Peanuts Gang

The kids were the Peanuts for Halloween.

Meet Charlie Brown, Woodstock, and Sally.

Some people knew who they were; sometimes we had to explain.

One woman though Elin was a Fraggle. Now there's an idea for next year . . .

I walked around the neighborhood with Woodstock and Sally in the wagon; Charlie Brown strolled along and my Sweet Babboo stayed at home and reluctantly passed out the Bit-O-Honey.

Happy Halloween!

Elin's favorite movie

Elin loves this little movie we took last night. She laughed at herself and played peek-a-boo right back!

Yay Your 33

It was Nate's birthday on Saturday. I woke up early to make a special breakfast.

Then the phone rang.
It was somebody at work.
He's sleeping and it's his birthday. Is this an emergency?
Umm . . . just have him call us when he wakes up.
Sigh.
I went and woke Nate up. He called back. Then I got the big kids dressed and Nate brought them to the bank with him while I made breakfast-that-turned-into-brunch.

Then the real celebration started!



In case you can't read the pencil, this is a sign Viggo made for Nate. It says, "Happy Birthday Yay Your 33"

I hope I get a sign like that. Of course I'm a lot younger than Nate so my numbers will be much different.

We ate brunch and it was so fun and relaxing.

We had Abuelita. Have you ever tried it? It's a Mexican chocolate drink; you put a big chocolate tablet in the blender with hot milk and mix it all up. We recieved some of this in a package Nate's aunt sent us quite some time ago; I had never heard of it before. It is SO good. I think it tastes like the foamy, creamy drink that the White Witch gave Edmund when he met her in the woods for the first time in Narnia. Nate just rolled his eyes at the reference to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe but there's no denying with a little imagination this is definitely what Edmund drank.

But of course our Abuelita wasn't enchanted.

We had baked French toast and sausages.

And pretzel Jell-O.
While our dear friends on the eastern seaboard may say Jell-O is strictly for us midwesterners out in the sticks, well, you don't know what you're missing.

Then it was time for presents.

Viggo bought pop-flavored jellybeans for Nate. As you can see he and Svea are both blurry; they were jumping up and down so much, they were so full of excitement!

Elin was eager to sample the jellybeans, but we didn't let her. Poor starving baby.

More candy. Birthdays around here are celebrated with junk food.

Nate was very happy to get some new music and so many other wonderful gifts.

Elin noticed my camera and came over to me and started saying her version of "cheese" so I would take her picture.

After hearing Nate talk about this pan for years, I decided to take the plunge and surprise him with it. It's an edge pan . . . all the pieces have nice chewy edges. Nate traditionally takes all the corner pieces whenever I bake a pan of anything, so now he can have an entire batch of brownies that are all edges.

Then we had dessert later; really, a giant candy bar on a plate.

So fun. We love celebrating birthdays; especially Nate's!

Happy birthday, Nate! You always make us laugh . . . we are so thankful for you!

Bit-O-Honey & Preparing for Nate's birthday

Yesterday an exciting package arrived in the mail.

It was 6.7 pounds of Bit-O-Honey. 400 pieces of honey-stick-in-your-teeth goodness. Cheap! And free shipping! I love amazon.com. We traditionally give Bit-O-Honey out at Halloween. Now all we have to do is restrain ourselves for another week.

Usually in Delaware we'd get, at the most, five trick-or-treaters. And then Nate would pretty much polish off the rest of the Bit-O-Honey within a month. I have a feeling that this year, there will be far fewer pieces left than what we're used to.

Then Viggo and I set the Bit-O-Honey aside and went to work. First order of business: listen to The Hobbit.

While we listened to the adventures of Bilbo and the dwarves, I had Viggo prep for Nate's birthday treats. First he removed the cream from lots of oreos, so we could crush those for Nate's traditional birthday dessert.

After Viggo crushed the chocolate wafers (and ate some of the middles) he unwrapped 30 vanilla caramels for me.

And after he unwrapped the caramels, he crushed two cups of pretzels for the crust for Nate's beloved Pretzel Jell-O.

We loved listening to The Hobbit while doing all of this. It was a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon. (The girls were napping.)

Then Nate came home and attacked poor Elin with his beard.

She survived but there was extreme giggling.

The end! We'll post more later today about Nate's birthday; it mostly revolves around food.

Desperation pasta salad

It's been awhile since I've put any recipes up, and I'm sorry about that.

Honestly, cooking and baking this summer was nearly non-existent and then after we moved it took awhile to get things moving in the kitchen again.

But now we're up and at 'em.


A few weeks ago Nate kindly pointed out that if I packed him another meat and cheese sandwich for lunch, there was a good possibility he wouldn't survive through another lunch hour. I tried to add variety from time to time, but since he never complained, well . . .

So it was time for some immediate menu changes. I didn't want poor Nate to suffer through another painfully boring meat and cheese sandwich. And he hasn't. I am happy to report Nate has been meat-and-cheese-sandwich-free for at least 3 weeks now.

Everybody around here loves pasta salad, so last night I thought I'd make something from our cupboards. I dug around and found craisins, some chicken that needed to be eaten, a can of corn, poppyseed dressing, pasta, cheese, sunflower seeds . . . I really thought some salted cashews would be amazing in this salad, but I am very sad to say we didn't have any. If you are looking for something meat-free, cashews would be an excellent substitute for the chicken.

Desperation Pasta Salad

(amounts are approximate; I just add enough in until it looks right)

2 1/2 to 3 C rotini (I used the quick-cooking kind)

1/2 C or so of craisins

1 to 1 1/2 C cooked chicken, chopped

1 can sweet corn, drained

Roasted and salted sunflower seeds

Shredded or cubed mozzarella cheese - or gouda! Wouldn't that be delish!

Roasted and salted cashews . . . if you have them

Poppyseed dressing

Cook the pasta; drain and rinse in cold water until cool. Put in a good-sized bowl. Toss in everything else and stir; add enough dressing to your liking. The girls had third helpings of this at lunch today :)

Manners with Elin

Elin loves to say please in sign language, and she's also really into nodding right now. She makes lots of little burbles and grunts that I'm sure are intended as words. Here's a little clip of her own style of communication!

Elin ~ 15 months

She's been 15 months for about a week now, but it's never too late for some cute pictures.

Elin naps a lot. She spends a lot of time in her crib.
Up at 6:30 a.m.
Nap at 7:45 a.m.
Seriously.

She takes a nap in the afternoon too. Today she napped for about 3 hours.
But she was deprived of her morning snooze this morning, so I think she was making up for it.
She goes to bed around 6:30 or 7. Sometimes earlier.
I don't know why we're blessed with such good sleepers but believe me when I say Nate and I are endlessly thankful for that.

When she doesn't get enough sleep . . . she gets a little goofy.

She is so fun and is always ready for action!

She still sucks her thumb. Not a ton; only when she's looking for a little extra security or when she's tired.

Or sometimes I think she does it just because she knows she is so cute.

I think she looks a lot like Nate.

Nate wrinkles up his nose like this.

She is also all Weeks. At her check-up last week she measured tall and weighed in as a featherweight. She is still tinier than Svea was at this age but I am confident she'll be tall like everyone else is. It is obvious I am doomed to be the runt in the family.

We are thankful for every stage that Elin is going through right now, and we love her more than words can express. She is such a blessing :)