supper(s) away

We didn't host a Sunday supper this week.  But that doesn't mean we didn't spend some great time with friends and family!  That really is the point of our weekly meal gathering after all.
On Saturday evening we had dinner with friends at the Freitas house.  Levi, Finn and Enzo had a great time playing together and chasing Taya around.  Here she is hiding from the boys (and the camera too).

 

Levi probably enjoyed baby Evan the most.  Evan will be 4 months next week and Levi loved making him smile and giggle.  Baby smiles are a wonderful thing!

 

Tonight we didn't host a supper at our house because we wanted to visit Tricia and Travis' new place.  They haven't been in their new town house long but they've already put a lot of work into it.  It was great to see them, enjoy a nice dinner and see their new home.  We're very happy for them and are looking forward to celebrating in June on their wedding day!

Next week we get to celebrate birthdays!  Gabe, Tricia and Travis all have their birthday in early March so the big party will be next week.
We will get back to hosting Sunday suppers after the March birthday celebration.  I'm looking forward to it!

Making "New" Crayons

I've been terrible about picking up the camera this month.
But here's our silly guy playing "fishing" with Jupiter.  Can you guess who the "fish" is?

Levi and I did a fun craft this morning.
I found it here (from Pinterest) and was able to gather enough broken crayons from school already to give it a try.  Pretty sure we'll be able to make a bunch more in June.

Together we took all the paper off the crayons.

Then I melted the crayons in tin cans in hot water on the stove.
I poured the melted wax into the race car molds I found at Michael's.  (On clearance!)
Finally, we let them cool in the fridge for as long as I could get Levi to wait.

Obviously, Levi's favorite crayon cars are the red ones cause they are Lightening.
And of course he made a race track around his table while I wasn't looking.

Then I got smart and covered the table with the biggest pieces of paper I could find around the house.  I think we'll need to invest in some butcher paper to keep that table covered.
Levi's having a blast with the new crayons, even though he's not really using them as crayons!  They're just more race cars to play with!

Long Weekend on the Mountain

We had a great long holiday weekend playing up on Mt. Hood.
I had a furlough day on Friday and Gabe has a new schedule so he has Friday afternoons off again, so we got to take off after lunch on Friday.
We spent a lot of the weekend playing in front of the fire.  (I spent most that time reading this.)
We went on a little nature walk down to the Salmon River.
But mostly we spent the weekend at Little John snow park.
Like this:

 That is the face Levi made most often as he was flying down the hill.  I love it!

Gabe and I had a blast too.  This is the run Gabe did from the very top of the hill.  He got going pretty fast and ended up with a face full of powder.

We discovered this sweet jump for Levi to go over.  He loved catching air over it.

But really, Levi's favorite thing was to just roll around in the snow.  He reminded me of a little puppy.  He was up to his knees in snow most of the time and just loved it!  He said playing in the snow was "super duper fun!"

And we have to include a video for the grandparents!

Baked Ziti

We made one of our favorite vegetarian meals tonight.  Our friend Jen is vegetarian and she LOVES cheese, so I knew this would be the perfect thing to make for her and her boyfriend Rich.
We use the Cook's Illustrated recipe.  They don't make their recipes available without a subscription so I'll share it with you:

Rescuing Baked Ziti
Ingredients:
1 pound whole mild or 1% cottage cheese
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 oz grated Parmesan (about 1 1/2 cups)
Salt
1 pound ziti (we can never find ziti at the grocery store so we use rigatoni.  Penne would also work well.  We could probably find ziti here but it's not really worth the extra trip for us.)
5 tablespoons olive oil
5 garlic cloves pressed through garlic press
1 (28oz) can of tomato sauce
1 (14.5 oz) can of diced tomatoes (we use the tomatoes we canned from our garden)
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons chopped FRESH basil leaves
1 teaspoon sugar
Ground black pepper
3/4 teaspoons cornstarch
1 cup heavy cream (or whole milk but we ALWAYS use cream)
8 oz low-moisture mozzarella cut into 1/4 inch pieces (about 1 1/2 cups

1.  Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Whisk cottage cheese, eggs, and 1 cup Parmesan together in medium bowl; set aside
Bring 4 quarts of water to boil in large dutch oven over high heat.
Stir in 1 tablespoon salt and pasta; cook, stirring occasionally, until pasta begins to soften but is not yet cooked through 5-7 minutes.
Drain pasta and leave in colander.
Do not wash dutch oven.

2.  Meanwhile, heat oil and garlic in a 12 in skillet over medium heat until garlic is fragrant but not brown, about 2 minutes.
Stir in tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, and oregano; simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes.
Off heat, stir in 1/2 cup basil and sugar, then season with salt and pepper.

3.  Stir cornstarch into heavy cream in small bowl; transfer mixture to now-empty dutch oven set over medium heat.  Bring to a simmer and cook until thickened, 3-4 minutes.
Remove pot from head and add cottage cheese mixture, 1 cup tomato sauce and 3/4 cup mozzarella, then stir to combine.
Add pasta and stir to coat thoroughly with sauce.

4.  Transfer pasta mixture to 13X9 inch baking dish and spread remaining tomato sauce evenly over pasta.  Sprinkle remaining 3/4 cup mozzarella and remaining 1/2 cup Parmesan over the top.
Cover baking dish with foil and bake for 30 minutes.

5.  Remove foil and continue cooking until cheese is bubbling and beginning to brown, about 30 minutes longer.
Cool for 20 minutes.
Sprinkle with the rest of the basil.
ENJOY!!!

And just because these lovely tulips Jen and Rich brought for us made me long for spring, I'll share them with you.

Super Sunday Supper

That's what we call a Super Bowl feast!
Snacks, ribs and beer.
And of course friends and football.

Gabe's former co-worker Drew, and his wife Paula, came over today to watch the game and enjoy some good eats.  Gabe used this rib recipe.  He had the spice rub on the ribs last night and then braised them in the oven for more than two hours this afternoon.  They were awesome!  I just wish I wouldn't have eaten so many snacks...I would have had room for more ribs.
Levi sure did enjoy watching his first Super Bowl game!

Same Name!

Levi's been starting to notice that words have similar sounds.
When he notices it he says the two words have "the same name."
We told him earlier this week that when words sound the same that means they rhyme.
So the other day when I asked him to "promise" to follow his sleep rules at nap time with Grandma G, he said, "Promise sounds like Thomas.  They rhyme."  Now all sorts of things rhyme!  It's really cute.

Update on the new bed:
I appreciated my sister's advice.  But I was really hoping the toddler bed would work out because this is the next bed I want to buy Levi and I feel like double is too big for a 2 & 1/2 year old.
But (I think) we found the motivation he needed.  And I'm somewhat embarrassed by it.  More and more research is coming out about the negative effects screen time has on young children (especially those under 2).  So we've been careful to not have the TV on around Levi and not really make it a part of his life.  In his 2 & 1/2 years he's seen Cars three times and Bambi once.  Well, he's been asking us (and Grandma G) if he can watch "Lighting" (that's what he calls Cars) all week.  So we told him that if he follows his sleep rules he can watch "Lighting" on Saturday.  (I was desperate!)  I didn't think the delayed gratification would work on a kid this young but we remind him of the rules every time he lays down for nap and bedtime.  And we tell him if he follows the rules he'll get to watch "Lightening" later.  Seems to be working.  Or maybe he's just getting use to the bed.  Who knows!

Playing at the park this beautiful sunny (but cold) February morning!

No matter what, we love every moment we get with this cute little guy!

Big Boy Bed

Levi might be excited about the "new" bed he's been sleeping in all weekend, but Mommy and Daddy sure aren't!
It's really just his crib with the toddler bed side on it so he can get in and out of bed himself.  That's the problem.  The kid won't stay in bed.  Saturday night we heard him upstairs talking but we couldn't understand what he was saying.  Gabe went up there and Levi was in bed, covered up, laying down reading books in the dark.  He was saying "I can't see.  I can't see." over and over again.  Then Sunday night he was up countless times.  In fact he was still up when we climbed into bed at 10pm!  His favorite things to do instead of sleep?  Get up and turn the light on so he can lay in bed and read.  Fortunately he's not very sneaky and we can hear him turn the light on.

We thought being really clear about the rules might help.
Here are Levi's sleep rules:

The only problem is that he doesn't really care about following them.  Even the promise of a treat in the morning isn't helping.
So, Levi's been overtired and throwing tantrums since Saturday.  And Gabe and I really want our sweet, well rested little guy back.
I'm really hoping that the excitement will wear off this week and in a few days he'll be back to his normal self.  Either that or our kid will be sleeping in a crib until he goes to kindergarten.  (I'm kidding...sort of.)

Taste of India

We took a bit of an easy way out for supper tonight.

We bought a tub of Indian coconut curry simmer sauce at Costco last month and we put it to use tonight.  My sister Becky was invited to join us for dinner and I know she loves Indian food so it seemed like the perfect fit.  Easiest Sunday supper to date!  All we had to do was throw some cubed up chicken breast into the simmer sauce and let it do it's thing for 15 minutes.  The sauce was good.  I think we'll get it again and put lamb in it instead of chicken.

Gabe and I did want to try making an Indian side dish too.  So we made this.  It was good.  It was spicy.  And our version was missing the cilantro (I forgot to put it on the shopping list this morning).  I think next time we make it we'll do two eggplants instead of one.  As you can see from the picture, there's a lot of onion in it but not enough eggplant for our liking.

I guess I should also mention that Levi refused to eat both dishes.  So he had left over mac and cheese for Sunday Supper this week.  He's usually a really great eater but would have nothing to do with the chicken and rice.  Oh, well.  Maybe next time!

Guests Welcome

One of our goals this year is to put some much needed attention into the downstairs of our house.  Since we moved in less than three weeks before Levi was born (and we never really use the down stairs much) it's been the part of the house we've really neglected for the last two and 1/2 years.  It's always been a little bit embarrassing for me to have guests come and stay in such an unwelcoming space.  Well, we revamped the weird non-bedroom last year and converted it to a home gym.  And we've finally finished the guest bedroom too!  Actually, it's been mostly done for about a month.  We were just waiting on some canvas prints and other decorative pieces to come together.

Here's what the room looked like when we looked at the house:

The previous owners had a Red/Black/White theme going.  Not really our style and we were really not pleased that all the wood trim was painted black (just like in Levi's room).

This is what little decorating/effort we put into it when we moved in.  See what I mean...totally neglected.

This picture shows what we had to work with.  Not only was all the trim painted black.  It was painted black very messily (is that a real word?).  So if you ever think about painting wood trim black...remember this photo and please reconsider!

Here's our skilled painter "joyfully" priming all the black trim.  (This trim work, and repainting the closet doors, definitely consumed the most time on the project.)

Drum roll please...

Here's the finished room:

I call it our National Park guest room.  We bought the Pendleton blanket for our anniversary this year since it was our wool anniversary.  We decided on the Crater Lake blanket because it was the first National Park we visited together that first summer after we met.  (Plus it's the only National Park in Oregon.)
I'm still not 100% sure what I'm going to do on the window wall you can't see in the picture.  (That's why it's left out.)  I was thinking about painting a few of my own pieces of art but I'm not sure they'll really fit into the the mood of the space.  What I really want is a pair of mounted antlers.  Unfortunately, Gabe doesn't really hunt anymore so that's probably never going to happen...
The other part of the room you can't see very well in the picture is the orange tables over by the window and the little owl night light I absolutely LOVE!  I actually wanted to get it for Levi's room but I figure we'll be changing his room decor to cars or dinosaurs sometime in the next few years...not to cute woodland animals.

I'm happy to finally have a nice space for guests (grandparents) to stay.  Door's open!
(Hopefully we'll also have the bathroom downstairs looking better this year too!  That project will be A LOT more work though.)

No, Yugo

Oh, Portlandia, how can the truth hurt and be so funny at the same time?

An Old Classic

We made this for supper tonight.  It's a great chicken and rice casserole recipe, minus the can of cream of chicken soup.  Here's the finished product:

It was delicious!  Alexis and Eric (our guests this week) totally agreed.  Well, at least they said they did...

We did make a few small changes to the recipe.

We used long grain brown rice and had to increase the amount of stock we put in.  We also had to increase the cooking time another thirty minutes.  (So total cooking time was an hour and 15 minutes.)

I also made a some sautéed spinach.  Wasn't anything fancy but I thought it went well with the creamy chicken and rice.

Levi's spinach "snake tongue",

After dinner we had some fun playing Legos.

I'm really enjoying the restful, yet productive, weekends we've had so far this year.  As much as I enjoy the holidays, this is pretty nice too.

Clean Up

I know the this is going to be my least favorite part of Sunday supper.
I hate dishes!
Maybe I should just hire a house keeper to come Monday morning and do it for me.

We had a wonderful supper tonight.
Dave and Carley were our special guests this evening.  Their little bundle of joy is due in about a month and a half so I wanted to make sure we had them over before their schedule gets 1,000 times more complicated.  We are so happy for them.  I just hope we didn't bore them too much with our expert parenting advice.
Gabe made a wonderful leg of lamb.  (Tom and Joanne, it was better than the one he made at Christmas so we'll have to try it again when you're here.)
I made mashed potatoes and parsnips with goat cheese from this cookbook.
My mom gave me the cookbook years ago but this was the first thing I've made from it.  (Sorry Mom!)
The potatoes were really good so I think we should try one of the main dish recipes as well.  Another future Sunday supper!

Since we've now successfully completed two Sunday suppers, I'm a bit frustrated by the lack of photographic evidence I have.  Trying to time dinner just right is a big challenge.  Trying to photograph it is going to be another.

"No Thank You Please"

is one of Levi's favorite things to say when he really doesn't want to do something.

For example,
Me: "Levi do you want cauliflower for dinner?"
Levi: "No thank you please."

And another example,
Me: "Levi, do you need to go up and use the toilet?"
Levi: "No thank you please." (Not because he doesn't need to go.  Just because he doesn't want to stop whatever it is he's doing to go.)
I guess I should be thankful he's so polite.

There are some other Levi-isms I've been meaning to share.
You know how most 2 and 3 year olds ask "Why?" to everything?
Well, our kid likes to ask "How?"
Levi: "Daddy, what are you doing?"
Gabe: "Eating breakfast."
Levi: "How?"
Gabe: "With my fork."
Levi: "How?"
and it just continues from there...

He also loves to ask "What kind?"
Levi: "Where did this target Lego come from?"
Me: "From Mater"
Levi: "What kind of Mater?"
Me: "Lightening's friend Mater."
Levi: "What kind of Lightening?"
Me: "Your favorite race car Lightening."

And we're pretty sure he has an imaginary friend.
We've noticed him talking to "someone" at the dinner table a few times.  When we ask who he's talking to, Levi just says "Him" and points to the empty seat at the end of the table.  So we aren't sure who or what "Him" is yet but Grandma said she's noticed Levi chatting with "Him" too.

I just love this kid, his imagination and all the silly things he says!

Introducing: Sunday Supper

I hate the word "resolution".  I'm not really sure why but when I think about the new year and all the things I'd like to intentionally do differently, I hate to say I'm making a "resolution".  So instead, Gabe and I set some goals for the year.  We have some large house projects we want to get done this year.  (A complete transformation of the bathroom downstairs, new deck and back yard landscaping, and finally painting our office.)  Gabe is going to intentionally set aside time (probably Sunday between 11-4) to work on his car project.  And we've also decided to host a Sunday Supper every week.

The idea for Sunday Supper came to me after our holiday party where I found myself talking to friends we don't see nearly enough and saying to almost every one of them, "We need to have you over to dinner again some time."  See, we use to have friends over for dinner all the time.  Then you-know-who came along and it just seemed like too much work.  But really, it's not.  And I've missed having people at our house on a regular basis.  I feel like I've sort of withdrawn from relationships I use to really enjoy and I'm not really sure why.  So this year we hope to reconnect with friends and family and try some new recipes along the way.

I'm not sure how much I'll share about our Sunday Suppers on here.  This blog started as a way for Gabe and I to force ourselves to use our camera more often.  It's evolved into a record of our lives, mostly a place where certain grandmothers can get their Levi fix.  I'm not really sure where the documentation of our Sunday Suppers really fits into that.  I guess we might post some pictures, we might post some recipes.  But neither Gabe nor I are recipe creators.  We just know how to execute a recipe...really well in my opinion.

Since we just finished our first Sunday Supper I will share about it.

We were fortunate that Gabe's friend Ross could join us for dinner tonight.  He might be moving to Holland so I thought it would be good for us to have him over sooner rather than miss our chance.  When Gabe and Ross worked together (and when we lived in our old house on the east side of town) we use to hang out with Ross quite a bit.  It's always funny to me how they revert to 12 year old boy behavior when they're together.
For dinner, I made home made guacamole. (Which I'm embarrassed to admit I've actually never made before.  It's just too easy to get avocado and those seasoning mixes they have conveniently laying right next to the avocados at the store.)  Well, I will probably always be making it myself now because it's just 1,000,000 times better!
Gabe made this.  My husband is a huge fan of Mexican food (and Rick's recipes) so it was a fitting thing to make for our first Sunday Supper.  It was spicy and yummy.

The filling of the tacos (onion, garlic, roasted poblano peppers, spinach, and chicken stock).  A few more things are added later...

A Year Full of Play

In celebration of our year focused on play and documenting the time we spent playing together, I've put together this little piece of reflection.  I got the idea/inspiration from an article several friends shared on Facebook (and my brother-in-law actually sent Gabe a link to the article too.)

The first thing you have to do is read the article.
So take the next five minutes to read it!

I wanted to show you how true GeekDad's words are.  Here's the 5 Best Toys of All Time...according to Levi.

Stick

Indian Creek-September 2011

Box

"Airplane"-June 2011

String

String chase with Jupiter-December 2011

Cardboard Tube

Race car tunnel-December 2011

Dirt

Suttle Lake-August 2011

Of course there are many other things we've discovered make great toys.
pots and pans
bubble wrap
rocks (as long as there is water to throw them into)
GeekDad also agrees that there are many more items that could go on this list.  He wrote another article about it this year.  Check that article out!
So in the spirit of having the best list possible to conclude our year of play, we'll also include GeekDad's 6th Best Toy of All Time
Water

Backyard swimming pool-July 2011

2011 sure was a great year!
We had tons of good times.  We're all looking forward to the joy that 2012 will bring.

Ready, Set,

Go!

This Mack truck race ramp (from Great Grandpa and Grandma G) has proven to be Levi's "favorite" Christmas present.  He's hardly stopped playing with it the last 6 days.  If only it wasn't soooo noisy!
While Levi has been busy playing with all his new toys, Gabe and I have been busy re-doing the guest room downstairs.  We're hoping to have it finished up this week, but projects around here have a tendency to stay nearly finished for months. My goal will be to share the finished product soon.

Savannah and Sawyer-

Levi  loves the little kitty you made for him.
He's named her Jupers and asks every night, "I can sleep with her?  I can lay mine head on her?"
And as you can see, the original Jupiter is a big fan of her as well.

I have one more play post planned to finish up the year.  Check back for it tomorrow.  I also have a new goal for 2012 I'll tell you about next week, after the holidays are completely over!

Very Merry!

We had a very Merry Christmas! (despite the trip we took to the emergency room early Christmas morning..I'll explain in a bit.)

Christmas Eve, Levi and I made cookies for Santa while Daddy and Grandma Winnie took a last minute trip to the Lego store to make a little gift exchange.

Here's the baker eagerly awaiting the first batch of wonderful molasses cookies for the big guy in red.

We had a nice Christmas eve dinner with the Girard family.

Levi got to open a bunch of presents and was in surprisingly good spirits given the bark cough and wheezy breathing he woke up from nap with.

We got home from Grandpa and Grandpa G's house after bed time but quickly sprinkled some magic reindeer food on the lawn and put out a bowl of carrots for Rudolf and the gang.

We left out cookies, egg nog and the thank you letter Levi wrote to Santa. Then we all went to bed...

 

Christmas morning we were making phone calls to the on call nurse and Levi's doctor. He woke up several times in the middle of the night just sounding awful! Around 4:30am he could barely breath at all. The doctor said we needed to get him in to the emergency room. She was so sweet, apologizing because we'd have to spend Christmas morning in the ER. The emergency staff was great.

We were admitted quickly and they got Levi on a nebulizer to open his airways.

After deciding he has croup, they gave him some steroids. We waited the necessary two hours to make sure the steroids were working, they sent us home with a prescription for two more days of steroids.

So that was our big adventure! Certainly not the nice special Christmas morning I had in mind for us. But it didn't dampen Levi's spirits much. He certainly didn't want to take a nap since he had all those new toys to play with.

 

Gabe's dad and Joanne arrived in the evening and we had a nice Christmas dinner with them. And of course...more presents.

We sure were lucky to be able to see (and enjoy) so much time with family. Watching Levi get loved on by everyone is definitely my favorite part of the holiday season.

We had very Merry Christmas!