'Maters!

THIS came from MY garden!

Well, maybe not a garden.  More like a pot on my back patio.  But this is a big deal my friends.  I have the blackest of black thumbs.  But oh how I try to grow a few things.  Every year, I plant basil.  And every year, it begins looking sickly until I just give up and let it die.  This year's basil plant is no exception.  I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.  Too much water, not enough?


Anyway, in my humble opinion, nothing screams SUMMER more than fresh, tasty tomatoes.  Sadly, the ones from the grocery store lack any flavor whatsoever.  Even the farmers market varieties haven't been great lately.  For a few years I've thought about growing my own and this year I finally did it.  


Figured I'd start small.  After all, I have a tendency to kill anything I plant.  No need to sink a lot of money into this experiment.  


I was so excited a few weeks ago when I noticed one of the little tomatoes turning orange and beginning to ripen.  Two days later, there it was - all gloriously red and ready for harvest!

 That is, until I got a closer look.  Dang birds!

 So when the next little piece of fruit starting turning orange, I snatched it from the vine to let it finish ripen in my window, safe from our backyard wildlife.

Mmmm - it did not disappoint!  Just a little salt, pepper and a few basil leaves (from my withering plant).  I'm so excited!  Now, I just wish I had planted more.

Feeling Froggy

I was outside rolling up the garden hose this afternoon when a little frog jumped into my view.  I thought the kids would really enjoy seeing him, so I went inside, grabbed the first plastic food container I could find and managed to snatch him up.  He hung out with me for the afternoon in his tiny habitat of potting soil and a small garden rock.


The kids (especially the big one, Pat) thought he was pretty cool.  I got big mom and wife points for bravely catching the beast.  


He was a friendly little thing.  Even when we removed the lid from his confinement, he happily hung out, allowing the kids to touch him.  (I theorized that perhaps he was weak and gasping for air, recovering from his deplorable temporary housing.)


When we tried to set him free, he showed us that he had developed a particular fondness for Pat, a lover of all reptiles.

He kept hopping all over him - shoulder to back to hand and back to his arm.  I don't know how Sydney's delighted squeals didn't send him for the hills.  Or maybe that's what kept him put.

Bye little friend.  Thank you for the fun. 

Geaux Tigers!

While our kids might be banned from every applying there, we are pretty serious about our support of Pat's alma mater, LSU.  Check this out.  Look, even her bow and shorts match.  I swear that wasn't planned.  Honest.  Syd is just a huge fan of purple.  Coincidence?  

The bike was a great gift from our cousins - before Sydney was even born.  We waited a long time for this day.  Geaux Sydney!

Not to be left out, here is Fletcher attempting to... well, something.

She's got moves!

Friday was Sydney's first dance recital.  


Although she was super excited to put on her dance clothes and go, we had low expectations that she would actually participate.  She can get a little shy in group settings like that.  

Getting a pep talk from one of her dance teachers.

Her supportive dad and brother wait patiently for the show to begin.

Working out some last minute jitters backstage.

Model student - helping welcome all the parents.

And here she goes!

No, seriously.  That picture pretty much sums up her performance.  We were thrilled she actually stayed put with her other little dancer friends but there wasn't a whole lotta dancing to be done.  But gosh, they sure are cute!   


In case you'd like the video - of her standing in place - here it is - her big debut!  If you watch REAL closely, she makes a few movements in the second song.  Don't blink!

Thank God for little boys

This is where I found Fletcher yesterday.  On top of the kitchen counter (moving awfully close to the cooktop).  Sydney has been pulling the chair up to the counter to watch and help me cook since she could walk.  She has never.  Ever.  Tried to climb up onto the counter.

 And here is the result of his temper after I plucked him (again) from the muddy spot in the backyard.  I may need to put away all white clothing for a while.

Sydney has certainly been harder on my brain.  But Fletcher - well, he's just full contact right now.  Sydney never climbed on the counters or played in the mud, or stood out in the rain, or poured cat food into the cat's water bowl, or stomped crackers into crevices, or hid bananas to rot for days, or dove elbow deep into toilets, or destroyed multiple rolls of toilet paper.  Like he does.

But she also doesn't give the biggest sweetest hugs and slobbery kisses either.  He is oh so generous with those!


After baths last night, Fletcher was in our bedroom with his sister watching The Lion King.  His squeals quickly lured me in to investigate.  While I expected to catch him in attack mode with his sister, I found him completely engrossed in the movie - moving and clapping and squealing and roaring with the lions.  I stood there, still in my mud smeared white jeans, watching him and thinking, "thank God for little boys."

Delicious Disaster

I've been holding on to a recipe for a while - dying to make it.  Just lacking the proper opportunity.  Today was the day.  Because.... well, it's Thursday.  That's why.


The recipe is from the grandmother of an old friend of mine.  I've never had it, but she blogs and when I read about this cake, something about it just spoke to me.  It's a coconut cake.  Mmmmm.  One of my favorites.  But not just any coconut cake.  A wet coconut cake.  Didn't quite know what that meant, but never mind - it sounded excellent and I'm a sucker for old family recipes!


Now, you know, I dabble in the kitchen.  So I generally review a recipe before just diving in.  Especially when baking because those do cause me a bit more stress with all the exactness and science and stuff.


I read this recipe.  Part of it was not quite clicking for me.  You see the icing is made with beaten egg whites (ok, I'm with ya) and a syrup (uhhhh).  The icing is supposed to "soak" into the cake.  Wha???  I was struggling with this concept.  But it's a grandma recipe and there are just some techniques that have been lost between generations.  So I forged ahead.


As I said, some cooking techniques that have been lost with time.  My grandparents cooked, well, just differently.  Most of the time, our modern methods are welcome achievements of technology.  But once in a while don't you long for the one thing your grandma used to make that is next to impossible to recreate?  My Nana's fudge is like that for me.  I've tried.  And tried.  I just can't get it right.  And you know she made it without any of the fancy gadgets or candy thermometers we have available to us now.


I trust grandma recipes.  I cherish them.  But I'm on a whole different learning curve with them.  In hindsight, I think it's helpful to follow grandma recipes when you were actually able to sit on the counter, watch her do it and know first hand what the result should look and taste and feel like.  This was not my grandma.


I took lots of lovely pictures along the way.  Hoping to share this found treasure of a recipe with everyone.  It's quite easy and doesn't take long to get right to the heart of it... the icing.  I still couldn't figure out how on earth this was gonna work, but I moved on, hoping, waiting for that miraculous scientific baking magic!


I made the cake.

I made the syrup.

I readied the other ingredients.  (Confession - I made one minor edit to the recipe.  And although minor, I realize it could have been to blame for the disaster to come.  The recipe calls for almond flavoring in the icing.  I didn't have almond flavoring.  And to be honest, I'm not that big of a fan... but I do like coconut and lemon.  A lot.  So, instead of almond, I added a little fresh lemon juice and zest.  There - blame it all on the lemon.)

I whipped the egg whites stiff and slowly added the syrup.  I think this is truly where I went wrong.  I did not allow the syrup to cool entirely.  I'm terribly impatient.  It was a bit warm as I poured it in.  Fearing all the while that I had made a horrible mistake.

The result was really runny.  Really.  In an egg white fluffy/foamy kind of way.  I spooned it over the cake.  Yes, spooned.  It was that runny.  Thankfully I had the foresight to put parchment paper under the edges.  

And then it happened.  I had been warned it could.  While I was busy fussing over foamy, syrupy icing and the camera, the rest of the icing separated.  There was a thin layer of foam lying quietly over sticky sweet syrup.  


OMG - put down the camera and pay attention!  


I quickly threw it back under the whisk and whipped it back up again, hoping for the best.  It seemed to kind of come back together but was even runnier than before.  If that's possible.  


Committed to see this through, I added coconut flakes to the first layer, then put the second layer of cake on top and repeated with the now SUPER runny icing.  What a mess.  The icing syrup ran all over the cake, down the sides.  I tried adding the coconut flakes to help make it stay put but it just made matters worse.

But in all that sticky mess, I had the good fortune to taste some of that syr-icing.  Oh my.  It was good!  Hmmm.  This might not be so bad after all.


It was recommended that I stick in in the refrigerator to "set."  So I did.  


We went out for dinner tonight.  No need for any more test kitchen disasters.  When we came home, I pulled out the cake, slowly removed the parchment paper and.... 


yeah, it still looks bad.  Wha'd you expect?

Then we at it.  (Insert guttural sounds of delight).  It was good.  Really GOOD!  Even Sydney loved it.  


If a disastrous looking cake is wrong, I don't wanna be right!

 Mmmmm.  Now, although the result turned out pretty darn good, I know I can do better.  We will be happy to try and try and try this one again!


I will not yet share the recipe here for you.  I dare not disparage the good name of the family - and grandmother - I stole this from.  I need to work it out on my own and figure out grandma's methods before I teach you.


It will be worth the wait!

In her own time

As usual, just when you've given up on something new with Sydney, she goes and does it all by herself.


For months it seems we've had a mattress and/or full size bed in Sydney's room trying to gently coax her into it.  Honestly I have not been super eager to get her into a bed.  I liked the idea that she was confined in the crib.  History has proven, allowing her to roam free is a bad idea.


She would say that she wanted to sleep in the "big girl bed" but the second we left the room she would either race out crying behind us or climb up into her crib.  Yes, she never tried to climb out (that we know of), but she got darn good at climbing IN.  She has visited many a neighborhood friend and seen their own big girl beds, but it wasn't enough to persuade her.  Good girl.  Already resisting peer pressure.


The last few weeks, bedtime had become excruciatingly painful around here.  She is master of the stall.  Anything and everything to delay the inevitable.  Water, potty, books, babies, light, no light, door open, door closed.  There is an art to the length of time it can take her to simply brush her teeth.  With all the stalling, we quickly nixed the option to sleep in her big girl bed from her repertoire knowing it would just add another 5 minutes to the pain.  Regardless of our action or inaction, every night it was ending in her being chunked into the crib wailing.  Sometimes she wasn't even dressed - we'd throw her pajamas in there with her (and surprisingly, she would always dress herself before falling asleep).  We learned our lesson and became less willing to entertain her stalling techniques.  The result was always going to be the same whether we allowed it to go on for 5 or 35 minutes.  But it was exhausting and it always put a damper on otherwise great days.


So about a week ago, we had a very busy day.  Sydney didn't take a nap at all and was extra tired from a fun afternoon play date with her very best friend from school.  When she asked to sleep in the big girl bed that evening, I figured she might just be tired enough not to put up a fight after we tucked her in.  Sure enough - no fighting, no tears, no screaming.  There she stayed.  And again the next night.  And the next. And the next.  


She was so proud of herself each morning for sleeping all night in her big girl bed.  She has woken a few times in the middle of the night but goes back to bed very easily with a tuck-in and kiss from mommy.


The moment of truth - on Saturday down came the crib.  Sydney helped.  No turning back now.

She still asks every night if she can sleep in the big girl bed.  It is so nice to watch her go through all the bedtime motions without a fight - to tuck her in and give her hugs and kisses and high-fives at the end of the day.  I hope the thrill of it doesn't end soon.  


Sydney certainly is head strong and will be my biggest challenge.  But I need to remember to step back and let her take the lead - sometimes.


Night night sweet girl!