Warm Fire

So far today I have been in the kitchen baking and about nothing else. And you know what? I really quite enjoy it, a little too much actually. But I cannot wait for Charlie to be old enough to help! I hope he likes it. I'm sure he will, who doesn't like baking cookies? Anyways, these pictures were from a few nights ago at Liz's house. Charlie and Line were very fascinated by the fire, Maggie was still just fascinated with mom. Oh well.

Charlie was also fascinated by his reflection in the TV. 

Early Morning Pancakes & Skype

On Saturday morning we were invited over to Ben & Becca's for some delicious pancakes with whipped cream and raspberry syrup. Then we Skyped with my parents as they just got back to the states a few days ago. It is always a good time to be able to chat and catch up, especially when Line is trying to show off her dinosaurs and baby dolls. It makes it much more fun. It turned out to be a great day of just relaxing and doing a whole bunch of nothing. The best of days.

Maggie likes to interact with people on Skype.

Maggie has a fascination with cups. We put Charlie & Maggie both in this play high chair and it was quite entertaining.

Chicken Melts

These chicken melts are freakin' delicious. They are my new favorite thing. Seriously. The only thing is you have to have a precooked chicken but if you have chicken the night before then you're golden. The recipe is only slightly adapted from this RealSimple recipe. I sure do love RealSimple and the soup to go along with it is delicious as well. But we decided to make it for lunch.

Chicken Melts with a Maple-Mustard Sauce

4 slices of bread (any kind but we used whole wheat)
1 roasted chicken breast, shredded
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
slices of red onion
6 slices of cheddar cheese
spinach

1. Set oven broil and prepare a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. Mix the mustard and maple together and spread evenly on the bread slices.
3. Then place the shredded chicken, onion, and cheddar on the bread.
4. Place in oven and remove when the cheese has melted, about 3-5 minutes. 
5. Remove from oven and place spinach on top of cheddar and enjoy!

Breakfast

I sure do love this little boy. He's been teething still and has had a cold the past few days and it hasn't been the most enjoyable time but he is now crawling instead of pulling himself around. Which is awesome. Plus he pulls himself up onto everything he can and tries to pull down anything he can. It makes for a fun day!

Look at those chubby grubby hands? Don't you just love them?

Playtime with the Cousins

We had Line and Maggie over for an hour or two the other day and it was very fun to watch Charlie stare at them :) Line loves to play store and buy just about everything in our house and then she turned into our banker and gave Andy a pretty great investment deal. Maggie is at a great age where she is pretending to talk on the phone and also she just found her belly button. Awesome. I'm so glad that we live so close to these two.

 Loves this hat.

 Talking on her carrot phone.

Line decided that the house was a much better as a bank.

Weekend Reading

I finally gave in and read the Hunger Games. Now, I'm not much of a reader, my family is, except me. My siblings read Harry Potter and The Hunger Games when they were popular but my sister would just tell me about what happens and then I would watch the movies. It worked out really great. Lately though I've been really enjoying reading. Andy and I just finished The Count of Monte Cristo (which I highly recommend to anyone). On Thursday I found a copy of The Hunger Games for $1 at a used book store and decided to start reading it. Well I ended up reading all three by the end of Sunday. They are good. So now it is back to cleaning the house I guess.

 This little guy has two top teeth that just popped through.

Baby Friends

This play date happened about two weeks ago and we've since seen Andrew again, but these pictures were just too adorable not to post. They are only a month apart and I absolutely love seeing them play together! Andrew is always trying to grab Charlie's hair. Charlie is just trying to avoid any other contact but failing pretty badly since Andrew is already crawling!

Aren't they just the cutest?

Pomegranate Orange Scones

I really had been wanting to get a pomegranate ever since I saw a video on how to properly cut them open and eat them. The only other time that I've actually had one was in grade school when a teacher brought one in for everyone to try. I don't actually remember the taste of it at all but I was convinced that I would love it. And you know, it was pretty good, but I could only eat a few of the seeds before I didn't want anymore. So I had to find something to do with them, so of course I turned to Pinterest and found this recipe. And it was amazing! I think that it is my favorite scone recipe ever. I don't know how often I'll actually make this since pomegranates are kind of expensive, but I definitely will add orange to the next one. 

Pomegranate Orange Scones (adapted from this recipe)

1 1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour

1/2 cup All Purpose Flour

1/2 cup Sugar

1 tablespoon Baking Powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup Pomegranate Seeds

1 1/4 cup Heavy Whipping Cream

Zest of a large Orange

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

1. Sift your dry ingredients together into a medium sized bowl.
2. Add the cream and vanilla; mix until well combined.
3. Add the pomegranate seeds and zest and mix.
4. Put the dough onto a lightly floured surface and make into a circle then slice into 8 pie shape slices. Spread the slices out onto parchment paper on a baking sheet.
5. Sprinkle with sugar if desired.
6. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Ferry Ride!

 Apparently we decided not to take any pictures last week, so here are some pictures from our ferry ride home from Seattle. Charlie absolutely loved the steering wheel. He never did figure out the horn, which was nice :) But it would have been pretty hilarious if he kept honking.

Our little blonde blue eyed boy :)