A Chemistry Celeb!

Back in October, Jake volunteered to help out with the National Chemistry Week Festivities here at BYU. Mainly he helped out with the liquid nitrogen ice cream. 

YUM. I made 3-4 special trips to campus that week just for the ice cream. I even got them to custom make a batch of Reeses ice cream for me. (The perks of having a brilliant scientist for a husband).

Anyway, they just found out that Y-Chem (the chemistry club on campus) just received an award from the American Chemical Society for their activities during Chemistry Week. 

Whose picture was in the article announcing this?

JAKE! That's who!

Articles about Chemistry Week (that feature Jake's face) can be found here and here.

Dry ice is "cool"!

Every couple of months, my mom likes to send us a gift package from Omaha Steaks. They are delicious and free (for us) and I love them.

They always come in these big styrofoam coolers. 

One arrived for us yesterday.

After Tim went to bed and we unpacked the steak, Jake and I played with the dry ice that was keeping the steak cold.

Jake says, "It looks like you're kissing a smokey demon!"

....

Thanks, hon.

We decided to have some science experiment time, and poured in some water with blue food coloring.

And fun was had by all.

Yum.... Eggs!

Tim's favorite foods these days are the ones he can feed himself.

One day while I was getting dinner ready, we sat him in his high chair and gave him some hard boiled egg (originally intended for salad) that was cut into cubes to distract him.

HE LOVED IT!

Good way to get this kid to eat some more protein, since the baby food meats are NASTY!

Sunday Fun

Even though we stayed home from church (Tim's sick), we still had an okay weekend.

Tim got this turtle shape sorter for Christmas. There is a base that looks like a turtle, and the shell lifts up so you can retrieve the shapes after they are sorted. He usually takes the shell off and ignore the base entirely. Which is fine.

This weekend he finally figured out how to sort the toys! Or... at least one of them.

He can get the red circle in there. He tries to put all of the other shapes through the red circle spot, too...

Jake tried to show him how it's done.

Sunday evening, Jake's cousin Josh and his new wife Leah came over for dinner due to a rather convoluted set of circumstances.

The morning of their wedding, Josh realized that he didn't have a black belt with him. So I made Jake give his to Josh. 

(That was a fun conversation. It went about like this: ME - Give him your belt. JAKE: But I like it, and then I won't have a belt. ME: Doesn't matter. He's the groom. Give him your belt. JAKE: But it's my good one. ME: All the more reason. Give him your belt. JAKE: But- ME: Give him your belt. JAKE: Fine....) 

Anyways... We forgot to get it back from them. So they still had it. Then Jake's grandparents sent Josh and Leah's wedding present to Mike and Karen's house. We were there last week, so we brought that back to Provo. The dinner was for the purposes of returning these goods to their rightful owners.

(Jake IMMEDIATELY put the belt on as soon as Josh walked in the door and handed it to him. haha. He had purposefully not worn a belt that day so he could put that on on.)

Dinner was good, it was fun to catch up with them. Afterwards we played some Mario Party and Wii Fit.

Jake LOVES this crazy Flying Chicken game on the Wii Fit. I suck so bad at it....

After they left, Jake and I split the tiny watermelon that came in our Bountiful Basket this week.

Even though we didn't make it to church, it was quite an enjoyable Sunday. :-)

No Judging!!

Tim is sick. Has been since last Saturday. He has a runny nose and a HORRIFIC cough. Your heart just aches for the little guy as you listen to all the phlegm rattle around while he tries to breathe. 

Anyways, this makes for a rather grumpy guy. He doesn't really want to eat, he doesn't really want to play, usually he wants to cuddle (but sometimes not)... So there is a lot of fussing and yelling.

Until we discovered this on Netflix:

Tim's only about 11 months old. So, in general, I'm not the biggest advocate of TV for him... But he will sit quietly through a whole episode (7 minutes). No screaming, no agony, no sad faces or moaning. So I am allowing it.

Also, it isn't half bad. I mean, it's narrated by Stephen Fry so it has at least some degree of awesomeness. It's pretty cute and much less annoying than some kids shows. Like Caillou. Bleah.

At least until Tim gets feeling better, we may be spending a lot more time with Pocoyo.

Mysterious Rustling Noise

 This afternoon, as I sat at the computer I found myself wondering...

"Hmm... What is that mysterious rustling noise?

Not over here, not over there... hmmm...."

"TIM... TIM... TIMMY TIM TIM!"

He'd managed to get his paws on a roll of paper towel that was no longer very roll-like...

And then I wrestled the camera away from him...

A Diaper Surprise!

****WARNING: This post contains somewhat graphic images that may not be suitable for those with a sensitive stomach!****

Part of Tim's bedtime routine is taking a bath. So most evenings (when I'm gone to rehearsals on Thursdays or occasionally if we're all out and about or he is just too tired, we skip sometimes), around 7:15 PM we get him into the tub. 

Which he loves. Obviously.

Last night, while we were undressing him... We got a special surprise!

A PENNY! We have no idea when he ate it... But we're glad it's out. 

How did that feel, Tim?

That's about what I expected.

On a related note, Tim is SUPER obvious about when he is pooping. He will suddenly hold very still, kind of tense up, and grunt.

So, we ordered him this:

We are going to try to just start putting him on it when he starts acting all poop-like, and see if we can just sort of condition him into. He's only about 11 months old, and I realize that this is MUCH younger than when people usually start potty training. But, I figure if we know when he is pooping, why not just stick him there and get him used to it before he is really old enough to protest it?

Also, I don't mind changing wet diapers... It's the poopy ones that get ya.

VERY unrelated, we made these delicious pomegranate oatmeal chocolate cookies that I found on pinterest.

pinned here

Even Tim likes them. Look at him smiling with his little mouth full of cookie!

I love this dude.

Bountiful Baskets and our Winter Wonderland

We decided to try ordering from the Bountiful Baskets food co-op. Today was the first pick up, and I am IN LOVE!!!

One "basket" is $15. And AMAZING! We got a head of romaine lettuce, a bunch of spinach, 2 avocados, 3-4 tomatoes, a bunch of apples, 2-3 Asian pears (!!!), 3 clementines, broccoli, blackberries, 2 bunches of radishes, 7 bananas... and I can't remember what else. But WOW! That would cost so much more than $15 to buy in a grocery store! 

I'm so excited to get to use them, I LOVE fresh fruits and veggies.

We also ordered a 30 pound box of Minneola tangerines. I made a tactical error in underestimating just how many tangerines it would take to make up 30 pounds. I told Jake (only halfway joking), that he should be prepared to eat a tangerine with every meal until they're gone. HAHA. Good thing we're sharing some of the box with our good buddies Josh and Shelby!

Over Christmas break, Grammy McDonald taught Tim about how yummy oranges and clementines are. So he was very excited to see the tangerines! At first he was content with taking them in and out of the box, licking them, hugging them, and rolling them around. 

But not for long...

He needed to be a little closer to the action!

We bought Tim a cute little snowsuit knowing that we would be spending Thanksgiving and Christmas in the Midwest. Over break it was 40-50 degrees in Nebraska AND Minnesota with NO snow! So we didn't get a chance to use it. 

This morning, we woke up to a lovely white surprise!

Someone had a little sled out in the quad. We tried to pull Tim around on it... But he kept crawling off.

We didn't build this snowman, we just used it as a prop for our photo shoot!