Day 17. Three things I'm grateful for

1. Watching my sweet baby learn and grow

The first year is filled with SO MUCH constant change... I blink and he's grown an inch. No, seriously. In the {almost} 9 months since he was born he has grown 11 3/4 inches. That's an average of roughly 1 1/3 inch per month. Little m doesn't do anything slowly... he is currently working on 6 teeth all at once. And he is just so smart. And so snuggly. I'm certainly grateful that I'm his mom, and that I get to watch and help him grow.

{just look at these pictures and try to tell me you don't want to smoosh those

cheeks or snuggle him!}

2. Drawing with Matthew

Big M has turned in to quite the artist. It's just about the only thing he wants to do all day... and I can honestly say I love every one of his pictures. Most of the time his pictures have back stories and long explanations about them. Matthew has so much creativity... in music, drawing, imagination... growing up I was always told how creative I was, but M surpasses anything I ever was. For being 3 I think he's pretty awesome! But I can't wait to see where this talent takes him some day.

I keep some of my favorite pictures at my desk at work... sitting at a desk for 10 hours a day can get old, but it makes me happy to see his artwork right next to me.

{from left to right we have a picture of: M & m in their beds at night with the nightlight on - our family (minus Miles who is at the Dr getting a checkup) sitting around the dinner table eating spaghetti - Minnie and Daisy in a carriage eating lettuce while driving over lettuce (?) - M & I making cookies together - (bottom row) M & Opa on Opa's tractor}

3. Date nights with Aaron

Admittedly these don't happen too frequently - but we go out when we can. And I'm grateful that we are able to get out alone together at all.

{I don't have any of Aaron and I together but this picture is from our last date night... it was his birthday so I broke out the red lipstick. It's kind of awesome.}

Restoring an old photograph

A little while ago Aaron's dad gave some old airplane books to Matthew, and while were were flipping through them we found a photo. It was clearly old and on the back all that it says is the photographer information and handwritten in the corner it says "Othello Wash. 1949" I liked the picture but it wasn't until Aaron saw it that he recognized it as being his Grandpa Burns. Well I've been collecting pictures to make a photo wall in my living room, and this one just seemed perfect to add to it! Only problem was that it was torn in several places... had water damage, and was just cracked and generally beat up. I've been experimenting with Photoshop for a while now and I thought I'd try my hand at restoring it.

Here is what it looked like originally...

And here is the after...

Pretty awesome picture if you ask me! It still needs some tweaking here and there, but overall I'm pretty happy with how it came out. All I can say is... technology is amazing! There is so much detail that you just can't see in the photo! Matt's face alone is an improvement... in the photo I would never have guessed that was him. But after fixing it up I can actually recognize his face!

It's amazing to me what even just a little tweaking can do for a picture. I edit all photos that I make prints of, though typically I only edit for things like brightness and contrast. These days most photographers will take a child's photo and smooth the skin, correct discoloration, remove scars, or whatever. To me that is silly, children are beautiful and there is no need to do all of that. The most I ever remove from one of my kid's faces is food on the face (typical of kids!) or sometimes a scratch... like in one Christmas picture when Matthew was 2 he fell and got both a purple bump and a scratch on his forehead the day before we went to see Santa. Well I didn't feel too bad removing that because those are temporary, and we were sending the picture out to everyone in the family. But to remove the red mark on his forehead? No way, it's part of who he is.

Here is an example of what I mean... take a look at beautiful Mattie:

She is gorgeous! There is absolutely nothing wrong with this picture. But personally I prefer to brighten things up a bit. She has such beautiful porcelain skin, but everything looks just a bit grey here.

And here is the after...

 Her face stands out a bit more and now that it's been lightened up her blue eyes really pop!

Anyway, I'm not sure of the point of this post I guess, mostly that I loved that picture of Matt and am excited I could clean it up and make it good enough to go up on the wall. It makes me wish I had more old photos to restore.

Day 16. Picture of the place I work

 As interesting as my job is{n't}... I'll do this post anyway. These are the best pictures that I happen to have on hand... the first is more of my parking lot than of my actual office. The whole building had to evacuate one day because, as it turned out, someone burned popcorn. For most of us I think it was a nice little break and an excuse for some fresh air.... but I did feel badly for some people. On the ground floor of my office building is a company that does dialysis... and some of those poor patients were sitting outside in their wheel chairs, or in the case of one man he had these sort of braces on either arm that looked like they were for helping him walk or something... but he looked to be like 90 and had to have a girl on either side of him to help him stand. Anyway. 

And here's my desk. It's very exciting. 

To be fair I should probably put a picture of my own home because I do a lot of work there too! But unfortunately no one pays me for that.

amish white bread recipe

I assume you have all heard of...

I mean, who hasn't? Even if you don't personally use Pinterest (which I can't fathom!), you'd have to be living under a rock to not have heard of it. I can personally say I've used it since before it was cool. There I said it. Really that only means I've had that much more time to amass a ridiculous number of pins. And that is taking into consideration the fact that I only pin things I really like. I've gotten a little out of control. But that's ok, because I actually try to make use of my pins! And for several months now I've been testing out ideas and recipes I've pinned.

The truth is, everything anyone pins is just from some other website... it's just a way of organizing all the content out there that you'd like to be able to find again! And everyone knows that you can't blindly trust anything you find on the internet.

Anyway, I've found lots of pins - especially recipes - that look really good, but I'll believe it when I see it. So I've been trying them out. Lots of them. And I figured I'd share here what works and doesn't. I've seen entire blogs pop up devoted entirely to this same thing - the problem is that most of them seem like they are trying to be funny and therefor don't actually follow directions... which is fine if all you want is to be entertained. But I want to actually know how these things work! So here is my first test {that I actually thought to post about}...

Amish White Bread

I'm an amateur at bread baking... but Aaron has been asking so I thought I'd see if I could find a decent recipe that wasn't too difficult (if it's too hard to make, I'll never make it. So it's useless.). This one took a couple tries, but I can happily say that it is very good! And truly easy as far as recipes go that require kneading! It's a bit on the sweet side so if you don't like that sort of thing I'd cut the sugar in half. I imagine this would be a good base for cinnamon rolls or cinnamon swirl bread (oooo I need to make that...). Here is the recipe:

 _______________________________________________

Ingredients: 

2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)

2/3 cup white sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/4 cup vegetable oil

6 cups bread flour

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, dissolve the sugar in warm water, and then stir in yeast. Allow to proof until yeast resembles a creamy foam.

2. Mix salt and oil into the yeast. Mix in flour one cup at a time. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth. Place in a well oiled bowl, and turn dough to coat. Cover with a damp cloth. Allow to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

3. Punch dough down. Knead for a few minutes, and divide in half. Shape into loaves, and place into two well oiled 9x5 inch loaf pans. Allow to rise for 30 minutes, or until dough has risen 1 inch above pans.

4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 minutes.   

 _______________________________________________

Here is what I experienced... first of all the first batch I made came out tasting very good, but did not rise properly and was definitely the wrong texture. I should note that I did not knead by hand, but instead used my Kitchen Aid. Supposedly it should take less time when kneaded that way, but the bread just wasn't seeming like the right texture. Finally, after like a half hour, I decided to call it good and went on with the rest of the process. When the bread came out wrong, I thought maybe I had overdone it with the kneading! I was reading these cooking forums where people talked about only having to knead for 5 minutes in the kitchen aid. But then I found this blog post. Excellent resource! When I made it for the second time I kicked my machine up to speed 4, and still had to knead it for 15 minutes at least, but it met all of the requirements in that post, so I didn't worry about it. And I think the results speak for themselves.

 Also, you are supposed to let it rise for 30 minutes the second time but I felt like it needed more and so I gave it a full hour and I'm glad I did, it got much taller and fluffier!

I should also note that I pretty much used up what bread flour I had with the first batch to the second batch was pretty much just all purpose flour. Seems fine to me.

Overall, a very good bread recipe! I'm still going to try out some others (especially now that I know how to see if the bread is done kneading), but I'm glad I found a good recipe so quickly. And Matthew loves it, even the first batch! Within a couple hours he had snuck off with nearly half a loaf. And as far as I'm concerned, if Matthew likes it then it's a keeper.

...if you haven't already, you can find me here on Pinterest

Day 15. Favorite scripture

I guess Sunday is an appropriate day for this.

I never go into religion on this blog, or generally speaking at all when it comes to most people. I've had a love/hate relationship with church and scriptures in the past and I don't discuss it with many people. In any case I suppose if I had to choose a favorite scripture it would probably be Isaiah 1:18

"Come now, and let us reason together, saith

the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they

shall be as white as snow; though they be

red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

I've had my share of things to repent of in my past (and most certainly will in my future) so I find

comfort in remembering that nothing I have done has to be permanent. Even if I, personally,

will never be able to forget .

Day 14. Something I made recently

I have many non-edible projects I've made recently... but none that I have pictures of. So here is my most recent batch of cookies (of which I normally post about here) that were made for my nephew Eli's birthday.

When I originally asked him what kind of cookies he would want when his birthday came he said he wanted Phineas and Ferb... in a tone of voice that suggested he could not care less about this sort of thing. He then proptly ran to excitedly tell his mom that "that lady is going to make Phineus and Ferb cookies for my birthday!" And so, this lady did. At least he referred to me as "that lady"... because I'm pretty sure he later called his Aunt Sandie "that guy".

I do so love  the things that come out of kids mouths. Although I usually prefer it directed at someone else. Like when Matthew calls the male checkout guy at the grocery store "ma'am"

Day 13. Favorite song

'Welcome Home' by Radical Face... a current favorite of mine. I have heard many interpretations of this song and I think it just depends on the person. In any case, I think it is beautiful and it means many things to me.. but in the end it makes me feel peaceful. And that is a rarity for me.


And here is an old favorite... a song that will always be a favorite for me.
And as it happens - was also the inspiration for the name of this blog.