One of Wesley’s new favorite pastimes is playing in the sink. I’ve been trying to get him to understand that he actually needs to ask me for permission to play in the sink before dragging over a chair and pulling an apron off the hook. But, alas. That will take some time.

I pull Carissa into the kitchen sometimes so she can watch him play. It’s surprisingly entertaining to her. She also likes to sit inside the back door and watch him play in his sandbox.

But after a few minutes I realized she was a little close to the utensils drawer.

Wes is finding his independence. For better or worse. He wakes up (too) early, usually around 6 or sometimes 5:30. I am really the type of person that sees no good reason to get out of bed before 7 am. But now that Wes is in a big boy bed once he’s awake he can tromp around as he chooses. He will often come into my room to get me. I’ll follow him back into his room with my pillows and lie on the bed that’s next to his. He’ll sometimes fall asleep again for a few minutes, or even half an hour. But sometimes he just fidgets noisily and crawls around the floor of his room while I try to ignore him and get more sleep, or until I give up and we both go downstairs groggily (I’m the groggy one, obviously, not him).

Today he woke up around 6 and I heard him go downstairs. I thought briefly, “I wonder what kind of things he’ll find to do to entertain himself” before realizing I didn’t care and fell back asleep.

About 15 minutes later Wes came into my room and I went downstairs with him. The fridge was wide open and the floor looked like this:

He had helped himself to breakfast.

Wes is frequently doing things that, even though I think I’m watching him, I still miss. Tonight I was looking all over for his PJ bottoms, which I had brought down from upstairs to put on him for bedtime. Couldn’t find them. I left him in his church pants and put him to bed. Later I looked down from the upstairs balcony and found his bottoms on top of the very tall entertainment system. He had tossed them up there when I wasn’t looking.

A few days ago I saw him pulling the bookmark out of my library book, a murder mystery. I was nearing the end of the book, almost to the whodunnit part. But my hands were busy so I let it go and figured I’d put the bookmark back later.

And then…my book disappeared. For three days I looked everywhere obvious and then everywhere unobvious. I could not find it anywhere. At times like these I wish I could ask Wes, “Where did you put my green book?” and that he could tell me. But I was on my own.

(Tonight John joined in the search for the book and found it on the floor under our bed. Apparently it had been pushed down between the wall and the mattress at the top of the bed.)

The book I was (and now am) reading is a mystery with recipes throughout. It’s a fun read. When I came across the recipe for Mock Apple Pie I decided to try it. I remember in one of the Little House on the Prairie books that Ma made a pie once out of something that was unexpected because they didn’t have much food on hand to choose from. Her family was all fooled into thinking it was the real-deal pie.

So here is my Mock Apple Pie.

It was super duper easy to make and turned out tasty, similar to apple pie but still different. It would be something to make if you were in a pinch and needed to produce a pie fast. And also if you don’t mind eating something that has even less nutritional value than regular apple pie. Yes, instead of apples you use crackers.

I won’t copy the recipe here but there are many to choose from online. Most call for Ritz crackers, but the book used saltines.

And on one more baking note, here is Wes “helping” finish up a batch of brownies tonight. So helpful. And Carissa looking on.

As far as I know, I made this up.

I was baking cookies and decided to put some cookie dough in the bottom of a mini graham cracker pie crust. I baked it and then topped it with ice cream.

Um. Yum.

So here’s the step-by-step.

1. Take mini graham cracker pie crusts (I used Keebler Ready Crust) and press cookie dough into the bottom of each.

(Every time I make cookies I only make part of the batch and store the rest in the freezer. I happened to have whole wheat chocolate chip cookie dough and snickerdoodle cookie dough on hand in the freezer.)

2. Bake the crust and cookie dough at 350 degrees for the approximate time that the cookie is supposed to bake. For my cookies it was about 10 minutes.

Here they are, cooked.

3. Let it cool a smidge, and then top it with ice cream and any other toppings you want.

For the chocolate chip cookie pie I used monster cookie ice cream (from Target). The snickerdoodle pie was amazing with strawberry cheesecake ice cream (also from Target).

This is the snickerdoodle pie cut in half with the monster cookie ice cream.

And here’s Carissa. I was trying to get a shot of her pulling herself up onto her knees to play, but she wouldn’t cooperate.

1. Carissa is getting her first two teeth (front lower).

2. Wes is doing better about sleeping in his big boy bed, but he doesn’t usually make it through the night. So we still have a crib in his room that we use as a backup when needed (which is still somewhat often). I kind of feel like Carissa is missing out on some important rite of babyhood by not sleeping in a crib herself. She’s still in a cradle. (Also, I have some gorgeous baby girl crib bedding that I want to actually use, but I’ll wait until Wes is really done with the crib and it can officially be hers.)

So the other day I put Carissa in the crib next to Wes. He thought it was pretty fun to share it with his sister.

3. I tried to take photos of Wes and Carissa beside each other on the couch. Carissa is nearly always a ready model. Wes, not so much.

Good thing we got another round of professional photos taken of the kids yesterday. Here’s a sneak peek.

And here’s a link to our photographer.

4. I made chicken and dumpling soup tonight for the first time. We had leftover cooked chicken, celery, carrots, and sweet potatoes in the fridge and I wanted to use them. I used a combination of Rachel Ray’s recipe and Bobby Flay’s. Rachel Ray’s recipe actually calls for biscuit mix for the dumplings, but I didn’t have any so I followed Bobby Flay’s directions for making real dumplings (so easy).

Here’s basically what I did:

Chicken and Dumpling Soup

2 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp olive oil
3 carrots, peeled and diced
1 celery stalk, diced
1 sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 tsp. onion powder (OR 1 medium onion, but I didn’t have one)
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp. poultry seasoning (I used a poultry rub we got at Costco)
2 Tbsp. flour
4 cups chicken broth
shredded chicken, cooked

Cook vegetables in the butter and oil in saucepan over medium-high heat about 5 minutes until tender. Add salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning. Add flour and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add chicken broth and bring to a boil. Stir in chicken.

(All of the above is basically from Rachel Ray’s recipe. Now for the dumplings, by Bobby Flay…)

Dumplings:

* 1 cup milk
* 1/2 cup butter
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* 3 eggs

Bring the milk and butter to a boil (I used a microwave), add salt and nutmeg. (Warning: It will smell good.) Remove from heat and immediately add flour stirring until dough leaves the sides of the pan. Incorporate the eggs, 1 at a time, forming a sticky dough.

Drop tablespoonfuls of dumpling dough into the pot, spacing dumplings evenly. Cover pot tightly and reduce heat to medium low. Steam dumplings 8 to 10 minutes (they will rise).

Carissa is almost 8 months old (turns on Friday). She is getting better at sitting up solo, but she is still a little tipsy and so I buffer her with pillows. She likes to sit up (no surprise) where she can better see the world and play with more toys.

This is her after a bath, when her hair is curly to the max.

I recently tried a new recipe from chef Bobby Flay, found here. I doubled the amount of peanut butter caramel. Warning: They are fudgy.

I also tried my hand at making tortillas. Wes helped, a little.

Turns out they are so easy to make, and tastier than store-made.

We had this for dinner:

Chicken Bacon Ranch Wraps

Tortilla (homemade; click on link above for recipe)
Chicken (from rotisserie chicken from CostCo)
Bacon (pre-cooked from CostCo; just zap it in the microwave)
Shredded cheddar cheese
Ranch dressing

Even Wes ate it!

1. Carissa

Carissa is 7.5 months old. I just took her in for her (ahem) six-month checkup. She’s 15 lbs 5 oz and 26 inches long. She’s in the 13th percentile for weight, which is up from 11th two months ago.

A week or two ago she started rolling over from back to tummy more frequently. She’s starting to recognize that she can get around. She spends a little more time on her tummy and sitting in chairs, which means her bald spot on the back of her head is starting to grow in!

Her first tooth (front lower left) poked through yesterday. She chews on her fingers a lot.

We’re trying to get her to hold up her own bottles, but with mixed results. She’d rather play.

I love the way her hair always smells like baby. Her eyes are big and blue. She is a joy to hold and kiss and cuddle.

2. Wes

Wes is 3.5 years old. He is about 30 pounds. Our current adventure is transferring him into the Big Boy Bed. For the last two months he’s been taking his daytime nap in the toddler bed, but I have to be right by him until he falls asleep. Otherwise he won’t stay put. Sometimes he wakes up from his nap an hour early and I can’t convince him to fall back asleep.

Three nights ago we started putting him to sleep at night in his toddler bed, too. The first night he stayed in bed all night but got up an hour early. Which meant I had to get up an hour early.

The last couple of nights he’s been waking up and getting out of bed and crying either in the hallway (if his door’s open) or in his room on the floor (if his door’s closed). We let him do this once, then if gets out again he goes into his crib for the rest of the night.

I sometimes wonder if/when this will ever improve. Carissa could use the crib, though (she’s in a cradle and soon will outgrow it).

We pulled out a game that Wes likes to play (and by “play” I mean, Wes plays with it like a toy rather than like a game). It was a gift when he was a baby, and he’s just now getting to where he can somewhat appreciate it. I have to help him put the leaves in the tree, then he puts the plastic bees in, and then he pulls out the leaves one by one untill all the bees fall out. You’re supposed to take turns and see who gets the least number of bees, but whatever.

4. Baking

It looks like apple pie, but it’s actually baklava. A while ago I accidentally bought filo pastry sheets and thought maybe I should use them. This was my first attempt at a pastry, and, actually, I think it turned out decently! Most things I make I’m happy to taste. But baklava is on a whole other level. Tasting it is like stepping into another world–certainly one outside of my own kitchen. It tastes like it’s hard to make, but surprise! It’s not.

4. Family photos

By Despain Photography.

We did one-half of the full photo shoot and are scheduled to shoot the other hour this weekend–except that this morning as Wes was running to the front door when he saw his school bus pull up, he tripped and sliced his forehead, and now I think maybe we’ll postpone the photos until we see how his head heals up.

Well, you know if I make something for dinner that I feel a little awesome about I will post it on my blog. And if you go back and see how many times this has happened, you’ll see that it’s pretty rare.

But here’s one!

I looked in the freezer and saw I had a frozen Marie Callender’s pie crust leftover (from Thanksgiving) and half a bag of frozen pre-cooked chicken (from CostCo). I decided to try a chicken pot pie. My first ever. I hate that canned cream of chicken soup stuff that some recipes call for, so I wanted to make the filling from scratch.

I based my recipe off this one.

But since I didn’t have fresh celery, onion, cooking sherry, a second pie crust for the top, or even carrots that weren’t past their prime, I modified it a lot. And guess what? It still tasted darn good.

The recipe I used made enough filling for two pies, so I could have halved it. But I’ll include the full amounts I used, even though I ended up with extra leftover.

Simple Chicken Pot Pie

1 frozen pie crust

Prick with a fork and pre-bake in oven according to package directions. (Mine was 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes). Meanwhile:

6 Tbsp. butter
1 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
baby carrots, sliced thin

Melt the butter in a big saucepan over medium heat and add the onion and garlic powder and carrots. Cook for about 10 minutes or until the carrots start getting tender.

1/2 cup flour
1 can (2 cups) chicken broth
1 1/2 cups milk

Whisk in flour and cook for one more minute (should be boiling and thickening). Whisk in chicken broth and milk. Lower the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes. Mixture should thicken.

1 cup frozen corn
2-4 cups cut up or shredded cooked chicken
1 tsp thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Add the corn near the end of the simmering time along with the chicken and seasoning. Taste and adjust as needed. Pour into the pre-baked pie crust and bake in 400 degree oven for 10 or so minutes (until the crust is more golden brown).