a smattering of family, food, and art for our friends
I know one cute, and smiley little boy who is happiest playing outside (these are pre-mulch injury pics):
Injury update: The glue came off the morning and it is healing nicely. We now just have to put medicine on it (when we can catch him and talk him into it) to help prevent scarring.
Posted by in Family
So much has happened in the last week. Some that I’d like to forget, and some that has been grand.
Last Tuesday was a beautiful (almost) fall day. I had big plans for us after school including time at our neighborhood playground while daddy mows, a nice dinner, and time to relax all together. As a working mom, our weekday evenings aren’t always as leisurely as I’d like, so I was quite excited. Murphy, though, had different plans. Instead our evening went a little something like this: a brief amount of time at the neighborhood playground with friends, a serious wipeout running from the playground to the swings by one Oscar Robert, mulch impaling his forehead (Yes, mulch. Yes, impaled. Deep.), a trip to the ER where thankfully they decided on glue over 2 stitches, and fast food for dinner. I guess that’s what I get for being excited about a relaxing evening as a family. In hindsight, I am so thankful he was wearing his sunglasses. Initially, I thought the cut was from the lens popping out and cutting him, but they in fact probably protected his eyes from an even worse injury. Oscar was quite a trooper, as usual. He was done crying by the time I sprinted the 2 blocks home with him and held real still for them to clean and glue up his boo-boo. The glue must’ve felt funny to him because he kept raising his eyebrows for the rest of the night.
On a much more relaxing note, we spent the weekend celebrating birthdays with my family. My mom’s birthday is the 6th and mine was Saturday, so we always celebrate as a family together. On Friday, my grandma (O’s Great Granny, or GG) came to our house to babysit so Greg and I could go out for dinner. Oscar is obsessed with his GG, so he was super excited to have her, and for us to leave. It was great to get out to dinner just the two of us, and give O time with his best bud. On Saturday, the three of us went to a “you pick” apple orchard, and had the perfect day for it. We now have 2 large bags of apples to make applesauce and apple butter later this week. I can’t wait! Sunday was a celebration with all of the fam, and Pops heated the pool up to a glorious temperature that made floating more like lingering in a big bathtub.
We made a big meal together (as usual), and my sister made one delicious, 3 layer, red velvet cake for me. I’m glad she thinks I’m worth the 3 bottles of red food coloring and the labor of love that that cake is.
I needed a weekend like that after Tuesday.
Posted by in Family
The other night I was helping O put on his pajamas and I whispered “I love you” to him. His response (in a cute little whisper): “I want some chocolate milk.”
This kid is obsessed, and would drink it sunrise to sunset, if we’d let him. I guess can’t blame him. It is good. Plus, I did drink a glass of chocolate milk every morning when I was pregnant with him. So, maybe this is my fault…
Posted by in Family
My husband is thebomb.com. Truly.
When I was pregnant with Oscar and craving sno-cones in the middle of winter, he surprise ordered me a fancy pants, legit sno-cone maker (no Snoopy Sno-Cone Maker here) complete with about 10 gallons of syrup.
This time around, I’ve had a hankering for a meal that is his specialty. When we used to spend our summers traveling with a youth organization, Greg leading worship, we spent about 4 weeks in a row at Milligan College in East Tennessee. Something unique to the area is that there are about a million Japanese steakhouse type restaurants. Some offer “fast food” type service and some cook in front of you, but all of them have a glorious sauce that goes on everything called “shrimp sauce.” There actually isn’t any shrimp in the sauce, or else this Mama wouldn’t care for it, but it is just because of the color. It is used as a salad dressing, drizzled over fried rice, pumped into veins, you name it. They also all served it with chicken and these delicious sweet carrots as a side.
Once we stopped traveling a few years ago we still talked about going to Mikado and how we wish we could emulate the recipe at home. We weren’t the only ones in love with Mikado, as was any other staff member who had been to Milligan before. One particular staff member that had gone to Milligan for many summers somehow got us a recipe that my husband has played with a bit, and I do believe he has it nailed.
Now this meal is not good for you… at all. There is so much sugar involved in the carrots, loads of mayo in the shrimp sauce…but if it is wrong, I don’t want to be right. This meal is also quite the labor of love, taking between 2-3 hrs, and our wok has to be used outside since we can’t use it on our stove. So naturally, whenever I’ve talked about this meal lately I’ve gotten a sympathetic “yeah, it sounds great” but that’s as far as it went, and I didn’t push it any further. Until this weekend. Honestly, I didn’t have to push that hard, but was so thankful when he agreed to fix it for us.
I may have been singing songs of praise with each and every bite. My husband just looked at me like I was looney. I don’t care. This time around, though, he’ll be happy to know that I don’t need repeated Mikado dinners, like I needed regular sno-cones.
The above mentioned recipes are all on page 2 of the document, if you’d like to try it yourself.
Posted by in Food
tend the farm 