The Tanner Family

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Easter

We've had a great Easter this year. Paul and I were both asked to speak at church during the Sacrament meeting, so that was a little stressful, but we did a good job and I'm very relieved now that it's done. In the end, speaking at church is always a good experience that teaches me more about the gospel. I'm more grateful than ever for the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Friday during playgroup at the park we had an Easter egg hunt for the kids.

On Saturday, we decorated some eggs. I started Andrew out coloring them with crayons, but that didn't work too well. He had lots of fun dropping the eggs into the cups of dye. My favorite egg coloring method this year was doing "tie-die" with rubber bands--Paul's idea.

Tonight for dinner we had a few friends over from church. It was a delicious, simple holiday meal. I made my first-ever ham, a pear-walnut-blue cheese salad with maple dressing, and some sauteed asparagus. Our friends Melody and Brent brought funeral potatoes and very rich, sweet, chocolaty brownies with chocolate frosting. I think it was the perfect number of dishes for a holiday--not so many that you over-eat just to have a taste of everything there is. Here are pictures of the group and a not-so great photo of the spread (we used our office desk as a buffet table):

Sunday, March 27, 2011

White Whole Wheat and other healthy cooking gems

I'm so excited about white whole wheat! As many of you out there know, I love a blog called Trainer Momma. She wrote this interesting post (http://www.trainermomma.com/2010/11/not-an-oxymoron-white-wheat-flour/) explaining that white whole wheat is not an oxymoron. I had no idea before what white whole wheat was! I found some King Arthur brand white whole wheat flour at my local grocery store here several weeks ago, and I've been using it in place of white flour in everything I bake. I love it! It's pretty much the same nutritionally as regular whole wheat flour, but it tastes a lot more like white flour. It makes my goal of eating more of my grains as whole grains just that much easier.

I've been trying to eat healthier lately, so I've also been using the trick of replacing oil or butter in baked goods with apple sauce. It makes cookies less rich, for sure, but still really yummy. I love this trick.

I also learned recently via a blogging buddy that you can substitute banana for eggs in baked goods like cookies. Who knew? The weekend before last we had our friend Varnali over, and she doesn't eat eggs. I made chocolate chip cookies with banana instead of eggs and I replaced half the butter with apple sauce, and they were fabulous. They tasted a little like banana, so if you don't like bananas this is not a good option for you, but if you don't mind it's great. Just substitute 1/2 banana per egg.

So, here are a couple of recipes that I've been loving lately:

Healthy Cookies (from Trainer Momma, http://www.trainermomma.com/2010/06/healthy-cookies/)

1/2 cup applesauce, unsweetened

1/2 cup honey

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

2 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

2 1/2 cup rolled oats

2 cups chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients together. Spoon onto cookie sheets sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.

Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

This batch made 53 cookies. That makes it 88 calories each.

I made these the other day for a snack to take to Andrew's play school class, but I only had one egg in house, so I used the banana trick and it worked like a charm.

Pizza Dough (from the "internet")

1 1/3 cups warm water

2 Tbs olive oil

1 Tbs honey

1 tsp salt

2 cups bread flour

2 cups white whole wheat flour

2 tsp yeast

Add ingredients to bread machine in the order listed. After rolled out, brush the dough with olive oil, add toppings, and bake at 450 degrees for 10-20 minutes. Makes two 14-inch pizzas.

Hartford

We went this weekend on our first mini-trip since moving here, which was to drive up to West Hartford to visit Paul's brother, Steve, and his family. We drove up Friday night and came back Saturday night, so it was just a short visit, but we had a great time. Steve and Jeanette have three great kids: Carson, Maleah, and Brooklyn. All the kids slept in one bedroom and Paul and I had an air mattress in the living room. I was a little nervous about Andrew sleeping in a room with other kids, and in a bed that's not his own, since he's been a very inflexible sleeper in the past and he's all about routine these days, but he did great. We arrived late on Friday and he had fallen asleep in the car but woke up when we arrived. Paul explained to him where he would be sleeping and where we would be sleeping. Then we just took him up to the bedroom where his cousins were already fast asleep, put him down in Carson's vacant bed with his stuffed mouse and his blanket, and he curled up immediately and went to sleep. He was so tired! He didn't even care that he didn't have his head on a pillow or that he was in the middle of the bed. Then about 7 am the next morning I heard all four of the children coming down the stairs into the living room together. Carson and Maleah where very sweetly helping Andrew down the stairs. Andrew didn't seem concerned at all that he woke up in a totally unknown place. He last saw his cousins around Christmas time, so he still remembered them.

Andrew had a ball playing with his cousins, and all their toys! I feel like I got a little break this weekend because Andrew was so entertained by the other kids that I didn't have to find ways to keep him occupied. I see what my mom means when she says that having two kids is actually easier in some ways than having one, because they entertain each other. I often find myself wishing that Andrew had an older sibling to play with him. Too bad you have to raise a baby and toddler in order to have an older sibling for your next kid. I know that when/if we have another kid, Andrew will be a great big brother. He has a sweet personality and he is really fascinated with babies these days.

We didn't take our camera with us, but here are some cell phone pics of Andrew and Paul at the children's museum in West Hartford.

Andrew digs for dinosaur footprints

Paul carries Andrew on his shoulders even in outer space

Sunday, March 20, 2011

A Jersey City Poem

A poem I composed about a week or so ago, about dog poop on the sidewalks here:

Sidewalks

After last night's heavy

rain

Only the largest turds

remain

We had some crazy heavy rain and wind over a week ago, and it seems that ever since then the weather has been pretty good. Thursday was up to 62 degrees and sunny, then Friday was up to 75! I took Andrew to our nearby park on Thursday and the playground was just crawling with kids. We saw the first appearance of the ice cream truck as well, though I resisted the temptation. Friday we went to a park in the next city over for our ward's playgroup, and had a great time there as well.

This past Wednesday and Thursday our landlord's handyman finally came and fixed various things in our apartment, including replacing the washer hookups in the bathroom. We've now ordered a washer/dryer! It is a little unit that is a washer and dryer combined into one machine. It doesn't require a higher voltage electrical outlet or a dryer exhaust vent, so it' perfect for our bathroom. We can't wait to NOT do laundry at the laundromat! It seriously takes up at least half a day for me to do the laundry at the laundromat 4 blocks away. Here are the steps: get Andrew and the stroller down the stairs, stroller Andrew (I don't trust him to walk holding my hand 'cause he always lets go of my hand and runs ahead) to wherever the car is parked up the block and around the corner, strap him into the car, drive the car to the curb in front of the house, lug the laundry down the stairs and into the car, drive the laundry to the laundromat, lug the laundry into the laundromat while keeping Andrew from running around the parking lot of the laundromat, load the laundry into the machines (I do two loads: one warm water and one cold water) while keeping an eye on Andrew running around the laundromat, let Andrew help me put the quarters into the machine which takes quite a while since he drops about every one before getting it into the slot, put Andrew back into the car and drive home, then drive Andrew out to the laundromat about 40 minutes later to switch the laundry to the dryers then drive home, then drive Andrew out about an hour later, or whenever I can due to Andrew's nap schedule, pick up the laundry, drive it to the front on our house, lug it up the stairs while Andrew waits in the car, then park the car, load Andrew into the stroller and wheel him home, then get Andrew and the stroller back up the stairs into our apartment. It's not like it's the worst living condition or anything, but it will be so much quicker, easier, cheaper, and more convenient to just take the clothes from the hamper in the bathroom, throw them in the machine in the bathroom, turn it on, and go about the other gazillion little things on my list. I can't wait!

Now we're just waiting for the electrician to come convert our electrical outlets from two prongs to three so we can move the last of our bookshelves into place and unpack it, as so I won't have an extension cord lying across my kitchen counter anymore. Yay!

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Settling In

We're getting more and more settled here in our new home in Jersey City. We still have a couple of bookshelves worth of stuff plus some more clothes to unpack, but it's looking more like home every day. Thanks to multiple trips to Home Depot and a big trip to IKEA last weekend, we may even overcome the storage issues that this apartment came with (such as NO closet in our bedroom). Why does it seem that every time we move we spend so much money at Home Depot and IKEA? Another reason we don't want to move again for at least 3 years.

Here is a sneak peak at a couple of areas of our apartment that we've actually completed.

Here, Andrew shows off our coat rack and shoe rack. On the left is our front door, on the right is the coat closet. This will allow us to use the closet for storage instead of coats.

We added these white shelves and baskets, since the bathroom vanity is small and doesn't have any drawers in it.

While I was working on the bathroom organization, Andrew found my stash of suitcase locks and keys, and had lots of fun putting the keys in the handle holes on the vanity doors. What a funny guy.

The 18 inches of snow that Jersey City received as soon as Paul arrived here is melted or removed, all except for some piles on some of the side streets. We keep being teased with the occasional warmer day (40s or 50s), but then it goes back down to the 20s. Last week I heard from a native here that it doesn't really start warming up until April.

Our church ward here is great. It's small, has lots of ethnic diversity, and it's the only English-speaking ward in the whole county! We are about a 17-minute walk from church, so we've walked there every week so far. There are lots of young families, so we fit right in. There is a weekly playgroup that rotates around to different people's homes on Fridays. Also, on Tuesdays there's a weekly "playschool" held at the church building. It is like a two-hour coop preschool with dancing/movement, a lesson, an art/craft, and snack. Here is Andrew wearing the three-cornered hat we made last week for the lesson on hats (he wanted to wear it during dinner):

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Big Update

I haven't posted for so long, here is a rundown of what's been going on with us for about the last month:

Shortly before Christmas, Paul got a job offer! It's for a design agency called HUGE in Brooklyn, NY.
Andrew and I flew to Rogers, AR to stay with Paul's sister, Lindsey, and her husband and baby while Paul finished up some things in Vancouver, WA and drove our car across the country. We're still there until February 6.
With the help of several missionaries, friends, family, and especially some last-minute save-the-day work on my parents' part, Paul converted our Vancouver condo from a one-bedroom to a two-bedroom and we found a new renter within a week of posting the ad!
We found an apartment to rent in Jersey City, NJ. It's about $300 below our budget, so we're super excited! It's two bedrooms, one bathroom, kitchen with a dishwasher (!), living room, and dining room.
Paul started his new job yesterday, and even made it in to work this morning despite 18 inches of snow. You gotta love public transportation!
Andrew had a hard time adjusting to sleeping in a pack-and-play again, and in a different house, here in Arkansas, but he finally slept through the night the last 3 nights in a row. Hallelujah.
Andrew has been talking more and more. He is also really into labeling everyone and every animal he sees in a book as a momma, a dada, or a baby. He loves playing with his 10-month-old cousin Jeffrey, here in Arkansas.