Katelyn fell out of her crib!

We always knew that Katelyn was part monkey and very strong, but this past week we got a "nice" surprise from Katelyn. She's been a little uneasy about taking naps lately, so we've had to leave her in her crib and let her cry a bit to settle down before falling asleep. Last Thursday she again decided that she wasn't tired enough to nap, so she was furious and screamed histerically. She's very stubborn and once she sets her mind on something that's it.. She threw all of her things out of the crib and then managed to throw herself out of the her crib with a loud thump. She went to her bedroom door and continued pounding her fists until we got there. I happened to work form home that afternoon, so I heard the whole thing first hand.

We knew being how active she is that this day was going to come sooner than it did for Ashley (Ashley stayed put in her crib perfectly happy until she was 3 years old) but we didn't expect it to happen at 16 months!!

Her crib doesn't have a drop down side, and she's not big enough to throw her leg over the side to climb over, so the odds are is that she pulled herself up enough where she could lean over to fall out.. Scary considering that she probably fell on her head or her back, but without any visible signs of hurt.

I Googled what to do and consulted with a few friends that have kids that have done the same at a young age. Katelyn is not even 17 months yet, so I don't feel like she's ready for a "Big Girl" bed, and the responsibility of being able to wonder around her room before sleep and when she wakes up. So the choice was obvious.. we had to get a tent to put over her crib to keep her from climbing out.

I ran out to Babies R Us to get the tent and came back empty handed :( They don't carry them!! Urg.. So what are we to do.. Indira rocked Katelyn to sleep for her nap on her hands, but night time is a whole different ball game. Both Mike and Indira were out of the house, I tried to get Katelyn to sleep in the crib at night, I figured if she's tired enough she won't fuss and just go to sleep. But as soon as she was done with her milk, she was screaming bloody murder and trying to climb out. I didn't want her to fall again, but I wanted to see if she'd try again. So I sat quietly in her room in the rocking chair, just to see what she'd do, and soon enough she wedged her feet in the slots in the side of the crib and almost made herself fall out head first. Realizing that leaving her in the crib is not a save choice. I cleared everything out of her room, moved her crib over and put her crib mattress on the floor where her crib used to be. I attempted for almost an hour to get her to lay down on the mattress to sleep but no luck.

Her normal bedtime is around 7:30. It was after 10pm and she still wasn't sleeping, finally Mike came back, he took her in her room and 5 minutes later emerged with news that Katelyn was on her mattress settled down.. I don't know how he does it, but somehow he's the only one that can reason with Katelyn and convince her to listen when no one else can. She slept on the floor the whole night until 6 am. At which point I suppose she thought it was time to get up. Mike again visited her room for another 5 minutes and convinced her to sleep until 8 am !!! Amazing! Thank God he's got this power over her, or we wouldn't get any sleep.

On Friday, after having processed what has happened, I realized that getting her to sleep on the floor is going to be an ongoing challenge. I got a tip to look for the tent at the Burlington Coat Factory and luckily they had it!! We right away set it up, so that she could nap inside the tent that day. She was a little leary at first, but now she's used to it. We zip her up inside so she stays put. So far it's worth every penny of the $60 that I spent on it. At least we have a piece of mind knowing that she can't fall out and hurt herself and that she's not leaving the room.

Here's what the contraption looks like:

Cake Decorating (Week 3)

I had another cake decorating class last night. I made vanilla cupcakes and decorated them with vanilla buttercream frosting. It's amazing how easy it is to do once you have someone show you how!

Now I just need to make up special occasions to bake and decorate cakes for :) So, if you are reading my Blog and want me to make you something special, by all means I need guinea pigs to practice on :)


Next week we have the last class. I'm going to make a chocolate cake with chocolate puddig filling, and fresh strawberries. I just need to pick a color scheme to decorate the cake.. I'm leaning towards fall colors, red, orange, yellow. We'll see what happens.

Cake Decorating (Week 2)

Last night I had my second cake decorating class. We learned different cake decorating techniques.

I made a four layer white cake with raspberry and chocolate mouse filling, and frosted it with the vanilla buttercream icing. I'm not a huge fan of the way this icing tastes, but it is easy to work with because it doesn't melt at room temperature.

Yesterday was Indira's one year anniversary since she came to US. I dedicated this cake to her :) We had a mini celebration when I got back from class. We had cake and a glass of wine. The cake tasted really good, but I think I'll need more practice decorating.. See for yourself :)



Here's the side view of the cake, after we've eaten some of it :) he he!
I guess we were all too anxious to taste it :)


Next week we are decorating cupcakes, so stay tuned..

Cooking with Mommy

Lately, both Ashley and Katelyn are obsessed with fish crackers. Katelyn begs for them all day long! They eat so many of them that I'm afraid they are going to turn yellow from all of the artificial food coloring that's in those crackers.

I typically wouldn't give them something like this, but it's so convenient and especially when I need them to be quiet for a few minutes!

I found a recipe online to make homemade cheese crackers, so this Sunday we made our own home made cheese crackers, using the cookie press to press them into different shapes. The end result looked amazing, however they didn't like the taste :( Daddy loved them! (I put paprika and worcershire sauce in the dough) perhaps I have to tweek the recipe to make it more kid friendly.

Here are a few pictures of us making them:

Playing in the Leaves

Here are some pictures from Sunday.

Another Awesome Weekend!

We had an amazingly productive weekend!

Get ready for a long post..

We had a lot to get done around the house, clean up the garage, rake leaves, fix a sprayer in the kitchen sink, winterize my garden, etc. The most important task was to clean up the garage so that we can park both of our cars inside. Last week we had a night of frost, it wasn't fun for Mommy to sit in a freezing cold car in the morning and wait for the windshield to defrost before heading to work. Luckily for us, on Saturday, the kids took a long nap, so we had plenty of time to work on it. We threw out a bunch of junk and had to move a few items into the basement, until we get more time to go through it. A lot of the items are bulky and need to be either sold or donated. It'll take time, but the hardest part is done! I'm very happy to report that we accomplished our mission and both of the cars can now fit in the garage! Yay! :)

We also managed to fix the sink and take care of couple other things on Saturday, including going over to our neighbor's twice to play with kittens. We were cat sitting for the last week, and Saturday was our last day to spend with them. Ashley was a great helper! (Too bad I didn't take any pictures; they are the cutest, cuddliest and very playful cats.)

Sunday was another very productive day, thank god for the extra hour, because we really needed it. The kids were up early, so we managed to eat and get outside by 9:30! It may not seem like anything to most, but Ashley and Katelyn don't start eating breakfast before 9, 9:30, so for us it's an accomplishment in itself! We started the day by raking leaves in the back, and made a big pile right under the slide. The weather was perfect! No wind, and sunny! The kids had a blast they'd slide down right into the leave pile! And Katelyn, my fearless monkey, decided that she didn't need any help to climb the big ladder to get to the top of the slide. She did it all on her own for the first time! Here's a video of them playing in the leaves:



The day was going to perfect, kids were happy playing outside so I decided to seize the moment and clean up my garden for the winter, something that was on my list to do before the winter sets in. I pulled out all of the dead plants and raked everything clean. Then I realized it was still early and I had time to move our blueberry bushes. They've been living inside my garden since the beginning, but I haven't gotten enough blueberries from them because the birds eat them before I can get to them, so I can no longer justify having them inside the garden fence. While the kids napped (or more like Ashley napped and Katelyn entertained herself in her crib) Mike helped me to dig them up and transplant them along the side of my garden outside of the fence. They look good in their new home, and now I have a lot more space in my garden to work with! A win-win situation! I'm planning to install couple raised beds in the spring where blueberries used to be and move my strawberry plants there. It's a constant battle with critters in our back yard. The moles are living inside my existing strawberry bed, and I don't know how to get rid of them. I'm hoping that by moving them to the raised bed I'll get rid of them.

We had a great gardening season this year, the best one since I started my garden. We were picking tomatoes and peppers in October. And I still have radishes, lettuce, and herbs growing that we are picking right now. My raspberries are doing fantastic as well. Katelyn loves to munch on them in the garden. There are still a few more berries on the bushes, but a lot of them are now mushy because of the frost.

I've planted garlic for next year, and I have already designed my garden layout for next year! I hope to get a green house some day so that we can grow even more stuff. I'd like to try growing a couple of new plants next year, like asparagus and potatoes! Stay tuned.. I may have to start a separate blog to record my Gardening adventures. :)

Cooking relieves stress

I've been cooking a lot this fall.. Somehow it's very calming for me just like gardening. And good thing I have a lot of people that I can feed :)

Ashley has been really a good eater lately, and I feel it shows. It's as if she's grown a lot taller over the last couple of months. She eats great during the day, and has a big snack before bed. Sometimes, it's two bananas or couple of slices of cinnamon raisin toast with butter. I can't complain, she may wine about the food, but at the end of the day she'll eat almost everything that I prepare (even meat!) as long as it's not spicy.

Katelyn was always been a good eater, but now she's turning into a junkie. She begs for sweets and fruits, especially grapes. If she doesn't like something, she just spits it out and throws it on the floor. She still prefers to feed herself which can be a challenge. We can't really feed her any of the soups that I make. It's way too messy.

One of our favorites this fall is home made minestrone soup. I've been making my own vegetable broth and making the soup from all of the local produce and herbs from my garden. It tastes so good, and it's so ridiculously healthy that I'm surprised that everyone loves it as must as they do, even Mike!

Another favorite has been my chocolate chip pumpkin muffins that I make out of fresh roasted sugar pumpkins. They are another treat that's so tasty yet not so bad for you.

And this is the first year that we are roasting pumpkin seeds, I don't know why I was throwing them out last year, they are so good!!

I also signed up for a Cake Decorating Class. Yesterday was my first class. We got to decorate sugar cookies with some icing. Next week we are doing a cake. So far it's fun. I hope to pick up some new skills so that we can make our own beautiful cakes :)

Here's a picture of the cookies that I decorated:


I may start a separate Cooking Blog to talk more about the food and cooking. I'm really enjoying learning more about this.

Indira - The Bat Girl

Indira went to a Halloween Party on Saturday night at Jenk's and she dressed up as a Bat girl. She's like a real super hero! Awesome au pair by day and Bat girl by night :)

Thank God for our super hero or Mommy and Daddy would be in trouble...

Trick or Treat

Poor Katelyn got a really high fever on Wednesday, she took a four hour nap in the afternoon and woke up with a relatively high fever. At night it spiked to 104.2F. It was very scary, the temperature rose so fast that I was afraid it would keep going up. We called our doctor because I thought she may want us to go to the hospital, but luckily it didn't come to that. We managed to get it down to 101.5 with Tylenol and sponge baths. After three days of high fever and not eating, Katelyn got a rash. It turned out to be the Roseola virus. (Ashley had it when she was 8 months old) It's common virus for one year olds to get, so once we identified what it was, it was a relieve that it's nothing else and Ashley didn't get sick because she's already immune to it. But my poor monkey has been weak and tired and not in any mood to participate in anything this week. She just wanted to be held and was up at night crying :(

Since Katelyn still can't choose for herself, Daddy chose for her to be a Pumpkin this year. We got her a super warm outfit in case it was going to be cold. And it was super soft, just like her blanket that she loves!

Ashley on the other hand was looking forward to Halloween. Mike and I took her to the store and she picked out her own costume. Ashley decided that she wanted to be princess Belle for Halloween, and coincidently, she got invited to Ellie's 3rd birthday princess party. Here's a picture of Ellie and Ashley at the birthday party. She really had fun there!


Ashley also got to wear her costume to preschool last Thursday. The class got to go trick or treating to all the classrooms. She came home with a lot of candy! She really loves her preschool, even on weekends she keeps asking me when she's going to preschool next.


On Halloween day, the weather was on the colder side and again quite windy, but no rain. While we waited for kids to wake up from their naps to go trick or treating, Uncle Dan helped us carve our pumpkin, and by help I mean he did the whole thing, we jsut picked out the design. He did a great job, as if he carves pumpkins every day :)




We went out for trick or treating, but as expected Katelyn was not in the mood, so I had to carry her up and down the street. She only wanted me to hold her and no one else.


Ashley had fun, she was very polite, and some times a little greedy. She'd get a candy and continue to stand there with her bucket out waiting for more candy. We had to explain to her that we people only give a couple of candies to each child so that everyone gets some. After checking out everyone's decorations, we concluded that we had the nicest carved pumpkin of everyone on the street. So, kudos to Uncle Dan!

After coming back we attempted to get a family picture on our porch. Not an easy task but here it is..


We ended the day by munching on freshly roasted pumpkin seeds (from the pumpkin that we carved) while sipping on beer and wine. For dinner I made a spicy chili with all the fixins. Later Joan and David came over dressed as a Doctor and a Hippie.

Overall, it was a fun day, I just wish Katelyn was feeling better.

Pumpkin Picking Adventures

Fall is my favorite season, the heat is gone so we can open the windows; the leaves are changing color and there's so much to do.

One of the things that's been fun is exploring the woods behind our house. We have a trail that Mike maintains back there that's quite a treat this time of year. It's like our own personal nature trail. We go there to walk, check out different animal foot prints and pick leaves. Ashley is really into picking leaves this fall. She's gathered many "presents" for me :) She likes picking pretty leaves but she's very particular about the kind that she'll pick up. They need to be rather small so that they can fit nicely inside her basket. We can't wait to walk the trail in the winter, I think Ashley will really like it.

Every year we go pumpkin picking to Atlantic Farms in Wall, and this year is no different. It's a nice place with a petty farm, hay rides and plenty of nice pumpkins to pick. We went there again, it was a sunny day, but way too windy. In fact, the wind was so strong it kept knocking Katelyn off her feet. She wasn't too happy about that and spent most of the day riding on my hip. We had to cut our trip short and only came home with two small sugar pumpkins, no big one to carve. Atlantic Farms isn't what it used to be, the staff wasn't friendly and they charge so much money for everything ($3 for a bag of carrots to feed the animals!!) that we decided that next year we'll go somewhere else. It's a shame, but there's plenty of other nice farms in the area.

This past Saturday we went out again in hopes of finding that perfect pumpkin to carve. The plan was to go to Eastmont Orchards next to our house, where we pick apples, etc. Well, come to find out they were closed for the season! Strike one. We certainly didn't expect that, especially before Halloween :( So, we headed to a farm on Rt. 34. We went one a nice hay ride there, but there wasn't any nice pumpkins left. Strike two. Delicious Orchards was our last hope. Lucky for us, we found a perfect one to carve :)