The Alphabet and Blue Airplanes

Since before his second birthday, Oliver has known his letters. This is largely thanks to Megan's favorite childhood book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and his bath time foam letters. So what else are you supposed to teach your toddler/preschooler when they already know their numbers and letters?

Megan has been thinking to teach him letter sounds and basic words, e.g. "a is for apple." Today in the car, Oliver was repeating something like, "A for airplane, A for airplane!" He's taken a strong preference to airplanes since our trip to AZ. So Megan encouraged him and said, "That's right honey! A is for airplane! And B is for ball."

To which Oliver responded, "B is for blue airplane."

He's taken a very strong preference.

How do I?

More than two years ago I received my degree in Mechanical Engineering and at the same time quit my job as a piping engineer to move to New Hampshire and be a stay-at-home-mom. Even though I  no longer work as an engineer, I am still quite the nerd and LOVE learning. In fact, I love doing my little research projects all of the time, much more than I ever did in school.

While we were on vacation for the past couple of weeks in AZ (hopefully more posts to follow, but you know how good I am at blogging...) we were lucky enough to get to have a few meet-ups with friends from our good ol' college days. They had a couple questions for me, and we didn't have a computer on hand, so here are the answers to those questions:

How do I do my back blogging?

I use Blogger, so that's all I can help you with, but I'm sure that other platforms have similar settings.

At the right of the screen when I'm in the edit mode of my blog, there is an orange link that says "Post settings". If you click on the orange arrow it will bring down a list of settings.

Clicking further you can either choose "Automatic", which will post at the time and date that you post it, or choose "Set date and time" to do just that.

For people who use the Blogger Dashboard or Google Reader, those posts will show up at the time they are posted, not at the scheduled date/time, so people will still see them come up. However, some people don't  use a reader, so I usually create a backblogging post to link people up to those new old posts if they are  interested in reading them. I am NOT a very chronological blogger, but I love to write down the stories when I feel like writing them down and still want them in "order".

To link to the old posts:

1. Copy the link to the blog post (make sure you are linking to the individual post, meaning that you can see the comments. You're URL should look something like
http://mmwhitney.blogspot.com/2011/12/alphabet-and-blue-airplanes.html)

2. Type in your blog what you want your link to say
(i.e. Alphabet and Blue Airplanes)

3. Select what you have just typed:
Alphabet and Blue Airplanes

4. Click the little "link" button at the top of your blogger screen (on Blogger it says "Link", but on other platforms I've seen it look like a chain link)

5. The Link button will ask you for your URL, so just paste it in and there you go!

Alphabet and Blue Airplanes

After doing it just now, the box that comes up gives you the option to choose what you want your text to say, so you don't even have to do the whole selecting thing if you don't want to. I just do it out of habit for when things were less user-friendly. I won't go all [url = on you.

How do I take and edit my Photos?


Now this is actually a pretty complicated question, but I'll do my best to help you out.

My Camera is an EOS Rebel XS that Matthias was lucky enough to spot the last display model before Circuit City went out of business. I typically use my 50mm f/1.8 lens (which I half paid for using Swagbucks), although I am wanting a wider angle now that Oliver loves to run to me while I'm taking pictures.

The number one way to learn how to take good pictures with your camera is to read the manual. I didn't believe them at all until I read mine, and it made a world of difference. In fact, I feel like I need to read it again and I'll get just as much out of it. It literally tells you how to take good pictures with your camera.

Beyond the basics is the art of photography. The biggest help that I found was a book recommended to me by just about everyone, Understanding Exposure, by Bryan Peterson. Once you know the basics of how your camera works, this book really helps you to think through and know where to start in getting that proper exposure. This book is what made me brave enough to start shooting in manual, which I can't express enough what a difference it makes in the quality of my photos.

After having the basic knowledge of your camera and how photography works, you may just discover that your photo editing software is just as much of a tool as your camera. Now, I'm not talking about what most people think when they think of photoshopping a photo. Did you know that your digital camera's sensor takes in information as numbers, then processes those numbers to output a jPEG image for you? I found the switch to save my pictures as that RAW number data, and use Photoshop to process those photos, instead of leaving the processing to my camera. You don't need to buy the big expensive Photoshop Creative Suite, as Photoshop Elements can process RAW images too, as can the software that comes with your camera. I am just in love with my Photoshop CS5, and have loved the control I have with my photography. For me, I want to capture images the way that I see them, so I try to make the colors and contrast as close to what I see as possible. On our recent trip to Arizona, Matthias forgot his sunglasses, so I lent him mine. He put them on and said "Hey, so this is why you edit your pictures to look so warm!"  We discovered that I wear rose-colored glasses, and tend to edit my photos to match that look. I just think the world looks better through my sunglasses, and I have thought more than once of trying to find a filter to place over my lens with the same optical properties as my sunglasses. So, I edit my pictures that way.

The last, and possibly most important thing, is to practice practice practice. And by practice, I mean take pictures with the intent of taking better pictures, not just to take pictures. Learning about photography has become a hobby of mine, and I love it! I doubt I'll ever invest enough time in it to become truly great, but I feel like I'm doing an all right job such that I don't have to take my kids to Sears and pay for mediocre photos. And I love capturing the every day moments, and feelings, that posed pictures just don't capture.

Snowtober

On Saturday, October 29 a record snowstorm hit the Northeast. In our neighborhood we got about 12" of snow total, which normally isn't a big deal, except that fall colors were just about at full peak, with some trees still green. That much heavy snow on leaf-laden trees caused great devastation in our neck of the woods. At one point 85% of the state was without power. 

We lost power at about midnight on Saturday. The loss wasn't a surprise at all. Matthias decided to put on the snow tires that night, and one of them was a little rusty so it took awhile to get it off. While he was changing it I was shoveling our drive because our snowblowing neighbor has a job this winter. The whole time we could hear the crackle crackle crackle boom of falling trees, which sounded a lot like fireworks.

We were supposed to have the Primary Program on Sunday, but Saturday night after 4" had already fallen (which already broke records that dated back to the Civil War for snow in October) they decided to cancel it. Our ward still had church, but word is the power was out there and maybe 15-20 people showed up. We decided to stay home, as we hadn't a clue which downed tree caused the power outage, and when the plows haven't come by you never know if your road is even accessible. Also, looking out the window one of our birch trees was doing a toe-touch, and it's trunk was splitting as it was bent over so far that it was touching the ground. 

I was a little panicked, especially seeing our own tree broken. Matthias, however, saw it as a great adventure, and went and snapped some awesome pictures.

By the downed line. That's a street, by the way.

A later picture of the downed line. We saw the blue explosion at around midnight, which happened to be when Camilla woke up crying.  The snow melted really quickly because of the nice warm days we were having.

 Our home

Really, the fall colors and all of the snow made a beautiful site. However I have never seen so much devastation from a storm, with so many trees fallen or at least limbs broken off. It was really a big mess out there.

Thankfully I have an adventurous husband, who went outside to boil us up some cocoa on the grill. We also had dinners of grilled chicken thighs and baked potatoes, with salad from the fridge. We lit our first fires in our fireplace (although we were a bit terrified as our inspector told us it needed sweeping before we bought the house, and we just figured we wouldn't light a fire until we'd had it swept). Camilla kept us all entertained with her new trick of clicking her tongue. It's truly adorable. She uses her whole jaw to move her tongue, and has a big smile on her face the whole time. Oliver loves making her click her tongue.

We were also glad that we bought a lantern when the hurricane was coming through. Luckily we still had water and didn't have to test our water supply, and our fridge was kept cold with snow, so we really made it through the storm quite nicely. That night we put our kids in triple pajamas and piled on the blankets once they were asleep to try to keep them warm. Camilla still woke up cold, so we brought her into bed with us.  We woke up to 53 degrees inside, and the power was still out. Matthias made us hard-boiled eggs and toast on the grill (warm meals are sooo good in the cold!). I stoked the fire all day and was able to get the house up to 57 degrees, but we were exhausting the kids' laundry by putting on so many layers, and I really wanted a shower, so we called some friends to ask for laundry and a shower (Matthias is used to cold showers from living in the Dominican Republic. I didn't remind him of the temperature difference since I'm sure he forgot that on purpose.) Thankfully our friends let us stay at their house that night. Ironically they ran out of oil, and we woke up to 63 degrees, which was still way warmer than our house.




Luckily our power had come back on early Tuesday morning (around 4 or 5 according to our blinking clocks), so we were able to do the dishes, wash our clothes, and have hot water again. Along with light. I think the hot water and the heating were the biggest inconveniences. The fire was cozy, and Oliver loved playing in the snow.

He even built his first snowman. He was actually pretty unfazed by the whole ordeal.

Creatively grilled dinners (those chicken thighs were meant for soups, but are amazing on the grill!), eating by lantern light, "Fire, watch!", and all sorts of other adventures came during the power outage. The whole state was supposed to be 99% back by Friday at midnight. Our 52-ish hours felt like a long time, so I felt bad for others. Luckily many people have generators out here, and they set up warming shelters at some of the schools (which had 3 snow days before winter!).

A Cauldron Full of Hot Strong Love

For our Halloween party, I brewed up a special treat: from scratch Butter beer!

 

 

The original recipe I found called for gillyweed, a gurdy root, boomslang skin, and had to be stirred counterclockwise with a licorice wand. Even though I had to substitute for the ingredients I couldn’t get in Diagon Alley, I think it turned out okay. Here’s the ingredients I used.

Ingredients

1 medium ginger root, peeled and diced

1 lemon juiced

4 t vanilla

2 T cinnamon

2 c brown sugar

1 c white sugar

2 jars butterscotch ice cream topping

1.5 gallons of water (24 cups)

2 lbs of dry ice

 

I know your thinking that’s A LOT of sugar (and three different kinds of sugar too!) but this actually is less sugar than some of the recipes I based this off of, and I nixed the karo syrup. AND using the proportions in some of the other recipes I I based this off of, it was only supposed to make 1 gallon with all of that sugar. Megan said that we probably could have added even more to make it go farther as it was pretty rich as is. Use your judgement; add less sugar, or only 1 jar of butterscotch, or more water, or use as is.

Preparation

In a large pot, bring about a half gallon of water to a boil and add the ginger. Simmer with a lid on for a couple hours, then strain out the ginger. Your kitchen will now smell very nice! Add the rest of the water and all of the other ingredients (sans dry ice).

At this point you can put it back over the stove and serve it warm and it truly warms your soul to sip its deliciousness. You can take this opportunity to adjust the water and sugar to your preference.

For a cold, delicious brew, slowly about 2 lbs of dry ice in small chunks over the course of 20-30 minutes. If you add the dry ice while the brew is hot, it will make lots of nifty looking fog! When cold and fizzy, ladle out of the cauldron and serve!

 

 

 

King Pig Matthias shows off his butter beer brewing skills.

 

Humpty enjoys a pint.

 

Let me know if you try the recipe and how it turns out!

Of Birds, Monkeys, and Yellow Polka-Dots

While we still can, we wanted to keep Oliver from being anything crazy for Halloween. We love Toy Story, but we wanted something different, and something that Camilla would be cute to dress up as. We threw around ideas like Ninja Turtles, but never really found anything that stuck out. Then we had it: Angry Birds, especially after that one talk! Using the Google Chrome browser we have an Angry Birds App, and sometimes Oliver points to it and says "Birds one?" and wants us to play it while  he watches. I know, life is so hard. So we thought it might be fun to dress up as some of the Angry Birds crew. Then one day we were watching Curious George, and I got the idea to dress up Oliver in his "yellow hat" from his birthday party, and Camilla could be a cute little monkey "Curious Georgia". I decided to let Oliver choose, and he chose Curious George, so Matthias and I went with the Angry Birds since there isn't a foursome in Curious George. Sad to end our family costume tradition, but we all looked pretty awesome for Halloween, if I do say so myself.

The night of our ward Trunk or Treat (Wed Oct. 26) we were pretty crazy. I was working on costumes literally until the last minute, and neither Oliver nor Camilla took good naps that day, so we were pretty frazzled, but in the end had a good time. You can tell how tired we were in the pictures though ;).

I ended up in the mother's lounge trying to get Camilla to fall asleep most of the time, but Matthias said that Oliver loved all of the booths so much that it was hard to get him to leave any of them. And he may never forget the hand painting of a red truck he had done!

Photo by W.E.

 Photo by W.E.

Photo by W.E.

In the end one of our babysitters took Oliver around the Trunk or Treat (where she said that people gave him extra handfuls of candy because of his adorableness) and I ended up holding an adorable sleeping monkey and talking to a friend while Matthias passed out peanuts and kept all of the good chocolate that I bought to hand out.

Because Camilla was so overtired there weren't even any pictures of her, so I made sure we had a photo shoot before our Halloween party.

Oliver LOVES his costume and would wear it every day if I let him. He does wear the hat at some point every day. I made the pants with Dana's tutorial (except that Oliver is chunkier than her pattern, so I had to fix my lining pants and then made the others a little too big...oops!), bought a boy's XS polo shirt, used an extra band of elastic from last year's costume for a belt, and then sewed together some yellow and black knit to make a tie.We found the hat at Hobby Lobby and Matthias painted it yellow.

I figured that any baby girl costume needed a tutu, so I made one to match the monkey hat I crocheted for her. I found a brown onesie and just pinned some felt to it for a belly since I wasn't sure how felt washes, and have other plans for the onesie anyway. I thought she was adorable, and she needed another hat anyway. She's at the very interested phase, and loved playing with the tutu.

Her gaze still melts me.

It was a pretty cold day (45 ish), so picture taking didn't last long, and these were the best pictures of the two of them together.

I wanted one of them sitting together, but Oliver couldn't take it for longer than 0.2 seconds.

And now for some better, less tired/frazzled Angry Bird/Pig pictures!

I made the masks based on some that I saw on Etsy. They were super fun to make, and Oliver loves them!

Yeah, I know, we're pretty awesome.

Cocoa + Vintage

Yesterday I finally pulled out our few Halloween decorations. For some reason I thought it would be fun to try to decorate the house with a 2-year old. Turns out I'm really good at rewrapping a whole roll of orange crepe paper, but Oliver was pretty cute with my Boo Buckets. We asked them what they were, and he decided that they were cocoa (thanks, Grandma Whitney, Oliver definitely remembers cocoa and will NOT leave me alone if I am drinking some to warm up!) He ran to the kitchen to get a spoon, and then handed buckets to Matthias and I, and ran to get some more spoons. I love his imagination!

"Cocoa!"

"Mmm...Cocoa!"

"Hee yoo go, Mama!"

Today I pulled out one of my old baby dresses that my mom sent me. I did have to put long sleeves under it because we just don't live in Arizona anymore, but I thought she was adorable!

Haha she's in the grab everything and put it in her mouth phase because those teeth are trying to come in!

She is a huge fan of touching her feet these days. And yes, those tights are way too small and kept slipping down all day. The shoes were mine as a baby too, but her feet move far too fast and the light was horrible so I couldn't catch them well.

Doesn't that gaze melt your heart?

Oliver Cuteness

Two year old Oliver is absolutely amazing.  He astounds us all the time with how much he knows, how many opinions he has, and just how absolutely sweet he can be, despite this phase of the "terrible twos".  Here are some things we are absolutely loving about him.

He loves to give hugs and kisses, and is really good at using them as distractions when he doesn't want to put his clothes on.  He also has to have a hug after he gets in trouble, to make sure that we still love him.  Sometimes he has to hug and kiss all of his toys na-night before he puts them away before bed.

When he was first putting two words together, he said "Bite Dada" and the next thing we knew he was biting Matthias's arm (this was probably last spring).

Now, Oliver is more sophisticated, and when he want's food he will say "Nanana, Owiver, mouf, pwease!" (Banana, Oliver, Mouth, Please)

He goes to the fridge, and screams at us "CUUUPPP!  MIIIILLLLKKK!" and then when we go to the kitchen and he looks at us with a sweet little smile and says "Cup, pwease?"

When Oliver wants to be held he reaches up and says "Hold you?" or when we are going up the stairs he will say "Carry you?" when he wants us to carry him.

We have morning church, and have discovered that he's a lot faster at getting ready if we remind him about nursery.  So we get him to church, and after a looooonnnnng sacrament meeting (which actually today he was very pleasant, so we are getting somewhere!) he knows that after the song and the prayer that it's time for nursery.  He gets really excited after the prayer, yells "Nursery!" and runs off right to nursery.  We've stopped hurrying to run after him because we know exactly where he's going, and usually primary kids are running right with him.  The primary kids love Oliver and Camilla! :)

Oliver loves lids, and if one happens to be off or open during dinner, it just has to be closed or he won't eat.  We think he's a little OCD.

Oliver can get really bad tantrums which result in screaming.  Really, he just doesn't know how to handle his emotions, so we've tried to help him realize that when he gets to that point, that it's good just to get awhile for awhile until he can handle things, so we'll take him over to the corner, or if he doesn't want to be near us he'll go into the bathroom or his bedroom.  Now, he'll ask to do that, and the best part is that when he's ready he'll come over with a big smile and a hug.  And if he's not ready to come out, he lets us know.  Sometimes, he even asks for it.  I think it helps because he can get so over-stimulated that it's nice to remove the stimulation while he handles his emotions.

Oliver is getting a little imagination.  He will take his train tracks and put them on the floor and step inside the circle and say "Oliver, water.  Mama, water?" until I join him.  He also likes to pretend that our floor is a bathtub.  "Baf!  Spwash!" and then he will pick up a toy and shake it and say "eewet!"

One of his prized toys from his birthday party is a Batman car with a little Batman figurine.  He now knows the "na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na BATMAN" or "BATCAR" song. He will also fill in any random toy instead of Batman, like bunny, bus, car, etc.

Sometimes Matthias and I will talk in a sing-song voice and Oliver always wants us to sing everything that he can see.  "Milk Milk Milk" "Cup Cup Cup" "Chair Chair Chair" "Yellow Hat Yellow Hat Yellow Hat" "Fork Fork Fork" The best part is watching his little head and eyes look all over the room for something else to sing.  Akin to when he is thankful for random things during the prayer.

Oliver will leave the room and shout "Wheyougoing?" and will should it again and again until we ask him where he's going, and then he'll run into the room with a big smile.

He loves the movies Toy Story 1-3 and Cars.  And You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, and Curious George.  He will walk upstairs and bring down a movie 3 or 4 times a day.  I limit him to 1, unless he doesn't take a good nap.  ;)

He has started cooking us "strawberries" (which he used to say "straw beer bays" until just this week) in his pots and pans.  The strawberries he picks are the rocks painted on his train table.

When I let him help me in the kitchen he loves to taste and smell everything. And spread flour everywhere.  I just decided to let him and then wipe up and sweep afterwards.

He hates my hair when it gets in the way of snuggling.  If he wants to snuggle and my hair just happens to be encroaching my shoulder space, he will say "Oh no!  Hair!" until I move it and he can snuggle right in.

Our Google Chrome has the Angry Birds app on it, so whenever he sees it he says "Birds one?"  He can also find it on my iPod.

He is also going through a phase where he likes to watch me color in his coloring books. He will color more and more now, but for awhile it was always "Mama, color?"  Also, living in New England and having a teacher with a very much New Hampshire accent, he calls crayons "crowns".

Whenever Oliver hears the ice maker drop ice into the bucket he gets a really big smile and says "Ice!"  Whenever he hears an airplane he says "airpwane!"

We love our little Oliver!  For all of the bad reputation that comes along with the "Terrible Twos", and he does have some pretty terrible moments, his sweetness makes up for all of it and our hearts just melt.  We love watching him learn, and watching him understand more about the world around us.  We love reading books with him and having him point out things that we may never have noticed in the pictures.  I love that we can put books in his bed and hear him reading them as he's trying to go to sleep. I love his little OCD tendencies where we have to acknowledge every piece of dirt on the stairs, because it reminds me that he is learning and growing (and that I need to sweep the stairs...).  We love Oliver and look forward to watching him learn and grow more. 

September 12, 2011

Apple Picking

Our here, General Conference doesn't start until noon, so we decided to go out and try some apple picking at Applecrest Farms, because apparently the apple cider donuts are to die for.

When we got there, Oliver was really excited about the pumpkins. He loves them!

However, when he discovered that we got to ride a TRACTOR to go over and pick apples, and tractor definitely beat the pumpkins!

I know, you can't see the excitement at all, but he was quite focused on how amazing it was...

After the tractor ride Oliver was all for picking apples and had no patience for the people telling us which apples would be better than others.  We came really early in the picking season, so a lot of the apples weren't as good because we hadn't really had any good cold nights yet.  Oliver didn't seem to care, and one of the apple ladies helped him help himself to an apple.

He liked his apple so much that he decided to share it with Camilla.

We took Camilla in the stroller both to keep her warm and so that she could hopefully take a nap.  She stayed warm, and she at least got a little doze in there.  And Oliver took a ride too.

I love how our stroller can sort of be a double stroller.  Wouldn't work for jogging, but it sure works for walks to get ice cream or walking in an apple orchard.  Until the slopes get to bad, but luckily Oliver is good at getting right back up on the horse, right?

Oliver and I wore our rain boots that we got for Easter because it was a pretty gray day.  We were lucky, because Oliver decided to go bobbing for apples in the tractor ruts.

I was keeping a good eye on him, but then our friends we were with decided to do a fun climbing to get those special "top of the tree" apples, and Matthias called me away to take pictures of them.

As I was taking pictures, we heard a splash, and poor Oliver was soaked.  I did have a diaper and a spare pair of pants (just out of habit. I think he's only ever wet himself in public once though...he's really good!), but we figured that we should wait until we were done so that he wouldn't have to ride home (and fall asleep) in wet pants. He wasn't as comfortable after that, and didn't like walking around in wet socks and boots, so Matthias carried him for much of the rest of the time.  Some other friends of ours got there with their kiddos, and Oliver got down for a little bit, but didn't want to walk around barefoot, so then we decided it was time to go.  We had our expensive bag of apples, and wanted to get home in time for Conference.

Oliver was really excited for the tractor ride back to the pumpkin patch, and he just looked so cute there with his little bare feet (he totally has Matthias's feet.  Let's pray that he can keep his toe nails!). Sorry for the awkward picture angles, but I was trying to hold onto the stroller while taking pictures on a moving tractor...

When it was time to get off of the tractor, Oliver did NOT want to leave.

But eventually we aimed him back over to the pumpkins. 

And because Camilla was so good, we let her take pictures with the pumpkins too.

Meanwhile we lost Oliver who wanted to ride on the tractor again.

We finally got him back to the pumpkins and our friends took a family portrait of us that I just love because of our kids' faces!

Oliver has such an adorable smile that is hard to catch on camera these days, so that little cheesy grin just melts my heart!  And Camilla is doing her melt-your-heart gaze.  She is so busy taking in everything around her, and that gaze just captivates anyone passing by. I also love how you can see how demolished Oliver's apple is. He ended up eating half of the core.

We had some amazingly fresh apple cider donuts, that were amazing.  Seriously.  Oliver loved them too.  Oliver fell asleep in the car on the way home (with dry pants and a diaper on, *whew*) and Camilla was happy as could be. We got home in time for the second half of the Saturday morning session of Conference.  Conference was amazing, as always.  If you haven't, then you should watch, read, or listen to it now.  I know I'm going to do probably a little bit of all three even though I watched them all! Oliver's favorite part was the choir (hi, Aunt Beth!), especially when they sang "I am a Child of God".  We also had a proud moment when President Monson (the living Prophet of God) got up to speak and Oliver said "Monson!" and did a little dance of excitement.