Canadian Living

Nathan has been really sick all weekend so he hasn't been able to help me with Allison. It's a struggle for me because I need the help on weekends. I obviously don't want Allison to get sick so I've been keeping Allison as far from Nathan as I can, while also following Nathan around with disinfectant. I'm so scared for Allison to get her first cold, especially since she hasn't had her first round of the RSV vaccination.

Allison has been chewing her hands until they turn bright pink and often fits all five fingers in her mouth and then proceeds to gag and choke so I decided to use what was left on our last Toys R Us giftcard and buy her a Sophie the Giraffe. For what it is, I could have just bought her a dog chew toy, but I thought that might get some weird looks. So instead I picked up a French Giraffe. She hasn't quite figured out that she can chew it yet but she likes to hold her and look at her spots.

For the last few years, Nathan's mom has been sending me copies of Canadian Living Magazine to wherever I happen to be living at the time. The magazine is perfect as it has house tips, recipes, craft tutorials, emotional support, testimonies, work out ideas, and everything in between. I love the recipes because they're "Test Kitchen Approved" and they always turn out exactly like they appear in the magazine. Before each sit down with our gospel community group at Danny and Katie's house, everyone in the group brings a small snack for everyone to enjoy. I had a few extra apples that I needed to use up but at the last minute realized I didn't have a pie plate. Thankfully I had the Thanksgiving edition of CL and found this great recipe for apple strudel.

I used to hate recipes that had many steps laid out over several hours (or days) but now that I have Allison it works out perfectly to make the dough and let it sit for 12 hours. Then create the apple mixture and let it sit for an hour. It's perfect because it allows me to do a little at a time but still have a great end product. I think I used a few too many apples but it still turned out great!