Christmas traditions

Ever since starting our family, it has been exceedingly imperative to me that we create our own holiday traditions. Maybe this stems from my childhood and remembering my mom working almost every holiday, shortening the celebration to only a few moments. It's possible that I feel this way because the very few happy memories that I have from that time in my life are of special holiday moments, like the insane amounts of holiday baking she would do from scratch for presents - cookies, colored popcorn balls, fudge and bars - all of them excessively delicious. I'm almost certain that creating our own traditions is to help me feel that our family is normal in an extraordinarily abnormal reality.

We haven't started many traditions yet since the boys are still very young and each year we add more to our list. This year we will probably go look at Christmas lights, maybe a horse-drawn carriage ride downtown on Christmas Eve, depending on how cold it is. We have always donned them in Christmas pajamas to go to bed in on Christmas Eve and we bake cookies. There is one kind in particular that I can say is our family's traditional holiday cookie - White Chocolate Pistachio Butter Cookies. It's a recipe that I've created myself, but is not totally genius - it just makes sense.

After a particularly rough night, kids screaming and fighting, my patience thin and Bill on a business trip, I needed to make cookies for Logan's preschool program. I got Carter to bed and had Logan help me out with the project. His disagreeable disposition changed drastically as I was getting the kitchen ready for baking. He was so excited, pulling up his wooden step stool, helping me flour the counter and cutting out pine tree-shaped cookies, just like he does with his Play-Doh. He snuck bites of crushed pistachios and smiled as I painted each cookie to dip in the nuts, telling me to be careful every time I burnt my fingers with melted white chocolate. Covered in flour from chin, arms and chest, he grabbed me around my waist. "Mom, guess what?" he asked. "What?" I replied. "I love you" he said from the bottom of his almost 4 year old heart.


White Chocolate Pistachio Butter Cookies, also known as "Christmas Trees"

2 sticks of unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 tea spoon salt
1 large egg yolk
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 bag white chocolate chips
1 bag shelled pistachios

Have all ingredients at room temperature (68-70 degrees). In a large bowl, beat the butter, sugar and salt on medium speed until very fluffy and well-blended. Add the egg yolk and beat until well blended. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until well combined. Reduce the speed and slowly add the flour just until combined.

Dived the dough in half and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour.

Pre-heat oven to 375. Place the shelled pistachios in a sandwich bag and crush to desired consistency (I like mine moderately crushed, not too fine, but not too whole). Empty crushed nuts onto a plate.

Take one disc of dough and roll out on a floured counter top. Cut the dough into tree shapes and place on a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes or until edges are barely golden brown. Using a thin-bladed spatula, transfer the cookies to a baking rack to cool.

On the stove top, melt the white chocolate (my preferred method is a double boiler). Stir chocolate until it is smooth and shiny. Remove from stove top.

With a silicone basting brush, paint one cookie with the melted white chocolate and then dip onto the plate of pistachios, covering the chocolate almost completely. Repeat with each cookie. Transfer to an air-tight container.

Yields 2 dozen cookies

From scratch

I've been slowly getting my cooking mojo back again and have been making our family dinners for a few weeks. I've had to make a lot of things from scratch all the way down to the spice mixes to cut out garlic. With a little bit of tinkering, I've been pretty impressed with some of the meals (Bill, not so much).

I've made chili using our own chili seasoning mix, tomato/meat sauce for pasta - making lasagna with that yesterday (garlic and egg-free, and I liked it, Bill did not), chicken noodle soup (although I did not make my own broth - yet). Next on the list is cream of chicken soup so I can use that to make chicken and dumpling stew.

While cooking from scratch sounds like a lot of work, it's actually a lot of fun. I wish there were more flavor combinations that I could work with, but that will take some time (like finding a replacement for garlic other than onion). The bad thing is that I keep finding a ton of different dessert recipes that I'm dying to try (grilled pineapple milkshakes!). I think this summer I might get back into food competitions again. I'm not holding my breath that I'll win anything, but it's still fun.

The bake-a-thon of all bake-a-thons

Logan is quickly approaching his 3rd birthday. Three! Can you believe it? I can't. And just as we have done in previous years, we are planning a birthday party extravaganza. One thing about having so many friends that can be a pain is birthday parties and planning. September and January are the busiest months for parties and we end up going to one every weekend, not to mention buying a gift for four to five kids those months.

Logan has two good friends in his playgroup that have birthdays on the 13th and 26th. One of the moms suggested that we get together and plan a combined birthday party since we would be inviting the same people anyway. Brilliant! So, all three of us are working together - renting out a bounce house place, getting sandwiches and juice, making goodie bags and baking cupcakes. FOR 60 PEOPLE. Yes, that's right. 60 people including siblings and parents. Because of Logan's food allergy, I automatically volunteered to bake the cupcakes since they need to be egg-free. And that's what I'm doing for the next two days. Baking them all today, then frosting them tomorrow so they will be ready to go on Saturday morning.

Even though I'm turning my kitchen into a small bakery for the next two days, the party planning has been very easy and stress free. With all of us working together, it's been great and I can't wait for the party of all parties this weekend. What an awesome way to celebrate a birthday!

Variety is the spice of life

During my pregnancy with Carter and the months after his birth, I wasn't too concerned about the nutritional habits of our family. If we ate, great. As long as nobody went starving, that's all that I cared about. Not too long ago, I realized that Logan has been eating the same thing every single day for almost a year now: a cereal bar, milk and banana for breakfast, peanut butter and jelly or a cheese quesadilla with fruit for lunch and homemade mac n' cheese with vegetables for dinner. This consistent pattern happened because they were easy meals, relatively healthy and he asked for them every single day. I never put up a fight for him to eat something else because I really didn't have it in me.

Until now.

While Carter isn't sleeping through the night yet and I'm not getting anymore rest that before, I have somehow gained my cooking mojo back. It helps that Bill seems more open to having actual meals again rather than the "fend for yourself" dinners we've been accustomed to as of late. PB & J and Mac n' Cheese have been banned and we're going to sit down to eat dinner as a family again.

This afternoon Logan had a cheesy vegetable sandwich (cream cheese, cheddar cheese, tomato, cucumber, sprouts, red leaf lettuce on whole wheat bread) and grapes. Tonight for dinner we're having salmon with basil butter and lemon and some other vegetable (probably squash). We have a few meals planned for the week and I'm going to start bookmarking my favorite recipes again. It's time to add a little more spice to our meals here!

So much food and family time

After hours of cooking and baking, with full stomachs we called our Thanksgiving dinner a success. Every dish was so good and nothing was a disaster (except for the pie because I didn't buy enough pudding, but it still tasted great - just not as firm as it should have been). We were going to eat early, but Bill put the turkey in the oven not realizing that it had automatically shut off after I made the muffins. It sat in there for hours before we knew it wasn't cooking. So, dinner was delayed and thankfully, we don't have salmonella poisoning.

It was really nice to have all of us sitting at the table eating Thanksgiving dinner together. Logan loved his cranberry sauce and talked about it all night. Carter was content to sit in his bouncer at the table with all of us (poor kid had to miss out on the deliciousness. Hopefully he got a second hand taste) and Bill and I inhaled our dinner like it was our last meal. I was really proud of our cooking skills and that everything was made from scratch (the stuffing was my favorite).

We had a nice time together as a family with leftovers to last us for a while. Yum!!

The menu

This is definitely not the time to start a diet. I wrote up our menu for tomorrow and it's only for us - no guests. We're going to have leftovers for eternity, which isn't all that bad the more that I think about it. I start cooking tonight and continue with the rest tomorrow. Crazy! Two days of cooking! It better be the best Thanksgiving dinner we've ever had.

Tonight I start making the Cranberry Harvest muffins for our brunch. I'm making them differently than this recipe: egg-free, with pecans or almonds, no figs and a lower fat milk. We'll see how they turn out.

Then tomorrow Bill is making the turkey and gravy (he does an excellent job) and per his request, Stove Top stuffing. I'm making the mashed potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mushrooms and spinach and the pumpkin pie (thanks for the recipe Catherine!). So, yeah. That's a lot of food and we're going to try and do it for under $20. We'll see how that goes!

I hope every one's meals turn out to be delicious!

Boy, do I feel bad about that
There is a huge baby boom going on in The Club this year. Every single month we're expecting a new arrival, if not two. With new babies & new mothers who may need some extra help, members of The Club get organized to bring meals for the adjusting family. Now that I'm feeling well enough to cook again, I was eager to sign up for one of our playgroup moms who just had her second baby last week.

I was excited to make this meal because for one, I really like the mom & see her every week at playgroup. Secondly, she's helped us out by giving us all of our moving boxes when we moved. Plus, she was always volunteering to take care of Logan while I was sick (even though I didn't take anyone up on that offer just because I was at my worst when Bill was home to take care of him). She also needed dairy-free meals because of breastfeeding the baby & I felt like I would be a good resource for that considering all of the allergy-free meals that I've been collecting since Logan's food allergies were diagnosed.

I made a cranberry chicken over wild & long grain rice casserole, a spinach side salad & lemonade cake. The cake was delicious as I ate two pieces waiting for the chicken to cook. The salad was just spinach, cucumber & tomatoes. Hard to screw that one up. The chicken baked in the oven over the rice with the cranberry sauce. I tasted the chicken to make sure it was cooked before packing it up. It was good to go. I did not taste the rice, however.

After dropping the meal off, Logan & I came back home to eat the same thing for our dinner. I sat down at the table & after taking a couple of bites, I thought to myself, "why is this so crunchy? Did I add too many almond slices?" After taking a few more bites, I realized that some of the rice was cooked, but other types of grains were not. I was mortified. I just made a meal for a friend & her family who are probably spitting out undercooked rice as I type.

Now, I watch my fair share of Hell's Kitchen & anything & everything on The Food Network. You think the concept of tasting your dish before sending it out would sink in. Or maybe it was karma when I was laughing at Bobby Flay screwing up all of his rice dishes, turning to Bill saying, "He's a professional chef. No! He's an Iron Chef! And he doesn't know how to cook rice!?"

I immediately put down my fork & sent her an email apologizing for the undercooked rice. I joked saying that at least the rest of the meal was cooked & taste-tested, all the while feeling like a dork for making a meal that she probably won't eat.

Well, next time I sign up I'll make sure to taste every part of the meal. If I haven't been banned from cooking for The Club, that is.

Italian night
One of the activities in The Club that I really enjoy being a part of is the Cooking Club. There are two MOMS Club chapters in our town & we've always had a combined chapter cooking club. The Other Side was responsible for organizing & hosting, but they could never get their act together. An event would be organized & either the day before (or in one case, a few hours before) they would cancel because everyone on their side flaked out. It was really irritating. After months of begging & nagging our co-presidents (one of them being photographer friend) to split & have our own Cooking Club, we finally did. Saturday night was the first "Our Side Only" Cooking Club & it went off without a hitch.

When the split was organized, we had 17 people sign up for the new Cooking Club. I was thrilled! Even if we had half of the attendance, it would still be successful. And that's exactly what happened - 8 people were able to attend this month. Our Cooking Club coordinator gave us the theme of Italian food for Saturday night & I got crackin' on my recipe search. At first I was going to make a tiramisu layer cake until I looked over the ingredients & saw that I would have to buy a whole lot of liquor. If I can't drink it, then I'm not buying it. So, I decided to go with a caprese salad. Sure, it was the easy way out, but it was light & refreshing & exactly what I was craving.

I got to the hosts house (which was beautiful!) & we lined up our dishes on her buffet table. There was prosciutto & cheese pinwheels in puff pastry, chicken florentine, pesto gnocchi, garden salad, meatballs, tortellini soup & brownies (I totally should have made desert). We a had a lot of fun eating, laughing & just enjoying the night out. Everyone was drinking wine (I had orange juice) & probably telling the group things they wouldn't have said otherwise - like how they weren't attracted to their husband, their plans for getting liposuction & bragging about discipline techniques (all of this actually came from one person). It was still a good night out, though.

The next event is scheduled in two weeks & I'm signed up to host in April. Hopefully we'll have the house by then (because that's a whole different post!)

Now all I need is a toque
Shortly after the holidays Bill announced that he was done cooking for the family. He was stuck in a rut & wasn't really into it anymore. After cooking for us for almost 10 years, he has now passed the torch on to me. I am more than happy to take on this responsibility & would have been the family cook a while ago, but Bill was still enjoying it. It was fun while it lasted.

Now the new year will bring us all sorts of delicious food. For the last few days I've been looking for recipes online, in my cookbooks & new food magazines. Needless to say, I'm very excited. I've found some really great things to try this week & I hope they all turn out. Tonight we're having turkey chili (where I had to make my own chili powder because it has garlic in it - had to make it without for Logan) & roasted root vegetables. For the rest of the week we're having: pasta with homemade tomato sauce (minus the garlic again), chicken tacos & chicken pomodoro. Yum!

My baking services have also been requested for Bill's dude's night out this week where I think I'm making the Molten Lava Cakes I made for us on New Year's Eve. They were awesome. I emailed him saying that if they were going to do potlucks, I would be more than happy to cater a few dishes if they were willing to chip in a few bucks to cover the cost of the ingredients. The New Year also brings the new & improved Cooking Club for MOMS Club. It used to be combined with another chapter, but they were total flakes & let it fall apart. Now it's exclusive to our chapter & we had 17 people sign up. So, now every month I'll get back into cooking & tasting parties & hopefully get back on the cooking competition wagon (& maybe actually win something this year).

It's a good thing I'm working out a ton & back to my gym rat lifestyle this month. Not like I'm going to be cooking unhealthy, fating crap anyway, but still. At least I don't have to worry about my pants not fitting & I won't feel guilty. And the most humorous aspect of me cooking like this & taking over the family meals...if it weren't for Bill's cooking in the beginning of our marriage, I would have starved to death. If he didn't cook, I ate whatever came out of a can. My how times have changed!

Eye of the tiger
Oh, the holidays are upon us & you know what that means. Food. And lots of it, too. We've been looking forward to Thanksgiving for quite some time, planning one of the biggest feasts we've ever cooked. It's only going to be the three of us & we will have food to last us the rest of the winter. I'm sure we'll be sick of turkey after eating it everyday for weeks. Other than the regular Thanksgiving pig-out, the big event that we are excitedly anticipating is the Stuffing Throwdown.

Yes, we are having our very own cooking competition right here in our own home. It will just be the two of us competing, but it's still a serious competition. Bill brought up the idea a few weeks ago & of course, I was game. We are two very competitive people, neither one of us being gracious losers (thus why Monopoly is a banned board game in our house). The funny things about this competition is that we don't have any judges since it's just us eating it.

We still have to get our menu put together & decide on our final stuffing recipes, but I think I'm going with a classic savory sage dish while Bill will probably go with a sausage (or bacon) maybe even a cornbread stuffing. Who knows. All I know is that it will have meat in it. For the rest of the menu we'll have sweet potato casserole (with marshmallows!) possibly a green bean casserole (maybe not), mashed potatoes with gravy, maybe a homemade cranberry sauce & the best of all, pumpkin pie with real pumpkin made from scratch - crust & all. Yum.

It's going to take a couple of days to cook all of this up considering we only have one oven. I might make the stuffing & the cranberry sauce a day early & I'm definitely going to get the pumpkin pie together on Wednesday. It will be a miracle if it lasts until Thursday's dinner. It will also be a miracle if Bill wins. Ha, ha! It's on & he's going down.

A little slice of heaven
My, oh, my. The last couple of days have been chock full of pumpkin goodness. It's a good thing it's been low fat pumpkin goodness too.

Our friend stopped by for a visit for a couple of days. Months ago he did me a favor by adding the Virtual Fitness button to his blog for a period of time to help me advertise. In exchange, I told him that I would bake the best pumpkin bars that he's ever had. It was a true challenge as a family member of his apparently makes very delicious bars that are hard to beat.

I made low fat pumpkin bars with freshly baked pumpkin (not the canned stuff) & a cream cheese glaze. I was told that if there was a gun to his head making him choose between his families bars & mine, it would a very tough decision. Between the three of us, the entire pan of bars was inhaled in two days. Now, that is how you know something is really good. It doesn't last very long. My jeans are thankful for the low fat aspect, because I surly would have gained at least 10lbs by now.

I wish I had taken pictures, but we were too busy eating them. They were so moist with chunks of pumpkin (I didn't puree to make it a "rustic" dish, by mistake). These bars were so good that they would qualify as a desert for someone's last meal. Seriously. I really wish there was a pumpkin desert competition because I think I would win, hands down.

I had leftover baked pumpkin so I made muffins for playgroup this morning. They weren't as good as the bars. I added some cloves, which I should have left out. I also need to do a little research to figure out how to stop the tops from going flat (I think I need to adjust the baking soda). There is a muffin competition this month, so I have some time to perfect the recipe. Not that this is a bad thing (well, maybe for the waist line).

Food for thought
I was going to save this post for a rainy day. That just so happens to be today. Since we're stuck inside all day & without the car, it's perfect. Girl From Florida posted food pictures last week & asked if others wanted to join in. I'm all for food content, but I don't have any competitions this week. In fact, prior to yesterday, we didn't have any food in the house. Our cupboards were bare. We were down to rice & beans, both of which Logan wouldn't eat anyway.

We stocked up on all sorts of good food, so now I have ingredients to cook with:

The not-so-good-for-you stuff is all Bill's (Deli meat & mini bottles of Jack Daniel's)

Same thing here. The pizza is Bill's.

The potato chips are for Bill's lunch, even though I want to eat the whole bag...today.

I could live on chicken noddle soup. And we seem to have a TON of pasta.

We obviously aren't in to the low-carb diets.

This is all my food (& Logan's too). Bill won't touch anything here except for the bananas. It's to the point where I want to get another fruit bowl. I don't have enough room for everything!

So now that I have food to cook with, this is what I'm eating today. It's actually a very typical day & I eat this "routine" often. Clearly, it's nothing special or exciting:

Whole wheat mini-bagels with light strawberry cream cheese, strawberry slices & a huge cup of mocha-latte flavored coffee with sugar free hazelnut flavored creamer.

Not pictured, Logan had a pancake with strawberries & milk. He doesn't like cream cheese.

Left over pasta with ground turkey meat sauce & a little Parmesan, green beans with pepper & a nectarine.

Not pictured again, Logan had a cheese quesadilla, grapes & green beans (most of the green beans were thrown on the floor to Buddha & he didn't get pasta because I didn't feel like cleaning up tomato sauce).

Tuna & cherry tomatoes drizzled with olive oil & balsamic vinegar.

Logan had raisins & goldfish crackers.

Ground turkey taco with avocado & tomatoes ( I usually have lime juice & cilantro to add, but I forgot to buy some this week).

Logan had sweet potatoes with broccoli & plain yogurt, since he's pseudo vegetarian & very picky.

And there's my boring food journal in picture form. Hopefully I'll make something more exciting later this week. Hopefully I don't eat all of Bill's potato chips, either.

Think cheese for me, please!
Last night was pretty funny. I was looking around for printable coupons & Bill asks me if I could find one for him. It was his one & only bargain request, that I find a coupon for Tillamook cheese - "The Best Cheese in The World". Or so he says.

When we lived in Portland, we ate Tillamook cheese (& other dairy products: ICE CREAM at the coast!) regularly. Bill is a meat & cheese kind of guy & apparently he is obsessed with the Tillamook brand.

I went to their website since that was the #1 place to look for coupons & what should I find? The Tillamook macaroni & cheese cook-off! I had no idea Tillamook had a cooking competition, let alone a macaroni & cheese cook-off! I have an original baked mac n' cheese recipe that I've made for my massage friend after the birth of her second kiddo & according to her husband, it was the best mac n' cheese he's ever had. Since I've already made it, I made a few changes to make it a little more original & unique then I went ahead & submitted it this afternoon (the deadline is the 16th).

This is a two part cook-off. If I get picked for the regional finals, I'll drive down to The Big City to compete. If I win, I'll receive 25 pounds of Tillamook cheese & $1,000. Then Tillamook will fly me out to Portland to compete in the Grand Finale cook-off where I would have a chance to win $5,000.

Of all of the cooking competitions, this is the one I want to win the most (well, next to the Better Burger $50,000 grand prize). It would give me a chance to go back to Portland for free & I could see my sisters & niece. I want to go so bad!!

I told Bill about the prizes & he laughed at the 25 POUNDS of cheese. "If we won 25 pounds of cheese, I wouldn't sh** for a month! Can you freeze cheese?" Holy hell, I've never laughed so hard. He has a point though. That's a lot of cheese.

So, I'll know if I make it if I get notified by September 28th to participate in the first cook-off on October 16th. I hope I win because I really, really, really want to.

More to keep me busy
I'm definitely not one of those moms who hang out at the house watching TV all day long with the kids. There is always something to do, somewhere to go, someone to meet.

I workout 4 days a week with my massage friend & my photographer friend (Sunday's being two-a-days working out with both of them at separate times-for four hours total). Twice a week I walk for an hour with the walking group where we pack the kids in the strollers & walk on the inner-city trails here in town. We have playgroup once a week & various activities all of the other days. There is something scheduled every single day of the week. I get massages one to two times a week. I have monthly board meetings, club meetings, babysitting co-op meetings, birthday parties & MOMS Night Out. I have my monthly tasting parties for the cooking competitions & now I'm going to Cooking Club.

Whew. That's a lot of stuff. And that's not counting the "spur of the moment" stuff like play time at the park before dinner or shopping trips or business stuff like writing articles, designing workout programs & calling attorneys. It's no wonder I get to bed at 1-2 am every night.

This weekend was the first Cooking Club get together. Each month there is a theme & to kick the first one off, it was 30 Minutes or Less. The members of the Cooking Club made their quick & easy dish, brought enough for everyone to sample & a copy of the recipe for everyone as well. The first meeting was very small with my massage friend, another Club member, the host (who's from The East Side Chapter) & me. But there was certainly enough food to eat!

I made a mini-meatloaf dish & I was very happy that the theme was 30 minutes or less. We got home from grocery shopping at 1pm & my massage friend was picking me up at 1:40 to get there by 2. I got it all together, put it in the oven, jumped in the shower & I was getting the dish in a container just as I heard her knock on the door. Perfect timing.

This picture is for you Girl From Floria!

We had a great time eating delicious food & chatting. There was pizza, a chicken bruschetta casserole, three-pepper quesadilla & my mini-meatloaves. YUM! I'd never made the dish before (as I often do, using everyone as recipe guinea pigs) & I was pleasantly surprised at how good they turned out. It's something that I would make again, if only Bill ate things other than plain meat & cheese.

It ended with pizza & beer.
Today was a bit of a roller coaster kind of day. The beginning wasn't that much fun because of a doctors appointment, but the end of the night was a blast with dinner with friends.

I've been waiting for this doctors appointment for weeks & I had been thinking about scheduling the appointment for months. A few months ago I found a lump. It's on the right side & it's pretty tender. When I found it, I didn't think much of it because I couldn't think of it. There was (is) so much going on, the last thing I wanted to deal with was a lump & additional worry about what if I had cancer. So, my brain didn't even process it. My train of thought was, Oh. It's a lump. And that was it.

Months went by (maybe two) & the lump was still there. It wasn't getting bigger, but it was becoming increasingly tender. This made me worry. I got on the phone because logic finally kicked in. DUH. Things don't just go away if you ignore them. The first doctor I called had a waiting list & wouldn't even schedule appointment for me, regardless if I had a lump. The next doctor I called could get me in three weeks later. I figured I've waited this long, I guess I could wait three more weeks.

I went in this morning & waited 45 minutes in the exam room, dressed in the paper "vest", listening to the clock tick, tock, tick, tock, trying to not fall asleep on the exam table. The doctor finally came in & we talked about The Lump. After completing the documentation about my history (why do they need to know that my parents are drug addicted alcoholics? What does this have to do with me & The Lump?), she began the breast exam.

There is something there. She documented it as "10 o'clock, 1 cm mass or thickening of tissue, irregularly shaped". She's quite confident that it's not cancer & that it's fibrocystic breast disease, but I'm supposed to get a mammogram & ultrasound to follow up & make sure that's the correct diagnosis.

Relieved that cancer is not on my list of worries, but curious because now I have to go in for my first mammogram, the rest of the appointment went well. We left & went shopping, so I could get ready for the tasting party later in the day.

I came home to cook & clean like a crazy person. I was hosting a tasting party with about 7 or 8 friends coming over to sample the recipes before I submitted them for the contests. I made a double layer pizza; raspberry glazed burgers with an asparagus spread; white cake with peach-pear glaze, sprinkled with almonds & pears, topped with cream cheese frosting & more almonds.

The party was a blast. The food turned out great (I have to add more raspberry flavor to the glaze) & a couple of the moms brought wine & beer. It was fun to eat, drink, chat & laugh as the kids ran around having fun too. Logan was having so much fun with his friends, it was unreal. He was laughing hysterically as he played with Little M (one of his favorite friends). At one point, they were hooked arm in arm, running from the living room to the back deck. It was so, so, cute.

Then to top it off, Logan decided that he was going to throw dirt on himself like a little baby elephant. The boy has blond hair, but it soon turned a dark brown as his scalp was covered in dirt. It was one of those times where he was taking advantage of "party time" & all I could do was just laugh. And so did everyone else.

Not so great pictures, but you get the idea. First is Logan eating a sick to make Little M laugh. Second is a close-up of the dirt covered kiddo.

So, this is what happened.
This weekend was kind of interesting. First, on Saturday I cooked dinner for one of my friends who recently had her second baby. I was perfecting a pizza recipe that I'm going to submit for one of the contests. It did not turn out like I had expected, but I have some ideas on how to make it better. The inspiration was lasagna & making that into a pizza. Well, it pretty much turned into a double decker pizza; marinara, different cheeses, fresh basil & mushrooms on the bottom, alfredo, parmesan, basil & grilled chicken on the top. The idea was layers of flavors, just like lasagna, but it pretty much was just two pizzas smooshed together. The top pizza's dough rose too much. It was a lot of dough to be just a "layer". I think I've figured out a solution, so we'll see how that goes.

Yesterday we decided that Logan needed a haircut. His hair was getting so long that it was making him hot & he was getting sweaty hair. I was hoping to just trim it down a bit & get him cleaned up a little. Bill took the trimmer & set to a setting that was too short. Instead of testing it out on the bottom by Logan's neck, Bill sheered his hair straight down the middle of his head. The setting was way too short. So short, that we should have just taken a razor to him & renamed him Mr. Clean.

This is the "male pattern baldness" picture I took mid-shave.

This is "bald boy" checking out the bees in the bush this afternoon.

There are a few more pictures on PhotoBucket of the kiddo post shave. I also have video (finally!) that I'm working on tonight & tomorrow. I hope to have a montage made up in the next few days. Yeah!

Ring around the rosie
So what have I been doing the last few days? Making phone calls & doing research. First, I must say...THANK GOD FOR THE INTERNET. If I didn't have Google, I wouldn't even begin to know where to go or what to do about this lawsuit. I've found many options, which is great. It's better than the lost puppy feeling I had last week. While I've made calls to ten (yes, 10!) law firms & each one sounds hopeful but results in a referral to another office, I'm still staying positive. I'm feeling a lot better; determined & persistent rather than defeated. I called an office earlier this afternoon & will personally speak to the attorney later this evening. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!!!!

With the perception of "live the life you love, love the life you live", I announced the date of the next tasting party. In two weeks, everyone is coming over to sample burgers, pizza, a fruity dessert & Betty Crocker dessert. This is the big month, with a ton of contests! I'm actually really nervous about it because I haven't practiced nearly as much as I need to. Really, we should be having burgers & pizza every night for the next while (& who's going to complain about that?!) I have some great ideas & it' going to be a lot of fun putting them together.

All afternoon I've been trying to get Logan doing his sign language & ring around the rosie on film. All attempts have been squashed with an inquisitive toddler trying to look through the view finder of the camcorder, then freaking out in a fit of rage because I ask him to sign something. I'll keep trying & if there's success, I'll upload it on here tonight. Or, maybe I'll just show the world the temper tantrums that I'm dealing with over here & everyone can send their sympathies...

Another first! And a bunch of other stuff
As I was brushing Logan's teeth on Monday night, I noticed that his first molar (top left) has finally cut through. Finally! This is his 9th tooth & I hope the other molars are not as slow. It would be great if he got them soon because I would feel comfortable giving him different snacks, like dried fruit (raisins). Plus, the sooner the better because teething really irritates him & leaves him with a wicked diaper rash.

In cooking news, I've got to get moving on the Burger competition that's coming up. The deadline is the 20th of next month. This is The Big Competition too, with the grand prize being $50,000. That would just be amazing & really, a dream come true. I've been practicing with other meals & made a baked macaroni & cheese that is to die for. One of my friends just had her second baby & the Club gets together to make the new moms meals for a month. I made the mac n' cheese for her, along with a salad & home made strawberry shortcake for desert. It was a hit!

This is not a for sure thing yet, but Bill has sent out resumes to different gyms across the country. He got a reply from an owner asking a lot of questions. We might be moving to Seattle if this goes through. Like I said, it's not a solid offer yet, but Bill & I have been talking quite a bit about moving. There are pros & cons to living in a small town & one of those cons is the lack of opportunity in the job market. He's pretty much tapped out here unless he choses a different career path. As much as I love the town we're in (mostly because of friends), I would not complain at all if we moved to Seattle. I miss the Pacific Northwest so much & it would be so cool to live so close to the coast too.

However, the timing couldn't be worse if we moved. This morning I found out that two of the playgroup moms want to start training with me soon. One is the mac n' cheese friend, who is just about ready for her sixth week postnatal checkup. Once she gets the OK from her Doctor, we're starting. The other already works with a trainer, but her trainer might move across the state (Vail, I think). She wants me to train her at her home, which would be great. So, just as I'm building my client base, we're talking about moving. Convienient, isn't it.

C+
That's the grade I would have given my cheesecake if today was actually a competition day. I've made cheesecakes all month long & they've all turned out pretty good, except for today.

This afternoon was the cheesecake tasting party. I've been worried about it, mostly because we don't have air conditioning & it's been unbearably hot(100 degrees). I decided to tough it out & still have the party as planned, informing all of my friends of the circumstance & inviting them to bring their kids in swim suits to run around in the back yard sprinklers. I still bought some flowers to pot for the back deck & a couple more box fans.

We'll, yesterday I was the ultimate grump (as was Logan) because it was so hot. I had cleaning to do, but I couldn't even get motivated to put the laundry away, let alone scrub the kitchen floor, bathrooms, etc. It was even too hot to bake anything.

As I was making dinner, my friend E (Little L's 9 months pregnant mom) called & offered to host the party at her air conditioned house. I was so relieved. I kept thinking about how she & another 9 months pregnant mom were going to be so uncomfortable & my cheesecakes were going to melt too. E was the party saver.

Last night after the phone call, I started making the cakes so they could set in the refrigerator overnight. At 12:30 am, when I pulled them out from the oven, my jaw dropped. I immediately thought "What in the hell did I do to these?!" They were a total mess, bubbles, browning, pulling apart. It was awful. It was also too late to start over & make more. I decided that I would get up early & make another, taking the risk that it wouldn't have 8 hours to set.

So, this morning I get up & make another cake. I made a few changes (decreased the butter, used the blender to mix the cheese). It seemed to have turned out a whole lot better. I kept it in the refrigerator until the very last minute before I cut it up into little servings. That's where I ran into problems.

I forgot to grease the pan & I couldn't get the cake out. The crust had caramelized & cemented itself to the bottom of the pan. I just shrugged my shoulders, thinking that we would just eat cheesecake blobs with strawberry lime sauce rather than eat them in pretty little cake form. There was nothing I could do at this point.

The party was fun & even though the cake didn't turn out as I expected it to, it still tasted pretty good. The sauce was a hit, with people pouring it into their lemonaid. I told them to think about the flavor rather than texture & presentation. They still liked it anyhow.

I thought about what went wrong. There were a few mistakes (not greasing the pan, not having enough time to set), but overall the culprit was the heat. I had the oven temp as low as it would go, but the 100 degree weather really didn't help that much. I'm glad the party was still fun & I wasn't being judged in a real competition.

It's set in motion
I've finally set the date for the cheesecake tasting party! I made an announcement on the Club message board & have told a few of the moms that I see on a regular basis. For some reason, I was afraid that nobody would come. Sometimes, I'm a dork like that. BUT! I've had quite a few RSVP's & now I'm thinking that I'll have to make a whole lot of cheesecake.

We've spruced up the back deck a little, buying tiki torches & a new table cloth. I found some pots in the garage & I'm planning on planting some colorful flowers this weekend. I'm getting a little Martha Stewart over here.

So, Monday's the day & I hope to hear a lot of suggestions & opinions. After the party, I have a week to tweak things here & there with the recipe before the final submission on the 6th of July. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I have a winning recipe!