Corin at 3 months

Three months old:

Corin with his proud big brother.

And a few more just for kicks!

2 months!

Two month photos!

Like Father, Like Son

For Christmas, Brian's parents gave us a framed photo of Brian at 2 weeks and 8 months, along with the clothes he wore in the 2 week photo.  Today, after we did our 2 month "photo shoot", we dressed Corin in the same outfit and took a photo for Nana.  For comparison's sake, here are the two photos:

And Corin dressed in another outfit that Daddy used to wear:

To-Do or not To-Do

I'm a serious believer in To-Do lists.  Love them.  Live by them.  When I was working as an Architect, I literally had a list of To-Do lists.  It's so serious that if I get something done that wasn't on the list, I'll write it on the list, just for the satisfaction of marking it off.  After all, one rule of the T-Do list is that if it isn't on the list, it didn't happen.

Well,  about 7 weeks ago, a new little person introduced himself into my life:

Since then, I've noticed a serious decrease in what I'm able to get "done" every day.  Take today, for example: my two goals for the day were to balance the budget and fold at least some of the mountain of laundry.  So far, at 4:12 PM, none of that has happened.  None of it has even been started, actually.  I've thought about it - does that count?  That can make me feel rather down, since I (wrongly) tend to measure how good my day was by how much I got done.  Sometimes I tend to forget that feeding the baby and getting he, our older son and myself alive to the end of the day is a rather important accomplishment in and of itself.

 So, I've decided to create a new To-Do list for myself to help me stay focused on the important work I am getting done every day:

To-Do
Feed the baby
Eat breakfast
Get dressed
Start homeschool with Jonathan
Feed the baby, while doing school
Finish school with Jonathan
Feed the baby
Eat lunch
Pick one to attempt: take a nap, run an errand, clean something
Feed the baby
Eat supper
Feed the baby
Take a shower
Feed the baby
Sleep (optional)

Hmm...when I spell out my day that way, it's not much of a surprise that my house looks the way it does.  Maybe I should print out this list and put it up on the fridge (and the bathroom mirror, and over the dirty clothes hampers...).  Then perhaps I'll be a little less hard on myself for what doesn't get done every day!  Because honestly, these two aren't going to stay like this forever:

Gotta go...it's time to feed the baby!

Supper Tonight

Tonight we made a really yummy pasta dish with cauliflowers and capers from this recipe:

Michael Symon's Angel Hair Cauliflower Parmesan

I was a bit skeptical the first time we made it, since I'd never had cauliflower before, and assumed I wouldn't like it.  But I was wrong.  The cauliflower, and the entire dish is really good.  The capers add a really great salty, tangy taste that counter-balances the mildness of the cauliflower and pasta.

Tonight we added a little twist to the original dish, and made it with purple cauliflower.  It was only 50 cents more than white cauliflower at the store, and I figured we could afford that "splurge."  I was also hoping that the fun color would help convince Jonathan to eat it, but it didn't work after all.

We also added some fresh spinach at the end.  We needed to use it up, and wanted another vegetable with the meal.

Overall, it was a very tasty dinner and a very pretty one, and I'm looking forward to left-overs!

First Day of School

Today marked our first day of "official" homeschooling.  We would have started earlier, but the whole moving thing got in the way.  Today included starting to learn a Bible verse (Deuteronomy 10:12), math and reading/writing.  We're both learning how the process works, and how to keep him engaged.  He did a really good job, and I took him to lunch to celebrate his first day of school.  Of course, he wanted to know why we won't be able to go out for lunch every day!

Here's his photo from the first day of 1st Grade:

And for the sake of comparison, here's his photo from last year's first day of Kindergarten:

Cool Cleaning tip

Ok, today's cool cleaning tip is Baking Soda and Lemon Juice.  These two common household ingredients can be combined into a scrubbing paste.

We set a metal colander in a bowl this weekend to hold ice (the colander holes let the melted ice drip through so that the ice doesn't sit in a puddle) and left it for too long.  As Brian was doing dishes tonight, he commented that the colander legs had left rust spots in the bottom of the bowl.  I poured a bit of baking soda on the spots, dripped some lemon juice (bottled is fine) on the soda and then scrubbed with our normal dish-washing sponge.  After a few minutes, the spots were gone.

I've also used this combo in our bathroom.  We have a toothbrush holder and soap dish mounted on the wall of our bathroom, both 50 years old.  They were looking kind of grungy, and I'd just read about the baking soda-lemon juice paste, so I decided to give it a try.  I mixed the paste in a small container lid, applied it to the holders and let it sit for a few minutes.  I came back in a couple minutes and scrubbed and was rewarded with a shiny set of holders.

So, next time you have a stubborn spot, say in your kitchen sink, your bathtub, or a bowl, give the baking soda-lemon juice team a try!