I Love Cooking

I really do love cooking. I especially love making big extravagant dishes. Maybe not everyday, but I do enjoy it occasionally. My sister Julie and I often get together and enjoy some girly bonding and gourmet cooking, and yesterday just seemed like the perfect day for some short ribs and a chick flick. I got Lucas all dressed up for the occasion. He is such a stud!!

Here's all the ingredients we used.

And 4 hours later this is what we got to enjoy.

These dishes we make always take a lot longer than we think they will. But don't feel too bad, 2 hours of that was watching the chick flick with the food slowly roasting in the oven. Oh it was so delicious! I will definitely be making that again. Here's the link for the recipe we used if anyone feels inclined to give it a try.

Daredevil

While we were in St. Louis, Lucas learned how to climb. He figured out how to push chairs around so he could climb up on the chair, and then onto the table, or his high chair, or the counter. He also climbed up to the top of a 6 foot ladder. Don't worry, I was standing there the whole time, but still, I'm pretty sure I already have grey hairs from this kid's antics. Since we've gotten back, his climbing activities have only increased. He still does the whole chair to table thing and we've had to stop putting things on the table that we don't want him to have because they are no longer out of his reach.

He got up on the table the other day to look out the window and yell for daddy. It was so cute I let him stay up there for a bit before bringing him down and moving the chair.

This is one he's been doing for a while now, even before we went to St. Louis, but now instead of holding onto the steering wheel while he stands on Mater, he puts his hands in the air and gets a huge smile on his face.

And his favorite of all is to climb up on the couch and turn the lights on and off.

And just last night he decided to try crawling to the other side of the couch along the back. He's never made it past this point but he giggles the whole time.

I don't know what we're going to do with this kid. I used to just let him sit and play while I make dinner or do the dishes, but now every time I turn around he's climbing up onto something else. He's lucky he's so cute; it's hard to get mad at him.

The House Where I Grew Up

My parents moved to St. Louis when I was 4, so I basically lived there for my entire childhood. I love that home. I love how lush and green it is in the spring and summer. I love the huge forest and all the memories I have of exploring in them. I love the fruit trees and the garden and the yummy food they produce. I love the huge basement that we spent so many hours playing in, and the unfinished part that we could roller blade and play hockey in. The house isn't the most amazing looking house, and it wasn't ever very fancy, but it is comfortable and it feels like home.

A view of the front taken in the spring.

I love daffodils.

A view of the the forest from the deck.

The Fruit trees in the spring.

The garden in the summer. Yum!

My parents are originally from California and now after all these years, my parents are moving back. My dad got a job offer there that he couldn't resist. We are all really very excited for them. We still have a lot of family in California and we get to visit them from time to time, but it will be fun to be able to visit them more regularly. I can't wait to go to California for Christmas. A 10 hour drive is a lot more manageable than the 20 hour drive to St. Louis. We will miss St. Louis, though, and all of the friends and memories there.

This last week I had the opportunity to go back to St. Louis and help my mom pack up and stage the house. We were working almost all day long every day and we still didn't come close to finishing. There is still so much work to be done. It was hard work, but it was so much fun too. I got to go through all my old things and reminisce about my childhood. I also got to have a lot of fun playing house and rearranging the furniture and buying cute knick knacks to stage the house with. I'm really glad I got to go out and help. Here are a few pictures of all the hard work we did. I'm mostly just posting these for my siblings to see how different the house looks. Keep in mind I am an engineer, so don't judge me if you designed your doll house cuter than this when you were 10.

We were trying to decide what knick knacks looked best where. This was our favorite.

The family room probably looks the most different. Ignore the blur in the corner where I had to edit out some stuff we hadn't gotten around to moving yet.

Another view of the family room.

The dining room looks like a real dining room for the first time.

In the bathroom we didn't change too much, we just cleaned it and put up some new pictures.


And we redid the landscaping in part of the front yard. It's not done yet in this picture. We didn't get a chance to finish before I left. I got to pick out all the plants and where to put them, though. I've always loved flowers and plants so this was probably my favorite part. I can't wait till I have a house and can plan out gardens of my own.

Another thing I'll miss about the Midwest is the amazing weather. Not the humidity, I will not miss that. The fierce rain and thunderstorms is what I will miss. And I think St. Louis knew I would be leaving so on my last night there it treated me with a fantastic lightening storm, complete with a tornado warning and sirens. Thanks you for a wonderful last visit, St. Louis. At least for now anyway.

It Runs in the Family

In my family we are sometimes really impulsive and make spur of the moment decisions. It must be genetic or something because I'm not the only one who suffers from it. We just get so excited about something and there's no swaying us. On more than one occasion, I've spent too much while I was out shopping just because I felt like it, only to find out that the store I purchased the clothes from has a store-credit-only return policy. Oh how I hate that! I've learned to be more careful about that one. And it's not just about spending money, but that's the only example I can come up with right now.

Anyway I am making a spontaneous decision this week. My parents recently decided to move to California, and about two days ago I decided I'm going to go out to St. Louis to help my mom pack up the house. I know, impulsive right? But hey, I can't help it... I am my mother's daughter.

The Wheels are Spinning...

When Lucas first learned to walk, people always asked if he was getting into more things. He really wasn't. Before he could walk, he could crawl and he could stand so there really wasn't any difference in the amount of things he got into. But now, his conniving little mind has really started working on over drive. NOW, he is getting into way more things than he used to. It's like his brain has started piecing things together and he always knows the very best way to drive me crazy. I'm pretty sure he walked into the room this morning and thought to himself, "Yes, I will go sit on top of that quilt mommy is trying to pin together. That will teach her to try to get stuff done when I'm around."

The other day I was trying to make dinner so he decided to pull all the pans out of the cabinet, and then go explore around inside.

And he doesn't just sit in the same room as us anymore, he has started exploring so we have to make sure to keep certain doors closed. He loves daddy's tools most of all.

He has also figured out how to turn the knob on the dish washer. So we have joined the ranks of parents that have to pull the knob off when we're not turning on the washer.

Look what I found...

Lucas kept trying to help me with the dishes last night. I made sure to get everything back from him that he had taken out, I just didn't notice he slipped a little something extra in there. His shovel is nice and clean now.