Tasty Tuesday

Waffles & the best syrupI really like both of these recipes. The waffles have the perfect amount of fluffiness and crispness that I like and the syrup is to-die-for good. The waffle recipe comes from Jeremy's mom and the syrup recipe comes from a lady in my parent's ward - she gave it to me at my bridal shower 4 1/2 years ago and it has quickly become a favorite with most of my family. We often like to make waffles on Sunday nights, usually along with eggs and potatoes. Yum! So here are the recipes. Enjoy!

Basic Waffles

2 eggs, separated
2 cups buttermilk* or sour milk
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter melted, or oil

Preheat waffle iron. Place egg yolks in large mixing bowl, whites in small bowl. To yolks add buttermilk; beat well. Add flour, baking powder, soda and salt; beat until smooth. Stir in melted butter (or oil). Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold into batter. Bake in preheated waffle iron.

We have a Belgian Waffle Maker, so this makes about 3 (of 4 squares each), so 12 waffles. We usually half the recipe for the 2 of us, and it's usually perfect (maybe 1-2 extra). If you have a normal waffle iron, it will obviously make more.

*If you don't have buttermilk, use 1 Tbsp. vinegar or lemon juice per 1 cup milk.

Homemade Syrup

1 cube butter
1/2 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla

Bring first 3 ingredients to a boil over medium heat (It should be foamy). Take off heat and stir in baking soda. It will foam up a lot, do not be alarmed. Then add vanilla. Serve!

This is seriously the best syrup ever! It tastes kind of like melted frosting. Mmmmm.

100!

This is my 100th post. Pretty exciting. I think I'll probably get to 200 faster than I got here. Have you noticed I've been blogging a lot more lately? It's been fun for me. And it probably has a little something to do with the topic of my previous post - Eli sleeping better. :)

Today is also special because Eli is 5 months! That's almost 6 months, and 6 months sounds old. 6 months sounds like sitting up, and rolling all over and getting close to crawling. Yikes! But at 5 months I'm still safe...so far.

I must say I am loving this phase of Eli's life. I love his curiosity and his fascination with everything in the world. He wants to touch and feel EVERYTHING! I have to hang on pretty firmly when I'm holding him because he dives for things now. (Ooh, something shiny/dull/colorful/bland/new/old/okay,anything! I MUST touch it!!!) It's really fun. And he is so happy and playful now. We love hearing his cute giggles and seeing his handsome smile. One of my favorite things is when I'm nursing him and he all of a sudden stops, looks up at me, and flashes a big smile. Love it! It's things like that that make me so happy I'm a stay-at-home mom. It's the best. So here are a couple pictures of our handsome explorer.
Going after the toys. He always wants whatever is just out of his reach.

How's the routine?

It's been a little over a month since I started the routine, and I realized I never followed up with an update. Things have definitely improved. There have been a few ups and downs - the downs were mostly a week or two after we started when he went through a major growth spurt and was starving all the time and waking up all night. But the past couple weeks have been GREAT!

Eli generally doesn't sleep very long in his morning nap, about an hour or so, but in his afternoon nap he always sleeps between 2 - 2 1/2 hours. A month ago I would have never believed that could happen. He would never sleep longer than 45 min. without waking up, but he does now! It's so great. He almost always takes a little catnap at 5 and then he's in bed by 7:30. Nights have definitely gotten better too. He usually wakes up 1-3 times in the night (always once to eat and then sometimes another time or two to get his pacifier), but that is SO much better than 5-6. In fact, last night he only woke up once after sleeping 10 hours!!! He slept from 7:15pm-5:15am, woke up and ate, and went back to sleep until 7:30am. WOW! (Oh, and I dropped the "dream feed" a few days after trying it. It just messed him up and made him wake up a bunch, so I ditched that and it's been great).

So in case you haven't guessed already, I'm really happy about this. :) It's amazing how much more I can get done and how much more rested I feel. I love it! And Eli loves it too. Speaking of the little guy, here are a few of the many faces of Eli:

Cute as a button:Most common, wide-eyed alert face:
Scary monster: (I'm sorry, but I can't look at this picture without cracking up! I'm so glad I caught this on camera. Haha.)
And of course, happy smiling boy:

"Tasty Tuesdays"

Cooking has become something I really enjoy doing, so I thought it would be fun to post a recipe on here every Tuesday. I am by no means amazing, but I think it's fun, so that's all that matters, right? A lot of my recipes come from other people (mostly family) so I will make sure I always give credit where credit is deserved. I may not be able to come up with something every Tuesday, but I thought it would be fun to try.

So this week I thought I would start off with my Garlic Chicken Pizza recipe that I mentioned in a post week or so ago. I've had a few people request this, so I thought it would be a good one to start with. A year or so ago I was searching for a recipe kind of like this online, and I found one (called Roasted Garlic White Pizza), but I've changed it quite a bit, so now I think I can say it's mine and I won't bother saying where I got it from (especially since I can't remember). So here it goes...

Garlic Chicken Pizza

The Top:

1 1/4 c. milk
2 T. butter
2 T. flour
1-2 heads roasted garlic (see recipe below)
(heads, not cloves; 1-2 depending on how much you like)
salt and pepper to taste
2 c. grated mozzarella cheese
2 T. chopped fresh basil (or 1 T. dried)
2 T. chopped fresh parsley (or 1 T. dried)
1 large chicken breast (see recipe below)
a little olive oil, oregano, garlic salt

I start with the garlic and the chicken:

To roast the garlic: Cut off the top, drizzle a little olive oil over, wrap in aluminum foil and stick in a 375 degree oven for 45 min. - 1 hr. until soft (it will smell delicious). Let cool enough so you can handle it and then squish out the cloves.

To cook the chicken: (do this at the same time as your garlic). Drizzle a little olive oil over the chicken breast and sprinkle a little oregano, garlic salt and pepper and cook until done (about the same amount as the garlic). Cut into bite-sized pieces.

While it cooks, I make the dough:

Pizza Dough (this is a recipe from my Aunt Marilyn)

1 1/4 c. lukewarm water
1 Tbsp. yeast
2 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. oil
3 c. flour (about)
cornmeal, for rolling it out

Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water. Let set 5 minutes. Add salt, sugar and oil. Add flour gradually and mix well. Let rise 20 minutes.

While it rises, I make the sauce:

In a saucepan, melt butter. When it starts to bubble add flour and stir until smooth. Whisk in milk. Get out all the lumps. Cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add salt and pepper and cook until thick. Turn off heat.

Mash up your roasted garlic cloves and add to the sauce. (If you don't like chunks at all, stick it and the sauce in a blender and blend until smooth).

Assemble:

Roll out your pizza dough in cornmeal and put on your pan (or however you do your pizza, a stone, or whatever). Top with sauce, cheese and chicken (and then a little more cheese).

Bake in a 500 degree oven for 8-10 minutes, until crust and cheese get a little brown. Top with chopped fresh herbs.

I hope this makes sense! It really is tasty. And if you had an herb garden this year, hopefully you still have some so you can have fresh herbs. So yummy! Enjoy!

Brother Bonding

Last night we had Jeremy's brother Jonathan over with his sweet girlfriend Shannon. We hadn't had Jon up in awhile, so it was really nice to visit with him and get to know his girlfriend better. She is so sweet and great! We are excited about her. :) We had a yummy dinner, played Yahtzee and ate some lemon bars for dessert. It was a great night! Here's a cute picture of Jon, Shannon and Eli (the only picture I took):
Thanks for coming you guys! We'll definitely do this again.
By the way, doesn't she have the cutest dimples ever? I love it.

Tender Mercies

When Jeremy got called to be in the bishopric 3 weeks before I was due to have Eli, one of my biggest worries was handling Sundays all by myself. But the Lord really does bless us and I have felt blessed every Sunday. We have choir practice before church pretty much every Sunday (and I'm the choir director), so that can be a little stressful sometimes. But, as I said, I have been blessed.

During the week, Eli doesn't usually sleep too long on his morning nap, but every Sunday he gets tired earlier than usual, so I put him down for a nap at 8:30 and he always sleeps right until it's time to go at 10:00 (I often have to wake him up), so I have plenty of time to get myself ready for choir/church. (Blessing Number One). Then, and I know this sounds silly, I always get all the green lights on the way to church! Our building isn't very far (hello, we live in Utah) but it can take anywhere from 2-10 minutes depending on the lights, and I usually only plan enough time for 5 minutes, so getting the green lights is great. (Blessing Number Two). Then Sacrament Meeting is always the challenge. Eli's afternoon nap usually starts at 1:00 and we have Sacrament Meeting last, so it starts at 12:50. So most Sundays he gets really tired and cranky and I often have to take him out, except on the Sundays the choir sings! (like today). He actually fell asleep at the beginning of Sacrament Meeting, then was awake and happy all through 1st speaker and the choir singing, and didn't get cranky until the very end. (Blessing Number Three).

I am always amazed every Sunday on how well everything goes. The Lord really does love us and He knows our needs, even small little things like making green lights and not having to pass off a crying baby while you direct the choir (people much prefer watching a happy baby). I'm grateful for the tender mercies the Lord shows me every Sunday. I know it will get harder, especially when there are 2-3 kids to juggle by myself (like my sister Wendy whose husband is also in the bishopric, but she and my sister Amy are superwomen), but I also know that the Lord will continue to look out for me and I know Jeremy is grateful that I have been blessed so he can be a servant of the Lord.

By the way, our choir sang "Behold the Wounds in Jesus' Hands" today and it was so beautiful. You need to look it up and read the words and have your choir sing it if you haven't already. :)

Yum!

When Jeremy's mom was here back in June we made delicious raspberry jam, about 9 or 10 half-pints I think. Well, we only had one jar left until last night! Raspberries were majorly on sale this past week, so I bought some more and we made 8 more half-pints last night. Hooray! It is so tasty. I keep waiting for strawberries to go on sale, but maybe they aren't going to this year. Lame. Strawberry freezer jam is my favorite! But this raspberry jam is a close second (and is now Jeremy's favorite). Here's a picture of our deliciousness:

Another busy weekend

Friday night we had the High Priests Social. :) It was actually pretty fun. It was a dinner and they had a "tailgate party" theme They displayed the food on two tables: a red one, for U of U fans, and a blue one for BYU fans. They went all out with red/blue plates, cups, utensils, etc. And they had a trivia quiz about the football teams. Pretty cute. So that was fun to visit with some people there.

Then Saturday was super busy. Jeremy gets the award this weekend for all of his cheerful service. We had a funeral of an older lady in our ward on Saturday morning and Jeremy was pretty much in charge of getting everything ready. Our bishop had to be somewhere else right up until the funeral started, so Jeremy got to the church at 8:30 am (the funeral started at 11:00) to make sure everything was set up and ready for the viewing at 9:30. The husband (the widower) requested that the choir sing 2 hymns and that Jeremy and I do a duet. I felt a little strange because I had never, and still have never met the man or his wife, but we were happy to help out. We just found that out last Tuesday night, so my choir was more like an octet, but we did our best. So that was a busy morning for both of us, Jeremy running around like a crazy man, and me trying to get the choir ready and trying to keep a wiggly baby quiet during a funeral. But it all worked out.

Then that afternoon we went to the Greek Festival. Opa! It was pretty fun. It was in downtown Salt Lake and there were a ton of people there. We walked around a bit and then ate some yummy Greek food: gyros, spanikopita (sp?), Greek salad, feta cheese, and some dessert-custard-gala-gatsa-something-or-other-I-don't-know-the-name thing. But it was tasty! We stood in line behind a guy who also served his mission in Greece, but it was back in 1990 when it was first opened. So that was fun for he and Jeremy to talk about how much things had changed. We also got to see the "Athenian Dancers". Greek dancing is pretty much holding hands and walking in a circle, but the music was fun and they did a good job anyway. I don't think Eli had ever seen so many people so close together or heard so much noise, but he had a fun time looking around and soaking it all in. :)

It was kind of bright outside of the tents, but we had to get a picture in front of the sign:
Dancers:
Yay for the Greek Festival!
Inside the Greek Orthodox Church. A little strange, I'm not gonna lie. The music playing totally reminded me of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" when Ian gets baptized.
Then Sunday was another busy day for Jeremy. He had church meetings/duties from 7am-3:15pm and then again from 5:30pm-9:30pm. But he never complains. In fact, he's always telling me how blessed he is and how inspired and uplifed and grateful he feels for all his opportunities. What a guy. He's a great example to me. It is true though, we have been very blessed. Jeremy also spoke in Sacrament meeting yesterday about obedience and did a great job. It was a really nice Sunday. There was a great spirit in all the meetings at church and then I enjoyed a quiet evening of reading the Ensign after Eli went to bed and before Jeremy got home. Sundays can be relaxing after all! Sometimes I forget that.

So that was our fun this weekend. We don't have too much going on for the next little bit, of which I am very grateful. I discovered that since Eli was born, no more than 3 weeks have gone by without someone coming to stay with us, or us traveling somewhere (mostly people staying with us). So we're enjoying the lull. We love our company, but we also love being home and spending time as a family. As Jeremy gets busier and busier with work and his church calling, we're discovering more and more how precious that family time is and we try to make the most of it.

But anyway...here is a cute picture I took the other day of Jeremy and Eli being matchy-matchy. No, I did not plan this. I didn't realize they were matching until Jeremy got home from work (I was half-asleep when he left). Eli's eyes are turning brown too, just like his daddy's. I think these guys are pretty darn cute!

"New" Piano

We have a real piano! Here's the [short version] story.

My aunt Marie has this piano that she gave to her daughter, my cousin, Michelle when she moved up to Boise. Well, Michelle moved back home and they don't have a place for the piano in their house so a few months ago she asked if we would like to hold it for them for while.

YES we would!!!

So they finally went and picked it up in Boise and brought it over a couple weeks ago. I don't know how long we'll have it, but I'm guessing for a couple years at least. It was a bit of a beast for them to move in and my uncle said he didn't want to see it (or mostly, he didn't want to move it) again for a long time.

I hadn't realized how much I missed having a real piano. (By the way, if you're confused, we have a digital piano, but I don't consider that "real". It's great and functional and was inexpensive, but I am very aware of the difference between it and this "real" aka acoustic piano). I have played the acoustic piano everyday since we got it.

This is such a little blessing for us. Of course we would have loved to buy a real piano of our own, but with buying a house last year and having a baby and putting up a fence this year, it just wasn't in the works. Now we get the benefit of having one for potentially a few years and hopefully by the time we have to give it back we'll have enough saved to get one of our own!

So in the meantime we're keeping both pianos and now our "living room" really is the "piano room" (that's what we always called it anyway). Here's a picture of our new setup. (The bench is being repaired).
It's also great timing because my little sis Heidi is playing in the concerto competition at BYU in November and she asked me to accompany her, so now we have 2 pianos to practice on! Yea!

The rest of our great weekend

I already wrote about Saturday, but I forgot to mention what we did on Friday night. Jeremy invited a friend from work over and his girlfriend. (Charles & Judy). We made yummy Mexican food and then they brought this game over to play. It's called "Corn Hole". Charles is from Ohio and I guess it's really big over there. It's kind of like a bean bag toss game. Anyway, it was really fun! And the weather was perfect for an outdoor evening game.

Then on Sunday after church, Heidi came up with one of her roommates Jamisyn. I taught them how to make Garlic Chicken Pizza and it was delicious! Then we went over to my grandparents for "family night" and had a nice lesson about temples and, of course, yummy treats afterward. Later that night, Jeremy's aunt and uncle came through to spend the night on their way from Idaho to New Mexico.

So Monday morning we made waffles and eggs and visited with them until they took off around 10:00. Then at 11:30 we had a couple and their 1 yr. old son from our ward over. I'm accompanying for the girl to sing a solo next Sunday, so we needed to practice and we decided to go ahead and have lunch together too. The boys all played together while we practiced and then we had a yummy lunch. We had a great time! Then we were planning on going to see "Up" at the dollar theater. We wanted to see how Eli would do in a movie, and figured the dollar was a safe place to try that out. But...it was sold out! I have never seen so many people there. I guess everyone had the same idea for the holiday. So we went to a park instead and walked around a bit and then lounged on the grass under the shade of a big tree. Eli had a blast. He was squealing in delight the whole time. I guess he likes big trees? I don't know. It was breezy so maybe he liked looking at them in the wind. Then we stopped at Redbox on the way home and rented "State of Play". After we put Eli to bed, we had a late dinner and watched our movie (which was very intense and very good, by the way). It was a fun way to end the weekend!

We really had a good time with everything we did this weekend. We decided we want to go out and do more things, so this was a good start. Up next on the calendar: this Friday we have a High Priests Group Social and Saturday we're going to the Greek Festival in Salt Lake! I'm so excited. If you didn't know already, Jeremy served his mission in Greece and Cyprus. So we're excited to get some yummy food and maybe get Jeremy a chance to see if he remembers any Greek!

Unfortunately I am lame, and only remembered to take one picture this weekend. But here it is. This is Eli before church on Sunday. (Of course, wearing another hand-me-down. What would I do without them??)

Perfect Saturday

Today was a great day. Here's what happened:

• 7:15 I got up with Eli and fed him and played with him for a bit
• 7:45 Jeremy got up and told me to go back to bed. I obeyed! And I got a great nap.
• 8:45-10:45 Eli had his nap; Jeremy and I had breakfast, lazed around a bit. :)
  
• 11:00 - Fed Eli, did dishes, played the piano for awhile (I need to blog about our piano later)
• 12:45 - Put Eli down for a nap; I ran some errands
• 3:00 - Eli woke up; I fed him, and we went to get pictures taken at JC Penney. He was so good! He smiled a bunch and warmed right up to the photographer.
• 5:00 - We decided to push our luck with our perfect baby and we went out to dinner. Eli did not let us down! He took his little catnap while we ate and then we came home and played for a little longer.
• 7:00 - We got Eli ready for bed, I fed him and put him to bed.
• 8:00 - I'm typing this. :) And we're watching an intense movie on TV and following the BYU football game on ESPN.com
  

I love the weekends! It really was a great day. And I'm so excited that Jeremy has Monday off too! Here are a few favorites from the photo session:




***Update: Go BYU! Too bad we don't have cable. That would've been a really fun game to see. But we got the play-by-play on ESPN so that was pretty exciting. Goooooo Cougars!

4 months

Eli had his 4 month checkup today and he's still growing (obviously). He weighed in at 17.1 pounds (85th percentile) and is 27 in. long (96th percentile). That was about what I expected. I feel like he just had a major growth spurt the past week, so I thought he would be more long than filled out. In a week or two, he'll probably chub out again. :) It's crazy how fast babies grow! I was just looking at pictures from a week or so ago, and he looked really chubby right before his growth spurt, and now he looks so long! He is a cutie.

Last weekend we had fun with my mom and sister. They drove out last Wednesday to get ready for Heidi to start school. Here's what we did:

• Thursday: Heidi went down to Provo to buy books, audition for choir, etc.; mom went to the music store for a few hours; I stayed home. That night I had a Relief Society social; Jeremy watched Eli; Heidi and mom went to grandparents for dinner

• Friday: Heidi, mom, and I (and Eli) spent the day in Provo moving Heidi in and grocery shopping! It was exhausting but we pretty much got it all done.

• Saturday: Jeremy's birthday! My mom watched Eli that night and Jeremy and I went miniature golfing! It was really fun. We actually tied. Jeremy was ahead in the beginning, but then I found my groove and caught up. :)

• Sunday: My mom and I sang in church and Heidi accompanied us. We then had my grandparents over for dinner and we all ate more yummy birthday cake (pictures below).

• Monday: Mom went home. Heidi started school and had callbacks for Singers!

• Tuesday: Heidi found out she made it into Singers! Congrats Heidi!!

So that's what we've been up to. We're looking forward to the 3-day weekend. Here are some pictures for your enjoyment:

I think Eli looks like his cousin Cooper in this picture (when Cooper was a baby):
This is what I see when I got to get Eli up from his naps:
Jeremy's yummy chocolate chocolate birthday cake:

Hangin with Grandma:
Making a funny face:
Fresh from the bath:
Taken today:

I told him to smile and he looked up and gave me this cute face: