Laowai

recent posts

  • ENJOYING

    We’ve been enjoying some Halloween decorations that I haven’t seen in a few years. Bea doesn’t really get what it’s all about yet and I hardly have a spare surface to put any decorations…. but I’m doing a little and having fun with it anyway. Like the spiders that are crawling up our curtains. Bea points at them and says bub (bugs) or bider (spiders).

    Halloween decorations

    We enjoy the Miffy and Friends show now and then. It’s just the right age level for Bea and she gets very excited when we watch it.

    3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened 
    1/4 c. plus 2 tablespoons sugar 
    1 t. cinnamon 
    2 tablespoons flour

    We’ve been enjoying apples and apple cider and this new apple pie recipe that you must try (see below). Open wide.

    Eating apple 1

    I can’t get enough of the very enjoyable Mad Men. Have you seen it? Oh golly – the dresses, the decor, the drinking, the smoking (ha ha). It’s set in the early sixties and I totally recommend it! 

    Betty, Joan, Peggy

    Oh and I can’t forget that Bea is enjoying a new game. I’ll call it pillow mountain. She gathers all the piyo (pillows) in the house and puts them in a big pile. Then she flops her body onto the pillows over and over while she giggles. 

    Pillow mountain

    Here’s the pie recipe. Try it you’ll like it.

    Sour Cream Apple Pie

    Topping

    Filling

    1 1/3 c. sour cream 
    2/3 c. sugar 
    1/4 teaspoon salt 
    2 teaspoons vanilla 
    2 large eggs 
    3 tablespoons all-purpose flour 
    4 or 5 large Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced

    Pie crust (you can make your own, or use a pre-made one from the refrigerator section of the grocery store — I always do) fitted into a deep-dish 9″ or 10″ pie plate and chilled

    To make the topping, in a bowl blend the butter, sugar, cinnamon, and flour until the mixture is combined well. Cover and chill the topping.

    To make the filling, whisk together the sour cream, sugar, salt, vanilla, eggs, and flour until the mixture is smooth. Add the peeled, cored, and thinly sliced apples and stir the filling and apples together.

    Spoon the filling into the chilled shell and crumble the topping evenly over it. Bake the pie on a baking sheet in the middle of a pre-heated 350-degree oven, 1 to 1 1/4 hours. (You might need to put a bit of tinfoil on top of the pie during the last 15 minutes to prevent the top from burning.) Transfer it to a rack and let it cool completely.


  • SUMMER TURNS TO WINTER ON OUR PATIO




    Summer is turning into winter but it’s not too cold go bare-footed yet.


  • THE ZOO WITH GRANDPA AND GRANDMA

    I keep thinking our nice warm sunny weather is going to finish for the season and then we get another day like Saturday. What a beautiful day to spend at the zoo with Grandpa and Gramma C. 

  • ONE OF MY BEST TOY INVESTMENTS

    One day I was shopping in Michael’s Craft store and Bea was acting a little fussy. I was worried I wouldn’t make it home without a toddler meltdown. So I threw a bag of pom poms in the cart thinking they would satisfy her for our 20-minute drive home. That one time use – keeping her conent during our drive home would have been worth the $5.00 I spent. 

    Who knew they would end up being one of her favorite and longest lasting toys. I don’t see the particular package I bought on the Michael’s web site. There must be around 100 pom poms in assorted colors and sizes. Everyday she asks to play with her Fluffies (that’s what we call them). Lately when she tries to pronounce fluffy it sounds kinda like a variation on a curse word – I won’t type it, you can guess. She throws them around and puts them in containers and transfers them to other containers with plastic spoons and on and on. She never seems to get tired of them. I hope she will have fun sorting the colors and sizes when she gets a little older. When Jenna was visiting earlier this summer she and Bea played side by side with the fluffies for what seemed like a very long time considering their toddler attention spans and their propensity for fighting over toys. Look at that smile on Jenna’s face below. 

  • POLKA ANYONE?

    What else do you do on a dark and rainy day but get out all the polka-dot clothes and splash in the puddles.




  • I is for ice cream

    We don’t feed Bea huge edible bowls of ice cream everyday, but let’s call this a celebration for finishing our alphabet project. Plus, I couldn’t think of anything else for the letter I (Aunt Sandy: I read your good idea after I took this picture). 

    I didn’t realize this fun little project would capture the stage we’re in so well. It’s that stage where she blurts out new words all the time. Sometimes we can understand, sometimes we can’t, but it’s so fun and entertaining. I ended up featuring a lot of words that she has started to use and things that she is interested in. When I look back at these pictures I’ll remember this Fall and her cute toddler voice very clearly.

    For now – I think I’ll stop taking so many photos everyday. This is a good way to fill up your computer really fast. Thanks for everyone who left a comment recently. I love hearing from you.

  • Y is for yellow

    This little alphabet project has gotten progressively harder. These last few letters are more staged than the others. We’ll take care of our last letter, I, after dinner tonight. Can you guess?

  • O is for octopus

  • X is for x-mas stocking

    This was a hard one. I decided to show my work-in-progress Christmas stocking that I’m making for Bea. I was inspired by this and this.

  • Graceland Cemetery

     

    Over the weekend we took another cemetery field trip. This time we took Brian. We went to the beautiful Graceland Cemetery. It’s known for all the architects and other famous Chicago people who are buried there. We had a really nice walk and saw several of the famous graves. I’m finding all this cemetery lore interesting for some reason.