About Me
We are Sara, Kyle, Noah, and Eli living in the city. These our are adventures: cooking, playing, creating, laughing, and yes, sometimes, crying. We believe strongly in the "it takes a village" philosophy to not only raise children but to also build a community of people to help each other. Welcome to our little hut in this great big world. "Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint you can at it." - Danny Kaye
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Santa
Looking for the North Pole and Santa.
We went to the Houston Science Musuem this past weekend. While looking at the globe sculpture, Noah was reminded of Santa and the North pole. The conversation between Kyle and Noah went something like this:
Noah: I want to see where Santa lives.
Kyle: (restraining from obscene sighing and keeping his Santa frustration in check) Buddy Santa isn’t real. We already talked about this.
Noah: YES he is real! (in his best three year old “hell yes he’s real” voice).
We haven’t tried to shield Noah from Santa. This was the first year we did absolutely nothing for Christmas. The past few years we have been visiting Christmas because my family celebrates the holiday. He was too young to understand what was going on. Apparently 3 is the magic age when children wake to the world around them.
I’m not sure which is more significant building up the idea of Santa only to have it dashed away because children know it isn’t real, or to strip Santa down to the person who is wearing the suit, and flat out telling our children he isn’t real.
But I told Kyle if we push it, like we did with potty training (a whole other stressful episode in parenting), he’s just going to fight it. And he’s 3, he’ll believe almost anything we tell him. I’m sure if we focused on Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo, he’d be all in to it. Then we’d have to find the place where Mr. Hankey lives on the globe.
This is a child who believes the sun can engulf the Earth at any moment, believes everything he does and is is bigger than anyone else’s.
And so Santa has made his presence in our Jewish household. Hohoho!
Foodie Day
Today was a yummy day!
Mexican Chocolate Cookies
I made Mexican Chocolate Cookies from this month’s Cooking Light. They reminded me of snickerdoodles but chocolaty.
And it reminded me of this:
Mexican hot chocolate. It’s the cinnamon kick in the cookies. Abuelita looks like she has some good gossip to share.
Dinner was Kyle’s kick ass risotto. Which we are now dubbing as our “How I Caught Your Mommy and made her gain 20 pounds” meal. Okay maybe without the 20 pounds bit. This is Kyle’s dish because he takes such loving care with the whole process and it is delicious.
Eli and Noah both loved the risotto. I took this shot to show off Eli’s new love of eating with utensils (and then throwing them on the floor, tonight 3 forks and one spoon ended up on the ground). In contrast, Noah was eating with his hands. These kids are such opposites.
Utensil lover
I have 20 dinner and 4 desert recipes planned out for January. I am getting on board with this planning business. Maybe I can plan 10 blog posts for January. Start with some reachable goals.
Mexican Chocolate Cookies
5 oz bittersweet chocolate (60% cacao)
3/4 c. flour
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
Dash of black pepper
Dash of ground red pepper (I left it out b/c of kids)
1 1/4 c. sugar
1/4 c. butter
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Place the chocolate in a small bowl; microwave at HIGH 1 minute or until almost melted, stirring until smooth. Cool to room temperature.
3. Weigh or lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with knife. Combine the flour and next 5 ingredients (through ground red pepper); stir well with a whisk.
4. Combine sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Drop dough by level tablespoons 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until set. Cool on pans 2 minutes or until set. Remove from pans; cool completely on a wire rack. Yield: 32 cookies.
Cooking Light – Dec. 2009
Presents
It’s a challenge to balance presents between two kids. I wanted to make sure they were fair and equal, even if that meant size wise. Tomorrow is the last night of Channukah, and the big presents are a coming. They have been getting little gifts, a ball, playdoh, cars, new game.
The least liked gift, as least for Noah aka as the opinionated one, was the stuffed piglet on the first night.
Just minutes after piglet was opened….
Channukah - Day 1
…he ended up in the play kitchen oven.
Baked Piglet.
Kyle commented, “Your not treating Piglet like a friend, your treating him like a piece of meat.” And soon after that Noah wanted to put Piglet in the refrigerator.
I thought he would be into Piglet because he loves the House on Pooh Corner stories. And he’s been going through a phase where he is calling all of us different characters from the story. He is Strong Piglet. Apparently somethings are just better in his imagination.
The other gifts have going off swimmingly and with lots of enthusiasm. I’m actually not sure where Piglet has ended up at this point. One out of eight gifts is too bad.
Next year, I’ll plan better! I saw someone who did their holiday cards in the summer. I might just try that next year. Get to making my gifts and holiday cards done super early.
Then again, I may just be trying to survive a hot, humid existence.
Twitter: @sarafree- @charliechauvin very sad news you share.
- Word of the day: kleptocrat.
- Chicken and dumplings for dinner, chocolate coconut cream pie for dessert.