Lasagna Night at King Arthur Flour

One of the things on my New England "bucket list" has been taking a cooking class at the King Arthur Flour headquarters in Norwich, Vermont. The King Arthur Flour campus is right across the river from us and they have a really beautiful bakery, baker's store, and baking education center. The baking classes are really popular and fill up quickly, but our friends snagged us a spot in the lasagna class and we were so excited to  try it out on Friday night.

 The instructor did little demos of each step and then we tried it for ourselves at our workstation. Once the pasta dough was kneaded and proofed we fed it through a pasta machine and turned it into lasagna noodles.

 We ran each section of dough through the machine eight times at the widest width, and then made the width smaller and smaller until it became a long, thin noodle.

 Here's a close-up of one of Maren's noodles. It was actually really cool to see the noodles made. I couldn't really justify buying a pasta machine now, but someday it would be really fun.

The cheeses were amazing and all fresh from Vermont- mozzarella, ricotta, and parmesan. We went heavy on the cheese and it was a good move. Yum.

 Here's our finished product. That top, crispy layer was so amazing. 

While the lasagna cooked we made dessert (not pictured, but delicious). We left the class with a warm, baked lasagna and dessert, salad, and a baguette, then we drove to our house and enjoyed the delicious meal. 

Such a fun, fun date! Hopefully we can fit in another class or two this next year!

Ten Months

Oh my goodness, ten months is such a fun stage. Mya is the cutest little chub and we just love her every day! I think Mya has been a little late with her mobility milestones, but she finally figured out crawling forwards this week. It's been a fun week for her to be able to get around and get to things that are out of reach.....like Bryn's block towers and other things she shouldn't be touching. Why was I so eager for her to start crawling??

 She got her top tooth this month and it looks like there's a second top tooth that's about to come through. She's been putting her little teeth to good use, trying lots of new table foods this month. Her favorite foods are homemade breads and rolls, little bits of bananas, strawberries, pears, and cooked vegetables. She still nurses at 7 am, noon, 4 pm, and 7 pm, but I don't know how much longer we'll keep this whole nursing thing going. I'd like to make it to a year like Brynlee, but Mya's growing mobility and curiosity has turned nursing into a bit of a circus. We'll see how much longer we'll last! She's still a great sleeper, usually going from 7:30 pm to 6:30 or 7 am. And then she naps for 2-3 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. 

 When Mya gets excited about something she raises her chubby little arms in the air and waves her hands. She just started doing it a few weeks ago and it's so cute. She does it especially at meal time when she's eating something she likes. After each bite throws her arms up and waves her little hands frantically, her equivalent of saying "More! More! More!" 

Mya is getting more curious, but she's definitely seems more mellow and shy than Bryn was. The contrast has been so funny to watch. Bryn was always confident, silly, and high-energy. She was always a dare-devil, bumping around the room, falling over or getting hurt, but just brushing it off without a care. Mya will get up the courage to finally explore something, but if she bumps into anything or drops what she's holding then she curls her lip and gets the saddest little look on her face. She's definitely more sensitive and timid than Bryn, but I love her sweet, cuddly self!

Bryn saw me taking pictures of Mya and immediately ran upstairs and came down in a matching outfit a matching 10-month sign she had quickly made. This girl cracks me up!

 This is Bryn and Mya doing their "secret sisters handshake". Bryn made it up and it's a "triple bust sparkle". They do a bust, a sparkle of the fingers, and then repeat it three times. Mya thinks it's hilarious. 

(P.S. I'm really not that into matching outfits, but Bryn's whole world revolves around matching Mya. Everyday she picks out their outfits in the morning and their pajamas at night. Sometimes I put my foot down, but most of the time I just shrug my shoulders and let Bryn do her thing).

Bryn and Mya at 10 months

(Oh boy.....this is not Bryn's best picture. Ha ha! But i guess it's a little late for re-takes).

Picnic on the Dartmouth Green

 I think Spring is finally here to stay! It's been a beautiful 70 degrees today, so we packed lunches and walked to Dartmouth campus for a picnic. (It would have been even better if Josh were in town and could have met us there in between classes!) 

 Mya's wind-swept hair was cracking me up. 

These quick photos don't do it justice, but Dartmouth campus is really beautiful. Some of the buildings have the date of when they were built and it's so cool to see the buildings from the 1700's. I walk/jog around campus a couple times a week and I love the preppy, Ivy League atmosphere. It's such a different vibe than the surfer, beachy atmosphere we had in Huntington Beach. It's been kind of fun to live somewhere so completely different than our last home. 

 It's only a two mile walk from our house to campus, but we played "I Spy" around campus for so long that it  ended up becoming a two hour trip. Somehow these two stayed entertained in their stroller that long!

(P.S. Of course, their semi-matching outfits were picked out by Bryn. I'm wondering when this matching phase will wear off. Bryn's excitement with it is only increasing.....which is worrisome!)

Swim Party

Josh is in NYC, so we had a fun girls night tonight, including a "swim party" for Bryn and Mya. (As soon as you put on your swim suits it instantly becomes a "swim party" instead of a nightly bath. Obviously). These two fishies had so much fun that I had to finally drag their soggy bodies out after a good 45 minutes in there. It was almost as if they were back in SoCal splashing in the waves of the ocean.....but not quite. 

 Ever since Mya was born Bryn has been the official "Hair-Slicker" for her. If I accidentally wash Mya's hair with Bryn's help then she will redo it.

This probably won't come as a surprise, but Bryn gets quite silly in the bathtub, usually singing, "swimming", or dramatically acting out a made-up story. Mya usually just giggles to herself and focuses on inspecting all the bath toys.

 I love this blue eyed babe!

P.S. Is there anything better than a chubby baby in a bathing suit?

Sunny Afternoon

Today we saw the sun! In fact it almost hit 60 degrees in the afternoon, so we had to head outside...

 These pictures of Mya are too much for me. Look at her pretending like she's big stuff on that little bus. 

You guys. I can't take it. I set Mya on that bus and she instantly grew about a year older. I know it's cliche, but what happened to my baby???

Sorry, a few last pictures of Mya on the bus. I really can't get enough.

This semester Josh packed almost all of his classes in on one day and then the rest of the week he only has one class a day. It's really great because on his "light" days we see a lot of him! Today was one of those days :)

 Just when Mya thought nothing in the world could be more fun than riding that little bus, we introduced her to hopscotch. I love that little look on her face of pure joy. 

I hope Spring is here to stay because we need a repeat of this afternoon!

General Conference

We had a wonderful weekend watching General Conference on Saturday and Sunday. I'll be honest, it's been a long winter for me and I needed a good pick-me-up. Of course, conference did just that. I heard so many motivating messages that strengthened by faith and inspired me to be a better wife, mother, and friend.

 Posing with Elder Bednar.....always a favorite speaker. Kind of like posing with a celebrity, but cooler.

Keeping Bryn quiet for 8 hours of conference used to be difficult when she was younger, but I was surprised at how easy it was to keep her interested this time around. I had printed out a few General Conference coloring sheets from the church website and those kept her busy for most of it. We also did a few other conference activities to keep her interested.

I had a poster of the current church leaders and she had to find each speaker on the poster and put a sticker on them. We did this in October, too, but she used Halloween stickers and it got a little bad when she started putting skeleton and vampire stickers on the apostles. This time I gave her nice, girly stickers, but somehow she found those same Halloween stickers again and I looked down to see President Eyring as a witch and Elder Ballard as a Jack-o-Lantern on a stick. Oops. 

I also just noticed Elder Scott's sticker says "You're the Cat's Meow"......I think I'll use generic star stickers next time :)

She also colored the ties of each of the apostles when they spoke. This was really fun! I don't think President Monson really wore a pink tie, though, so I think she must have taken a little creative liberty.

 General Conference used to be a time when Josh and I would get together with our families, but since we live across the country from family we were happy to get together with some of our church friends for brunch on Sunday morning. Sometimes the kids get wound up when we have big get-togethers, so this time Josh took matters into his own hands and started some games with them. It was so funny....all the sudden we looked over and Josh had gotten all the kids in a quiet circle and was leading them in duck-duck-goose. Ha ha!

 Then he and Brent led them into one of the study rooms in the clubhouse and they started playing pictionary. I think Josh was having even more fun than the kids. I don't know why it was so funny to me. I think his dream calling at church is Primary President, but I don't know if that will ever happen :)

Let's end with a few shots of Mya because she looked pretty cute watching conference!

Easter Week

 We had a lot of fun with Easter activities this week. Bryn is a little bummed that there's not another big holiday in the next few months.

 Dying Eggs with J.J.

 I hosted some Easter activities with her preschool friends and we had a lot of fun.

I loved the eggs they made!

I hid Easter eggs full of snacks around the house and they had to do an egg hunt for their snacks.

 No holiday is complete without a little baking

 Frosting cookies

Bryn has been playing "Egg Toss" all week. Sometimes it's the simplest things that keep her entertained and excited!

 We had an Easter party with the "Tiny Tuckies" (the children of all the Tuck students) and Bryn loved playing with all her cute little friends.

Hunting for eggs

It was a fun, fun week!