Funny Face

Maddie made a little discovery the other night.

Standing behind the open French door in my bathroom she had the perfect view of herself in my mirror.  It was the spot for making and seeing some funny faces.

Soon Ben got in on the action.

And then there was Jack…

Maddie suggested we try for our Christmas card picture.

She was serious.

My mother would KILL me if I made this the Christmas card picture.

But I am seriously considering it.

Happy Squeaksgiving

I am thankful for so many things, but mostly for Herbie, our beloved guinea pig, whose squeaks, nibbles, and cute little furry waddling butt have provided us with hours of pleasure.  Please enjoy this video of Herbie who has learned a new trick:  he can now climb into his cage all by himself!  Big boy!!

I promise you will not be disappointed.

Okay, maybe you are a little disappointed.  But you have to admit his cute little furry waddling butt is adorable!  Happy Thanksgiving!

May I Suggest a Nice Red Velvet Instead?

Is there a recipe you’re often asked to make?  When I go to family picnics, I’m always asked to bring the baked beans,  my cousin Sunny brings her banana cake, my cousin Donna is known for her rice pudding, my Aunt Betty has to bring along her peanut butter fudge and my mom makes and totes along the best broccoli salad ever.  It’s nice to be known for a special recipe.

Unfortunately, I’m also often asked to make carrot cake.  I say unfortunately because I don’t really like carrot cake, but it’s what I usually end up making for Dave’s, Ben’s, my mom’s and my father-in-law’s birthday almost every year, and I often make the Easter bunny cake a carrot cake too (I prefer coconut cake at Easter, but what do I know??)   At least I save myself a lot of cake calories over the course of a year!

Dave’s birthday was this month, and we celebrated the weekend before with chopsticks and saki.  But on his actual day he got to pick his birthday dinner (shrimp, pierogies, and green beans) and his dessert (you guessed it).

Long ago I realized that chopping a bag of baby carrots in my food processor was way easier than washing, peeling, and grating big carrots.

Isn’t the batter pretty with those carrot flecks?


And of course, carrot cake needs cream cheese frosting!

Then after you pull the birthday boy’s ears…

and blow out the candles…

…it’s time for everyone (except me) to enjoy a piece of birthday cake.

Carrot Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting

Cake:

2 c. sugar

4 eggs

1- 1/4 c. oil

1 bag baby carrots, finely chopped in food processor

2 c. flour

2 t. baking soda

1 t. cinnamon

1 t. salt

1-1/4 c. raisins (optional-we opt out of these!)

Mix well the sugar, eggs, and oil.  Mix in carrots.  Add dry ingredients, mixing well.  If adding raisins, add them last.  Pour into two greased and floured round pans and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. 

Frosting:

1 -8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened

1 stick margarine

2 c. confectioner’s sugar

1 t. vanilla

Cream together cream cheese and margarine.  Add sugar and beat well.  Mix in vanilla.

So I’m curious. What recipe are you always asked to bring to potlucks and picnics?

I am linking this post to Foodie Friday!

Saturday

We had a nice but busy Saturday.  In between 3 loads of laundry, the big weekly grocery shopping trip, some bush trimming, and the removal of a dead and stinky mouse from our attic, we also squeezed in two parades and a campfire.

Hold on just one stinkin’ minute.  Did that say “dead mouse” in the “attic”?  No.  It did not.  There was no dead mouse in the attic.  There are no mice in my house.  Not no-how, not no-way.   Absolutely not, that is positively ridiculous.

So we went to the holiday parade where Maddie joined Grandma with the Red Hat Ladies.  I wrote more about that here last year.  I really didn’t get a single good picture there this year, but I still feel the need to give you a visual so here you go.

Then we came home and got started on the laundry and the bushes and the dead mou…

I mean, the grocery shopping.  Yeah, that’s right, the grocery shopping.  Ben and Jack decided to put on a parade while all this was going on.  I looked up at one point to see this…

…taped to the hall mirror.  At 12:10 on the dot, they yelled for us to take our places along the parade route. 

It was over pretty fast, but quite a show.  Certainly enough to take my mind off the dead…

Ahem.

As the day wound down, Dave decided to light up the firepit one last (I hope) time before putting it away for the winter.  Ben and I did not want to be there.  We do not like the cold.  Or mice.  Although there weren’t any mice, so that was not an issue! 

In this photo, Dave’s trying to convince Ben to stay.  But Ben only lasted a few minutes.  And then I snuck inside after a few times through SpongeBob’s “C-a-m-p-f-i-r-e-s-o-n-g Song” song.  Though it’s truly one of SpongeBob’s more inspired tunes, it was still not enough to make me stay outside in the shivering, smoky cold. 

Then showers for all and iCarly for them and football for Dave and blogging for me and DEAR GOD THERE WAS A DEAD MOUSE IN THE ATTIC A STINKY DEAD MOUSE WHO PROBABLY HAS FRIENDS WHO MISS HIM AND HAVE SENT OUT A SEARCH PARTY OH MY HEAVENS EW EW EW EW EW EW NOOOOOOO!!!!

I’m pretty sure I won’t be getting much sleep tonight so if you see me tomorrow with dark circles under my eyes, shaky hands, and quite possibly standing on a chair, you will know why.

Limerick!

Is there any other form of poetry as fun as a limerick?  I think not!  Although.... maybe teenage break-up poetry, that’s mighty entertaining to read and snicker at, but otherwise, the Limerick wins the fun prize.

I was looking through some old pictures last weekend, trying to find a way to tie them together, and that’s when it hit me.  A limerick!  Perfect!  So…

There once was a lad in a skirt,

Who was little more than a wee squirt.

 

He twisted and swayed,

He danced and he played,

‘Til the squirt’s skirt began to invert.

~~~~~

There once was a girl with blond hair

Whose wedding “do” we did prepare.

We took lots of pics

So we could re-fix,

(But we should have tied Jack to a chair).

~~~~~

There once were two kids at a fest

“Please! Candy Sand art!”  they professed.

Their bottles they filled

Then their tongues they did gild

Hope their dentist is not too distressed…

~~~~~

Although he has many fine charms,

Have you seen my husband’s forearms?

They set him apart

They’re state of the art

They trip my internal alarms.

Oh. Yeah.

“Beth Writes…”

So have you ever googled your name followed by “likes to” and put it all in quotes?  (“Beth likes to”)

I will not put my results here, because this is a family friendly column, but let’s just say, there are a lot of Beths out there who like to do a lot more adventurous and icky things than I do.

Go ahead, I know you are dying to go google “Beth likes to” and maybe even “[Insert your name here] likes to”.  I will give you a minute.  Please come back.

I know.  Ew!

Okay, so I thought I’d try a few more things and see how they turned out.  I tried “Beth has a” and discovered that I have a share in Louisville, KY, a degree in Spanish, a wonderful gift I share generously with others around me, a cold, a 4 month old baby, a Master’s Degree in Education, and a pulse on what is important to people in our area.  Nice!  I am a smart, kind, and generous person!

Then I tried “Beth wants to” and found that I want to drop double right click,  be a Pokemon master, change people’s views about what a minister looks like, get married, and release an album on vinyl.  Well, I am certainly a diversified, interesting person!

Next I googled “Beth can’t” thinking it would be all negative, all “Beth can’t do anything right” but guess what!  I’m still awesome!  I found that I can’t fight the feeling, can’t wait to read the book, can’t be topped, and can’t believe I’ve done this 8 times before!  (Hmmm, I might have to go back and click on that one and find out what I’ve done 8 times.  I am hoping it will be something cool like win eight spelling bees!)

Finally, I decided to see what I stand for, test my convictions, check what I think is really important, so I tried “Beth declared that” and discovered that I would not be leaving my job with Howard County Fire Rescue, that I would scrub floors sooner than Murray, that I had no separate source of income to pay my attorney fees, that something reminded me of Thai coconut pancakes, that I’m ready to stop seeing Max, and that olives should not go to waste.   Hmmm.  I don’t seem so strong in my convictions as I do scatterbrained and ditzy.  I think it’s probably Max’s fault, or possibly the olives were tainted and influenced me in some way.

Well, “Beth finishes” seems a logical way to end, and dude, I rock!  I finished the Baltimore marathon, the challenge, my awesome Fox interview, solving problems, golden retrievers (huh?) and apparently, I also finished Maria with the fisherman’s suplex so watch out Maria!  I know a wrestling move and I’m not afraid to use it!

Now, for your own googling pleasure (you know you want to do it) here is another handy link:

Go Google yourself!

Chopsticks and Birthday Candles

Guess who turns 44 today!

 

Sorry.  I went to Picnik just to add a little birthday crown to his head and then went a little nuts with all the cute graphics.

His parents took us all out for a hibachi-style meal at our favorite Japanese restaurant (not Beni Hana, but similar).    The food is great, but the cooking show is even more entertaining. 

First, the dramatic LIGHTING OF THE GRILL:

Hmmmmm.  Well, that was a  little disapp…

<kaboom!>

Excuse me a moment while I go change my pants…

The chef got the birthday boy in on the cooking action.  Here Dave is trying to balance, then break an egg on his spatula.

The chef throws broccoli at everyone, and he keeps throwing…until you catch one in your mouth!

Maddie catches hers!

Jack’s ended up behind him.

Grandma gives it a go!

The birthday boy catches his on his first try, and is rewarded with a very long squirt of saki!

The kids love the Japanese soda.  There is a marble in the mouth of the bottle which needs to be pushed down so you can drink out of it. 

Popping a hernia is half the fun of Japanese soda.

The waitresses brought Dave a little plate of green tea ice cream and banged a gong while we all sang happy birthday and he blew out the candle.  Jack told me later he was “freaked out because” he “thought the fire alarm had gone off” when the waitresses walked up banging the gong.  Japanese fire drill!  (Not as much fun as a Chinese fire drill, but way better than an American fire drill!)

 

Tanjoubi omedetou!

誕生日おめでとう

I love you, birthday boy, with or without a crown or facial hair.

Fancy Schmancy Pancakes

Well, we found a great use for those apples we picked a few weeks ago.  Maddie and Dave were watching Tyler’s Ultimate on the Food Network and decided to try out a recipe they thought sounded good for Ricotta Pancakes with Roasted Golden Delicious Apples and Prosciutto. 

As they watched, they wrote the directions and ingredients down, and tried it out a few Saturday mornings ago. 

First, cut your apples.  We didn’t have golden delicious apples, but our Jonagolds worked just fine.

Mix  the apples with melted butter and maple syrup.  The prosciutto did not make the final cut.  Maddie thought it sounded yucky.  Get the apples roasting in the oven before you begin flipping your pancakes, they need to be in there about 30-45 minutes.

Now make your pancake batter.  Among other things, this involved smushing the dry ingredients through a strainer.  We’re not really sure why, though I’m sure if I weren’t too lazy to google Tyler’s Ultimate, I’d find out why.

It takes a lot of concentration.  Sticking your tongue out helps.

Time to pour the batter and flip!

Before:

After:

Perfection!

Pull those roasted apples out of the oven, pour them over the pancakes, add a little whipped cream, and…

 

…devour!

Ricotta Pancakes with Roasted Jonagold Apples (and Not Prosciutto)

Apple Topping

1/2 stick of butter, melted

1/4 c. maple syrup

4 apples, sliced

Batter

2 c. Ricotta

4 eggs, separated

1 c. buttermilk

1 c. flour

3 T. sugar

1 t. baking powder

~Slice apples, mix with melted butter and maple syrup, roast in 400 degree oven for 30-45 minutes.

~Combine the ricotta, egg yolks, and buttermilk.

~Sift together the dry ingredients then combine into the ricotta mixture.  Whip the egg whites then add into the other mix.  Dave says that Tyler says this will help the pancakes be fluffier than adding the entire egg at one time.  Whatever.  I would have added the whole egg back at step 2.

~Cook your pancakes on a warmed up griddle.  We found they burned pretty quickly, so watch them!

~Pour roasted apple mixture over the pancakes and enjoy!

 

I am linking this post with Foodie Friday!