Oh, Christmas Tree!

Alison and I decided that we need to go to cut down our own Christmas trees this year.  It's something neither of us has ever done, though the idea is treated as no big deal around here!  We went this afternoon and though it was freezing cold and windy, it was really great fun.  We brought our own saw and went hunting!

"Mom.  This one.  This tree.  It's perfect!  PERFECT."  (Also what, 10 feet tall?)

That one was a Douglas Fir -- very pretty, but the needles and small branches all drooped fluffily to the floor.  This made us think these trees wouldn't be great at holding ornaments.  (Especially when kids are helping to hang them!)

Jack fell asleep in the car but Alex basically dragged him out by his ear, at my insistence. 

He did NOT approve.

The Webbers thought they found the perfect tree!  But was it tall enough?  And just the right shape?  You can't be sure until you look at at least a hundred more.  ;)

Meanwhile, Alex found a tree for us that was quite nice.  After I browsed around a bit myself, I conceded that he really did find a great tree.  ....Timber!

As usual, Jack thinks his daddy is awesome.

He can carry a Whole Tree!  I think Jack was torn between the desire to help move the tree and the desire not to get smushed flat underneath it because Daddy was moving too quickly!

Meanwhile, the Webbers shopped on....  :)

Okay, no, SERIOUSLY.  This one is PERFECT.

Alison sawed down her own tree! (With a hefty dose of heckling from Alex....)

She even helped to carry the tree back to the car.  It was REALLY heavy.

Jack decided that maybe this whole tree farm thing wasn't such a horrible idea.

We even got a smile out of him after all.  :)

Our tree.  :)

And where was Evie this whole time?

Where do you think?  :D

Easter, continued

After our egg hunt and breakfast at home, the kids and I went over to Chris's farm for a gorgeous day of fun! We did another egg hunt out in the orchard and by the barn. We played with nine other kids who were also Easter-ing at the farm! We ate delicious goat and scalloped potatoes. And in between things we actually snuck home for a nap!

At the end of the day we all went outside again to admire the animals and get some sunshine. Jack and the other kids probably had the most fun tromping around in the pig pen together. After that we were all exhausted in an I-couldn't-possibly-sleep kind of way, so we watched a movie. Now everybody is packing off to bed. It really has been a wonderful day!

Happy Easter!

We had a really fun Easter. Alex is a bit under the weather this weekend so I didn't get too many pictures, but here are a few of Jack enjoying his morning egg hunt. :)

Corned Beef

This St. Patrick's Day, I used the America's Test Kitchen recipe to make corned beef at home. It essentially consists of rubbing a brisket with some herbs and spices, and a LOT of salt.

Seriously, I think it was a half-cup of salt alone....

Note my lovely assistant, and the monstrous pile of fat I had to trim from the backside of the brisket. The tricksy butcher hid it on the underside! Next time I know to ask him to trim the fat before packaging it up.

I bought this gorgeous piece of brisket and couldn't wait to try out the recipe. After five days of brining in the fridge, it was ready. I boiled it up with some cabbage and carrots. It smelled so good!

We dug in, and -- yuck! Too much salt. WAY too much salt. I had rinsed the meat thoroughly before adding it to the pot, but I guess that wasn't enough. Next time I think I'll cut it down by half, and maybe give the meat a preliminary boil, then swap the water out for fresh stuff before adding any veggies.

Conclusion: Better luck next year!

20/365: Jack decorates

Jack and I got into the boxes of holiday decorations! I saw where most of them ended up as he distributed them, but one caught me by surprise: I went into the kitchen to cook our next meal and found this intrepid Santa fighting his way across the... windswept, frozen linoleum?

9/365: The Countdown

Alex and I recently realized that we could have a new baby as soon as three weeks from now! Holy smokes. I feel like there must be a million things we're supposed to be doing, but darned if I could tell you what they are!

On top of any baby-related work still to do, I feel like the holidays are suddenly barrelling down on us and before we know it, it will be the new year! I'm supposed to be baking a turkey for Thanksgiving this year, too. That's something I've never done before!

...and we are still having a heck of a time choosing baby names. I tell you what, one way or another this is going to be an exciting month and a half ahead of us!

KitchenAid mixer

Alex has wanted to buy me a KitchenAid mixer for two years now -- but I have always been the stick in the mud protesting that I'd rather have a few smaller things for one reason or another. Well, no more! We decided this silly behavior had gone on long enough, especially with the amount of home cooking I am doing these days as a full-time mom.

When I went to order the mixer I found that they had just issued a new color, Yellow Pepper. I think it is the most gorgeous thing imaginable. How lucky that I would wait just long enough to get the perfect color! :)

I will have to post photos later. (Jack just woke up.) Rest assured it is gorgeous!

I have already made marshmallows, muffins, several batches of bread, a batch of cookies, two of bagels.... And it's only been with us for two weeks. I am in loooooooove! :)

"Oh Gosh"

Jack has been working hard on his vocabulary recently. He loves to point at something and have me tell him what it's called.... twenty times in a row if he needs that many to really understand!

He also likes to try copying what I say. This has led to some really cute facts coming to light, like figuring out that he can't say "l" sounds, so he absolutely refuses to try saying "please". He knows he won't get it right! However, he will say "up," "mommy," or "help," so he at least has some alternates.

Right around Christmas time we were practicing the "s" sound. He figured out how to say "shhhh" for "s". Ridiculously cute, I hardly need say. :) Well, then he got a bus in the mail from his cousin. I told him what it was, and he spent 45 minutes straight playing with it! The whole time he was saying "busssshh," "busssssssh," and I could hear the "h" slowly disappearing. By the end of the night he could say "bus" just right!

Later that week we heard "Oh, gosh!" for the first time! And the other night it was "book," with the "k" suddenly making an appearance. I feel like I want to follow him around with the camera and record everything he says, but of course the moment I take it out, he is all quiet interest and stops talking!

plum pudding

I decided to try a traditional dessert for Christmas this year. Plum pudding is a big to-do, it turns out, because it needs to be started a minimum of eight days before you are going to serve it.

First you soak dried fruit in 3/4 cup cognac. Then you make puddings out of it, and soak those in another 1/2 cup cognac for at least a week.

Then the big feature is that you pour flaming cognac over the top when you serve it. We had Christmas dinner at Chris and Jared's house, and sure enough it was very pretty. Chris took some video:



You also serve it with a "hard sauce" which is cognac mixed up with confectioner's sugar and a little butter. That was very tasty, but the pudding was kind of a dud.

As you may have guessed, the pudding ended up STRONGLY alcoholic in flavor and content. I was disappointed to find out that I couldn't even really taste any of the ingredients, and could only guess at what kind of fruit I was chewing on. I took one bite and pretty much exhaled pure cognac in Alex's face when I turned to him to tell him about it!

The conclusion: I very much like the idea of plum pudding, but I will need to find (or make) a recipe where cognac is an accent, not the whole point of the dish.

train set!!

Let me start by explaining that Alex and I are really not impulse shoppers. Alex earns the money and I make sure everything gets where it needs to go, and it is all very sensible and well-thought-out.

Usually.

And then we were at Target to pick up a few things, and we saw this awesome train set. It is nearly all wooden. It has a drawbridge, an airplane, a helicopter, police and fire stations, and a whole lot more. It was very exciting for us. We had planned on Jack's new bedroom being his big present for Christmas, but we had to throw this one in too!

He dove right in to start driving trains around the track!

A bit more of a babyzilla view.... a sign of things to come!

I'm not sure what he's holding here, but it might be the roof of the airplane.

...and here goes the gas station, being carefully dismantled. This is why I like wooden toys. You can take them apart a million times in a row with very little danger of them actually getting broken.

So far the winner of the whole set is the helicopter. He loves flicking the propeller at the top.

Ah, yes. I did mention Babyzilla, didn't I? :)

bedroom for Jack

Jack's big present this year was his very own bedroom. When we originally got this apartment, the second bedroom was going to be an office for Alex. However, Alex found a really exciting office job and didn't need to work from home anymore. We decided it would be perfect to reduce the office down a lot, put it in a corner of our (huge) living room, and make the office into a bedroom for Jack.

Lucky for Jack, he was right in on all the action as I built a bookshelf and bed for him. The bed was much more of an involved process, so I didn't get any pictures of him helping with that, but this is a series of him helping to build the bookshelf. This really showcases his observation and mimicry skills, since he was watching me use the tools and then copying what I did very closely and carefully.

Here he is coming along after me, tightening screws.

So excited to be helping!

Tightening more screws -- aka screwdriver-ing the holes where the shelf support pegs would end up.

You have to make sure the tip of the screwdriver is in there nice and tight so it doesn't fall out while you are working!

There was also this other tool, a kind of curvy allen wrench, that was for tightening up certain bolts. He thought that was also very exciting.

Here it is at work:

When it was done we loaded it up with toys. This looks a bit odd, but is Jack backing up to sit on the pumpkin. (He loves sitting on balls and round things.)

Choosing a toy from his inventory:

And settling in for some serious play time. :)

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. Jack was old enough to be excited about all the toys and activities, but not old enough to be crazy about the day. For instance, we got to sleep to a normal hour!

We took about a million pictures of the day, and they will be trickling in. Hopefully I will get to post a whole bunch more when Jack naps, but for now I thought I'd post some good old-fashioned Christmas cheer. If this isn't a happy boy, I don't know what is!

What's better than riding on a new dump truck?

Riding on a new dump truck and playing with a new bulldozer!

stockings!

I made us some Christmas stockings this year. Jack helped to pick out the colors and I have been working on them off and on for weeks during his nap times and stuff. Now they are finally done, and just in time for Christmas Eve!

cookie cutter fun

Jack knows just what to do with a cookie cutter. (Run off with it!)