too tired for cleverness

so i realized i forgot to mention oliver's little mishap. two fridays ago, day care called right as bryan was leaving to pick oliver up to say that oliver had fallen. he was walking around with a duplo block in his mouth, and fell on his face. she said he bled a good bit and was quite upset, but that the bleeding had slowed and he seemed to be doing better. he was in a fine mood when he got home, but when we sat down to dinner, he cried when trying to eat anything or drink from his sippy. he was too upset to let me look in his mouth, and was eventually able to eat alright, although he still had problems with the cup. after his bath, while getting him dressed, he wanted his cup but started bawling. i took a look and sure enough - one of his front teeth was knocked backwards. i couldn't wiggle it, but of course touching it started it bleeding again. i gave him some motrin and we drove over to children's hospital urgent care. since we were there right at bedtime, i thought oliver was going to be a monster, but by then the motrin had kicked in and he seemed fine - smiling and playing and charming everyone (the doctor even said he made her night, being the only smiley patient she had). the doctor said, yep, he knocked his tooth back, but it's hardly loose and he should be ok, just keep giving him motrin and it should tighten up in a few days. of course, as we were there chatting with the doc (who we really loved, by the way!), he was walking around with a tongue depressor in his mouth (she gave it to him to play with while she checked him out) - and HE FELL. mother of the year, right here. luckily it was more of a stumble, and wasn't on his face, and the doctor has twin 2 year olds so she "gets" it. yikes. by the next morning, he was doing just fine (though i cringed every time a utensil or cup hit the tooth), and it seemed to tighten up very quickly. it's still pushed a tiny bit back, but he recovered just fine. and it turns out that as the mother of a daredevil little boy, i need to grow much thicker skin. i realized on the way to the hospital that it was the first in a presumably long line of trips to the hospital with this little boy. good thing children's is only a few minutes away, and the regular hospital is literally behind our house.

so let's get to the delicious things!

saturday, bryan and i made what he dubbed the perfect winter meal: lemon braised beef shanks with beer and bacon macaroni and cheese and sauteed lacinto kale. i made the shanks in a dutch oven on top of the stove rather than the crockpot. since we were planning on making the kale and pasta, i skipped the mushrooms, carrots, and potatoes the recipe called for. i also used 2 onions instead of 1. and since our shanks were bone-in, i skipped the flour, knowing the marrow would help thicken the sauce. i let it simmer for about 3 hours, and it was delicious. so, so delicious. and who can argue with beer and bacon mac and cheese?? for dessert, i made crockpot 5 layer brownies. the recipe calls for a boxed brownie mix, but i made my own (duh), and included chocolate chips. i don't have a small crockpot, so instead i layered the ingredients in a deep sided casserole dish, and placed that inside the corckpot, turned it on low, and let it cook for 5 hours. i loved them, though they were a little moist and rich for bryan. they were very fudgey, due to all the chocolate chips as well as the sweetened condensed milk, and i think they could have cooked a little longer. all and all, though, it was such a great meal.

for dinner last night, bryan proved how much he loves me, and made tamales. saturday, he boiled a pork butt with cinnamon, then yesterday, cubed it, roasted it, shredded it, and added a homemade ranchero sauce. we served those with more ranchero sauce, cilantro, sliced avocado, and homemade queso fresco (which i swear is ridiculously easy - just DON'T use a whisk like the recipe suggests, use a wooden spoon instead). bryan also made braised collard greens. oh, be still my heart. sooooooooooooo good. mom joined us for dinner, and was pretty darn happy she did. i managed to limit myself to only 2 tamales, in order to save room for dessert - mom brought banana cake with chocolate fudge frosting. the cake was so good, it nearly beat out the tamales. mom left the entire sheet cake with us, and based on the way bryan and i couldn't stop ourselves from picking at it last night, it will be gone in no time.

oliver has been having a bit of a rough go lately. he's getting his molars in. i've been waiting for and wanting this for some time, since it will make it easier for him to chew things (most notably meat), but why oh why does it have to take SO LONG?? and be so painful? saturday, i think was the worst yet for him. he had a whole body fever, and was positively miserable. he barely ate anything for lunch, and if that kid isn't eating, something is definitely wrong. as bryan finished dinner, oliver was sitting in my lap, leaning pathetically against my arm, and just crying quietly. he crashed at bed time, woke up around 3am, and bryan gave him more motrin. he woke again at 4, and i gave him a warm cup of milk and rocked him for a bit. he fell back asleep around 4:45 and slept until 9am, only waking because we went in there to rouse him from his dead sleep!!! that is insane - the kid has never done anything like that before (though i'm not complaining about getting to stay in bed until 8:30am). but no fever yesterday, and he seemed to be a little bit better. last night, starting around 12:30am, he was up every hour. ugh. COME ON TEETH!!

he was helping us cook last night. so cute. he was hanging out in his chef's hat, stirring some imagined creation in a sauce pan. he would pause and pretend to taste it - it was so adorable!! then he wanted bryan and i to try as well. doesn't get any cuter than that!






a few more pics in the january gallery.

WFD: tuna & artichoke casserole, from one of bryan's martha stewart living magazines. kinda excited.

and then there was meat

the weekend was busy as i had suspected it would be. it was fun and tiring as usual.

friday evening mom came by to get some more stuff for shannon to take off to school. dad was at a cross country meet and shannon was at work, so mom had no dinner plans. thus when we invited her to stay for home made fried chicken and biscuits, she could hardly turn us down. who would be able to turn that down?


saturday morning bryan and i headed out to mom and dad's to say goodbye to shannon before they trekked across the state to move her into her new apartment at school. she had the rental van packed very orderly and to the brim. they managed to fit everything which was good. shannon was pretty excited to move into the apartment, even though she's on a 3rd floor walk up and had lots of furniture and other heavy items. luckily, a superman-strength shot putter lives in her complex, and he was able to carry all the heavy stuff up the stairs without a problem.

after we left mom and dad's, we headed out to the super amigo hispanic grocery in waukesha. oh boy that was fun. we had decided to make tamales to bring to my uncle frank's sunday cookout, so we picked up a bunch of tomatillos to make a salsa verde. then we had a lot of fun in the meat department. they had what was listed as "rib eye" - but as it was uncut, it was prime rib. so we got a 12 lb prime rib for $3.69/lb. what a steal. it was a very lovely looking piece of beef, and for that price, katie may be able to afford prime rib for her wedding!
bryan sliced that up into some very fine looking rib eyes. 17 rib eyes, to be exact. mom says to just let her know when to come over. she figures showing up at our house around dinner time just about any day is a good bet.

we also got 4 skirt steaks, 4 lbs of pork stew meat, and 2 racks of ribs the length of my arm and i swear nearly as wide as my stomach (no comments from the peanut gallery, please). all in all not a bad trip.

saturday night i went to go see maggie's new house, and have dinner. it is such a cute old house! i am so excited for her. we went and had a quick dinner at casa del rio, then spent a few hours gabbing. i didn't even realize how long we had been chatting until bryan called me at 9:15pm to see what we were up to. :) maggie and i can always find something to talk about, apparently.

bryan also roasted a pork roast and prepared the tomatillo salsa, so that it would all be ready for tamale rolling on sunday. that morning, he prepared the masa dough and allowed it to chill for awhile. we worked together to get them all stuffed, rolled, and tied. that made the entire process run much smoother and much faster.


in went the roast pork, some fresh diced tomatoes, and the salsa. so delicious and not even steamed! we ended up with close to 30 tamales. it turns out i must have the abuela gene, because i was able to get those gorgeous little suckers tied and into the steamer in no time. they turned out so incredibly scrumptious! they were a huge hit at the pool party. i made my much loved pico to bring along as well. the party itself was lots of fun as well. the weather was very nice, though i did hide in the shade the entire time to avoid wilting entirely. lots of yummy mexican snacks. i pretty much sat and snacked all afternoon. what can i say, i can't resist taco dip. after the tamale's and aunt mo's enchiladas though, i was too stuffed for cake. we took cake home for later that night.

we watched the movie sunshine, which is a decidedly strange movie. i'm not 100% sure how i feel about it. it was nearly sci-fi but not quite. bryan pointed out a lot of similarities between it and the black hole. cillian murphy was quite good in it, but i love him, so maybe my opinion is tainted.

sunday, we tried to get an untrimmed brisket from rupena's, but they didn't have any. so we bought a pork shoulder instead, and smoked that in the pit at mom and dad's on monday. we served that up for dinner there, along with some roasted corn from the west allis farmer's market (which we managed to roast right on top of the metal roof of the smoker), and a cold beet salad (beets, fennel, clementines, olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper). the pork was positivly incredible. and now we have a smoked pork bone to freeze for split pea soup once the weather cools a bit more. i had made chocolate chip cookies so that served for dessert. we tried to sit outside after dinner, but even with tiki torches and OFF lamps, i was still getting bitten by mosquitos so we had to move the discussion inside. we made it home in time to lay on the couch and watch oliver kick before the need to be in bed became overwhelming.

as part of the tamale prep, bryan made a batch of his famous chicken stock (also known as chicken jelly due to the lovely viscosity of it), so with that we plan on making a chicken soup on friday. hopefully the weather agrees and becomes a little more fall-like, which would make the soup perfect.

indian summer fest starts this weekend, so we're going to hit that up with mom on friday evening. i haven't been in ages, probably since grade school. i am looking forward to having some fry bread though, that's for sure.

i've emailed the child care provider we met with last week to see about enrolling oliver. after talking with a few, we really feel she is our best bet. we can look and interview forever, and while we may find others as good as her, we won't find any better. i am excited to have this all set up, and with someone we feel so comfortable and happy leaving oliver with. bryan wants to start out having her watch him part time; he is hoping he can watch him while he works. we'll see how that works out - i don't think he realizes how much time ollie will take up! :)

my plans for today include napping after work and getting to bed early. i know you're jealous of my exciting life.