Tasty Experiments

Terral baked bread today. Yum! He made some pita bread, which I love, and he also experimented a bit by making a whole wheat french bread style loaf. It turned out really well. In fact, I liked it better than the regular loaves he makes.

I did some experimenting as well. I wanted to make a salad for dinner, but it turns out we only had about a cup of spinach left, and it was a little wilty. We were both craving fresh veggies, though, so I decided to just roll with what we had. What resulted was a rather unusual but very tasty salad. Ethan liked it, which means I definitely want to repeat it! So even though I don't have amounts since I just threw it all together, I wanted to record the "recipe" for future reference. And maybe one of you brave souls will want to try it out. ;)

                                   Salad                                         Dressing
                                   Carrots                                       Olive Oil
                                   Celery                                        Red Wine Pomegranate Vinegar
                                   Tomato                                      Rice Vinegar
                                   Cabbage                                     Lime Juice
                                   Yellow Pepper                           Juice from Fresh Ginger
                                   Olives                                         Sesame Seeds
                                   Green Onions                             Poppy Seeds
                                   Chick Peas                                 Honey
                                   Dried Cranberries                       Garlic Salt

Full & Tired

We had a wonderfully full day today. We took a trip to St. George and were able to enjoy some sun and good company. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow. It's been a whole week of early wakings, and I'm rather tired, so I'm turning in for the night.

Highlights

I gave myself a haircut this morning. I'd been wanting to for quite a while, but didn't think I could make the time for a few more days. But we were all up by 6:30 thanks to the little guy, so I took advantage of the hour I had before M showed up. It turned out pretty well, but a bit shorter than I was intending. Isn't that just the way haircuts go, though? No pictures yet, but I'll get 'em on here eventually.

Another unexpected bonus of the day was that my voice came back! Not full strength, of course, but way better than it was before. It was a lot harder to remember to rest my voice. I couldn't resist calling my parents, since talking on the phone was now possible. It felt really good to talk to them.

This afternoon, I watched M again. (I usually just have him in the mornings.) Ethan was being really cute with him. It's been fun to see Ethan become more interested in him. He used to just want to play with M's stuff. He was fascinated with the binky. But he has learned that taking the binky is not okay, and now he'll even put it in M's mouth if it falls out. He's learned to be soft, and will go up and stroke M's head. And when M came for the afternoon today, Ethan kept going up to him to give him hugs. So cute! I'm really glad he's learning this now.

And here's Ethan after M left. This is his current favorite perch. He's very into climbing things, and he's very into "outside". This kind of combines both, so he loves being up there. It felt like he spent half the day on the window sill.

Sunny Snow

Don't have much time to write a post tonight. I've spent all evening getting my singing time plan for March in place and setting things up for a sub on Sunday. Singing Time is kinda hard to do without a voice. This will be my first time having a sub in more than 7 months. And I'm going to be gone the last week in March too. Weird.

So here's a random picture from this morning. It was snowing while the sun was out. It doesn't look quite as impressive in the picture, but it was pretty cool. And it's the second time it's done that in less than a week.

Not exactly the storm we were expecting, but we'll take it.

Did I mention we were excited?

Well, my voice is still MIA for the most part. There were a couple times today that it almost sounded normal for a sentence or two, but I'm really trying to not talk, so I of course didn't see what the limits were. The first day was rather difficult (it's hard to say anything with authority when you can only whisper), but I've gotten somewhat used to it, and Ethan has too. We've both been signing more, which is cool. Terral's a little too used to it at times. He starts whispering back, and then half-way through the conversation he remembers that he can talk at a normal volume. :)

Back to the topic of Ethan signing, he's still doing really well with signing "potty". In fact, last night he even went to the bathroom door himself and pounded on it to go in! And he did more than just pee in the toilet! It was very exciting. It made up for the fact that he wouldn't go to bed. (And it, along with a late nap he had, explained why he wouldn't.) So in spite of the late hour, we bundled up and went outside for a bit for his reward.

And today, he peed two more times in the potty! Hooray!

Okay, I promise this blog will not turn into a daily log of bowel movements. I'll just record the big stuff. Unfortunately for you, I get to decide what counts as big. ;)

Another exciting thing happened today. We got an awesome package in the mail! On Monday we took a big plunge and signed up for doTERRA and our essential oils came today! And boy, were we eager to start using them. It was heavenly to breathe deep without feeling like I had to cough.

So, yeah. Lotta excitement 'round here. :)

Double Trouble

Here's a snapshot from this morning.

Terral and I keep asking ourselves how in the heck we're going to handle two kids when the time comes.

Vox-less Fox

Yesterday was the first Sunday with our new primary presidency, and I must say I was impressed. They were organized and had such a good energy! And the primary president already knew every child's name. Wow. I still have a handful I don't feel comfortable with.

So primary went quite well. I had been feeling better (remember how we've had some sickness around here?) but I still wasn't tip top. Terral and Ethan stayed home to try to get better faster and avoid spreading the "fun". Well, I stayed after church to go to choir, and apparently that was a big mistake. After two rounds of singing time, my voice was starting to sound just a bit raspy, so I decided I would take it easy and not sing the high notes in choir. I even switched to alto the second half. By the end of choir, it was pretty obvious my voice needed some rest. Okay, point taken. I decided not to go to stake choir that evening. Well, all evening my voice got worse. And then I had a horrible coughing fit. Like, I-almost-threw-up kind of coughing. I foresaw vocal rest in my immediate future. I just didn't foresee quite so much.

When I woke up this morning, I had only the barest sliver of a voice left. A short conversation with father of a boy I babysit, and it was gone. Whenever I open my mouth, only a whisper comes out. It's the strangest thing. I'll go without talking for a while, and then I try to say something and it completely surprises me. It doesn't hurt, but I know it's not good. I'm kind of worried. Having a hoarse voice has been a rare occurrence for me (thankfully). I've never lost it so bad before. I'm hoping there is no permanent damage from this.

So, if you happen to find my voice as you're going about your day-to-day activities, will you tell it I miss it something fierce and would it please come home? I'd be awfully appreciative.