Picture Project Nightmare

You may have noticed the super cute picture frame we made for my mother-in-law, Mamie, for Christmas.  In case you can't see the picture well enough - each photo is of her grandkids holding a letter that spells out her name, We Love M-A-M-I-E.  What you didn't see was the hellacious 4 months it took to pull this off.

Way back in September, my sister emailed me an example suggesting it would be a sweet Christmas present for our dad, Grampy.  Agreed!  She and I split up the letters in his name and committed to capture our kids holding them.  It was so cute - I would only be responsible for 3 pictures - and it was September, PLENTY OF TIME - so I decided to do this also for my mother-in-law.


The irony is that although the idea originated with my family, my dad still has yet to get HIS version of this present.


Anyway, what seemed like a great idea in theory soon became a living reality - taking pictures of small kids is HARD and only gets harder when you try to introduce props!!!  What were we thinking???  There are generally less than 10 seconds to snap any photo of your kid - less when you have bribed them into doing something completely unnatural (like hold a wooden 9" letter upright, not blocking their face, and smiling).  Much less trying to get angle and lighting all a gazillion other elements just right.  


I would snap hundreds of photos only to realize the lighting was a bit off.  Or the letter ended up partially covered.  Or the letter was too small in the background.  Or the only picture of the kid smiling turned out blurry.  Or that I accidentally shot them all horizontally when they should have been vertical!  TORTURE!!!


I think this was my first attempt (never mind that I later realized I actually had purchased the letter W instead of an M).

Sydney refused to hold the letter and when I tried propping it in the foreground, she'd just grab and toss it to the side.  I got this face a lot.

I had to get more creative with her.  Distraction!


Here Sydney!  Swing and smile!

Look at the pretty lemons!

Mmmm.  Cumquats!  

How about this mom!

Always pay close attention to your surroundings!  One minor angle adjustment and you get this... Roto-Rooter.

A couple of times, in my delirium, I tried to capture pics of BOTH kids in the photo with the letter.  

I think he's being threatened here.  Whether she's making it clear he should not cooperate with me - or never pull her pony tail again - I'm not sure.

Posing them for pictures on the stairs was not my best moment.  For the record, no child was injured in the making of this project.

Fletcher had been the easier one.  But once he got mobile, his photos became immensely harder.  


Good idea.  Fast kid.  Slow mommy.  Failed execution.

What made it more painful were the completely adorable photos my sis-in-law took of her four older and much more cooperative kids.  

It gives me hope.


Although painful, when we got this reaction Christmas morning...

...I realized it was all worthwhile.  I'm so glad she liked it.  Treasure it forever, Mamie.  Cause I won't be doing this again anytime soon!

Exposing Myself

I am about to completely expose myself to you.  Don't worry - there's no nudity here.  It's worse.  Much worse.  I'm showing you my pantry!

EEK!  How embarrassing.  

I particularly like this shelf... crackers, protein powder, some table decor leftover from the fall, bowl, tongs, a jar of pimentos and I think I see a candle in there.  Makes perfect sense, right?  Actually, it probably does when you have young kids.

Crockpot, more crackers, bags and Syd's LSU purse.

While the kids are a major hinderance to keeping the pantry clean and organized, I can't blame it all on them.  Honestly, when we moved in I just sort of put things in there with the intent to go back and organize later.  Ha!  Almost a year later, it seemed time to finally do something about it!

It's probably a project that should be taken on at least once a year.  I can't tell you how many vitamins and drugs I threw away due to expiration.  Or partial bags of chips or crackers!  They were everywhere.

And the duplicates - oh my!  Just last week I bought a can of green chiles for chili.  Turns out I already had FOUR cans in the pantry.  Just couldn't' find them.  We also have three jars of fish oil supplements.  Seriously?

Sadly, this peanut butter collection is not due to lack of organization.  But rather an obsession.  Peter Pan Whipped is Pat's absolute favorite.  It's not always easy to find, so when he does spot it, we get a stock pile of at least 4 jars.  

One of my New Year Resolutions has been to get a bit more organized.  Now, I'm not getting too crazy.  I am not following any books or lists - although there are many great ones out there and if that's your thing, check out my friend's blog who is getting seriously organized this year!  I applaud her, am cheering her on and can't wait to see what tricks she comes up with to make her home run more smoothly.  I just wasn't ready for all that yet.  I don't need any other reasons to feel inadequate.  


I'm just tackling areas of the house that bother me.  I am not a super organized person by nature (clearly).  Everything does not have a place in my house.  I'm ok with that and I think it would make me crazy to try and be that uber-organized person.  But I can do better.  So I'm getting organized.  But in my own way.


This particular project took me almost two weeks.  But only because it wasn't my sole focus for one day or afternoon like it probably should have been.  A little purging here.  A little purging there.  Trip to the store for bins.  Not the right size.  Back to the store.  Not enough.  Back to the store.  Still need more.  Need another size.  


And viola!  Look, NOTHING on the floor!

 Beauty and peace!

This "organized" pantry isn't winning any style or creativity awards.  And I still have a few tweaks... to add labels and change out those black bins at the back (I was afraid the non-matching bins would bother me - and they do).  But by and large, it's done!  Whew.  And it feels so good.  Sometimes I open the door and just stare in wonder.  Maybe I'm taking it all in before the kids destroy it again.  Sigh.  Now to just keep it up.  

Dinnertime

Dinnertime perplexes me.


Everyday.  Every.  Single.  Day.  Around 5:15pm.  The meltdown begins.  It's like the sun goes down and out come the vampires.  I'm usually in the final minutes of dinner preparation but no manner of snacks will hold off the starving children hanging on my ankles.  They want dinner and they want it NOW.


Finally we get dinner on the table and all sit down.  Only to have them refuse to eat and want down to play less than 2 minutes into the meal (after Fletcher has sufficiently mashed every bit of food into his tray, clothes, chair and floor).  The good news is that most of the time they will go play like angels while Pat and I finish our meal.


So let me get this straight.  They cry.  We put them in chairs.  They stop crying.  We put them down.  They go play.  We eat in peace.


Ok.


Maybe next time I'll try offering plastic food.  At least that way there'll be less of a mess to clean up later.

Lemon Ricotta Pancakes

To continue my cooking spree, last weekend I began serious research to find the perfect lemon ricotta pancake.


I became slightly obsessed with finding this recipe after traveling to New York City last month and having THE best lemon ricotta pancakes here - at Sarabeth's!

These are practically the only photos I took while in NY.  They serve you 5 generous pancakes.  I ate all 5.  Twice.  Obsessed.

But NYC is a little far away for a Saturday morning breakfast, so I turned to Google for help and found this recipe to try.

Yes, you have to whip egg whites.  Yes, it's a little more time consuming than your average Bisquick pancake.  Hmmm - maybe a little too time consuming.... after tuning out 4,239 "mama's" I looked up to find Sydney changing her own diaper.  Oops.  I was in a zone.

This is probably not going to be a weekday staple.   But once in a while for a special weekend breakfast, it's excellent.

I found the pancakes to be a little too light and will adjust to only whip 4 egg whites next time to see if I can get the consistency right.  But the flavor was pretty dang close to the real thing.


I'm also slightly obsessed right now with the ability to cook multiple pancakes at once thanks to this awesome double burner griddle I got for Christmas!!!

Mmmm.  Got Sydney's stamp of approval too!

 

What's Cookin!

I'm not sure what got into me.  


Since we returned from Christmas vaca I've been on a cooking spree.  And I like it.


Not just cooking because I have to.  Cooking because I WANT to.


I brined a turkey breast and re-created the whole holiday meal (so not ready for it all to be over).  
Made Susan Spicer's shrimp and tomato bisque with homemade shrimp stock (HEAV-EN-LY).
Cooked a New Years meal complete with some if-i-had-a-southern-granny-she'd-be-proud-collards, black-eyed peas and ham.
Braised short ribs, roasted potatoes and brussel sprouts.


Even when I almost missed the mark last night because my protein hadn't thawed, I whipped up a delicious new recipe - banana bread pancakes - I found on Pinterest!  Because everyone loves breakfast for dinner.  And who doesn't love banana bread.  Mmm. Mmmm.  The kids scarfed them down and ate the leftovers this morning for breakfast.


And there are a pile of recipes just waiting for us to try.  One of my new years resolutions was to try at least 12 new recipes/meals.  At this rate I'm going to accomplish it before this month is even over!


Maybe it was my crazy month of travel.  Maybe it was being away from my kitchen and all of my kitchen things.  Maybe it was missing out on all the usual holiday baking.  Whatever it was, I'm having a great time and hope this season of joyful cooking lasts a while.


Sorry there are no photos to further torture you - too busy cooking and eating.