The Knoebel Kanoodles: February 2008

Does it get more fun than this?

Edie's learning to count. She's getting pretty good at it. This video shows Nate's incredible cinematography skills, as well as Edie in her early counting stages. I'll dialogue it for you in case you can't understand what she's saying:

Nate: You wanna count?
Edie: count
Nate: Can you say "one"?
Edie: see, see, ok
Nate: Ok, say "one"
Edie: "three"
Nate: "two"
Edie: "three"
Nate: "three"
Edie: "four"
Nate: "four"
Edie: "roar" (which is her way of saying 'five')

Jess got Edie these finger painting tools for Christmas. She loves them! We have a wall covered in original Edie artwork.

A BABY SHOWER

I just have to say that the ladies in the Lynnfield Ward are spectacular! On Saturday, my friends Liz and Emily threw Cat, another expecting mother, and me a baby shower! It was so fun to get together with all the ladies and eat chocolate and talk about child birth. What more could anyone want?

Mandy and Cat
(due 6 days apart)

This is Liz with her two girls, Abby and Samantha. The party was at their house. They made the most delicious chocolate desserts, as shown above, and also had the house decorated in cute pinks, browns, and whites.

Decadent chocolate heart-shaped brownies topped with peppermint whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and nuts... Need I say more?

Chowin' with the ladies

Some people even got things for Edie! This doll, from Pam, was to help Edie not feel left out. She takes it with her everywhere!

We had so much fun and I can't believe how nice everyone is out here. It's the next best thing to being with family.

Flan

One night, Edie and Nate made flan from scratch! It was the most delicious flan I've ever eaten. Here's the recipe if you're interested...or just ask us and we'll make it for you!

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup and 1/2 cup sugar
6 large eggs
1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
2 13 oz cans evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

PREPARATION:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. You will need 6 ramekins or other specialty flan cook ware and a large baking pan to put them in.

Pour 1 cup sugar in warm pan over medium heat. Constantly stir sugar until is browns and becomes caramel.

Quickly pour approximately 2-3 tablespoons of caramel in each ramekin, tilting it to swirl the caramel around the sides. Reheat caramel if it starts to harden.

In a mixer or with a whisk, blend the eggs together. Mix in the milks then slowly mix in the 1/2 cup of sugar, then the vanilla. Blend smooth after each ingredient is added.

Pour custard into caramel lined ramekins. Place ramekins in a large glass or ceramic baking dish and fill with about 1-2 inches of hot water. Bake for 45 minutes in the water bath and check with a knife just to the side of the center. If knife comes out clean, it's ready.

Remove and let cool. Let each ramekin cool in refrigerator for 1 hour. Invert each ramekin onto a small plate, the caramel sauce will flow over the custard.

(It was late, which explains the heavy lids)

Valentine's Day

We should've taken a video of Edie saying, "Happy Valentine's Day!" It's so cute.

I made her a pillow out of some leftover tricot and embroidered her name and a pink airplane on it. She was so excited about and still won't get in or out of the crib without it.

Edie and I made a candlelight dinner for Nate of swiss chicken, asparagus, and lemon rice. I put her hair in sponge rollers and put her in a very cute dress. It's ironic that sponge rollers make her hair straight instead of curly, but she looked very cute! I also finally got out of my pajamas for the first time in days to surprise Nate.

After dinner, Nate took us to Jordan's Furniture store to watch the water show. We also got some ice cream and looked at furniture. A truly romantic evening.

Edie can't get enough of the water show. Good thing it's free.

This is me on Valentine's night, 37 weeks along. Doctor says so far nothing is happening and I have a long road ahead of me.

LOTS OF LOVE!!

Project Blanket

This post is probably boring to most Kanoodle readers, but I promised Ana I would record each step of my first solo, real-life sewing project. I know some of you will think I am completely amazing (and I don't blame you), but I owe my incredible talents to my mom, who taught me how to use a sewing machine, and Ana, who taught me how to make these tricot blankets...oh, and Nate, who gave me my machine.

1. After cutting out the pieces of the front and sewing them together, I taped the tricot material to the floor, stretching it as tight as possible... on my hands and knees...with a basketball in my shirt...by myself. Whew!

2. Next, I cut the batting to match the quilt top and placed it on the tricot.

3. Then, I patiently safety-pinned the layers together, starting in the middle and working my way out to the edges.

4. Afterwards, I stitched in all the ditches, following Ana's orders to go very slowly. I was then able to remove the safety pins.

5. I trimmed the tricot around all the edges and folded and pinned them into place along the border of the blanket.

6. I sewed the border into place, leaving the corners open for my hand stitching.

7. I trimmed the corners and molded and pinned them into place, followed by a tense surgery by hand.

That's it. It's done. Allison can come now.

Yellow

Edie's learning her colors!

She's funny because whenever you ask her what color something is, she always answers with "yellow" first. But she can pick out different colors when you ask her.

It's been great to hear from some long lost friends, like Sarah B., Morgan, Hillary, Tanya, etc. Thanks for your comments!

In other news, Jeremy and Tracy had their baby (#2) Elyse. She's really cute!

Also, Carrie and Tyler have set the date for August 8th (8-8-08) in the Bountiful temple. Hopefully we can get together with all you Utahns/Idahoans then.