Dec 29: zoo

I thought this was an amazing picture of Collin at the zoo but I had to post 2 others as well

Caleb managed to come to the zoo with no shoes.

All the grand kids climbing like crazy.

Dec 28: expecting

Julie is expecting soon!

Dec 27: Game night

Game night was at our house and we had a ton of fun with Paul's new game called passwords.

Dec 26: Boogers

Everyone has a cold and Melanie is no exception.

Dec 25: Estate

The girls liked there new dollhouse estate. The elves were up till 12 putting it together.

Dec 24: PJ's

We all got our PJ's Christmas eve

Dec 23 :leaves

I wish our trees leaves look so bare but they keep dropping tons>

Dec 22: park

Kids and moms played at the park while the men played Frisbee golf.

Dec 21: Graham cracker houses

It gets so crazy we wonder why we do it but the kids have fun.

Dec 20: Blanch

I like to blanch my green beans.

Dec 19: Guitar

I did not even know she played the guitar. Apparently she had the class when she met Paul and was a bit distracted.

Dec 18: Cafe Rio

Cafe Rio warms our hearts. I worked really hard on all the recipes.

Dec 17: Nuts

There are always big bins of nuts at the stores during the holidays. This could make a cool wallpaper.

Dec 16: mad libs

At Rachel's class party they did Christmas mad libs. The papers were hung by the stove with care in hopes that J. J. Watt soon would be there.

Dec 15: The Grinch

In Rachel's class today they are watching and celebrating the Grinch movie. They were invited to either wear green like the Grinch or to dress like a who. We were a bit rushed but I had to do something so......

Dec 14: leaf piles

Little Kids do love to play in the leaves. Unfortunately the swamp oaks in the b

ackyard have pretty flat leaves leading to really wimpy piles. The neighbor was raking his whole front yard into one pile and it reached almost to the top of his mailbox. Kids would have had a field day(and made a huge mess) if allowed to plat in that!

Dec 13: visitor

We had a little visitor inside the house by the back door. I thought he was rather cute. Hazel held the door while I shushed him back outside. He is a harmless ribbon snake but he will be better off outside.

Dec 12: Cookbook

They came! They came! They are finally here. I have been working on this cookbook for at least 2 years. It was a lot of work. I learned food photography and did all the pictures and every recipe has a photo. People I know actually wanted a copy. I felt so good. I hope they like the recipes as much as I do.

Dec 11: Disney Princess

Hazel fell asleep looking like one of her favorite Disney princesses. She even got the movie for her birthday this year.

Dec 10: naughty or nice?

Do you think Melanie has been good enough? I don't know, she doesn't let mom sleep at all these days.

Dec 9: cloud

I have no idea what kind of clouds they were but man were they weird. Rachel noticed them at school as well.

Dec 8: Libaray

Is there a limit to the number of books you can take? We took like 20!

Dec 7 cousin love

December 6 : Leftovers

Leftover are much more exciting when you re purpose them into something else. Saturday I made carnitas. very yummy but for it I cooked a whole pork butt. After feeding my family and my sister who is minus her hubby for awhile I still had lots leftover. It was all part of the master plan. In the freezer I had enchilada soup saved from a big batch and turned the leftover meat from the carnitas into taquitos to go with them. Rachel dipped them in the soup like you would a grilled cheese into tomato soup. The leftover get used but we didn't feel like we were having leftovers again. Yay!
You can fill taquitos with lot of different leftover meat like pot roast or shredded chicken.
In college I even used canned roast beef. Gasp! Rinsed off the gravy seasoned it a little and turned it into taquitos.

December 5 : Rain

Rain. We have been under flash flood warning all weekend. It was dry for so long. We have either been flooding or dry this year. No in between. I captured this image on the way to get Rachel from school it is actually a reflection of the woods overhead. The little blurry parts are leaves or things in the water.

December 4:lemon

The lemon tree is giving it's fruit. It is so crooked and only as tall as the backyard fence but it makes lemons the size of grapefruit! The kids were getting out the patio chairs to stand on to pick them. They loaded them up in a toy shopping cart and hauled a bunch inside. Some were still a bit green but that's ok. I appreciate their harvesting efforts.

December 3 :Ice

Never buy the fridge/freezer my parent have. We are house sitting while they are gone on a mission. It does not drain or freeze properly and collects and freezes under the freezer bin. This is all the ice of just 2 months I think. It was at least 1/2 inch thick. What a pain!

December 2 : TJ

We went to the zoo today. We love the zoo. The highlight was the baby seal. Sarah had been trying to see him every time we went to the zoo since she was born. They had notes up saying she was to little, then that she was practicing swimming in a baby pool in the back and finally this time they were cleaning the cage at first and said they would be letting her out at 11am. We went to see other things but rushed back at 11 to see her. we were not disappointed. Man was she fast. She zoomed around the pool so fast. She would occasionally jump from the water and also chase her flippers like a dog chasing it's tail.
I bet the adult could probably go just as fast but...why...no predators or fish to catch. Very fun to watch. I guess little kids of any species seem to have boundless energy. Wish I did.

Little town it's a quiet village...

Hazel Has been singing that song from Beauty and the Beast a lot. She cannot say Bonjour and instead says bazoom. This is a Christmas village. Josh's mom collected them and it was one of his favorite thing about Christmas. He has started his own collection and it is very pretty when lit up at night.

Oh Christmas Tree

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree....oh how I'll miss my sister

This is her tree with an ornament that has one of her boys hand prints on it. It reminds me of the snowy Christmas they will have next year in New Hampshire.

making up time

Time flies in the holidays. I have kept taking pictures but posting every day is harder. Like I said I will post at least once a week. I try to everyday but like I said holidays and babies keep me busy sometimes.
November 24th

Thanksgiving was special. We were down in numbers enough that we were all able to fit around two tables pushed together. This meant a more intimate passing of the food then the buffet style we usually have to resort to due to the number of people. The turkey was amazing.

November 25th

Pumpkin gingersnap cheesecake from the pioneer woman recipes. Definitely a keeper.

November 26th

Ellie here for Thanksgiving. Love the curl.

November 27th

Sweet Melanie holding Rachel's hand

November 28th

Stayed up till 1:30 to finish my cookbook.

November 29th

Rachel stayed home. Looked like she had some hand, foot, and mouth.

Those cheeks

Melanie has sucked me in with her baby cheeks. I can't help it. Those squishy cheeks and the big blue eyes. She will probably come up a lot on this 365 thing and that's okay. This is about practicing photography and what goes on in my life. Melanie is trying to put everything in her mouth. Rachel got her to look steadily toward the camera by shaking a rattle.

I will definitely say that learning to set a custom white balance has made a huge improvement in my pictures and much less time fidgeting in post processing to get things looking right. I  just took a white photo of the white dresser in their room set that as the custom white balance to tell the camera that that was white should be and pictures go from weirdly orange to peachy perfect!

Alien fruit

Alton Brown had an episode of good eats about this strange fruit and it has been one of my favorites since childhood. I don't know when mom introduced them to us but they were not very common. Pomegranates and the acai berry became popular about the same time a few years back and
Pomm Wonderful the juice drink had made them a much more common fall fruit.

Tortie

Today it was Tortie, Collin's tortoise. He is very cute and has grown a lot in the past couple of months. He has grown larger than many of his siblings some of whom hatched a month or more before him. I guess he is well taken care of. I find it funny that while my sister was never a fan of the kitten/cat she has a fondness for the little tortoise. I don't know why the cat never rubbed off on her but I cannot blame her for liking tortie.

leaves

We had fun throwing up the leaves and letting them fall

Raspberry Lemonade Cake

So we had our daughter born just a few weeks ago and before she arrives my sister and sisters in law threw me a small baby shower. It was very sweet, personal and unexpected. This is our third child all girls.
Anyway they got a bunt cake from the nearby cupcake place and it was the seasonal flavor raspberry and lemon. I really liked it and was wanting to try my wings at bunt cakes. I used a combination of recipes to create mine including the Americas Test Kitchen recipe for a lemon bunt cake.
I like my lemon things really lemony. You can see this most in the frosting. The cream cheese frosting has a natural tang but I added a lot of the zest and juice of the lemon to really give it a burst of lemony freshness.
Dusting the raspberries will help them not to all fall to the bottom and in the end the top of the cake. It helps to suspend them in the batter so they are more evenly distributed throughout the cake.

Raspberry Lemonade Cake

3 T lemon juice

3 T lemon zest

3 c flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

18 T butter

2 c sugar

3 eggs +1 yolk

3/4 c buttermilk

2 tsp vanilla

Raspberries

Frosting

8 oz cream cheese

2 c powdered sugar

1 T lemon zest

1 tsp lemon juice

1. Spray the bunt pan. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

2.Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and set aside.

3. In a separate bowl combine the butter and sugar, once mixed add the eggs, buttermilk, vanilla lemon juice and zest.

4. Pour the wet into the dry and mix until just combined. Bake 45 minutes, cool 15 minutes in the pan before turning out onto a plate or cake stand to finish cooling.

Cold?

We finally had a small cold front come through. The girls thought it was super cold and were excited to put on every warm thing they could find.

November 18 Feast Day

Today was feast day at Rachel's school. The school serves a thanksgiving lunch and the parents come eat with their kids. I thought it was funny that you could choose from turkey or chicken nuggets for the main course. I saw parents getting chicken nuggets it was not just the kids.

Doing the 365 thing is nice. I caught Rachel with the gingerbread's head hanging out of her mouth.

November 17 Be nice to spiders

So growing up mom read me a children's book called Be Nice To Spiders. It was about a spider named Helen like me and the zoo people tried to get rid of her until they realized spiders are helpful.
Right now we have a ton of spiders in the backyard. Especially the spiny orb weavers. I don't mind. Josh is not a fan. He asked if I could be in charge of mowing the back. When I do I carefully detach their web in one or two spot and they gather it up.
I decided to take their picture. I wish I had the cannon 100mm macro lens so I could really fill the frame but even used are a bit to pricey right now. Oh well, on the wish list. Anyway when I went out this morning they were building their webs. I don't know that I have watched tat in person before. It was super cool.

You can see what is done and how much she still had left to do this morning. Que the itsy bitsy spider song.

Photo 365

So I have been working on my photography. Not just food photography but things and people as well. In order to encourage the development of that skill I am going to try a photo 365 task. You take at least one photo every day. I may or may not post every single day it may end up being a weekly recap but it will have photos for every day. Almost like a photo journal. I may even do themed weeks occasionally to stretch myself.

November 16

This was Melanie today. I had to really get down on the floor to be her level. As low as I could get really. She was doing her tummy time. She is 3 1/2 months so I think that is pretty good. The other kids not as much. Took Rachel to the doctor she did have strep. Then this evening Hazel had a fever and sore throat....I talked to a nurse. They will call in a prescription to pick up tomorrow. No need to go in again. Thank goodness.

Sounds like tomorrow will be another stay at home day.

Chicken Enchilada Soup

My husband is a lover of the restaurant chain Chili's so when it is his turn to pick that is often where we end up. One of the things always on the menu is their enchilada soup. It is a really nice starter or can even be the whole meal. In my version I added a few more veggies that you see in the restaurant version and mine also has a little more kick to it.
We loved it and my husband especially appreciated the extra spice.

Chicken Enchilada Soup

2 chicken breasts
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 tsp vegetable oil
2 Tbsp garlic, minced
1 onion, diced
1 c masa hariana
2 1/2 cups water
4 cups chicken stock
1 can(10 oz)enchilada sauce
1 can (4 oz) diced green chilies
16 oz velveeta
salt
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin

Garnish:
pico de gallo
tortilla strips
montery jack cheese

        1. Season the chicken on both sides with the chili powder, salt and pepper. Add the oil to a 4 qt pot and cook, searing each side, until cooked through. Remove and set aside.
2. Add the garlic and the onion to the pot and stir, cooking until they begin to become translucent. Combine the masa and the water and stir to distribute evenly and prevent lumps before pouring in to the pot. Use a spoon to scrape any bits from the bottom of the pan.
3. Add the remaining ingredients and cook on medium low heat until the velveeta has completely melted and incorporated into the soup. Dice the cooled chicken and add to the pot.
4. Ladle into individual portions and top with the desired garnishes to serve.