Wish List

Since I retired from the rat race and took this new job as a full time employee to Mr. Sawyer, I have started cooking a lot more. When we first got married I barely knew how to fry an egg (which I am actually really bad at for some unknown reason)...over the years I have added more dishes and culinary skills to my repertoire, but it's just been in the past 6 months or so that I've really started to love finding things to cook and trying my hand at them. And when they turn out bad, I swear I'll never cook again...but when they turn out good, I do a little dance on the inside and beam as I serve my successes to family and friends.

But since I am cooking a lot more, I have found that my cooking tools are subpar. When we registered before our wedding I didn't know what to register for and didn't care much. So our pots/pans that we've had for the past 8 years were probably the cheapest set at Target the day I had that registry gun in my hand. Needless to say, I have slowly started to filter out the old stuff for some upgrades. But I am now forming a wish list of kitchen items I want, and since my post partum brain is useless for remembering things, I actually started writing the stuff down as it occurs to me. Too bad I didn't do this before Christmas, but a cast iron skillet is an ok Valentines gift, right?

In other cooking news, I had the youth girls from my church over to my house last night so one of them could teach the rest of us how to make red velvet cupcakes with the most delish cream cheese frosting I've ever tasted. The key was obviously lots of red food dye but the result was divine. Don't know what it is about a blood red cupcake that is so much better than other cupcakes, haha. 

I am trying a new scrapbooking method for the year. It's called Project 365, you can buy the kit for it at creatingkeepsakes.com. It's not so much scrapbooking as it is taking a picture each day, if possible, and doing some journaling about the pictures you take. The concept is simple and really ideal for me right now. I love to scrapbook but I end up spending way too much time (not to mention MONEY!) on it and other things get neglected. This method should help keep me from doing that. 

I want to document our life right now as much as I can in pictures and in journaling, and this allows me to do both and gives me an organized way to do it. I'm not taking a picture everyday but I'm trying to document bits and pieces of our life a week at a time. So far, I think I'm doing good. I will take the weekly pictures/journal cards and put it all together one month at a time. 

Hopefully this works out for me. I really like the idea of just using basic scrapbooking tools/products and focusing on the images and the journaling. 

round 2

We did another little photoshoot this morning. Sawyer pee'd all over the sheets so putting those in the washer is now next up on my to-do list. 

snaps

So the "something productive" I did get done today was taking some photos of Sawyer. I am trying to do a little set of photos of him for each month of his life for at least the first year. 

Luckily, after his long nap he was happy and cooperative for his photoshoot. 

i love this next one for some reason. probably cause it's more candid...

i think this last one will go on our picture wall...

straight off the kitchen floor

So yesterday I was able to find a few things for Spencer for our anniversary. Cashmere socks and some new dress shirts to replace the ones that our dryer mysteriously ruined. It was a real mystery, because of an entire load of clothing, only his 2 dress shirts came out of the dryer looking like they had grease splatters on them??...

After the gifts were purchased, I hurriedly searched online for some new recipe ideas to make something tasty for dinner. I settled on pepper crusted pan seared sirloin steak , twice baked baby potatoes, a salad and butterscotch brownies with chocolate and butterscotch ganache. 

I wish I could say it all came out perfectly, but I did drop the brownies on the kitchen floor and subsequently had a mini meltdown. But then I salvaged what I could of the brownies and proceeded to make what might have been the best dinner I've ever made (if I can be so

 conceited). After the brownie debacle, the rest was easy! 

While Sawyer is still sleeping in his swing, I should probably go do something productive...

anniversario

This is what I woke to this morning...

Happy Anniversary to me. I knew from the ridiculously cute ribbon on that box what store it came from and I secretly cringed when I realized my thoughtful husband had actually gone and splurged on this wallet that I'd told him was... "the cutest dang wallet I've ever seen, but I'd never pay that much money for it".

I still think it is way overpriced and have debated whether or not to keep it, but what a good guy he is to remember that. He truly is the best. He never fails every year for every holiday and birthday to deliver the goods, whether I've asked for them or not. 

So Sawyer and I will spend what is now a 3rd day out shopping for something, anything, to get for Spencer. He is so hard to buy for! I could practically be a professional shopper, and even I am coming up empty. 

Oh yeah, and I still haven't decided what his delicious homecooked anniversary dinner will be for tonight...oi vey! 

roman apple coffee cake

Months of no blogging and now 2 posts within minutes! 

I made this for breakfast yesterday and it is divine. The cookbook it came from said that because it has apples it counts as a breakfast food, but beware, it is rich and sweet and probably is intended for dessert. But it was a good way to start the day!

Cake:

1 1/2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup melted butter

3 large apples (I used fuji)

Preheat oven to 350. Spray 8x8 baking pan. 

Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Using a spoon, form a well in the middle of the bowl. In a small bowl, lightly beat the egg and pour into the well. Add the milk, vanilla and melted butter and stir until thoroughly combined. 

Peel, halve and remove the cores from the apples. Slice into thin wedges and stir into batter. Spread batter evenly in pan. 

 

Topping:

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

To prepare topping: Place flour, butter and brown sugar in small bowl and mix well. (I used a pastry cutter to make the topping crumbly) Sprinkle evenly over cake. 

Bake 35-40 minutes until top of cake springs back when gently pressed. 

catch up

Wow it's been way too long since I blogged anything. So long, in fact, that our son is now almost 3 months old. Craziness. 

So, obviously, we had the baby. I was induced Weds. October 15th at 6am, and he was born just before 12 noon. Although I thought I was suffering during my mere 5 hours and 45 mins of labor, I know now that I was unbelievably lucky. I was however completely misled to believe that with an epidural I wouldn't feel anything. HA! At one point the nurse asked "Well are you feeling pain? Or are you feeling pressure?", to which I responded, "I am feeling PAINFUL PRESSURE!" But we survived and Sawyer Alan entered the world happy, healthy and beautiful. 

Since then, things have been pretty great. Spencer was able to take 6 weeks off work and stay home with us and that was so nice. He really got to spend alot of quality time with his new son. Now that he's back to work Sawyer misses him. We're doing good on our own, just me and the baby. He is a good baby and aside from a few tantrums when in his carseat, he tolerates the errand running, meal making and house cleaning that I have to get done during our day. 

The holidays were good to us. Thanksgiving with both families was hectic but delicious! Christmas with both families was even more hectic but great. Splitting up events with both families in one day is taxing, even moreso now that we have this little dude to lug around. But we are lucky to have family here and we love them. Sawyer obviously won't be into Christmas for another couple years, but it was fun to have a new little child in our midst for the holiday season. On New Years we went out to Cheesecake Factory and ended the night playing games with some friends from our ward. 

So now our anniversary is next on the list of celebrations. 8 years...really? It's crazy to us both that we've been married that long. But they've been 8 really great years. We are lucky to have each other, moreso me than Spencer, haha. We alternate planning something for our anniversary and I am in charge this year. Too bad I can't think of anything good to do. I think we might go here for dinner and call it good.  Tomorrow is the actual anniversary so I think I'll make a nice dinner at home for us and then we'll go out this weekend. Just Spencer is way better at this than I am.