boo boos

Wow I've been kind of a blogging slacker. Reese stayed home from "school" this week due to sickness. We went to the pediatrician on Monday for the croup diagnosis. He is mostly over the cough and has very little runny nose. BUT today he took an extra early, extra long nap after being very mellow. So I guess it's not gone. This week he also tried to dive bomb his brother. His hands slid under the couch and his head smashed into the base of the couch resulting in this boo boo: He landed still on his knees so Gus was completely unscathed with his brother crouching over him. This is after the ice. He was pretty distressed about the boo boo, but moved on relatively quickly. He still frequently tells us about his boo boo though. Gus is thinking serves you right for trying to jump on me.

Menu Plan Monday

Well I've really been remiss in my menu planning. I have been jotting down a plan on out dry erase calendar but we haven't been as diligent at sticking to it. So even though I'm late I'm going to get back in the swing of things and plan again.
This week we are having:
*meatloaf cups, mashed potatoes, broccoli in cheese sauce aka "cheesy dinosaur food"
2 parts ground beef and 1 part ground pork, lipton onion soup mix, egg, italian bread
crumbs and bbq sauce divided into a jumbo muffin tin to bake individual portions

*baked pork chops, finishing up the mashed potatoes and cheesy broccoli
*chicken, mushroom, brown rice bake I'm using frozen spinach instead of broccoli
*enchiladas using the recipe on the back of the Old El Paso green enchilada sauce can
*leftovers
*eat out: Reese has his 3 year old assessment to determine if he still requires services. If it is determined he still needs speech or OT he will graduate from Holly Ridge and go to the program at the school district. Our appt is Friday at 9am so we'll just eat at Big Apple Diner on our way home before Kyle goes to work.

Growth Spurt

One day last week I put on facebook that Gus was sleeping like a newborn. Well at the end of the night I calculated that from midnight to midnight he was awake for about 5 1/2 hours. That's less than a quarter of the day!!!
I also noticed that his normally totally round Budda belly was suddenly not fat anymore.Here a couple of weeks ago he is touching the base of his exersaucer with his tippy toe.

Yesterday he is actually depressing the bouncy base down he's gotten so tall!!!
Wowzer our boy is growing!

Christmas Cookies #2

We made the cookies on the back of the bag of Nestle Chocolate and Mint chips. Some of the chips are normal chocolate and some are a light green mint color and flavor. The cookie itself is chocolate. Instead of the nestle powder the recipe calls for I used Ghiradelli unsweetened cocoa powder. Danger! Danger! You can NOT eat just one or two.....or even three.

Also it's important to note it is important to sample each step of the way. You wouldn't want to serve a cookie with ingredients gone bad.

Reese is taste testing the dry ingredients (yuck!)Licking the spoon
This will tide him over while the cookies bake...oops
I made meatloaf muffins which overflowed with grody grease and burned onto the bottom of the oven. The fire alarm did not go off, phew, but I needed to easy off the oven. We refrigerated the dough and baked it the next day (Saturday).

The finished product......Yum!

Christmas Cookies #1

Today was supposed to be the day that we made Christmas cookies with my mom and Kyle's mom at Kyle's mom's house. Unfortunately yesterday we discovered our brand new furnace doesn't work! UGH! When it gets to a certain low temp the heat pump is supposed to kick off and the natural gas furnace takes over. SO I had to hang at home and wait for the fix it guy---guess what? They need to order a part. Of course, the first time it's cold enough to kick on and we already need a new part. Yesterday Kyle was pretty hysterical about it and I was pretty calm -- we had an appointment for today, we have space heaters, we're okay. But now that it's not fixed and it's 58 degrees in our house and my electricity is cranking to run the heat pump (or it would be 25) and 2 space heaters I'm pretty annoyed.

So to help create some heat we baked (and ran the dishwasher).

Christmas Cookie #1 = Whole Wheat Molasses Crinkles
click on the name to go to the recipe and see good photos of the cookies

Here's Gus trying to keep warm in his thermal union suit, fleece footie jammies, socks and a knit hat. Later I discovered his temp was 99.7 so we removed the hat and socks. 30 minutes later = normal temp. :)

Reese prepping for baking. I rewashed the mixing bowl just in case you get to eat any of these. He's got a mustache from his "coffee"--milk with a splash of peppermint coffee creamer.Here's our ingredients except I didn't need vanilla and baking powder. My regular flour is King Arthur's White Whole Wheat flour. This is my first time using it and I couldn't tell the difference from normal white flour, but it has more fiber and some other nutritional value.Pouring in the flour.
Getting a good whiff of cloves and ginger.Trying to get every last drop of molasses.
creaming the sugar and wet ingredients but my house was too cold for my butter to soften fully--oopsrolled and sugared and ready to go in the oven
Ready to eat (mine are not as flat as hers)Yum

He went back for a few more while I was blogging

So I'm wondering if mine are not as flat because my butter wasn't soft enough or I used silpat sheets or my altitude or what? Why are my small diameter and fat while hers are flat and big diameter? By "hers" I mean the lady whose recipe I used who writes the Finding Joy in My Kitchen blog. You check out her other recipes too. Good stuff.

Going on a Tree Hunt

The Tree

We successfully got the tree up. The lights are on (ok it came that way) and the skirt is under it. This weekend we'll add the ornaments. The boys are both pretty fascinated with it at this stage of decoration, so I was contemplating no ornaments. I just think the middle to top decorations with a bare bottom (ie toddler height) looks dumb. But I'm not looking forward to the endless instruction to not touch the ornaments!!

1st Attempt at the Christmas Photo

Fabulous! It's already December and we're just on our first attempt at a Christmas photo. Hopefully these won't end up being the best there is because I'm going to show you now. We will keep trying until everyone looks decent---Kyle's eyes open, me with only one chin, Reese with a cooperative look and Gus not squished---this is my goal anyway.

At this late date maybe we'll dump the family photo and just put the boys' photos on the card.Gus at 5 monthsReese 2 years 9 1/2 months

Big Boy Toys

Gus is moving on up to the big boy toys. He is essentially done with the swing and can now use the exersaucer. His feet pretty much touch the base now and he even has maneuvered the rotating seat.This is the "must we photograph everything" lookHe relented and gave me a giggle and a squealBig brother butting in for a kiss.I love this look like "seriously? with all your own toys you need to play with mine?" Reese delights in demonstrating how all the toy attachments work. I think Gus would prefer to slobber on them all by himself, though generally he laughs hysterically at all his brother's antics.

Countdown to Christmas

This year Reese recognizes Santa and knows that's where candy canes come from. I'm thinking he doesn't necessarily care about gifts, but there better be some candy canes under the tree!

We have a cookie sheet countdown set. The "cookies" are magnets that cover each day as it passes. Here he is posting December 3rd.

He's getting excited at the boxes coming from UPS, so I think he may actually open his own gifts this year. We are still debating what will be from mom and dad versus what will be from Santa. How do you do gifts?

Book Basket

We've put away our Thanksgiving books and pulled out the Christmas ones!
Here's what's in our basket for the next few weeks:
Hello Santa --Christina Turner
Goodnight Seattle -- Jay Steere
Twas the Night Before Christmas -- James Marshall
Mortimer's Christmas Manger - Karma Wilson
If You Take a Mouse to the Movies -- Laura Numeroff
Jack Kent's Twelve Days of Christmas
Twas the Night Before Christmas -- Richard jesse Watson
A Wish to Be a Christmas Tree -- Collen Monroe
Snow Place Like Home -- Diana Manning
Russell's Christmas Magic -- Rob Scotton
The Red Ranger Came Calling -- Berkeley Breathed
Bear Stays Up for Christmas -- Karma WIlson
Duck at the Door -- Jackie Urbanovic
Mrs. McNosh Hangs up her Wash -- Sarah Weeks
Goodnight Gorilla -- Peggy Rathmann

Visiting Grandpop

My dad came from Virginia to visit for Thanksgiving. His assigned grandfather name is "grandpop" and Reese pretty quickly settled on "Pop" which he can say very well. It's crazy suddenly he has words!!
Reese introduced grandpop to all his favorite pixar movies. Gus really enjoyed having an extra person to hold him all the time.

He took quite a few naps this way.