Sillies

Crazy Babies from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.

Oh, No!

Thomas finishes his "foo foo" (peanut butter and jelly sandwich), holds out his sticky hands and says, "Oh, no!"

----

The Cookie Monster dvd freezes because, as I discover a few minutes later, there is peanut butter on it. Thomas points to the tv and says, "Oh, no!"

----

Thomas methodically takes out each of the pegs in his pound-a-peg toy. Then, he picks up the base, holds it up to his face and says, "Oh, no!"

New Bike

Thomas's New Schwinn Roadster from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.

Did you see that little pat he gave it there at the end? He slept with it in his room last night too.

Thanks Grandpa Jerry!

This is not an announcement.*

Me: What do you think of the name Merritt for a girl?

Jeremy: Merritt Garrett?

Me: Oh. Never mind.


*To be perfectly clear, I'm not pregnant.

Le Creuset

Happy Birthday To Me! Jeremy bought me a Le Creuset french oven for my birthday! (I guess he wanted my undying affection. Or maybe just dinner.)



I l.o.v.e. love it. I may have licked it when I took it out of the box yesterday. The woman who runs the Amazon shop Jeremy bought it from even sent a matching pot holder and oven mitt.

I know some people might wonder if I really need a $200 pot. And of course I don't need it. But I'll use it at least 3 times a week for the foreseeable future. And, perhaps the thing I like most about it, it will outlive me. Someday someone will pry it from my cold, dead fingers I'll pass it on to someone else and they'll still be able to use it for years. It's an heirloom, people.

Christmas by the Numbers

Days Away from Home: 18
Hours on an Airplane: 9
Hours Driving Between Newton and KC: 24
Car Accidents: 2
Separate Christmas Celebrations: 4 (If this sounds like fun, you and Christmas need to get a room.)
Hours Stuck in the Snow by I-35: 1.5
Movies Watched in the Theater: 3
Pictures Taken: 6 (FAIL. 2009: The Lost Christmas)
Money Spent on Gas: $351.38
Pounds Gained: 14

Food Friday - Vegetable Pot Pie

I am really proud of this recipe. I glanced at a couple of pot pie recipes, wrote my own version and it came out perfect. Admittedly, pot pie is a pretty hard to screw up but still a lot of my experiments never come back for a repeat performance. I could eat this once a week. Although, I'm not sure this really is a pot pie since I made it in a pie dish. Maybe it's just a pie?


Vegetable Pot Pie

Crust:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp butter
1/3 + cup soy milk

Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Cut cold butter into 1/2 inch cubes. Blend butter into flour mixture until resembles coarse meal. Add milk, stirring just until dough forms. 1/3 cup will not be quite enough, add a little bit at a time until the dough comes together. Gather dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until needed.


Pie Filling:
1 onion, diced small
1 large carrot, diced small
1 stalk celery, diced small
4 oz mushrooms, diced small
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 potato, peeled and diced small
3/4 cup frozen corn
3/4 cup frozen peas
1 cup vegetable broth
1/2 cup soy milk
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 tbsp corn starch
1 tbsp soy sauce

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Saute onion, carrot and celery until softened, 8-10 minutes. Add mushrooms and garlic, saute 2 minutes more. Add potato, corn and peas. Stir in vegetable broth and soy milk, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are about 1/2 done, 5-10 minutes. Add salt and pepper.

In a small bowl mix cornstarch, soy sauce and 1/2 cup of water until cornstarch is dissolved. Stir cornstarch mixture into vegetable and cok until sauce thickens, about 3 minutes.

Pour filling into a 9-inch pie pan. Roll pie dough into a 12-inch round. (Or do the best you can. Biscuit dough is sticky so the end product probably won't be perfect.) Cover vegetables with dough, sealing edges. Cut 4 steam vents into dough and brush with 1 tbsp melted butter.

Bake pie until crust is golden and filling is bubbling, 25-30 minutes. Cool on rack 10-15 minutes before serving.

Toddler Party

Thomas hosted a little toddler party last night. Here he is with Everett enjoying h'ors doeuvres that they whipped up together.

Cooking from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.

As the evening wore on, they got more and more rambunctious. There's a reason you can't serve alcohol to little kids. They don't need it.

Fallout from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.

So, I sort of forgot I had a blog. Um, maybe intentionally. But maybe not. Just halfway intentionally.

Here are two cute videos of Thomas. Maybe I'll get back into the swing of things.

Thomas Outside from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.

Thomas in the Tub from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.

Thomas's New Friend

Thomas has another little friend.

This is Everett but he doesn't look like this anymore. He got his first haircut for his 2nd birthday last week. Now, he looks like a tiny version of his dad.



Everett and his mom Lauren come over once or twice a week. Lauren is super nice and seems to get dressed every single day which completely blows my mind.

Thomas and Ev mostly like having access to each other's toys but they're also starting to play together.

Smart Guy

Letters from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.

First No

Saturday Night

Me: Thomas come give mama night-night kisses. It's time to pick out a book and go night-night with daddy.

Thomas: NOOOOO!

Many no's have followed.

Thomas's Favorite Cars Guys

Cars from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.

Li = Lightning McQueen

Sashe = Sally

Looking back through the last couple of posts, I realized that it looks like we only dress Thomas when he leaves the house. Which is basically the case. In our defense it's regularly been over 100 degrees here. It was 104 on Saturday. We don't turn the air conditioning on unless it gets over 95 and even then we only use it for an hour or two during the hottest part of the day. A minimum of clothing is required.

However, fall is finally here! The high today is only 72. We're going to have to pull ourselves together and wrangle some clothes onto the kid.

TV Monster

Thomas and I found these tiny Sesame Street figures while we were clearance hunting at Target today. He officially loves them. I asked him where his Sesame Street guys were at one point today, so now he calls them guy. (He's not so big on plurals.) It's just one of the four words he started saying today.

Guy (24)
Melmo = Elmo (25)
Out (26)
Dow = Down (27)

(Yes. I'm still keeping track. It should surprise no one that I have spreadsheet for this very purpose.)

He's super cute wandering around saying cookie all day. Nevertheless, we've cut way back on his tv time. He was watching around an hour a day which doesn't seem like a lot but frankly it turned him into a huge jerk.

He screams when I turn the tv off. He doesn't cry; he literally screams. In the last week or so, he also started screaming at us whenever the slightest thing didn't happen exactly the way he expected/wanted it to happen. I finally realized that when he watches tv his default reaction to frustration for the rest of the day is to scream in my face. So, we're taking a break. It's a bummer because I was really hoping Big Bird would teach him the alphabet.

#23

Pahta = Pasta

More Pahta from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.

Food Friday - Rice, Beans and Tomatoes

I have two dishes that I make when I don't feel like cooking but the monthly budget for take-out is already gone. One is the pasta bake I've posted before though I usually skip the last step of covering it with cheese and baking it. The other is this week's Food Friday.

Here's what you need for Rice, Beans and Tomatoes.


Three boxes and four cans. I've been making this forever. When I lived alone it was one of each. Then, when I started seeing Jeremy it grew to two boxes of rice, 2 cans of tomatoes and 1 can of beans. When we moved in together, I adjusted the recipe again so there would be leftovers for lunch the next day.



Rice, Beans and Tomatoes

3 boxes Rice-a-Roni Whole Grain Blends Roasted Garlic Italiano
2 cans diced tomatoes, drained
2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed

Make the rice according to package directions. (I skip the oil it calls for). When the rice is ready, dump in the tomatoes and beans and stir. Heat through. Eat.

Thomas gave a fairly accurate demonstration of how to make this meal here.

Thomas and the Slide

Hmm ...

Maybe ...

Whoosh.

What's next?

Food Friday - Sesame Noodles

So, Food Fridays are hard. I thought it would be easy because I already have all of my recipes in a word document. Cut and paste is pretty simple. But the pictures trip me up all the time. I am rarely moved to make a recipe that isn't accompanied by a photo so it's not something I want to skip.

Taking a decent picture of food is really hard when you know as little about photography as I do. One thing I do know is that you need good light and the light in our house is not good. Food photographed in bad light does not look appetizing. So, I have to go outside to take the picture. And somehow that's always a problem. Either I start cooking too late and it's dark outside when dinner is ready or I forget to take the picture until after it's gotten dark. Unfortunately, leftovers do not photograph well either.

But! I managed to take a picture of these Sesame Noodles.


These noodles have a unique flavor. They don't taste like anything else in our regular dinner rotation and they're better at room temperature than hot. It's a nice departure from everything else that we eat.


Sesame Noodles
Adapted from Everyday Food, May 2008

6 oz or 1/2 box of whole wheat spaghetti
1 small onion, quartered and sliced into thin strips
1 red bell pepper, sliced into thin strips
2 small heads broccoli, cut into florets/stems peeled and chopped
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Cook spaghetti according package directions using extra water to leave room for the vegetables. 4 minutes before spaghetti is done, add onion, bell pepper and broccoli. Cook until pasta is al dente and vegetables are tender-crisp. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup of pasta water.

Meanwhile, whisk together peanut butter, sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, oil, garlic and red pepper flakes. Thin the sauce with reserved pasta water. You want a pourable consistency. Add sauce to hot pasta and vegetables. Toss to coat. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

Shadow Chef

Thomas makes dinner.

Pour in the Rice

Add the Spices

Some Water

Black Beans

New Tool

Measure the Tomatoes

Give it a Stir

Cover and Simmer

Too Cute to Kill

This ... This ... big jerk is luck to be alive. If I hadn't poured milk, blood, sweat and tears into this kid for the last two years, I might have killed him today. He locked me out of the house! Twice!

While I was in the garage this morning doing laundry, Thomas locked the door. Only, he doesn't know how to unlock it. I went outside to an open window and told him to go open the door for mommy. He just stared at me. He wouldn't even go over to the door and try to open it. So, I went back into the garage and knocked on the door. Nothing. When I went back to the window to see what he was doing, he was sitting on the couch watching Sesame Street.

Fortunately, I found a way to take the screen apart without ruining it. I climbed in through the window. Thomas didn't even blink an eye. I turned the television off and told him not to play with the door anymore. I put our extra set of keys in the garage. Then, I went outside and fixed the screen.

A little while later, I went out to hang laundry. Thomas's laundry no less. I was just thinking that I needed to go inside to check on him when I looked up and noticed that the door from the garage to the backyard was closed. We leave it open all day long to keep the garage from getting too hot. I walked over and it was locked. Thomas had gone out into the garage, shut the door and locked me out. On purpose.

I looked in the window to find Thomas. He was, I kid you not, sitting on the loveseat flipping through a magazine. When I called through the window to him, he wouldn't even look at me. So, I had to take the screen apart all over again.

And to think I was planning to write a nice post about what a good sleeper he has turned into and how he likes to play in his crib and what a nice change that is from when he spent most of his time in bed screaming. There will be no nice posts about Thomas today.