Crib recalls and tainted milk

Today, two news stories caught my attention. One was the big crib recall, and the other was how China executed two men in connection with the melamine tainted milk. First, I checked and double checked our crib to make sure it had not been recalled. Thankfully, it is supposedly safe. Then, I really started thinking about the endless safety issues that parents face.

I admit, I never really thought about the crib my baby sleeps in as a potentially dangerous place. A classmate of Mike's had a baby suffocate in a crib because of a space between the crib and the railing. (This separation is why many cribs are recalled). How can I feel safe putting my baby to bed? Even though it is deemed "safe" now, in six months someone's precious baby may die and the crib will be recalled.

Along the same lines, I found the story from China interesting. At first, I was really surprised. Execution? For a mistake that might have been out of their control? As I kept reading, I learned that a company put melamine in the milk on purpose to boost it's protein content. Six babies died, and countless others were made ill. I think that if indeed they did that on purpose, their execution is just.

So, what do we do about companies the keep producing fatal baby products like cribs? Is it an innocent accident? Or did they not do enough testing on their cribs to make sure they are safe? How can we know? I'm sure that they didn't purposely make bad cribs, but they might have rushed planning them. Are they accountable?

Needless to say, this makes me an even bigger worrier. I feel like I can't buy cribs, toys, formula, bottles or anything without doing my research. Even then, it's not guaranteed.

I am realizing that there are a million things that are out of my control. I can buy the BPA free bottles and toys, but I can't protect them from some other toxin yet to be discovered in the plastic. I can't worry about the things that are out of my control, even though I'm tempted too. I would go crazy. I can only make the best choice I can with the knowledge that is there. I can make my voice heard that I want safe, non-toxic products for my children and my family. And I can hope that cooperations will make that their top priority.

Happy Birthday to me!

This year, as a birthday present to myself, I ran my first half marathon. I trained for about six weeks with my friends, Fran and Sherrida. I don't think I could have done it by myself- running for 2+ hours gets boring with just music for company. We ran the Monumental Half-Marathon in Indianapolis, meeting up with a friend who moved from our ward last year.

Here we are, getting ready for the race. I had butterflies in my stomach!

And we're off. By that, I mean we walked to the start line. I was amazed at how many people were there- over 6,000. Here are the good little babies, patiently, or not so patiently, waiting.

Our husbands were such troopers. We had to get up at 4:15 am to drive there. Then they had to take care of tired, and maybe bored kids for two and half hours. Luckily, Bailey had a friend, Savannah, to keep her entertained. In this picture they are playing on a monument in the middle of Indianapolis which we ran around.

Here's us, after the race. I almost finished in my goal time, just two minutes over. Mike did get a picture of me as I crossed the finish line on his phone, but I couldn't figure out how to get in on the computer. Oh well.

A few miles before the end, the chip fell off the shoe. I carried it across the finish line, but it didn't read it. So, sadly, I don't have an officially chip time.

It felt good to set a goal, work towards it, and accomplish it. Now I am working to run another half marathon in May, with a much faster finish time.

Here's what everyone else is up to:

• Mike applied to 49 orthopedic surgery programs. So far, he has five interviews scheduled, and has had about 5 rejections. He's starting to get really nervous, since he thought he'd have more interviews by now. We are praying really hard and are hoping the interviews start rolling it. Only half of the people who have had five interviews have matched in the past. Not a good number...
• Avery is finally walking. She definitely is not as daring as her sister. She hates falling, and cries about the tiniest things.
• Bailey is getting so grown up. Her big thing right now is knock-knock jokes. All day long, everywhere we go, all the time. The first knock-knock joke I told was "orange you glad you're not a banana," and now all of her jokes are "something, aren't you glad you're not something else." They are usually somehow related, like the light post outside and the car sitting next to it. Bailey has told so many, and demanded so many, that even Avery knows how to say, "Who's there?"

Halloween 2009

This year we got all halloweened out. We went to a Halloween party, trunk or treat, trick or treating and boo and the zoo. Bailey also got to wear her costume to preschool. I finally put all the candy up (saving it for stockings) after Bailey decided that she didn't like any fruit or vegetable.

Bailey was a "good" witch for Halloween, and Avery was her black cat. She came up with that idea all by herself. They were a cute pair.

Can you guess what Mike and I were??

In case you can't tell, we were Bella and Edward, from "Twilight." I think we went a little overboard with the white make-up on Mike, but he was very glittery. I watched youtube videos on how Bella does her hair and make-up in the movie. I think it's funny that people are that obsessed with her.

Looking at our pictures, I realize that I didn't get any of just Bailey in her costume. We kept thinking we still had so many opportunities to get pictures, and then we never did. I tried to get her to put on her costume now so I could get pictures, but she wasn't interested. Oh well.

Here is a picture of our Halloween family:

Circle S Farms 2009

Still catching up...

I guess there's not a whole lot to say about Circle S Farms. This was our third and last year visiting there. We had a great time. Bailey decided that it was more fun to play with her friends than stay around boring old mom and dad.

Avery thought it was fun to make "hay angels."

Apple Orchard with Grandma

We had such a fun time at the orchard, we took Mike's mom, Windy, when she came out to visit us. There were only a few days left of apple picking, but we still made a haul. In fact, we still have a ton of apples. Any good apple recipes??

Bailey and Avery were apple picking pros. Avery could hardly see an apple and not pick it. She was in apple picking heaven.

Instead of a sand box, they had a corn box. I guess it's a good thing Avery doesn't like food when it comes to playing in a corn box...

We got a few cute shots of the girls in the miniature hay maze. They both loved this little "peek a boo" hole.

Afterwards, Windy made a delicious and giant apple pie with the girls. What could be better then an apple pie made with just picked apples?

Pumpkin FHE

A few weeks before Halloween, we had a pumpkin FHE. We read "The Pumpkin Experiment" from the Friend, ate pumpkin soup for dinner, and made pumpkin cookies for dessert.

We also had to carve our pumpkins on pumpkin night. Bailey was a little squeamish at first when it came to pulling out the pumpkin guts, but ended up having a great time.

We also tried to make roasted pumpkin seeds. The seasonings on them were great, but they never got crunchy. I had forgotten that at low temperatures, our oven needs at least twice as long. Oh well.

I think we have started a tradition. You can never have too much pumpkin in the fall.

Things I should have blogged...

Well, it's been too long since I've updated. Here are a few things I should have posted forever ago:

Our garden this year was okay. I'm not quite sure we got the $100 of produce that we spent, but it was still delicious. The best thing we grew was brandywine tomatoes. We had one plant, and the first harvest was a disaster. They never turn really red like other tomatoes, so we let them rot on the plant. Luckily we got a few others, and they were phenomenal. I highly recommend them. All was well until the end of the season when something decided ruin the rest of our tomatoes. Oh well.

Our zucchini and squash plants also met an early death- aphids. Gross.

Bailey got her ears pierced over Labor Day. She had been asking about it for months and months. When she saw a little baby at church with her ears pierced, she was convinced. When they showed her the selection of earrings, of course she picked the super plain gold balls. With a little persuasion, she picked the pink "princess" earrings. I was expecting her to cry after the first one, but I was not expecting her to scream bloody murder like she did. Mike and I had to hold her down for the second earring because she decided that she didn't want the second one. All is well now, and she is glad she did it.

Mike has had a great couple of months. He did radiology and anesthesiology, and was often done really early. On one of those days, we went to Cooper's Apple Cider Mill in Bucyrus.

The name was a little deceiving. They don't actually make apple cider. However, they do make over 50 different types of jams and butters. And they use a wood burning stove to do it. The tour probably wasn't worth the drive- it was only two rooms. It was still fun to see and try the wide variety of jellies, including dandelion.

We also went to Lawrence apple orchards in Marion. There we picked 23 lbs. of apples for $8. Avery had the time of her life. Bailey got bored after a while, but Avery could have picked them forever. It was adorable. We picked red delicious, idared, and melrose apples. We weren't sure if we could use that many apples, but we did, quickly. We made apple crisp, apple cookies, caramel apples and ate a lot of apples.

We love fall in Ohio.

Bailey Ballerina

At the rec center close to our house, Bailey is taking preschool ballet. She had her first class this week, and it was pretty much the cutest thing I have even seen. Her teacher, Miss Brittney, asked the parents to leave so she could see how they would do. I can understand why she did it, but I was sad not see my little ballerina dance for the first time. Mike and I peeked in when they were stretching. It was adorable. The girls, including Bailey, were mostly looking around at their classmates instead of actually stretching. And when she did stretch, it was too cute. She is growing up too fast. What a beautiful ballerina!

Avery is one!!

At long last, here are pictures of Avery's first birthday. I can't believe that she is one already!

Bailey, being a sweetheart, was sad that Avery didn't get as many presents and she did for her birthday. However, as you can see, Avery got a big present instead.

Once she opened the baby, which also happened to be the first present, she didn't want to open any of the others. She only wanted that baby! Hopefully, now that Avery has her own "special" baby, she will leave Bailey's alone.

Like I said, she loves that baby!

I amazed even myself by making and decorating this cake. It came with great directions. (:

Notice the baby again.