Little Hands

Loving these little hands.  

Valentine's Day decor

Our Christmas tree didn't make it, but our heart garland from last year did.  Our tree decided to dry up right before I was going to decorate it for Valentine's Day.  It's okay though, because now it's gone and I like having that space opened up again.

Around the house today : Another recipe (I've had a lot of those lately)

Yes, that's a diaper on a stuffed dog.  And yes, that's a blue Bumbo on my sons head.  He thinks it's cool.

Busy day today.  Fed kids a lot.  Washed sheets & towels.  Exercised.  Had a neighbor boy over.  Talked on the phone with one of my sisters.  Fed kids some more.  Made chocolate chip cookies.  Took pictures (had a bunch of blurry pics... I'm still learning).  Made homemade pizza.  Ate my meals really fast.  Bathed kids.  Snuggled kids.  Tucked kids in.  Talked on the phone with my mom.  Sent kid #1 to time out once.  Tickled and cooed at kid #2 a lot.  Snuggled with kids and watched Curious George.  Consoled kid #1 after coming home from soccer practice in major tears.  Made beds.  Changed diapers.  Put a band-aid on kid #1's thumb.  Cleaned up the house.  Did some dishes.

It was a good day.  I'm blessed to have a job that I love.  The job that I've wanted my whole life.

And I get to look at this cute baby and smell him every day.  He smells so good...most of the time.  

And because I'm so glad that I have this recipe for homemade pizza dough, I'm going to share it with you.  It's not fancy or super healthy or organic, but it's super yummy, quick, and easy.

My Go-To Pizza Dough

1 TBS Yeast

1 cup milk

1 TBS olive oil

2 1/2 cups Flour

1/2 tsp salt

Warm milk, put in yeast, let it grow.  Add oil, salt, and flour.  Knead 5 minutes by hand or 2-3 minutes in a machine.  Let is rise to double.  Bake pizzas at 450 degrees, 10-15 minutes.

I bake my pizzas on a pizza stone in the oven.  The crust turns out really well.  

Also, I like to put in 2 cups all purpose flour, and a 1/2 cup whole white wheat flour.  It adds a little more nutrition and it still is soft and yummy.  Once I tried using all whole white wheat flour.  It didn't work.  It was so tough.  But like I said, this is not supposed to be one of those whiz bang super duper healthy recipes.  

We like Hawaiian pizzas around here.  Sometimes we do a BBQ chicken pizza.  Tonight we did Hawaiian and I also made a mini pizza with red sauce, fresh spinach, crumbled tomato & basil feta, a little mozzarella, and canned chicken.  It was really yummy!

Have a great weekend!

Happy Boys

Thankful for happy & healthy boys today.  And for a great husband who snapped this adorable picture of our boys.  They sure love each other.

Fried Apples

I love the fried apples from Cracker Barrel.  So tonight I thought they would make a nice little dessert for Keith and I.  I found this recipe and gave it a try.  I would give it a 6 out of 10.  Part of that would be my fault.  I cooked them on too high of a heat which made them turn out way too tender.  I like them to still have some bite.  I might try again but I think I'll be searching for another recipe.  Have you ever made fried apples?

In other news

Brett rolled over today.  From his tummy to his back.  I took these pictures of his second roll.

He was very proud of himself.  He's still trying hard to roll from his back to his tummy.  It makes me so happy to see him growing and learning new things.

Sunday night Scrabble

When we have my parents over for dinner we pretty much always play scrabble afterward with them.  Last night was no different.  This time we enjoyed giant homemade cream puffs with vanilla pudding, strawberries, whipped cream, and chocolate shavings.

***Post Edit***
Here's the recipe I use for my Cream Puffs.

Around the house in the afternoon : A recipe

Dinner in the oven.  Honey Mustard Chicken.

Grant playing with his trains.

Bottles drying.

Monkeys hanging from the fan.

Scene after bath time.
Think we have enough ducks?

Moved Brett's car-seat straps up a level.  He's getting so big!

Brett trying to roll over.  He's so close!

Yummy salad to go with our chicken.

Honey Mustard Chicken

Place 6 chicken breasts in the bottom of a 9x13 pan. 

Combine the following and heat 'till melted:

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup mustard

1 tsp salt

1 tsp curry powder

Pour over chicken and bake at 375 for 45 minutes.  Serve with rice.

This chicken recipe was a frequent dinner for us when I was growing up.  I love it!  Somehow I hadn't made it in the 6 years that I've been married.  So back in November I got the recipe from my mom and made it for us.  It's now Keith's favorite.  And it's so easy!  Try it, I dare you.

A weekend trip to the zoo

What perfect weather we had this past weekend!  We spent a few hours at the zoo on Saturday.  It was quite fun.  All the animals were out and showing their best stuff.  The orangutans were active and doing funny things, and there was a big pelican walking around the kids area.  Grant had a blast!  We really like going to the zoo together.  

Grant eating a gold fish.
A classic Grant face.

Grant & Keith on the carousel.

Love this guy.  He doesn't do much, but I could watch him for a long time.  He looks so interesting.

Grant is getting a little tired of me trying to take his picture all the time with the new camera that I got for Christmas.   He tells me, "no-no, mom!"

The big pelican.

Going down backwards.

"Hi Mom!"

So thrilled to be there.

Orange Drop Cookies

Our heater was broken today.  So in an effort to warm our place up, baking was in order.  It worked!  I made one of my favorite cookies of the season, Orange Drop Cookies.  So great with it being orange season around these parts.  If you have a plentiful of oranges, or even just a few, I highly recommend trying these.  They are amazing!

Orange Drop Cookies

2/3 cup shortening or butter

3/4 cup white sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup orange juice

2 TBS orange zest

2 cups + 4 TBS flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Cream together shortening/butter, sugar, and egg.  Stir in orange juice & zest.  Combine dry ingredients and add to wet ingredients.  Drop rounded spoonfuls on ungreased cookie sheets, 2 inches apart.  Bake 8-10 minutes, or until edges are delicately browned.  Let cool.  Frost.

Orange Drop Cookie Frosting

2-3 TBS butter, softened

2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

Mix together and add orange juice a little bit at a time 'till it makes a good frosting.  I also like to add orange zest to this too.

Makes about 30 cookies.  Enjoy!

We still have our tree up

We still have our Christmas tree up.  Last year's tree (Home Depot) dried up to a crisp just a week after we brought it home.  This year we got a tree from Costco.  It is still amazing!  We don't have the heart to get rid of it yet, so we're going to cover it in hearts and decorate it for Valentine's Day!  I'm pretty sure it's going to last 'till then just fine.  Have you ever kept your Christmas tree into February?

When I took the Christmas decor off the tree I found this spider web at the top.  Looks like we've had a resident Christmas spider living with us.  I hope it's gone now!

3 months

It's amazing how time has flown by with this little guy.  Here's what this 3 monther is up to lately:

• sucking on his hands like crazy
• smiling a lot
• cooing
• sleeping 12 hours (on a good night)
• weighs in at 13 pounds 12 ounces
• can't take his eyes off mommy
• loves hearing daddy's voice on the phone
• loves his big brother (even when Grant gets a little crazy with him)
• super alert when he's awake
• absolutely LOVES bath time
• does NOT like having his nose wiped (what kid does?)
• still super cuddly

December 2011

A few quick points from December 2011:

• My sister, Ann, had a sweet baby girl named Hazel.
• My other sister, Amber, came to visit us with her husband and their sweet baby girl Ellie.  They stayed with us for 10 days.  It was fun.  And then all our kids got sick.  We enjoyed staying in a lot and tried to catch up on our sleep.
• We had an appetizer dinner with my family and my cousins.  We started this last year and I think we'll do it every year.  We all bring our favorite appetizer and make a dinner out of it.  Yummy!
• Grant hasn't been to nursery at church for over a month because he's had a bad cough.  He was on breathing treatments for a week, which helped a lot.
• Brett went to the doctor 6 times in December, only one visit was for a well check up.  He is currently on breathing treatments.  Not sure if they're helping, but at least he's happy through it all. He had to get shots three days in a row for his antibiotic for an ear infection.
• Brett spits up.  Everything.  A lot.  And there's nothing we can do about it.  And so we are patiently waiting for his little tummy muscle that holds down food to get stronger so that it will, well, hold down his food!  After a couple nurses at the doctors office recommended it, we tried thickening his formula with rice cereal so that it might stay down better.  It worked for about 2 days.  Argh!
• Keith and I celebrated our 6th anniversary.  We went to dinner, the zoo lights, and then to see Breaking Dawn.  The book was not my favorite of the bunch, and I'd say the movie isn't either.  But we really enjoyed being out alone together.  It had been a while.
• We spent Christmas Eve and part of Christmas day with Keith's family.  We had a fun walk with them on Christmas Eve.  We fed the birds at the park.  We also visited the Fire Station to sing to the Firemen (and woman).  They were so nice and so happy that we came.  They even went out of their way to show us the station and show us the HUGE fire trucks.  I knew the trucks were big, but WOW up close they are so much bigger than I thought they were!  Grant was in heaven.
• We needed some fresh air, so we went on a hike the day after Christmas.  It was fun.  Brett slept the whole time.  Grant did good, but wanted me to carry him at the end.  He's still all about having Mom help him.  I'm trying to convince him that Daddy's a good helper too, but he won't have it.
• Oh ya, Grant got a train track for Christmas.  He was thrilled!  We kept it up for a week and then we made a smaller version of the track so that it won't take up the whole family room.
• Brett had a handsome little red Christmas bow tie with penguins on it.  He's such a doll!

Now, let's look at Grant last year vs. this year.  

He's wearing the same tie and the rest of his outfit is pretty much just like last year.  Look at how much of a big boy he's starting to be.  He starts soccer in a couple weeks!

Hope you all have a wonderful new year!