Valentine's and Beyond

We celebrated Valentine's Day at home this year with fondue the weekend before V-Day. Mike made his sure-to-be-world-famous cast iron skillet seared filet mignon and we whipped up cheese and chocolate fondues to go with it.

The cheese. The boys didn't care for it much, probably because it had cognac in it which adds a funny twang. I guess next time we will omit the cognac and keep it simple, like with Velveeta! We served it up with hot dog pieces, bread cubes, blanched cauliflower flowerettes, and celery pieces.



The chocolate and all the dippable things we served with it. Again, this had cognac in it which I really liked, but the kids passed once more opting instead to enjoy their things un-dipped. For Kieran, that meant basically just fat marshmallows, but Julian ate most of everything else--bananas, strawberries, nectarines, lemon pound cake cubes, marshmallows, doughnut, and orange sections. It was a delicious night!
Then on Valentine's Day Mike brought me a dozen lovely roses to work. Mmmmmmm. Aren't they beautiful? They smelled so delightful too.
The weekend after Valentine's Day I drove up to South Carolina to visit my friend Ashley and attend her Mystery Wine Party. We had a blast! In keeping with the party's theme, we prepared these Champagne cupcakes. They were DELICIOUS and would you believe we did it all by hand without any electronic kitchen tools, not even a hand mixer? We even spun sugar for the decorations, which was messy but amazing. I ate far too many of these delicate cakes, but will definitely make them again when I really want to impress. Did I mention Mike kept the boys all weekend so I could run off ALONE and drive to and from SC in peace? I think I owe him BIGTIME.

A quick post

Here are updated pictures of the boys in the only setting in which it seems I am ever able to capture them sitting semi-still--the bathtub! A couple of weeks ago Julian lost his other top front tooth, so he's got that fun snaggle-tooth look going on. His hair is coming along nicely on the grow-out plan too. He is doing great in school this year and making us even prouder than usual! His last progress report was so good revealing that he is ahead of grade level finally on reading and math! And even though he complains about the daily reading for Book-It, he does enjoy his free pizzas from Pizza Hut and it's helping him to improve his reading speed and skills.

Kieran is evermore a picky eater and it seems to worsen with each new day instead of improving. We are standing our ground and telling him he gets what he gets and if he doesn't eat it, maybe he will be hungry for the next meal. He is still a very lovey boy and very attached to mama. His nanny has taught him most of the letters of the alphabet and now they are working on learning about the days of the week and the calendar.

I realized the other day that my kids, like many other kids, REALLY enjoy eating foods that are special shapes. Being offered a sandwich that has been cut into a shape increases the likelihood that Kieran will even eat it. This thought, combined with the recent recollection of the Goldfish commercial where the family is driving through the car wash and the little girl is swimming her Golfish-shaped bread around the car made me think, "Why don't I cut some buns out with our big cookie cutters for sandwiches for the boys?" I've been just using large round cutters to make our buns, but why not other shapes too? So I did it. Here they are baking.

Here are the finished buns on the cooling rack. Both boys ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches the day after I made these buns and they were pretty excited about it. I think I need to be on the lookout for some new giant cookie cutters so I can make more new shapes in the future!

I forgot to upload this picture when it was timely!

One day close to Christmas Mike and Bobbi (our nanny/house manager) took the boys to our nearest mall and got the boys' picture taken with Santa. You can see we are letting Julian's hair grow out and it's a little crazy, but it was his choice. This isn't the picture that the photographer captured (theirs kind of sucked); Mike snapped this one with his phone and I edited it a bit.

Christmas 2011 after Santa arrived

Set up took longer than I'd expected tonight since we had already wrapped everything. However, we still had to put together a couple of the ride-on toys and install some batteries and fill stockings. I hope the boys are excited about all this loot because it all looks ridiculous to me! Think our little family is truly blessed.

More work on the homestead

Over the long holiday weekend, Mike and I decided it was time to replace the toilet in the powder room since the original toilet has been giving us fits on flushing for a long time now. Along with the toilet, we decided there was no better time than the present to repaint the room and add crown moulding and fix some of the baseboards. So on Black Friday, that's what we did! As you can see, the room was a lovely shade of lavender that everyone loved and has loved for 10 years.


However, now that the hallway and surrounding rooms are shades of blue, the lavender just didn't seem to work anymore. We chose a light shade of greenish-yellow which seemed a lot less harsh on the card at Lowe's and ended up with a very bright yellowy-chartreuse. It's growing on me now, but soon after I started painting I was thinking, "Oh my! What have we done?!"

Sorry it's been awhile again

This past weekend, our good friends the Renz family drove over from Charleston and we went camping at the Etowah River Campground in Dahlonega, GA. It was the Gleason family's first camping trip as a family; indeed, the first camping trip for our boys. Below are some picture highlights from the weekend. A big thank you goes to Ashley for shooting all the pictures!

Here's the big-ass camping sandwich (BACS) that Ashley inspired. It consisted of a freshly-baked 2lb. round loaf of my whole wheat bread, ham, salami, provolone, fresh mozzarella, roasted peppers, and Italian dressing. It was a thing of beauty!

A picture of the kidlets throwing sticks into the Etowah River running right by our campsite. Yes, you may infer from that statement that the mommies were on high-alert the whole weekend worrying about a drowning.





Saturday we hiked at Amicalola Falls which entailed climbing no fewer than 604 steps up a steep hillside to the top of the falls. It was beautiful and quite a little workout.

After we returned from the falls, Ashley and I rewarded ourselves with some tasty adult soda!


The men-folk started a lovely campfire for our dinner and we roasted dogs and brats and made s'mores with giant marshmallows. Check out this beauty that Kieran refused to eat.

The boys did great with camping and really seemed to enjoy it. They slept great at night even though it was cold overnight and they played hard. Kieran is asking when we are camping again!

Making a post of a recipe I want to make one day

Friday evening Mike and I went to see the very last Harry Potter movie. It was amazing. This morning my friend Ashley shared with me a recipe for Butterbeer cupcakes she intends to make later this summer. I am posting it here so I don't forget it.

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