Sunday night we had a BBQ and I tried out my MIL’s ice cream maker. OH MY GOSH!!! Well, that stuff is just too good to exist which explains why it had been completely devoured within just a few moments. I’m never eating store-bought ice cream again (hmm, that might be pushing it. Just forget I said that.) Here’s the recipe that we made. It makes 1 to 1.5 quarts of ice cream (pretty much fills a 1.5 qt. ice cream maker):~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream

1 1/2 cups chocolate chip cookie dough
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream, or whipping cream
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Chop cookie dough into bite-sized pieces. Place in a bowl, cover and freeze. Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in the sugar, a little at a time, then continue whisking until completely blended, about 1 minute more. Pour in the cream and milk, and whisk to blend. Add the vanilla and whisk to blend again.

Transfer the mixture to an ice cream maker and freeze following the manufacturer’s directions. When the ice cream is quite stiff (about 1 minute before it is done), add the chopped cookie dough. Be sure to wait until the last possible minute or the dough will get sticky and unmanageable. Continue freezing until done.

Makes 1 quart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few weeks ago I posted that Henry was a super crabby baby. Well, I think we’ve finally figured out the magic trick to get him to cool his jets. It’s a two part trick, which makes me feel better about it taking me eight weeks to figure out what it was.

First, I cut dairy (except yogurt), chocolate, and coffee out of my diet. That helped a little bit. Then I started making sure I burped the living daylights out of him after every meal. This entails serious whomping on his back for ten minutes to such a degree that when we’re in public people start looking at me like “what is that lady doing to that poor baby??” When I sit him on my lap and he has bubbles in his tummy, he stiffens up so much that I can barely get him to bend at the waist. When he’s all done burping, he’ll sit on my lap all relaxed and happy. That’s the test.

This pretty much clears up whole charming evenings of crying (like evenings at the theater but with more drama) and we’ve discovered that he actually smiles and is quite adorable when he does so. The big downside to all this is that I have to cut half of my favorite food out of my diet, and some days one must eat ice cream, especially if one has just foolishly made it themselves. George helpfully spent all day Monday reminding me that my five minutes of bliss produced twenty-four hours of misery. Thanks, Honey!

Unfortunately, now Henry is trying to come down with another cold so that’s making him slightly crabby. No one here has a cold and I don’t know of anyone at church or anywhere that has one either so I don’t even know where he got this (the last one was from his older sister coughing on his face). Argh! Hopefully it will be gone by the time Family Camp comes around in two weeks.

In potty training news (because I know you all like hearing about poopies and peepees), Faith is doing great with numero uno and disastrous with numero dos. It’s been what, three weeks now? She has yet to get ye old pooper in the appropriate receptacle. This is not a good way to please your mother, father, or older siblings whose bedroom floor you poop on (this was yesterday). Last night George woke me up around 5 am to tell me that Faith had exploded and he needed some help with cleanup crew. Thirty minutes, a bath, and a fresh change of sheets later, we made it back to bed. This qualifies in the mother and father not pleased category.

I hope this gets sorted out soon. This is the fifth child I’ve potty trained and none of the other ones had this problem. We’ve had other problems, such as Georgie not wanting to get off the potty if his poopies wouldn’t come out and one of the older girls (I think it was Trinity) being too scared to flush the toilet afterward. Both of those were sorted out by hitting on a story that helped analogize the problem to something that they were already familiar with. I started one last night with Faith that will hopefully make sense to her. If it does, I’ll publish it in the next post (again, I’m sure you’re dying to know…).

In the meantime, if any of you other Moms out there have encountered this problem and come upon some brilliant solution (or pedestrian solution or any solution), please post it. I’d like to have this sorted out before camp as well if at all possible. I hate potty training!

Oh, for you RCCers who are going to Family Camp and are looking for cheap croc knock offs for your children to destroy (those are the foam plastic clogs that you see everywhere you look), I priced them out all over and have the results posted on my new shopping/sales blog here (there’s always some good reason to start a new web project, right?). If anyone else is interested in coupons/codes, feel free to take a look. Only a couple of posts are there right now because I just put it up last week, but if you stick your email address in the form on the right hand sidebar, you’ll get email updates for new sales.

Rachel

So as you know, I’ve been having ice cream dreams what with the ice cream maker on my birthday list and everything (unfortunately now I’m off dairy so I can’t actually eat ice cream ). My MIL had an ice cream maker in her freezer that she’s never used so she sent it home with me when we were down there on Monday. Now I can cross it off my list! I’m going to the store this afternoon and hope to try it out tonight.

While I was looking for frozen yogurt recipes (which I can eat because dairy has live cultures that will make the dairy so it doesn’t bug Henry), I came across this amusing site on how to make ice cream with children instead of an ice cream maker. This looks like something my kids would love to do on a hot day. Plus, it has a whole explanation of the thermodynamics of ice cream making so it could qualify as a science project (did you hear that, Dad???). Here’s the link: Homemade Ice Cream Maker. Let me know if you try this out (and naturally I’ll do the same if/when we try it). Looks like the site has all kinds of other neat science toys and things you can do with your kids too.

Rachel

You know how some babies are easy going all the time and barelycomplain about anything? Well, Henry isn’t one of them. He’sdisturbingly like his older brother was when Georgie was a baby ~ fussy all the time and cries if you put him down for three minutes together. Kind of makes me worried, not for his general health or anything but that he’s going to be another high maintenance kid. Argh! That would make how many now? One, two, three, four…. Argh!

I was under the impression that when God blesses you with another baby that you weren’t planning to have, some unwritten code exists whereby He gives you a really sweet, mellow child so you can spend lots of time bragging to all your friends about how now you couldn’t imagine life without the charming new wee one and God really did know what He was doing. Silly me! I’m sure God really does know what He’s doing; however, I think the memo detailing the plan to me got lost in transit somehow. The Angel Delivery Service (ADS, sort of like the
heavenly UPS) is apparently slacking off on the job. Hmph! Maybe Henry will cure cancer or something. Yes, in lieu of further communication, I’m just going to assume that’s what the plan is.

The midwife was over yesterday, and I mentioned this to her (of course, he was charming and perfect while she was here as he normally is with company). Now I get to delete milk, chocolate (*sob*, my truffles, *sob*), and coffee from my diet for a few days and see if that helps. You know, all the things that make taste buds worth having. Blurg! I’m hoping this helps. Anika cried all the time when she was a new baby. She wouldn’t go down well for naps during the day and then was miserable when she was awake because she was over-tired.

When Anika was six weeks old, I came down with a terrible case of mastitis the night before we were supposed to leave for the beach with George’s family. The next morning we zipped up to the doctor, got some anti-biotics, and headed for the coast. At least there I would be able
to lie around and there would be more people to help with the kids. Unfortunately, the antibiotics made me throw up everything I ate so I was thoroughly miserable for the next 24 hours until I gave up the drugs. By that time they had worked well enough that my body was able to kill off the rest of the mastitis by itself.

During the afternoon that first day, my MIL went to put Anika down for a nap. She walked in, ten seconds later she walked back out, no crying came from the bedroom, and Anika was sound asleep. George and I both looked at her. Ani had been flipping out completely when we put her down and wouldn’t stay asleep for anything. Apparently Mom had swaddled Anika (yes, we too had done this), turned on the fan and off the light (yes, good), laid her on the bed and then left. Being the thoughtful parents that we were way back then, we had been trying
to….. comfort her and walk her around and cuddle her.mWhat dumb ideas! That was the problem alright. We immediately adopted this new streamlined bedtime routine and were promptly rewarded with a happy baby.

I keep getting the feeling that there’s some simple little key like this that we’re missing with Henry. He does almost exactly the same thing ~ crummy nap habits and super cranky which I think is related to being over-tired, all of which I think may be related to being gassy (hence the dietary modifications for Mommy). I hope it gets sorted out soon because I’m really getting tired of listening to him cry (and so is everyone else). Plus, when he’s happy, he is sooooo cute! I prefer the cute. I know most people like wailing babies better, but oh no, not me. I like the cuteness. Okay, well he just woke up from the little snooze he was doing next to me and is now fussing, of course, so I’m off to go do baby stuff. Ciao!

Rachel

Okay, my birthday is coming up next month (June 20) and I know you’re all dying to know what to get me. Usually when people ask me what I want, they get a deer-in-the-headlights stare in reply, but this year I actually have two things I reeeeeally want but would never get around to actually buying myself because they seem too splurge-y.

Anyway, here’s the list in order of most important first:

1. Casio Exilim 7.2 Megapixel Camera ~ Red This is $135 on sale at Circuit City plus they often have coupon codes that would get it down even further plus free shipping. Other places carry this too for similar prices so thereCheck here for codes. George has his big, fancy camera but he has to do a bunch of monkeying around to get the pictures off of it and formatted into something I can post here on my blog, which he never seems to get around to doing when I’m ready for them. I WANT PICTURES OF HENRY (and probably some of those other kids once in awhile too)!!! Blurg. This camera here not only takes pictures but a few minutes of video and it’s tiny enough to fit in my purse (plus it’s red, which makes everything better). Nifty!

A case for this camera would also be nice. Here’s one for $14 on Amazon:

And an SD card for $6 on Amazon:

2. The other thing I’ve been looking at for several months now is an ice cream maker, but a slacker one that I don’t have to do anything with (like crank or mess with ice or salt). This is the one I would like: Cuisinart ICE-30BC 2-Quart Automatic Ice Cream Maker for $80 but Bed Bath and Beyond carries it and they have 20% off mailer coupons regularly. There is also a 1.5 quart one that comes in red, which is of course very tempting since it’s red, but this one is bigger and we have a rather large-ish family (you may have noticed). Here’s a list of other places that carry this item. Some of them may have discounts and things as well.

And the Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Cookbook to go with this would be quite fancy ($10 on Amazon). Plus, when you come visit me this summer, I’ll make you home made ice cream. YUMMMMMMMMYYYYYY!!!

3. Lastly, I’ve been looking at the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day cookbook for $19 on Amazon. I have two excellent artisan bread recipes that I make regularly and love so I’m looking forward to seeing the variations that this has. So cool!

Okay, so there’s my pathetic birthday begging. That stuff is probably all out of price range for whomever might be buying me presents. Maybe a group gift…..??? Okay, well I’m glad I’m done with this. Now I feel all ooky and weird. What’s wrong with me?? How hard is it to make a birthday wish list??? Sheesh.

Rachel

As is usually the case after I deliver a baby, my computer is driving me nuts. I have some brilliant business idea and am gung-ho for a few days. I purchase a domain name, set up a website, and research and install some software (I actually did all of this last week). Then due to crazy hormones, exhaustion, children all boinging around in Tigger-ish fashion, and a general lack of sleep/food/time, my brain goes into a gigantic fuzz and I don’t feel like actually doing anything constructive when I’m online. So after I do my regular computer work for Gymboree News, I digress into general time wasting that looks like this:

First, I will go to Gymboree/Gap/Old Navy/Crazy 8 websites and place several items in my cart where I will not actually purchase them but where they will sit for several weeks until they sell out.

Then I will go to eBay and search for clothes for the kids or myself and place several items on my watch list where I will not actually bid on them but where they will sit until the auctions end.

After that I will hop onto my blog reader which automatically checks for updates on all my favorite blogs. There I will find out that it is James Marsters’ (Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) birthday or that some new Firefly figurine is coming out. These are not actually things that I care about.

My other blogs will tell my that my friends are potty training their children, my SIL is painting their house, and my other BIL & SIL are doing well with my new little Ethiopian adoptee nephew. These are things that I do care about, but they take up a lot of time (much in the same way I am taking up your time by posting about fluff. Bwahahahahaha!).

After I’m done reading all that, I’ll go over to the Drudge Report and read important world news so I don’t sound like a total imbecile who has no idea what is going on if it doesn’t involve things like how many hours a night her new baby sleeps and whether or not she can get her children to eat salad.

Unfortunately the site also has links to insidious entertainment news and I always end up on one of those stupid British tabloid sites like the Daily Mail reading about English rockers that I’ve never heard of and how their legs are too skinny or they got plastered last weekend. Why, why do I do this??? I know; I have no self-control.

So last Friday after spending an hour and a half on eBay looking for a new beanie for Henry to wear to Family Camp next month since obviously babies need cute hats and summer is not beanie season and he is growing out of his current set of cute beanies, it occurred to me that I had yarn, crochet hooks, and a little booklet on how to crochet a hat upstairs in my closet. I do not crochet. Or knit. Or do anything that involves craft or art or making pretty stuff with my hands. However, my Grandmother does. My Grandmother who lives in Arizona.

Last year (or maybe even the year before) I purchased these items to give to Trinity for her birthday. We were going to be with my grandparents around the time of her birthday and I was thinking that maybe my Grandma could teach Trinity how to crochet. Since my Grandparents live in Arizona and we don’t see them more than once every year or two, this would be a good opportunity for her to get to know Grandma better.

Then it occurred to me that Trinity was probably a bit young for this (although she may be getting close now) and that when she came back home wanting to do projects, she would come ask me a bunch of questions that I wouldn’t know how to answer and then she would slink away in disappointment. Obviously that’s no good! And so the supplies have been upstairs in my closet for two years.

In a rush of disgust with my computer and how much time I spend doing precisely nothing on it (half the time I even watch TV over the top of my laptop in an amazing display of wasting time two ways at the same time), I ran upstairs to start my new half-cocked crochet project. I opened the booklet expecting useful instructions and was greeted with this and entire pages like it: “2nd rnd: With B, ch 1. 1 sc in each st around. Join with sl st to first sc.” Since my children ran off with my universal secret decoder ring, this meant nothing to me. The booklet had diagrams and a key to help you decipher all the ridiculous abbreviations, but I was fairly sure that by the time I figured out what I was supposed to be doing I would have too much arthritis for it to be of any use.

What to do? Return to my computer, of course! No, not eBay or the Drudge Report this time. Google! You can find anything on Google and when you type “How to crochet a baby beanie” into the search box, it comes up with all kinds of websites including how-to videos on YouTube where nice ladies with slightly southern accents actually show you how to crochet hats. Perfect!

I discovered all this around 11:00 on Friday night and when I finally found the end of the yarn after half an hour of poking around the skein, I was ready to go. So I crocheted about twenty stitches, got tired, and went to bed. Saturday I worked on it some more, tore it apart about six times, and by Sunday night Henry had a new red hat. Pretty cute one too! Monday and yesterday I made and finished a matching one for Georgie and now I’m working on ones for all the girls. Heehee! Now while I’m wasting time in the evening letting my brain decompress from all the craziness during the day, I can actually make something while I watch TV. Ta da! Plus I can crochet while I nurse. I can also type while I nurse but only when he’s nursing on the left side because I need my right hand to do it…..

So that’s what’s been going on around here. Well, unless you count things like laundry, cleaning, nagging kids (name Georgie) to get their homework done, cooking, and potty training Faith which I started doing yesterday, training children to not “whack” each other (as Faith keeps complaining that Kyra has been doing to her), and all the other super-exciting Mom things that keep me running from the time I wake up until the time I drop back into bed. But really, why would you want to count that? Just because it is pretty much the composition of my actual life….

Rachel