Our beets are ready!

Kirsten harvested our first beet today. Time to figure out how to pickle them and also try sauteeing some of the greens.

Can you see the zucchini flowering behind her? We already have more than 4 zucchini growing, plus some very nice crookneck squash comming in... Our garden has been very fruitful so far and seems to be coming along nicely. Have yet to see any tomatoes? So we'll see about those.

Happy St. Patty's Day

Kirsten, being the totally fun mom that she is, made the boys GREEN breakfast this morning. They enjoyed green scrambled eggs with some sliced kiwi and thought they were hot stuff! So cute!

Harrison is cooking too!

Inspired by his brother's interest in cooking and a great little kitchen that Granny found at a garage sale, Harrison is pursuing his own interest in pretend cooking on our back porch. Such a cutie-pie. I'm sure the pretend food turned out very well :)

Baking Gingerbread Cookies!

Emmett received some great chef supplies for his Christmas gifts, including a gingerbread cookie kit. Grandma and Papa were happy to assist Chef Emmett with his gingerbread cookies. Looks like they had a great time! The cookies were pretty good too :)

Merry Christmas!

The boys awoke at 5:50am Christmas morning to a pile of gifts beneath the tree and stockings stuffedd full. Harrison spent most of his time dumping his stocking, refilling it, and dumping it again. The boys received trucks, cars, pencils, special drinking cups, and various cooking utensils, including a lettuce knife and cutting board shown below. Emmett made us fruit salad and egg salad (with his new egg slicer) for breakfast. It was an enjoyable, although very early, morning.

Kirsten made a delicious standing prime rib for dinner. I made Mascarpone AuGratin potatoes from scratch (new recipe, was yummy!). Dinner was eventful, thank goodness I'd had a glass of wine. Harrison wasn't overly interested in eating so he was content playing with the salt shaker. Somehow no one realized the salt shaker was glass, until he dropped it and it shattered all over the floor. Being that we live in Florida and it was about 85 degrees outside, everyone was barefoot. So, while Papa and Emmett went right on consuming large amounts of prime rib, Grandma braved the glass shards and grabbed Harrison. She handed Harrison to me while Kirsten went for the shopvac. When I sat Harrison on my lap, copius amounts of babypoop squirted out of his diaper and all over my lap and him, so Grandma went to get me shoes. I went to wash myself in the shower and change clothes, Grandma cleaned up Harrison, Kirsten shopvac'd the dining room. Of course, when all this was through, Papa and Emmett were still eating :) Thankfully, they had saved a little for us all to finish our meal!

10 years!

Thanksgiving 1997 was the day that I realized that Kirsten was the ONE for me. Kirsten and I met in October 1997 through mutual friends she was visiting in Tucson. When I found out that she had no plans for Thanksgiving, I insisted that she attend Thanksgiving dinner with me at my parents house. She was reluctant, considering she hadn't met anyone in my family and really hadn't spent much time with me either. But I was my pushy, insistent self and left her no choice ;)

We had a GREAT day. Kirsten fit right in with my family, helping with the cooking, helping with my parent's godchildren that were visiting, joking around... I vividly remember watching her playing with the kids in the living room while I did some cooking thing in the kitchen. My mom said something like "she's pretty special". I said something like "I know" and I knew right then that I loved Kirsten and that we could and should spend the rest of our lives together. Thanksgiving is always a wonderful reminder of that for me. I can't believe it, but this Thanksgiving marks an amazing 10 years that we have been together!

In those 10 years we have gone through a lot of things, both good and bad, but we have always had each other and our love for each other. Now our family has grown to include two wonderful boys, a few more cousins, and lots of new experiences. I love you baby and I love the life we have created together, here's to a few more decades together and lots more Thanksgivings...

Emmett the Cook

This Thanksgiving, I helped Emmett make his first pie! Granted it was made with canned pumpkin and a frozen pie crust... but it was so fun to make with him and it turned out so well.He was so excited about it, he started asking about it when we bought our Halloween pumpkins then didn't drop it until the night before Thanksgiving. He was a little flummoxed by the canned pumpkin and wanted to know where the real pumpkin was, but he got over that. We made a recipe from Bon Appetit this month's issue, check http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/240423 for the exact recipe. We skipped the whipped topping, because I didn't have enough whipping cream and we frankly didn't need the extra calories!

Emmett measured and poured all the spices, did the grinder for the cloves, helped with the mixer (which he loved!), measured and scraped the mascarpone and the brown sugar. Then he helped put the mixture into the pie crust and was so excited to taste it the next morning. It was very cute and a good experience for some very rare one on one, Emmett mommy time. Kirsten took Harrison for a ride and picked up salads for dinner from a near-by chain restaurant.

On Wednesday, we also received the movie Ratatouille from Netflix in the mail. We must have watched it about 6 times over the holiday weekend. Emmett had tears in his eyes when he put it in the mail this morning... the DVD is now on his Santa Christmas letter and I think Granny or Grandma and Papa will come through! The other item that made E's Christmas list was a chef's knife, so he can "chop it up". He really does like cooking and he is very attentive, and remembers what we teach him. Does anyone make a chef's knife for children? Off to google that...

Emmett the Turkey

Emmett had a Thanksgiving party at preschool yesterday. They had a great time, with lots of good food. Kirsten made these great sandwiches with turkey, stuffing and cranberries. She wrapped and cut them so nicely that the other parents were asking where we bought them :) She got some dirty looks when she reported that she had quickly made them herself, just that morning... Martha Stewart watch out (although, thankfully, Kirsten is not in danger of being arrested for insider trading!)

When Kirsten arrived to pick Emmett up from school, he was wearing his Thanksgiving craft and looked quite cute dressed as a turkey. He is doing great at school, the teachers love him. They say he is absolutely the kindest, most thoughtful child in their class and others. He's also very smart, the teachers have mentioned that we need to work hard to make sure that he is in a stimulating environment as he gets older. Just this week, he started writing letters and numbers with relative accuracy. He also is doing a lot of pre-reading by telling us "what" signs say, and identifying letters and themes anywhere there is anything written. He has also memorized a number of his books and likes to help us read them to him. What a big boy!

Oh and Emmett has become quite confident on his 2-wheel bike, with training wheels. He would ride off into the sunset if we weren't yelling behind him to turn around ;)