Waverly Weekend

Here's a few pictures of Ryan's weekend in Waverly.  Ryan had a great time playing with his cousins!

On Saturday morning, Emily demonstrated a new game I dub "Glamour Golf".

 

After Lincoln got his picture taken in the rocking chair for his 18 months photo, a few others thought they needed a turn.

After lots of negotiating and wiggling, Emily let me put a braid in her hair for the concert.

 

Emily was able to give up the spotlight long enough to catch a picture of Megan reading to Ryan.

Or not.

That's the rubber snake she picked out for her birthday and LOVES.

By evening, it was one big game of "Tackle Courtney"

And I loved every minute of it.

Drummer Boy

Ryan's drumming seems to channel multiple celebrities. His singing/commentary (not sure which it is) uses vocabulary made popular by "The Fonz". His wooden spoon/colander equipment is indicative of Emeril or Jamie Oliver or some new celebrity chef that I don't know about because I only watch cake shows on the Food Network. His overall style of drumming seems to be more "Animal" from Muppet Babies than Max Weinberg, but be sure to stick around for the big finish! His bow is pure Shoji.

P.S. I also added a video to Friday's post of Ryan standing up/walking/reaching to pick things up.

Lobster Boy

Even though it is pretty chilly out, we all were in need of some cobweb-head-clearing fresh air this afternoon, so we bundled up for a short walk.  Ryan has been pretty tolerant of his "joker" hat and today we added mittens to the winter ensemble. It was hilarious pulling the oversized mitts on because they looked like boxing gloves and he started laughing and trying to clap with them on. I especially enjoy the long striped wrist part that we pulled over his coat sleeves. Although he didn't seem to mind them, I think we'll be looking for another pair to wear for non-snow-playing occasions that don't make him look like a lobster boy!

Gingerbread House 2010-The Three Little Pigs

It's that time of year again, the time when I forget the pain that is called making a gingerbread house and foolishly decide to give it another go. I liken it to forgetting about labor pain enough to want to birth another child. Only sometimes I think giving birth is a little less messy.

My adventures in gingerbread house making started 4 years ago when my co-workers and I had a contest to make a house decorated in our company's candy. I made a dollhouse that took about 12 straight hours and all the sugar in China to complete. The next year, I suggested we sponsor a community-wide contest and made a few sample houses to promote the contest and a farm-inspired creation entitled "Santa's Stables" to display at the actual contest. View my creations here and a web album of the 2008 contest entries here.

I took last year off from the "creating" (if you have an excuse like "I have a one-month-old baby, why not use it, right?) and simply organized the contest and helped supervise the voting. Here are some pictures of the entries from 2009.

So, this year I returned to decorating and decided to do a "Three Little Pigs" Theme.  It took about 3 hours of baking and 7 hours of decorating and I can't say I'm that satisfied with the results, but there came a point where I just needed to be done with it. Hopefully displaying it will help draw some entries into the contest!

We enter the scene after the first little pig's straw house has been violently blown down by the Big Bad Wolf.

I used Edible Easter Grass as the "straw" and the pig is sculpted out of Lots of Frutti Chews, a strawberry taffy my company sells. I simply microwaved a few bars until I could work it like clay (hot clay, mind you) and it eventually hardened. It was tricky to say the least and if I'm 100% honest, I'd  have to tell you that this little pig's head is not currently resting on its shoulders. I tried to "fix" it a little tonight and it came off. So, if you suspect a little hot-glue-gun action when you see this in person, you might be right.

We follow the Rip Rolls Rainbow Reaction path to the second little pig's house of sticks that is being blown in by the Big Bad Wolf (sculpted out of blue raspberry Lots of Frutti Chews with a strawberry vest). Side note: Why does the Big Bad Wolf always wear a vest in the story books? But only wears pants with that vest 50% of the time? Ask Donald Duck.

The third little pig is looking suspiciously smug in his house of bricks (decorated with Rips Bite-Size Licorice Pieces with a Rips Bits-trimmed door). Maybe it's because his licorice landscape adds incredible curb appeal. Or maybe it's because his ranch-style dwelling has been rated as "wolf-proof" by the Storybook Land Society of Civil Engineers?

I think we all know how the story ends, but I thought it would be interesting to capture this tableau mid-sequence. Actually, most of me wanted to just throw a pile of grass and pretzels on a pile and put all 3 pigs safe-and-sound in the brick house, but I like to make things difficult for myself.

I'll post pictures after the contest, which is being held on December 4, and if anyone who lives near my Hometown has questions about the contest, please let me know!  I hope to see lots of creative entries!

Walking Update

Since I keep this blog instead of a "baby book", I'm noting for the record that Ryan's walking reached a new milestone on Friday! He is almost 13.5 months and can now go from sitting/crawling to standing by himself (no pulling up on anything) and he can also reach down, pick something up off the floor, and then go on walking. He is getting steadier (and faster) every day!

7 Wonders of Northwest Iowa Kitchens

Since my last post bestowing the title of "7th Wonder of Northwest Iowa Kitchens" on Ho-Ho Bars, I've been thinking of what the full list would look like. So, here they are, in no particular order.

1. Ho-Ho Bars
2. Homemade Chili and Cinnamon Rolls (if you're a life-long NW Iowan, you might not realize that others think this combination is odd)
3. Taverns (not BBQs, loosemeats, Maid-rights, or Manwiches)
4. Pizza Ranch (the go-to answer for any "don't feel like cooking" occasion)
5. Dried Beef and Cheese Spread on Rusk Buns
6. Church Soup and Pie Suppers
7. Snicker Salad and our ability to justify its placement in the "salad" category 

What would you add to the list?

Holla at my Ho Hos

We hosted Small Group on Sunday night and I decided to attempt (yet again) to make Ho-Ho bars. For those of you unfamiliar with this 7th Wonder of Northwest Iowa Kitchens, they consist of a chocolate cake-like base, a frothy white filling, and thick, chewy chocolaty topping. I suck at making them.

All seems well through the first two layers, then the third layer consistently kicks my butt. Every.Single.Time. This is what it is not supposed to look like:

But indeed, this is what it looked like after I followed the directions to boil the butter, milk, and sugar, then stir in the chocolate chips. I beat until thick, then spread. And spread it did not.  Instead of melting a bag of chocolate chips and spreading it over top to hide the disaster (as I have done on plural occasions), I decided to give up, go to the store, and buy the ingredients to make Easy Chocolate Poke Cake from Chocolate from The Cake Mix Doctor.  Abbie and Wade ended up the big winners as I sent half the Ho-Ho bars home with them and they actually taste very good despite their ugly appearance.  Now I have leftover cake AND ho-ho bars in my fridge. Oh the tragedy.

On Sunday I had a chance to consult the Queen of Ho Ho bars (my grandma who used to send me back to college with a box of these and other delicious treats- the ho ho bars rarely made it past Pocahontas).  She cleared up a few subtleties in the recipe I was following that seem to be the source of all my worldly troubles. She said the trick is to just stir it until the chocolate chips melt, but then QUICKLY pour it onto the white filling, moving the stream of molten chocolate back and forth and letting it spread like liquid across the surface. My recipe had said "beat until thick and then spread over second layer." Well, honey, you're not supposed to beat it too long or it will harden on impact, and that stuff "spreads" with a knife about as well as spreading cold peanut butter on a pile of cornflakes. So now I know, for the next time I decide to make these approximately never.

The good news is, the substitute cake turned out perfectly (it's chocolate cake with vanilla pudding poured down into holes while it's still hot and then topped with pudding and whipped cream) and Ryan even helped me mix up some Crystal Light for our guests!