Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Life's A Happy Song...

....when there's someone by your side to sing along!

For the past few days the boys and I have been breaking into song, singing

I've got everything that I neeeeeeed....
right in front of me!
Nothin's stopping me, nothin' that I can't be
when you're right here next to me!

Tonight as I ran upstairs because I heard Tracen cry,
helped him go to the bathroom because he is usually sleep walking...
Logan stirred and was thirsty and then in his sleepy, raspy voice
asked me to snuggle for a few minutes while he went back to sleep...

A sense of complete and utter happiness and yet sadness came over me all at once.
Happiness because I have the very best boys in the world for me
and today was such an AMAZING day...
not because we did anything spectacular, but
just because we had a great day full of working together, laughter, car rides around the block,
wheel races, running races, baseball, basketball games to 5 AND 6,
silly conversations at dinner,
transformer jammies and fruitsnacks,
rock candy making


and singing all along.
Sadness because sometimes, I don't always appreciate all that I have and I always want more
and thinking that these moments of snuggling before bed
won't be there forever.

I really do have EVERYTHING that I need...Right in Front of Me!

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Something to Laugh about

I might be the meanest Mom ever...
but this is too funny not to laugh about and share.


SQUINKIES
I truly am a fan.  I love these little play things and so do my boys!  They get lost, we get sad, but I still think they are fun...what can I say, I loved to play with my Disney Princess figurines as a kid...I would play for hours and hours...giving them random names like Priscilla and Berty and loving every minute of my pretend fun.  Maybe this is why Logan is overloaded with "GUYS" and despite Chris' request, we still buy more when he asks for them...

Back to the story...
The boys were taking their bath last night and I watched Tracen put a little Squinkie in his mouth!  Let's put in perspective that these little things are rubbery and tiny...maybe an inch tall and that is being generous...so you would understand why I told him not to do that again.

The boys played and I finished the dishes and came back and Tracen had, not one, but 7 Squinkies in his mouth.  I again told him to take them out, explaining why they are dangerous and told him that if I saw him, or Logan for that matter, put one in their mouths again that I would throw them in the garbage.  Well, not sure if he was testing my power to follow through with my threats or if he just wasn't thinking, but he took another one and put it in his mouth right after I said not to.

I was a little angry and so I told him to give it to me and I put it in the garbage....oh man....sad day!  Tears erupted, sobbing ensued and he was ANGRY!  I calmly explained why he got it thrown away asking if I had warned him and he was fully aware of our previous discussion...so it stayed in the garbage.

And then...
Through uncontrollable sobs and tears he looked at me with all seriousness and said
"MOM, if you EVER do this to me again, then I will THROW YOU IN THE GARBAGE!"

I stifled laughing but a few giggles broke through (probably wasn't nice...but seriously funny to hear that) and I calmly left the room helping Logan get on his pajamas.  I know this won't be the last time that I will hear something like this, but it was definitely the first..so I wanted to document. 

It definitely is something to laugh about.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

The Adventures of Sass and Krab

With an 80+ hour work week and 4 days off a month it is pretty hard to squeeze in a date...but we decided that it needs to happen at least once a month...so with vacation and the boys at their friends' house for movie night...we took advantage...we went to Costco and got our tires checked...pretty awesome...but then went to the local bowling lane for some competitive fun! 

WARNING:  we have not bowled in years...the skillz of Sass and Krab are a bit lacking in the bowling department!

So in our true competitive nature we had a bet...what was on the line?

1.)  Back massage for 10 minutes without complaining (in favor of Krab)
**I know many wives are loving and love to rub their husbands back, can do an occassional rub, but a full on massage...sorry babe!  You married the wrong person.  I hate it!  i don't know why..but it is the truth...so this is a big deal!**

2.)  Date night planned...no movies, or bowling and more than just dinner...including finding the babysitter and picking the date and time.
**another huge thing in our relationship...I love Krab, but he hates to decide or set-up dates and has NEVER done it in our married life...no joke...I told ya this is huge***

The competitors:
KRAB

and SASS

After 10 frames of intense competitive bowling full of lead changes and suspense...the winner is?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

SASS!  You better believe that in the month of March I am going on a sweet date planned entirely by KRAB and he is truly "krabby" about it!
***notice that I even let the score be really close in the end, I am so nice***

Monkey Joe's

With Dad around and on vacation we have been going to all places that are fun!  We hit up Monkey Joe's a bouncin' good time.  It is full of blow up slides and obstacle courses for the kids.  Of course Logan always prefers the food...especially the Popcorn. 


Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Heavenly French Toast

I don't normally put recipes on my blog...but these are HEAVEN and so so GOOD!  I wish I would have taken a picture...but they got devoured!  You will have to try them!  We topped them with this buttermilk syrup...so so delicious!  I have to thank my old visiting teacher.  She made these for me once when Chris was away in Vegas...sad that I am just now getting around to making them.  Enjoy!

PS my one suggestion would be to 1 1/2 the batter recipe because I definitely was scraping the bottom of the dish to try and get some batter for my last 2 pieces of toast.


French Toast
The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, Revised Edition

Serves: 4
Prep time: 5 minutes
Total time: 45 minutes

Many types of bread can be substituted for white sandwich bread, including cinnamon-raisin bread and challah.  The recipe can be doubled and the cooking time sped up by preparing batches simultaneously in two skillets or by using an electric griddle.

8 slices of high quality white sandwich bread
6 tablespoons of unsalted butter
1 cup milk
1 large egg
2 tablespoons of sugar
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1.   Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 200 degrees.  Arrange the bread on a wire rack set over a baking sheet and bake until slightly dry, about 15 minutes.

2.   While the bread is in the oven, melt 2 tablespoons of butter and whisk it together with the milk, egg, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl.  Slowly whisk in the flour until smooth.  Pour the batter into a large shallow dish. 

3.   Transfer 2 pieces of the bread from the oven into the batter and soak both sides, about 30 seconds per side.  Meanwhile, melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium heat until beginning to brown, swirling to coat the pan.  Remove the bread from the batter, allowing excess batter to drip back into the dish, and lay in the hot skillet.  Cook until golden brown on both sides, about 2 1/2 minutes per side.  Transfer the French toast to the wire rack to keep warm in the oven.  Repeat with the remaining butter, bread and batter.

Test Kitchen Tip: Flour does the trick
            All too often, French toast is as soggy on the outside as it is on the inside.  To remedy this, we experimented with a number of techniques.  In the end, we found that adding flour to the batter, although a bit odd, was a highly successful solution.  It lends crispness to the French toast that milk and egg alone cannot provide.

Jen’s variations:
            I use my multigrain bread and skip the drying in the oven.  I also use my electric griddle to cook 4 at a time. I use a shallow baking dish that can accommodate 4 pieces of bread soaking at the same time.


We went to Philly!

For Christmas I gave Chris tickets to see the UCONN Huskies battle the Villanova Wildcats!  Well yesterday was the day!  We decided to head to Philly early and explore the city a little bit.  Both Chris and I agreed that while we had a great day, Philly isn't our favorite city...lot's of history?....yes!...but we just weren't feeling it...so check it off the list of things to do while living in PA...but we had a fun time and pretty much wore ourselves out!
Driving into Philly
Driving over the Benjamin Franklin bridge...Logan asked, "Are we at Disney World?"  Sorry babe...we won't be there for 3 weeks!  But we are going!


We went and visited the historical district.  Side note...Chris and I watched National Treasure Sunday night...kind of fun.  I guess there is a National Treasure tour that you can take through DC and Philadelphia...that would be really cool...but probably not little people friendly.
The Liberty Bell

As we were walking back to our car...there was a random bear hanging out on the street...gotta love it!

The highlight of our trip (for Tracen at least) was probably the time we spent by the river.  He just loves rivers...we we took advantage of the nice weather.

For lunch we headed over to the original Philly cheese steak district...Geno's and Pat's.  We actually decided to eat at Pat's Steaks...it was pretty delicious...this was one on Chris' checklist of to-dos.

We had a lot of time to kill so we headed to the King of Prussia mall...let's just say...it is the BIGGEST shopping mall I have ever seen!  It was a little depressing having no money to shop with...but it was fun to just walk around and see all the different stores.  Then we once again headed to the river...this time finding a place where the boys could run freely.  It was really nice.  I loved the path and I was wishing we had a path like that...maybe we do?  I will have to discover that.



And now for the main event!  Let's just say that we were in the Nose Bleeds and we sad behind....well let's just say his aroma was not that of flowers...but we were excited to be there.  The boys were a little tired...but we bribed them with super healthy pretzels, cheese and pizza...(lol).  The begginning of the game was a bit embarrassing, but they pulled it off in the end.





Overall a super fun, but super long day.  Oh and we changed seats at the half...not really any better, but away from our great smelling friend :)