Baking with Betsy

Betsy and I made Molasses Crinkles with confetti sprinkles to welcome Daddy home from California yesterday. Betsy is getting to be a great help! She can pour in the ingredients and mix and she helped roll the dough in sugar and sprinkles and made the little fork criss-crosses on top of the cookies. Here's a little photo story showing our baking day!




How do you like that cooking outfit? An apron and a diaper! :)






Making criss cross marks with Daddy before we put them in the oven.





Look at that determined face!


Here they are, fresh and warm from the oven!


Mmmmmm....delicious!


I hope you enjoyed Baking with Betsy! :)

I want to be my niece when I grow up...

To see why, check out her latest college project. Wow. She makes me so proud! She also makes me wish I could go back to college...HER college! What thought-provoking ways to learn!

Cuddly Creatures...

our house is full of them...


Some are stuffed....and some just lay around so much you think they're stuffed!


The best one, though, is this cutie right here.



When she's not cuddling she's playing and dancing. :)

Performing Puppy

Since we took a picture of Mr. Cardinal "thinking" Betsy asked to take a picture of Pluto "singing" today. Think of it as a photo series: "How Betsy's Stuffed Animals Spend Their Time"...

That's one brilliant bird

Betsy recently picked out a Beanie Baby Cardinal while on an outing to the mall (I am such a sucker when it comes to her and stuffed animals. She has a million of them, but I have a hard time resisting buying her new ones when she falls in love with them at the store. Guess it's a hold-over from my own childhood when I had a similar fondness for stuffed friends!) Plus, we've recently had some real cardinals showing up at our bird feeder so I thought it was kind of fun for her to have one of her own.



Anyway, she very much loves Cardinal. The first day she got him she was playing with him on the couch and she began to laugh and said, "He's thinking! Look, Mommy, he's thinking!"



When I went to see what she was talking about, this is what I saw:





I love that girl of mine. She keeps me laughing!



Tonight I was kissing all over her cheek like I always do and she grabbed my face and started doing the same to me...it was the first time she showered me back with kisses like that. So cute and sweet!

The Hallway with a View

Our living room has a two story ceiling and the hallway upstairs between the bedrooms is a open loft. It is a constant source of entertainment for Betsy, who likes to throw things over the railing and yell down to us from upstairs (OK...I'll admit it...it's a great source of entertainment for ALL of us!) A couple weekends ago we spend Sunday afternoon blowing bubbles over the railing onto each other. Here was my view from the loft:



Check out that living room floor! Junk mail, discarded little shoes, Legos, laundry, TWO packs of baby wipes, a nearly deflated balloon...and a happy little girl and a big yellow dog cuddling with Daddy. We wouldn't have it any other way (actually...I would have it a bit tidier, but you can't have EVERYTHING!) ;)

Old Friends and New

Our good friends Chris and Brigitta came for a visit this weekend. We hadn't seen each other since before Betsy was born so we had a lot of catching up to do! Chris is an art dealer specializing in Indiana artists and he was delivering a painting to a client in town. (Check them out at indianapaintings.com!)

Chris and Brigitta have two handsome boys, Gregory who just turned 3 and Philip who is 2 1/2 months. Betsy and Gregory became fast friends...it was fun to see them play together happily all weekend. Here are a few pics from the weekend.


Here are Gregory and Betsy getting acquainted over drinks (apple juice, straight up).


Gregory giving Betsy some tips on how to build a sound, quality Lego house. (He's quite good at building!)


Cute Gregory spilled the beans! (I got some dried beans out for the kids to play with. Messy. Yes. Good fun. Absolutely. Worth it to get this smile? Most definitely!)

Two tired kids, sad that they'll soon have to part.

Chris and his "Mini-me"--Baby Philip


Brigitta and Little Philip


Bright eyed Mr. Philip Anselm Powers--what a handsome boy!

We had a great time getting to know Gregory and Philip and catching up with Chris and Brigitta...hopefully it won't be another 3 years before we catch up again! :)

Girl in Pink, circa 2008

Museum by dumpr.net

I TEACH Sunday School....

OK...Whatever you think of Stephen Colbert, you gotta hand it to him...he knows his theology here! [Disclaimer: There is one bleeped expletive at the very end. You can't hear it, but you know what is said.]

Happy Valentine's Day!

We started our Valentine celebration yesterday:
We played outside in the snow (actually in the the snow-covered ice crust...close enough)....





Gideon played too...he loves having a woods in his own backyard!


Then we got dressed up in our cutest Valentine-y colors....



Then Betsy fell asleep on the floor just as we were getting ready to go out for dinner. We made it to Olive Garden and had a really nice dinner...just a little later than we had planned. Oh well...at least she was well rested and in good spirits! :)



Today we got gussied up and bought treats to take to Daddy's office. Betsy wore her very stylish new "Love" shirt from Uncle Joel and Aunt Wendy and Cousin Jake, along with her patent leather Mary Janes. We had fun spreading some Valentine cheer at Daddy's work!
Then, Betsy and I went to our new favorite restaurant, Flavors, and had a yummy lunch (portabello chicken wrap for me, baby turkey sub for Betsy). Then we shared a giant (and I do mean GIANT--the size of a dinner plate) chocolate chip cookie with vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup and whipped cream! I still feel slightly sick from that, but it was fun anyhow.





Hope your Valentine's was full of sweets to eat and sweet ones to hold!

A Red (Brown?) Letter Day for Betsy!

Betsy used her potty for the first time today! We've been trying for a month with lots of sitting and false "I did it!" declarations....

But TODAY Betsy suddenly said she wanted to go sit on her potty and ran into the bathroom. We got her set up and I went to throw away her diaper when I heard, "I did it!" I expected for it to be another false alarm, but when I ran back into the bathroom there she was standing proudly over her "creation" and pointing. She had indeed, done it!

Few times in your life does poo make you this excited. ;)

She is now happily munching on her smiley face shaped fruit snacks, proudly wearing pull-ups, and declaring "Fruit smiles are so delicious!"

What a good girl. We're so proud. :)

Funny Girl

Here are some more funny moments with Betsy that I've written down lately. She cracks me up every day!

She told me a bedtime story one night: "There were angels in a beautiful castle and there were butterflies and moths flying in the sky!"

One of our new neighbors had a really over-the-top Christmas display with every character even slightly associated with the season. Betsy loved it and asked every day to "Go see Baby Jesus and the candy canes!"

She was drawing at the kitchen table with the sunshine streaming in on her and she smiled and said, "It's fun to color in the sunshine."

A shopping center near us has big water fountains at the entrance that Betsy loves. A couple days after we went there we went to the grocery in another shopping center. Betsy kept pointing out the fountains (that weren't there). Myron said, "There's no fountains here, you're silly."
Betsy said, " 'At's not silly, I jus' 'tendin'." (That's not silly, I'm just pretending.)

While I was changing an especially stinky diaper I said, "Whew, that's a nasty one!"
Betsy said, "Poo is nasty, but kissing is great!"

She was pretending to talk on the phone:
"Hello?" [Pause]
"Uh-huh. Yes." [Pause]
"Wow, that's pretty cool." [Pause]
"Yes. Okay." [Pause]
"I love you. Bye."

We've been teaching Betsy what state she lives in. We asked, "Where do you live?" She promptly declared, "In a barn!"

Betsy had a straw while we were eating at a restaurant and she placed it sideways to her lips and said, "I'm playing the picciolo!" [We read an alphabet book a couple times where P was for picciolo and she remembered and even observed the right way to hold it!]

For some unknown reason Betsy calls the chocolate truffles we got for Christmas "Leekin, Lockin, Looks."

Betsy likes to savor her candy and will hold it and lick it for an hour. I asked her once, "Are you going to eat that candy or just hold it?"
Betsy: "Hold it." [Pause] "I'm a silly, silly girl."

She asked for a snack by saying, "I need something for my mouth."

A few days after visiting the aquarium she layed down on the floor with her feet and hands in the air and said, "I'm a sea nem-o-nee!" [anemone]

Betsy spontaneously piped up after dinner last week: "B is for Betsy...and buffalo!" She knows the sounds that these letters make now and can sometimes name a word that starts with that letter: B, F, G, J, K, L, M, P, Q, R, S, T, W

Yesterday while typing an email I hit a wrong key and said, "Shoot." Betsy looked at me and said, "Mommy, are you lost?" (She's been in the car with me too many times when I said the same thing because I was lost!)

Betsy asked me to take the paper wrapper off of her crayon. Then she held it up with a wry smile and said, "This crayon is NAKED!"

It's a laugh-a-minute here! :)

Am I Cool By Association?

All I know is that I'm so very proud of my brother- and sis-in-law!
Check it out!
WNKU Top 89 of 2007

Way to go Aunt Sissy and Uncle Linford!



We were cool enough to make the latest Over the Rhine news, at least! ;)