Sunday, November 16, 2008
Bread anyone?
So, my brother has inspired me to start my own attempts at bread making and I have already learned one very important lesson... it ain't easy making bread! I decided to start small with a loaf of Italian Bread (very easy recipe... dare I say "idiot proof"?). That may not sound too tough but, seeing as I have never baked a day in my life... and that is no joke... this was a learning experience. I made the preferment Saturday night but forgot one very important part... I was using "dry yeast" which needs to be proofed in water before adding it to the mixture. So I had to throw out last night's batch of preferment and started again this morning. It all went pretty well after that and below is the finished product. It is very dense (probably because I mixed with my hands as opposed to a mixer) but very nice. Not bad for the first try huh?
Around the house
Well, I thought I was done but I found some more pictures. These are just some pictures and one video that I took a couple of nights ago when we were just hanging out after work.
One thing I must say about Ms. Maddie is that she is obsessed with hygiene. She LOVES to have her ears cleaned out. If I even mention it she scurries off to the bathroom to get the que-tips and brings the box back to me. She then proceeds to lay in my lap and close her eyes... she gets so relaxed that sometimes she almost falls asleep. She also loves to grab que-tips and try and clean out her ears by herself... very cute! She also tries to repay the favor by cleaning out my ears too. She also loves to brush her teeth and often tries to clean our teeth as well... as you can see in one of the pics below.
Other than that there are some pics with Ms. Ruby being a nosey parker. Whenever we sit on the floor Ruby is RIGHT there looking for attention!
One thing I must say about Ms. Maddie is that she is obsessed with hygiene. She LOVES to have her ears cleaned out. If I even mention it she scurries off to the bathroom to get the que-tips and brings the box back to me. She then proceeds to lay in my lap and close her eyes... she gets so relaxed that sometimes she almost falls asleep. She also loves to grab que-tips and try and clean out her ears by herself... very cute! She also tries to repay the favor by cleaning out my ears too. She also loves to brush her teeth and often tries to clean our teeth as well... as you can see in one of the pics below.
Other than that there are some pics with Ms. Ruby being a nosey parker. Whenever we sit on the floor Ruby is RIGHT there looking for attention!
Maddie Stuff
I figure that some of you out there might want to catch up on the progess of our little Ms. Maddie so here goes.
Maddie is now 14.5 months old and is a very happy little girl. She passed out of the toddle stage and is now a full fledged walker (though sometimes she crawls and then smiles up at us as if to say... ha ha, look at me, I'm a baby). She has four teeth (two top, two bottom) with a fifth looking pretty close to coming in (the tooth right next to her top right tooth). She is growing hair and, depending on the light, it looks either honey blond or strawberry blond. She got sick for the first time just a few weeks ago and came down with a 102 degree temp. We found out that, due to the nasal congestion of teething, she had developed ear infections in both ears. She was better on the second day though.
She loves to laugh and smile. She is learning how to mimic facial expressions that she sees. She loves to give a cheesy smile when you ask if she is happy. She loves to squint her eyes (and cheat as I call it) when I ask her to close her eyes. She things I am pretty funny but looks to her mama when she needs comfort. She loves to get her hair brushed and is learning to like having bows in her hair. She loves all sorts of food and juice (the only thing she doesn't like so far is green beans). She LOVES the show "Backyardigans" and dances to the theme song... in one of the videos you can see an abbreviated dance but she is distracted by the fact that mom is dancing with her.
She loves to talk. She can make the sounds of a dog, cat, cow, horse, sheep, duck, and lion (and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head... I'm sure there are more). She knows how to mimic an elephant's trunk, a crocodile's jaws, and a giraffe's neck. She loves to talk as well saying things like "Yes", 'No", "No Way", "Night Night", "Bye Bye", "Hello", "Mama", "Dada", "Ma", "Pa", "Baby Girl", and much more. When we say "One" she says "Two". She loves learning new words and knows the use of the words as well... it is just mimicking sounds.
Overall she is just a happy girl! Below are pictures of Ruby, our pitbull, eating food off of Maddie's high chair and pictures of the two grandpa's reading to the little miss.
Enjoy!!
(PS. Don't forget to look at the other posts below)
Maddie is now 14.5 months old and is a very happy little girl. She passed out of the toddle stage and is now a full fledged walker (though sometimes she crawls and then smiles up at us as if to say... ha ha, look at me, I'm a baby). She has four teeth (two top, two bottom) with a fifth looking pretty close to coming in (the tooth right next to her top right tooth). She is growing hair and, depending on the light, it looks either honey blond or strawberry blond. She got sick for the first time just a few weeks ago and came down with a 102 degree temp. We found out that, due to the nasal congestion of teething, she had developed ear infections in both ears. She was better on the second day though.
She loves to laugh and smile. She is learning how to mimic facial expressions that she sees. She loves to give a cheesy smile when you ask if she is happy. She loves to squint her eyes (and cheat as I call it) when I ask her to close her eyes. She things I am pretty funny but looks to her mama when she needs comfort. She loves to get her hair brushed and is learning to like having bows in her hair. She loves all sorts of food and juice (the only thing she doesn't like so far is green beans). She LOVES the show "Backyardigans" and dances to the theme song... in one of the videos you can see an abbreviated dance but she is distracted by the fact that mom is dancing with her.
She loves to talk. She can make the sounds of a dog, cat, cow, horse, sheep, duck, and lion (and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head... I'm sure there are more). She knows how to mimic an elephant's trunk, a crocodile's jaws, and a giraffe's neck. She loves to talk as well saying things like "Yes", 'No", "No Way", "Night Night", "Bye Bye", "Hello", "Mama", "Dada", "Ma", "Pa", "Baby Girl", and much more. When we say "One" she says "Two". She loves learning new words and knows the use of the words as well... it is just mimicking sounds.
Overall she is just a happy girl! Below are pictures of Ruby, our pitbull, eating food off of Maddie's high chair and pictures of the two grandpa's reading to the little miss.
Enjoy!!
(PS. Don't forget to look at the other posts below)
Long Beach Aquarium
One of the things that we did while visiting my family was that we went to the Long Beach Aquarium. We got to eat at Bubba Gump Shrimp and then off we went to see the fishes. We saw all sorts of fish, harbor seals, sea lions, sharks, birds, and all sorts of other things. Maddie LOVED it and we all had a really good time. Check out the vids below. There was a cultural thing going on that day and in one of the videos you can see Maddie dancing to the drum beat!
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Halloween
Hey Gang, sorry it has been awhile since the last update but I actually like to have stuff to say and pictures to load and it takes awhile to compile enough to make updating worth while. Anyway... lets start where we left off.
Halloween! Courtney and I, a few days before Halloween, went to Hobb's Grove which is a local haunted house type place, and spent a couple of hours there to celebrate Halloween. It was loads of fun and Courtney got FREAKED out several times. We got that out of the way early so that we could spend Halloween evening out with Ms. Maddie. This year Maddie was a lady bug and boy did she love her outfit. We had put it on her a couple of times previous to the big night and she always giggled when she put it on. So we went trick-or-treating and got candy (that Mommy and Daddy ended up eating) and then came home and gave out candy to the local kids that came to our door. It was a blast. Check out the pictures below.
We also went down to my parent's house for a day that weekend and here are some intial pictures from that trip... more to come about that.
Maddie's new dress
Yeah Dad, I put this picture on the blog...
Halloween! Courtney and I, a few days before Halloween, went to Hobb's Grove which is a local haunted house type place, and spent a couple of hours there to celebrate Halloween. It was loads of fun and Courtney got FREAKED out several times. We got that out of the way early so that we could spend Halloween evening out with Ms. Maddie. This year Maddie was a lady bug and boy did she love her outfit. We had put it on her a couple of times previous to the big night and she always giggled when she put it on. So we went trick-or-treating and got candy (that Mommy and Daddy ended up eating) and then came home and gave out candy to the local kids that came to our door. It was a blast. Check out the pictures below.
We also went down to my parent's house for a day that weekend and here are some intial pictures from that trip... more to come about that.
Maddie's new dress
Yeah Dad, I put this picture on the blog...
Monday, November 3, 2008
Carters for McCain
Tomorrow, November 4th 2008, the Tulare Carters will be voting for Senator John McCain for President of the United States. He is a man of principle, loyalty and honor and we wish him luck (judging by the last polling numbers he may need it).
In all honesty though we will be casting our votes for McCain we hope that whoever comes out the victor moves our nation in a direction that would be pleasing to God. Please remember to vote tomorrow and let your voice be heard!
In all honesty though we will be casting our votes for McCain we hope that whoever comes out the victor moves our nation in a direction that would be pleasing to God. Please remember to vote tomorrow and let your voice be heard!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)