Muffin making

Tuesday we made some banana muffins. It's a recipe from my friend Holly, I'll post it at the end. Parker tried them and loved them, and wanted to make some, so that was our task after a run w/ the jogger. At about mile 2 Parker decided muffing making sounded fun, so we chatted about it the rest of the way, and went right to it after we got in, which is why I'm in running gear. I bought a tripod the other day so I can get more pictures of her and I doing stuff. To look at her photo album you'd think she had a single parent household because I'm always the photographer and it's her and Bob in the pictures.

Dumping in brown sugar...

Slicing bananas w/ butter knife

tasting fresh squeezed orange juice. Mmmmmmm.

I let her smell all the spices when I put them in, vanilla, cinammon, and nutmeg. She had a little brown smudge on her nose at the end that I left there because it was cute.

Finished product. Heart shaped, of course.

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Banana Bread Recipe

1 cup brown sugar

1.5 C smashed bananas (about 3 large ones, very ripe)

juice and zest of 1/2 of a med. orange

3/4 cup apple sauce (mine was at room temp - don't know if that matters. Technically, it was two or three of the ind. serv. containers. Whatever comes close but doesn't overflow 1 cup)

2 eggs

2 C Whole Wheat Flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1.5 Tablespoon vanilla

.5 teaspoon baking powder

.5 teaspoon of salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

1/2 cup of nuts if you like nuts

Mix it all together, pour into muffin tins and bake.

about 20 mins at 400.

First portrait

Here's a picture Parker drew of Bob eating a salad on sunday. He and I were both shocked and how well she did. Looking at it now, maybe it's not that amazing. On the left is Bob, a circle head with circle eyes, colored in. And she specifically said "and no hair". A colored in triangle shirt, legs and feet. On the right is his salad bowl, and the colored in salad inside it.

Princess beadstringer

Here's another picture from Parker's very happy day last week. She was making a necklace and singing in her falsetto princess voice while wearing her dressup stuff. Her idea for this came about while I was cleaning the kitchen. She came running in the kitchen and said
"I'm having a good idea of something I can play by myself! Do princesses do beads? That's what I can do, I can make a necklace! Will you get me the beads please?"

Some Parker quick hits

Here's Parker, examining a dremel tool set, standing on a chair so she can see the top of the counter. She knows this area is a clutter 'hot spot' so she knows to check there often for new and interesting things. I have no idea what the deal is with the sunglasses.
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A funny:
(stop me if I've posted this already)
Parker thinks it's soooo funny to sing:
"A, B, C, D, E, F, banana.
H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, foot..."
etc etc
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At school, they are singing "This is the Day" during music, and practicing it to sing during chapel, whenever that is. I downloaded the song and put it on her kiddie MP3 player and she was THRILLED. I showed her how to replay it, so she did, singing out lout, over and over again, for 3.5 miles this morning in the stroller. It got a little monotonous, but I prefer it to "mooooooooom, can we go hoooooooome?"

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The aforementioned MP3 player was left laying around while playing, so I confiscated it and put it "up". When she found out, she of course had a large 3 year old fit. About 15 minutes later, she comes in to the kitchen and hands me my cell phone, and says "Here's your phone. You left it out".

Mani-Pedi walk

I painted Parker's fingernails and toenails this weekend. She walked about like this for a long time.
No real news. We are getting used to our school schedule and such. I am hosting a baby shower this weekend, so we are doing a lot of cleanup and whatnot to get ready for that.

My blogging has slacked off a bit because I've been making Bob's lunches and getting his coffee pot ready during my normal blogging time. He's working long hours lately, and going in super early so he gets home in time to play with Parker a bit, so I'm helping out with that stuff so he doesn't have to bother at 5am or whatever crazy time he leaves for work.

singing letters and counting

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Here's some video of Parker. She's been in a super good mood the past 24 hours. If it continues, I'll have her looked at. The most shocking part of this video isn't what she knows, it's that she's eating a muffin for the first time ever!

At the start, she is picking out letters from Bob's shirt and singing the sound they make ("the E says ehhh, the E says ehhh, every letter makes a sound, the E says ehhh"). She knows many of her letter sounds, again, from watching a DVD (the LeapFrog Letter Factory).

At preschool, she has Spanish class, and I guess they're learning to count. She's could count to ten in spanish when she was 18 months old from watching so much Dora when she was sick, but now she's doing the fingers with it, so I think she understands what she's saying. She says it very quickly because she's being silly.

At the very end, Bob asks her "what's one plus one" and she shouts "two!". She has that one memorized.

quick pic

Here's a quick picture so the junkies don't go into withdrawal. We found a fun game: Roll The Cap To the Red Pepper Flakes Back and Forth Across the Table. The lid is chamfered just slightly so it won't roll totally straight.

School continues to go well I think. She has made a new little friend that likes to play dollhouse too. Her teacher reports that she has a good sense of humor...I'm afraid to ask what she said though. Every time I go to pick her up she is totally zonked out asleep, as are all the kids. She has been napping especially hard lately, I think she might be growing. She especially difficult to wake up...but if I let her sleep all afternoon, then she's up half the night.

Check off on your developmental list that she understands the concept of zero. When there are no cars in the garage, she announces there are zero.....and when we pull in, there is one.....and when daddy comes home, there are two, etc. I'm not sure if knowing zero is any different than counting, but I thought I'd mention it.

Playdough skills and bathroom update

Up until now, I've been against having playdough at home. I figured Parker could play with it enough at other kid's houses and at school. But she found some in a goodie bag and played with it, and then PUT IT AWAY, so I thought I'd get her a bit more. I was really surprised to see how easily she learned to roll out the dough (using a piece of PVC) and cut out shapes with cookie cutters. Who's wealthier, bakers or ceramicists?

Bob continues his work on the bathroom. The drywall was quite damaged from the wallpaper removal, so he's had to do lots of work to get them smooth again.

I'm sure our 'potty in paradise' thrills the neighbors. Parker was really confused by it as well.

And lastly, here's a picture of crazy Bob trying to race the rain and get the lawn mowed before a downpour. He's wearing a flesh colored shirt - running behind a mower in the rain is one thing, doing it shirtless is just over the top.

First day photo shoot outtakes

If you click on these, you should be able to see them larger.

First day of 3's preschool

I'll post the picture real quick, and be back shorly with the update.



For fun, here she is last year and this year. I tried to make the pictures the same size so you could compare her height. Her hair is sort of wet in this year's picture.

More later, I'm being kicked off the computer so she can play Barney.

First Day Report:
I think things went really well. As with anything, you sort of have to piece together the info over time. She woke up 45 minutes earlier than normal, and quizzed me a little bit, "do the mommies stay? " (no) "Do the mommies stay and watch through the window?" (like at ballet, also no).
I packed her a lovely lunch (hotdog, ketchup/mustard, carrots) and snack (cantaloupe,crackers), with lots of labels.


She made me a lunch too, with instructions that, if I eat all my (plastic) spaghetti, I can have a (plastic) popsicle.


Dropoff was no big deal at all, she sat down with the other girls and started playing dollhouse, and gave me a hug and kiss goodbye. She didn't cry, and there weren't any other criers in there either.
When I went to pick her up, she was sacked out. They all were, I guess they played really hard. And yes, Grandma, she takes her Blankie to school, all the other kids bring a Blankie or stuffed animal or something. She seemed very worn out after we got home and needed a lot of couch and cartoon time to recover.

Meet the Teacher

Just a quick report on Meet the Teacher:

It went well and was pretty uneventful. Her teacher is very nice. She has a daughter a year older than Parker, and she's been teaching there for a while. She is a native of Poland, so she has a thick accent - this will be Parker's second year with a teacher with an accent. That should be interesting, since she will mimic the teacher's accent, or worse, correct her pronunciations.

There are 2 kids in her class that she knows already, so that's nice. I think she'll really be happy.

New this year is that she'll have Spanish. She knows tons of Spanish from watching Dora and Diego, so that should be an easy subject for her.

So stay tuned for pictures tomorrow (Friday), her first day.

Building a fort

I don't know why being bored at home = removing couch cushions, but it does. Some days she pulls them all down and builds a fort on the ground, and recently, she crawls behind them and makes a fort that way. This day she had all the babies with her. New Baby and Little Baby are in a purse for some reason. Hopefully when she's a real grown up mommy, she won't carry her babies in her purse.

Funny phrase:
"I just knowed it up", meaning something she already knew....instead of "I just made it up".

Tomorrow is Open House at school. We get to meet her new classmates, new teacher and see her new classroom. Her friend across the street is in her class, but that's all the friends in there so far. All her other buddies from last year have different teachers. I hope they didn't seperate them because they were trouble.

Candy Magazine

All doll house play stopped the other day when Parker discovered the Oriental Trading Company catalog, the Halloween edition. She can't believe there is something as wonderful as a catalog full of candy and toys! When it was bedtime, I was walking her upstairs to go read her books for night night, and she came running back down yelling
" Wait! I have a magazine I want you to read! A magazine about CANDY!!"
and she ran and got the catalog, which I 'read' to her. I'm surprised all the scary halloween stuff in there didn't give her bad dreams.

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My mom said, about the picture with the blue hands: " The expression on her face is that she thinks she is in trouble.".
Um, not really. I had to really play it up that she'd caused a lot of trouble to convince her she'd done something not so good. Her first expression was a fake worried look that barely covered her smirk.
She was quite sad though, when we washed her hands and the stamp she got at ballet lessons got washed off too. Maybe that'll teach her?

Last week of summer

We've had another long week. This was really our last week of summer, since school will start on Friday. This week, Parker had a little stomach bug on Monday, so we had to hang around the house a lot more than usual. This is the day after she was sick....she felt like an "airplane ride" might be fun.

Bottom row: New Baby, Little Baby, Car Baby, iLean the one-legged barbie, Parker
Top row: Animal Blankie, Mommy (not pictured), Food Baby, Big Baby

She felt better by Friday, and we met some friends at the pool for swimming. The night before, she kept telling Bob that what she would really like is a swimsuit/partydress. There has never been a child more obsessed with dresses. I'm having a tough time assembling a fall wardrobe for her, because dresses that meet her specs are hard to find.

In other news, we started remodeling the downstairs guest bath last week. I'd like to blame it all on just another one of Bob's crazy projects, but this was my idea too. Last weekend was demolition, and this weekend we are hoping to get the walls done and the tile started. Bob promised me that if we get in over our heads, we an call in the pros.

I forgot to take "before" pictures, but this is an "in the process" picture:


Hopefully, the next time you see this wall, it will have a new vanity and mirror on it.

It sure is quiet....

....wonder what Parker is up to.
And it is interesting that her right hand is colored the most, since she writes with her right hand. Wonder how she managed that.

Longer update later.

Comments and Questions

Here's Parker's latest trick to try to prolong bedtime (aside from picking out clothing, undies, hairbows and bracelets for the next day, and arranging them on her dresser).

She and Bob had struck a deal that he would read her 2 books.
He read book #1, then book #2 and said, "ok, night-night".

Parker, holding up book #2: "Will you read this book?"

Bob, "No, remember we agreed to just read two books. Not three".

Parker: "I don't want three books! I just want you to read this book again!"

So in other words, she thought she could get around the 2 book rule by having him read one of the 2 books twice!
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She is forever peppering us with questions.
Questions from this morning:
1. "Where was I before I was born?"
2. "What is this (kneecap) for?"
3. " Who built our house?"

She's really hung up on 'who built our house', she's asked me that several times.
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Blah blah blah, here's the picture:

Puzzles and dancing

We've had a very busy week, although we didn't really have much going on. I didn't work this week, and Parker didn't have school or babysitters, so we spent a LOT of time together this week. Several trips to the pool and a new ballet class and some playdates helped fill the time.

I was surprised to see that she can do a puzzle! She was puzzling and I was on the computer, and I could her her telling the pieces "you don't fit, and you don't fit" and I expected to find it mostly undone. Imagine my shock that she had nearly completed it!

We started a new ballet class this week. It's Ballet, Tap and Tumble. But mostly ballet. It's a little more pricey, but it's much nicer. Right now there are only 2 girls in the class, so it's like private lessons, but we expect more will sign up after Labor Day. I won't do pictures EVERY week, but I just thought I'd share the ones in the new school.

"Lipchaps"

Here's Parker applying 5 types of lipgloss. She's doing a move called "fishlips" that Bob taught her so she could learn to drink out of a bottled-water bottle. Turns out, it works for lipgloss too. Parker calls all lip stuff "lipchaps", and I can't bring myself to correct her because it's too cute. If you're wondering why a 3 year old has amassed such a large collection of lipchaps, it's because I though I was buying nail polish and got these by mistake. 5 kinds of nail polish would have been ok.

Funny things she's said lately:

(lifting the seat on the commode)
"This potty has a tee-tee mustache"
(I guess that's like a milk mustache, but with teetee, and on a potty)

Tonight, telling Bob excitedly:
"Daddy, Daddy, we washed my blankie and now it doesn't smell like food or bug spray anymore!!"

Other funny phrases she's mixing in are, "while you're up, will you get me...." and "I've changed my mind".

And the best thing happened today: Parker leaned how to use the computer mouse!!!!!! We've tried here and there w/out success, but today, it just clicked (haha). Of course I'm not thrilled about her using my fancy 5 button wireless mouse w/ the buttons I've programmed and I use for work, but it was very thrilling to watch her drag and drop (!) dressup clothes onto dolls and to click and color pictures. I have video of it, but I need to cut it down. It's cool to watch how proud of herself she is, but not for 5 minutes.