When Cravings Hit

Somewhere near 8pm on Friday a craving to bake hit, so I got busy. I tried a few new recipes. A fudge pie, YUM, that you can find here on this fantastic blog, http://www.flythroughourwindow.com/2009/05/fudge-pie/. This pie is so easy and so good. It should be called Brownie Batter Pie, 'cause that's what it reminds me of. I considered this my birthday cake, and its really worth the extra 2 miles I'll have to run on Monday to shave that piece of pie off my lovehandles. 


I have also been wanting to make homemade cinnamon rolls, and the cold weather made this feel like a perfect time to do so. Keith was called in as my sous chef, and we set out to make this recipe, http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/cinammon_rolls_/ . While perusing Pioneer Woman's site I also saw this, and decided I should make this as well: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/10/moist-pumpkin-spice-muffins-with-cream-cheese-frosting/ . HHHMMM. Tasty. I did it without the frosting though. But only because I had pie in the fridge.

Back to the rolls. We recipe seemed easy enough, so we went for it. We made the dough. It's important to pull the face to get the right texture in the dough.

Then rolled it out into rectangle. Ya know. The Pioneer Woman's site does mention that it's not a low calorie recipe, but she said nothing about the recipe making your butt look big in pictures of you baking the rolls. Hmmm.

 

And then you pour butter, sprinkle sugar and cinnamon, and you roll it. And because someone can't help but critique other people's rolling technique, he got to roll it.

Then slice, and put into trays.

Then into the oven with your nose pressed against the oven glass, willing the rolls to bake faster. It's the longest and best smelling 15 minutes. Ever.

The recipe does make a lot. This is not even all of it. Suppose we either need to freeze some, or get busy eating.

Snow!

I'm possibly the only person in Atlanta who is not excited to be home because of snow. What can I say, there's a lot waiting for me at work, and this feels like a wasted day. Plus I hate being homebound. The walls are closing in!


We did get bundled up to play in the snow for 2 seconds before we came inside for warm milk...

I really think Grady has started to pose for pictures, look above! Doesn't it look that that to you? He's such a little man.

                                       

And then Dada came home and brought Momma some Panera veggie soup and coffee! Ahhh, heaven.  This day might be salvaged yet.


My 31st birthday is later this weekend, and when Keith asked, I opted to not go out to dinner tonight, but rather stay in to watch a movie and eat a frozen pizza. Good thing that's what I wanted, because that's about all we can do with the impending freeze over. We're hoping to squeeze in a quick run to Wahmattttt to get the makings for homemade cinnamon rolls and then the rest of our day will be filled with coloring, [the paper, not tile floor, Grady!] book reading and hopefully some crafting for me. 


Hope you're keeping warm, wherever you are!

Not the Start I Expected

In my mind I had a very witty and touching blog entry written about 2009. Pictures of the boys from each month, with cute things they did that month. In reality we're having a rather trying weekend with two very sick little boys. In between getting rid of the Christmas decor, keeping the house somewhat livable and keeping temper tantrums and crying at a minimum [there's no hope in stopping them all together, I've learned to be realistic], I've not even showered in two days, much less sat down to write a long post. I do have a few new year's resolutions I'll share:


1. Shower every day. Whether I need it or not.


OH. A baby has awoken from his nap, and I had better get in there before he gets pissed. No more blog for now.

And Happy New Year to You!

Hard to believe we started '09 with little ones who looked like this...

... and we ended the year with them this big..

...can't help but wonder what they'll look like next January.


Happy New Year!

Anatomy of A Group Photo

If you were hoping for a Day 4 post, you're going to be disappointed. We hit the road early so we could get home and see some out of town friends, Amy & Matt. We didn't even get one picture of those two, I just realized. I'll look later to see if I can dig out an earlier picture of the boys with them.

As I sorted through the 400+ pictures we did take, I chuckled at this one particular set of pics we took on Christmas day. Anyone with kids or who has tried to corral a group of adults for pictures will know what I'm talking about. It's hard to get everyone to look at the camera at the same time, right? And add one or two more cameras, beer, wine and family of people who generally talk over each other...well, so much harder!


We'll start with the Kilkenny's, mostly because they're not here to defend themselves.

Marianne tells Sean to sit still. From what I heard during the night, she's probably been telling him this most of his life.

  

Oops. Sorry Pat. Eyes closed.

Now Sean. Seesh, pay attention, Kilkenny boys.

Not too bad. Pat is looking at...not really sure, there wasn't a camera over there. The front door is over there though, so he could have been trying to mentally escape. Just go to your happy place, Sean. That's how I cope.

The Elders did surprisingly well. I am attributing this to the fact that none of them probably see very well without their glasses, so they just kept looking towards the flashes and smiled. My dog Madam does this. She has cataracts and can't see worth a damn, but she does know to look toward light.

Now the Relatively Youngsters. For those of you who don't know, this foursome grew up together in Virginia Beach.

To give you an idea of how far back these four go, take a look at this picture Marianne gave us at our our wedding rehearsal. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but Sean isn't even born yet, and here is [left to right] Angela, Pat and Keith. Angela and Keith are crying because they both wanted to sit in the middle of the wagon, and Pat is probably crying because he could care less and now has to sit in the palatable field of tension the other two created. Hysterical. This is parental photography at its best, kudos to Marianne for getting this shot!

Anyway, back to the current time. This foursome did really well. Sean is moving and talking, but it adds a little life to the picture.

Then, the Ellermans. Oh my.We're a hard bunch to capture.

No one is ready, except Grampie & his beer bottle. And maybe Keith, but he doesn't have his baby ready yet.

Hello? Evan, over here! And Grady, if you can at least pretend that you're having a good time, that'd be great.

There we go. I'm not going to tell you how many bad shots were between the last one and this one [7].

At least we got one good one, and that's all that matters.