Holiday Fun

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas. It's always amazing to me that so much work goes into preparing for the holidays and then in the blink of an eye, it's all over. The S family definitely had a lot of fun this year.

Of course, J was the star and played to two of his sets of grandparents with pleasure. He was so excited by having them there that presents actually took a back seat. He was very excited by the first sight of a giant stuffed dog, whom he named Pretzel after deciding that his own name was not a suitable name for it. Actually I think he just wanted to eat a pretzel, but we ignored that and the name stuck. He also served up soup and roasted fruit for his guests in his new wooden oven. Other than that, J had very little interst in opening many of his presents. He "oohed" and "aahhed" as he ripped into some paper, but often put the gift down before he was finished and went back to read a book or make more soup. Here we are at 9:50 on Dec. 26 and there are still presents wrapped with his name under the tree. I'm okay with that. I'm happy that he wants to take his time. I am also sending out a message to anyone thinking about his birthday in Feb that we do not need any more presents. We still may be opening your Christmas gifts then!

J and Daddy cuddle with the new ball of fluff

I got to work on some different appetizers for the middle of the day. Crab cakes, which were out of this world, scallops wrapped in pancetta, garlicky spinach dip, and homemade hummus. I made the hummus for J, but he quickly rejected it in favor of the packaged roasted red pepper variety. Oh well.

Christmas dinner was delicious. We cooked a nearly 12 pound prime rib for everyone. B found a cooking method by his buddy Alton Brown on one of the new dvds he got. It said to cook it at 275 for 30 minutes and then increase the temp to 320 until the temp reached about 115. Then you put it in a 500 degree oven for 5 minutes and let it rest when you took it out. We were all skeptical of this approach, but it honestly worked beautifully. We served it with a red wine and thyme au jus, which was funny because B and I were "helping" each other using diferent recipes. oops. It all turned out fine. Roasted potatoes, tomatoes, beans, anda mixed green salad with pears, walnuts and gorgonzola rounded out the menu.

A big thank you thank you thank you to Ouiser for sharing her caramel pecan pie. She wasn't kidding when she said it was perfect. Yummy, yummy. There are still two small pieces left and I've beenn holding back from eating them for breakfast with ice cream on top. Seriously, abandon whatever pecan pie recipe you have at home and copy this one and make it right away. Smooth, sweet, but not too sweet and just plain comforting.

'm watching J as I type. He just found another present... a box of wooden fruit and a wooden knife. He's thrilled. Thanks, Nummi. You should see the determination on his face right now. oops, he's been distracted by the phone. Never mind.

We're off to Tucson this weekend through New Year's Day. J is very excited to meet his "Cousa Biddy". I'm glad I looked at my ticket info again. About a month ago they changed our return flight from 11 am to 7 pm (right at bedtime, that should be interesting!). What I didn't realize was they changed our departure flight from 9:50 to 7:30. We would have missed that one.




Happy New Year everyone!!

Holly Jolly

This past week was crazy, but a lot of fun. B and I finished the touch ups on our red room and we're really happy with the results. Luckily we only had to do two coats. I'm looking forward to finding pillows and a rug to go along with our new look.

Zoe wonders what happened to all the white

My birthday was on Thursday. Even though I only turned 32, I managed to receive a ton of "you're getting old" cards and wishes. I think that made me more determined to feel younger than I do. I got to share the day with friends and B and I went out for a great adult dinner at one of our favorite restaurants over the weekend.

We had two Christmas parties as well. One was hosted by a pair of dentists who just built a ginormous home. It was lovely inside and we really had a terrific time, but you know what felt really good? Coming home to our home. It was so great to feel that yeah, their house was brand new and fabulous, but that we just love ours. I guess it really is shaping up to being a home.

B and I hosted the second party-- a cookie exchange/toddler play/cocktails soiree. We had a lot to do to get ready like put up our tree, which was a little stressful because I am very picky about trees and ours didn't seem like it had opened up much. After a few days of relaxing in our family room, I'm happy to report that the branches have fallen a bit and it looks so pretty!

J puts the first ornament on the tree with extreme care

The party was lots of fun. It was great to see everyone and exchange so many cookies. I made pizzelles, which was my first attempt. I used to work with a lady who made the most perfect pizzelles ever. They were always the same golden color and had a perfect shape-- no edges missing or anything. I named mine "Not quite perfect pizzelles" because even though they tasted good, they would never have held up to G's back in PA.

My first cookie attempt of the weekend was a chai shortbread cookie made with butter, powdered sugar, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pepper and a couple of other things. They had a very pleasant flavor, but I kept burning the bottoms. This is the second time I've done that with cookies and I never burn anything. I guess I really need to bite the bullet and start using that convection button on my oven.

Santa was nice enough to stop by (no, that is not J, it's A), as was Miss Claus. Don't they look adorable? J had a great time as well, eating his weight in pepper and hummus. He also managed to sneak a few cookies off the table when nobody was looking.





Try these pomegranate martinis c/o Oprah if you have a get together or even if you don't. They are yummy and a little dangerous!
1.5 cups pom. juice
2 oz. citron vodka
1 oz. cointreau (maybe a little more)
splash of sparkling water (optional)
squeeze of fresh lemon juice

Shake with ice and serve! Sooo good.

Here's some very impressive news. We had our first sentence this weekend. It was..... (drum roll)

"Mommy get a pear. (pause) Now. (pause) Please."

We also played our first rhyming/memory game. I've been reading J "The Night Before Christmas". Our friend J gave us a board book with the original poem in it (no missing stanzas) and some really great Santa paintings as illustrations. I think I've read it about 10 times at the most. Yesterday J was holding the book and I was putting away laundry. I started reciting the story.. "Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a ___________" J filled in mouse. So I kept going. "The stockings were hung by the chimney with care in hopes that Saint Nicholas soon would be _______". J filled in there.
We did the whole story this way. He even filled in the word thistle. Of course it sounded liked "thisso", but who cares? I used to do this activity with kindergartners! I was blown away by this. I know it's all memory, but I was totally impressed by how much he remembered and how much he could say. It was pretty awesome. Little does he know he has just upped the reading anty.

Family starts arriving tomorrow for Christmas so we'll probably be out for awhile. I hope everybody has a great one, gets no coal in their stockings and is able to relax as much as possible. Oh and if you are traveling, be safe and get to the airport early. K, C and Z were taking their first family plane trip, missed their first flight because of heavy security and got rerouted to Pittsburgh by way of El Paso, Albuquerque, and Chicago with a bunch of layovers. Definitely not wanting that to happen to anyone else. Ho! Ho! Ho!

Come and Get Me, Cop-per

Lock me up and throw away the key. This mama got her first speeding ticket today. On her own street. With her kid in the car. Watch out Britney, I'm right behind you!

Seriously, I was just driving along, not feeling like I was in a rush or anything. As I turned the curve of the street, two men in uniforms and on motorcycles were waiting with what I swear were smiles on their faces. They waved on the van in front of me and ordered me to pull over. I tapped my chest, asking, "Me?" as if I were being chosen for a kickball team in gym class. I was shocked.

"Do you know the speed limit around here?" Umm...30 sounds good to me. (Honestly that's what I thought it was. Turns out it was 25.) "You were going 36 and following way too close to the car in front of you who was going the speed limit. That's why you had to slam on your breaks." I didn't recall slamming my breaks, but whatever you say, officer. I felt shame wash over me as I said, "I'm sorry." I thought being extra nice might help me out, but this guy had it in for me from the minute we made eye contact.

Now, I didn't do too well in high school physics and maybe my PhD whiz friend A can help me out here, but I swear I remember this exact question from Mr. K's class. If was allegedly going 36 and tailgating and the man in front of me was allegedly going 25 (the speed limit) wouldn't I have hit him instead of continue to follow him? So something is wrong. Either the van in front was not going the speed limit and he got off scott-free, but this made the officer's story make me more sound worse, or his radar was wrong.

I felt like an idiot that this happened. J thought it was fantastic. As I was pulling my license out, he was yelling, "Peesman Peesman Hi!" as if I had just brought someone over to play.

Since I've never been pulled over, I didn't know what happens. Turns out in Texas, you have 30 days to appear before a judge. You need to contact the judge to discuss a few things like whether you will plead guilty and pay the fine, plead not guilty and go to trial, plead guilty or no contest and take defensive driving and maybe get it wiped from your record. The offices were closed when this happened so I have to wait until tomorrow to figure out my fate. I'm thinking the latter will be the easiest. Maybe I'll hire one of those sleezy attorneys and get a trial date. Not. For those who maybe interseted, there are all sorts of books you can order off the internet about how to beat any speeding ticket.

So for today, be ashamed that you know me. I'm bad people. And believe me, now I'm driving like a granny, which is tough for a girl who grew up on Long Island.

Santa, Santa, Santa

We had a very eventful weekend! It started out with getting a Christmas tree. Then B and J took a quick trip to the store to get an extension cord. While they were there, Santa was visiting and was taking free photos. J knows who Santa is but has never actually seen him in person. I wish I would have seen it. B said he freaked out. They had to take the picture together. J looks thrilled because he has a candy cane in his hand. B looks like he's enjoying being on Santa's lap. Actually he wasn't on his lap, but they looked kind of cozy.

On the way home, B and J got caught behind a fire truck going through the neighborhood. J loves fire trucks. This one was a cherry picker and Santa was standing in it and was waving and throwing out candy. Not only did they follow the truck all the way to our house, but then he got to see it two more times as it made the rounds down the other streets. What an afternoon to be a kid! Unfortunately, J wanted the fire trucks to only stay at our house and he got upset when he could hear them but they didn't come back.

The fun didn't stop there. One of the parks was having a holiday festival with singers, bouncy castles and slides, train rides, and of course, Santa. J got to sit on Santa's lap. This time, he went up bravely and shook his hand. He also danced with Frosty the Snowman, who was rocking out to a little heavy metal, which J found hilarious. He was a bit unsure about Rudolph, whom he kept calling a donkey. The best part had to have been the bouncing castle and slides. The pictures describe it best.

A little calmer with Santa number 3

This reminds me of the scene in A Christmas Story when Ralphie gets kicked down the slide

Don't you just want to bounce around and get that look on your face too?

We finished off the night with a little ice cream. J rewarded us by sleeping until 7:30 this morning. In between all the Santa fun, B and I finally got the first coat of paint on our family room. We are going to have to do at least one, if not two more coats. Red does not go on like any other color paint. It looks pretty good at night, but during the day you can see every single place we missed.

Today was a little more laid back. We decided not to paint today because it was so humid (it was 85 yesterday!) and we wanted to make sure everything was really dry. So we cleaned up the house a bit, did some laundry, met a new babysitter (yay!) and enjoyed a wonderful dinner at our neighbor's house. I made a lemon cake because I had fresh lemons from a friend's tree. While it was cooling and soaking in the lemon juice I went to do a few things on the computer. J came in saying something like, "mmm, yum." I wasn't really paying attention until he got closer to me. Then I realized he was saying, "Yummy cake mommy. Yummy." He had grabbed a big hunk off of the edge of the cake. Apparently he can reach to the middle of our island now. Oops. It was pretty funny. I'm glad our neighbors have grandkids and find J cute enough that they didn't mind a big hunk taken out of their dessert.

B and I start off with dentist appointments tomorrow. We can't wait!

Today's Vocabulary Lesson

Unless you are in the construction business and come across these all the time, I think you will be impressed with the objects J can now recognize.

Thanks to our new favorite book, Construction Zone , rubber-tired backhoe, crane with clamshell digger, tamper, paver, roller, and concrete mixer are as identifiable as a fire truck, bird, and daddy. It's really amazing. There are these little pictures at the end of the book with explanations of what each machine does, and J can pick out each of them without prompting. I think I knew bulldozer, paver and dump truck before this book came along!

That's all good. What is not good is that J has figured out that he can try to manipulate B and me. When things aren't going his way and he's with me, he calls "Dad-deee!" If he's with B, he shouts, "Mom-mee!" This has been occurring during the day, but also at fun hours like 2, 4, and 5 am. This morning he got so mad that I wouldn't get him out of bed at 5:15 that he sat there and screamed for B for about 30 minutes. Before that, he yelled for me. I'm sure we'll get him back on track just in time fore the holiday visitors to arrive!

We did some very exciting things this morning. We went to a propane store and bought blower. My mom and dad bought it for us as a housewarming gift and we had to pick out one that wasn't at Home Depot or Lowe's. We also went to the paint store and picked up the red for the family room. I am very excited about this project. It will be interesting to see how it turns out because some have told me they think the room will look too small, while others have told me that it may look too dark. I'm just going to do it and if it looks bad, we can always go back to white again. We'd also really like to scrape the popcorn ceiling, but that would be committing us to the entire downstairs because it would look funny to just stop in the family room and not do the kitchen, etc. etc. So I think we will leave that be for now.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Quiet House

Things are getting back to normal at the S house now that Thanksgiving visitors are all gone. J got a dose of two sets of grandparents with back to back visits. He had a blast and I think they did too, but now it's back to reality. Snacks on a schedule, sleep on a schedule, not always getting our way. It's gonna be great!

J's come down with a bit of a cold which has been waking him up at all sorts of times during the night. His face is a mess and he's only breathing out of his mouth, so he's also drooling all over the place. Plus it's so much fun to try to wipe his face. There's not way to do it without screaming.

One of the highlights of J's Nummi's visit was that we got our garage organized. Nummi is a super fantastic garage organizer and this is her second time helping us in two years. Everything now has a place on a shelf (except for those dental and teaching books which are awaiting a shelf or two inside) and we can actually fit cars in there. Imgaine that. It's very exciting. Now we can move onto more fun projects like painting the family room (red) and putting up Christmas lights. The next few weeks are going to be fun! Although I don't think B shares my enthusiasm about either endeavor, but I am sure he will appreciate the final product.

I didn't really get any good Thanksgiving shots because I was in the kitchen all day, but here is a shot of J providing us with some post dinner entertainment. He was wearing his Babcia's shoes and clomping all over the floor.

Ehh...

Dinner is over. The turkey came out great. It was incredibly moist and looked golden and beautiful. We brined the turkey last night with brown sugar, salt, water, oranges, lemons, rosemary and thyme. Then we cooked it by stuffing it with oranges, lemons, onions, and rubbing the orange and butter, and pepper on the outside. The recipe said only to cover it if it started to look brown quickly and this happened after about 1 minute, so it got foiled and only took about 2.5 hours to cook, which is pretty fast for a 16 lb. turkey. That was at 425 degrees.

I made the stuffing yesterday because I wanted to see exactly how long it would take. I'm glad I didn't just try this on Thanksgiving because I am sure it would have been a disaster time-wise. The chestnut and apple stuffing was yummy! The chestnuts really give the stuffing a meaty flavor. I'm used to stuffing made with sausage, but I didn't miss the meat at all. And the fact that it was made with day old baguette instead of bagged stuffing cubes made all the difference. Now don't get me wrong, I still like the bagged stuffing cubes too, but this got so crunchy on top with all the butter. Yum. If only I hadn't sliced my finger while peeling the cooked chestnuts, this would have been fairly simple to make, but it took double the time because I had to work with one hand for awhile.

Now the disappointment was the gravy. It was a cointreau and cognac pan gravy. I doubled the recipe because it looked like I had double the drippings. Everything looked the way it was supposed to, but boy was it salty! You could tell it had some really good depth of flavor, but the salt just overpowered everything. I'm not sure if this was because the turkey was overbrined, which if it was, didn't affect the turkey, or if it was because the chicken broth I added along with the fact that it was brined just made it that way. Either way, I'm in a conundrum about what to do for Thursday. Not sure if we should brine the turkey less, use no sodium chicken broth and try again, or if I should just try a different gravy entirely? Any wisdom would be appreciated!

I should make mention that although this brined turkey was incredibly moist, I don't think it was any more moist than the turkey my mom makes, which is not brined and is cooked at 450 under foil, stuffed, and just coated in butter. I'm also debating if I should just do that instead. So as you can see, this dry run was good, but hasn't really helped me figure out my Thanksgiving menu!

Hummus Hat?

Here is a sentence I never thought I would hear myself say,

"J, please don't touch your Santa hat right now. You'll give yourself hummus hat."

That's what you have to say when your kid sits to eat his snack, asks for his new Santa hat, and continues to eat his red peppers and hummus.


This weekend is a cleaning weekend as well as a Thanksgiving dry run. I'm making a new stuffing and doing the turkey differently, so I wanted to make sure it works out well before I subject my guests to it. I made the chesnut and apple stuffing last night. It tastes great, but we'll see how it goes with the turkey and gravy that are cooking right now. I'll let you know!

But There are Three More Months Until He Is Two

The phrase "terrible twos" is a misnomer. For anyone that does not know, it starts earlier. Much earlier. Like 8 months earlier as they begin down the path closer to two-dom. Well yesterday we hit some major roadblock or something because it was just awful. There were no "Watch out! Terrible two behavior approaching!" warning signs either. It began at lunchtime when I couldn't get the milk out fast enough. WaaaahhhhHH!!! milk! Milk! Milk! MiiiilllllK!!!! It continued after a shortened nap because of the garbage trucks (stupid, blankety blank garbage trucks!). The pinnacle was at dinnertime. J asked for a fork, which we always give him, and a spoon. I suspect he wanted the fork for his meat and the spoon for his beans. Well somewhere along the line I did something wrong. He kept asking for help. I thought he wanted help scooping the beans on his spoon, but when I did that, he went psycho on me and started screaming at the top of his lungs. So I let go of the spoon. He grabbed his plate, turned it over on his tray and picked up every bean that he could and proceeded to squeeze them in his hand while he screamed. He kept yelling "help! help! help!" I had no idea. I tried again to help with the fork and spoon. This time, he threw what was left on his tray onto the floor. This was just about the time that daddy walked in. He got all excited, "Dad-deeee!! Daddeee!" Are you kidding me? Oh no kid, you just put me through hell all day. Daddy's going to hear about this. Daddy didn't have to hear about it because he saw it all over the floor. He held down the urge to laugh. We eventually got J to clean up his mess without tears. That was the success of the day.

We figured an earlier bedtime would help calm him down and set him up for a better mood tomorrow morning. The one problem was that he decided to wake up every thirty minutes from 2 until 4:30. At that point I threw in the towel and just took him into the spare bedroom to sleep with me. He talked to himself for nearly an hour as I lay there not saying word. "Pee pee...poop (I changed his diaper so I knew he was clean). poop...pee...punter (hunter the dog down the street) amy (ambulance) choo choo (the train went by... stupid blankety blank train) daddy, mama, mommy, seepy, seepy, Jo-nah, jo-nah, jo-nah (well go to sleep J, it will help fix that!). After getting kicked in the face a few times, clobbered on the stomach, he finally collapsed on me and slept until 7. I think I slept for about 3.5 hours last night.

I then took care of a three month old this morning for four hours, which confused the heck out of J. He kept looking at me like, "Where did she come from?" He handled it fairly well. Her mom swore she was an angel. Except she has a cold, wouldn't take a bottle, and didn't want to be in her sling or swing, which she supposedly loves. It all ended well, but I am so glad these two days are over. We are hoping for a very silent night tonight.

Baby Fix

I'd become a weepy mess before and after my little niece was born. My patient husband, wanting to make me happy, and more than likely hoping the weepiness would end quickly, suggested that I use miles to go to AZ to visit the new little one! This meant he would take care of J for three days on his own. He was a little panicked about this, but I left him a few lists and reassured him that he'd have a great, but tiring time.

I arrived on Saturday morning and returned home very late last night/early this morning. I'm so glad I was able to go. Lily is the most darling baby. Her cheeks are even more adorable in person. She makes tons of different scrunchy faces. She only cries a little when hungry or wet. And she doesn't quite have the pee/poop at the same time down yet, so we had lots of fun changing many diapers! It was so great to see Mama Feathernester and Papa D in action. Although they are very tired from constant nighttime feedings due to some lingering day/night confusion, they still look terrific. It was also tons of fun hanging out with Mama Scarlet Lily and talking about everything baby with her. Together, we solved all the breastfeeding issues of the world and told labor and baby stories like we were in the army. Poor Chewy-- the dog doesn't know what to do with himself. He has so much puppy energy that he ate a whole bottle of lanolin out of boredom and proceeded to throw it up. The last thing new parents need! We tried to get him out and running as much as we could, but he was still trotting all over the place, trying to lick Lily any chance he could. Of course the best part was holding Lily and smelling that new baby smell all over. Mom and Dad are doing great, but are focusing on sleep rather than email and phone calls, so here are some pictures for you to enjoy!

Papa D really enjoys forcing his daughter to make all sorts of faces. She'll get him back one day for all of this taunting!

Content Mama and Baby

A cozy place to sleep--that is a burp rag covering her! So tiny...

The happy family

Peeking over Mama Scarlet Lily's shoulder

Proud Auntie, no longer weepy

Wide awake and ready to take on the world!

Happy Election Day!

A day late in the posting, but J loved going to vote yesterday. He kept trying to push the buttons on the computer screen. Then he tried to steal about 10 "I voted" stickers. The polling volunteers thought he was a hoot, especially when he started squealing because he thought I was taking too long. Doesn't he know that it takes awhile to vote on 16 propositions? He was thrilled that he got to leave with two stickers. And one of them ended up like this. I swear that there was no adult manipulation of the stickers to take this picture:

Nothing exciting is going on today. It's cloudy and in the fifties, which means that everyone has hunkered down for the arctic freeze. Except for us. We'll probably be the only ones at the park again today and we won't be wearing any hats and mittens like I saw some people wearing yesterday. Now that's thin blood.

Hooray!

The baby is here! Congrats to S/D and sweet little L. For pics and all the stats, check out here. Of course, she is the sweetest thing ever! J is very excited to have a cousin, but can't quite say her name. He tries, but then he just laughs. He enjoys looking at her pictures and says, "baby, baby" and blows kisses at the screen. We can't wait to kiss those cute chubby cheeks in person!

B, J and I participated in the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure yesterday. There were over 21,000 walkers and runners. We decided on Saturday that we would do it and went downtown to register. Then we were up practically all night with the excitement of the baby, but we did it anyway. We ran as much as we could, but it was so crowded on the streets and the stroller made it even more difficult to get around people. J was happy in the jogging stroller and loved it when B ran in and out of people. He also loved all the free food they were giving away. At one point after the race, he was dancing around to the music with an orange in one hand and an apple in the other. He was totally loving life.

Oh, and all of a sudden he can count to 15. We've been counting going down the steps each morning, but now he just randomly counts anything and everything. It's too funny. Of course he doesn't completely get the concept that one number goes to each object; he counts about 3 or 4 for each one.

Off to dinner. Have a good night!

Waiting

My SIL, feathernester is in labor! This is very exciting because it means I'm going to be an auntie very soon! I've never been an auntie and since they are having a girl, I hopefully will be a cool auntie that gets to totally spoil her. As much as her parents allow, of course. I've always said that I think I am only going to have boys and that if I do have a girl I will be totally shocked. As far as we know right now things were going very, very slowly to the point of boredom (they've been at the hospital since about 2 this morning). I joked to B that I felt like I was more excited about this baby being born than I was about my own. He said, "That's because you were sitting around in pain the whole time and you couldn't be excited!"

It really is amazing how pregnancy and labor is different for everyone. Out of all of my friends here, each of us has a completely different birth story. Some knew they wanted epidurals right away and they didn't work and had to do things the old fashioned way. Others wanted to do it the old fashioned way and ended up having c-sections. Some were incredibly long labors while others were only a few hours. And of the friends who have already had more than one, even those births were completely different each time. I guess it's nature's way of keeping you on your toes.

We can't wait for this little one to make her appearance! Keep your fingers crossed that all goes smoothly for everyone!

Yep. That's some dog.

I am still in shock that this actually happened. That there are actually people like this on the planet.

J and I were picking up bread and yogurt at the grocery store. As I was walking around our checkout counter, a highschool/early college age kid nearly collides with me because he was speeding on the back of his cart. If I didn't stop J would have had a cart in his shoulder (I was carrying him). He ignored us and kept going so I said, "Excuse me." I'm sure that excuse me had some force behind it. He said, "Excuse yourself, lady." I know my face went beat red and the mama bear said, "What did you just say to me?" He said, "You heard me." I said, "You nearly ran into both of us." He told me to shut up. I told him he was rude. Then, this is the best, he said, "Yeah. And you're fat and that's some dog you're carrying." Is your tongue hanging out of your mouth? Can you believe someone raised a child to be so hateful? I was so disgusted and shocked that I just walked to the car as he and his friend high-fived and laughed as they rode away on the back of the shopping cart towards their car. What I really wished I could have done was dragged him by his ear to his mother's house and stood him on the front porch and make him repeat what he said to me. This is what we're up against, considerate, polite people. It's gonna be a rough road ahead.

To make up for such an awful story, here's a random cute pic of "the dog" to brighten your mood a bit.

Treat

Halloween was a blast yesterday. J and I started out the day by attending a fall festival put on by the town. It was geared towards toddler and preschoolers, so they had little games at their height levels, a small petting zoo (we got to touch a baby hedgehog!), a hayride, and a fire truck. Best of all-it was free! I am continuously impressed by all of the family oriented festivals we find in and around Austin. So much fun.

J pretends not to hear the firechief tell him it's time to get off the truck

We weren't sure what to expect on our block once evening arrived. In the past 6 years we have never had a trick or treater come to our door (that's what happens when you live in apartments) so we were ready! I planned for a bunch of trick or treaters because one of the neighbors said we would be swamped living on the corner. It didn't start out that way, but once things got rolling, we had a stream of kids and I was glad I bought that extra bag of candy at Costco. One of the houses a few doors down put on this massive UFO/alien production. They built a spaceship that hung over their driveway. They also built a gigantic treehouse like structure for the aliens, complete with glow in the dark heads, to land. They rigged up a speaker system and had alien music playing. When kids went up the driveway, they yelled things like, "Bring us the children. We want the candy...Load up the ship, clearly there is no intelligent life here." If I were a young child I probably would have been scared out of my gourd. It really was neat to hear all howls and screams from the kids as they attempted to trick or treat there! B said he wants to try to beat them next year. I have my doubts and think we should just aim to put up some decorations.

J visited a few houses with B as I handed out the loot. He tells me that J loved knocking on the door and saying, "Treat" to everyone. If they had something on their porch that talked, like a pumpkin or skeleton, he said, "no, no no". Poor kid has something against inanimate objects coming to life. I can't say I blame him. J also helped pass out some treats with me before headed to bed just a little later than usual. I thought the noise from the house down the street would keep him up, but it didn't.

There was no way we were keeping that lion head on him today, but he did still do a heck of a cowardly "roar".

I guess there is a Halloween curfew because all the noise stopped at 9:00 and we had one or two stragglers after that who got all of our leftover candy. They were pretty psyched by that. If Halloween was such a production, I'm really interested to see what people do for the Christmas season!

What Do You Mean There is No Off Button?

Here are some examples of how our days now sound...

On Sunday morning...
(J wakes up):Stacy, Sean, Casey, Ka Ka, Zane, Corbih, Kay Kay, Paatee...

Me: Did you have a good time at the party yesterday?

J: Yah

Me: Did you dream about the party?
J: Yah

J: truck, choo choo, fiy chuck, cyca, choppa, vroom, choo choo, hopper..eat, oatmo.



Today in the car on the way to a store five minutes away...

"witch (pronounced with a b instead of a w), one, two, ghost, two, socca, socca, kick, dada
(he sees people playing soccer, they kick, daddy plays soccer) awsif awsif (office, office- meaning daddy is at the office if he's not playing soccer) punka, punka (pumpkin) gan, gan, gan (again, again, again) more, more more, (he wants more ghosts, witches and pumpkins) car go (car wash), Rosa, Rosa (name of a Mexican restaurant), munch (lunch), goat, neigh, neigh, moo, moo, sheep, sheep, sing, sing, pease, pease, (play that song again please or I will scream), see ba ba, see ba ba (cereal bar, cereal bar-- give me one now or I will really scream) see ba baaaaaaaaaa, see ba baaaaaaaaaa."

I didn't give him the cereal bar.



Later... at the park...

under, under, sirrl (squirrel), nuts, nuts, tee, up, up, tee, sky, arpane, arpane, gamma? (Is Grandma in the airplane?) see, see, sing (swing), kick, kick, out, off, jump, side (slide), oof-oof...end first two minutes at the park.

Do you have a headache yet?

Sure, all this talking is fabulous and cute, but this newfound ability to repeat and announce everything he sees leaves us with very little silence.

We spend the rest of our time trying to decipher the new words he is trying out. Somtimes they make absolutely no sense. The word "botch" has about 13 different meanings to him and I haven't a clue.

The word we are really afraid of popping up is "Why?"

And the winners are...

SWAT had their second annual Halloween party at S's house this afternoon. S is a bit fanatical about Halloween and goes to great lengths to decorate and plan a great party. She really outdid herself this year. It was a beautiful day so the kiddos were able to spend a lot of time playing outside. She built and painted a pumpkin toss set, a worms, teeth and eyes feeling set, and a ghost cut-out set. She also had a hay bale and pumpkin area for family photos. This girl thinks of everything!

K and J. K is dressed as a peacock and didn't crack a smile all day.

J was in true party form and spent most of his time eating and his free time playing. He wanted to eat all of the pumpkin muffins I brought, but he also enjoyed some grilled cheese and apple sandwich slices as well as some of the pumpkin chili I made. It seemed to get good reviews so here's the recipe:

Pumpkin Chili:

1lb. Ground turkey

1/2 cup chopped onions (I used more)

1 large red or green pepper, chopped

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

2 14.5 ounce cans diced tomatoes (no salt added)

1 can tomato sauce (15 oz)

1 can kidney beans, drained

1 can packed pumpkin

1 4 oz. can diced green chiles

1/2 cup loose-pack frozen whole kernel corn
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground pepper

I also added a teaspoon or so of pumpkin pie spice, which gave it a great smell and about another quarter can of pumpkin. The pumpkin acts as a thickener, so the more you add, the thicker your chili will be.

In a large saucepan, cook onions, garlic and peppers until soft. Add turkey and cook on medium high heat until brown, drain. Add everything else. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 30 minutes or more. Be careful not to burn the bottom by having the heat on too high.

There was a vote for best dressed family and guess what? We won! No, we weren't the only family that dressed up. The prize was a skeleton trophy. When J's friend K handed him the trophy as her mom announced us as the winners, he uttered, "No! No! No!" He was terribly frightened by the trophy and didn't want to win! Everyone said that he was just being humble. B and I joked that we finally had a chance to be popular and our kid was ruining it for us!

It was so great to see everybody. There were some babies there that I hadn't seen in nearly a year. It's amazing how much growing happens in so little time. More pics on Halloween!

Redemption

This post is for my darling SIL, who is waiting to go into labor and lovingly branded me with a faint scarlet letter F for giving her a starter of friendship bread. I am in the midst of experimenting with the measurements to take away the friendship part of the bread and will let you know what I find out. In the meantime, here's a pumpkin muffin recipe that I just made and is so good! You only have to make it once! I made them into mini muffins and only put cinnamon sugar on half of them (forgot in the first batch). J was stealing them and stuffing them in his mouth, so I think that is a good sign. Very moist and fluffy for a muffin. I added the whole can of pumpkin as well, figuring you couldn't go wrong with too much. I would imagine you could use applesauce instead of oil, but I didn't have any. Oh, and I only baked the mini muffins for about 13 minutes. 12 may be just enough as well. Enjoy!



http://muffintop.wordpress.com/2006/11/03/pumpkin-muffins/



I have a pumpkin chili cooking right now that we're taking to a party later on. If it gets good reviews, I'll post that as well.

Halloween Practice

We had a little Halloween party at the library during story hour today. The library has about 5 different Halloween parties and you can sign up for whatever ones you want to attend. I decided we'd go to the one today because it was food free. Since J doesn't eat "party foods" I really didn't see the point in going to one that would be a giant mish mosh of prepackaged cookies and candy. He doesn't know that part about Halloween and I'm happy to keep it that way for a little longer. Instead of food, we were to bring 30 stickers, pencils, or other treats to put in little bags that the library provided. J got quite the stash of straws, stickers, spider rings and little pads.

I didn't think we would last long because J was a little taken back by the pirate libarians and the witch and skeleton story props that were in the front of the room. He also didn't know what to make of the larger crowd that was there today. We've been walking around the neighborhood quite a bit to see the pumpkin and witch decorations. He likes those. Ghosts don't bother him much either. I can see why the skeleton doesn't look quite right to him. But after singing a great little song today called, "Mr. Bones" I think they're breaking him in a bit. Ha ha ha.

Once he got used to his surroundings, J had a blast. He loved visiting with the other kids and participating in the songs and stories. He didn't want to leave when it was time and even said thank you to the librarians as we left (without me telling him!). Such a thoughtful lion.

I'd post pictures, but I am sure we'll get cuter ones this weekend when we go to another party. The whole family is dressing up, so we'll see.

We're finally cooling off down here. On Monay the temperature dropped about 30 degrees to a high of 56. It felt bone chilling cold because of the wind. J didn't want to wear long sleeves because I don't think he's worn them since April. Today it's in the 70s and I'm wearing long sleeves. We even turned the heat on a bit last night to take the edge off. Clearly the blood is thinning. It is finally nice to have some fall around here, though.

Good Times

B's birthday was a success. The vodka sauce turned out great, but it took me almost 3 hours to make it and it was only supposed to take a little over 1. I was being really careful not to burn that heavy cream when I reduced it. Turns out, I could have left it alone a little more. J just loved watching the candles burn on the ice cream cupcakes. There were only two candles because I had a heck of a time getting them through the frozen whipped cream. Check out this shot of the two of them. They aren't related or anything, are they?

I also had a hankering for fall the other day and made some pumpkin white chocolate chip cookies with cream cheese frosting. Actually the recipe is in a Christmas cookie book, but they looked too good to wait until then to make. This recipe was interesting. It said it would make 6 dozen cookies, which is usually your standard chip cookie product. I ended up with over 9 dozen. And I lost about 2 dozen due to accidental burnage on the first trays (still getting used to the double oven). I was also using evaporated cane sugar. Anyone baked with that before? It seems to burn a little more than refined sugar. I had little spoltches of cooked sugar (not quite burned) on the bottom of many of the cookies. Anyway, they tasted like little bits of pumpkin heaven. I would recommend halving the recipe. Oh and make your own cream cheese frosting instead of the icky store bought stuff. I'll try to post this sometime later.

A funny thing happened with these cookies. I was trying to frost them while they were still warm. I remember turning off the oven for the last tray. I thought I frosted everything and began to clean up, got distracted by finished laundry, and went to bed. I went to use the top oven two days later and what did I find? A cooked batch of cookies that I left behind. Oops. The neat thing was that they hardened into a really good biscuit-like cookie. The originals are better, but it was neat that although I forgot about them, they were still pretty tasty.

We took a scenic drive yesterday to Marble Falls to visit Sweetberry Farms. They were having a fall festival with plenty of pumpkins, hay and pony rides, pumpkin ice cream and goats. Poor J wanted to get in the pen with the goats since that's what he's allowed to do when he visits Nummi's farm in California. He also called every goat he saw Suzi, after Nummi's goat who is no longer with us. Unfortunately J doesn't know that, so every goat is Suzi. I think we need a Suzy 2 at the farm in CA. J had a great time banging on pumpkins, riding on the kiddie sized tractor, checking out the old fashioned trucks filled with pumpkins, running around with other little ones, and tasting some of that pumpkin ice cream. In fact, there was so much excitement that not only did he sleep in the car, but he also slept for another two hours when we got home.

After naptime we headed over to the Hairy Man Festival at one of the parks in the neighborhood. The legend of the Hairy Man is pretty lame, something about a baby left in the woods, grows up all hairy and tries to keep the western settlers from taking the land by the creek. Today the festival collects canned food for local food banks and raises funds for the children's homes in the area. There was live music, ponies, jumping castles, crafts, a train, and plenty of food. And yes, there is a hairiest man contest. If I'd known about that, I would have made B enter, but there's always next year. We were actually pleasantly surprised by how nice the festival was, as we'd been told it wasn't so great. J loved riding the train. I think we did that about 5 times. He tried going in a jumping castle, but slid right out. I think he was just so tired from everything else he did.

Today we just spent most of the day outside. There was a wonderful breeze and it was so comfortable outside. We did some yardwork, played at the park, went for a wagon ride and took a long nap. Not a bad way to end the weekend!