Category Archives: food

The Cheese Stands Alone: A Battle of Wills

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Anyone that knows my husband will read this next line and think “Uh, duh”. But if you’ve never had the pleasure of meeting him, I’ll fill you in on something…

He is extremely stubborn.

He takes after his father and his grandmother this way.

And our daughter? Well, let’s just say that apple didn’t fall very far from the tree.

I’ve always known she was stubborn, but last night, she let us know just how stubborn she could be.

After waking up from her nap, Rylee decided she’d like a snack. She said cheese and crackers sounded pretty good, and Andy thought so too so he got a snack for both of them. He put some sliced up cheese and a pile of ritz crackers on a plate, then handed Ry a paper towel so she could grab what she’d like. She took a few crackers and one piece of cheese.

She took one tiny bite of the cheese and set it back on her paper towel, then preceded to eat all of her crackers and tell us she was done.

Uhhh…no you’re not. You love cheese. You chose to take a piece, you need to eat it.

No. I don’t want it.

Rylee you will eat that piece of cheese before you get anything else. You can choose to eat it now, while it’s still good or you can choose to eat it before dinner, but it won’t taste as good.

And so, there it sat on the paper towel.

A couple of hours passed and soon it was time to set the table for dinner. One of Rylee’s favorite dinners, by the way…roasted chicken, green beans, and fetuccini alfredo pasta.

The lonely piece of cheese moved from the paper towel to her dinner plate.

Andy was not letting up on this one. And I get it, her eating habits have been horrible lately, saying she wants one thing, then not wanting it 5 minutes later. And things she LOVES too. Frankly, it’s getting old.

Rylee sat there with nothing on her plate but that little bit of cheese until Andy & I were nearly done eating before she finally decided that she wasn’t going to win this one.

She ate choked down the cheese and any 3.5 year old drama queen would do and preceded to eat a fantastic dinner.

Weird.

{And by weird, I mean not weird at all. She is so much like her father, sometimes it’s scary.}

So…Christmas?

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Christmas was perfect in just about every way possible this year.

There was family time.

There was lots (and lots) of good food.

There was laughter.

And there was magic.

I don’t know what it was about this year, age I’m guessing, but something just clicked with Rylee and the Christmas Spirit was alive and well with that little one. It was contagious.

She got more and more excited with every ring we tore off of our Christmas Chain.

She soaked up all the time with her Aunties…loving every minute of it.

She was a rock star during Christmas Eve mass.

At my dad’s house on Christmas Eve she unwrapped a present that was nestled inside a box that one held wine glasses, complete with photos of wine glasses filled with wine on the box and she excitedly proclaimed “I GOT WINE!”.

She handed out “thank you’s” left and right. Made this mama’s heart proud.

We put her in PJ’s before the drive home on Christmas Eve thinking she’d zonk out on the drive. Instead of sawing logs, she decided to singe Jingle Bells over and over and over again, getting louder and louder and louder with each round. The entire way home. Andy and I couldn’t help but laugh.

On Christmas morning she was disappointed that Santa left half of a scone on his plate…as if the 1 1/2 he did eat wasn’t enough. {noted}

At my mom’s house while playing with the hand puppets Grammy had made her she busted out in a maniacal laughter when my sister, playing the pig & the sheep, said she couldn’t go to the park because she had to go to the slaughter house.

While opening gifts over at my in-laws house, she looked her grandma square in the eye and asked her to STOP taking so many pictures of her. {I about died!}

Throughout the Christmas, and the following days, anytime someone asked her what Santa brought her she proudly said “A bike!” Then went on to tell how it was wrapped in a red sheet. Every single time.

There was so much smiling. So much laughing.

Like I said…magical.

The one part I failed at was taking pictures. I took two. The entire weekend.

And you know what? That was ok by me.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas like we did.

The one I still have nightmares about…

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“EAT!” They Persisted.

“I don’t want to.” I pushed back.

“This is what this family is having for dinner. If you don’t like it, tough.”

“BUT I DON’T LIKE IT!” I fired back.

“Katherine Elaine, you will sit there and eat until it. If it is still in front of you at bedtime, you will go to bed hungry then eat if for breakfast!” That was the last warning.

I sat with my food in front of me, unwilling to take a single bite.

Ten minutes passed…the rest of the family was done eating.

I sat firmly in place, not touching a thing.

20 minutes passed…all the dishes were done.

There I sat. Alone at the table. In the dark.

It was quiet.

I have no idea how long I actually sat there in the dark, but I do remember this: TGIF was about to come on and there was no way I was going to miss that!

I choked my food down as fast as I could, rinsed my dishes and rushed to the living room.

To this day, I am 100% convinced that nasty food would have been my breakfast the next morning.

And I can’t quite put my finger on it, but for some crazy reason, I’ve never really cared for Ham & Navy Bean Soup.

Mama’s Losin’ It

Two Weeks + One Day

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Thanks to Duncan Hines for sponsoring my writing. There’s no limit to the baking possibilities, so grab your favorite Duncan Hines mix and Comstock or Wilderness fruit fillings and Bake On! www.duncanhines.com

 

 

In two weeks, my sister flies in from Chicago. In two weeks and one day, my other sister will make her drive down. And then Christmas time can really begin.

I love this time of year for all sorts of reasons, but one that ranks right up at the top of my list is that my sisters are in town and we’re all together. Since we’re all together but a couple of times a year, we do our very best to spend as much time as possible together. Almost all of my favorite memories with my sisters are when we’ve decided not to go out but to just stay home, drink some wine, play some games and have a good old girls’ night in.

Last year, with budgets tight for us as well as our extended families, we decided to try something new for our girls’ night in. We spent weeks trading emails with recipes, coordinating ingredient lists, ideas for craft projects and other items we’d contribute to making gift baskets for our extended family members. {I even designed us a logo for labels…yes, I’m aware that I’m a total nerd}

Armed with copious amounts of wine and two Kitchen-Aid Mixers, we got to work.

Before it was her bedtime, even Ry was able to get in on the action!

We had quite the set-up and completely took over my kitchen and dining room. It was awesome.

{By the way, did you know that wax paper and parchment paper are not in fact the same thing? I did not know this. Good thing my sisters did because things could have turned out very differently.}

At some point we’d been non-stop baking for so long, we may have gotten a little delirious…

And slightly inappropriate…

After multiple bottles glasses of wine, laughing until our bellies hurt, one good dance party and who-knows-how-many hours of baking later, we emerged victorious with 6 gift baskets, full of treats both sweet and savory, to show for it, plus so many extras!

That girls’ night in was just what I needed, and I can’t wait to do it again this year!

Remember to check out Duncan Hines’ website www.duncanhines.com to find some great recipes for your holiday get-together! I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective

Uhhh…hi?

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::dusts off my laptop::

Hey Strangers! It’s me, Katherine…you know, the one that keeps up this blog. I clearly threw that whole NaBloPoMo thing out the window…roughly 6 days ago. Oh well. It’s amazing how easily blogging can take over your life. Invade your thoughts and yes, even your dreams. It’s also, as equally amazing how easy it was for me just to turn it all off. For four glorious days I only opened up my laptop twice. And neither was for anything remotely blogging and/or social media related.

So what the heck have I been up to these last 6 days? How was my Thanksgiving?

My long weekend was both jam-packed yet completely relaxing.

Our Thanksgiving was unlike any Thanksgiving I have ever had. It was so quiet. Some of my longtime readers may remember the gathering of my “entire family”. This year, for one reason or another, all the families were not coordinating. And to be honest, we were more than ok with it. We ended up going to my in-laws for breakfast then headed back home. For the rest of the day it was just Andy, Rylee, me and my dad and my younger brother. I made a full on spread. We played games. We ate. We ate some more. It was really, really nice. And completely uneventful.

Friday morning I got my haircut. And, knowing that I’d have cute hair, we also snapped some family pictures before lunch. The afternoon consisted of me editing said photos. And napping. And of course, nothing is better than Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner. So easy.

Look, I got bangs!

Saturday was our states big college football rivalry, the Civil War game. My sister is a die hard beaver fan & alum. Her fiance? A die hard duck fan. So naturally, they came down from Portland and went to the game. Her fiance’s sister & brother in law also came down (or up, since they’re from Nevada?) with their 2 girls. I babysat the girls while they all went to the game. I didn’t know quite what to expect considering I had never met them before, but it went well. Rylee and the girls got along great and it was really nice getting to meet some of the “extended family”. We wrapped up the day with pizza for dinner and my sister & soon-to-be-brother-in-law stayed with us that night and we were all in bed before 9:30 PM. {we are such party animals}

Sunday we carried on our standing six-year tradition of wreath making with my mom and younger siblings. Rylee got to participate this year too. She mostly just had fun running around outside while we worked, but she and Andy worked together to make her very first swag. They brought it to me and Rylee & I wired it up and put a bow on it, then Ry wanted to hang it on her play structure. Pretty much the cutest thing ever. Everyone was gone by 1:30 and we wrapped up the long weekend quietly as a family of three.

Oh, hello Christmas Spirit!

Of course, it wasn’t all sunshine & rainbows…we found out that our rental house has a leak in the roof and the brand new flooring that Andy installed in July is pretty much well ruined. He spent a lot of time on the roof located and fixing {fingers crossed} said leak. And, Sunday while we were wreath making, Andy & my dad were off to cut firewood, only to return home an hour later because our suburban broke down on the way there and they barely made it home.

But, you know what? I’m going to go ahead and focus on all the greatness from the weekend and worry about our mechanic’s bill later.

Oh and because I know you’re all dying to get a little sneak peek at a family photo…

So, now that I’m back…how was your long weekend!?