sweet things

last week friday was a pretty awesome day. i skipped out of work at 12:30, along with a bunch of other coworkers, and drove up to cedarburg for a bike ride along the interurban trail. we rode from downtown cedarburg, to port washington, ending quite literally on lake michigan. it was about a 25 mile ride there and back, and we couldn't have asked for more beautiful weather. i was worried that i wouldn't make the whole ride, since it's been a long time, but the group i rode with was, shall we say, a little slower than i normally push myself. so i did fine (and was dying to go faster!). i'm looking forward to trying to squeeze in a few more rides before the real cold weather hits.

i headed home through rush hour traffic (which included some slowing due to rubber necking - apparently traffic on 43N was shut down due to a truck with animal parts falling over on the highway, and no, i sadly don't have any more details on that). bryan and oliver met me at home, where we played, ate, and i got ready to go see cirque du soleil with mom. mom and dad had bought tickets, but as dad was running a marathon sunday and decided not to stay out late, mom took me instead. we saw saltimbanco. i've seen 2 other cirque shows, but this was mom's first. this was a little different from the others in that they performed inside the bradley center arena, rather than the tents. since the arena is huge and they didn't sell out, we were able to get closer seats for free, score! mom and i really enjoyed the show. now mom is spoiled and will never think a normal circus is all that great ever again. an added bonus of the evening was that bryan had to put oliver to bed. which, given ollie's dependency on me, i wasn't sure was possible - but they did great! i think he went down even faster than he does for me, the little punk.

saturday, bryan headed out to madison to do computer whatever with dirk. oliver and i hit up the outpost to get our grocery shopping done. as usual, i had a blast, and oliver flirted with everyone. everyone thinks he is just the cutest, happiest, most well behaved baby they've ever seen. i invite any of them to come spend an afternoon with him.

bryan arrived home shortly before oliver woke up from his afternoon nap, and we all headed to the mall together to get oliver some new clothes for fall and winter. seriously, they make the *cutest* stuff for kids!! we picked up some really adorable stuff, and had fun bumming around the mall together.

that night, we made taco trash for dinner. the meal was inspired by danielle, one of the moms from my message board. i can't resist tacos, and taco trash sounded like too much fun. in short, it was tortilla chips piled with ground beef, green onions, my bread and butter pickled jalapenos, corn, pinto beans, gold tomatoes, and a cheese sauce bryan made with provolone and muenster. i forgot the sour cream. but it was very tasty! bryan had the leftovers for lunch yesterday, and said it was even better when he mixed all the toppings up before putting it on top of the chips.

sunday, i canned a bunch of beets. we had some golden super sweet beets from our csa, and a bunch of beets in our garden. so i canned some plain to have over the winter, and pickled some others. i made 1 large jar of champagne vinegar pickled beets, 2 small jars of cider vinegar pickled beets, and 3 small jars of your plain ol' white vinegar pickled beets. we'll see how they turn out!

oliver and i went to kohls to do some more shopping while bryan stayed home to watch football. i was disappointed kohls didn't have as much boy baby clothes as i had hoped, but we still managed to get a few things. including a winter jacket and snow pants! he looks freakishly adorable in the entire get up - like a big, blue, puffy marshmallow! i'm not sure how much we'll take him out in the snow this year, but at least once to try out the snow suit!

that night, mom and dad came over for dinner. bryan made an amazing timballo, a baked pasta dish inspired by the timpano dish in the food movie big night. we used italian sausage from the co op. i hadn't picked up swiss chard, thinking we had some, but we didn't - so bryan used beet green from our garden as well. we made a non dairy, gluten free version for dad using quinoa pasta. we served it with a delicious salad of iceberg and red leaf lettuce (from the csa), yellow/white and purple carrots (also from the the csa), radish (from the csa), tomatoes, and cucumber (both from our garden). the yellow/white carrots were SO sweet! the purple carrots were gorgeous. for dessert, i made individual blackberry clafoutis in my mini enameled cast iron dutch ovens. i had never made clafoutis before but had always wanted to. turns out they are a super simple dessert to make, and really hit the spot! seeing as how you can use any fruit in them, i can see myself whipping these up quite often. i had originally wanted to watch the movie while we chatted and ate, but mom had already seen it, so she got the connection with dinner. plus, blue's clues won out instead, yet again. (i dare you to try arguing with my [almost] 1 year old on that one!)

yesterday, it was back to the grind. bryan made meatloaf for dinner. YUM, i love meatloaf. he shredded a bunch of carrots into ours, which gave it a nice sweetness. we don't baste ours with ketchup (since we're opposed to ketchup for adults as a general rule) or bbq sauce, so the carrots took the place of that. bryan blanched the remaining yellow/white and orange carrots, sauteed the rest of the radishes in butter, and made a turnips and cabbage dish that grew out of confusion over whether we were having bubble and squeak or neeps and tatties. it worked, though.

this morning, bryan flew off to detriot for a work trip, so oliver and i are flying solo for a few days (and even scarier - nights). oliver slept through the night last night, so pray or do a rain dance or whatever it is you do in hopes he continues to. i plan on having early nights and lots of pasta this week.

due to the late spring and early cold (damn you, wisconsin), the majority of our tomatoes are still green. not wanting to waste any, we decided to try pickled green tomatoes. i'm hoping to get those canned tonight.

day care has friday off, so i'll be working from home to baby wrangle. i'm even flirting with the idea of taking the day, or half the day, off. we'll see how my work load is come friday.

my plan for this weekend is to hopefully pickle some escabeche, a mexican pepper and vegetable pickle. we have lots of peppers and carrots from our garden, a huge cauliflower from our csa, and lots of small green tomatoes we'd like to try including.

other than that, nothing else is on the schedule for the weekend. i need to get to the printer, and send off oliver's birthday party invites! i used my favorite website to create them, and boy are they cute!!!

speaking of, oliver got his first 1st birthday present yesterday! brent and jessica sent oliver some new books. he loooooves books. he was slightly confused by the whole gift wrap concept, but caught on pretty quickly. he definitely has a new favorite book, about a bunny's birthday! we must have read it 15 times already.


new october gallery is up!

detours

another week (and weekend) have flown by... does it ever slow down??

last week tuesday, i had a hankering for burgers and shakes. bryan, being the superb husband that he is, obliged my whimsy and made hamburgers with white cheddar, and chocolate shakes. ahh, his hamburgers are the things of dreams. the ground beef, from the outpost, was so delicious it needed to seasoning. and who can resist a homemade chocolate shake??

wednesday was "use that vegetable" day; mainly, we needed to use tomatoes! bryan made a pasta with mushrooms, red tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, basil, yellow squash, and garlic. although it was meatless, that pasta, along with a salad and breadsticks, STUFFED me. made for delicious lunch leftovers the next day.

thursday, bryan again bowed to my fancy, and we made a big pile of nachos. inspired by a recipe from saveur, we piled corn chips with 3 kinds of cheese (provolone, muenster, and cheddar), refried beans, chorizo, our bread and butter pickled jalapenos, lettuce, tomatoes, and sour cream. they did not disappoint!

our weekend was equally fantastic. saturday, oliver woke up around 3:30 with some gas, but we were able to get him back down - and then he slept until 7:30! we spent the morning running errands, as we are apt to do. we had a lovely lunch together of fuggets (i.e., Fake chicken Nuggets), pears, and sour cream & chive potato chips. i'm not normally a fan of potato chips not made by bryan in my own kitchen (not that i'm spoiled or anything), but the kettle brand aren't half bad. oliver chowed down and we got through the meal without having to break out any baby food! that afternoon, we went to a birthday party for the daughter of katherine, a girlfriend from high school. we had to make a small detour on the way there to buy some baby motrin, as oliver started crying like nobody's business in the car and wouldn't quit. teething stinks. we made it to the party though. katherine's daughter, charlotte, turned 3. she is such a beautiful little girl; absolutely precious! katherine is pregnant and absolutely glowed. oliver had a blast observing all the big kids, and we headed home prior to meltdown time.

sunday morning, again oliver woke up early (4) then slept in until 7:30. doing that really throws his schedule for the day, but i like the feeling that i'm sleeping in! i made pancakes and bacon for breakfast (which both oliver and bryan decimated), then we headed out for a bike ride. the weather couldn't have been more perfect for it, and we had a great time. mom came over, and after a delicious lunch of grilled tomato and cheese, we headed to(wards) the cedarburg wine & harvest festival, held in downtown cedarburg, with events centered around the cedar creek winery. the directions i had were different than the way we've gone out there before, but i decided to trust google maps. oops. let's just say that the google maps way took twice as long (and thus an hour), took us on an extra long detour (due to construction), and necessitated a slightly panicked call to my father in law (since the stop sign and church we were stopped at were the first things other than fields and farm houses that we had seen for 20 minutes). we did eventually make it, and spent a good hour and a half attempting to maneuver the stroller through the crowds. mom and i had a glass of wine, so that pretty much met my expectations, and bryan got to eat some greek food, so he was happy. one of the vendors was selling little golden books for $1, so we picked up a stack for ollie. he loves reading. :) oliver held up pretty well; he started to get a little cranky, but a few greek butter cookies took care of that. we were able to stroll up and down among the vendors (which made me realize that local or not, the same festivals have all the same crap, and which made bryan realize all he needs in life are electronics). they had giant carved pumpkins; the pumpkins themselves were impressive, though the carvings were a little creepy. we took the much quicker way home (which still involved a small detour).


after a sweaty nap, oliver enjoyed his dinner tremendously:



we had planned on making a delicious morrocan chicken dish last night, but the bird was still frozen solid when we arrived home. while oliver and bryan napped, i made the executive decision to have pizza. :) we had picked up one from the outpost, made by the folks there, to have on hand for an easy night. bryan and i devoured it in no time, and so we needed to pick up frozen custard. we had to go to target after dinner to buy dog food, so it just made sense, really. ;) tonight we'll have the chicken, which is perfect, as today is the first day of fall and dinner will mark the first day of le creuset dutch oven cooking for us. :)

pick a peck of pickled peppers

i put up 6 jars of bread and butter pickled peppers last night. 4 were jalapenos, and 2 were what looked like cubanelles. i added some onion this morning. in about a week, we'll have some tasty pickled peppers!


bryan also has a pepper sauce in the works, with some cayenne, tabasco, and habaneros from dad's garden. dad used a pepper mix seed packet, and ended up with 5 habanero plants. what to do with so many habaneros? bryan added a few to his sauce mixture, and that sucker is gonna be HOT this year! no idea what else can be done with the rest... i have some research to do, that's for sure!

i think that next year we'll have a little more focus in the garden overall. bryan will plant a few cayenne plants for sauce purposes alone, so we can start making bigger batches. that sauce is so delicious, it always goes so fast!

so what have we eaten & done lately?

last thursday, bryan made cast iron grilled wild salmon with garlic aioli, a vinegar dilled salad of cucumbers and tomatoes, and vera cruz style vegetables (onions, kholorabi, tomatoes, and yellow squash) with cream. the salmon was so tasty. i'm usually iffy on my salmon (i prefer it smoked or wood grilled with balsamic), but i really liked how salmony it tasted without being fishy.

friday night for dinner, bryan made a lamb steak with pan gravy, and israeli couscous with raisins and an eggplant from our garden. the lamb tasted pretty much like beef, which surprised me; i expected it to be a bit lamby. don't get me wrong, i was happy with it!

oliver had some watermelon with his dinner. he has determined that watermelon is a LOT of fun to suck all the juice out of, then spit the pulpy mess that remains all over yourself. fun for everyone except mama.

saturday morning, we decided to take a bike ride. we had planned on finding a trail and testing oliver's endurance in the kiddie trailer, but realized we didn't have our bike rack. we saddled up anyways, and rode around the neighborhood for 20 minutes or so. oliver *loved* it. every time i rode up next to him, he'd give me a big silly grin. i can't wait to take him on a longer ride!

after we got home and oliver conked out for his morning nap, i made bryan some beignets, which i had been promising to do for awhile. i didn't have any powdered sugar, but found that normal sugar topped them just fine. i tossed some shredded coconut on a few as well, since bryan loves coconut. i didn't hear any complaints!

after oliver's morning nap, we headed over to the zoo. they were having a "family farm" weekend, and had a guy from a maple syrup farm, a farmer with vegetables and flowers, a bee/honey farmer, basket weaving, etc. we had a lot of fun walking around and looking at all the animals, though i think oliver had more fun looking at all the other little kids. we also finally went on the zoo train, which bryan had been dying to do. oliver had a BLAST on the train! cutest baby EVER! he was fascinated with it and hung out the window the entire time, letting the air blow through his hair, looking up and down the train to see the other kids hanging out, and generally taking in the scenery. lots more cute train pictures in the september gallery.




that afternoon, we headed over to mom & dad's house and ended up staying for dinner. oliver had a lot of fun having somewhere else to explore for awhile, chasing kitties and climbing the stairs 400 times.

sunday was rally day at church, which is a pig roast and i'm not sure what else, really. pot luck and hanging out, i guess. oliver woke up around 6 that morning but then went back down until 7:30, which is totally abnormal for him, but it meant he wasn't napping at 9 and could go to church. so it was nice for him to get a chance to play with some of the kids. he and bryan headed home while i stayed to work the kids' games for the rally thing and eat some pig. that afternoon, i *finally* matted and framed the painting adrianne made for us for last christmas. now let's see if we get it hung before this christmas! it looks really good and i can't wait to see it up.

while bryan made dinner, ollie and i took a quick spin in the stroller around the neighborhood (he was in the stroller; i pushed). we both wore our sunglasses since it was a gorgeous 75 degrees and sunny, and to my amazement, he kept them on his head the whole time. he usually only lasts about halfway with them on, but perhaps with the sun he wanted them on. he looks pretty bad ass in his spiderman shades, no?

that night for dinner, bryan and i stuffed ourselves with steak. he had a porterhouse and i had a rib eye, which he topped with some grilled peppers (which were pretty spicy!). he also roasted one of his heirloom tomatoes, which was so sweet, and tasted great with the steak. he baked some potatoes with a salt crust, which were to die for as usual. we had left over vera cruz veggies as well. brownies would have made a great dessert, but it's ok i didn't make any because we were too full to eat them anyways!

that night, oliver didn't get into bed until nearly 8pm since his schedule was off for the day, but then he slept in until nearly 7am yesterday, so go figure! he was up a few times last night, as his allergies are kicking in. he was pretty miserable this morning, with red, watery eyes, red splotches on his face, and a runny nose. poor kid, i wish there was something i could do for him!! i guess tonight is a benedryl night.

in other oliver news... he is trying very hard to walk! when he's not paying attention to what he is doing, he can stand without holding onto anything. he will try to take a step and fall, but he is getting there. any day now that kid will be running everywhere! scary!

the weather here has turned to TEH SUCK. cold and rainy, WTH? i'll have to write a letter to wisconsin. i want a nice fall, dammit!

monday monday

i should probably be working, but if i don't do this now, i probably won't get to it before next weekend.

we had a great weekend. oliver was good about both his nap and nighttime sleeping and his schedule in general. he did have a little tummy ache thursday night; bryan fed him *2* containers of prunes. so that was fun over the next 2 days when changing diapers. somehow, it always happened on my watch as well, when bryan wasn't around. hmmmm... overall, though, the few times oliver woke up at night (generally once in the middle of the night), bryan would change his diaper and put him back in bed, and he'd be fine. he also napped well for me all weekend, which i had been afraid could be a total disaster, but it wasn't. i love it when he naps well. he is going through a new phase where he wants to be in my arms at ALL TIMES, which is kind of annoying, but it's a pretty normal phase. and i don't give in all the time. i can't be swayed by crocodile tears, either. what can i say, i'm a mean mommy.

friday, we headed over to mom & dad's for a grill out lunch. it wasn't overly warm, but we had lovely weather for it. we had hamburgers on shannon's homemade kaiser rolls (yes, they were as awesome as it sounds). we also had grilled corn and mom's german potato salad. we skipped out on dessert, as junior was starting to get rather cranky (it was nap time). and i just realized i forgot to try some of those lemon bars while i was visiting yesterday, grrr!!

after oliver's nap and some dinner, bryan got the tube fixed on my bike so we could all take a bike ride together. it was oliver's 2nd time riding in the bike trailer, and as he can sit up on his own far better than the 1st time, he enjoyed it quite a bit more. he was smiling and giggling the entire time, giving hannah and i big huge grins every time we rode by the check on him. we rode through the park, where there were LOTS of picnics going on. it was a great ride, and a good way to end the day.

that night, hannah and bryan headed up to state fair park to watch the fireworks. hannah colored her hair pink, silver, and blue in honor of the occasion. oliver and i stayed home, as it was waaaaay past his bed time. i was able to see some of the fireworks over the tops of the trees, and we could definitely hear them (they are probably 2 miles away or less). luckily, they didn't wake the baby up. although, the dogs were very, very scared.

saturday morning, once i got oliver down for his nap, hannah and i headed out to do some shopping. turns out she grew, who woulda thought! so she needed all new shorts. so we had fun picking out some cute new things for her. we weren't gone for very long, though, before bryan called to let us know oliver was awake. we finished up and headed home, then drove over to the milwaukee zoo. we decided to become members this year, so once we got that squared away, we walked around for an hour or so. we think it will be a great place to escape to for a change of scenery. oliver loves going on walks, so this will help enable us to walk for an hour or two and provide both him and hannah with some entertainment. oliver is used to having 5 kids amuse him all day at day care, so i'm pretty boring to him after a short while. oliver started getting cranky right about at lunch time, so we got him fed & headed home for nap #2.

that afternoon, oliver, ally, moose and i hung out on the deck to play in the shade for awhile while hannah cut the grass. bryan put her to work! he had suggested it jokingly, and she was all for it, so we figured with supervision, why not? she ended up rather hot and tired. i don't think she had any idea how heavy the lawn mower is or much work it is! i doubt she'll volunteer for that job again. afterwards, she spread out a blanket in the freshly mowed lawn so she, oliver, and i could enjoy her handiwork and play with some toys (she brought just a few out for him). it was nice being able to hang out outside and get some fresh air without the threat of rain or mosquitos. not so lucky today - i can hear the thunder now.

sunday was another beautiful day. we decided to have a picnic in the park for lunch, using my cute new picnic basket. we all walked over and found a lovely shady spot under a tree, spread out the blanket, and relaxed while eating some delicious ham sandwiches (pb&j for hannah, of course). there was a lovely breeze - the perfect day for a picnic. and i finally got to use my picnic basket. after searching 2+ years for the perfect one, i was very happy with the one i found, and it worked perfectly. i think that oliver enjoyed his first picnic as well. hannah took lots of video to prove it.

that afternoon, hannah and bryan went to see iron man at the theater while oliver napped. unfortunately (for me), he woke up shortly after they left. he and i ended up heading over to visit nana for a change of scenery. the 3 of us sat on the back patio, rocking on the swing, enjoying some lemonade in the shade. i was hoping to trick oliver into taking a 3rd nap, but no such luck. instead he stayed up way too long and was pretty over tired, which resulted in 2 hours of work to get him down for bed.

back to work today, which i am thankful for. the weekend was great, but extremely tiring. i could never be a stay at home mom!!!

tons more pictures in the july gallery, if you can believe that.