Well. . .

I was going to post some pictures of some funny things, recipes, stories, and such, but I cannot find the usb cord for my camara!!! I just took a picture to explain my predicament, but then soon realized, duh, how can I post a picture of the MESS of cords that is entraping my special cord, if I can find the darn cord! Here is the deal: We have lots of 'gadgets'. palm pilots, cell phones x10 (all old) computer components, things with ear phones, etc. They all have several different cords and they all end up in a tangled mess on my desk. I have taken some time to rubber-band each cord together, but not all have made it that far.

AND WHY does MY camara have to have a special cord any way?!?!!? Why cant it be the same as the others???? you know, usb one end, the little dented-rectangle shape on the end?? Oh well. I guess I will get back to my cord clean up. And Zander is starting to wine and the phone is ringing. Beter go. Here is to a better morning!

SUCH a Slacker!

I know, Christmas was over 2 weeks ago and I STILL Haven't changed my blog. Things have been crazy!! We had a great Christmas, visiting with both sides of the family. Chris got a GPS, which we have had fun playing with, and I was given Guitar hero. I am such a dork, but I LOVE THIS GAME! I am NOT a video game person, that's Chris' department, but I love playing this. Especially with Chris, although he drives me crazy because he can already play on medium difficulty, and I am barely making it on Easy. Oh well. I Must practice!

We went to Vegas for New Years. My aunts and uncles and cousins on my mom's side still like to get together for the holidays, and instead of trying to get everyone together before Christmas this year, my Brillant cousin Brandi suggested we meet up in Vegas. Her family, mom, and brothers, all live there, so a third of the group didn't have to travel. Although not everyone could be there this year, we had a great time. We also spent some time with Jeannette and her family. They are going through a very difficult time right now with their unborn baby, and I think (hope) we were a positive distraction. It was nice to get away and just chill for about a week. Zander LOVED hanging out with all the kids, even when they were acting like monkeys at 1 am in the morning and waking him up!! Just teasing- I am grateful for their fun, spunky personalities. They all make me LAUGH!!

So I have a few new recipes I want to post on here, along with some little ditty's I did over the hollidays. I just need to upload my pics off my camara. It takes forever, for some reason, so I am really bad about doing it.

On another note, we are going to have another baby!! We have suspected we (well, I really,) were pregnant for a little while but the test confirmed it on December 9th. Funny story= I think I should have made this another post= I hadn't been feeling well for a few weeks, when I decided to take a test. I took it first thing in the morning, but only a line came up. The last batch of preg tests required a plus sign for a positive result. I threw it in the trash and went about my day. I was cooking dinner when I started to feel so nausous, like I was pregnat! I had a nagging feeling, so I went and checked the test and looked at the instructions, and sure enough, only a line was needed for a positive result!! I started laughing so hard!! What a blonde! Chris was due home in about 5 minutes so I excidedly waited at the door for him. When He came in I told him the story and he just laughed. We were so exctied because we are ready for more babies! Zander has been such a joy and so much fun that we want more! Although, a few days after we found out he started getting an attitude. GRRRRR!! Oh well. We told our families at Christmas by opening a gift for Zander. I found a shirt that had a monkey on it with the words Big Brother. No one really got it until we pointed out what it said. My mom flipped, and cried a few times that day. She kind of likes babies. . . just a little. . . Everyone was very excited. We are the only ones out of our siblings who are having kids right now, so I guess its kind of our privledge of sharing our babies!

Enough Already!! I hope you all had a great New Years! Here is to a new year full of projects, new recipes and babies!!

Mincemeat Pie

Ever since I was young, I would hear my Dad rave about my Great Aunt Marion's Mincemeat pie. When my mom told me it had meat and fruit in it, I refused to eat it as a kid! Great Aunt Marion died a few years ago, and I know that is one thing my Dad really misses about her. She would make him one any time he worked on his car or for birthdays, and always brought them to holiday gatherings. In my quest to be a great pie maker, I thought I would try one this Thanksgiving. It helped that Chris liked a little taste of one he had before. I went on line, found a recipe from Alton Brown, but it required a TON of work. I wasn't that adventurous. I have a great cookbook from Good Housekeeping titled "Great Baking". There are some tasty recipes and how too's. The recipe was one of thos semi-homemade ones, my specialty, so I went for it. Here are some photos of the filling:



And here is one of the finished product:



My Dad loved it, and my cousin Karen, Aunt Marion's daughter, said it tasted just like her Mothers. Score!! My Grandma Patsy, Aunt Marions sister, really liked it too.
Here is the recipe. Try it out!

1 28 oz jar ready-to-use mincemeat (there is brand Nonesuch that worked well. Found it at Albertsons.)
1 large granny smith apple, pealed, cored, and finely chopped
1 C. Walnuts coarsly broken
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1 TBSP lemon juice
Double pie crust (I cheated and used Pillsbury. Haven't mastered crust yet!)

1. Prepare dough.
2. Preheat oven to 425. In a medium bowl stir mincemeat, apple, walnuts, brown sugar and lemon juice until well mixed.
3. Roll out bottom pie crust and place in pie plate. Fill with mixture. Dot butter (about 2 TBSP total) over filling. Roll out top dough and place on top of fillling. Crease two crusts together. Using a knife, make a few slits in top crust of pie.
4. Bake 30 to 40 minutes or until golden brown. Enjoy!

This just in. . .

Zander is at it again. . . while I was just posting the bit about he and Chris playing he managed to get into the Ziplock bags AGAIN. Its sort of my fault because i didn't put them in the very back of the cuppord. I swear, that is his most favorite thing to do. Pull EVERY SINGLE BAG out of the box. And then, he scoots around and kicks them all around the kitchen, spreading the wealth everywhere! Grr. Oh well. Makes for a funny story. And a stronger desire for a new kitchen with more drawers!

Playing with Daddy

One of my favorite things is watching Chris and Zander play. Zander has such a good Daddy, so he gets played with often! This time I just happened to have my camera handy. Earlier I made Zander a fort by pulling the ottoman out a little and draping a blanket over it and the couches so that he had a crawl (scoot) space. He had such a blast going in and out! When Chris got home he chased him around and they had a ball. I love these two guys so much, and love watching them play.

A Photo

Since I didn't have any pictures of our big date, here is one of our Wedding.

Three Years

Chris and I celebrate our 3rd anniversary today! We joke that it really seems so much longer, but in a good way! I think back to friendships and usually three years seems to fly, and before you know it, its been 10 years since you have been friends with someone! With Marriage though, the realtionship is so much deeper, involved and meaningful, so even a short amount of time seems like a long time. Does this make sense to anyone but me!?!?! Since our Anniversary is today, on a MONDAY, we went out on Saturday.

We went and ate at Claim Jumper, my alltime favorite restaurant. Maybe not all-time favorite, but its very close to the top! We had these parmesan zucchini sticks that were to die for. . . i can still taste them now. . . they were in a mini-appetizer, a smaller portion so that we could actually eat out dinner without getting too full. There were only 4, so we savored them as long as we could. Man, they were good. If anyone has ever had these homemade and has access to a recipe, let me know!!

After dinner we drove down to Hollyweird and saw WICKED!! It was Amazing, to say the least! We laughed so hard and really enjoyed ourselves. A confession- I have a little ADD and have a hard time sitting still. Not during this show! I was so sad when it was over. The music, costumes, acting, sets, all were just spectaular. I highly recomend everyone to go see it, soon too, because its leaving LA in January. We actually got really good seats, and could see the actors mouths moving. So amazing.

The only bad part- I had left the camara case at my parents house, so we had NO pictures. Total bummer, my hair looked really cute!!