Calvin & Hobbes

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Cute pictures of Tyler!!

Tyler has been really cute lately. He's really getting good with his walking. He still crawls sometimes, but he's mostly walking now. He is very determined and doesn't give up easily. He has even taught himself how to dive over things that are in his way such as toys, chairs, or mommy and daddy's legs. I've been trying to teach Tyler how to blow kisses. He's only done it a few times, and only to me. Yesterday, he actually puckered up his lips some and kissed both me and Cory on the lips. It was pretty dang cute. He loves to clap and smile. He also loves to play with his Little People sets and he likes books. Well, I just wanted to update everyone on how Tyler is doing. He keeps us really busy. It is such a blessing to have such a wonderful child in our home. He brings us so much joy, happiness, and laughter.

WARNING....Do not put things on your finger, they may get stuck.

Yesterday, while Cory was at work, I was in Tyler's room with Tyler while he was playing. I was sitting on the floor while he played. From the corner of my eye, I saw a little yellow, tri-angular shaped block with a hole in the center of it. Well, I decided to see if that particular block fit any of my fingers. I was sliding it off of my ring finger on my left hand for awhile, then I switched to the right ring finger. Well, has anyone ever heard the myth that one of your hands is bigger than the other? I believe it's true. That block got stuck on my right finger for like an hour. I would pull and pull to try to get that dang block off. My finger even started turning purple. I really didn't know what to do. So, I took a deep breath, and tried again, but with no luck. This block wasn't going anywhere. So, I sat down again, and, I know this sounds cliche, but I said a silent prayer so that I could get that dang block off of my finger. After my prayer, the block slid right off. I learned a valuable lesson that day. That no matter how little or silly our questions to our Heavenly Father may be, He is listening, and He does answer our prayers, all of them.

My beautiful new ring.

Another shot. Isn't it lovely?

Uh-Oh, my finger is starting to turn purple.

Our new babysitter!!

The other day Cory and I were cooking dinner in our kitchen and of course our little rug-rat was under foot and kept trying to reach above the cupboards and kept tugging at our legs, so we took the laundry basket and placed Tyler inside with toys and Sesame Street on the T.V. It was so funny, because he actually stayed in it. He played with his toys and just watched his buddy Elmo for like an hour. It was amazing. Tyler didn't even try to stand up. Once Sesame Street was over though, Tyler managed to knock himself over and crawl back to us. Hey, at least we were able to cook in peace.

Tyler Birthday QUILT!!

Okay, So I know this posting is way way old, but I just wanted to show off his quilt. I made this over the summer. Yes, I made it. Practically all by myself too. I even picked out all the colors on my own. I only had my mom's help when I had to use her basement to cut the fabric into strips with her rotary cutter and her table. That's it. I did everything else on my own, including the quilting and the binding. The binding was the hardest part. Argh!! Anyways, here are my fabulous pictures of Tyler's First Birthday Quilt.

Cory's Spot: Recipe: Swiss Zopf (Braided Bread)

While on my mission in Germany I grew tired of the cheap, boring standbys most missionaries survived on – the equivalents of mac and cheese and ramen noodles – so I learned to cook a few things. In one of my areas there was a Swiss Elder who taught me how to make a Swiss braided bread (called Zopf, German for “braid”). I made if fairly frequently while on my mission and a couple of times right after I got home, but it’s been a few years.

My overdone first attempt

The other day I decided to give it a try, again, but my recipe was a single tiny piece of scratch paper with nothing but the ingredients on it, and they were listed with metric measurements. Luckily a member family gave me a food scale for Christmas one year, so I could figure out the dry ingredients, and our Pyrex liquid measuring cup has metric measurements indicated. I looked up similar recipes online to figure out how hot and how long to bake the bread, and I was off. My first loaf didn’t turn out too great – it baked too long, but I tried again today and it was quite good – I remember now why I used to make it so often. I also took the time to figure out standard equivalents today, so here goes.

Swiss Zopf
• 1 packet dry yeast (2 ¼ t.)
• 3 ¼ c. AP flour (500 g by weight)
• 4 T. butter or margarine, softened (60 g by weight)
• 1 t. salt
• 2 t. sugar
• 2 ¼ c. milk (300 mL metric)

Mix together yeast, flour, salt & sugar. Mix in butter until it is evenly distributed – I find the best way to do this is to simply get in there with my hands and “mush” it into the flour mixture. Heat the milk to just under 130º F (1 minute on full power in my microwave is about perfect) and stir into flour mixture until dough comes together. Turn out onto floured workbench and knead for about 5 minutes or until dough takes on a smooth, elastic texture.

Allow to rise for 30-45 min., or until doubled in size. Place back on floured workbench and divide into two equal pieces. Rolling the first piece of dough between your hands, make a long, snakelike piece of dough that’s about ¾ in. thick and about 3 ft. long. Repeat with the second piece of dough.

Lay one piece of dough out horizontally on the workbench and lay the other vertically so that you have a equilateral cross. Cross the two sides of the horizontal piece over, wrapping that piece around the vertical piece. Next cross the two sides of the vertical piece over. Continue to end of dough, tucking ends under for a nice, finished look.

Here’s the best picture I could find of the braiding process. If anybody is really interested, I can try to get some better pictures of how I do it. It’s also possible to simply divide the dough into three even pieces and do a standard 3-stranded braid, which may be easier to figure out on your own.

Picture: about.ch via swissroots.org

Place your Zopf on a sheet pan in a cold oven and turn to 400 º F. The dough will rise a bit as the oven heats up. Bake for about 35 min, or until GBD. Pull from oven and brush top with butter. Traditionally, you would brush with a beaten egg yolk toward the end of baking, but I prefer the softer crust and the flavor the butter provides.

The day after Thanksgiving

Well everyone, here's what you've all been waiting for. The day after Thanksgiving pictures from Jo-Ann's.

It was a crazy morning. I woke up bright and early got myself ready and drove to Jo-Ann's. Believe it or not, I was the first car there. So I was lucky enough to park right in front of the doors. I looked at the clock....4:40. Whoa, that's early. I turned on my overhead light to play Tetris. After a few rounds, I looked at the clock again. 4:50. I was still the only one there. I gave myself till 5:00 then I called mom to ask where she and Krista were. They told me to meet them there at 4:45. Well, when she answered the phone, she was still in BED. I explained to her that I was in the Jo-Ann's parking lot waiting for them. She then explained to me that she and Krista changed the time, and to my dismay, they didn't inform me. So, I was there a whole 1/2 hour early. At least I got some good rounds of Tetris in. Cars started arriving and a line was forming at the doors. Mom and Krista FINALLY arrived. We weren't sure if we wanted to wait in line out in the cold, but we did. We were the third in line. I think we waited about a half hour outside. The nice workers at Jo-Ann's opened the doors early even. Once those doors were unlocked, I literally ran to the $1 fabric and just grabbed what I could. Poor Krista almost got trampled. She got stuck in an aile trying to carry bolts of fabric. Thankfully we all made it out alive. Until next year........

This is our cart of fabric. We only had one cart and all of that. It was crazy. The bolt kept falling over and so Mom, Krista, and I had to take turns holding it up.

This is the cart behind us in line. Look at all that fabric!!

Here is Krista gaurding our fabric with her life.

Here is a picture of all the crazy ladies waiting in line for getting their fabric cut. This picture just shows a little bit of what madness went on that morning.

Can anyone see my mom in this picture?

Yeah!! We made it to the pay line. Here is Krista with her haul, and me, below, with all my fabulous new fabric.

Something new to look forward to:

Or go here for the Quicktime version.

Super-BABY!!

We saw this outfit at Wal-mart and loved it. We had just watched Superman Returns and wanted to get Tyler something Supermany...but, unfortunately, the only part of this outfit that actually fit Tyler was the jacket. His head was too bif for the under shirt. So, we sadly had to return the outfit. At least we got a few good pictures out of it.

T is for TIGGER!!

Here are some more Halloween pictures. Tyler also dressed up as Tigger. Cory's mom bought this Tigger at a garage sale for only a few bucks. It still had the tags on it too. Tyler mostly wore this outfit because it was warmer. I think he looks pretty darn cute.



After a long night of visiting people in his costume, here is Tyler happy as can be with a sucker. He loves his suckers.

Halloween!!

I made Tyler this cute little cow outfit for Halloween. He looked so cute in it. I didn't make him a hat though because I knew he would try to pull it off, plus I ran out of material. I think he makes for a really cute cow.







For Halloween we went to mom and dad's trick-or-trunk which turned out not to be such a good idea. Everything was outside, and it was cold. We decided to stand in line for chili. I had to get a bowl for Cory and for me since he was holding on to Tyler and he was being wiggly. Dad thought we should go to his car and eat our chili so we could at least be warm. That was a bad idea. We sat down and I immediately spill a bowl of chili all over me, Tyler, and the back seat of Dad's car. So, needless to say, we went back to mom and dad's and had our own chili and ate their Halloween candy. Tyler got stuck in one of their kitchen drawers too. But at least we were warm.