A Date

On Friday night we went out for our first date where we had someone outside our family watch Katelynn. We went to dinner with Nate and Emelie and had a long dinner. I could actually remember the conversation. We were there for about an hour and a half and it was really nice to have a slow paced dinner out.
We walked around farmers market saw a couple friends and then decided to go back to Nate and Emelie's. On our way there we heard a couple thuds against the car and then a pop and crash. Ben could see that the passenger back window had been cracked and shattered, we had been hit by a rock. Since the window is shatterproof it didn't brake the glass into the car.
Ben immediately turned the car around and tried to see the punks that did it. Since it was dark we couldn't find anything but we were pretty unhappy that it had to happen.
Ben talked to Kevin yesterday and they were able to find someone to fix it. It was less than our insurance deductible to get it fixed and didn't inform them about it.
I wasn't able to get a picture of it shattered, I was at work, but Ben was grateful enough to take this picture when they were fixing it. I am glad that it was fixed so quickly.


Our date otherwise was splendid. I am hopeful that we would be able to go out more often now that everything went smoothly for Katelynn too.

Picture Update

This was when we had just bought the new mattress. Katelynn and Ben enjoyed having the mattress available for laying on when watching Elmo's World and movies. Ben has missed having the mattress in the living room, I have not.


A visit to the park a month ago.





Playing in the front yard.


Swinging at grandma's

Bad Blogger

I have been a very bad blogger for August. We didn't really do anything or go anywhere and so I didn't really know what to blog about so I will just recap the past week or so.

Wheat
Last week I found a recipe for Banana Breakfast Muffins using wheat flour. I found it in the September issue of Family Fun. I thought that they were really good, I think I might have eaten most of them. The recipe also called for chocolate chips so Ben didn't think that they were a good breakfast food and he also thinks that all muffins are just mini cakes, which I can agree with. Anyways, that doesn't really matter, what the point about all of this is, is that I FINALLY used wheat. I don't know how much wheat we have in our storage, but I know that it is allot and we haven't used one can of it in out 8+ years of marriage. So, using the Kitchen Mill grinder that Ben's parents gave us years ago I milled an entire can of wheat into flour so that I can try and use it for something. I am on a mission to find good wheat recipes. So, let me know if you have any.

After milling the wheat all of the flour doesn't fit into the #10 cans so, I had a few cups of flour that didn't have a home and I needed to use it. I went to my handy dandy recipe books and the first recipe I found called for wheat flour, dry milk and honey. I was pretty stoked to use my food storage and see if it would actually taste good.

I must warn everyone, I am not a bread expert AT ALL. I have killed too many bread recipes and I was very worried when I made it. I made two loaves and they tasted great. A little dense, I don't know how to fix that. I was just excited that the bread actually turned out like bread and not a slab of rock. We have just a quarter of one loaf left.

I think that Katelynn might have felt the effects of wheat, she pooped 5 times yesterday and none of it was diarrhea.

New Mattress
We have wanted a new mattress for a while now and just never would do it. Finally, we weren't sleeping at all and we were waking up sore all the time so we gave in and bought the Costco memory foam mattress. We hated it. It was too warm and to firm for us. We tried it for a week and returned it. We bought the standard mattress that Costco also had and we love it. I am sleeping great now and Ben hasn't complained about it either.

Getting the new mattress left us with the old mattress and box springs. So, we asked around a little seeing if anyone needed a cal king mattress that was 10 years old. We didn't really have a way to get it to anyone so we had no takers. I knew that the city clean-up was coming and we would just put it out for them. It was on the 1st and so we would put the mattress out on the 31st and it would be gone by someone in the morning. Well, the clean-up came a day early and I was devastated that we would have to keep this mattress in our front room til who knows when.

When I left to run some errands on the 1st the clean-up crew was just down our street and I told them my dilemma and they said they were in the area for two more days and we could leave it out and they would pick it up today the 2nd. Woo-Hoo! As soon as Ben got home I VERY urgently made him get that mattress out of our house. I wanted out living room back. At 9:30pm someone knocked on our door wondering about the mattress. Since we put it in the plastic from the new mattress people thought that it was new and that we were nuts. No, we aren't that crazy.

We went to bed and it was out there and by 6:30 when Ben left for work it was gone. The mattress wasn't picked up by the clean-up though since I saw them roll by at 11:30. It is gone and that is all that matters to me.

Katelynn
We went to her 15 month appointment and she weighs 25 lbs and 7 oz and is 34 inches tall. So, you all know that thing where you double there height at two you can see how tall they might grow to be. If she is already 34 inches at 15 months what is she going to be at 24 months. I know that she should slow down now and of course Ben and I are extremely tall ourselves. Think that she is going to be taller than me. I hope she likes being tall. She may not for a while.

Scrapbooking
I ordered a 40 page book for 2009 yesterday. It goes from January to July 5th. I haven't touched 2008 yet. Someday I will.

There's a little/long update for you. Hope you are well and we are still alive.

15 Months

Katelynn is such a big girlnow. Katelynn has 11 teeth now she is working on 12. It seemed like 4 of them came within four days of each other. Everyday another tooth would come in, and that was right before she got sick with strep throat.
The kitchen will soon need to be off limits as she has learned how to turn on the dish washer and get into all of the drawers. It gets to be a little annoying when you just run a load of dishes that are dry and she gets them soaked again. We shall live though this.
Katelynn still loves to read books and we usually read 5-10 a day. She has her favorites which are any lift a flap book.
Katelynn is amazing me at what she knows. She doesn't talk much still she says dog, mama, dada and amen. Pretty much any animal is a dog, we are trying to differentiate the animals and all animals roar. I can tell her to brush her teeth, wash her hands, get her shoes, go outside, get daddy, change her diaper and she can go to the right places where those things happen. She surprised us on the 5th of August by folding her arms when it was time to say bedtime prayers. It really is amazing to watch her learn what we are doing and how to do things too.
She knows where her belly button is and maybe her mouth. She can clap her hands and stomp her feet on command and is learning to wiggle her fingers. She knows how to dance and loves to hear any music.
Elmo. She loves Elmo. We have three Elmo dvd's, we watch one in the afternoon and she is glued to the screen. She will stand at the doors of the TV holding on to the edge of the armoire watching with such enthusiasm.
She CLIMBS on to EVERYTHING that she can. We don't have the kitchen chairs set up because she will climb onto the table. She climbs onto the couches and onto the arms of the couches trying to get everything within reach. She has fallen a few times but hopefully after us telling her to not do that and a few more falls she will figure out that it isn't safe.
She is so much fun. I just hope she knows that we love her so much and that we would do anything for her. She is our gem.