Misadventures in Cooking

Well, I write this as I listen to the whir of the breadmaker on what is now my 4th (seriously!) attempt to make a loaf of bread to go with our dinner tonight. I am trying to be more careful in the foods that I feed the children and attempting to make more "from scratch" foods using whole foods instead of depending on so many preservative filled easy alternatives. It can't be that hard, right? Lots of people do this, with lots more kids than me. Now, don't worry Ronald McDonald! I still love you! I'll still be by for a Big Mac when the craving hits! I'm just trying to make some small changes.

So, on that note, I decided to make a big crock pot of homemade soup and homemade bread for dinner tonight (I'm also trying to get better about making double batches of dinners in advance and freezing!). The soup is simmering away, so I'll let you know how that turns out later. I'm not sure the carrots are still supposed to be crunchy...maybe I should have cooked them in advance. Anyways, it's edible, so I'm not too worried about the soup. The bread is what's killing me. And....it's even in a breadmaker! Yes, I know, they're supposed to be so easy a kindergartner can do it, and I used to use it often, but apparently having two kids has sizzled my brain a bit. All I'm trying to do is make the dough in the breadmaker, then shape my bread and bake it in the oven. Here's how it's going so far:

Attempt #1: Added everything in the correct order for my machine, set it to "dough" and let it go. Hurray! Only 2 hours to my dough. Oh....what's that! Why does it look like it's BAKING! Dough is not supposed to be dark like that...is it? Well, I'll just let it finish and see what happens. (2 hours later) Oooppssss!!! I set it to "quick bake" instead of dough. I'm looking at a small cinder block of dense burned bread. Better dump it.

Attempt #2: Well, it's only 3:00pm, I'll just try again! I dump out the old bread, clean out the pan and start putting the ingredients back into the pan. Wait....what did Dr. Phil say....this stuff about Prop 8 infuriates me...let them get married for pete's sake! Oh shoot! How many cups of flour was that. I lost count. ERRRRR!!! Better dump it.

Attempt #3: Third times a charm right! Cleaned the pan again and started putting all the ingredients back in the pan. Perfect! Made sure it's on the right setting and away it goes. I go back to Dr. Phil to catch a bit more of the show while my machine whizs away. I go back to check it and WHAT! Why is nothing mixing? It looks just like it did when I put it in 20 minutes ago. But I can HEAR it mixing. Oh Crap....I forgot to put the little mixer part back into the pan. So it's spinning around, but the mixing paddle isn't in, so nothings happening. I try to reach in and put it in, but the yeast gets all mixed it and now it's a giant mess. Dump it!

Attempt #4: Currently, it's working away and looks like a great little dough ball! Now, as long as we don't eat dinner around 9:00pm (after it has time to rise and cook) we should be good to go.

Well, that was easy, right! As long as I have 5 spare hours each day and an unlimited supply of flour for all my blunders this should be no problem. Better go check my soup!

For Jacob and Noah's Third B-day Celebration with Grandma and Grandpa on Saturday night we decided to just frost a cake, and then let them decorate it however they wanted with an assortment of sprinkles, M&M's, smarties, and gumdrops. The boys were great little cake decorators and were very careful in getting the candies "just so" on their cake. They even stuck the candles in themselves.


I guess you have to push those gumdrops REALLY far in to get them to stick.

Here they are just getting started with their decorating. I think our little Quality Assurance Specialists had to sample the decorations to be sure they tasted OK before putting them on the cake.

Happy 3rd Birthday Boys!

Today the boys had a little Birthday Party with some neighborhood friends. We started at the local Fire Department, where we toured the fire station with some very nice firefighters. The kids got to see where the fireman slept, where the cooked and ate, and how they slid down the pole. Then we went out to the giant garage to see te trucks. Jacob was a bit intimidated by the giant fire trucks, but he ended up wanting to climb up into the seat. Then of course he wanted to get up into the other one! Noah was a little overwhelmed by the station and never made it up onto the truck. After our time at the station was over. He told me that he "liked his firetrucks small". Apparantly these were just a bit too big for him.

After the firestation tour, we headed back to the Brooks Family Fire Station for lunch, playtime, and of course cake and ice cream. Here's our fire truck birthday cake. I decided that I couldn't stomach the amount of red food coloring needed for a fire truck cake, so we decided to make a burning building, and use Jacobs beloved Duplo Fire Truck and Fire Guys (that he calls "his boys") and have them putting out the fire. We added a some other Duple touches, like shrubs, trees and a fire hydrant, then frosted the baking sheet to make green grass and a road for the firetruck. Thanks to Nates awesome frosting fire and details, and lots of help from Grandma Brooks, this cake turned out even better than I imagined! The boys and their buddies loved it and it helped make the day really special, just like our boys!

Hmmm....how many fingers is three again??

Our Not-So-Happy Plastic Hot Dog

Saturday was such a beautiful day that we decided to grill out. Burgers for mom and dad, hot dogs for the kids. As I was putting the dogs on the grill, I noticed that one of the dogs looked like it had moldy spots or something it. So a took it off the grill for closer inspection, since these dogs were fresh. After looking at it and breaking it open to see what it was, IT WAS PART OF A PLASTIC BAG! Absolutely disgusting! The black parts were black markings on the plastic that were showing through the hot dog skin. Yuck! Just reminds you to check everything you give your kids to eat carefully. If I hadn't seen the back marks on the dog, my kids could have eaten it.

Pumpkins, Hayrides and Costumes!

A few weeks ago we took a trip to Russell Farms to pick out pumpkins and go for a hayride. It was a beautiful day and the boys had a blast. They walked thoough corn mazes, rode pedal tractors, got to see some small farm animals and of course took the tractor ride out ot pick out their own perfect pumpkins. Here's the boys with me after finding our way out of the corn maze.

The farm also had putt-putt golf and the boys really had a blast with that. Noah was very determined to use the club to putt his ball into the holes. Jacob tried the club for awhile and then discovered that it was more fun to just roll it. We actually just bought the boys their own golf clubs so get ready Grandpa, these boys will be hitting the fairways with you soon!

Oh my, have you ever seen a sadder face? I have, since poor Noah was sick for a few days with a high fever and all around yukkiness, I've been seeing lots of this sad, sad little face. But, as of today he seems to be doing fine and no more scary high fevers and nightsweats. Now...if we can just keep Jacob from getting sick!

Happy Halloween! These little knights are exhausted from fighting dragons and needed to rest for a snack. They couldn't even wait to get into the house before digging in to their Halloween candy! Check out my eyeball pumpkins....usually it's my artsy-fartsy husband who does the painting, but I whipped out these eyeballs in a matter of minutes before the first trick or treaters arrived to help keep the kids from raiding our candy bowl (as you can see, our originally brimmed bowl did actually have a few treats left!). Since these two brave knights are pretty quick on their steeds, and Princess mommy didn't think she could keep them out of the moats by herself, we left the bowl of candy out on the porch for a while while we roamed the countryside in search of candy and our fairmaiden Sydney Jane to rescue from the dragon.

Here's Sir Jacob, resting before we head out for trick or treating. I guess that armor is pretty heavy, he looks beat. Or maybe it's because they didn't take a nap that day.