Then and Now

We brought Ellie home from the hospital on April 27th in her sweet little gown:


I took these pictures yesterday - what a difference 5 months makes!

Le Creuset, Ooh La La!

Pete got me this lovely dutch oven for our 6th anniversary back in June. The sixth anniversary is Iron - we just started doing the traditional gifts last year; he got me a wooden vase with a pretty gerber daisy in it for our fifth anniversary. I have no idea what I got him. This year I gave him a T-shirt with the Tasty Table on it ('cause iron's an element, get it? I know, it was a bit of a stretch, but he loves the shirt so all is well).

June doesn't exactly scream 'dutch oven weather' so I've just now been using it. So far so good! I made cobbler with apples we picked at the orchard last weekend.

And Sunday I made the Italian Beef Stew from the Jan/Feb 2011 issue of Cooking Light. It was delish! My first time to let something simmer for 1hr, 45 min that wasn't in a Crock Pot.

pic from Cooking Light

In other news, Ellie celebrated the last day of summer by wearing her favorite pooch onesie and frilly skirt,

her daddy's birthday UK trousers finally arrived in the mail,

and on Saturday she attended her THIRD wedding!

Every Monday Morning

We take Ellie's weekly photo!! Only one of them 'makes the cut' for our collection, but I thought you might like to see just how hard is is to narrow down the choices.

And then there's the fun to be had when daddy comes upstairs afterwards.

Here she is looking like her Aunt Audrey.

and her cousin Ben!

Finally caught it on video!

Update: video should work now - Thanks, Chelsea, for the note!!

Ellie's been laughing for about a month, but every time we tried to capture it on video she would see the camera and stop! But today I discovered something that made her laugh EVERY TIME.

For Aunt Jenni and Uncle Pete

Saturday morning, we put Ellie in her new UK outfit from her Aunt Jenni and Uncle Pete. She would be in bed well before the UK/UofL game, but we thought the folks at Starbucks would get a kick out of her custom-made tutu when we went to grab morning coffee treats.

Alas, she cheesed all over the blue onesie before we could make it out the door. So she wore this outfit instead :)

If only having our baby decked out in cute UK gear could have had some sort of positive impact on our team's performance.

Neighbors of the Year you say.....

Pete has been out of town on business. He left Wednesday morning and got home this morning.

Murphy somehow knew he was out of town, and applied her law ALL OVER THE PLACE. should it be his law? I guess I assume her because of Murphy Brown. I digress....

Pete was out of town. I was at home with baby girl and the two dogs. This has happened before. No biggie. Until the dogs decide to engage in Mortal Combat in the middle of our house. I won't go into the whole story, but Fiona attacked Hannah and I was not able to get them to stop fighting. I tried throwing water on them but it did not work. So then I called Pete. Imagine how happy he was to pick up the phone and hear a sobbing wife, a screaming baby, and two dogs trying to kill each other. Pete, ever the smart one, told me to grab a dining room chair and break them up with it, lion tamer-style. It worked! I got them apart, backed Hannah into Pete's office and closed the door, and escorted Fiona to her crate in the basement.

First I had to calm baby girl and then I could attend to the disaster in the hallway, and eventually see if the dogs needed to go to the vet. Enter Josh and Bari. They live across the street and helped me in numerous ways on Wednesday. I dropped Ellie off with Bari and baby Caitlyn so I could sop up all the water that was quickly being absorbed by and ruining our hardwood floors. Then I opened up the door to the office to give Hannah a quick look over. She was limping pretty badly so I took her to the vet (after I dropped off some milk and a diaper at Bari's since it was going to be more than 5 minutes before I got Ellie).

Josh headed right home from work and to our house to look at Fiona to see if she also needed medical attention while I was at the vet with Hannah . Hannah's cuts on her eye and ear weren't the bad part, it was a puncture-wound she had in her arm that caused worry. It could get infected so the vet gave her a shot of antibiotic, and prescribed pain meds and antibiotics to take at home.

Fiona wasn't the most compliant in letting Josh check out her wounds so once I got home from the vet and put Hannah in the backyard, Josh came back and we looked at Fi's wounds together and decided she didn't need an ER visit (since it was now way past 5pm) and would do fine to visit our vet in the morning. I gave her one of each of Hannah's antibiotic and pain pills just in case (as suggested by our vet).

Meanwhile, Pete called to say he had cancelled his hotel for the night and was headed home. I assured him we now had it under control but he would not be swayed. (He got home well after Ellie was asleep for the night but I think he wanted to assess the damage for himself and together we discussed how we would deal with two dogs and a daughter who would no longer be allowed to interact. He headed out again Thursday morning. It's been an interesting few days to say the least.)

I walked back to Josh's house with him to get Ellie - she was on a play mat with Caitlyn, rolling around and laughing, having totally forgotten the disaster she had seen earlier.

So THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! It is so nice to have friends you can call in a pinch and not hesitate for a second to drop off our child with no instructions whatsoever.

Here is what was left after I went all Florence Nightingale on Fiona Thursday morning. Her ears are pretty banged up, but after I got all of the blood cleaned off I didn't think she needed to go to the vet. Pete and I are currently sitting in the back yard with both dogs on leashes (ellie is napping). This is the closest they have been to each other since Wednesday afternoon. So far so good.

Crawford-tested.

The ever-fabulous Julie liked one of my foodie pins on Pinterest and asked if it had been Crawford-tested. Julie has actually made some of the things she has pinned, so I thought I should follow her lead and make a pinned item.

So earlier this week I bought the ingredients to make Salted Caramel Chocolate Pretzel Bark, and when Josh and Bari were Neighbors of the Year yesterday, I had a really good reason to make it today. I need good reasons to make food so that I can give it away. Otherwise, since I no longer have coworkers on whom to hoist my baked goods, I eat it myself.

(pinterest picture)

It seemed simple enough. Melt butter and brown sugar until it caramelizes, pour over pretzels, bake for a bit, then cover with melted chocolate and salt.

I give it a solid.................................................

meh.

Clearly it didn't turn out as I expected or Josh and Bari would be enjoying the bark rather than reading about it. Josh being an avid sweets-eater will no doubt want to taste it anyway so perhaps I will have an update tomorrow.

I think maybe I burned the caramel part. I've made caramel before, but today the butter and sugar never seemed to combine, it had been simmering for way longer than the suggested six minutes, so I decided to pour it over the pretzels anyway.

I didn't have enough caramel - or I used too big of a pan - who knows. The recipe did not specify pan size, it simply said baking sheet.

It doesn't taste bad, it just has a bit of burned flavor to it. And I'm bummed!! I really wanted it to taste good! I loved salted caramel stuff and usually do really well following recipes - guess I just need specificity for success.

Here's a sneak peek of another Pinterest item I've decided to try - any guesses!?!?!

our own september 11th

We miss you so much mom, can't believe it has been three years.

Ox Roast 2011

Hope your Labor Day Weekend was fun! We drove to Lawrence, Michigan for the annual Ox Roast and Homecoming.

Pete's dad grew up in Lawrence and Pete's grandma and aunt and uncle and cousin still live there, along with about 50 other 2nd cousins or whatever relatives of your great-aunts are. In other words, we went to the ORIGIN OF THE RED HAIR!! It was like visiting the Weasleys - every picture on every wall at Great Aunt Ruth Reinertson's house featured someone with red hair. On Monday Pete and I walked by the Lawrence High School alumni association's booth at the fair and a man in his 80s took one look at Pete and said, "Are you Carl Crawford's son? I was good friends with your grandfather." It was so cool! He knew just as soon as he saw him that he was a Crawford.

We arrived Saturday afternoon after driving up from Indianapolis. We stayed in Paw-Paw (pop. 3300) because Lawrence (pop. 1000, total area 1.8 sq miles) doesn't have any hotels. We spent some time with Pete's grandma and introduced her to Ellie - her first great-grandchild! Carl and Estelle arrived Saturday evening and we all watched Pete run the Ox Roast 5K Sunday morning before heading over to cousin Danielle's house for dinner. Audrey and Andrew had also arrived by Sunday afternoon and we had a great time with them causing all sorts of shenanigans in the hotel Sunday night :)

Monday we went to the parade and fair before heading over to Aunt Ruth Reinertson's house for the reunion.

this is the ENTIRE band! Carl said when he was in high school he had to play all sports and be in the band so that they'd have enough players to make up teams :)


tractor train - I think there were six tractors being pulled by the front one


any time we talked about Ox Roast both Pete and Audrey brought up the elephant ears - as fried dough goes, they did not disappoint!

Here is Grandma Crawford with her side of the family - two children, three grandchildren, and one great-grandchild! It's quite different from visiting my grandma who has eleven great-grandchildren, but fun nonetheless!

It's September Already?!?!?!

Yipes! Time has seriously. got. to. slow. down. Our baby girl is 4 months old!!

We took Ellie to her well-check on Tuesday and she got two immunizations. I will take her back next week for two more. Here are her stats: (I don't know if the percentiles are for 4-month old females or 18 -week old females, I forgot to ask, but I suspect they are for 18 weeks.)

Height: 26" (93%)
Weight: 14 lbs, 6 oz (61%)
Head circumference: 41 cm (47%)

She's long! I am still putting her in some of her 0-3 month clothes while they fit. The doggie applique onesie is one of our favorites.

I finally broke down and bought her a hair bow - when she wears gender neutral clothes it really helps to i.d. her as a girl...I don't love the look, though, so I doubt she'll wear them too often. When she has hair I think they'll look cuter.

Here she is chilling with her daddy in his office:

In her fourth month Ellie has started to do several new things. She found her feet,

learned to roll back to front,



and let us know we needed to move her bedtime up again.



She also started carrying her own shopping bag.

Every day we are reminded how perfect she is and are so thankful that she's ours!!