christmas eve leftovers.
our dear neighbors had us over for a christmas eve feast.
with the bebe rapidly approaching bedtime, we left before pie was served.
without knowing which kind we would like, they naturally brought us two of each!
now that is a lot of pie...
filled with lots of new things
we might not quite understand yet...
christmas cereal.
santa always seems to know what the favorties are.
and enough new goodness to just wear a guy out!
new tradition around here.
christmas morning finds you with:
something you want,
something you need,
something to wear
and something to read.
the mama version:
admittedly our definitions of want and need are a tad blurry...
the husband version:
the bebe version:
______________________________________________________________________
credit for this little poem needs to go to my sister-in-law sarah... she did this with her family and i decided it was a keeper....
the stockings all hung from the dresser with care...
and topped with our new nativity (love my talented in-laws!), sure to be a favorite with the mama bebe.
i think i found my new favorite locale for keeping the christmas cards. they brought colorful adornment to our door, and i got to peek at them regularly on my way out of the house.
thank you to all who sent one our way, and merry christmas to you too!
and, of course, bringing the bebe in on all the traditions!
took this photo at dark- thirty a.m. on one of my rendezvous' with the bebe.
i couldn't believe how much light the snow brought to the dark night.
this is what i've been up to for the last semester at school:
created a 3D game in C++ called toilet toss, kinda similar to paper toss for the iphone. it was pretty awesome.
the little one is working on getting over croup...
the husband is working on getting through the flu, then a cold, then finals...
i'm working on my sanity...
good thing today is a day of rest!
is it okay that i love this picture, even in all its blurriness?
i dressed bebe up all warm in his little bear suit, and picked up a sickly husband up from school to go scout out our christmas tree.
the bebe was taking in all the sights/trying to figure out where in the world we were, while bobby and i searched for the perfect tree.
we are more into the charlie brown types.
it smelled like heaven. oh how i love the pine scented air.
i trucked through the melting snow out to the garden to pick the last of our carrots before the ground froze.
i love feeding the bebe food when i know where it came from.
bonus, we made impromptu massaman curry with the carrots too..
he likes it too.
man that kid has cheeks! kissable ones at that...
funny story. i was talking to a friend at work (aka... the other megan) about baby food.
my comment, "it is so easy to make baby food with the food you have and eat at home."
her response, "yea, but it is so easy for me to just reach out and grab a jar off the shelf when i'm already at the store."
touché!
breakfast = the leftovers from all the cereal boxes taking space in our cupboards even though they are all almost empty.
why didn't the last person to eat them just put another 1/8 cup of cereal in their bowl and throw the box away???
this may or may not be the only breakfast option left in the house when life gets chaotic a tad busy and i happen to neglect grocery shopping.spring fall cleaning for the cereal cupboard?
i think they call it black friday because it is still black outside when people start shopping.
the insanity that is my sisters' in law, started this morning at an insane hour.
thanksgiving down time was spent scouring ads, making christmas lists, and determining strategy.
i found exactly zero items in the ads that motivated me to get up early.
okay- not true. i saw a scarf i wanted to look at (which ended up being ugly) but that was only motivation to go to the store, not to go to the store at dark-thirty in the morning.
however, i didn't catch a last minute flight to california to sleep in on the day after thanksgiving either, so off i went, waking up at the ridiculous hour of 2:15 for some sister-in-law bonding time.
what loot did i come home with you ask?
2 $7 pillows and a $8 compact vacuum.
yep- totally not lying. things i could have and should have bought in utah on any ole shopping trip to the walmart. but hey- i was there and not doing anything else anyway, so why not purchase them and stuff them into a suitcase?
logic is not my strong point at that time of day...
after those amazing purchases, the husband called to tell me bebe had woken up and was having nothing to do with his bottle.
thus the end of my shopping madness a mere 3 hours after it began.
the sisters continued until 2pm. insanity. i repeat, insanity.
caught a last minute flight to go be thankful with the fam.
the bebe was a champ with the tight space. he decided to make the most of it by 1) bouncing on my lap to get all his wiggles out, and 2) giggling at all surrounding spectators...
cuddling with papa + intense scouring of black friday ads
the bebe's first thanksgiving (and first meal) consisted of avocado and sweet potatoes. i think even the cheering crowd couldn't convince him that this was equal to the feast he had just witnessed the rest of the family partaking of...
i can't really say what i've been doing for the last couple of weeks, but i'm sure it has involved lots of singing songs, changing diapers, watching tiny boys do amazing things, and making preparations for adventures that may not always come to pass... and taking pictures of almost none of it!
adventure 1
this past week was my dear friend kat's birthday. plans were made to embark on a weekend getaway to a yurt in the snow.
my adventurous spirit was excited by the plans. even with the seeds of hesitation deep inside about an unknown amount of hiking in the snow, with a baby, possibly in the dark.
so i ignored above said hesitations, and friday we embarked on said adventure.
we drove a couple hours, arriving in the high uintas and started out the trek in the dark.
after about an hour+, the snow was getting deeper and deeper, and the hesitation was turning into a sinking feeling that i couldn't ignore.
there was this possibility that the yurt would be just around the corner. but i didn't think so, my gut was telling me that we still had at least an hour to go...
while little mister was being quite a frozen trooper, we had to decide that this wasn't going to be a good idea for our little family.
so the u-turn happened, and we traipsed back down. at least the moonlight on the pines and the snow was pretty dang beautiful. it was more time than we've had together in a long time!
turns out the snow just got deeper and deeper said the friends that continued the trek. little mister will have to wait a bit longer for an adventure like that...
adventure 2
and we have looked forward to this week's road trip to the husband's hometown-- and more importantly, to see his great family.
we had it all planned out.
and me the planner/stress-or, was actually feeling pretty good about it.
we were going to take it easy, be flexible (this from the girl who doesn't know how to be flexible!) and enjoy it- thus not to allow mother nature to wreck our plans.
we had a day to drive and a back up day, just in case. bobby was willing to skip a class if leaving early would make it for a better drive.
so last night, after warnings from family and friends, we parked ourselves down in front of weather.com to find the perfect window of time to escape.
turns out the storm we had been watching for, has turned into the doomsday storm. all safe escapable windows of time disappeared.
we decided to let it go for the night and get up this morning in last hopes of finding a safe time to drive, but mostly realizing that this might be a cozy thanksgiving at home...
i woke myself up at 5am this morning with a renewed excitement, sure i would find a way to make it happen.
wrong again.
the forecasts got worse.
across the entire length of i-80 in nevada the warnings say things like:
visibility will be reduced to zero at times
dangerous whiteout conditions
many roadways becoming impassable
travel is highly discouraged
travel extremely dangerous
do not travel. if you must... have a winter survival kit with you.
okay, okay already, i get the point.
so now i'm going to head to the store and stock up. we've let ourselves run out of pretty much everything, thinking an empty fridge was perfect for a vacation.
then maybe i'll deck the halls, and create a little adventure at home...
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update: just kidding, we bought plane tickets and got out before they canceled the rest of the flights for the night.
gobble gobble....
i looked up while working on my computer to see that the sun coming through the kitchen window was casting a perfect shadowed image of the vines on our back porch.
i don't know if a photo can do it justice. nature just knows how to make the best art...
with the chalkboard door and the little shoe cubby, suddenly i feel like this is the schoolhouse corner...
when you never get around to carving your halloween pumpkins, you have the perfect decor to last through thanksgiving!
could this picture get any cheesier?
and my hand may or may not be covering up the only thing that identifies my costume: the lois lane press pass- aka my old byu id card....
here is the bebe practicing his faster than a speeding bullet posing.
a happy halloween was had by all!
i don't think i could pay a professional photographer any amount of money to create a photo that i would love any more than i love this one...
one day bobby was a little late coming home and told me he was getting his friend to help him bring something home that was leftover from one of the school projects.
i think he thought this was one of those better to ask forgiveness than permission situations.
this was the beauty he came home with.
the shell off one of byu's old race cars.
apparently they were going to dump it. but the husband couldn't have that.
he suddenly had visions of go-carts, bicycles, you name it, and bobby has thought of transforming this race care into it.
where is this beauty you ask?
well they quickly discovered that is was way too big to fit in the barn.
they had the brief but ridiculous thought of mounting it to the fence.
and then it ended up here:
yep. the roof where our herb garden (and a very pregnant megan) once sat.
you know i am loving this.
i am truly an activist against yard art.
i think the only thing that belongs in our yard is gardens, flowers, swing sets and perhaps a radio flyer.
at least right now my view out the kitchen window is full of fall.
oh what am i going to do when the leaves are gone??
last night was one of those nights.
take out was on the menu.
we decided on chinese.
it was a first for our marriage. we just wanted some good ole, mediocre, from the carton, chinese take out.
no, not the good stuff, that is a whole different kind of craving. we really were going for mediocre....
so what does it say when we were only aiming for mediocre and it still ended up bad?
maybe we just weren't made for the world of chinese take out.
i ended up making myself a blt for dinner. it was pretty tasty.
ps- also pictured are our newly acquired countertops. check.
i can't say that i wasn't very excited when my sister called and asked if we'd be interested in their old red wagon.
ummm.. yes. thank you.
to put it to good use, we strolled approximately 5 houses down to the farmers market to pick out some pumpkin goodness.
bebe: "dad, why am i sitting in this mound of lumpiness?"
dad: "i don't know, ask your silly mom, she's the one that put you there..."
we brought home some pretty good loot.
we brought bebe home too, but the husband wouldn't let me put him in the radio flyer...
is there anywhere where it is just spring and fall all year round?
perhaps a week of summer and winter would be acceptable...
the husband is off doing his manly duty at conference.
bebe went down for a nap and i decided to whip up a little cake in the husband's absence.
i even felt a little cocky about it. cooking really isn't so hard, i thought. why do i or anyone else buy boxes and mixes anyway?
in the back of my head i was coming up ways to put this cake in a jar and give it away as christmas presents.
side note: i'm not a chocolate cake girl. if i'm going to do chocolate, i go all the way for brownies, but i discovered this little number during a pregnancy craving and i quite like it.
the cake is prepped and in the oven. i've prepared the frosting so everything is done and i can clean the kitchen up leaving just a pretty cake on a plate and a nice aroma of fresh baking.
then i sat down.
and smelled a slight smoky odor.
i must have left the pizza stone in there i thought- i hate it when i do that- then we get the burnt cornmeal scent going on..
i go to grab it, and see something else going on all together.
you know that part of the recipe where is specifies 9 inch round pans. well they mean it. they do not mean 8 inch round pans...
oops.
what a dream of an evening this has left me with.
smoky kitchen.
goopy oven.
funktified cakes.
now would be a good time to mention that baking from scratch is not the culprit here. i'm pretty sure i could have made this good of a mess out of a box mix too..
so much for little miss baking homemaker this evening!
now i have a good excuse to turn my oven on self clean. - so instead of that freshly baked aroma- we have the yucky self-cleaning oven one...
the dishwasher is running, so all the evidence is cleaned up there...
but the best evidence are these two very unpretty round cakes -which to add insult to injury would not come out of the pans, so there was no salvaging them and trying to still make them look normal on the plate-
i'm going to go ahead and call it a blessing tonight that the husband likes to drown all things cake in milk- so it doesn't really matter what it looks like!
now pardon me while i turn on every fan and vent in the house to prevent the smoke detector from going off...
sometimes i bug the husband on IM because there is just no other time or way to communicate with him.
but the busy stinker can be on the computer and not see it (or not respond) for very long periods of time.
so today i laid down the law...
me: yo YO
i told the husband when we got married that laundry was my least favorite chore. his is the dishes.
the point of this conversation (i thought) was for him to take the lead in the laundry department, and i'd take the dishes. i'll let you know how that works out when it starts to work out...
the trick for me is that i have to fold and put away the laundry the second it finishes. otherwise we get a pile up. and i never have enough time that i just don't know what else to do with to want to address a big pile of laundry.
so if i don't get to it right away, it goes into a basket- and then the husband will throw clothes in it not knowing that it is clean and not dirty (yep- we're classy folks).
so i gave up and on a massive 4 load laundry day- i just dumped them all in the crib (where they embarrassingly stayed too long). it isn't like the little mister is really using his crib much yet anyway... soon though... soon.
then the husband found a whole new game to make of the laundry. hey mommy, where's the bebe?
oh yes he did...
did i really document my lazy messy laundry? and did my husband really think it was funny to hide his son in it?
yes, on both counts.
it is true. i said it, and i'm being serious too.
the husband made it for dinner last night and we are having it for leftovers tonight too. (okay, lets be honest, we had it for lunch and dinner tonight. yep, we're leftovers people around here...)
this is not gourmet food. don't get me wrong, it is good and all, but nothing fancy. can a casserole be fancy??
but this food makes my heart do a little pitter patter anyway.
you see, every time the husband makes it, it reminds me of the first time he made it.
we had just started dating. we had plans to go out to a korean restaurant with some of his friends for some korean holiday.
then it happened.
the dreaded phone call. for those of you who have ever worked a job that required you to be on call, you know that sometimes there is nothing worse than the sound of your phone ringing.
and this was a doosy of a call. it wasn't going to be anything quick. i had to go to the hospital and i couldn't make any promises about when i'd get back.
he called his friends and told them we wouldn't be coming.
this is where the guilt prone part of me felt really bad, and wanted to impress this new guy i liked, not ruin his night. i tried to tell him to just go without me...
this is also where i got a glimpse of just what kind of man the husband is.
he was a little bummed, of course, but ridiculously supportive.
he gave me a kiss (gasp!), headed home, and told me to call him when i got back.
fast forward 4-5 hours- probably between 10 & 11pm...
i was finally getting home and he told me to come to his apartment.
the door to his oven was just slightly ajar, and he pulled this casserole out that he had just left in there to stay warm.
i asked if he had eaten and he said no, he figured i'd be hungry whenever i finished.
he had made a broccoli casserole hours before and just left it warming in the oven for whenever i happened to make it back. and then waited to eat it with me.
hmmm. wonder why i fell for this man.
every time we eat it, it reminds me that i got a good one...
okay... maybe rhubarb cobbler.
some people compare rhubarb to celery. no offense to all you celery lovers (i try to like celery all the time) but rhubarb is just down right tasty (no need to hide in unsuspecting salad dishes...)
did you know bobby's dad used to sing that song to him? (the one up there in the title...)
did you know my dad used to love strawberry rhubarb pie? it was his fav....
some pretty cool in-laws of mine introduced us to this cobbler. so when i saw fresh local rhubarb at the farmer's market just down the way, i couldn't resist
