Hij blijft trouw aan alle generaties

My grandma says she started playing organ in church around age 14. She is certainly talented and I sneaked a little video of her playing the piano a few days ago on her 82nd birthday that I will post later.

My dad took this "Koraal" (Chorale) of Psalm 100 from Grandma's falling-apart psalm book and framed it with music notes made from piano hammers. It will have a special place in my music room.

What Child is This?

The reading: many possibilities where those genes came from. But the dancing...is a mystery.

Pretzel Rods

There is nothing new under the sun, or on Pinterest: others have already done a good job of listing and photographing all the picturesque and tasty things one can do with pretzel rods. My 3 tips to emphasize are:

1. Make sure you don't have too much chocolate on the pretzel or the toppings will drip off.
2. It helps to work as a team: one person rotates the pretzel over a dish while the other sprinkles.
3. For the white drizzled over chocolate (or vice versa) it was easiest to spoon up some melted chocolate, and pour it out in the thin stream from the spoon while passing the pretzel underneath. Move the pretzel, not the spoon.

We used toffee bits, crushed peppermints, various sprinkles, coconut flakes, and the ones with a lumpy "spiral" around them have a stretched-out caramel (think play-dough snake) wrapped around them before dipping. The styrofoam tray was our cooling rack. We barely snooped at all, so I'm going to have to make a few for myself at home with the leftover ingredients.

Happy Birthday, Little Turkey!

Happy Birthday to our upwardly mobile (that means "climbs on the table"), goofy, curly-haired determined little helper. We are all thankful to God for Malachi's first year!

• Plays the kazoo happily, or unhappily: it's kind of funny to hear him cry into a kazoo. Sometimes accompanies himself with a rattle.
• Loves guacamole, pickles, peas, squash, popcorn. Whatever everyone else is eating. 
• Says Ma (mom) Da (Dad),  dih (this, or what's this), dat (that, or what's that) and num-num-num.
• Enjoys animals, both real and in books.
• 7 teeth in front and 1 molar trying to come through, ouch!
• In his spare time he cooks imaginary soups, plays the foot pedals on the organ (or the keyboards if he gets a chance), and researches topics such as "Sheep in a Jeep" in his personal library.

Harvest Season

Sprout Snap Diaper Cover Tutorial

Although there are plenty of diapers around our house now to last from one wash until the next, I've been sewing a few new covers and donating or selling the old ones that didn't fit as well or were becoming a bit worn. It's kind of satisfying to accomplish something concrete, and besides the snap pliers is a lot of fun! Tobias picked out the monster fabric for this particular one.

I like diaper covers with flaps on the top and bottom to hold the absorbent insert in place. Helps a little when trying to dress a wiggler.

I found this tutorial that is very similar to what I did, but my snap placement and leg binding was different, so I thought I would post a mini-tutorial explaining how I sewed them.

• I printed the Sprout Snap pattern and marked where I wanted the inner flaps to come down to (see the little notches outside the thick black line?).

• I cut out the pattern from the monster PUL fabric, and the inner flaps from plain white PUL (it's cheaper). In between the marked notches, I added about 1/3 inch beyond the seam allowance; the extra fabric is to fold over and create the casing for the leg elastic.

• Right sides together, I sewed the white flaps to the top and bottom of the main monster piece.

• Put in back elastic and casing.

• Applied snaps to wings and front (there is a reinforcing layer of scrap PUL so that each snap is placed through 2 layers of fabric).

• Tacked in leg elastic, then folded over the "extra" allowance and sewed it into a casing. The elastic must be stretched quite tightly or the legs will gap open.

• Finished off by topstitching around the front and back. 

Sneaky Swap

Heather's One Month of Less posts motivated me to take on a few projects to simplify and organize our sometimes-cluttered house.

One idea that was successful was a puzzle trade. I chose 2 less-favorite puzzles, posted them on a local baby buy/sell/swap board (like Craigslist) with the message that I wanted to trade them for puzzles of similar quality and age level. Someone took me up on it, we sent pictures of the puzzles to each other, then met in the Winco parking lot to exchange, and I hid the "new" puzzles away for birthday or Christmas. Something new, without making our pile of puzzles too big for its' home on top of the organ.

Shhhh...don't tell Malachi, he will probably be opening these for a gift in the next few months!

Parkity Park

The cast has been off for over a month now, Toby is walking (even running and sometimes climbing), and the weather is still park-able. Indoors, we're enjoying the usual: Duplos, music, books, and snacks.

John 15:5
I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

Animal Crackers

Today we had a friend here for the first "Letter of the Week" day.
We chose a theme of animals and animal crackers. I rolled out the dough ahead of time and the boys liked cutting out the animals.

Animal crackers and cocoa to drink,
That is the finest of suppers I think;
When I'm grown up and can have what I please
I think I shall always insist upon these.
What do you choose when you're offered a treat?
When Mother says, "What would you like best to eat?"
Is it waffles and syrup, or cinnamon toast?
It's cocoa and animals that I love most! 

M: 10.75 months

He's not quite 11 months yet; 11 months sounds so old. I'm going to post while he's still 10 months old...I'm trying to enjoy what little baby-ness is left in him.

• 7 teeth, loves popcorn and peas
• Doesn't use his arms to balance anymore when walking around. Rarely crawls.
• Climbed up a chair and onto the kitchen table for the first time this morning
• Picks up on a lot: Last night he was in the ring sling and watching me form bread into rolls. Right before I started to slap the first one into shape he excitedly started slapping my arm. First I thought he was imitating me, until I realized I hadn't started slapping yet.
• Missed Dad while he was in Portland on a trip: was excited to see him on video chat but then progressively got more upset that he wasn't "real".
• Occasionally signs more, food, water, please. Gets his messages across pretty well.
• Sad to leave mom during ECHO or lessons at home

B-B-Butterflies

If you search Pinterest for "pretzel butterfly", you'll find lots of cute colorful ways to make winged creatures out of crispy twisties. Ours turned out looking a lot more like moths: brown and fat. Oh well, they'll for sure all be gone before they turn fuzzy!

Easy Peasy Frozen Yogurt

But no peas involved. Unless you want them!

• 1 quart (4 cups) yogurt. We used peach!
• 1 3/4 cups milk. We used vanilla coconut milk, which already has a little sweetness and flavor. Whole milk was recommended by the original recipe I based this on.
• Optional mix-ins. We added frozen apricot chunks. You could add vanilla if your milk isn't already flavored

Mix first two ingredients and process with a 2 quart ice cream maker for 25 minutes or what the ice cream machine recommends. Throw in the fruit at the end. I think this recipe would be really good with blueberries and blueberry yogurt!

Brothers at Play. Or work.

For the 8 weeks of cast, Toby and Malachi's play together was limited to "wrestling" on the floor.

Here is some video from today and yesterday...4 to 5 days after getting the cast off. After walking to the mailbox they didn't want to come inside because they were having too much fun pushing each other around on the tractor. Now that's what I've been waiting to see!

Blast Off, Cast Off

The countdown chain was at zero, today was the day!

We got to the doctor's office and had a little panic as Tobias was not on their schedule. They promised to fit us in but said it might be a little wait. We were blessed that the 11:40 appointment (the time we were supposed to be) was a no-show so we got in without having to wait.

Toby was upset as they cut it off: "It's time to go home, I'm not healed, I need another cast, I don't want to take it off!" Change is scary. But he was actually happy to begin wiggling his legs around. Seeing the big blue cast legs poking upwards out of the trash can was a little shocking for me even though I knew that Tobias wasn't in it.

Afterwards we went for a picnic to Howard Amon park and took some pictures on the swing where he broke it, and Finnegan Frost for frozen yogurt.

At home, Toby enjoyed one of the best baths of his life (even without playing outside, he got pretty dirty in 8 weeks without a bath) and rolling and crawling around on the floor. It's nice to have a squeaky clean boy!

A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones. -Proverbs 17:22

(a verse that Toby sings often)

To Portland, to Portland, to Buy a Fat Pig

Actually we were not there to buy a big pig. We did see some hairy pigs with big tusks at the zoo.
We were there to have fun with family, explore Portland, and see Nate's friend Ben. We succeeded at all those goals. We visited the Oregon Zoo and OMSI. Both were definitely fun for all ages; Malachi did seem more interested in the plants (eating them) at the zoo than the animals though.
We went to Ben and Liz's favorite Thai restaurant and it was very good! I had never had Thai food before. One of the waitresses served Malachi his very own plate with brown rice and helped him get started up with a spoon. He happily created a sticky mess about 4 feet in diameter, and I tried not to feel too bad about it because...she started it.

Swing Low, Little Monkeys

Another ~3 weeks left in the cast, and Toby is hanging in there. Some toys have lost his interest, but not the circuits and of course not Duplos. We don't get to the park or other adventures as much as we used to, but we do still need to get out of the house and Finnegan Frost was a fun treat enjoyed by everyone in the family. Remember those days when we didn't have to share food with anybody, Nate?

Humans are Moving Creatures

moving |ˈmo͞oviNG

• go in a specified direction or manner; change position
• provoke a strong feeling

Snap-on Underwear

And now for a topic that has only been addressed once on my blog before, and perhaps will never be mentioned again: underwear.

Tips for caring for a child in a spica cast abound on the internet, thankfully. A lot of those kids are younger and still in diapers, so I didn't see a lot of specific info on how to dress a child who is potty trained. Hopefully this post will help those who need a visual idea before they go cutting up their child's clothes!

I was given a snap pliers for putting snaps on cloth diapers, but it has come in very handy for modifying clothing to fit over the cast.

To make this snap-on underwear I chose a pair about 2 sizes larger than what my son normally wears. I cut it open along the sides, sewed in side panels (the blue sections) from an old T-shirt, and added snaps to each side. I made the blue pieces extra long and trimmed them to size after trying it on him. So far it has worked fine, although one part of the elastic waist is raveling...I should have sewed it down better.

We tuck a small diaper inside the cast, underneath the underwear, because even potty trained 3-year-olds have those "I have to pee I have to pee I have to pee" moments, and right now he can't run to the potty! We really don't want to get the cast wet. The underwear holds that diaper from moving and makes him seem dressed a little more normally (for him) than using pull-ups or diapers over the cast.

Constraints Fuel Creativity

It's been a week since Tobias broke his leg. I got just a little sad looking at the 4th of July videos where he was running around with sparklers. And I got just a little sad when a box of clothes for him arrived and he can't wear any of them right now (I think they're big enough that he can still wear them a little this fall). Silly, I know. Don't worry, no one is spending too much time being sad! Mostly I'm proud of how patient and positive he's been.

I asked Toby how many days he thought it would be until the cast came off. He said 47 (that's the 3 year old version of "not quite infinity"). I counted, and that's Sept 16. We'll see.

He's in very good spirits and slept through the night last night for the first time in the cast. He's getting to try lots of new activities like tummy scooting, spirograph spinning, and accompanying Ben (Nate's friend) with shaky eggs.

The Cement Snowsuit

After a tumble off a swing, Toby ended up with a broken femur. He spent two nights in the hospital where he was put under to have a spica cast put on (it goes from his armpits down to his toes on the broken leg, and to his calf on the other leg). It took awhile to get home because we needed to visit with the doctor again, have more x-rays taken, get his cast edges padded and taped up, meet with a carseat technician, etc. Tobias was amazingly patient and brave, although a few times he just "needed to cry about the legs" and asked why his uninjured leg had to be in the cast. That part made me want to cry!

There are a lot of things we are thankful for. Things that "could be worse". We're glad he didn't need surgery to put in pins or plates. We're thankful that at this age he probably won't need any special therapy afterwards to get back to normal. We're glad he's potty trained. We are appreciative of friends and family who are supporting us in prayer and practical help. I'm thankful that I was already on my way home when it happened instead of still in rural Wyoming with no cell reception. He will have full mobility again. We know that whether it's a little hard or a lot hard, God is good. He is providing and will continue to provide!

We're already learning a lot and finding creative ways to keep busy and keep comfortable.