I Promise I Will...

Post some pregnancy pictures soon. I just haven't taken any. But I will. So check back later.

Paisley is the Girl We Adore!

We got to watch my friend's kids tonight (welcome home!!!). We LOVE Quinn, Parker, and Paisley. Parker wasn't with us tonight, but we got Quinn (age 4) and Paisley (8 months). Within 2 minutes of Paisley being with us, she was attacked by our girls. They think she's the greatest and can't get enough. Sorry Jill! I don't know if you'll ever let your kids come back...Yes, Taryn is mauling her. But really, she's just trying to hug her. Unfortunately, the only way she can figure out to hug someone who is lying on the floor is to squash them by climbing on top. I don't think Paisley enjoyed it much. I also think we're in trouble once this new baby comes...

Turn Off the Oven...It's Hot in Here!

I haven't wanted to cook with the oven on at all in the last couple weeks. So, that really limits a lot of what I can make for dinner. I also don't want to slave over a hot stove because I start sweating within minutes of doing that. I also don't want Braden to be standing over a hot grill outside. And I don't want to have the same thing every night.

Enter the crockpot. I can't tell you how much I LOVE my crockpot!!! I've been experimenting with it lately and have LOVED what I can do with it. For a week, we had something from the crockpot every night. It was great. I've been modifying meals or finding other ways to prepare parts of a meal in the crockpot so I don't have to do much in the heat of the day when we're hot and tired. I also can't tell you how wonderful it feels to have dinner ready (or at least started) by 10 am. It makes me giddy.

I'll need to post recipes, but I don't have time tonight. Here's a list of a few of the meals we've been using the crockpot for:

~Chicago chicken (or cranberry chicken): I like it 10 times better in the crockpot because the meat is so tender and juicy and just falls apart. So good.

~Chicken enchiladas: Cook the sauce with raw chicken all day long and it'll just fall apart when you assemble the enchiladas.

~Sweet pork burritos: Yeah, this was already a crockpot meal

~Hawaiian haystacks: I would have done it in the crockpot tonight if we had had chicken. But we didn't. Anyway, you'd just cook the cream of chicken soup and raw chicken all day and it'd be ready to serve.

~Tacos/frito pie/etc. : Cook your meat, beans, etc. all day

~Chimichangas: Cooked the meat and seasoning and then assembled the chimis at dinner time

~Baked tortellini: I made a homemade marinara and let it simmer for a couple hours. Then, about 1 hour before eating time, I added the tortellini and topped it with cheese. By dinner time, it was perfect...a little thick.

~Any broth soup: Add veggies/potatoes 3 hours before eating and noodles 1 hour before and it'll be great.

~Chili/taco soup: dump it all in and let it go.

~Sloppy joes: same as above...dump it all in and let it go.

Then there's the usual roast beef, BBQ chicken sandwiches, pulled pork burritos, and really almost anything you want. You can even make a casserole like shepherd's pie or mary's hamburger in the crockpot. All meat is so much more tender and flavorful in the crockpot, though if you cook them all day long, they tend to fall apart. If that's not what you're going for, either cook it for a shorter time or don't use the crockpot.

Anyway, I never knew how much I would LOVE and use this appliance. I know I'll burn it out soon from so much use and I'll need to upgrade as our family grows. But for now, I'm loving it.

If you have any great crockpot recipes or ideas, pass them along!!!

Taryn...All About Taryn

Taryn is now 17 months old. She has grown and changed so much in the last couple months so I need to jot a few things down. First of all, I took the girls to a dr. appointment at the beginning of April for Keara's well child check up and to get a referral for an allergist for Taryn. Keara weighed in at 26 lbs. and Taryn at 19 lbs. After the appointment, I set up another appointment for Taryn for 2 weeks later for her well child check up. Same doctor, same scale...but she now weighed 21 lbs. And I could tell during those 2 weeks that she had gained a TON of weight! (2 pounds is a lot for a kid!)

At those appointments, my new doctor was frazzled by Keara's small size and encouraged us to test for celiac disease. Because there are 3 cousins with it on my side and 1 aunt with it on Braden's side, plus with our experience with Taryn's food allergies, we thought we'd give it a whirl. We tested both girls. Part of the testing (not for celiac but for other things) included getting a urine sample. Keara happily obliged. But have you ever tried to get a urine sample from a 17 month old? The little baggie they stuck on her DID NOT work. So we tried using the potty.
It was just comical to see Taryn on the potty. But she was a trooper...yet never peed for me. Oh wait, she would once I took her OFF the potty. But not on it. Turns out, neither girl has celiac, which is a great relief to us.

Taryn loves fitting herself in small spaces. Here are a few of her latest.

She also LOVES to read and can often be found throughout the day in a corner with books. I leave a book in her bed so she can look at it when she gets up. As you can imagine, her favorite place to go is the library, though we don't go often enough. She could have you read her a book all day long if you'd do it.

Taryn has also picked up on a lot of words lately. You may not be able to understand her, but we do. Here's her current vocabulary:

Mama

Banana

Apple

Milk

More

Yes/No

Please (mainly in sign)

Thank you (combined with sign)

Book

Fish (combined with sign)

Eat

All done (combined with sign)

Diaper

Bye Bye

Hello

Animal sounds: ruff ruff, meow, moo, quack quack, baa, roar (my personal favorite is Monster: roar...roAR...ROAR!!!!!!)

Tomorrow

I love you

Night night

Grandpa/Grandma

Baby

Belly button

Peekaboo

Shoes

Blanket

Keara

Dada (though it's usually mama for him too)

Those are the words she'll volunteer herself. But she'll repeat almost anything you ask her to, mainly getting the syllables if not the pronunciation. The other day, she said "Hello Carter" to her cousin over the phone when I told her what to say.

She has a mind of her own and will do or will not do whatever she wants. We're really working on getting her to listen and obey when all she wants to do is run the other way saying "NO!" She is loving to help, like throwing away her diapers, putting her clothes in the laundry, and standing with me while I cook.

She is such a great child and is so patient with so many things. We're so grateful to have her bright personality and vitality in our home. She's wonderful!

Just Keep Swimming...

I am SO grateful for people who have offered their pools to me and my friends this summer!!!! Thank you so much! We have gone swimming 3 times in the last few days in people's pools in our neighborhood and it is SUCH a relief. It's been so hot and it's so hard to be in the house all day with the girls. Keara loves swimming and T is learning to love...well, like it. We've run out of sunscreen, however, so I have to buy more tomorrow or we won't be going outdoors until we do.

Getting in Order Before D-Day

Okay, I realize that D-Day is still 99 days away (as I am daily reminded by the baby ticker), but over the last few months, when my ability to handle my kids and home seemed to be on the brink, I decided that I HAD to figure out a way to get on top of things. I've done FLY Lady and LOVE the ideas and concept, but have a really hard time implementing. For various reasons, including I CAN'T get dressed to my shoes. Sorry, but I don't wear shoes. I can't do laundry every day because I am so bad about putting it away. I would love to be able to do it all and do it right, but I needed even smaller babysteps. I've tried a bunch of things, but I've finally come up with something that works for me. Maybe it'll help you...

We switched to gmail so we could use outlook. My brother has been encouraging me to try outlook for a while because he loves the calendar. Well, I do too. Now. Anyway, I decided to break up the house and schedule my "chores" according to the day, complete with popup reminders a day in advance and throughout the day I'm supposed to do it so all day long I'm reminded to get it done.

On Mondays, I'm supposed to do the laundry, grocery shopping, and general tidying. Tuesday is the upstairs. Wednesday is bathrooms. Thursday is the downstairs. Friday is organize/dust/mop. Saturday is downstairs again to get ready for Sunday. Sunday is "off". At first, I needed the schedule to get on top. Now, the house seems to stay tidy every day in every area of the house. I make sure to tidy up at night before going to bed (thanks FLYLady) which makes such a difference in the mornings. Today, I did bathrooms, upstairs, downstairs, and laundry, even though those are my chores for the entire week simply because it took so little time to do since I've been on top of it. Wait a minute...this doesn't mean my house is CLEAN. I'm not deep cleaning here. But I am dusting, vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, tidying, and cleaning toilets/mirrors/vanities.

Anyway, I'm so grateful to have that major stress melting away right now. Especially while the rest of me melts away too...

Backyardigans...or Back Yard Again...

I've never seen the cartoon, but I know the title. Anyway, we've been working in our backyard a lot lately. Well, only when it's not over 100 degrees, which it has been for the last 13 days in a ROW! Enough about that. We put up a shade over our raspberries to protect them from the sun because they were getting sunburned. That solved that problem, but then they lost all their flavor because we hadn't fertilized them in a while. So we fertilized them and they have all their luscious flavor back! Hoorah! Here's to all who told us we couldn't grow raspberries in the valley...you can with a lot of TLC!

We were SO excited when Braden's brother in law, Nicho, called last week to tell us he had a few truckloads of free 3/4 in rock that we could have for FREE for our backyard. So he dumped it off in the street in front of our house and Braden has slowly been bringing it to the back. Thankfully, he has Keara to help.

No, really, he's been doing a great job. But considering it's been over 100 13 days in a row (enough about that), I can't truly encourage him to get to work when I won't even step outside, let alone haul wheel barrow after wheel barrow of rock. He worked tonight for a couple hours when there was a lot of wind and it wasn't that hot and still came in dripping like a faucet. Poor guy. He's about 1/2 way done with the yard, though almost completely done with the pile. Looks like we'll need another shipment.

More Projects...They Never Truly End

I LOVE projects. I love creating. I love working. I DON'T love deadlines or time crunches or HAVING to get things done, however. So when I can create something in my own free time or do something when I want to because I want to, I LOVE it. Sometimes, I over do it and end up regretting it. But the last 2 months have been filled with projects. As I posted before, I made a bunch of letter blocks for the Farmer's Market in April. After that, I made a few things posted here. For Mother's Day, we sold truffles at Braden's work and around the neighborhood. It was a swimming success. Now I'm in charge of our ward cookbook...just for fun. Not because I was asked to, but because I asked to do it. As our just-released Relief Society president said, "There aren't a lot of people who go looking for extra work just for fun." But as my sister said...she obviously doesn't know Hickens.

Here are a few things we've created this month:

One Sunday, I got tired of Keara's doll's needing outfit changes a few times a day. She wanted them to wear her clothes, so her drawers were constantly being emptied and clothes were strewn all over the house. I got an idea to cut the snaps off old onesies, create iron-transfer clip art and iron designs on the onesies. But our color ink was out and I didn't just want plain b&w ones. So we colored the iron transfer with crayons and then ironed it. It turned out GREAT! And it eliminated the problem of her clothes being used as doll clothes.

I've gotten a few custom orders for blocks, and I've really liked how they turned out. This one was for a baby shower (obviously).

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this one. My sister ordered it for her MIL. I just LOVe the skinny blocks.

The FAMILY one was inspired by this one ordered by my MIL for her seminary class auction. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it too (no pun intended). I rEAllY love the skinny blocks.

I wanted to try one of these rag quilts, so I made it for a baby shower last weekend. It was SO easy and fun to do! I can't wait to do another one...

We're Having a Heat Wave...An Interminable Heat Wave...

At least that's how it feels. We hit 100 degrees over a week ago. This entire week was over 100. And next week looks the same. So I wanted to find out the facts about Arizona's summers...and it's not pleasant. The only pleasant thing I read was that the average last day over 110 degrees is this baby's due date. But that doesn't take into account that the average last day over 100 degrees isn't until October.

*The average first 100 degree day is May 13, but is closer to May 2nd if you go back to and take an average since 1978.
*The earliest to hit 100 was March 26th 1988.
*The latest to hit 100 was June 13th 1913.*
How about the average last 100 degree day? If you go back to the late 1800's, that day is September 28th, but that is closer to October 3rd if you look at the last 30 years.
*This is why our summers can feel soooo long.
*The earliest 'last 100 degree day' occurred September 2nd 1904, while the latest 100 degree day occurred October 23rd 2003.
*The average number of '100 degree plus' days each year adds up to be 93, but over the last 30 years that number has grown to 109. This is due primarily to Valley growth and the urban heat island.
*The greatest number of days '100 degree plus' days occurred back in 1989 where the mercury hit 100 or higher 143 times. The least number of 100 degree plus days was 48 back in 1913.
*Back in 1993, the high temperature hit 100 or higher 76 consecutive days. That's June 10th through August 24th.
*The average start date to 110 or higher is June 19, but that number is closer to June 10 if you look at the last 30 years.
*The earliest to hit '110 degrees plus' occurred on May 8th 1989 while the latest to hit 110 degrees was back in the summer of 1911 where the temperature never reached 110. Imagine that!
*The average last 110 degree day usually occurs on August 10th, but over the last 30 years that number is August 26th.
*The average number of 110 degree days sits at 11, but over the last 30 years the number has risen to 18.
*The greatest number of 110 degree plus days took place only 2 summers ago in 2007 where the mercury hit 110 34 days.
*How about the longest stretch of consecutive 110 degree days? That number stands at 18 which took place between June 12 through June 29th 1974.
*And what about the hottest day of the year here in the Valley? 122 degrees on June 26th 1990.Get ready for a long, hot summer...

All that's from channel 15's website. And it's all true! It's HOT!