Happy Halloween

Ethan was a rabbit, Jeremy was a magician and I was his assistant. I will have a picture up of all of us soon (I need to get it from a friend).

An Apple a Day?

I love caramel apples (with chocolate). I decided this was the year to make them. I found a great recipe for caramel, melted 60% cocoa Ghiradelli chocolate chips and had plenty of pecans, almonds and coconut to sprinkle them with. I will be making these again at Christmas, I will begin taking orders on Black Friday.

Summer Shower

One of my best friends is expecting a baby! I am so excited for her, it has been a very long wait. I am also excited for me because our boys will be less than a year apart in age. I threw a shower for her last month. I love to plan a party and think the details through from the time I send the invitation out. So here is what I did. She is an avid reader, and a budding author so I went with a book theme. I titled the invitations "The End...of a very long wait". Then I kept a book theme going through the whole shower. I was so busy that I did not get pictures, but I had her sister taking pictures, so hopefully I will get some to post soon. For the activity, I created a children's literature jeopardy. I divided the group in two and then Brooke was her own team. When was the last time you thought about Corduroy, Amelia Bedelia, the Berenstein Bears and Frog and Toad? After the game, I served "paper-thin" crepes that I stacked to look like 3 open books on the table. I then had all the toppings with names from books or like books ie: Nutcrackers Nutella, James' Giant peaches, Anna's Bananas, Little Miss Muffet's Lemon Curd etc...For the favor, I gave Cat in the Hat bookmark with a little quote that I like from Dr. Suess. Then of course it was so fun to watch her open all the thoughtful gifts that her friends gave. It was nice to get my creative juices going and use my event planning part of my brain.

Terrorized

Ethan can now move everywhere. He is getting faster every day. We have childproofed fairly well, so for us it has been fun to watch him move around and be able to go where he would like. Then there is Beau, our dog, he is terrorized by Ethan's mobility. The moment he sees Ethan coming he moves, he tries to hide behind me or hop up on the couch. Gone are his lazy days of laying on the rug relaxing the day away. The only part of childproofing that I still need to figure out is the dog dishes. If you look closely at the picture below you will notice that Ethan has tipped the dish over and is having a great time playing in the water. He looks so innocent, what is so terrorizing? 

Disclaimer: Ethan has not even pulled his tail yet, Beau must have had poor experiences with kids in his past. Ethan loves Beau and most of the time just watches him with fascination, although he does want to touch his paws and pet him. If only Beau would like to play with Ethan. 

Cupcakes

It was my mom's birthday yesterday. I was getting ready to make a cake and realized that I do not own a cake pan. I don't make dessert very often, and apparently I never make cakes. So I instead made yummy chocolate cupcakes that were so, so moist with a swiss buttercream frosting. I don't like frosting, I'm the annoying person that scrapes the whole top of the cupcake off to avoid having to eat the frosting. This frosting was quite good, in fact I actually ate it. Today Jeremy added cocoa to the remaining frosting, which was even better. (I took this picture on my phone-I'm impressed with the photo quality!)

Sailing in Our Landlocked State

Happiness and Contentment

Jeremy went sailing for the first time on our honeymoon. The swells were large and we both got off the boat feeling queasy, however, ever since then, he has been searching for ways to quench his thirst for sailing. Three years ago he took a week long sailing class in San Francisco. For 2 summers he crewed on any boat that would have him out at the Great Salt Lake races, and he regularly browses the KSL classifieds for reasonably priced sail boats. **Thankfully, we have other financial goals to reach before we make a high maintenance purchase like that. Needless to say, he is a skipper at heart. 
This year a company on Utah Lake started offering sailboat rentals. Yeah for him!! I didn't like sailing when I was growing up, but I was excited for him. Last weekend we set sail for an afternoon. Jeremy watched the wind forecasts very closely that week. We were to have nice 14-15 mph winds coming from the SW. When we got on the water, I don't know if the wind even qualified for a light wind sail. However, we had a fun time swimming off the boat and just being out on the water. Ethan did ok at first, then not so great. He got sea sick and threw up (thankfully I do not have a picture of that part). We will try again on a shorter sail and keep him above deck. I think that may have been the problem. We took him below deck to see if he would nap down there multiple times, not a good idea. Once he threw up, he felt much better and so did one of our friends that had been feeling a bit sick, a vicarious experience for her I suppose. It turned out to be a fun experience for all, including me. 

**If you would like to go sailing let us know, we like to invite friends.

My mom and Ethan - pre-seasickness

Green Smoothies

A friend recently invited me to a class about green smoothies. The basic idea is that we don't get enough servings of vegetables each day and especially the dark, leafy greens that are so good for us. This is a great way to eat larger servings without trying to eat your way through a whole bunch of rabbit food. Ever since the class I have been making green smoothies for us several times a week. Delicious, feel good food. My favorite combination so far is 2 cups of spinach, 2 cups of swiss chard, 1/2 a peach, 3 slices of pineapple, 1/2 cup cherries, half a small zucchini, a cup of ice, 2 cups of water and either some of the pinapple or peach juice for sweetening. These are all estimates since I just throw things in the blender. I decided that bananas are a little overpowering, so I have started using zucchini for the creamy part. It is fun to try new combinations and see what we come up with.

The most surprising part of making these is that Ethan LOVES them. He knows the color and when he sees it, he expects to eat it. I mix in a little of his cereal to thicken it so that I can spoon feed it to him. Jeremy also requests these regularly.