An Ashton Funny

We've made it a habit of letting Ashton go to the bathroom on the big potty everytime we change his diaper before we put on a new one. He goes about 80% of the time and when he doesn't we're pretty sure it's just because he's got no liquid in him. His main motivation is the 2 skittles he gets afterwards. As he runs to the potty he says "Potty candy peepee candy Ashton candy". So we know he gets it. Anyway, he was sitting there on top of the toilet and wasn't going the other night so he asked for some water. When David handed him the water bottle he poured some into the toilet and said "Ashton, peepee YAY!" "Candy please".
We decided that being clever deserves a couple of skittles too.

Just what the doctor ordered

Ashton & I had a hard Saturday. Our friends E&E moved and we both cried after we dropped them off at the airport. These 2 learned to crawl, walk, talk etc. together.On the way home I tried to tell him about all the fun things that were coming up... mostly to help cheer me up too.

We've been super busy this week and it's only Tuesday - it really is just what the doctor ordered.

We ate a firetruck cake. I told David as I was up to my elbows in a frosting and foodcoloring covered kitchen that I needed to remember that just because I watch the foodnetwork doesn't mean I can make a cake just like the Ace of Cakes. That was my sad attempt at a firetruck.

Can you tell Ashton didn't really care what it looked like? David & I were impressed that he blew out the candles without spitting on anything.

He got a lot of fun new toys.

Some of which he wont even get out of for storytime before bed.

We're so glad David's family is here in town - and that even more came into town for this holiday.

I love Thanksgiving. What a better way to spend a day than with family and being grateful for all we have.

Turning 2

Happy Birthday Ashton!

Braided Swiss Bread

So I had every intention of taking pictures of every step of the cooking process. Then I didn't remember to take pictures until the dough was done. Sorry - looks like I'm not cut out to start a cooking blog after all.

Here's what you'll need.

1 cup warm water
3 T. dry yeast
1 T. salt
1/3 cup sugar
2 2/3 cup milk
2 T. butter
4 eggs
10 cup flour

Now if you're like me and staring at your 4 qt kitchen aide wondering if it could possibly hold 10 cups of flour - I'm here to tell you it can be done! So here we go with the step by step process.

• Combine warm water, yeast sugar and salt in bowl. Let sit for a few minutes.
• Meanwhile melt your butter in a saucepan and add the milk. Heat until very warm.
• Add milk mixture to yeast mixture.
• Add eggs and 4 cups of the flour. Start mixing.
• Add 1 cup of flour at a time.
• If you working in a small kitchenaide here's where it gets tricky. When I got to cups 9 & 10 of flour I had to unlock my mixer and hold it up a little from the bowl so the dough wouldn't go over the paddle. Knead for 6-8 minutes. If you're scared to ruin your mixer go ahead and do it by hand.
• This makes a soft/sticky dough. Split the dough in half and put in two greased bowls.

Sidenote: you're definitely going to want to grease your hands before you attempt to split the dough by hand.

Okay - if your dough looks something like this you're doing great so far!

Cover and let rise until double.
My friend Bree asked how long that was I told her one batch in the dryer - she had never heard the secret of putting dough on the dryer to rise. It's actually folding that batch in the dryer that is the hard part for me.
Really - the hard part is done if you've come this far. Now before you get your hands sticky go grease 4 bread pans.

Each bowl will make 2 loaves of bread. So take half out of one bowl and put on floured surface. You'll need two peices to braid with for each loaf - so yes, split that dough again.

Roll out each piece until it is about 18 inches long.

Now watch the video (at the bottom) of Bree braiding the bread a couple of times to see how you do it. Basically you make an X with the dough and then do under - over - under until you're out of dough to work with. Then tuck the end under so you can only see the braided part.

Cover let the dough raise again until it looks about how big a loaf of bread should be.

Put in the oven at 350 for 22 minutes. Keep an eye on it because altitudes and ovens are a little different.

Only 3 loaves came out of my oven - Bree who helped me make this batch had already taken hers home. Our braids weren't as perfect this time around - mostly because I let her braid - kidding, Bree. It was me who rolled out uneven pieces to braid with.

*If you like fancy shiney bread go ahead and do the egg brushing thing on top. If it grosses you out like it does me take a good old stick of butter and rub it on the top to get rid of any flour that you can still see.

I had a video of me doing the braiding but I wasn't nearly as thorough as Bree is... so follow her expert ways. This was really only her 2nd time so it can't be that hard -right?

My new favorite way to eat this bread is toasted with butter and a little bit of cinnamon-sugar on top it's just as good as a cinnamon roll. MMMMMMMMMmmm goodluck ya'll!

I had one of those moments...

The other day my sister & I were talking on the phone to pass a few minutes of our day. Sometimes we don't even talk we kind of just listen to what's going on in the other's house... I was feeding Ashton pretzels from a Halloween bucket and tripping over toys as I went back and forth from putting Hannah to sleep. Then I heard my sister telling her daughter to quit licking her. She said it a few more times and it dawned on me... this is what we always wanted. That sounds so weird but I've always wanted a toy filled house and little ones to love. It comes along with extra messes and quirks but it's already such a joyful time of my life.

Cue Sunday morning. Wait, let's rewind and start with Saturday. We spent an amazingly fun day at Six Flags with David's family. Ashton was a roller coaster junkie and consequently got no nap and went down for the night at 8pm. Around 10 he woke up crying which almost never happens so we got him up and let him drink some milk and have some of the cookies we were eating. When he seemed calm we put him back down. I'll spare you the details but basically from 12-2 he woke up every 45 minutes and we tried a number of things to calm him. He didn't have a fever or anything noticeably wrong so we figured his sleep schedule was messed up from hid lack of nap. Finally around 2:30am he fell asleep for the night.

Sunday morning we had to wake him up for church and as he was as happy and could be as I got him dressed. Meanwhile, David took a look at him and said "He has chocolate in his ear!" We both start to laugh at how he could have gotten part of the cookie in his ear and actually wedged a chocolate chip in. So I took a picture b/c I thought it was hilarious.

I took him to the bathroom to clean out his ear. I was already full into my "putting things in our ears = no, no" talk when it dawned on me that it couldn't possibly all be chocolate from the cookie. I told David this and he refused to believe me. I said it was wax - he said it was chocolate. So I did what any sane mother would do to prove they're right. I tasted a tiny bit from my finger and came to the conclusion that it was in fact wax.

Later I was telling the story to my mom and she laughed and said "You tasted it?!?" Before then it really never occured to me that tasting it was that big of a deal. And that's when I realized that was a defining moment of motherhood and I am not ashamed.

So a quick trip to the pediatrician let us know that it was a ruptured eardrum. His ears were infected and he didn't say a thing or even pull on them. I think he has a high pain tolerance. I thought maybe it was all the rides and they had messed with his ears, thank goodness it wasn't. He's on antibiotics now and it's really not a big deal. Just wanted to share my mothering moment of the month, especially since I had a picture, hope I didn't gross you all out.

Trick or Treat

I've got to admit - Halloween has been kind of boring for the last oh.. 10 years. But this year we stayed busy with lots of fun activities AND it was magical watching Ashton trick or treat.

This is our 3rd time going to a Murder Mystery with the Kaynes. They went all out this year and it was SO much fun.
We went on an archealogical dig. My character was actually doing the digging, hence the khaki, David on the other was a bussiness man who came into town to stir up trouble.

We taught Ashton how much fun it is to carve pumpkins. He refused to stick his hand in though.

We went to the ward trunk or treat. Here is Ashton and his best bud Elsie. He's not going to know what hit him when she moves in just a few weeks. We'll have to mourn together when the Malinkas leave us.

The dragon ate a hot dog.

And on Halloween night we ate some pizza with friends and then went to a really nice area of Dallas with huge houses to go trick or treating. On the 2nd house Ashton got a sucker and refused to do anything else until he could eat the sucker. If you click on this picture you can see how sticky and slobbery he was that night. We did about 10 houses and that was just perfect.

I can definitely say I'm looking forward to Halloween next year!