Thanksgiving

The weather has been so nice here lately, that we find ourselves doing a lot of outdoor trips on the weekends. One place we recently discovered is Moss Rock Preserve which is a wonderful woodsy area with hiking trails, not too far from our house.  http://www.hooveral.org/Default.asp?ID=485 

On Thanksgiving day Beck and I decided to go on a hike at Moss Rock while Rob and Nani and Baylor stayed home to take care of the food and football watching. We had a great time hiking and hunting for pine cones. We took the biggest and best ones home with us and turned them into holiday decorations. Sort of.

                                                       
We decided to do a pretty low-key Thanksgiving this year and just have a simple dinner with the usual stuff, and do a breast instead of a whole turkey. Of course we had to make a stop at our favorite store Penzeys to pick up some "Bi-centennial Poultry Rub."  Rob stuffed bay leaves under the skin and coated the breast in rub.

It turned out great! Even Beck asked for multiple helpings. Aside from a little, um, issue regarding the mashed potatoes, everything was really delicious. Especially the chocolate-pecan pie I made (mostly) from scratch.

As usual the kids had a blast with Nani. Beck, Nani and I spent a good chunk of time on a "Battle Bugs" craft that Nani brought. We all got pretty into it! I think one of the best things about being a parent is getting to relive some of the fun parts of your childhood through your kids. Whether they will admit it or not, I think all grown-ups secretly love going to the pumpkin patch and circus and playing with Legos and playdough.

 Of course, Nani being here also meant a welcome rest for Rob and I from some of the lesser-enjoyed activities, such as lengthy games of Memory.

 

 

 

Rob and I managed to get a night out to see a movie ("The Fantastic Mr. Fox", which was really good) and get a couple of cocktails as well. 

Sunday afternoon we all went to pick out our Christmas tree, and waited until Baylor was in bed to do the tree-trimming. I gave Beck a small pile of non-breakable ornaments to put up wherever he wanted, and he was so incredibly happy, he still hasn't stopped talking about it.

 

 

 

 

The finished product...

                                                                
                                                                   

And since I'm still up...

Here is a video of Beck reading The Giving Tree. Over the past few months he has gone from a good reader to an amazing reader. I can hand him pretty much any kids book and he can read straight through it with little or no help. We are really happy to have boys that love books as much as we do!

Fall

Autumn is finally here, although some days you wouldn't really know it. Having lived in the North for 27 years of my life, I consider anything above 60 degrees to be Summer. Today it was 75. Despite the warm weather, the leaves still die and fall and our back yard was getting out of control.

 

 

Our poor sandbox was decimated by the monsoon summer we had.

 

Here is a picture of Izzy Lizard just chillin' on the speaker outside near the door to the deck. He is one of our many new lizard friends who have decided to live on our porch for some reason. We don't mind them at all, but it means we have to open and shut the back door very quickly. We've already had several sneak in, and one terrible (gross) tragedy.

 

                                                                         

 

We finally broke down and bought an electric leaf blower.

Still not perfect, but much better.

Things can get pretty routine when you have little kids, so we are always on the lookout for new places to go, especially parks. Last weekend we found a new one not too far from our house.

 

 

 

Today we met up with my friend Kat and her son who is in Baylor's class (the Huggers) at daycare. 

 

 

Beck is really sweet with little kids. He has told us he wants to be a baby doctor when he grows up. He also wants to be a farmer. 

The ice-cream man came rolling by the park, and Beck scored a treat. Apparently it was blue.

                                                                            

Sweet Potato Chicken Curry

Rob and don't usually have time to cook elaborate meals, but every now and then we find a recipe to add to our favorites collection. This recipe for Sweet Potato Curry was in this month's issue of Cooking Light, and it is super delicious! Interestingly, the recipe was sent in by a woman who also went to UW-Madison, and was inspired to create this dish based on one that she had eaten as a college student at a place she described as a "hole-in-the-wall Nepalese restaurant" (Himal Chuli? They never had anything this good.) We have made this 3 times now, and I'm making it again tomorrow. Here is the recipe:

2 Teaspoons Curry Powder (we use Hot Curry Powder from Penzeys)
1 Teaspoon ground coriander
1 Teaspoon ground tumeric
1/2 Teaspoon salt
1/2 Teaspoon black pepper
1/4 Teaspoon ground red pepper (or just use Hot curry pwder)
1 Bay Leaf
1 1/2 Teaspoons olive oil
1 1/2 lbs skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into 1-inch pieces (or omit this if feeding a vegetarian)
1 1/2 cups vertically sliced onion
1 1/2 Teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 (14-ounce) can fat-free chicken broth (or vegetable broth if your vegan sister is coming to town)
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
2 cups (1/2 inch) cubed peeled sweet potatao
3/4 cup drained and rinsed chickpeas
1/2 cup frozen green peas (we have skipped this everytime, but it would probably be good with)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1. Combine curry powder, coriander, turmeric, salt, pepper, and bay leaf in small bowl.
2. Heat oil in a large dutch oven over medium high heat. Add chicken to pan; saute 5 minutes or until browned, stirring occasionally. Remove chicken from pan. Reduce heat to medium. Add onion to pan; cook 10 minutes or until tender, stirring frequently. Increase heat to medium high; return chicken to pan. Cook 1 minute, stirring occasionally. Stir in ginger and garlic; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add curry powder mixture; cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly . Add broth, tomatoes and potato and bring to a boil (*note- the recipe says to leave out the sweet potato until the last 1/2 hr, but we found that doing this makes them hard and not fully cooked). Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 hr. Stir in chickpeas. Cook, uncovered, 30 minutes. Add peas; cook 5 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Remove from heat; stir in lemon juice. Discard bayleaf. Yield: 7 serving (serving size 1 cup). Serve over Basmati rice.

                                                                         

Yes, cooking this will make your whole house smell like a cheap apartment in Brooklyn, but it is totally worth it. Enjoy!

Stolen Pictures

While my sister was here over Halloween, I let her be in charge of picture taking while I wrangled the boys. Here are some pictures I stole from her Facebook page:

  
After spending the day together shopping and eating lunch at Bottletree cafe, Peg and I went to our daycare center's Fall Festival. They had treats and activities for the kids, but mostly they just ran wild.
                                

 

 

They has a little face-painting area and 2 of the teachers were painting things like bats and pumpkins on the kid's faces. One teacher told Bay that she was going to paint a pumpkin on his face and then proceeded to paint a red pumpkin. I was very confused, they actually had orange paint,  but I didn't say anything.

 

 

The boys thought it was more fun to steal the pins than to wait in line to bowl.

 

 

Normally they have two separate playgrounds for the different age groups, Baylor was thrilled to get a chance to play on the "big kids playground"

 

Things were getting a little crazy so we headed out to the park near our house to work off some more sugar before dinner.

 

 

Some more left over pics...

 

 

 

 

I love the next picture, we didn't plan this...

 

Beck is becoming an excellent builder. He spend large chunks of his time building elaborate castles, bridges and obstacles. Please forgive the lack of pants, clothes don't stay on very long in our house, even when there is company.