoy the cheese stick, of which her first is documented here.  Mmmm.....cheese.      

Oh yeah, one more thing.  A few weeks ago we went down to Sunriver for a friend (Kirsten's) wedding.   It was a beautiful event! While there, Emma had several firsts, including her first bike ride!  Some photos of that trip (plus a few more since then) are here.   

Emma is so busy these days!  Climbing stairs, up down up up down down down.  I am not even worried about her on the smaller sets of stairs anymore, though the cement ones outside give me a little twinge still.  She is also climbing all over her firetruck, man she loves that thing too.  Sometimes she pushes it around, too, and then gets blocked in her room because she wedges it against the door.  Silly baby. 

She is also looooooving her baby dolls too and it is very cute.  She kisses them, hugs them, kisses them again. She carries them around, scootching them on the floor as she crawls, and she puts them in boxes or stuffs them inside her wagon or other toys.  She is thrilled when I make the baby ride her bike, or wave to her, or other things like that.  Today she didn't want to let go of her so she took her shopping, in the car, into the stroller, and held on to her most of the way (until snack came into view, that is).  Then, goodbye dolly, out of the stroller and onto the floor you go! 

New favorite product:  the snack trap.  Snack on the go.  Snack in the bowl, not on the floor.  Ah, worth every penny. 

In other news:  This past week I have been working on a fundraising project for my La Leche League chapter.  We are making t-shirts of the international breastfeeding symbol.  It is amazing the amount of little details involved in such a project!  I will have more info once they are available, but feel free to email me if you are interested in preordering -- $10 for baby onesies and toddler tees, $12 for adult sizes. 

In the past few months, two things have spawned a lot more bread machine baking in our household.  One, was the moving of the bread machine out from the bottom of a precarious bookshelf in the kitchen (not good for the pulling up/cruising crowd, for sure) to the console table turned changing table turned kitchen workspace table.  It is getting more use than ever, now, holding things like the bread machine, pots and pans, and miscellaneous baking dishes that don't fit anywhere else. 

The second was the purchase of this book on bread machine baking.  It has a ton of great recipes, way more than I ever thought possible using this handy little appliance.  I have yet to try things like rolls, artisan loafs, etc, that call for a bit more hands on time (ie, taking it out of the machine) but I have been trying a lot of the whole grain and multigrain recipes, with much success.  I find myself buying all sorts of odd grains and flours in order to try some of the new recipes.

This week, I made up my own recipe, based loosely on the guidelines in the book.  It turned out fantastic, I must say!  Moist and delicious, for at least three days (it was gone after that)!  Great for toast and for sandwiches!  I only made the 1.5 lb loaf, so that is what the measurements are for.  I will try to update this sometime with the 2 lb amounts, once I've figured it out.

Kristin's Multigrain Bread Machine Recipe (dairy-free)

1 1/2 cups warm water

3 tablespoons honey

4 tablespoons dairy free margarine (or butter!)

2 tablespoons soy milk powder (or regular powdered milk)

1 1/4 cup all purpose white flour

1 cup whole grain spelt flour

1/2 cup amaranth flour (I imagine other alternative flours would work too)

1/2 cup quick cook oats (regular would probably be fine)

1/4 cup cornmeal

3 tablespoons gluten

1 teaspoon salt

1 packet SAF yeast

Put ingredients in the order your machine specifies.  Run on whole  wheat setting, medium crust.  1 1/2 lb loaf.  Remove from pan promptly when done.  Enjoy!

 New pictures up in the gallery!