Good morning

Most mornings I wake up before the boys do, but sometimes they wake up before me. Jack wakes me up by laying across my head. There is nothing quite like the smell of pee first thing in the morning to remind me of the most important thing I need to do that day. Which is to be a mom and take care of my boys.
Ben wakes me up by putting his face as close to mine as he can without touching it. Sometimes he talks, but most of the time I wake up because of his warm breath blowing on my face. It's startling, but it beats waking up to an alarm clock.

Every Party Has a Pooper

So tomorrow night is New Year's Eve. We have the option of going a few different places, but what do I want to do? Stay home and go to bed at a reasonable hour. It's kind of silly because most nights I stay up close to midnight anyway, but I was thinking of maybe doing something different for New Year's Eve. I should start the year on a good note when it comes to sleeping. My boys are three and one and they don't really need to stay up until midnight. I want Chad to go to a game night with his friends. He feels bad leaving me, but seriously I'm okay with it.
What are you doing for New Year's Eve? Anybody else want to just go to bed like me?

Christmas 2008

This is what we do with our Christmas presents to keep the boys from opening them early. I think they look pretty up there on the entertainment center.
Twas the night before Christmas
Christmas Eve we gathered with my family and exchanged Christmas gifts and then had some yummy food. Then we came home and put the boys to bed.

Christmas morning
My boys like to sleep in, like me. On Christmas Eve I told Chad that I never want to wake our children up on Christmas, because it won't be long before they are waking us up. I ended up eating my words. A little before 9am the boys were still asleep. Since I was excited and we needed to get the day started I woke them up. They were a little dazed for a few minutes, but then really got into the swing of things. The boys got plasma cars, build and play toys, dress up clothes, and a bike (for Ben).






My favorite gift I gave were these super hero capes that I made for the boys. Ben was indifferent towards them, Jack wores his all day. He loves the silky fabric.

After opening gifts and playing with them for a while we went over to my parent's house for our traditional breakfast of omelets and scones. Then we went to Chad's parents and then we finished off the evening at my grandparent's house.
Ben loved all his gifts, but he was extremely disappointed that he didn't get some kind of gun. Especially because most of his boy cousins on both sides of the family got nerf guns. When he expressed his disappointment to me over and over again, of course I said to him, "you can't have a gun, you'll shoot your eye out." :)
I hope everyone had a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

My boys

Jack
I can't believe this was taken last year. Time passes too quickly. Look at Jack, he looks so different. Look at those cute chubby cheeks, I miss them. Jack use to look so different from Ben, now he is starting to look so much like him.
Jack is just a bucket of fun lately. He is such a fun age. Yeah, he gets into all the drawers and pulls stuff out and he climbs up on the table or counter and dances, but I know it's just a phase and I'm really enjoying a lot of the things he is doing right now.
He's been a little sick the past couple of days though and isn't he usual mostly mellow, but happy little boy. He came down with a cold last Friday, by Sunday he was having a hard time with his breathing. We gave him some breathing treatments on Sunday. Monday I took him to the doctor where the doctor said that Jack will probably have a hard time breathing every time he gets a cold and it will most likely be something he grows out of. She gave us a prescription for some steroids to help open his airways.
We had to figure out how to give Jack one and a half tiny pills that are super, super bitter. The doctor told us to crush them up and put them in something super sweet. Jack doesn't like taking medicine, even the kind that tastes like candy, so he wasn't easily fooled. It was quite tricky getting him to take the pills. Now I'm afraid he's not going to be wanting to eat yogurt, Leatherby's caramel, or penuch anytime soon.
The steroids make him super irritable, at least he was yesterday. He cried a lot. It was a very hard day for him and a little for me. Hopefully he won't need steroids too often, they are kind of dangerous anyway if taken too often.
Ben
He is such a super smart little boy. His memory is amazing. I thought I had a pretty good memory (or at least I use to). A couple of times this week Ben has remembered things that I couldn't remember right away. He was right and I was wrong.
Lately Ben does this strange thing when he talks, he gets stuck on sounds. He says cat-t-t-t-t (the sounds slowly gets quieter) or couch-ch-ch-ch. He's done this before, then stops for a while, then starts again. I'm not sure why he does it, but when I remember to I'll tell him the letter or letters of the sound he is stuck on.
Ben is soooooo excited for Christmas. Every morning he wakes up and asks me if it's Christmas and every morning he has a meltdown when I tell him that it isn't. Today I get to tell him that Christmas is tomorrow, I'm excited.
Chad
The past month, because of the Christmas season, we've been a little busy. I haven't had enough time to just sit and talk with Chad. We talk, but in short little snippits. I love my kids, but sometimes I really miss having a lot of time with just Chad. I love him more than anything. Before I had kids I use to talk with my friend Tawni about how much I love Chad and how I love spending time with him. I was super in love, I still am, it's just different. Tawni had a little girl and I remember her telling me that marriage changes a lot after you have kids and you don't have the time for each other like you use to, but when she watches her husband with her little girl she has that same 'in love' feeling. She was sooooo right. When Chad is laughing, loving, and playing with our little boys I'm so 'in love' with all of them.

Tarragon Cream Polenta Pot Pies

A couple of weeks ago I made this for a lunch group I attend. I thought it was quite tasty. I didn't make up the recipe, it's from Rachel Ray.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 pounds chicken tenders, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 ribs celery with the greens, chopped
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
3 cups chicken stock, divided
1 cup cream, divided
1/2 cup quick cooking polenta, plus more, if needed*
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
6 sprigs fresh tarragon, stripped and chopped, 3 to 4 tablespoons
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup Gruyere cheese, grated

In a deep skillet heat 2 turns of the pan extra-virgin olive oil over medium-high heat. Add chicken and lightly brown, 3 minutes, add carrots, onions, and celery as you chop. Season with salt and pepper and cook 10 to 12 minutes to soften.
Preheat broiler. Set rack in middle of oven.
Bring 1 cup chicken stock and 1/2 cup cream to a boil, stir in polenta and whisk, 3 minutes. Turn heat low, stir in Gruyere cheese and reserve.
Scoot meat and veggies off to side, melt butter and combine with flour 1 minute. Whisk in 2 cups stock and combine, stir in 1/2 cup cream and bring to a bubble. Stir in Dijon, tarragon, peas and adjust salt and pepper and transfer to soup bowls. Set soup bowls on baking dish. Form tops to your pot pies with the polenta and cheese mixture. Set under broiler and brown 2 to 3 minutes

My little spin on things

* I used only 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter

* I used cream, but will probably use milk in the future or at least half milk half cream

* I used low sodium chicken broth instead of chicken stock and I substituted Pepper Jack in place of the Gruyere cheese. You could use any kind of cheese. Although sometimes I like to splurge I couldn't bring myself to buy Gruyere cheese because it costs $15-$20 a pound.

*To make the polenta I put the 1 cup chicken broth, ½ cup cream, and ½ cup yellow corn meal in a microwave safe bowl and cooked it in two minute increments, stirring in between, until the polenta thickened. Then I ended up adding some more chicken broth to get the polenta the consistency I wanted.

*I served the pies in ramekins

* I think I only used two tablespoons of tarragon.

My camera

When it comes to sleeping Jack is having a horrible week, so I'm getting to write a lot of posts. Every night he wakes up a couple of times and is super unhappy. Moments ago, I couldn't get him to stop crying, so now we are watching Hippo Noodles and he's calmed down. I'm writing a post and he's watching this strange video that we also use to use to get Ben to stop crying. I love having two monitors for our computer.

My friend Heather's dad posted a comment on my blog about my camera, wondering if I had a better one that him. Heather's dad, Robin, takes amazing pictures, but I wanted to answer his question about my camera. I'm sure a few more of you might want to know.

Chad has always loved photography. Infact, his dream job would be to be a photograher. Chad especially loves taking pictures of nature and landscapes. For years he's wanted to buy a digital camera, but I wouldn't let him (mean, huh?).

I've always loved photography as well, but never took the time to learn much about it. I especially love pictures of people. Another thing I love to take pictures of is food, which was the first reason we bought a digital camera.

So, what kind of camera do I have? It's a Nikon D80. We chose Nikon because we already had a Nikon SLR and we could use the lenses from that camera on our new digital camera. Turns out that I rarely ever use the old lenses. I almost always use one lens in particular that I bought to go with the digital camera. It's a 50 mm 1.4 lens. It's a prime lens which means you can't zoom in with it, but because it's a prime lens it has amazing clarity. Because of the aperature this lense allows you can get pretty good pictures in low light, which is awesome because I generally don't like using a flash. You also get pictures that have awesome bokeh (blurry backgrounds).

I got my camera a year and a half ago. First I actually had a Nikon D40, but I upgraded to a D80 because the 50 mm 1.4 lens didn't work on the D40. I didn't know a whole heck of a lot about photography before I got a digital camera, but I've learn a lot over the past year. And I still have soooooooooooooo much to learn. One thing that I do know is that I love it, and I love the instant gratification you get from digital cameras. I often feel like I'm a cheater, that I only do a good job taking pictures because I have a nice digital camera, but it's so nice to be able to take a picture figure out what is wrong with it and then make adjustments to fix it right then.

One more thing, just about every professional photographer edits their photos. I'm not a professional, but I edit a lot of mine. I use to do it in Photoshop, but I've recently fallen in love with Lightroom, thanks to Chad's friend Kevin.

If you buy a nice Digital SLR, don't use the AUTO mode. If you are going to spend a big chunk of change on a camera, experiment with it. If you're afraid, take a class. And then take a billion pictures and delete the ones you don't like.

One last thing, I wanted to say thank you to every one who has posted compliments about the pictures I take. And thank you to everyone who has asked me to take pictures for them. It means a lot!

Burning the midnight oil

Blasted. I shouldn't have written that I was sleeping better, because every night since I wrote that in a post I've been up for at least a couple of hours in the middle of the night. I actually still might be sleeping better, but Jack is not. It's 3:00am and he just woke me up and isn't interested in going back to sleep. He's happy and is laughing and smiling at me and when I put him down he dances around, so it's hard to be mad at him. The other night we put him to bed as usual and then at midnight he woke up and wouldn't go back to sleep until 3:00am. He was super happy, giggling and dancing around, that night too. Silly boy.

I love it when his dances. I love that when he hears music he just can't help but dance. He dances in the car seat (as best he can), he dances in the store when he hears music that I didn't even realize was playing, he dances when my cell phone rings. Recently he's developed a new move that we call 'happy feet' as he dances around bobbing back and forth like a penguin. He moves like this a lot, even when there isn't music. It's sooooooooo cute.

He's developed another personality quirk that I'm not so fond of. He gets insanely jealous when I pay attention to Ben. Often I will be sitting with Ben and Jack will come up and hit him. Fortunately I have room for two boys on my lap, but Jack often just doesn't want to share. He's learning though and most of the time he just simply adores Ben.

Jack has also become quite independent when it comes to eating. He won't let me feed him with a fork or spoon, he must do it all by himself. He does really well though and he eats really well if I give him his own utensils.

Well, I've gotta go change a little boy's bum. Do anybody else's kids wake up in the middle of the night to take care of their business? Sometimes I think my kids are on a poop schedule rather than a sleep schedule. Some nights, no matter how hard we try, or how consistent we are will bed time he just won't go to sleep. And then we discover he just needed to take care of business first. Ben was the same way.

Penuche

My Grandma makes this delicious homemade candy called penuche. She's been making it for 42 years. Last Saturday I went and watched her make it, and I took my camera. She thought I was silly for taking pictures,

but oh well.

Penuche includes sugar (brown & granulated). It's important to use cane sugar, not beet sugar.

Cream

Butter

and Corn Syrup

Cream, butter, sugar? Mmmmmmm! Mix them all together and then wash down the sides of the pot with water and your hand. Don't stir the candy while it's cooking.

Then put it on the stove top on high until it starts bubbling

Turn it down to medium and then wait

Every once in a while wash down the sides with a brush (I can't remember if it is or isn't suppose to be nylon) and water

and check the temperature

When it gets to the right temperature, do the water test to be sure the candy is at soft ball stage.

Then pour the candy out on a large marble slab (or sink cutout). Don't scrape out the pot, just pour it out.

Let cool until warm to touch. (Enter Grandpa. Good thing he helps, since he ends up eating most of the candy Grandma makes.)

Then turn it

Turn it

Turn it some more

Add vanilla

Turn some more

Until it looks like this

My Grandma then rolls it into balls and puts a pecan on top.

Or she rolls it into logs which she later dips in caramel and then rolls in pecans. Delicious. Insanely delicious.

Watch out for candy thieves.

If you haven't had this stuff you're missing out. You can buy it, but the homemade kind is the best. I'd like to think this a secret family recipe, but my Grandma gives it out all the time. Be warned however, that candy making is sometimes tricky. Even if you do things exactly the same it turns out different. Sometimes it goes to sugar, but sometimes you're successful. But even if it's not perfect, it still tastes good.

Here's the recipe (Kevin I know you wanted it.)

2 cups granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup cream

1/2 Tablespoon white corn syrup

2 Tablesppons butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

Cook to 232 degrees (soft ball stage)

Deck the Halls

My aunt in Texas called me the other day to see how I was doing. She mentioned that I hadn't been writing many blogs lately and wanted to make sure that I was okay. The biggest reason I haven't written many blogs lately is because I've been sleeping better the past month or so. Since I usually write most of my blogs in the middle of the night, I haven't been awake in the middle of the night to write them. It nice to be sleeping a little better, but I'm sad that I don't have many entries from the last month. I may try to catch up on a few things, but maybe not. I'll start with tonight.
We are back in the basement. We moved down last Saturday which worked out good because we moved before it snowed. There are actually a few things I miss about living upstairs, but it's nice to be back in our own space. And unless we find a great deal on a house, we will be hibernating down here until the snow melts.
Tonight we put up our Christmas tree.





Chad and I just sat amazed and watched Ben put all the ornaments on the tree. He placed all the ornaments spaced apart perfectly.

And Jack enjoyed taking the ornaments off the tree almost as quickly as Ben put them on.





For dessert we had waffle cones with homemade vanilla cranberry ice cream. I borrowed this waffle cone maker from my friends at Leatherby's to make waffle bowls for a church activity. (I needed to make 80 of them and my sweet husband made all of them for me so I could make candy.) We had some mix left over, so he made waffle cones tonight. This makes the house smell soooooooo good and it smells good for a couple of days.







Aren't these boys cute?!