Posts Tagged ‘grandson’

It's been a couple of months since Ryan has been coming to spend the day with me while his parents are at school. It's hard to believe that he's already seven months old. I've been meaning to post some pictures of our day to day activities for quite a while now. This week one of my blog readers asked to see some pictures of him, so that spurred me on to work on this post. These are just some of the cute pictures I have snapped over the course of the last few months.

Typical scenes at our house these days:

There are several diaper changes:

There's lots of play time in the exersaucer--a favorite!

There's generally some rocking--sometimes Grandpa gets to enjoy this.

He loves to play on the floor and is just on the verge of crawling.

Sometimes he plays on the bed although this is a limited activity now that he's nearly crawling.

Eating is a favorite activity, especially when it involves carrots or squash.

Can you tell we are having lots of fun together?

Becka

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A few weeks ago I had the discouraging experience of finding weevils in a brand new bag of flour in the pantry. This necessitated a thorough checking of everything in the pantry. I ended up disposing of some things and putting some things in the freezer and as much as possible in glass jars or tupperware-like containers. In the process I found some odds and ends that needed to be used up. One of these items was a half bag of dried blueberries. I found this cookie recipe and tried it recently. These cookies are really good--now I may need to go out and buy some more dried blueberries!

Oatmeal Cookies

3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
3 cups old-fashioned oats
1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
3/4 cup dried blueberries
3/4 cup white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In mixing bowl cream butter with sugars and vanilla. Add eggs then baking soda and salt. Stir in oats, flour, blueberries, and chocolate chips. Drop dough by heaping tablespoonfuls onto parchment-lined cookie sheets and bake for 10-12 mins. or until lightly browned. Cool briefly on cookie sheets before removing. Makes about 5 dozen small cookies.

You can substitute raisins or craisins for the blueberries. The white chips would be good with cranberries but you might want to use chocolate chips with the raisins or you could substitute chocolate covered raisins for a taste thrill.

On a totally unrelated note another wild creature was in our house this evening:

Becka

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Well, we had a doubly blessed weekend. The wedding went off without a hitch, although they did get hitched. The bride was beautiful and everything turned out fine in spite of some complications with high winds and trying to set up the reception in a tent! Here is a picture of the happy couple and us:

About 3:30 the morning of the wedding we got a call from DS, Mark telling us that Katie was in labor and they were at the hospital. About three hours before the wedding he texted to tell us that they had broken her water and that she was dilated to 9. We were definitely torn emotionally with extreme joy for Nora and Topher at their wedding and with concern for Mark and Katie and the delivery of the baby. Later in the afternoon we heard from Mark that Ryan David had arrived at 2:56 (the wedding was at 2). He was turned face up and they had to use suction to help with the delivery. It caused some swelling and a wound on his head, but we still think he's pretty adorable. Both parents and baby are doing well and hope to go home from the hospital tomorrow.

We weren't able to take too many pictures at the wedding or the reception, but I will try to post some as people send them to us. I'm sure I'll also be posting lots of baby pictures too!

Becka

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I enjoy poking around in thrift stores, an activity DD Megan also enjoys. When we get together we often plan a trip to a thrift store or two. A couple of our local thrift stores have large collections of books which are fun to look through searching for treasures. I figure if I can find a book or a cookbook for 50 cents or a dollar it's cheaper than buying a magazine and I can always give it away or donate it back to a charity when I'm through with it.

This past year Megan and I collected children's Christmas books for my grandson Drew. She wrapped them in Christmas paper and he is opening one each day this December in anticipation of Christmas day. Here is a picture of him opening the first book:

On a recent thrifting excursion I found a couple of Sunset cookbooks that looked interesting. One of them had this recipe for Fresh Corn Madeleines which I thought would be great for making savory madeleines in the new pans I got for my birthday. If you don't have madeleine pans you could make the recipe in regular muffin tins.

Fresh Corn Madeleines

1/3 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup minced onion
1 cup flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 large egg
1 cup milk
1 cup fresh or frozen, thawed corn kernals

Melt the butter in a skillet and cook the onion until soft, about 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.

In a bowl blend together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl whisk together the egg and milk. Combine the butter and onion, the milk mixture, and the flour mixture, stirring gently until just mixed. Butter and flour the madeleine pans (I used a spray) and then fill the pans. The amount you use will vary according to the size pans you have. Fill them about 2/3rds full. Bake at 350 degrees until firm to the touch. They will look pale on top but should be nice and brown on the bottom. Mine took about 15 mins. If baking as muffins bake for about 25 minutes.

I served these with Easy Beans and Rice and we thought they were very tasty. You can also freeze them and then thaw and reheat them for about 10 minutes at 300 degrees before serving.

Becka

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We recently spent a week up in Ohio and Michigan visiting family and then Megan and Drew returned home with us. We have been having a great time and I hope to share some of our adventures with you in future posts.

While we were in Michigan we spent a day in Toledo, Ohio, and went to the zoo, ate supper at Tony Packo's and went to a Toledo Mud Hen game. Here are some pictures from our adventures that day:

The zoo has several polar bears, including this adorable 5 month old:

When we walked up to the gorilla enclosure this fellow ran up to the glass and banged on it giving us all quite a scare.

Drew really enjoyed petting and brushing the goats.

We ate supper at Tony Packos. We had heard about this restaurant for many years, but this was our first visit. We enjoyed it very much.

The restaurant was right across the street from the Toledo Mud Hen ball field:

Here are Meg, Jim, and Drew at the game:

Here we are at the game:

And, finally, here is Drew meeting the Mud Hen Mascot, Mudonna:

Becka

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