Olympic National Park Slideshow

We're going home for a visit soon!

Nora's New Skills

Last week Nora started cruising and waving. She has also been crawling (as opposed to scooting) a lot more since she started cruising. And she is trying to climb up onto various things. She can nearly do a pull up on the back of our dining room chairs. If she succeeds, she'll pull the chair on top of herself.

She practises waving every chance she gets. Any time someone leaves a room, there's Nora, waving away. She also experiments with different waves: sometimes she'll wave with her whole arm, sometimes she does a little wrist flick.

Just today Nora started clapping. She's been trying to for a few days, but today she's finally put her hands together. She is so very right handed. When she claps she holds her left hand still and brings her right hand to it.

Yesterday we were visiting friends and Nora was fascinated with their cat. She petted it (with some help) and kept trying to grab its ear. She was also trying to say "cat." She's been trying to say "Hannah," too.

Vegan Cupcakes, Food Allergies, and Bread

I've been trying to figure out where Nora's mucousy stools are coming from ever since she had a little blood in one a little over a week ago. I've been consistently dairy & soy free ever since Thanksgiving, so it's something else. My top suspects were onions, tomatoes, and citrus or citric acid. Mom suggested eggs, which I dismissed for who knows what reason, but now I'm thinking it may be eggs after all.

This afternoon I was starving & decided I wanted cupcakes. But cupcakes with no eggs? Oh yes, vegans to the rescue with this recipe! I subbed almond milk for the soy milk. And I didn't use any coconut extract, just a little extra vanilla.


But silly me. I forgot that my favorite cupcake recipe is egg free. And it's made with yummy stuff like whole wheat flour and ground flaxseeds and maple syrup. So I needlessly overdosed on the fluffy white cupcakes.

I'm almost out of yeast, but I don't want to buy more because I have 2 pounds on the way from my food coop. It won't be here for another week, though, and all the bread in the freezer has eggs. It's the challah recipe from Whole Foods for the Whole Family. I made pitas the other day with some old bread machine yeast and they turned out great, but I don't think the yeast has the rising power to make a real loaf of bread. Maybe I'll just make more pitas.