Bubble, Bubble, Boys are Trouble...

Since we're having another boy, I have become more aware of situations that throwing a third boy in the mix will probably up my anxiety level. But so far bath time hadn't occurred to me. Until I left Matt and Thomas alone for literally two minutes when we were testing out the jets on the Jacuzzi tub and came back to this:

Matt thought that he would make Thomas some bubbles (since he loves them so much!) and squirted waaaaay too much shampoo in the tub with the jets on. I think both of them were a little shocked and overly excited about the bubble pandemonium that followed.

I love that the bubbles flying through the air make Thomas look like he has puffy bubble eyebrows. He thought the bubble flinging was hysterical. And quickly came after me and my nice camera with his bubble hands!

Sorry for the booger in the nose shot - by product of him having the flu... At least he is in such good spirits, most of the week he has been running a high fever and not wanting to do much more than cuddle. Not that I mind the extra cuddle time! I do kind of mind that I am starting to feel sick... "/

Not content to merely play with the top layer of bubbles, both of them ended up in the tub. Here Thomas is about to be attacked with a bubble hug. Or Matt will get slapped with a bubble covered squeegee - any bets on who succeeds?

I hope you didn't bet on the squeegee. Hugs almost always win in this family! So we had a bit of a mess to clean up with all the bubbles - that many bubbles take forever to pop themselves by the way - but the two of them were having such fun, how could you not just laugh and go with it? I am sure these things will just escalate to grander and grander things as both (all three?) of the boys grow up. I'll just try to be there with the camera to document and laugh from a safe distance...! :)

Happy AB Day!

That's Happy Alton Brown Day for those of you not down with the lingo. :)

And for those of you *really* not in the know - I love, love, love Alton Brown! I discovered his show Good Eats sometime in college and watched it religiously the first few years Matt and I were married. Most everything we ate was from Good Eats episodes and most of the kitchen gadgets I acquired were thanks to recommendations from the show. Many a gadget was purchased only after I assured Matt that Alton said I needed it. In all those years the only time he let me down was that Hot Chocolate! And technically it wasn't his fault, it was a misprint on the recipe booklet that came with the DVD (of which I have 27). Once we re-watched the episode and found that it was a "pinch" of cayenne, not "1/4 tsp" everything was right again in the world.

Except years later when Good Eats went off the air. Tragic. I could still catch Alton on Iron Chef America and recently on Cutthroat Kitchen, but it just wasn't the same as hearing all of his scientific explanations for how cooking worked and loving all of his crazy props like when he made a pie "bed" to demonstrate why the lemon meringue top doesn't stick to the filling.

Then Alton went on the road! His first tour completely bypassed Texas and it just didn't work out to fly to see him. Cue the 2014 tour schedule - he was coming to Austin! As soon as the tickets went on sale (yes, I sat there and refreshed the browser until the very first second I could buy!), I bought two VIP tickets to his show. This included front row tickets to the show (in the poncho required - splash zone!) and a meet and greet with Alton! I was so excited! I knew there was a slight chance we *might* be in Alaska, but I figured we would just fly back for it.

Except one small detail...

Airlines generally don't let you fly after you hit the 36 week mark, which happened a grand total of 8 days ago. I did this math long ago though and sadly handed off my tickets to my mom and sister. They know who Alton is, but they are nowhere near as obsessed. I'm sure they've both been forced to watch Good Eats shows while at my house, but that's probably the limit of their exposure.

However.

They loved the show and told me that Alton was super cool in person. And supposedly there is an autographed posted on it's way up here for me. I'm really glad they got to go and even better my sister found all the Good Eats shows available on Amazon Prime (the last 5 seasons!) and is a convert. Yes, really happy for them!

But this still makes me just a teensy bit jealous:

In order to ease some of the sadness, Brittney suggested that we have a Alton Brown dinner party that same night, so I could at least be there in spirit. Of course, Thomas comes down with the flu this same week, so the Hydens bailed on us. (Understandable - they have a trip to Hawaii coming up!) But Matt and I persevered without them!

I handled the soup, side and dessert while Matt cooked the main dish. And we chose the menu based on our most frequently used recipes. Trout was a little tricky to find up here in the land of salmon and halibut, but Matt managed to find a whole trout. After a quick YouTube lesson on filleting trout, we were ready to rock and roll.

There you have it - our AB faves! The trout is covered in a caper-lemon-butter sauce (When I tried to find it, the recipe is no longer available online! Luckily I have all three Good Eats cookbooks - feel free to ask for the recipe if you want.), cheese soup, and roasted asparagus. I might have cheated and bought the sourdough bread, but the bakery at our Carr's does such a good job, I figured AB would approve. :)

Oh and let's not forget dessert! One of our eternal favorites - Tres Leche cake! This was always a favorite at work and super easy to make. I hadn't made it in a long time though, so I swear it tasted even better than before. Absence makes the heart grow fonder...!

While I may have missed my culinary hero this time, I am hopeful that he will bring his Edible Inevitable tour out for another run and perhaps get somewhere closer to our new home. Seattle would be perfect, but I have nothing against flying to Hawaii as well. I'm pretty sure the tickets are about the same price. :)

That Wind

It can get pretty windy in Anchorage. The hillside and along Turnagain arm can easily get up over 90 mph wind gusts. Our neighborhood isn't quite that bad, but the other day it was pretty windy! We had already decided to take a walk up to the park so the dogs could get some exercise and Thomas could check out the new exposed playground equipment. It was probably not the best time to go...

It was sooooo windy! Eliza's face shows it the best. Then Thomas got blown over just trying to walk across the playground. He was certainly not impressed. I was pretty unimpressed with it when trying to pull a wagon up the hill with the wind pushing me back. It was a nice boost on the way down though. :)

As for the newly exposed equipment I mentioned - it's been there since we moved in, but has been covered in snow and ice. Due to very unseasonably warm temperatures here, we lost all of our snow! It's likely to snow again (we hope!), so we get to go through two snow melts this year. I was not impressed by the first snow melt - yucky roads, yucky yards and filthy cars every time we drive. The only positive is that the ice all melted out of our driveway, so it's not as much of an adventure to get the mail. (I'm ok with that!)

The Days Are Getting Longer!

We've passed the longest days of winter and are starting to add 5 minutes of daylight every day. Which is especially nice because it's no longer dark when I am leaving work. Still dark on the drive in, but I go in pretty early most days. Anyhow, the other day we were driving home and saw an awesome sunset with really odd looking clouds. It's been super cloudy lately, so it's been awhile since we've seen the sun setting. Thought you guys would appreciate the pretty awesome view of it from our back yard. :)

This Boy...

And his obsession with remotes:

He knows which ones work and which ones don't, but he just likes to hog them all. And he's figured out how to turn the TV and navigate to Netflix. I was pretty embarrassed he found the shortcut key on the remote before I did. "/

Birthday Cake!

It's a bit of a running joke in our house how many times Matt has promised to make me a birthday cake... Which has no far not happened. The conversation about it usually has him reminding me about the time he had me pick up the stuff from the store for him to make a cake. Which I remind him I used to make his cake the following week.

This year he promised again - with the addition that he was going to make it from scratch! He asked what kind of cake I wanted - my favorite has always been chocolate cake with chocolate icing. He then asked if they sold chocolate flour. Hmm...

All teasing the hubster aside, I know he can read and follow a recipe, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he would pull this cake thing off with no problem!

And he did! Ok, so he iced it while it was a teensy bit warm, so he stuck it outside to make sure it cooled off before the icing melted off the sides. One benefit to living in such a cold climate!

Look at that beauty! And we had company coming over for the fondue birthday celebration and they were all quite impressed by Matt's baking ability. We didn't even really need the ice cream Brittney bought (just in case!), though I don't think any of us turned down having a scoop on top! :)

Doesn't he look so proud of himself and his awesome chocolate cake? I finally asked him which recipe he used and it was the one on the back of the Hershey's cocoa box. My favorite chocolate cake recipe!! What a great hubby, huh? I'm pretty sure he got some ribbing from the other guys there about making them look bad, but I did point out it took the better part of a decade, so they had some time before they had to get around to it.

It was totally worth waiting for, Matt! I love you and your cake!

Christmas Day

Last year, I bought all of us quasi matching pajamas for Christmas because Matt was always super jealous of how cozy Thomas looked in all his footed pajamas. Quasi matching because I couldn't find any footed pajamas that came in both baby and adult size - but they were all dinosaur print. Well it turns out for hot natured people, footed pajamas sound better than they are... So this year, I went with normal pajamas that really did match - for the *whole* family. :)

And of course the dogs just loved their pajamas as you can tell by their refusal to look at the camera...! Ha! Your cuteness is still noted, my furry babies!

After the obligatory picture in front of the tree, it was on to breakfast. Matt requested donuts. But not bought donuts and not made from scratch - he wanted biscuit donuts like his mom used to make. I figured, why not? We rarely even fry anything at home (because I love fried food way to much to make a habit of that), but it was a special occasion! I googled techniques online but could decide between big biscuits \ little biscuits or glazed \ chocolate \ cinnamon sugar.

So ! did a combination of everything!

My frying skills aren't that great, so the big ones turned out a little underdone as nice as they looked - I made holes after all! But the smaller ones were delicious. I think the cinnamon sugar coating was my favorite. But it's hard to beat fried dough dipped in butter and coated in sugar... ;)

Thomas entertained himself while I was making breakfast by playing like he was cooking. He kept pretending to dump spices into a bowl, then he would stir them and eat a pretend spoonful and say "Mmmmmm". It was pretty adorable. I can't wait until the little guy can help for real. It's going to be so fun!

Later we took Thomas out to play on his new sled we got him for Christmas. I insisted on the one with the belt since we're all new to this sledding bit and it seemed easier for him to sit up in with the high back. Matt ran him up and down the cul-de-sac in it. I think Matt might have been a little more into it than Thomas was...

And you might have noticed his gloves don't quite match. His Aunt Heather gave him a new set of matching gloves and hat for Christmas while she was here at Thanksgiving:

Well we kinda already "mis-placed" one of the mittens, so we had to scrounge around to find something for the little guy to keep his left hand warm. So he got one of Matt's gloves. We really should invest in several pairs of mittens - if the parents can't keep track of them, what hope does he have...? "/

Christmas Eve

We knew Christmas was going to be different this year with both of our families being so far away, so we planned to make the most of what technology has to offer and Skype present opening with them. Thomas has "chatted" with them several times on the iPad using FaceTime and Skype, but we thought it might be better if we could make it work on the much bigger TV. Turns out that our TV has a proprietary webcam, so we had to buy that specific one. Which is of course not available anywhere in Anchorage or on Amazon. Amazingly, I found it on ebay and even managed to get it here on time. Go me!

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We did test runs with both families and Thomas ran away from the viewing area both times. So I didn't have much hope for success with present opening, but it went great! We chatted with my family first and the first present he opened was met with cheering on the other end of the chat, so he was all about getting more cheers out of people. He was a total ham for both families.

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But in typical toddler fashion, he was much more interested in the bowls I got from my mom than most of his toys. He threw his legos in there and spent most of the evening "mixing" in the bowl. It was pretty adorable.

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But the best gift exchanged by far was Matt's idea. He decided to buy our nephews harmonicas - all three of them. Which they opened while we were chatting and proceeded to play them all at once. Matt of course thought it was hysterical and was playing conductor for them from 4000 miles away. I would say we're in for payback next year, but there isn't much musical they could give Thomas that Matt wouldn't love as well.

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To truly appreciate the symphony, we had JoAnna send us the video she took. Because we knew someone had to have taken a video! It was awesome!

It was a Merry Christmas Eve for all and all were ready for a good night. Well except the people with three harmonicas in the house... ;)

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Cookies! And a Visitor...

Matt had decided that we should put lights on one of the trees in the backyard. There is one that is a perfect little evergreen right outside the back windows, so that was the one that we chose to decorate. Unfortunately we guessed wrong on how many strings of light it would take and were one short. We bought another string, but hadn't gotten around to hanging it yet. So I was determined to get it on before Christmas.

I grabbed the lights and the dogs joined me on my quest to finish the tree. On the way over there, Natalie had me seriously distracted. She was in snow up to her belly trying to decide how to use the bathroom and it was the most hysterical thing I had seen in a while. So hysterical that I missed the fact we had a visitor until it huffed at me...

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Matt and I are still debating what I actually said when I saw a moose about 20' away from me, but I didn't make it to the tree with the lights. I managed to get all three of the dogs back to the house without them noticing our huge visitor.

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Of course, once we were all safely inside and the adrenaline wore off, Matt and I were much more concerned with getting photos of the moose! We used the zoom lens and stayed close to the doors, but she wasn't really all that interested in us. She wandered off after nibbling on our trees. She showed back up in the neighbor's yard at sunset and settled in for a nap. Much more exciting than my usual view while doing the dishes!

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And I had been putting it off (well mostly because it's late when I get home from work...), but I really wanted to try decorating cookies with Thomas this year. So I made a batch of peppermint pinwheels - I figure we will save the candy cane shaped variety for next Christmas. And because it is Matt's favorite, I made a buttercream icing to put on top instead of the usual glaze.

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It only took one cookie to realize whichever cookies Thomas decorated were going to be germ laden treats. So we gave him his own little bowls of decorations and limited him to two cookie palettes.

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But of course he wanted to help his Daddy decorate his cookie too...

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At some point he realized it wasn't just the decorations that were edible and lost all interest in decorating the cookies. Instead, he was more concentrated on devouring them. Unfortunately the cookies were a little crisp thanks to the fact they have actual peppermint candy pieces in them that melted and then solidified on the bottom. He was content with attacking the icing though.

But not sharing. I'm not sure which of the girls was begging, but I'm pretty sure this is him telling them to get lost. :)

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And of course things just went downhill from there. He had icing smearing all over his face, his glasses and in his hair. But he had fun, which was the point anyhow. And I timed it so that this event occurred right before bath time. Smart momma!

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The finished cookies (decorated by Matt and I) ended up being quite the hit with the friends we shared them with. The cookies alone were pretty (I left one unadorned so you guys could see) and addictive, so adding goodies on top of that was just asking for trouble on consumption levels. Speaking of which, I think there might be one or two left...

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Oh, the Spectacle

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In Alaska, they do vision screens at 18 month appointments for all of the children. This was new to us - I don't think they do vision checks in Texas until much later. But apparently there is a statewide initiative to catch vision problems early to prevent lazy eye. It's a pretty neat camera that looks like a radar detector. They turn the lights off in the room and then take a picture of the child's eyes. And given the spacing and focus of the retinas, it can recommend referrals for children that might be at risk.

And, of course, we got flagged for a referral.

We didn't have any particular reason to think he had vision problems and they told us that it is like most screens in that it flags children that are fine in order to catch most of the ones who aren't. So the follow-up time comes and we go to a pediatric ophthalmologist. I figured you couldn't get a 18 month old to read letters off of a chart, so I was interested to see how they would test his vision. More camera-like tools and some good old fashioned have the child look at a toy and watch to see when they focus on the toy.

Turns out the screen didn't mess up - our kiddo is really nearsighted. :(

The ophthalmologist reassured me it wasn't "the worst he's ever seen", but that his focal distance was only about 18" from his face. And he spent time looking at his eyes through magnifiers to figure out the best prescription for him - apparently it will be refined when Thomas can actually give some feedback, but that this "ballpark" prescription is better than nothing.

Picking out the glasses was a bit of a nightmare. Tommy did not like us putting things on his face. We hoped that once the glasses helped him see, he might leave them on. But when his real glasses came in and we got them fitted, he didn't do any better. The guy there suggested a few things to help ease the transition to glasses which mostly involved distracting him as soon as they were on.

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But mostly he just pulled them right back off when we tried to put them on him. So this morning, we went full on distraction mode. Matt snuck them on Tommy while I played peek-a-boo with him from across the room. And he seemed to get that something was different. I walked him around the house and pointed at things far away. We have been a bit worried that maybe he didn't need glasses - he can spot the dogs across the room and says "ball" when they are across the room. But turns out he's just really good at identifying fuzzy objects.

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He was pretty good at wearing them most of the day. He still ripped them off his face occasionally and hid them in a cabinet from us at one point. But overall, he wore them most of the day and seemed like he didn't mind them. So I guess he did need glasses and we should be thankful that they caught his vision issues so early. Most kids don't get screened until grade school, so at least he won't go the next 4 years not being able to see us from across the table.

And it doesn't hurt that he looks super cute in them! :)