4 months

Hello, strong, brilliant, feisty, silly girl.  Happy 4 months.

THIS CHILD

OMG YOU GUYS.

Clara just rolled over back to front.  It is the day before her 4 months birthday.  She's been rolling front to back since 2.5 months.

I swear this kid is going to walk tomorrow.

Too many cute pictures...

 We welcomed our new sitter Maggie as mommy goes back to work.

Maggie learns the Moby

Miss Jessica came over for dinner, along with Mr. Edaan and Mr. Leor

A new favorite thing is climbing into the end table, shutting the doors, then bursting out of it.

Signing "Again!!"

We got purple cauliflower in the CSA, and made purple cauliflower and white bean puree

Andrew is becoming quite helpful in the kitchen.  We bake a lot.  The other day, I peeled and chopped potatoes for mashed potatoes, and he put the potato chunks into the pot for me.  He also likes to open up the door to the spice cabinet (above where he usually stands) and pretends to shake spices into the dishes.  A budding gourmand!

Andrew also likes to help give Clara her baths

...and mug for the camera

He looks so much like his great-grandpa Arnold in this picture, I can't get over it.  He had soaked all of his grilled cheese in his tomato soup before eating it at lunch.

First hair doodad.  She doesn't seem too sure about it...

Auf Deutsch

Andrew has a counting book that he likes to read over and over and over again.  This becomes rather boring for the adults, so we've been counting in different languages: French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian. (Note to self: need to learn to count in some Asian languages, beyond "Ichi, Ni, San...")

Today we did German.  Apparently "fünf" is the funniest word in the world.  Now Andrew is running around the house saying "fünf fünf fünf" and giggling.

The kid has, like, two words in English, and now he's speaking German.

Cinnamon Yogurt Muffins (altitude adjusted)

So, this seems silly.   This is a fantastic recipe from my childhood that I got from my mom (it originally came our of our church/school cookbook in 1991) and then I keep forwarding from email address to email address so that I don't lose track of it.  I would like to pin it to Pinterest, but... apparently it needs to be on the internet already.  You can't put the recipe directly on Pinterest.  LAME.

But anyway, here it is, on my blog, so that hopefully I will not lose track of it again.  And hereafter I will pin it to Pinterest.

Also, I finally got around to adjusting the recipe for my elevation (~7000ft), using Susan Purdy's quick and easy adjustment guide at http://www.highaltitudebaking.com/adj_recipes.htm.  If you live at anywhere over 3000ft of elevation and would like to improve your baking, I can't recommend her book, Pie in the Sky, highly enough.  No pun intended.

Without further ado:

Cinnamon Yogurt Muffins 

(adjustments for 7000 ft altitude in parentheses)

3/4 c. butter softened
1 1/4 c. sugar (1c. sugar)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1c plain yogurt (1-1/4 c. plain yogurt)
2 c flour (2-1/3 c flour)
1 tsp baking powder (3/4 tsp baking powder)
1/2 tsp baking soda (1/4 tsp baking soda)
1 tsp salt 

Cinnamon Mixture:
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon

Preparation

Mix together butter (softened), sugar, eggs and vanilla. Add yogurt; blend. Add dry ingredients and blend until all flour disappears. Use paper muffin bake cups or grease cups of muffin pan. Half fill the cups with batter. Sprinkle half of cinnamon mixture over batter. Then fill each cup with remaining batter and top with remaining cinnamon mixture. Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes (22-25 mins at 7000 ft) or until golden brown on top. Makes 12 muffins.

Items of note

Somethings worth recording, in no particular order:

(1) TMI about potties, perhaps, but whatever.  Last night while getting ready for bed, Andrew signed "potty."  I figured he was just stalling (he's been doing that lately), but I want to be consistent about reinforcing the potty so that we can get on with that business as soon as possible.  Plus, I had to go, so I thought we may as well.  We headed into the bathroom and Andrew sat down on his potty while I sat on mine.  I said, "Listen!  Mommy is going pee pee.  Can you go pee pee in the potty?"  And he said, "Yeah," and then proceeded to go!!  I was stunned!  He hasn't been too much interested in the potty, other than a place to read books while mommy or daddy goes.  But now that I think about it, he's been making the potty sign after he poops his diaper, so maybe all the little pieces of awareness are starting to come together.  Maybe we're closer to big boy pants than I thought!

(2) After getting a little frustrated by the newborn schedule of eat-wake-sleep-change-repeat that I've been following with Clara, I decided to feed her twice before trying to put her down for naps.  Almost instantaneously we've had longer naps (1.5-2hrs instead of 20 minutes) and a earlier bedtime (thank goodness!).  Hopefully this will continue and we can ride through the four month sleep regression.  I think we're in it because she's dropped her long block at night.  But if this is as bad as it gets, we can handle it.

(3) Today, Clara discovered how to pull the ring on her bouncy chair that plays the music, and now she won't let go of that ring!  She just pulls it over and over.  My little girl is growing up already!

(4) I've been obsessed with searching out the details of my family tree, now that Clara was so honored as to be the 7th generation to receive this beautiful China doll while we were in Michigan earlier this month:

In tracing the doll's history through the generations, making fascinating discoveries: a doctor (not just farmers), Canadians (oh my!), and a branch of the family that can be traced to colonial Connecticut.  I can't seem to stop searching for this information - to the detriment of my bedtime.  Oh the things you can find on the internet!

Finding all of this family information and records of times past make me feel a little silly about recording potty awareness and bouncy chair rings for posterity.  But I do hope that 200 years in the future, my descendants might find the minutiae of having kids still hasn't changed all that much, and maybe they'll enjoy having that in common with me.

The Beginning of September

Here are some fun pics from the beginning of September. 

Mommy and Andrew bake a cake

Buddies: Logan and Andrew

"Aunt" Maggie came to visit!

Favorite new game: daddy the horsey

First sips of (Mexican) Coke

We like our yogurt

sous chef

Cooking dinner with a toddler as your assistant is like having your own cooking show.

Three Months

Well, we did it.  We survived the "fourth trimester." The toughest quarter year of our lives (right? yes? why is no one agreeing?).  We have a girl with quite the little personality: feisty, opinionated, happy, very social and talkative, with a silly sense of humor. 

And thus closes out my second "pregnant year."  It's weird how happy I am to see the hair loss that means the hormones are all going back to normal.  

Happy 3 months, Miss Clara.

Andrew is demonstrating the "milk" sign for you.