Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Iowa!



We have a lot more snow on the ground now but it's not snowing today. Or at least not yet. That picture was taken in our backyard almost 3 weeks ago and it came out so nice for our Christmas card. We had a fun morning with Rex opening all his presents and Rob and I even had a few to open too. But mostly, Rex had all the presents.



I think we wore him out by the time we were done with the presents.



I made a bunch of goodies to give out to our neighbors and Rob took one of the tubs to work. There were mini doughnut muffins, "garbage" cookies, Ghiradelli ultimate double chocolate cookies, eggnog sugar cookies and white chocolate/pretzel/peanut bark.



I wanted to make us personalized stockings so about a week before Thanksgiving, I went out and purchased my supplies. I got Rex's mostly done but then I was not real sure I like it so I stopped. Last night I decided I wanted to finish them so we each had our own stocking Christmas morning. I'm so glad I did because they turned out pretty cute after all!



I am not even sure what we will be having for dinner- we have a few options so we will see how we feel at dinner. I did so much cooking while my parents were here, all the baking I just mentioned and then I made a roast last weekend too so I never got inspired to cook a big meal for Christmas day. Anyhow, its just a nice lazy day around here. We hope you all are having a nice day too with your family- Merry Christmas!

New Tricks

Rex has a few new tricks these days. He likes to pull his socks off:



He likes to turn over and grab everything off his diaper caddy when I try to change him (it has been relocated now):



He has a new funny face that he makes- there is also a loud snorting noise he makes when he does this and it all is absolutely hilarious.



He also likes to blow raspberries at you and make a whole assortment of crazy noises with his mouth. And the louder he can get, the better he thinks it is. He has learned to make the "ma" sound and does that to where he sounds like he is saying "mama" but he does not know what he is doing yet. I think Rob thinks we practice that all day at home but I swear we don't. He'll be on to something else soon enough and eventually he will learn how to say "mama" and know what that really means. We're still working on two more tricks- rolling over from back to tummy and sitting up by himself. He's getting pretty close to accomplishing those so be looking for pictures of that to be coming soon (I hope!).

The Weather Outside is Frightful

The weather outside is frightful. The fire is, indeed, delightful. But we had so many plans and I just did not need it to snow right now!! My parents were here visiting for a week and luckily they got out okay. They got a pretty good dose of snow and cold though while they were here! We all enjoyed their visit and had a nice little Christmas celebration their last night here. Here they are spending some time with their grandson.



So I was supposed to host Bunco at my house last Friday night. I went out Wednesday and bought all my supplies just in time for all the craziness to hit last Thursday. We ended up canceling it. Boo. I had to cancel my dental cleaning for last Thursday afternoon because of snow and possible ice. It did not start snowing until later so I could have made it but it's just so hard to know. Rex's 6-month old pictures were scheduled for 11:00 a.m. on Saturday morning and we had to cancel that because of the snow and blowing snow. I was able to take him today because it actually was not snowing for once. Of course, it was -3 degrees (and I think about -20 with the wind chill) out then so I had to bundle us both up and take lots of extra precautions to try and protect Rex from the weather as best I could. We've had blizzard warnings, ice storms (very little of that thankfully), snow, blowing snow, sleet wind and all kinds of craziness. Brrr. We stayed in our jammies for a while Saturday morning since there was no way we were going out anywhere. Here's Rob and Rex hanging out on the couch that morning.



Rex turned 6 months old on Saturday so we bought him some big boy food to eat. We got him green beans, peas, carrots and bananas. We tried the green beans tonight. Here's how it went.

He was definitely interested in them to start with.


We thought it was going well.


But then Rex just totally broke down into a puddle of tears and screams. Apparently, he doesn't care for green beans. Glad I bought 3 more containers of them.


We made him rice cereal after the meltdown and he couldn't have been happier.


We decided we will wait until his 6-month check-up that is scheduled for next Monday before we try feeding him food again. We'll talk to the pediatrician about how we should go about feeding him and tell him about our experiences this far. He fell asleep after the rice cereal and a bottle- I think we just wore him out today.

Sleepy Boy

Good luck trying to ever get Rex to take a nap- he will fight it to the end, just like I used to do. It seems the trick to getting Rex to take a nap is to just wear him out and let him sleep where he crashes (as my mom learned to do with me). It turns out the kid can fall asleep just about anywhere. Like after working on rolling over and sitting up during tummy time...



Or while playing in his jumperoo (I did take him out of the jumperoo and moved him to a more appropriate location for napping as soon as I took this picture)...



And while running errands around town in the car with mom.



You'd think with all that napping going on, he must be partying like a rock star at night. Umm, no. He sleeps about 9-10 hours every night in his crib. Yay for having a kid who's a good sleeper!!

Recipe Rundown- The Good, The Bad and The Sound-Good-But-Have-Not-Tried-Yet

I have been cooking a ton since becoming a stay-at-home mom. I really enjoy it and have discovered some things that I think everyone should try and things that I think no one should try. Here's a quick rundown.

Winners

Asian Lettuce Wraps- Rob said it was in the top 3 of best meals I have ever cooked. I also made some Mu Shu Chicken Wraps from my Dream Dinners cookbook and some steamed rice which were both good but the lettuce wraps were killer. And I don't like Chinese food. If you follow the link to the recipe, make sure you read through people's comments to find the sauce to make with the wraps because that's awesome too.

Fall Salad with Cranberry Vinaigrette- I love me some Gorgonzola cheese. I'm not too adventurous when it comes to soft cheeses but that stuff is tasty! The dressing is sooo good but read the reviews because everyone says to cut back on the vinegar. I didn't cut back enough and had to add more of everything else so it still came out great.

Doughnut Muffins and Cinnamon Bread Pudding- Both recipes came from the Gooseberry Patch Christmas Cookbook I recently got. I'm not really into their knitting or craft stuff nor I am into the country look for my home but they have some excellent recipes in that book and those are two of the best- at least that I have tried so far. The muffins tasted just like cake doughnuts. Mmmm.

Weight Watcher Oven Fries- I love french fries and you might think I would be skipping them while I am dieting now. But you'd be wrong. These are so good and they are only 3 points a serving! Recipe is found in this cookbook. I also made the pot roast from this cookbook which was excellent- despite the fact that it caused my first ever kitchen fire. I blame it on a terrible dutch oven that has tried to burn the house down before. I have never had any problems like that except when I use that pan. Said pan has now been turned over to Rob for use on one of his future projects where it will be treated badly, as it deserves.

Losers

Whoopie Pies- From my December issue of Better Homes and Gardens. They looked so Christmasy and really had that "Wow" factor that I thought would be good on plates of cookies to give away. However, they don't taste very good and they are some high-maintenance cookies. Because of the cream cheese in the filling, they have to be refrigerated and are only good for 4 days. I can see why their popularity died out decades ago.

Gorgonzola and Herb Steak- This was from Rachael Ray's 30 Minute Meals show. It looked so tasty and easy when she did it but I smoked us out of the house trying to grill up the steak in a pan on the stove. Such a bummer because as I mentioned earlier, I love Gorgonzola.

Things to Try

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies- Martha and Paula Abdul made these this morning and they looked so yummy and far less labor-intensive than most of Martha's recipes. Since these are not exactly on the Weight Watcher approved list, I should probably only make a half-batch since a full batch yields 90 cookies!

Sweet Potato Cupcakes- I have seen recipes for these twice lately and they sound so good. Not sure if I will try the Better Homes and Gardens version or JustJenn's version but I'm sure either will be great.

In non-food news, my new camera arrived on Monday! I got the Canon SD790 and I am loving it. And, of course, on Tuesday I found the charger for the old camera. I think Rob's suspicious but I swear I did not know where it was and thought it was gone forever. Hee hee. No, seriously, I really thought it was gone. You'd think this post will be full of photos but I have not gotten any onto the computer yet. I think I have a picture of Rex at least every 5 minutes since I got the camera so there will be plenty to share next time.

Thanksgiving Review and Photo Updates

Thanksgiving Day was really nice at our house. It was a little chilly outside but no snow like we had last year on Thanksgiving. We cranked up our new pellet stove though so it was toasty warm in our house. We watched some of the parade on tv in the morning. Rob worked on getting the new bookshelves together in the living room and hanging the tv on the wall while I cooked the dinner. He did help a little- he cut up the apple for the stuffing but when he cut his finger doing that, we decided maybe I should just work on the food while he worked on his projects and watched Rex. We had a menu similar to last year- turkey breast, mashed potatoes (they may seem a little crazy- I had never heard of putting cream cheese in mashed potatoes- but they were the best I have ever had), cornbread/apple/sausage stuffing, sweet potatoes (just used large can of sweet potatoes instead of acorn squash), green bean casserole, cranberry jello salad and crescent rolls. Tons of food for two people but to cover everyone's favorites, it's necessary.




Rex's latest favorite thing to do is make the coughing sound. He's not actually coughing, it is just a new noise that he likes to make. Over and over and over... Rex is getting the hang of eating now. Most of it is actually getting swallowed instead of it coming right back out and landing on his bib. You just have to be careful of flying arms because he gets pretty excited sometimes and there have been a few times the bowl and/or spoon have almost been launched from the highchair.




And finally, our projects. Now that the stove is in and running and the bookshelves and tv are also in place in the living room, we can finish getting that just the way we want it. It's not quite there yet but it's getting better all the time- looking better and being more organized.



The "trucker bath" as it was known has been done for a while but I just never got pictures up of it so here are some.

Before:


Rob putting down the floor tiles ("You're a bad, bad tile and no one will ever love you!"- just kidding.):


And the vastly improved "Guest Bath"- it's kind of hard to tell in these photos but trust me, it's way better now:


There used to be a cabinet with doors here but we took it down to install open shelving which works much better for us. Now we have a place to store laundry baskets and Rex's bathtub.


Update on the camera situation. We still have not found the charger for our camera so most of the photos above were taken using our videocamera which I now know takes horrible still shots. I had to doctor the photos up a bunch and still some are not so great. We can't decide what to do about the situation. I am still in favor of getting a new camera but I've yet to convince Rob. You can't find a charger in stores because the camera is 4 years old and is certainly out of date. I spent $350 on it and you can get a better one now for $120. I will keep working on Rob though and hopefully we'll get a new one for Christmas!