Little Conversations

Note: So, I needed to write a new post because I hate when I write complaining posts (like the post before). It makes me feel bad...like I'm a compulsive complainer, which may or may not be true...

Anyhow...

Two conversations I have with Eden DAILY:

Eden: Eat.
Mom: You want to eat?
Eden: Yeeeaaah. (Smiles)
Mom: What do you want to eat?
Eden: Noonles.
Mom: We don't have noodles. Want anything else to eat?
Eden: No...nnnnoonles.
Mom: How about _______?
Eden: Yeeeeaaah.

Mom: Let's get ready to go night night.
Eden: No? (said like "can we do something else?")
Mom: How about we brush your teethies.
Eden: No. (much more of a statement)
Daddy: Daddy's going to brush his teethies. Want to brush your teethies with daddy?
Eden: Yeeeaaaah.

Man, I love this age when you can distract your child away from getting what they want. But I love having conversations with Eden...she's so cute. I love that she talks. And I love the picture above...she just looks so...what's the right word...suspicious?

Misery in Missouri

Dear Reader,

I am calling on you for help. Recently I have moved from Orem, Utah to Kansas City, Missouri. While life here has been good, there is one unsolved mystery that I'm currently trying to solve. Making bread is much more of a hassle than enjoyment. I loved baking loaves of bread, bread sticks, rolls, etc. But since my move to Missouri I can't make a good bread to save my life. I have researched the internet, tried to make some adjustments, and I can't figure it out. I'm hoping that you, my diligent readers, may have an insight to my ever-frustrating dilemma.

What is different?

1. My yeast will rise and amazingly rapid rates. While I'm used to waiting 5-10 minutes for yeast to be bubbly, I'm finding that after 2-3 minutes my yeast has almost turned into a soft pillow of bubbles.

2. The same thing happens when rising...its SUPER rising. I've never had dough rise this fast. Maybe this is a good thing, maybe this is a bad thing.

3. Then when I transfer my dough to the pan to cook in (say for example my bread sticks I attempted last night....I let rise the first time in a bowl, then transfer to a pan in the shape of bread sticks) for some reason its deflated so much that it doesn't fill the pan size that it would normally have filled if I were in Utah. Its as if the same recipe makes LESS in Missouri than Utah.

4. During the second rising time, it SUPER rises again (but in the case of the cinnamon rolls I made) since it didn't seem like there were ENOUGH cinnamon rolls, they seemed to grow out and almost a little melty on the bottom.

5. Then when cooking it looks nice but when out of the oven it flattens and denses and overall doesn't taste the same, not NEARLY as good. Just sort of...tolerably OK.

Could this be the fault of the over-excited yeast? Maybe the new kind of flour I'm using? Is it the altitude change? Is it temperature of the oven? Is it the amount of time I let it rise? Do I need to knead it extra or less? I may just give up making any kind of bread while here in misery...I mean, Missouri.

Hoping to find answers,
Misery in Missouri

To Be a One Year Old...

Oh, who couldn't love this precious little girl?


Eden has developed a little sense of humor, being independent, has formed likes and dislikes, and is just a character all around! Well, there is one thing I know now...being a one year old is never boring!

Some snapshots of Eden's everyday life.

Eating...(the only straw we could find and she insisted on doing it all herself)


Coloring...(unfortunately we're at the stage where we have to distinguish "paper" for drawing and "paper" in books)


Running around "nakey" with large stuffed animals... (the one she has in her hands right now is a giant snake or as she calls it "Nake")

And getting into stuff...anything she can fit into or fit other things into...


And if I were to take a few more pictures of Eden's favorite activities...amongst the top I would say "tubby time", reading with mom and dad, watching "Elmo" or "Einstein" or some other movie (which she usually calls all of them "Elmo"...that just means to watch a movie), and talking talking talking (unfortunately I still can't get my new camera to work the video on my blog...I just gotta start using my old camera.)

Rainy Days

This is our backyard when it rains (which is often does, especially at night). Our backyard floods and a relatively large river appears. Most nights there is TONS of thunder and lightening to the point where our entire house is shaking. It's AWESOME. I love it. The rain storms are definitely different than Utah rain storms.

The not so cool part of life is that our little family caught the swine flu. No fun. Eden is just getting over it (with the exception of a never ending runny nose and cough). Tyson just got over the worst part of sickness. And I am just STARTING the worst part. *sigh* So goes life. Lately we've taken this time to just lounge, watch movies, and eat soup.

Also, I'm still trying to figure out my new camera. I took some videos of Eden and I can't seem to attach them to my blog...guess I gotta keep trying to figure it out.

Update

I updated my picture blog for all of you interested in pictures of happenings in my life. There's everything from the group posse picture before I left, the family sushi party, the move, church history trip, our new place, and the start of med school.

tysonandbethany.blogspot.com

Honestly, not much is new here. Eden was really sick a few days ago and now has a never ending runny nose and cough. Tyson and I were starting to feel sick as of last night with sore throats. But I have been able to get a cleaning schedule in order (that is of course is no fun, thus making it hard to keep up with) and also finally getting back to cooking real meals and foods. Want to see what I'm eating....or would like to try eating someday...or what I've eaten in the past few months?

mylittleblackrecipebook.blogspot.com

I just use this blog to keep track of my recipes and try new recipes...instead of having millions of books and papers everywhere that can lost in the mess. And since I'm always on the search for new recipes I figure that others may be too.

My DEEPEST Apologies

A recent phone conversation held between me and my mother.

Mom: So, I looked at your blog today.
Me: Yeah? That's part of the new house. What do you think?
Mom: There weren't any pictures of Eden. I wanted to see Eden.

So, dear mother...my deepest apologizes. Here's a blog all about Eden. :)

(And to all of you future mothers...once you have a baby, you become non-existent. When you enter a door and say, "HELLO!" the first thing they say is "Where's the baby?" When you go to a grocery store people no longer greet you...but greet the baby. And blogs and Facebook merely become personal photo galleries dedicated to baby. But heck, I don't blame them...Eden is MUCH cuter than both me and Tyson.)

But FIRST, an instruction manual on how to keep a baby happy during a LONG car ride.
(We drove from Utah to Missouri and also all around the church sites.)

This is how to keep your baby happy during a long car ride. See, this is my baby...and she's so happy to be in her carseat for hours and hours and hours.

The trick is...give her a bottle...

And someone to share with...

Make sure she's NICE and LOOPY...

And then let her drive on occasion.That's all there is to it! Your baby will be as happy as a clam if you follow these basic instructions! This is a no-fail method!

Alright, no more silliness. But Eden did do EXTREMELY well in the car during the 2 days of 7 hours drives. I was impressed. Now here an update on Eden...she'll be 15 months old tomorrow! Man, how time flies!

I was actually curious the other day and decided to write up all the words that Eden says now that she is talking like crazy (I wrote it in Excel cause I didn't want to write them and count them all). I'm sure I missed a few words, but I counted 81 words that she says on a normal basis, 61 words she says on occasion, 16 words she has said once but never again, and 23 noises and imitations of things. After I started writing it, the list got bigger and bigger and took more time than I anticipated....I don't plan to write them all down on my blog, but off the top of my head I would say her top 5 used words (besides mommy and daddy) are "No", "Yeah", "Lamby" (her stuffed animal, said "Amby"), "Owie", and "Milk" (said, "Nilk").

Eden is walking all by herself, but is still a little unsteady. I think it has to do with her small feet. I didn't realize that she had small feet until we compared it with a few others...she still wears a size 2 and sometimes size 3. Doesn't matter though, she'd still rather be carried.

She's starting to realize possession. She's not as bad as she used to be, but she's a hoarder. She'll get and hold everything she can at once and just sit there as if her life was dependent upon keeping those things safe. Here's a picture of when we were organizing the pantry and she decided to hoard all the cooking oil.
Eden loves food. As my sister put it, "I've never seen anyone get so excited about food as she does." Another favorite word of hers is "eat". She'll eat most things...but definitely likes things over others. She asks me everyday for "noodles" (said "noonles") even though we more than likely don't have any...same with bananas. Here's a picture of her eating banana bread...which she LOVED.
This is my new purse that I got at Good Will. It was $2 and I wanted a new purse. I love it. Eden loves it too. I think she carries it around more than I do. Whenever she sees it, she puts it over her head and tries to walk without tripping (often getting frustrated because its hard).
This is one thing Eden didn't like. We went to this place (I can't think of the name of it right now) but it had a Narnia exhibit going on (which we didn't go to because it closed before we got there). But they had this station of a large green monster and Eden was EXTREMELY scared of it.
Eden really is a wonderful baby (she doesn't seem so much like a BABY anymore although she will sometimes point to herself a say "baby" and says "waah!") She is such a bundle of fun and we'll have to keep updated on what's going on with her now that we're pretty much settled into our new place. :)

One Internet Connection Later...

Its been a while since my last blog. Much has happened and not nearly enough room to write it all. We just got hooked up with internet yesterday....so that's my excuse for not keeping you all updated.

To make a long story short...here's what I've been up to....

Turning THIS...

Into THIS....
And turning THIS...
Into THIS...
And finally turning HIM...
Into HIM...
(By that I mean, Tyson started med school and this is him at the big white coating ceremony where they present him with his first official white coat).

I haven't been able to take pictures of the whole house for whatever reasons, but its definitely turning into home sweet home. It's been great here. We love our place, neighbors, and ward. But we've also been enjoying exploring antique shops (where I got my kitchen hutch shown in the picture above), green trees and brush everywhere, and figuring out how to live by ourselves since it's been a while.

I don't even KNOW where to start because there has been so much going on. Tyson's family helped us move out here and then we drove around to all the church sites like Nauvoo, Carthage, and Liberty Jail. Tyson had days of school orientation (which he found boring but enjoyed making some friends) and his white coating ceremony (with the INCREDIBLE party at the Marriott afterwards). I spoke in sacrament in our ward and Tyson was given a calling and set apart as an Elders Quarum teacher. Eden is talking, talking, talking! She says so many words and does so many new things now that I can't keep track any longer. And we've met so many new and incredible people. Overall, it's been GREAT!

We do miss everyone back home and it's a whole new world. I need to look at everyone's blogs to find out what I've been missing out on during my time without internet. We love you all and will try to keep updated on life in Kansas City!