Week #8: Happenings with the 'Fam'

SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED

It’s official!  We are moving back into our old neighborhood and ward!  The lease is signed, the deposit is sealed, and the utilities will be delivered to our name.  (Sterling was so sneaky and called the power company [at 1:00 am our time!] to get the utilities put in our name so I didn’t have to it!)  We are taking our friends’ old place and this is the biggest blessing ever.  I mean, can you imagine trying to find an apartment while living half-way across the world, dealing with the time difference and such?  That would have been so, so, so lame…

CORA UPDATE

Cora can now sit up by herself.  She’s been working on it, and it is still a bit wobbly, but I would say that Sunday was the first time it was “legit.”  We were so proud!  It may have even gotten a few tears from her adoring parents.  (Or maybe we are just super sensitive, dramatic people…)  After a long day of trying to soothe her itchy skin and keep her somewhat comfortable, it was the most beautiful reward to see her developing and happy.  She seemed pretty pleased with herself, too! 

Cora sitting up and loving it!

Her other new thing is turning the pages of books.  I realize that she doesn’t understand the words we read to her, or even really care about the pictures at this point, but she knows what you do with a book and that’s a start! 

I bought rice cereal and we are going to give it a go later this week.  The first time our friends gave cereal to their little girl, they just stripped her down and put her in the Bumbo.  If Cora’s legs don’t get stuck in the Bumbo, that’s our plan, too.  Look for a video next post!

Our friend, Katie Felkins, gave Cora this cute onesie.  It has an ice cream cone and a doughnut playing in a "sprinkler".  

Our friend, Katie Felkins, gave Cora this cute onesie.  It has an ice cream cone and a doughnut running through a “sprinkler”.  Get it?  So clever. 

When I went to the Health Center to get Cora’s vaccinations, the nurse saw Cora’s horrible eczema and suggested that I eliminate dairy in my diet, to see if her skin problems are sensitivity to milk products.  Now, I am typically very skeptical of food allergies.  In my unsolicited opinion, kids these days have way too many allergies and intolerances—because we take things out of their diets.  (I’ll get of my soapbox now before I get carried away…)  But, it makes me sad to see Cora scratch and bleed all over because of her rash.  So, I am going off of dairy for a few weeks just to see if it will make a difference. 

This is a big deal for me.  I don’t know if there is any other thing or person (besides Sterling) that would be a strong enough motivation to keep me away from dairy this Christmas season.  Already, I’ve had to turn down carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, brownies, milk in my cereal, chocolate candy from the gingerbread house, and Parmesan cheese on my pasta.  If Cora ever doubts that I love her, this is proof J 

As difficult as this is going to be, it may be a good thing for eating more healthy, too.  Without cakes and chocolate and ice cream, I am hoping to get rid of those few baby pounds still hanging around!

HOUSE OF SUGAR

Each week Sterling and I do date night.  This last week it was my turn to plan something.  I asked Sterling if there was anything he really wanted to do and he said, “Something Christmas-y.”  I had been wanting to make a gingerbread house, so I capitalized on the opportunity and the idea for date night was born. 

At the store, I was having the hardest time finding molasses.  Apparently, it is with the Nutella and peanut butter and not the baking stuff.  When I finally found some, I was in such a hurry that I totally forgot it on the self check-out thing.  I got home and just had the receipt.  No molasses.  And you know where the grocery store was?  Dickson.  I have such bad luck with that place!

Rolling out the gingerbread dough with a hairspray bottle

Now, let me remind you that we didn’t have any measuring cups—and everything was in grams.  Sounds like a recipe for success, huh?  We used an old sour cream tub as our standard “cup” and eye-balled whatever conversions we could find online.  For a rolling pin, we used my hairspray bottle.  It was the only tallish, round thing we could find. 

Trying to convert grams to cups.  Obviously, I'm not that good at math...

Things took longer than expected, so we assembled it Saturday and then decorated it on Sunday and Monday.  We could still add a few things, but here it is as of now.

 

Our gingerbread house.  You can see that the roof is a bit slanted.  Whoops!  We learned a lot about making gingerbread houses this time around :) Watch out Christmas 2013!

Despite the warm weather, Sterling and I curled up last week to watch “A Christmas Story” and have Tim-Tam slams.  (This was before the dairy fast, mind you.) Sterling had seen it a long time ago, but didn’t really remember anything from it.  What??!  So, we had to watch it, right?  I am pleased to say that he loved it and I see it becoming a part of the annual Larsen Family Christmas Festivities.  (We download the movie from iTunes, but our internet is so slow that we actually had to watch it over the course of 3 days.  It just adds to the charm, right?)

 

MOVEMBER

Movember has come to an end.  For the last day, Sterling shaved his beard into quite the mustache.  He just wore it for one day, in case you were wondering and then came home and promptly shaved it off.  The things we do to raise awareness of men’s health!

Before

Mid-shave #1

Mid-shave #2

                                        After the shave. (Just in case anyone is wondering, this was just a 1-day thing.                                     He's back to the "non-creepy mustache look", currently.)

On that note, let us leave you with a hearty “Merry Christmas!” We miss you all and would like to remind you that Skype is free :)  If you don't track us down, we'll track you down when you least expect it.   Mustache and all!