Watch this with your spouse

I had to post this. It's called "Tale of Two Brains."




There's also a 10 minute extended version on YouTube, if you're interested.

Another baked item that I probably shouldn't have made, but am really glad I did

Maple Pecan Scones

Again, these are from the Pioneer Woman. I love her recipes because they always turn out just they way she said. Usually, the only variations I make are for personal preference or because I wasn't prepared and had to make substitutions. I would recommend these. The maple icing is awesome and the sweet, nutty flavor of the pecans in the scone is a perfect match. Try 'em. Since these are from her cookbook and I can't seem to find them on her website, I'll type the recipe here for you. You're welcome. :)

Scones:
3 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
5 tsps. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/2 pound butter, chilled
1/4 cup pecans, chopped fine
1 large egg
3/4 cup heavy cream

Icing:
1 pound powdered sugar
1/4 cup whole milk
4 Tbps. butter, melted
Dash of salt
2 tsp. maple flavoring or extract

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl, stir flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut the cold butter into the flour mix until it resembles crumbs. Add the chopped pecans and stir. Mix the egg and cream in a separate bowl and add to the flour/butter mix. Stir until just combined. turn onto a lightly floured surface. The dough will be very crumbly. Just press it together with your hands into a pile on the counter. Don't knead or press too much, though. Very gently roll out the dough into a 10-inch round about 3/4 inch thick. With a sharp knife, cut into eight equal-sized wedges. Transfer to a baking sheet either lined with a silpat (or a silicone baking mat) or spray baking sheet with non-stick spray. Bake scones for about 22-26 minutes until they barely begin to brown. Do not allow the edges to become dark. Allow them cool completely before icing. For icing, mix all ingredients together in a medium bowl until smooth. Pour generously over scones. Allow to set before serving.

Love You Forever

For the past three nights, Craig has been wanting me to read this book to him for his bedtime story. The first night, I couldn't get past the the first page without breaking down. The rest of the book I sounded like I was talking through a mouthful of cotton balls. The next night, I lasted until the boy begins to grow into a teenager (my boys are never going to grow up, I've decided). Then last night I was doing pretty good and thought I was home free, until the page where the boy is all grown up and holds him mom in the rocking chair and says:

"I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
My mommy you'll be."

I can't even type it without getting blurry eyed!

I love being the mommy of two little boys.

Especially these two little boys.

Things I love about Ethan

He is so smiley and happy, even when he's fighting off sleep.

He is a great sleeper (after a lot of work, but not as much as I thought it would take).

He's very low maintenance. He's content to just be near me when I have an hour's worth of homework to do.

He has the greatest little belly laugh, which he reserves for only the extremely funny things, like tickling him in the "tickle spot of the day"--it varies.

He can be occupied for a long time just observing Craig and the world around him.

He is so cuddly.

He's always surprising me by doing something new, like falling back asleep in the mornings after I feed him and I think he's totally awake. Then I can get Craig set up with his breakfast and go back to sleep myself.

Because of his constant state of contentment, I can easily take him with me to primary if Robert has to work. Then the only distraction are the little 8 year old girls who seem to be hard wired to ignore everything else when a baby enters the room.

Since about 6 weeks old, he's had an amazing ability to simply close his eyes and drift off to sleep on his own. I've never known babies so young could do that. It's the staying asleep part we had to work on.

My evenings have opened up a lot sooner than I expected because of that ability to fall asleep on his own. (Temple, movies, dinner, we can do anything!)

Now that he no longer needs to be swaddled, he very resourcefully found another use for his blanket:

Totally Team Jay

If you haven't heard, NBC has decided to put Jay Leno back at 11:30 on the Tonight Show and Conan O'Brien is leaving NBC with currently no potential job in the future and a fat severance that he should be able to live off of for 30 life times. I'm not worried about him and his family (as Jimmy Kimmel implied we should be when he said to Jay last week on Jay's "10 at 10" segment, "Conan and I have families! Leave our jobs alone! You just have cars!" Also in bad taste, though, because we don't know why Jay and his wife of 30 years never had any kids...maybe they can't and it's a sore spot. Bad form, Jimmy, bad form).

I wanted to post this and state my opinion (not that any of you care). I like Jay Leno. Conan is funny, too, but he's more modern and more crude. Jay will have some jokes about inappropriate topics, too, sometimes, but he does it in more of a "Pillow Talk" kind of way. You know...like back in the 50's and 60's when people joked about uncomfortable subjects and sort of beat around the bush a little. ("Pillow Talk" was a Doris Day/Rock Hudson movie in case you didn't know.) A lot of people out there are pushing for Conan, but I've been watching Jay's primetime show (one of the few, apparently) and I really liked it. I'm glad he's staying on the air. I will be sure to DVR the Tonight Show, and I never did that before.

I also think people need to remember that Jay and Conan had very little to do with much of these decisions. It wasn't Jay's idea to take the Tonight Show over again. Of course, it's a job and he did it for 17 years and he loved it, so now that they're offering it back, it would be hard to say no. Especially if Conan is willing to settle. Everyone talks about how bad Jay's ratings were, but Conan's weren't much better.

I'm just here standing up for Jay, who I feel is an honest, hard working, down-to-earth guy taking a lot of flack in a very dignified way...who just happens to have a garage the size of an airplane hangar full of multi-million dollar antique cars. But can you blame him?

Things I love about Craig

Things I love about Craig:

When we pray, he folds him arms. Then, when he sees a toy near him during the prayer, he'll struggle to keep his arms folded as he reaches his fingers out to pick up the toy.

As I close his bedroom door at night, sometimes I hear a quite little "Bye."

I just figured out that when he's saying, "doom doom," he's trying to say, "vacuum."

Before he called me Mommy, he called me Sherry. (At least, he pronounced the vowels--like "Yeah-ie".)

Even when he's mad, he'll stop his tantrum if I ask him to give me hugs and kisses. And then he starts up again (but that I don't love).

He loves to sleep with the baby quilt I made my freshman year at college in my creative stitchery class. That was 10 years ago and I didn't know why at the time, but I made it blue for a boy.

I love picking him up from the nursery on Sundays. He's just SO excited and happy to see me--he makes all the nursery workers laugh.

He's so expressive.

He picked up on saying "Thank you" just by hearing us say it to him when he does something we ask him to do. Now he says it when another kid hands him a toy.

When I count, "ooooone," he very clearly says, "twooooo."

He can spot a battery or electrically operated object from across a crowded room.

He fell asleep in his high chair today while eating a corn dog.


Stay tuned: Ethan is coming next!

The Man

I've been wanting to blog about this, but I haven't been able to find the original article online, so I'll have to paraphrase. I was reading the back-cover story of last month's Parents magazine and thought this story was hilarious. Of course, the way the author puts things makes it that much better, but I hope I can convey it somewhat properly. Here goes.

A woman who has two young children wrote this story about her guilty indulgence while grocery shopping with the kids. They notoriously brought out their worst behavior in public and when bribes of candy and trips to McDonald's didn't work, she'd threaten them by saying, "If you don't stop, The Man will come." At first, this worked. They thought The Man would be the store manager or police officer and they'd be thrown out of the store or pulled over and given a ticket. After a while, though, they got wise and realized that The Man didn't exist. One day while grocery shopping, they were particularly nasty and, at her wits end, the mom pulled the cart over, put on her sunglasses, and began to cry! Right then, a handsome, muscular, good looking man walked over and knelt down to face her kids. He said something like, "I know your mom asked you to be good, but I don't think you're being as good as you can be. We don't act like this at the grocery store. Can you be quiet and do as she asks?" The kids, with mouths gaping and eyes wide, nodded their heads. The mom said she could see their thoughts: It's The Man! He DOES exist! Which is what the mom was thinking to herself, too. The stranger stood up, nodded to the mom, she mouthed a Thank You and he left. Then she looked at her kids and said, "See? I told you." The kids were angels the rest of the shopping trip. And any other time she threatened that he'd come back.

I just thought this was hilarious and a good example of someone who was in the right place, at the right time, and did the right thing. Too often people have poor judgment and step in when they're not needed and not welcomed, and they are often not as nice and appropriate as this man was. It helped, though, that there was that history of the mom's previous threats of the mythological "Man". I guess he was lucky he picked this woman and her kids to do this with, and not someone who'd just get angry and pushy with him. I wonder what I would feel like in this situation?

What do you guys think? How would you feel if you were this mom?

Marmalade Muffins

Pioneer Woman's Orange Marmalade Muffins...check.

Just so you know, I wouldn't blog about them if they weren't totally awesome in every way.

Update

I still haven't found out who left the stuff at my back gate the other day, but upon perusal, I think it's pretty obvious that someone was dropping stuff off at a friend's house to be used in a garage sale or to be taken to a thrift store and they just got the wrong house. Here is the inventory:

*Wide variety of new-with-tags or slightly used women's clothing (tops, pants, skirts, shorts--some REALLY cute stuff, too, dang it)
*One Denny's uniform shirt, seemingly never worn (great Halloween costume!)
*Various bras and thong underwear
*One teeny bikini (hopefully not from a member of the ward)
*Three "how-to" party books: How to have a Mexican Fiesta, How to play Poker, and How to mix the perfect Martini (I REALLY hope not from a member)
*About 8 gift card boxes
*One child fingerprinting kit
*10 decorative mirrors with matching individual bags
*Plum eyeliner with sharpener in packaging
*A variety of sticky note pads
*A small package of bath salts
*Two miniature frames
*About 6 leatherette book marks that read "remember" and "inspiration"
*One mysterious gift card to a local home furnishings store called Razmataz (I have to take it into the store to find out how much is on it, if anything)

I've decided that since it seems that these things weren't meant for anyone in particular no one's come to reclaim the stuff yet, I'm going to call one more friend to go through the clothes and stuff and let her take what she wants and donate the rest to DI. My only dilemma is what if the gift card is worth a significant amount of money? I think that was possibly in there and the donater didn't know it. It doesn't have an expiration date, but I think it's about 4 years old because of a date that was on a flier for the store that was also in the box. I guess we'll have to see. I hope to get down to the store tomorrow to see how much is on it. I'll let you know if I find out anything more.

Weight Watchers

I've been concerned about my weight lately and have been working on it. I walk or jog (depending on if I have kids with me or not) 1-2 miles a day most days and I've been eating healthier. That's pretty much all I can do while breastfeeding.

When I pulled up to our back gate last night after running some errands, I saw this:


...an anonymous bag of womens clothes, a small box with some clothes, and a dusty old VCR on top (not the kid). My first thought was, "Oh! Someone thought I might need some post-pregnancy clothes!" However, when I looked at the sizes, they were all 8 to 10 and mediums. Then I hopefully thought, "Did someone leave these, thinking I would actually fit into them?" The next thought, and the most liekly was, "These just must have been left at the wrong door."

My final thought the flitted through the back of my mind was this: "Maybe someone is trying to give me a subtle hint. Maybe there's someone out there who thinks if they give me all these cute, stylish clothes in my pre-pre-pregnancy sizes, it will motivate me more." Kind of like Tea Leoni did to her daughter in Spanglish. My fleeting inner-reaction was kind of like the daughter's outward one in the movie. But I pushed that aside, being the least likely explanation.

I called a thin neighbor friend of mine to see if she wanted to come rifle through the clothes before I donated the rest to DI. As I picked up the VCR, I wondered if there was a tape inside. And yes there was. My "fleeting final, least-likely" thought came rushing to the forefront when I plugged it in, pushed the eject button, and this popped out:

(Sigh)

Tonte Verde (doesn't that translate to "green stupid"?)

Ever since the week of Christmas, Robert has been working at a private golf club called Tonto Verde. I actually found the job for him on Craigslist in November sometime when Sbarro's decided to NOT make him a manager and to NOT pay him more than $10 an hour, despite the fact that they promised that when he was hired. I actually replied to the ad for him and told him about it later as a side note. I didn't think anything would come of it. Out of the (literally) hundreds of jobs we replied to since he started looking in June, he's gotten about a dozen return calls and maybe about 5 interviews. In the last 6 months. We didn't expect to hear anything, but we did! In November, Robert interviewed for it and was told that they had been closed for a year doing some major renovations and were going to start training in December sometime but he wasn't given a start date. We thought to ourselves, "Well, it's nice to think there's a possibility out there. We'll see." Needless to say, we were skeptical.

He kept getting emails from the the Executive Chef, Mark, and finally got a start date. So, Robert put in his notice at the catering company. He began working a position called Chef de Parte, which basically means the stocks/soups guy. Kind of mid-level kitchen management. The pay is way better than he was getting before and there are benefits! He really likes Chef Mark and the Executive Sous Chef, Chef Gavino, but there was this one guy, Chef Mike, who was the third upper-management chef, the morning Sous Chef, who was nice but kind of a putz.

Robert worked his rear off during the training and when they found out he can carve fruits and vegetables, they asked him to oversee and create the entire "cold" display--fruits, vegetables, deli meats, cheese and crackers, antipasto, etc.--for the grand opening last Saturday. I mentioned it the other day when I said he had taken the camera for his "career-altering" display. Well, it did. Alter his career, I mean.

He did such an awesome job that Chef Mark asked him to step up as the morning Sous Chef and Chef Mike was demoted (too bad). This means a huge change in his leadership responsiblities, a better title (great for resumes), $2 per hour raise, and just the feel-good feeling of finally being appreciated and recognized. He'll be supervising the entire kitchen for the morning shifts. The Sous Chef pretty much works as the Executive Chef when he's not there. He's THE guy in charge. They even have to call him Chef Robert. :)

So, congratlautions Robert!

Here are some pictures from the fruit he carved the other night.

By the way...

That lasagna recipe is REALLY good. Just wanted to let you know.

Three Recipe Reviews

I was hoping to take some pictures of my own of these things, but when I went to get the camera yesterday, it was gone. I realized that Robert took it to work with him to take pictures of the big, possibly career-changing fruit display he is building for an event at the golf course tonight. But that's another story. As a result, I am having to use the pictures from The Pioneer Woman website, since these are all her recipes anyway.

First, we have Iny's Prune Cake. Pioneer Woman talks this up, and she ain't kiddin'. It is truly, very delicious, and it must be served warm. I reheat my pieces whenever I have one. At first, I didn't even think about the prune-elimination connection until Robert made a comment and now, two days later, one thought has crossed my mind several times. Where was this cake during my last trimesters and the first three months after delivery!? If that's TMI, then I'm sorry, but I thought it was worth putting it in there for all you mothers out there still in your child-bearing years. This cake is probably the most delicious medicine, or cure, for any of those pesky problems. Okay, enough. Here's the picture and go here to get the recipe.

Mmmm, it's even better than the picture. And I love the story she tells about her husband devouring a piece before she could tell him what was in it, and then not having the heart to tell him until she published her cookbook!

Next is the Cauliflower Soup. I made this for dinner tonight with some frozen Rhodes rolls. All I can say is it's really good. I did make a few changes, though, because I wanted to thicken it a little. If you follow the recipe exactly, the flavor is awesome and it is what it is--soup. And it's good that way, but, like I said, I was going more for chowder. So, I used about 1 1/2 quarts of chicken stock instead of 2 quarts, then when the soup was done (before I added the sour cream part), I strained half of the vegetable bits and pureed them in a blender then added them back to the soup. I also added a half a pound of grated cheese. It still wasn't quite chowdery, but more to my liking. But do what you want. Here it is.

And finally, for dinner tomorrow, I made PW's Lasagna. Since we have church at 8:30 tomorrow (yikes!) and we're going to visit some friends from Montana tomorrow evening, I figured the best way to make the Sabath as "easy" as possible was to just assemble the lasagna today and bake it tomorrow. So, I haven't tasted the whole thing yet, but just the meat sauce was amazing. This is going to sound lame, but it tasted just like the Stoufer's lasagna meat sauce to me. That's usually the only lasagna we eat and we love it, what can I say? In fact, this is the first lasagna I have ever made from scratch. I'm really excited to try it tomorrow. I'll let you know what my final word is. Here you go.

Cinnamon-Spiced Hot Chocolate Cookies

These are the cookies I made and sent to my brother in Qatar for Christmas (along with some Honeycomb) but I forgot to take a picture before, so I had to make them again (darn it :)). The recipe is from Aaron Sanchez from the Food Network and it is pretty much spot on, so here's the link rather than me retyping it. I do have a few notes, though, of things that I found to be slightly different.

1. He uses Dulce de Leche to drizzle on top, but I just used white chocolate chips. Just melt about 1/8-1/4 cup in the microwave in 15 second increments (if it becomes crumbly, it's burned and you'll have to start over) then just add about 1/4 tsp. vegetable oil to smooth it out and make it drizzle-able. I refrigerate them to help them set quicker.

2. I used all butter the first time since I forgot to buy margarine, and they were great. The second time, I didn't have butter either (weird) so I used shortening. The taste was good, but the texture was off. They were kind of grainy. I recommend first following the recipe exactly, though, if you can.

3. This one is important! He says to make the log about 9-10 inches, but I'd say more like 8. He also says to slice them 1/4 inch thick, but look at my picture and his--they have to be AT LEAST 1/3 inch, if not 1/2 inch thick to cook right. I don't know what he was thinking when he put that. They'll burn on the bottom, they won't rise, and they'll be hard if you do 1/4 inch. You can tell the ones in his picture are more than that! This changes the yield from 36 to more like 18.

4. He mentions how they puff and crackle on top when they're done, but know that this is very slight. These can be really hard when over cooked, but nice and soft and chewy in the center when done right, so err on the side of "under-done" if at all. It's just hard to tell since they're such dark cookies.

Good luck!

He CAN be taught!

Last night, when saying our family prayer, Craig kept his arms folded the ENTIRE time and stood quietly next to me! This is the first time he's done it without being in one of our laps. Of course, I helped him out a little by saying a quick prayer, but we had success!

Egg-in-a-Hole leads to Hole-in-the-Wall

This morning I began making Craig's and my new favorite breakfast, Egg in a Hole from the Pioneer Woman cookbook and from her website, although you don't really need a recipe. It's more of a concept.

Anyway, as I gently cracked the egg on the counter and proceeded to move it over the pan, the shell broke perfectly and cleanly in half just as I passed over the crack between the stove and the counter. The gooey, sticky, possibly-salmonella-filled inerds slithered down and disappeared before I even really knew what happened. All of a sudden, my morning went from lazy breakfast eating and book reading to cleaning up a mess that was sure to only be made worse as I attempted to make it better by having to pull out the stove.

Once it was out, I found Ethan's pacifier he got in the hospital (which I'm sure HE didn't put there), my basting brush, a cake server, and half of a plastic Easter Egg. Thanks Craig. That was only our stuff. The rest? There was six years of flith, grime, dust, a popcsicle stick, two glass bead-things, and various other unsavories. I really don't like cleaning my own crud, but especially not someone else's.

I took this picture after I had already cleaned the side of the stove that's showing, by the way. It was nasty. One other thing, if you ever have to do this, a deck brush is the way to go when you're cleaning the floor. (Thanks Mom!)

Side-by-sides

I just pulled the exersaucer-thing out for Ethan and Craig has loved playing with it more than him. I thought it would be interesting to see what Craig looked like the first time he used this compared to now. They grow so fast, yet so gradually, it's hard to believe he was ever that little baby there.


And here's baby pictures of Craig and Ethan at about the same age. What do you think? Look-a-likes? Who looks like who the most?



I couldn't find any really good pictures of Craig that I liked from that age, so this one will have to do. Ethan's the first one and Craig is second. (Look at Craig's man-hands. Ethan has them, too, but you can't tell in this picture.)

Christmas 2009

I wasn't nearly as good at taking pictures on this trip to California as I was last time, but that was over a year ago and things were much different. Back then I only had one child, and he wasn't even crawling yet. It was a lot of fun, though, and I'll post what I have.

We left when Robert got off work on Wednesday night, the 23rd. We were heading out of town by 4:45 and made it to Sonora at 5:00am, so it took just about 12 hours. And that was with stops and everything to let Craig walk around and to feed Ethan. Ethan is a great night traveler, but Craig struggled. We all went to sleep when we got there and recuperated pretty well. Christmas Eve we spent preparing the appetizers that were our portion of Christmas dinner, napping, and that evening we went to Laura and Dustin's house. Anna and Mark showed up and it was so fun to watch Craig run around with all the kids. There were nine kids, total, and four of them were 2 or under, so it was crazy. But we loved it.

We were staying at my parents' house but were planning on opening presents at Laura's Christmas morning, so Christmas Eve we just set out Craig and Ethan's stockings (I love the dollar store) and a train set.

This was what it looked like the next morning after they got up.

(Robert did this.)

Craig had fun and Ethan was oblivious. It was really fun for us to have a child who, for the first time, was old enough to play with the toys and really enjoy it, even though he still won't get the whole concept until next year.

I forgot to take pictures the rest of that day and the next, but we pretty much opened presents, talked, ate, and enjoyed each others' company. Dinner was great and I really loved being around my family again.

Saturday was our last day before heading home, so we went to Columbia (a little gold rush ghost town with some great little shops--it's a family tradition to go there whenever we're in town). Laura, Anna, the kids, my mom, and I went and met an old friend of mine from school. It was great to see Maggie and meet her fiance and her little girl. As a side note, I just want to say that I love the way all this modern technology and these social networking sites bring people back together. There are many downsides to the internet, but there definitely is a purpose for it, too.

We took naps that afternoon then headed out at about 5:00pm. It took us longer to get back and Craig had a MUCH harder time this time, but we pulled in at about 7:30 (that's with gaining one hour at the border) and went straight to bed. We all slept til about noon and were pretty lazy all day. It seems we're also coming down with some colds, so we're laying low, but glad to be home. I miss being around my family more, but life is what it is. I'm just glad we live close enough to go home for Christmas!


P.S. Here's some of the things they got spread out on our floor this morning (and you'll see our humble little tree in the background).

We got Craig some Mega Lego blocks and, his favorite thing, a real drill (it's on the bottom right). We just took the bit out. He loves any tools and anything electric/battery operated. There's also a Cars book from my parents in the middle there. Ethan got a humidifier and bath toys that he's going to share with Craig until he can use them. :) Robert got me a hand mixer and I got him a small mandolin slicer. Oh! And my mom got us girls the Pioneer Woman cookbook! I am so excited and have been trying to get to reading it all day. You can check out her website using the link to the right under Mommy Blogs.

P.P.S. Here's a quick picture to show how big Ethan is getting. I pulled this out today from storage and he loved it! It bought me an extra 20 minutes to do some work with my classes for next semester.

Roasted Applesauce and Spong Toffee

I forgot to take pictures, but I wanted to share with you an awesome new recipe I found for applesauce and one for something called sponge toffee or Honeycomb. They make great, inexpensive Christmas gifts that are also quick and easy.

Since we are tight on cash this Christmas, I made a batch of this applesauce, put it in jars, decorated the jars a little, and gave them to a few of our friends. It's really simple.

To make about three pints:
16 apples (peeled, cored, and chopped)
1 cup apple cider (or juice if you have to)
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Preheat oven to 400. Mix everything in a bowl, spread on a buttered cookie sheet, and bake until apples are soft, about 30-45 mins., stirring occasionally. Mash the apples with juices. (A food processor makes this part super easy, but you don't need it.)

Honeycomb
AKA Sponge Toffee

3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup corn syrup
2 tsp. baking soda

This took me three tries to get it right, so I will try to give you proper instructions to hopefully make it even easier for you.

Line a 9x13 pan with foil or wax paper. Combine sugar and corn syrup in a medium to large sauce pan (you want to have enough room for the the mixture to expand when you add the baking soda). Cook, stirring, over medium-low heat. Once sugar begins to melt, stop stirring and swirl the mix frequently to prevent burning. Swirl, don't stir anymore. Watch it carefully until it reaches a dark yellow color. If you're unsure of how far to let it color, it's better to err on the side of too light that too dark. Remember, it will continue cooking for a minute in the center even after it's out of the pan. When the right color is reached, remove from heat and stir in the baking soda. It will foam up. Immediately get it onto the wax paper or foil and let it harden. Once cooled, you can eat it plain or, as I prefer, break it off in chunks, dip it in melted chocolate, and set on wax paper to cool. When all I had left was a little chocolate and some small pieces and crumbs, I mixed it all together and spooned it in piles onto wax paper and let cool--it was sort of like a crunch bar.

Little Man

I just thought that Craig looked so much like a little man. He put on Robert's hat and shoes, so I had to take a picture. (He's so serious, too.)

This was the first time Ethan has really used his hands to play with a toy, so I had to take a picture. He's concentrating so hard, and it occupied him for quite a while.