Time with Daddy

The astute observer might have noticed that two notable people were missing from the unawesome pre-Thanksgiving family picture.

That's because it was UCLA's last football game of the season which meant it was his turn to go with daddy.

But not without a nice picture first.

Boys, I said NICE.

Uhhh, hello? [Tap, tap] Is this thing on?

Okay, there we go.

And off they go!

 
Phil sent these from his phone after they got there...

Family Thanksgiving, cont'd

The rest of the pre-Thanksgiving weekend included...

A little digging in the dirt.

A little ornament making.

Likely her favorite part of the weekend.

Hers too.

A little turkey carving.

An informal, not-so-little pre-Thanksgiving feast.

The annual unawesome family photo.

The Great-Uncle, Grandma, and Grandpa.

The requisite nap following the not-so-little feast.

A little round of Go Fish.

Where some played by the rules and others didn't quite get them yet.

A little Action Bible reading.

And the following day, a little pedi time for the two of us.  Such fun times!

All together added up to one weekend with so much to be thankful for. 

An Interlude of Sorts

I must interrupt these family Thanksgiving posts (as well as my current blogging dry spell) to post a most important event in my girl's life.

Here she is before...

And here she is after!

She got braces in between the two weekends my side of the family were here so just wanted to make mention of it because you'll see her colorful teeth in the rest of the pics.  So proud of how well she's done with getting them put on, taking care of them by herself, answering all the questions from her classmates (she's the first one to get them in her class), and how tough she's been while getting used to them along with the occasional canker sores that have popped up.  She's definitely a tough cookie and suddenly seems so much more grown-up now.  Wah.  Happy, sad, happy, sad.

Family Thanksgiving

Wow, it's been a little while since I last posted.  Been trying to savor more of this most wonderful time of the year as we celebrate our Savior's birth and contemplate what that means to me and to my family.  Been trying not to be too busy, although trying is not the same thing as succeeding...  Been enjoying time with family especially now as Phil's ten days off from work has begun.

It's been great being home all together.

But I can't very well skip right over Thanksgiving, so I will have to back up a little bit.  November was a fun month for us as we were able to spend a couple of weekends with my side of the family.

Which meant hanging with this cutie pie.

And also Grandpa.

They love their grandpa.

Brothers.

Sisters.

My lovely sister in law.

More to come...

Time with Daddy

Then it was little sister's turn for a UCLA football date with Daddy.

Dressed up and ready to go!

They were sent off with one simple request: UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WERE THEY TO BUY ANY STUFFED ANIMALS OF ANY KIND.

I thought I made myself pretty clear.  One day I will show you what the girls' beds look like.

Phil sent me this pic after they got to the game:

YYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!


Half an hour later came this pic with the following text:

Can we go now?


Then ten minutes after that:

IS IT TIME TO GO YET?!?!?


Ha ha.

WWE: Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Filling

adapted from Rachel Farnsworth

makes 3 dozen cupcakes


Chocolate Cupcakes

3 cups all-purpose flour

3 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tbsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp salt

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

1 1/2 cups warm water

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 tsp vanilla extract

Peanut Butter Cream Filling

1 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup butter, melted

1/2 cup powdered sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Line muffin tins with cupcake liners. 
3. Mix together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt on low speed until combined.
4. Add eggs, buttermilk, warm water, oil, and vanilla.  Beat for two minutes on medium speed until smooth. Scrape the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl to fully incorporate the ingredients.
5. Fill each cupake 2/3 full, a little over a 1/4 cup for each muffin.
6. Bake for 20-22 minutes until toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.  Remove from tins and let cool completely.
7. Make the peanut butter cream filling by mixing together the peanut butter, melted butter, and powdered sugar in a bowl  using a hand mixer.  Transfer the filling to a pastry bag with a large open tip.  Insert the tip into the top of each cooled cupcake and squeeze about a tablespoon of filling into it.  Be careful not to inject too much or it may split the cake.
8. Frost each cupcake before serving.

Creamy Chocolate Frosting

from allrecipes.com

makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

2 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar

6 tbsp unsweetened coca powder

6 tbsp butter, softened

5 tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla

Instructions

1. In a medium bowl, sift together the confectioners' sugar and cocoa, and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter until smooth, then gradually beat in half the sugar mixture with 3 tbsp of milk.  Then beat in the remaining sugar mixture and 2 tbsp of mlik.  Blend in vanilla.  Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy.  If necessary, adjust consistency with more milk (if too thick) or more sugar (if too thin).

Printable Recipe

Post Script

A very happy byproduct of regular visits to the library is that Jonah now adores books.  He'll often run to one of us with a book in hand and eagerly ask, "wee? wee? WEEEEEE?!" (Translation, "read? read? REEEEEAAD?!")  That last, insistent request is a bit louder because we sometimes are not as quick to DEAR (remember "Drop Everything And Read"?) as he'd like.  Because sometimes we are in the middle of making dinner when the request is made.  Or in the bathroom.  Or currently operating a motor vehicle.  Sometimes DEAR-ing is not that feasible.  Or safe.

But it's endearing and really cute all the same.

Blurry, but I love this one.

Taking a quick Lego break.  Because he must be just like his big brother in all possible ways even when he's away at school.

Daddy's reward for reading to the Jone bones.

Jonah Time: The Library

One of Jonah's favorite things to do every week is go to the library for story time.  He excitedly says, "wi-bee, wi-bee!" when I ask him if he'd like to go.  It's high on my list of favorite things to do with him because it takes just the right amount of energy from me (which is little to none), someone else does the reading/singing/dancing, and it's free (well, sort of.  I like to think of our library fines as rather generous compensation). 

So by golly, we make sure to go every week.

We've gone so regularly now that he's got his own little routine when we get there.  He runs ahead of me as soon as I set him down to slap the button which opens the doors.  It opens by the time I get there and we walk in together.  We walk down the long hallway, hang a left at the circulation desk, at which point he makes a beeline for the librarian's desk in the children's section where the librarian gives him a stamp (usually a teddy bear) on each hand, along with two tickets for story time (one for him and one for me).  He makes it his job to hang on to those two tickets until the appointed time.  And if we're early, he'll head straight to these giant wooden activity blocks.  Still clutching those two tickets.

These bead puzzles keep him plenty occupied for a long while which keeps him from scampering off and running amok in the library and keeps me from having to leave my dignity and usually my purse behind as I try to chase after him.  Little booger can be pretty fast.

So the remains of my dignity and unstolen purse thank you, bead puzzles.

I'm beginning to think a lot of thought has gone in to these strategically placed bead puzzles throughout the children's section.  Must not be this library's first rodeo with littles.

Still clutching his two tickets.

Yet another strategically placed wooden puzzle area.

Hooray, for now story time is upon us!  You'd think he'd be unwilling to part with his tickets after hanging on to them for so long, but no, this is not his first story time rodeo either.  So the librarian stands outside the door and holds a little basket out for each person to drop their ticket in before entering the little circular room.  Jonah drops both of our tickets in the basket and marches in to pick out where he wants us to sit.  Usually it's up in the third row.  And much to my surprise (because the older three siblings mostly stayed parked next to me when they did story time), Jonah marches right down to join the librarian when she invites them down to sing and dance and move around.

Course, he does check back periodically to make sure I'm still where he left me.

Especially when they're doing the "Tooty-ta" song.

And story time usually ends right about when it's nap time, so we hustle on back home to get in his nap before it's time to go collect his siblings from school.

But like I said, we go every week, so here we are again!

And this day, we went to the earlier story time so Jonah still had enough in him to look at a book before heading home (he didn't the week before).

He's a big Curious George fan (who he knows as Georgie).

Georgie, like bead puzzles, has the ability to keep him in one place for a good bit of time.  For this, I am thankful.

"What are you doing over there, Mommy?  You're so weird."

Whatever.  Back to Georgie.

See ya next week, wi-bee.  And thanks.