The scientist

This is Henry, right after breakfast, ready to go outside.

This particular morning he had a pen and notepad in hand.

But he didn't go out; he just sat at the door, looking outside, doodling on his notepad.

I think he takes after Todd: a natural born scientist, an observer. Go Henry.

Novel Idea

Whoever thought of this is my hero.

You've gotta try this

"Green Salad with Almonds and Orange Dressing"

Long name, I know, but it sure paints a clear picture of what you'll get! It is an amazing salad. I love it and crave it often. One special ingredient is jicama, also known as "yam bean". It's kind of sweet and starchy, crunchy and just fresh. The dressing is my favorite part though.

Here it is:

SALAD
1 lg head red leaf lettuce, washed, drained and chilled
1/2 medium Bermuda (or purple) onion, sliced into rings (I like to chop it up)
2 oranges peeled and thinly slice, or 1 11-oz can mandarin oranges, drained
1 sm jicama peeled and cut into julienne strips (I grate it with a cheese grater)
4 oz sliced almonds
3 Tbsp sugar

DRESSING:
1/2 tsp grated orange peel
1/3 C fresh orange juice
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1/2 C vegetable oil
2 Tbsp sugar
1 T Good Season dry Italian dressing mix

Place first 4 ingredients in a salad bowl; chill. In a small skillet sprinkle 3 Tbsp sugar over the almonds and cook over medium heat until almonds are coated and sugar has dissolved. (They brown quickly; do not burn.) Place in a small bowl and allow to cool.

Mix dressing in shaker jar; chill. Pour salad dressing over chilled salad and sprinkle sugared almonds over all. Toss and serve.

Easy and soooo good.

Rock

Going through a hard rock phase.
Todd's favorites.
Who can blame him?
When Henry was a new born Todd would sing "Don't You Cry" by Guns N' Roses.
I thought it was so sweet.
Sometimes you've just gotta rock.

Pumpkin Patch

Today we went to Curtis Orchard and Pumpkin Patch. It is the quintessential fall farm: U-Pick apple orchard and pumpkin patch, homemade donuts, corn maze, hay rides, pies, popcorn etc.

The unique thing about it is that it's themed: The Wizard of Oz.

They have a barn painted like Dorothy's Barn where the doors open into Oz showing the Emerald Palace.

There's a yellow-brick road, flying monkey cafe, and munchkin-land (a place for just kids to play). In the pumpkin patch we picked a green pumpkin, a ghost (white) pumpkin and a warty orange pumpkin. We also picked up some mini pumpkins and gourds. We ate donuts and apple fritters and had a great time. It was a great place to play and take pictures. And a few more . . .

Nacho

You might be wondering why we have a quote from Nacho Libre as one of our songs. We're not just sending you love through our blog. The truth is, Henry is a huge Nacho Libre fan. One thing he likes to do is pull all the DVDs off the shelf, and we noticed that he always picked Nacho Libre up and walked around with it. He would point at it and start smiling and laughing and talking jibberish.


Recently we've been weaning him from the binky and so morning have been especially hard. He cries and whines for like 45 minutes. One morning I decided to distract him with Nacho Libre and he was enthralled. He was quiet and just laid on my lap through the whole movie. Eyes glued. I'm not sure if it's his cape or mustache, or the wrestling, but whatever it is, it makes him happy.

Refinishing Table - Check

So we inherited an awesome round table. It needed a little fixing up, and so for the past couple of weeks I have slowly refinished this table. I cleaned it. Gum, glue, marker and all. I sanded it. And then I went to Walmart to get primer, paint, and sealer.


Whenever I have painted things in the past I get the normal jug of paint, brushes, stirring stick, etc. but after talking to a handful of friends who have used spray paint, I decided to try it out. I found the spray paint that I wanted, but I was confused about what primer and sealer to use. The only primer and sealers they had were either white or gray, and I had in mind a clear one.

I asked the Walmart paint guy what to do, telling him that I want to paint the table black. He said if I want a dull look to the black paint to use the gray primer/sealer and if I wanted a shiny look to use the white. Really? I'm painting it black but I should use the white primer/sealer? "Yep." So I got the white.


When I got home and started using it I doubted the Walmart guy's suggestion. And I was a little nervous I had ruined a great table. I decided to finish what I'd started and so I primed the whole thing with white paint-primer stuff.


I went at it with the black spray paint and it looked good but I wanted to make sure the paint job was durable and safe. I decided to go to Lowe's, instead, to ask for further advice. The lady said that spray paint should do just fine without an extra coat of anything, but I told her that it's on our kitchen table and I have a kid--I'd want it to be really durable. She suggested this spray on clear coat that will make it shinier and increase it's durability.


With Henry asleep I finally finished the table. I really like it. Thanks Margo, for the table. It looks great.


ADVICE: Go to Lowe's first. The Walmart guy may have been right, and everything worked out in the end; but at Lowe's, they're experts.

We call it, the Kramer

Henry's all about teasing us and playing games. He loves to surprise us and make us laugh.

Each night we spend about 30 minutes to an hour playing in his room. This is my favorite time of the day because we just get to play with him, with no other distractions or appointments. We play with his exer-saucer and read books, we do the steamroller game and he climbs all over us. In short, we wear him out, he wears us out; and it is so fun.

Tonight he figured out a game that we now call, the Kramer. He walks out of the room, we voice concerns about where he's gone, and he bounds into the room with a big smile on his face and we'd jump in surprise. A few times when he would bound into the room we just stared at each other with straight faces. He got all up in my face with a big smile, but I didn't crack.

Then he poked me in the eye. It was pretty funny. Anyway, here are two videos: one of "the Kramer" and the other is of him doing a trick with his spoon. They're each about 1 minute. He's such a crack up.

"The Kramer"

Spoon Trick

Muddy Buddies!

This past week the city of Danville hosted a mud volleyball tournament. We signed up with our neighbors, knowing hardly anything about the big tournament. Saturday morning we got up early and headed to Danville, about 30-40 minutes away. There we saw a volleyball court with the perimeter lined with bales of hay and the area of the court filled with mud and water. It looked cold. And dirty. But we were up for it!

Before the game

People started showing up and there were ponies (real ponies, not the other kind), bean bag tossing, beer and food tents; but the main event was the mud volleyball. Our team was: Muddy Buddies. Other team names weren't so friendly or clean. Anyway, we won the first game and then waited around an hour or so, played the second and lost, and then waited a couple more hours and played the third (the tournament was double elimination) and lost it.

After the first game: dirty
After the second game: dirtier
Our friend Bruce, after the third game: dirtiest

We were awesomely dirty. I look dirtier than I really am--I'm wearing a brown shirt. I didn't dive or get pushed into the mud because I wanted to be able to hold Henry after. Henry napped in between games and woke up when we were in the mud. A nice lady was watching him, but when I spotted him sitting up and pointing at me I lost my concentration and almost missed the ball. Luckily the girl next to me was after it.

We weren't too sad since we had been there for 4 and a half hours anyway, and the tournament was scheduled to end around 7 pm. No thanks.

Playing in the mud was absolutely awesome, though. I haven't done anything like that since high school when we cheerleaders wrestled in jello at an assembly for the Sub-4-Santa fundraiser. In hind-sight I don't think that was a good idea. We thought it was fun at the time, but now I think it was pretty . . . unattractive or repugnant. Oh well.

We had a great time with the Danville folk and our new friends. Go Muddy Buddies!!

O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A !

My sister had her third baby in August, and she blessed her, little Brooklyn Rachel Bushman, two weeks ago and so I flew to Oklahoma to be with her. We had an awesome time together.

We drove to Springfield to fly to OK and while we were there we stopped where President Lincoln is buried.

My parents with Brooklyn after the blessing

Brenna and Brooklyn

Cannon, Brenna and Henry

At Pop's on Route 66

The old circle barn on Route 66

We ate at Chesapeake and Henry loved posing on the motorcycle

The OKC bombing memorial

Bath time! We had to work to keep them from drinking the water.

Entertaining themselves

Brenna and I made masks for our masquerade party

The zoo! It was an awesome day. The park was practically empty and the kids loved it. See that gold fish on the alligator? I wonder who put that there!

We had so much fun in OK!!