Cutest Monkey Ever!

Here is a cute monkey wearing a cute monkey shirt.

Recipe of the Week--Peanut Butter Ice Cream

I've found so many good recipes in the past several months that I thought I'd start posting some. Maybe not actually weekly, but occasionally. I'll start with the Peanut Butter Ice Cream I made for the party. I don't know if you are peanut butter lovers, but give it a chance--it's very tasty!

Peanut Butter Ice Cream

4 cups half-and-half
3 cups milk
*(I used 2 c. regular cream and 5 c. milk.)
3 cups non-fat dry milk
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups peanut butter
4 teaspoons vanilla extract

Pour the half-and-half, dry milk, and milk into a large saucepan over low heat. Heat, stirring, until dry milk dissolves. Stir in peanut butter and sugar until smooth and sugar has dissolved. (I used the immersion blender at this point to make it totally smooth, or you could use a regular blender.) Remove from heat; stir in vanilla. Refrigerate until cool. Stir, or blend again, and pour into ice cream maker. Freeze as usual.

Pioneer Day

These pictures should bring back fond memories for most of you. We never miss the 1st ward's Annual Pioneer Parade and Ice Cream Party! Abraham and Sebastian had fun walking with Grandma Nelson in the parade, and we all enjoyed the ice cream, except Sebastian--not that he wouldn't have enjoyed it--but he isn't old enough to eat dairy products yet. He made up for it, though, by eating the first (and second, and third) cookie of his young life. I was waiting till he was 1 for that, too, but then . . . he looked so excited when he saw them . . . so, I figured he could be a few weeks early. After I handed him one (oatmeal, if you're curious), he set to with great vim and vitality, pausing only to smile at me in an knowing sort of way, like he was thinking, "Aha, I had a suspicion this would be good--and it is!!"

We counted 25 (or more--I may have missed a few) different kinds of homemade ice cream there, of which I thought ours and Mom's were the best, although Sister Hickman's strawberry, and Theresa's peppermint, were also notable. :-) We made peanut butter ice cream, and Mom made lime. Mmmm, yummy!

Yellow Blender

I had been wanting a yellow blender for quite a while, but it seemed improbable that I would actually get one, as this color had been discontinued and I couldn't even find it on Ebay. But then, I stumbled upon it online (at a store called Gourmet Depot; I recommend it) for a better price than I'd seen anywhere, even for other (less pretty) colors! So, here it is, a testament to the fact that you can find anything, sooner or later, on the internet. I love it, by the way--it looks good, but it also works really well. Hooray!

Hot days!

We've had temperatures over a hundred for the past week, and although I realize that it isn't as hot as some of you have to endure in, say, Arizona, we can still hardly bear to be outside sometimes. But our new awning gives us some shade to sit in, and playing in the sprinklers helps too. Here is Abraham running through the sprinklers with his friend Mark. (I hope that dry spot on our grass enjoyed this little session as much as Abe and Mark did!)

Bear breakfast

This is a high chair we got at our neighbors' garage sale, with Blue Bear sitting in it. Abraham takes very good care of all his bears, and often tells me "Make sure you keep your voice quiet--my bears are having a nap" or "Well, I have to run to the store with Honey. I better go buckle him into the car."

Sebastian points

It sort of looks like he's laying his finger beside his nose, but he is actually pointing right out at YOU. (This is what he would do if you were here.)

Sebzilla (Walking . . . sort of.)

Sebby can walk up to about 4 steps now. It was hard to get him to do it for the camera, though. We had to have Abe shake the Barrel of Monkeys to try and get Seb interested in coming over.

Turquoise Boys

Abraham and Sebastian have several matching shirts, and Abe loves to match Sebby. When Abe gets dressed in the morning he always asks, "And can Sebby wear his ___ shirt too, so we can match?"

2 Helicopters

We saw these flying overhead when we were outside yesterday evening.

A few more awning pictures

Here is the deck with all the furniture replaced.

And the other side.

And here is the sunshade pulled down.

New awning

Here is a picture of the awning that was here when we bought the house. (This picture was actually taken before we lived here.) The awning was a big piece of canvas that stretched tight over the wood frame. It was a great place to sit in the summer, but unfortunately we get really strong winds around here, and the canvas got ripped many times. It would either fly off of the frame, or stay partly on and fly around hitting things. For the past two years, we've been trying various solutions, (patching the canvas, adding velcro restraints, adding strings, taking it down when it starts to get windy, etc.) but nothing has worked--in fact, even the wood frame itself has gotten all ripped apart because the winds are so strong. So . . .

This summer we ordered a new awning, which is retractable, so we can just roll it up when the winds are strong. It was installed today, and I think it's going to be great! There's a little remote control to bring it out, and there's also a sunshade that pulls down from the front of it, to block the evening sun. Here are some pictures of Abey operating the remote control and opening the awning.

Fully retracted

Partially extended (you can stop it at any point, but I don't know why you'd want to)

Fully extended-- although the picture here doesn't quite do it justice--the support arms
actually extend straighter than they look here. It's nice to have the view unimpeded
by any vertical support arms. It makes the deck feel really big!

Staining the deck

We've been sanding and re-staining our deck for the past several nights. Here is the end result.

Some things I like about my Abraham (a short list)

• He always asks if his latest favorite toy can "watch him sleep" (sit next to his bed at night)
• He says banging "bane-een," piano "pianio," and hold "hode"
• He's very positive--for example, the other day I said "There's the field where the hot air balloons were, but they're all cleared away now." Abey said, "Yeah, but it's still a really good field, though!"
• He loves everything. (I know because one time he said to me, "I love everything!")
• He calls out "May I get up please now please Mommy please?" when he wakes up from his nap
• Every morning he helps me water the flowers with his little watering can
• Every time I'm working in the kitchen he says, "Can I help you with anything, Mommy?"
  
• He calls his tricycle (depending on the day) either his "vacuum sweeper truck" or his "motorcycle sidecar."
• He refers to his scraped knee as "the knee." As in, "Be careful not to touch the knee!"
• He likes funny toys (see earplug, below)
• When I tell him something good he's done (e.g., "You sure cleaned up your room well, Abey!"), he says, "Yeah, we'll have to tell Daddy and Grandma about that!"
• I told him a story about when I was in high school and Philip took me to Provo High and helped me work on jumping over the hurdles for my track team. He liked the story. Then when I was done he said, "Now I'll tell you a story. Once, Honey and I went to . . . well, it's almost the same as yours. We went to Orem High, but instead of turtles, we were jumping over lizards there. "
  

Abe's earplug

Some friends of ours, desperate for kid-friendly toys while we were visiting, gave Abey one green earplug to play with. He immediately latched onto it as one of his favorite toys. (He likes to wear it when he's working with loud machinery, such as his lawnmower, his vacuum, his "blower," his "weed whacker," etc. [Many of these items are constructed out of unrelated household objects, such as twist ties, milk carton lids, etc.]) Here you can see the earplug in his ear as he watches Sebby poke at something on the wall.

4th of July : Hot Air Balloons

Sebastian and I gaze onto a higher plane

Sebastian can't take his eyes off of Smokey, not even to get his picture taken

Squinting (a bit angrily) into the sun

We had a great time at this year's Independence Day festivities in Provo. Abraham and Sebastian both liked the parade, the hot air balloons, and especially the fireworks. (I wish I had some pictures of those--but they never turn out how you want them to, anyway.) Sebastian, especially, was fascinated by the fireworks. He sat completely still on my lap--a very, very rare occurence--and just stared. (If we could somehow figure out how to incorporate fireworks into sacrament meeting, our Sundays might be a bit easier.) Anyway, the hot air balloons were great too. They had a Smokey the Bear balloon, a pig balloon, a strawberry balloon, and (new this year) a house balloon. Plus my favorite rainbow-colored ones, and more. We watched them inflate and then soar up into the sky. Abraham pointed out that if you were in a hot air balloon, and you wanted to eat something, you could heat it up in the fire. And Sebby just pointed at the balloons, expectantly, like he wanted us to do something about them. (Summon them closer, perhaps.)

Two Handsome Men

Here are Abraham and Sam in their matching gold ties. What a handsome pair they make!

Two Barking Boys

This is a funny game which Abey and Sebby engage in for minutes (lengthy periods, for a baby!) at a time. Abey holds the cup up to his mouth and makes some sound in it. Then he holds it up to Sebastian and Sebby makes the same sound. And so forth. When Abey gets tired of playing this, Sebby will often crawl after him and hold the cup up to Abey's mouth, trying to get him to play some more.

Sebby around the house

"Whither thou goest, I will go." That's what Sebby says to Abey and me. He loves the fact that he is able to come in and find us if we are in another room. (He also enjoys making a dramatic entrance through these vines.) He wants to be involved in everything we do.

Sebby also loves to stand and push things. He especially likes pushing this bucket, and also a footstool we have, around the smooth kitchen floor, because then he can walk behind them like a real biped. Rolling this bucket is also fun.

He is getting better and better at standing alone, and has even taken a few steps. He doesn't like to stand just to show off, though. (e.g., when we are trying to show someone how well he can step.) He stands when he has an important reason, such as when he needs to do some repairs on the rocking chair with his hammer, or when he's trying to get his bare legs off the tickley grass.