Happy Birthday, Aunt Kimmy!

Today is Aunt Kimmy's birthday, and we've been awfully excited about it! Hannah's been singing Happy Birthday all morning. We took a video just in case she gets shy when she actually sees the birthday girl tonight. :)




Her version of the song goes, "Happy to you! Happy to you!" She was a little distracted and only sang one line of the song, because she's discovered that you can actually see pictures and videos on the camera, which is what she was asking when she said, "See."

Near to Nothing

My sister and I have been talking about starting a blog for a long time now, and we finally did it!!! We have been asked on several occasions to share our kitchen "secrets," so here they are! The main point is to share recipes, tips, strategies, etc. for preparing meals on a tight budget. So head on over and check out Near to Nothing!!!

Happy Anniversary, My Love!

Today is our anniversary. Unfortunately, we're both miserably sick, so we're postponing our celebration until we actually feel like celebrating. I guess it's just a reminder of our vow that we took to love each other "in sickness and in health." :)

It's hard to believe that it's been four years since we said, "I do." It's hard to remember a time when I didn't know James, and it's hard to imagine what life would be like without him. I'm so thankful for these four years we've had together. Though they've not always been easy, they've been good. There have been times of laughing, crying, hoping, praying, loving, confessing, forgiving... I could go on and on. We pray that the Lord will bless us with another 60+ years (wow, we'll be OLD!) together, and all of the joy and trials that come with those years!! I love you, honey!

Monterey

James and I were blessed to be able to go on a mini vacation last weekend. It was our first vacation in over two years, so we were REALLY looking forward to it. It was also our first time away from Hannah, which wasn't really as hard as I thought it would be. It actually worked out really well for us. Keanna's birthday party was last Saturday (and also happened to be my Mom's birthday), so we surprised Keanna by showing up at her party (I love surprises like that!), then James and I left Hannah with my parents and went to Monterey. It was a wonderful time for us to spend time together without the distraction of work, home, Hannah, etc. Did I say it was wonderful? The last year-and-a-half has been a very busy and stressful season for our family, so we were excited to be able to get away. And I think Hannah had fun on her little "vacation," as well. She had a blast playing with all the fun toys at Mama and Bapa's house, and playing with her cousins. She LOVES other kids, and I'm sure she's going to have the time of her life playing with all her Pichura cousins this summer! :) Anyway, here are some pictures from our trip.

Hannah got a very special treat at Keanna's birthday party - ice cream!!!

The Lone Cypress on the 17 Mile Drive.


We went back to where James proposed to me almost 5 years ago! Spanish Bay along the 17 Mile Drive.

James in Carmel, with Pebble Beach behind him.


I saw this in a restaurant, and figured all members of the Parker family were represented here. Moxie for Dave and the Red Sox for everyone else. :) James agreed!

Monterey is gorgeous!!

We went black light mini golfing.

We went to Dennis the Menace Park, which was super fun! We got to be little kids again! :) And since we went at night, there was no one there!
James on a climbing wall at the park.

Now that we've had our relaxing vacation, we're ready for the crazy (in a good way, of course!) family vacation next month! :)

Truly a Parker

Making great strides in the speech department:

Homemade Brownies and Pitas

For those of you who asked for my brownie and/or pita recipes, I figured this was the easiest way to get it to all of you. If you know anything about me, I have this strange need to alter just about every recipe I try. Anyway, I'll post the original recipes, then give you my alterations.

I got the brownie recipe from AllRecipes. Here is the original recipe:

• 1 cup butter, melted
• 3 cups white sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x13 baking dish.
2. Combine the melted butter, sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each, until thoroughly blended.
3. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Gradually stir the flour mixture into the chocolate mixture until blended. Stir in the chocolate morsels. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared baking dish.
4. Bake in preheated oven until an inserted toothpick comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Remove, and cool pan on wire rack before cutting.

**My alterations: Instead of using 3 cups white sugar, I used 2 cups white sugar and 1 cup brown sugar. Also, instead of using 1 cup cocoa powder, I used about 1/3 cup cocoa powder and 2/3 cup dark cocoa powder.


And here's the pita recipe:

1 cup warm water (110-115 degrees)
1 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons dry yeast

1. In a large bowl, combine first 4 ingredients. Add 1 cup of the flour, along with the yeast, and stir to mix. Add remaining flour and knead to make a soft dough. (Add additional flour if necessary during kneading.)

Alternately, if you have a bread machine, you can put the ingredients in the pan in the order listed and use the dough cycle. Skip to step 3 if using your bread machine! :)

2. Put your dough into a bowl, lightly oil the top, and cover. Set in a warm place to rise, until almost double (about an hour). I like to turn my oven on for a minute or two, then turn it off, and let the dough rise in there, since our house is cool.

3. Punch dough down and turn onto a lightly floured surface. Using a sharp knife, cut dough into 8 equal pieces. Form each piece into a ball. On a lightly floured surface, roll each ball into a 6- or 7-inch circle.

4. As you roll the rounds, set them aside on a lightly floured countertop or table, and cover loosely with a towel. Let rise for about 25-35 minutes, until slightly puffy. (The rounds will still be thin though! :D)

5. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Place 2 rounds, side-by-side, onto a wire rack, such as is used for cooling things. Place rack in the middle of the oven. Bake for 4-5 minutes, until puffy and just slightly browned. (If bread is too browned, it will be dry and not pliable.)

6. Remove rack from oven and immediately wrap/layer pita breads in a damp towel, to soften. Continue baking the remaining breads, layering them between damp towels as soon as they're baked. Allow breads to completely cool.

7. Cut pita breads in half, or split the top edge, and fill as desired. :)

8. Store pitas in a plastic zipper bag in the fridge for a few days, or place in the freezer for longer storage. To re-warm pitas, wrap them in a damp towel and then wrap in foil. Place in a warm (200-250 degree) oven for about 20 minutes.

**My alterations: Instead of 3 cups all-purpose flour, I used 2 cups all-purpose and 1 cup whole wheat flour. It's not as healthy as whole wheat pitas, but definitely a little better than using all processed flour. :) If you're looking for a whole wheat pita recipe, there's one here. I haven't tried it, so I don't know how it is, but it's from the same site as the recipe I posted above, so it's probably pretty good.

The Many Faces of Hannah Grace

As most of you probably already know, Hannah is a huge ham. For those of you who didn't know that about her, let me show you. Keep in mind that all of these pictures were taken within the span of about a minute or less.

This one's just plain scary:

Hannah loves to dance...as long as no one's around...except Daddy and Mommy.



Hannah and Linnea absolutely LOVE each other! It's so neat to watch them play and interact with one another. Linnea thinks Hannah is quite funny and entertaining. :) Hannah thinks the same about Linnea.

Beautiful Creation

Saturday we had the privilege of going to the Poppy Preserve in Lancaster. The park covers almost 1,800 acres and the state doesn't water or stimulate the flowers, so everything is natural. It was absolutely gorgeous and we marveled at God's AMAZING creation!! Uncle Aaron, Aunt Kimmy, and Linnea came with us, and we borrowed a van so that we could all ride together. It was a great day! Here are (more than) a few pictures:





Ok, I'm tired of trying to walk through all these flowers. Can you please pick me up now?




And now, the pictures everyone's been looking and waiting for:

Is Hannah already trying to blame her baby cousin for things? It looks like she's saying, "She did it!" :)

Kisses...
...and hugs! They love each other!

The girls seemed to enjoy sitting next to each other in the van. They held hands and shared toys - it was precious!!!

Hannahisms

Hannah has a couple of fetishes/habits. These include, but are not limited to:

• Closing anything that is open (cabinets, doors, drawers, the fridge when we're trying to get something out. James said we should get her a Papelbon jersey, since she's our "closer" - haha... yeah, it's Parker humor.)
• *Trying* to play with fruit (when she sees oranges or grapefruits, she yells, "Ball" and tries to get it, so she can throw it around the house). I say "trying" because we don't let her.
  
• Brushing her teeth
• Purses
• Shoes (and the sound they make on hard floors)
  
• Plants (we took her to the zoo, and she was more interested in touching all the plants than looking at the animals. Same on our walks - she loves to touch all the plants.)
• Other kids (she LOVED the time she spent with her cousins at Easter, and I can't wait for her to get to play with her Pichura cousins!)
• Having clean hands (if there is even the smallest piece of fuzz on her hands, she comes up to me, whining to get it off.)
• Knocking on doors (I've had to stop her from knocking on our neighbor's door)
• Reading books aloud (and upside down)
• Being outside (I've learned to be careful about using the word "walk" around our house. When she hears it, her face lights up, and she runs to get her shoes. This word is now only to be used when we're actually going to go for a walk.)
• The blanket from Papa and Grandma
• Her stuffed mouse, followed by any stuffed animal
• Mirrors
  

And just to even things out a big, here are some things she loathes:

• The vacuum cleaner
• Getting water in her face (you should have seen her reaction when we put all four of the Fujita grandkids in the bathtub and one of the boys thought it would be fun to dump a cup of water over Hannah's head. Yeah. Let's just say I've never seen her so anxious to get out of the tub.)
• That's pretty much it. Can't think of anything else. This girl is a pretty happy girl.
  

Here's a video we took of Hannah, which includes a couple of her fetishes.


Since most of you probably don't speak Hannahese, here's a translation:
"Knock, knock. Something even Mommy can't understand. Door. Something Mommy can't understand."

Then comes the stomping of the foot. These shoes are WAY to big for her, but she found them (or, one of the them) and put it on herself (on the wrong foot, of course) and proceeded to walk around, stomping on the hard floors, because she likes the sound. I can't blame her, because I remember liking the sound of my shoes clicking on the ground when I was a little girl, too. Am I the only one, or is that a "normal" little girl thing?

How Many Lines Do YOU Have?

Last Friday, Hannah added a neurologist to her list of medical specialists she has seen. For only being 18-months-old and healthy, this girl's seen a lot of specialists! She's been to an ophthalmologist, a pediatric ophthalmologist, a geneticist, and now a neurologist. As I mentioned in a previous post, she was referred to the neurologist since her soft spot hasn't closed yet. The neurologist didn't seem too concerned, since Hannah appears to be a healthy little girl and is developing right on schedule. The doctor mentioned that sometimes a Vitamin D deficiency or thyroid problem could lead to the soft spot staying open, but as she watched Hannah walk play in the exam room during her appointment, she kept saying that she looked to be very healthy and didn't think these were factors. She ordered a blood test anyway, just to make sure. She also ordered an ultrasound of her soft spot to make sure there was no fluid in there. The neurologist really doesn't suspect that anything's wrong and told us that many babies' soft spots don't close until 2-years of age. Regardless, I'm thankful they're being proactive, as Kaiser isn't always known to do so.

One other thing she noticed were Hannah's hands. She only has one line/crease that goes all the way across her hands. Most people have two lines going across their hands, but neither line goes all the way across. She said having one line go all the way across is common among people with Down's Syndrome (which we know she doesn't have, by the way). She said it may be linked to the chromosomal translocation that she (and James) has, and was going to check with the geneticist. It's not anything to be concerned about, just interesting. Anyway, once she pointed this out, we were curious as to whether anyone else in the family had only one line going across their hands, so we called James on our way home from the doctor. Sure enough, on both of his hands, he only has one line going across. My parents, my sister, and I all have two lines on both hands. So now we're wondering - all you Parkers (including Pichura kids) need to check your hands and see how many lines you have! :) We checked Kim and she has two. So, how many do you have?My hand is on the left. You can see two overlapping lines going across my hand. James's hand on the right only has one line going all the way across.

Hello Toddler; Goodbye Clean House!

This is how I like my house to look. It's clean,
neat, organized, relaxing, and enjoyable:

This is how my house looks between the hours of 8:30 am
and 8:00 pm.It's messy, unorganized, and anything but relaxing:

This is why my house looks the way it does:

And I wouldn't want it any other way!


Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
Psalm 127:3

A Birthday and My Husband's Winnings!

On Friday, I turned another year older. I am officially a quarter of a century old. James and I had a fun day. Unfortunately, he had to work, but we were able to meet for lunch at Egg Plantation, where you get a free meal on your birthday. I enjoyed my usual #74 - an omelet filled with Jack cheese, bacon, avocado, green onions, and tomato (minus the tomato for me). It was delicious, and if you ever make omelets at home, I highly recommend using these ingredients! For dinner, we headed to Benihana, where I had a coupon for a free meal on my birthday. That, too, was excellent and a very special treat, since places like Benihana aren't really in our food budget. :) It's always a fun experience to eat there, as they prepare your meal right in front of you. And James and I learned some very, um, interesting things as we had dinner, as there were five other ladies at our table, all of whom were either lawyers or currently in law school.

We were blessed to have one of the elders from church babysit Hannah while we were at dinner. His wife was sick, so it was just him and Hannah. Hannah likes just about everyone she meets (almost...), but there are some people with whom she has a natural attachment. This man is one of those people. There have been a couple times she has seen him at church (she didn't really know him very well at the time), where she walked right up to him and put her arms up for him to pick her up. :) From what we heard, they had a lot of fun, and we are so thankful for his servant's heart in giving up a Friday night to come play with our little girl!

Let me just say that my husband cracks me up. I had let him know all week that I could get the wrapping paper for him to wrap my presents (I knew he had gotten me presents, because he had been asking me to update my Amazon wish list and make sure everything was properly prioritized :) and I was there when he ordered it and when the package came). Anyway, he never asked for the wrapping paper, but still managed to "wrap" my present. If I tried to explain it to you, you might not believe me, so I'll let you see for yourself:

And what was inside, er, underneath the wrapping paper:Ok, so everyone knows that it's taboo to buy this sort of thing for your wife on her birthday, or any holiday for that matter. Well, I guess I'm not like most women, because these types of gifts absolutely THRILL me!! Seriously, I'm not joking! I've been wanting a cast iron skillet, and I can't wait to use it!!!

Now for the second part of the title: My Husband's Winnings. Last night, some friends of ours hosted a Tripoley tournament. There were 24 people in the tournament, and the buy-in for the tournament was a $5 gift card. Well, my amazing, card-playing husband ended up getting first place and got to take home 12 of those gift cards!! That was very exciting, and now we have some date "money" for a while! :) I think some sort of tournament of this nature might be necessary for the Parker family vacation this summer!

I'm so proud of him!!

And now for the part of the post that can be expected in just about any post I write: the Hannah part. She keeps us on our toes as to what she is going to do or say next. She now refers to her baby cousin, Linnea, as "Nay-nay" and it is absolutely adorable! Especially when she saw her at church this morning and ran up to her and said, "Nay-nay!!" unprompted. She's a polite little girl, saying "Teas" (please) when she wants something and "Tank you" (thank you) when you give her something. She is not polite on the phone when talking to Aunt Kristin, however. She definitely takes control of the conversation and doesn't let Aunt Kristin get a word in - at all! :) Hehe...

She has such an excitement for life that is contagious. Almost every morning is just as exciting as Christmas morning in her eyes. She gets so excited when she sees her toys in the morning and excitedly exclaims, "Oh wow! Wow!" It's as if she's never seen a toy in her life. Of course, her favorite toys are still not actually toys. For example:She's been carrying around this Benihana bag all weekend.

...and...The possibilities with a pack of diapers are endless: seat, platform on which to stand, a push toy, something on which to pile all your other toys, etc. There were a couple of times, I was about to go put it away, but then decided not to just yet, since she was having so much fun with it.

Here she is running to get the camera. That's one of her new favorite games: Let's see if I can get the camera from Mommy when she's trying to take my picture. Oh, and her awesome t-shirt is from her Pichura cousins - thank you!

Hannah just recently figured out how to crawl under the coffee table. You may think 18 months is a big late for that, but she actually avoided attempting this feat for a very good reason. Our coffee table is has wooden ledges that hang down, making it quite easy to bonk one's head. She knew that she had to army crawl in order to get from one side to another, and successfully made it without hitting her precious little head! And she's very proud of herself, too!

We apparently need to find her a little chair to sit on. In the meantime, however, she's found something that is the perfect height to sit on and read books.

Hannah's just a big ham. I don't know what the expression on her face is for, but you can see how she likes to eat her breakfast: pile it all on top of her cup. Why? I have no clue, you'll have to ask her.