Getting Her Cry Back

Last Friday morning Claire woke up on the wrong side of the bed - she was whiny, she was demanding, she was pitiful. She insisted on having something one way, and as soon as I leapt to obey her commands she then wanted the opposite of whatever she'd originally requested (requested being a euphemism here).
Well, she worked herself up into a fine lather. I couldn't even understand what she was saying half the time, but I could make out the word "Tissue! Tissue!"
Then we had the following conversation (ditto the euphemism comment):
Me: Do you want me to get you a tissue?
Claire: Crying noises
Me: Here you go...
Claire: Screaming noises, rejects tissue
Me: Do you want to get it yourself?
Claire: Crying noises
...and so on, and so on.
I then spent a few minutes trying to get a few words in between the louder spurts of crying, explaining that I can't understand her when she's crying, she'll have to calm down so I'll know what she wants. Eventually this works and she says that she wants to get the tissue herself. Why did she not just get the tissue then? I'll never know.
So I say (imagine me trying to hang onto my upbeat, soothing tone):
"Okay! You can get the tissue!"
Claire pulls a tissue out of the box and sadly says:
"But I need to get my cry back!"

Lemon Buns

I'm pretty much in love with King Arthur Flour. Not the flour itself, although it is good, but the website. I also drool over the catalog that I get in the mail. And the emails. Every now and then I just go through the recipes and print a few out, then try them over the next couple of weeks.
Just before Valentine's Day I got an email with a picture of Lemon Love Buns, which are just Lemon Buns made into heart shapes for Valentine's Day. I fortuitously had the lemon oil on hand since I'd planned to try a brioche recipe (still haven't), but you can use lemon zest as well.

The website often has step-by-step pictures of the mixing/shaping/baking process, which come in handy. These were so yummy and looked so good that I had to post it. (These are my actual handiwork, not a picture stolen from the website!)

In Which We Drive to Idaho and Look for a Bathroom

Anyone who knows me can tell you that I don't really like to put myself out there. For example, I wouldn't want to knock on a stranger's door and ask to use their bathroom. But somehow I found myself doing just that during the drive from Salt Lake to Rexburg.
Now, I have driven this road before, but it was many years ago and other, more capable people were actually in charge of things like driving and stopping for potty breaks. To make a long story short, we got caught in no man's land without a bathroom in sight.

I also learned that if there is no sign indicating the presence of a bathroom at an exit, then there really is no bathroom at the exit. We decided to get off anyway, thinking surely there must be a gas station somewhere, right? Someone lives here, somewhere, and those people need gasoline. No. No sign, no gas station. After almost ten miles of bumpy road we were beyond desperate. You're probably thinking 'What kind of idiot drives ten miles down a bumpy, virtually unpopulated road thinking that a bathroom will appear out of thin air?' That idiot would be me.
Thankfully, someone was home at the second house we tried, and was kind enough to let two idiotic tourists use her bathroom. She even apologized that it wasn't tidier. It could have been the most disgusting bathroom on the face of the planet, and I would have been happy to use it.

Baby Kate

I think Claire has the makings of a good babysitter. She definitely puts a lot of effort into it, but she does seem to think that a real baby is something like a baby doll, there to dress up however she'd like. When I told her that we needed to find baby toys, she came back with all of the baby things from the doll house: the high chair, cradle, car seat, and actual babies. I suppose I did say baby toys.

In Which I Travel to Utah with Madeleine

Okay, I've come to the realization that if I wait until I have time to write a thorough, pithy, and fascinating blog entry about my trip to Utah, it will never happen. I'm going to settle for seeing what I can type in the next five minutes (or less) before someone pounds on my door demanding attention.
So a week and a half ago Madeleine and I hopped a plane and headed for Utah. She had no school and we had two free tickets that were about to expire; that and the fact that she's never been there made it the perfect time for a trip. For most of our visit we stayed with Jeff's brother and sister-in-law, Matt and Marta, who were fantastic hosts. We also got to meet their super cute kids for the first time ever: Beau, who is five, and Cash and Pierce, who are two. Beau was particularly entertaining and had a lot to say, despite the fact that he kept telling us that he couldn't say anything because he was too shy. I think he needs to look the word up in a dictionary. One of the cutest things I've ever seen is Beau dressed for pre-school in his kilt (it was heritage day). Did I think to take a picture? Of course not, I stink at taking pictures.
The first day we were there we drove to Park City in our rented Jeep Patriot (I'd never buy one, my hands are still vibrating slightly). Since the Sundance Film Festival was going on I'd ordered tickets for the most interesting-sounding film that was being shown at a time that was convenient for us and wasn't already sold out. Not a lot to choose from. We decided to live on the wild side and went with the Spotlight Surprise documentary.
When I picked up the tickets at the box office I discovered that we'd be seeing "Exit Through the Gift Shop," a Banksy film about graffiti artists. It was quite good, so my gamble paid off.
Despite the fact that Madeleine moves at the speed of a sloth we had a great day.

 (Banksy explaining how the film came to be.)

I'm being summoned, so in my next installment I'll tell the exciting story of being in the middle of Idaho without a bathroom in sight. Stay tuned!

The Toad News Network

One of my favorite writers, Jasper Fforde, always refers to the Toad News Network in his books. You can also check out some funny Toad News stories online, including "Student's function to 'test education system' challenged."
The Toad's motto?
"Proudly Disseminating Sensationalised Rubbish for over a Century."

Carter's Photos

Carter loves to take photos - most of them are of random objects around the house, taken from interesting angles (note the lego photo) - but sometimes he gets a person in there. He also loves to hang out with Madeleine in her room, so one day they combined the two hobbies.