Happy April Fools Day!

The title is the only concession to the day - this post is absolutely legit. I pinky promise!

When we moved into this house, we knew that the lack of fence around the house would be an issue considering the dogs obviously like to play outside. The previous owners had a dog and had solved the same problem by installing an invisible fence. We knew this, but didn't really know how to use an invisible fence. We only had one collar and no idea what to do with it. After walking the dogs outside on a leash or having to yell at them to keep them in the yard for a few months, we decided to get the invisible fence company out to get another collar and train the dogs on the fence. And since then, they have stayed in the yard reasonably well.

The downside to an invisible fence in Anchorage is that the moose roaming the neighborhood don't have collars that make the invisible fences work to keep them out. (Darn!) So we always have to check for moose. Well occasionally we forget and let the dogs out to potty without checking like last night... 

Luckily, our dogs need very little encouragement to bark like crazy, so we knew pretty quick we had screwed up and got them back inside before anyone got hurt.

Apparently our yard looked pretty tasty to this momma and baby moose that we wandering around the neighborhood. They hung out in the yard for as long as we wanted to stare at / photograph them. Every time I don't see one for a while, I forget how ridiculously tall they are. These things are huge - we're lucky the girls made it back inside safely!

Which is why it's even more embarrassing that it happened again this morning! This time Matt looked, but apparently a baby moose is very well camouflaged against the trees. Fortunately, the dogs again barked and we got them back inside before they even managed to make the baby moose stand up.

The momma moose was nowhere to be found and the baby hung out in our yard for hours today. I finally decided that our yard must be moose daycare. I mean other than our dogs, it's probably a pretty safe place to hang out. And the moose certainly figured out last night that our two pups aren't much of a threat (something about their bark being bigger...?)

We managed to take a photo to show the how close the wildlife in Alaska can get. And he's pretty obvious when you know where to look for him, but I promise if you scanned the yard quick, you probably would have missed him too! :)

Henry's First Photo Session

One of the neat things I found when I started working up here in Alaska was that work had a bunch of diversity networks. We had a version of those back in Houston, but up here they focus not just on gender or ethnicity, but also on hobbies - which I find way more interesting! So I joined the Photography group (and Brittney joined too once she got a fancy schmancy camera for Christmas.)

The first meeting I attended focused on photo editing and led me to finally buy Lightroom - I can't believe I waited so long! The lady doing the presentation on Lightroom, Joanna, actually has a photography business (her website) and she has done quite a bit of newborn photography. I emailed her and asked for tips, which led to her coming over and taking photos of Henry and walking me through some of her editing workflows. Which means I now want Photoshop as well...

She took some really amazing photos and she has so many more props than I would have ever been able to buy without Matt having a "talk" with me. Although I am very much considering going out and buying some reflectors - the light in our house is pretty awesome with our wall of windows, but being able to reflect it around some to banish shadows would be nice. (That and one of our shades broke in the "up" position, so we had to move around some when that window was shining in the wrong spot. Whoops!)

Anyhow, that's the back story on why Henry got nice newborn photos taken even though I never did it for Thomas. Which is also why I made sure he was included in several of the shots. Even though he was still in the "not too sure about the baby" phase... ;)

Sick Days

I got the dreaded "Can you come get Thomas, we think he is sick" phone call from daycare Friday afternoon. They were worried he was getting pink eye because his eyes were all goopy. Great...

Took him to the doctor first thing Monday morning since the eye gunk wasn't improving. His eyes weren't getting red though, so my money wasn't on pink eye. And turns out I was right - poor guy has another ear infection. We're at the point now that every time he gets an ear infection we have to decide if it's time for ear tubes or not. He hasn't had one since December and summer is almost here (ha!), so we opted for the antibiotics again. There's just something about putting my toddler under general anesthesia that doesn't sit well with me. If he gets another ear infection soon, I may just have to suck it up and go with the tubes...

But in the meantime, Thomas had to miss hanging out with his friends for a few days and got some extra playtime with us!

He got to play with the newly repaired WingBat with Matt. Matt ordered this thing awhile ago, but when it arrived, it was missing the very critical nosepiece. Matt managed to McGyver together a nose piece with a K-cup container, spare change and electric tape. Now the WingBat flies like a champ! I'm not sure who was more excited, Thomas or Matt:

We also had some fun playtime inside. He rediscovered an old favorite with his fire truck - and now he's coordinated enough to actually make it go, though not without losing one of his new rocket slippers:

The extra paper towels were then pressed into service as rollers for Thomas to slide on and then blocks so he could bust through them a la the Kool-Aid Man!

Since we had a nice, sunny day to enjoy, we even went to the zoo. Matt was concerned that Henry would get cold, but I remembered that he had the perfect outfit from his Aunt B (Brittney)! It fit him perfectly and even though he may not look terribly excited in the photo, I am sure he was stoked to be going to the zoo in such a fashionable outfit!

The car seat straps are somewhat obscuring the awesomeness - it's a monkey outfit. And he makes the cutest grumpy monkey! :)

Liege Waffles

When Matt and I went skiing in Vermont a few years ago, we discovered something amazing called Liege waffles. I didn't know their name at the time, I just knew there was a Waffle Hut at the base of the not so steep mountain that smelled delicious. And I convinced Matt to stop for a bit and try the waffles. I watched them making these waffles while I waited for Matt's to get dipped with chocolate and I noticed the dough was super thick with hunks of sugar in it. Weird... But those weird waffles were amazing!!! The hunks of sugar caramelized on the outside and the whole thing was quite possibly the best thing I had ever eaten. Even Matt was impressed:

When we got back home, I researched them and found out they were Belgian (not Belgium!) or Liege waffles. I ordered the pearl sugar needed to make them and promptly got overwhelmed with all of the blogs bemoaning how difficult it was to make them and the need for special waffles irons. 

Fast forward 3 years and one of my friends posted on Facebook that she was making them. Inspired anew, I decided there was no time like maternity leave to give them a try. And if I ruined my waffle iron - well it has had a good life up until now... And Matt was going skiing today, so it seemed fitting to make them before he headed off to the slopes.

I started the batch while Matt was getting Thomas ready for daycare and it had rested enough by the time he returned that it was time to add the sugar. Look at the size of this stuff! Some people went through all kinds of trouble to procure the proper sugar from people travelling to Europe. You can also just order it on Amazon...

You have to let it rise for about an hour to give the yeast time to do their thing. Then you add the sugar and carefully mix it in before letting it rest another 15 minutes. Good distribution of sugar is key!

The moment of truth came when making the waffles. I don't have the correct waffle iron, I don't even have the preferred Belgium waffle iron, I just have a standard waffle iron. And it might not have been ideal, but it still turned out a pretty good Liege waffle! The holes weren't as deep, but the caramelized sugar was still there (the best part!). I'm going to try again and dump the excess melted sugar and butter out between every other waffle next time - the goo in the iron started to burn a little and the later waffles got a little too dark. But the ones that were cooked well were ridiculously delicious.

On the other hand, these things have got to be calorie bombs, so I don't really need to make them all that often... If any of you are so inclined to give them a go, I followed this recipe on this blog, which actually used a recipe from this blog. Hate to not give credit to both! :)

And on an unrelated note, I think Henry might already be tired of me taking photos of him...

One Month!

It's Henry's One-Month anniversary today. When Thomas was a baby, I bought stickers to take photos for every month. I thought it would be nice to repeat this practice with Henry and I managed to find a sticker set that had a set of second year stickers so that Thomas could join in the fun. Of course, trying to photograph a baby and a toddler at the same time was beyond challenging. I only managed to get one photo where you could actually see both of their stickers:

This one was my favorite of the set, mostly because they chose such similar poses. :)

We tried to convince Thomas to hold his brother to get the pose that everyone on Pinterest seems to get with their children. Yeah, we're not quite there yet. Maybe by month 4 or 5... "/

Henry was pretty much done with sitting for photos at this point, so I got a few of Thomas on his own. This boy has two moods when I try to get a photo of him - a total ham or not at all interested. Today was obviously a "ham" day:

Tumbling Class

We started Thomas is a tumbling class earlier this year. Theresa put Anna in one when she was about the same age and it seemed like a fun activity for him to burn off some energy once a week. I've been wanting to take the camera to get photos, but trying to stoop down and get photos when I was pregnant seemed a bit challenging. My balance is questionable on the best of days...

Heather was taking off today around 8, so she joined Thomas and I for tumbling class before we took her to the airport. It was a good last activity with the nephew and a good stretching of the legs before being cooped up on a plane for 8 hours. Plus it meant I could take photos of him having fun! They even pulled out the parachute today - which is pretty much his favorite thing to play with.

And what of Matt and Henry? Well we didn't think exposing Henry to the multitude of germs in a toddler gym class was a great idea. So Henry got some quality alone time with his dad at home. :)

Sweet Thomas

Thomas finally picked up the skill of hugging on command - in the sense that if we ask for a hug, he will give us one about 90% of the time. He's also started giving "kisses", but hasn't gotten the entire concept - so asking for one will mean you get an open mouth slobber on your mouth. I'm now working on the puckering up part to minimize the slobber...

But anyhow, this morning Matt and I were asking Thomas for hugs when Matt got the bright idea to ask Thomas to give Natalie a hug. And he did - it was pretty adorable!

Of course Natalie responded with a kiss of her own. Much like how I feel about his kisses, Thomas wasn't too sure about Natalie's version of kisses...

We also got a care package in the mail from Grannie (Matt's mom). It was full of all kinds of goodies, but the best part was the matching hats she made for all of us. Thomas looked pretty adorable in his. Grannie said it looked a little small when I sent her a photo - he's hard to make hats for long distance, his head size generally maxes out on the growth charts...

He's also gotten very curious about his little brother. He's gone from not wanting to touch the new addition of the family to helping with diaper changes and trying to give his little brother his pacifier (whether he is awake or not). It's pretty awesome to have such a great little helper when I am in the middle of a diaper change and realize I forgot to grab a diaper. Hopefully my little helper doesn't get tired of helping anytime soon!

A Snowstorm!

I apparently never mentioned the last bit of snow we got, but you'll forgive me as I had other things on my mind. The night I went into labor with Henry, we ended up getting over a foot of snow. Matt was actually down shoveling snow in the driveway (just in case!) when my water broke. I called him from the house and basically told him to put a fire under it with that shoveling. :)

Last night we got another big dump of snow! Brittney came over for dinner right when it started snowing and none of us were paying attention to it until we noticed the 8" of snow on her car when she was leaving. Next time it snows that much, she's staying here instead of driving a slightly treacherous pass in unplowed deep snow! "/

Mom is leaving for the airport later, so we figured we should probably tackle the huge amount of snow in our driveway. I wasn't even sure where the cars were this morning when I looked out the window!

Matt usually tackles the snow removal alone, but since I am no longer massively pregnant and we had someone to watch the baby, I even went out to help. It was well over 18" of snow and we figured it would be a good workout to get it all cleared. Thomas even got dressed for the occasion and directed his parents all around.

As we were out snow-shoveling together, Matt remembered that my dad had given us my grandmother's snow shovel she had from when they lived in the north-east. Obviously a snow shovel has extremely limited use in Texas, so it got put in out shipment of stuff up here without me knowing. We decided to go get it and take a few photos to send to my dad - which is about when my sister decided to join us outside.

She was headed out to go for a run, but decided that snow shoveling was just as good of a workout. Unfortunately for her, the last one to join gets the 50 year old snow shovel! (I actually have no idea how old it is, it made the journey to Texas 30 years ago and I seriously doubt it was new at that point, 50 seems a good a guess as any.)

Three people shoveling certainly made the work go faster, though the fourth person out there was more interested in falling into the piles of snow that we were building up:

It looks like he was having more fun that we were! 

Ten Years?!?

Today is our 10 year anniversary. How is that even possible?!? The years really have flown by! It seems like just yesterday we were saying "I do". Though on the other hand it seems like that was forever ago - so much has happened since then.

It's also hard to believe that 9 years ago when Matt and I were at our yearly visit to the State Fair of Texas that Matt jokingly promised to buy me the Vitamix I was drooling over for our 10 year anniversary. He thought I would forget... But every year I reminded him that I was waiting for it. And the beautiful beast is finally mine - I mean ours...!

Matt might already be tired of hearing it in action with the multitude of things I have made in it, but he sure likes sampling my endeavors. Which might be why he returned the favor of experimenting by making me the best anniversary surprise breakfast ever! For those of you that don't know, I am a huge, huge fan of Café Brazil in Dallas. I was sad enough to leave it when we moved to Houston, but every time we were back in Dallas it was a mandatory stop. Now we are 4000+ miles away, so Matt decided to bring Café Brazil to me this morning!!

He made me an official Café Brazil menu, though there was the caveat that some items were not available in Alaska. Luckily the dish I always order was still on there:

It was the best surprise breakfast ever. He stayed up super late last night making all the components that went with the crepes so all he had to do this morning was cook the crepes and assemble them. And thanks to all of the Chopped episodes we've been watching recently, his plating was spectacular. Look at the concentration:

It's nice to know that after 10 years of marriage Matt still has a few tricks up his sleeve. And I love that he is being so adventurous in the kitchen. I'm really bummed that he has decided he does need to find a job up here. I keep trying to convince him that he should just be a house husband, but apparently he wants to join the working world again. I can't argue with that, I think I would go crazy if I was home all day. Well, I would probably watch waaaaay too many cooking shows and forget to change out of pajamas most days. So it's probably better I stay gainfully employed. :)

Happy Anniversary Matt, looking forward to many, many more!!!

How Quickly We Forget...

How quickly we forget what it is like to have a newborn in the house! They really do just sleep all day! Other than eating and needing diaper changes, he really has been snoozing the days away. I suppose I should be grateful, it gave me a chance to get some sleep as well. But he does have one stretch in the day he likes to be up - right when I want to go to bed. Figures he would be a night owl like his dad...!

And in case you didn't notice, Henry showed up with a full head of hair just like his brother did. About the same shade too - wonder if Henry will go blond in the next few months like Thomas did?

And Thomas is adjusting to having a baby brother. When he met him in the hospital he wasn't interested in being close to Henry at all. And the first few reintroductions at home were met with backing away and side glances at his baby brother. But he quickly started peeking at him over the side of the crib and exclaiming "baby!". He's even turned into quite the helper - bring diapers for changing time and running Henry's bottle back and forth to the kitchen. The little guy aims to please at this age. I love it!

Of course when Henry is asleep, we all go back to our usual habits. Like spending too much time on the iPhones... Does it count as family time if all three generations are using them??