Empty Inkwell

First things first: slacker-of-the-year award goes to me. And the sad­dest part: the year just started. (Happy New Year, by the way.) I’ve taken pro­cras­ti­na­tion to a new level; I can’t believe it has been almost a month since I’ve typed a sin­gle word. That’s not to say I haven’t thought about it. I’ve had a ton of things I’ve intended to write—I even have pic­tures to accom­pany my bril­liant (or not so bril­liant) ideas. But for one rea­son or another (all of which are not good excuses), they never made their appear­ance on Empty Inkwell.

I’m still hang­ing on to a few ideas I had that aren’t nec­es­sar­ily time-sensitive, but here are bits and pieces of the last month of my life, in fast for­ward. Enjoy.

Cora’s first birth­day party was a huge suc­cess! She looked adorable, and (I think) every­one had a good time. I’m wait­ing to get pic­tures back from the party, so I won’t say any more than that for now, but there’s more to come.

I GOT A NEW CAMERA!! After hours and hours of thought, research, decid­ing and then chang­ing my mind, and then decid­ing again, I decided to go with one of the newest, most advanced point and shoot dig­i­tal cam­eras out there (right now) over an SLR dig­i­tal cam­era. Matt and I bought a Nikon Coolpix S8100. I couldn’t be hap­pier with my deci­sion. It does every­thing I was hop­ing for in my new camera—including tak­ing clear pic­tures of my squirmy lit­tle girl (sub­ject tracking—it’s amazing).

I’ve talked about my mom’s kid­die kitchen drawer before and how I couldn’t wait to see Cora get into it… here she is rum­mag­ing through Grandma’s Tup­per­ware drawer in Wash­ing­ton (on her actual first birth­day, might I add—such a big girl now).

Cora on Christ­mas morn­ing. Tech­ni­cally this is Cora’s sec­ond Christ­mas, but Christ­mas as a three-day old baby doesn’t really count… this was her first time attempt­ing to open presents (and then pro­ceed­ing to play with the wrap­ping paper).

Cousins. Sim­ply sweet in so many ways.

Have I men­tioned that Cora LOVES phones—or any­thing shaped like a phone? She holds them up to her ear and says, “heyyo”. It’s adorable. Here’s a pic­ture of Cora and Matt—she is play­ing with a toy phone her cousin, Alaiyah, gave to her for Christmas.

One of my favorite things about the hol­i­day sea­son: Fudgy Oat­meal Bars. My mom has been mak­ing this recipe for as long as I can remem­ber, and every year around the hol­i­days, I request that she makes them. This year I helped her. It was fun, and they were deli­cious. Here’s the recipe, if you are inter­ested in try­ing it out.

Fudgy Oat­meal Bars
From the kitchen of: the best mom in the world
Makes about 70 bars

Oat­meal Mix­ture
2 c brown sugar
1 c but­ter
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 ½ c flour
1 tsp bak­ing soda
½ tsp salt
3 c oats

Fudge Mix­ture
1 pkg. (12 oz.) choco­late chips
1 can sweet­ened con­densed milk
2 tbsp but­ter
½ tsp salt
1 c chopped peanuts
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix brown sugar, 1 cup but­ter, eggs and 1 tsp vanilla extract in large bowl. Stir in flour, bak­ing soda and salt. Stir in oats. Reserve 1/3 of the oat­meal mix­ture. Press remain­ing mix­ture into pan (15 ½ x 10 ½ x 1).
Heat choco­late chips, sweet­ened con­densed milk and 2 tbsp but­ter in 2 qt. saucepan over low heat, stir­ring con­stantly until choco­late chips are melted. Remove from heat. Stir in chopped peanuts, vanilla extract and salt. Spread over oat­meal mix­ture in pan.
Drop reserved oat­meal mix­ture in rounded tea­spoon­fuls onto choco­late mix­ture.
Bake 25 to 30 min­utes, or until golden brown. While warm, cut into bars about 2x1 in.

Enjoy.

Cora took her first unaided steps on Christ­mas day! Such a great day for such a mem­o­rable event. Shock of the cen­tury: I don’t have a pic­ture! I was just too excited it didn’t even occur to me to grab my cam­era. Plus, I didn’t want to make her ner­vous. Cora is not a per­former; she would have quit had she known what I was intend­ing to do.

Cora’s first trip to an arcade… behind the wheel already. =)

Cora and her cousin, Han­nah. Match­ing out­fits, match­ing iPods (not theirs, of course).

A new sea­son of great TV shows has begun. If you haven’t seen Par­ent­hood—watch it. Tivo it. Catch it on Hulu. Do what­ever you need to do. But check it out. Best show on TV right now, hands down.

So I’ve heard so many sto­ries about ran­dom toys that kids grow attached to and tote around with them every­where. I think Cora has found one. A teether, of all things. She car­ries it around like a purse, with her arm bent so it doesn’t fall off. Too cute, too funny.

And that’s a wrap… my life isn’t totally cen­tered around my child or any­thing (wink).

Have a great day every­one.