A Taste of Fall

I have a new favorite recipe. PUMPKIN WAFFLES! My friend Amber and I have been getting together to try new recipes, and this was one we just HAD to try yesterday. And boy am I glad that we did. We both grew up in places with four seasons, and this triple-digit heat is not cutting it as Fall. So we decided to bring Fall to us. We got this recipe from the Smitten Kitchen. I invite you to bring fall to your kitchen with this delicious recipe.

Pumpkin Waffles
Adapted from several sources

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
4 large eggs, separated
2 cups well-shaken buttermilk
1 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
Vegetable oil for brushing waffle iron or cooking spray

Preheat oven to 250°F and preheat waffle iron. Sift together flour, brown sugar, baking powder and soda, salt, and spices. Whisk egg yolks in a large bowl with buttermilk, pumpkin, and butter until smooth. Whisk in dry ingredients just until combined.

In a mixing bowl with a whisk attachment, whisk the egg whites until they hold soft peaks (as in, far softer than the over-beaten whites you’ll see in my picture above). Folk them gently into the waffle batter, until just combined.

Brush waffle iron lightly with oil and spoon batter (about 2 cups for four 4-inch Belgian waffles) into waffle iron, spreading quickly. Cook according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Transfer waffles to rack in oven to keep warm and crisp. Make more waffles in same manner.

(Side notes: We had to make some substitutions. I didn't have cloves, so we used nutmeg instead. Mmm! It was a perfect spice blend. I didn't have buttermilk on hand either, so I made sour milk by combining 2 T. lemon juice with enough milk to make 2 cups. Let that sit for about 5 minutes. (The ratio is 1 T. lemon juice or vinegar to enough milk to make 1 cup.) And not that we had to make this substitution, but we decided to use 1 c. of wheat flour with 1 1/2 c. white flour. So good!)

If I had thought about it before we ate it all, I would have taken pictures of our Fall flavors. So you'll just have to imagine, or check out the tantalizing pics on the SK website. Oh, and while you're imagining our plates with scrumptious pumpkin waffles, imagine those golden waffles with plump ruby raspberries dressing up the plate. So pretty and so very tasty!

Enjoy!

9 months ... and teething!

Eva is 9 months old now. And she is teething. I almost want to end this post right there because that pretty much sums it all up. I thought she had been teething before (like since 4 months), which she may have had little spurts here and there. But NOTHING like what she is going through now. It's hard to see our happy-go-lucky little girl so sad and upset and know that there isn't much more that we can do for her than hold her and give her a little medicine here and there. Perhaps the best part from all of this has been that she has been super cuddly with Kyle. He eats it up. :) Eva loves to be held and soothed by her daddy right now. It's really sweet. Sad that she's sad, but still sweet to see her love her dad so much.

Other than that, Eva is healthy and growing on target. She is now 18 lbs 1 oz. I forgot what her other measurements were, but her head is in the 75th percentile and her weight and height are in the 25th percentile. That's where she has been all along. To give you an idea of her height now, she is longer than my torso. She probably is just about as tall as me from head to waist. My prediction is she'll be taller than me. And I will continue the tradition of being the shortest person in the family. (on all sides, mind you.) She loves to read, chase the dog, pull on the dog's ears, babble, walk holding on to our hands, pull on our ears, turn things around in her hands (as if she is examining objects on all sides. very funny to watch), mimic us or have us mimic her, play peek-a-boo, splash in the water, go for walks/jogs in her stroller, play with her friends Rell and Abby, explore, smile and squeal at other kids and babies (it's hard to keep her quiet and still in church because of this), and sitting in the shopping cart like big kids. She doesn't like teething!, strangers, getting dressed, wearing shoes, or being left alone (unless she is tired and in her own bed).

So here is to her teething being done REALLY SOON! And for her having a full set of teeth when it's all over! (one, because with all the pain she is going through there better be a full set of teeth. and two, because we're not sure we can handle doing this all over again, especially when she's getting molars. yikes!)

Love you, Eva!

Where Did They All Go?

Eva has been working on her self-feeding skills. And she really has come a long way.

She can now pick little things up with much more ease and realizes that they're in her hand and haven't just disappeared. But for the longest time, she wouldn't put what she picked up in her mouth. 

Let me clarify that...she wouldn't put any FOOD items in her mouth. :)

I thought this was rather curious since she put everything else under the sun in her mouth.

This past week and half, however, she has started putting the food in her mouth that she picks up.

Kyle and I were excited for her and quite surprised at how well she was doing because every time we looked back at her, the food would be gone and she would be chewing/mushing.

Little did we know that her bib was actually getting more food than she was.

Those are champagne grapes in case you were wondering.

In spite of the lack of food reaching her mouth from her own hands, she is a very happy baby and very determined. She's not camera shy either. ;)

Love this little girl!

Look at her! Standing all on her own!

She has even started taking steps on her own. So fun!

On her head

Eva has a lot of adorable things that she does... like how she talks to herself as she falls asleep and when she wakes up... and how she makes a popping sound with her mouth when she's hungry and anticipating a bottle or food... and how she blinks really hard when she is excited about something and cooing and smiling about it... and how she kicks her legs like crazy when she is really excited about something... and how she plays with her hair now that it's longer... and how she lounges with her feet up when she's in her highchair or in her stroller. (I told you there were a lot of things. :)

But one of the cutest and funniest things she does is puts her hands to her head, holding them above her forehead as far as she can reach.  The funniest part might be that we can't figure out why she does it. She'll do it randomly. She'll do it when she's holding a toy. She'll hold up her spoon to her head. She'll hold her pacifier to her head. She even holds her bottle to her head. Not sure what it means for her, but we think it's darn cute and pretty amusing nonetheless.

9/11 Memorial

Yesterday was, of course, 9/11. It's been 9 years since that traumatic day. What is neat is to see how the whole nation comes together to remember those lost and to remember that we are still a strong nation when we are united. We were able to go to a memorial that is held annually here at Tempe Town Lake.

There was a flag for each person that died. Nearly 3,000 flags.

Each flag had a yellow ribbon tied to the name of a person who died and their story. It personalized the experience even more.

Taps was played every half hour throughout the day.

* We will always remember *

8 months old

Eva has been 8 months for a little while now, so I'm not sure if all the things that I put down here are just 8-month stuff or 8+ month stuff. Either way, it's super cute stuff. :)

I Like to Move It, Move It...

She is army crawling like crazy. She has mastered it so well that she can get into things in the time it takes for us to turn our back and then look at her again. Pretty crazy. She has also figured out how to pull herself from a sitting position into a laying position so she can crawl. She hasn't figured out how to sit up yet. But she has figured out how to pull herself up to stand in a lot of circumstances. She LOVES (and much prefers) to hold on to our hands and walk. And she walks fast! (she must have gotten that from her mom. i've been told by many a friend to slow down. hehe) Two favorite things about her walking -- how she just bulldozes through things in her path, and how she leans her upper body so far forward as if trying to walk faster that it's hard for us to keep up and sometimes hard for her little legs to keep up. 

Say It Ain't So...

Our little girl is a talker...and a squealer...and a singer...and a screecher. Although, most of the time those all sound just about the same. She has added a lot more consonant sounds to her "vocabulary" which makes it a lot of fun to listen to her. One of her favorite sounds to make is la-la-la. I think part of that is because a lot of the time she has her tongue sticking out resting on her top lip. The other day we were on our way to meet up with some friends for lunch, and Eva started talking with her la-la's. So I decided to converse with her and responded with some of my own la-la's. She and I had a full on la-la conversation for the rest of the ride. It was so cute and so much fun. It really did seem like we were talking because she would "say" something and end it with a question-type intonation, and I would respond, and we kept going back and forth like that. I was laughing and just loving it. It will be so much fun to know what she is really saying.

You're Not My Mommy...

Eva is definitely a shy, "I want my mommy" baby. On one hand, there is a certain feeling of relief and pride that she wants me or Kyle to comfort her (because I know it won't always be that way). But on the other hand, it makes me sad because it makes it harder to do things. I don't like the idea that our baby is crying while we're away, and I also feel bad that someone else has to deal with her crying. I'll admit, though, that it's mostly me who has to get over all of this. A couple of weekends ago, we dropped her off at our friends' house (who she knows because we see them at least 3 or 4 times a week) so that Kyle and I could go see a movie. As soon as we took her inside and started walking away she burst into tears. It almost made me tear up. When we got back, they told us that she cried for the first 5 minutes but then settled down and watched Elmo with their kids. So, see Carla? She's fine. She has also gotten more practice in the past 2 weeks when Grandma and Grandpa Green were here visiting. They were so kind to watch her while Kyle and I ran errands and set up his new office. So she's getting better (and so am I.) :)

Monkey See, Monkey Do...

Eva is now in the stage of imitating. She watches us closely and tries to mimic what we do. Sometimes we try to repay the favor. :P  I try to show her how to say certain words like Dada and Mama. She knows how to say mama but doesn't quite get it's meaning yet. Dada is a tough one though. It's cute to watch her as I say this one because she opens her mouth and tries to make the shapes and sounds that I'm making. But it usually ends up in her just laughing and rolling away or squealing. I am amazed with how quickly she is learning though. She has learned how to wave, how to give high-five, how to give kisses, how to do a fake laugh and fake cough, and she is quick to learn who a person is. She also knows now to look for things if they're out of sight. When we play peek-a-boo, she knows where to look for us. Like when Kyle is holding her, I'll hide behind his back and she'll try to lean around his arm to see where I went. She does this same thing when we're walking up or down the stairs and she knows the other person is behind us. It's so much fun! 

Don't Blow Bubbles in Your Milk...

Another fun pastime of hers is making a buzzing sound with her lips or tongue. (ya know, like when you give someone a zerbet (sp?) or a razzberry.) She has been doing this for months now, but she does it even more now. Most of the time we get a kick out of it and end up copying her, which makes her laugh so she does it more. The time I don't get a kick out of it is when she is eating and she decides to do it. I'm trying to teach her that it's not okay while she's eating, but we may have a while to go until she gets it. It is pretty funny though to see her ask for more, wait to have a mouthful of food or milk, and then spit. But I can only handle that so many times. What was REALLY funny though was last week, we were sitting at the dinner table with Gma and Gpa Green. Gpa needed to blow his nose and he made a bit of a honking sound as he did. Well, Eva recognized that sound right away and immediately copied his sound with her lips. It was hilarious!

Needless to say, we are loving this little girl and enjoy every minute we have with her. It is so much fun to see her discover the world and figure out what she can do. We love being parents! What joy a child brings!

p.s. Our picture taking has kinda dropped off a bit, mostly because we're usually holding on to her. So pictures are sure to come, just give us a little time. :)

Lamb of God

 
If you're in AZ, come and see this amazing new work by Rob Gardner! September 10 and 11, 2010. Gammage Auditorium - Tempe, Arizona. Click on image for more details.