Liege Waffles

When Matt and I went skiing in Vermont a few years ago, we discovered something amazing called Liege waffles. I didn't know their name at the time, I just knew there was a Waffle Hut at the base of the not so steep mountain that smelled delicious. And I convinced Matt to stop for a bit and try the waffles. I watched them making these waffles while I waited for Matt's to get dipped with chocolate and I noticed the dough was super thick with hunks of sugar in it. Weird... But those weird waffles were amazing!!! The hunks of sugar caramelized on the outside and the whole thing was quite possibly the best thing I had ever eaten. Even Matt was impressed:

When we got back home, I researched them and found out they were Belgian (not Belgium!) or Liege waffles. I ordered the pearl sugar needed to make them and promptly got overwhelmed with all of the blogs bemoaning how difficult it was to make them and the need for special waffles irons. 

Fast forward 3 years and one of my friends posted on Facebook that she was making them. Inspired anew, I decided there was no time like maternity leave to give them a try. And if I ruined my waffle iron - well it has had a good life up until now... And Matt was going skiing today, so it seemed fitting to make them before he headed off to the slopes.

I started the batch while Matt was getting Thomas ready for daycare and it had rested enough by the time he returned that it was time to add the sugar. Look at the size of this stuff! Some people went through all kinds of trouble to procure the proper sugar from people travelling to Europe. You can also just order it on Amazon...

You have to let it rise for about an hour to give the yeast time to do their thing. Then you add the sugar and carefully mix it in before letting it rest another 15 minutes. Good distribution of sugar is key!

The moment of truth came when making the waffles. I don't have the correct waffle iron, I don't even have the preferred Belgium waffle iron, I just have a standard waffle iron. And it might not have been ideal, but it still turned out a pretty good Liege waffle! The holes weren't as deep, but the caramelized sugar was still there (the best part!). I'm going to try again and dump the excess melted sugar and butter out between every other waffle next time - the goo in the iron started to burn a little and the later waffles got a little too dark. But the ones that were cooked well were ridiculously delicious.

On the other hand, these things have got to be calorie bombs, so I don't really need to make them all that often... If any of you are so inclined to give them a go, I followed this recipe on this blog, which actually used a recipe from this blog. Hate to not give credit to both! :)

And on an unrelated note, I think Henry might already be tired of me taking photos of him...

One Month!

It's Henry's One-Month anniversary today. When Thomas was a baby, I bought stickers to take photos for every month. I thought it would be nice to repeat this practice with Henry and I managed to find a sticker set that had a set of second year stickers so that Thomas could join in the fun. Of course, trying to photograph a baby and a toddler at the same time was beyond challenging. I only managed to get one photo where you could actually see both of their stickers:

This one was my favorite of the set, mostly because they chose such similar poses. :)

We tried to convince Thomas to hold his brother to get the pose that everyone on Pinterest seems to get with their children. Yeah, we're not quite there yet. Maybe by month 4 or 5... "/

Henry was pretty much done with sitting for photos at this point, so I got a few of Thomas on his own. This boy has two moods when I try to get a photo of him - a total ham or not at all interested. Today was obviously a "ham" day:

Tumbling Class

We started Thomas is a tumbling class earlier this year. Theresa put Anna in one when she was about the same age and it seemed like a fun activity for him to burn off some energy once a week. I've been wanting to take the camera to get photos, but trying to stoop down and get photos when I was pregnant seemed a bit challenging. My balance is questionable on the best of days...

Heather was taking off today around 8, so she joined Thomas and I for tumbling class before we took her to the airport. It was a good last activity with the nephew and a good stretching of the legs before being cooped up on a plane for 8 hours. Plus it meant I could take photos of him having fun! They even pulled out the parachute today - which is pretty much his favorite thing to play with.

And what of Matt and Henry? Well we didn't think exposing Henry to the multitude of germs in a toddler gym class was a great idea. So Henry got some quality alone time with his dad at home. :)

Sweet Thomas

Thomas finally picked up the skill of hugging on command - in the sense that if we ask for a hug, he will give us one about 90% of the time. He's also started giving "kisses", but hasn't gotten the entire concept - so asking for one will mean you get an open mouth slobber on your mouth. I'm now working on the puckering up part to minimize the slobber...

But anyhow, this morning Matt and I were asking Thomas for hugs when Matt got the bright idea to ask Thomas to give Natalie a hug. And he did - it was pretty adorable!

Of course Natalie responded with a kiss of her own. Much like how I feel about his kisses, Thomas wasn't too sure about Natalie's version of kisses...

We also got a care package in the mail from Grannie (Matt's mom). It was full of all kinds of goodies, but the best part was the matching hats she made for all of us. Thomas looked pretty adorable in his. Grannie said it looked a little small when I sent her a photo - he's hard to make hats for long distance, his head size generally maxes out on the growth charts...

He's also gotten very curious about his little brother. He's gone from not wanting to touch the new addition of the family to helping with diaper changes and trying to give his little brother his pacifier (whether he is awake or not). It's pretty awesome to have such a great little helper when I am in the middle of a diaper change and realize I forgot to grab a diaper. Hopefully my little helper doesn't get tired of helping anytime soon!

A Snowstorm!

I apparently never mentioned the last bit of snow we got, but you'll forgive me as I had other things on my mind. The night I went into labor with Henry, we ended up getting over a foot of snow. Matt was actually down shoveling snow in the driveway (just in case!) when my water broke. I called him from the house and basically told him to put a fire under it with that shoveling. :)

Last night we got another big dump of snow! Brittney came over for dinner right when it started snowing and none of us were paying attention to it until we noticed the 8" of snow on her car when she was leaving. Next time it snows that much, she's staying here instead of driving a slightly treacherous pass in unplowed deep snow! "/

Mom is leaving for the airport later, so we figured we should probably tackle the huge amount of snow in our driveway. I wasn't even sure where the cars were this morning when I looked out the window!

Matt usually tackles the snow removal alone, but since I am no longer massively pregnant and we had someone to watch the baby, I even went out to help. It was well over 18" of snow and we figured it would be a good workout to get it all cleared. Thomas even got dressed for the occasion and directed his parents all around.

As we were out snow-shoveling together, Matt remembered that my dad had given us my grandmother's snow shovel she had from when they lived in the north-east. Obviously a snow shovel has extremely limited use in Texas, so it got put in out shipment of stuff up here without me knowing. We decided to go get it and take a few photos to send to my dad - which is about when my sister decided to join us outside.

She was headed out to go for a run, but decided that snow shoveling was just as good of a workout. Unfortunately for her, the last one to join gets the 50 year old snow shovel! (I actually have no idea how old it is, it made the journey to Texas 30 years ago and I seriously doubt it was new at that point, 50 seems a good a guess as any.)

Three people shoveling certainly made the work go faster, though the fourth person out there was more interested in falling into the piles of snow that we were building up:

It looks like he was having more fun that we were! 

Ten Years?!?

Today is our 10 year anniversary. How is that even possible?!? The years really have flown by! It seems like just yesterday we were saying "I do". Though on the other hand it seems like that was forever ago - so much has happened since then.

It's also hard to believe that 9 years ago when Matt and I were at our yearly visit to the State Fair of Texas that Matt jokingly promised to buy me the Vitamix I was drooling over for our 10 year anniversary. He thought I would forget... But every year I reminded him that I was waiting for it. And the beautiful beast is finally mine - I mean ours...!

Matt might already be tired of hearing it in action with the multitude of things I have made in it, but he sure likes sampling my endeavors. Which might be why he returned the favor of experimenting by making me the best anniversary surprise breakfast ever! For those of you that don't know, I am a huge, huge fan of Café Brazil in Dallas. I was sad enough to leave it when we moved to Houston, but every time we were back in Dallas it was a mandatory stop. Now we are 4000+ miles away, so Matt decided to bring Café Brazil to me this morning!!

He made me an official Café Brazil menu, though there was the caveat that some items were not available in Alaska. Luckily the dish I always order was still on there:

It was the best surprise breakfast ever. He stayed up super late last night making all the components that went with the crepes so all he had to do this morning was cook the crepes and assemble them. And thanks to all of the Chopped episodes we've been watching recently, his plating was spectacular. Look at the concentration:

It's nice to know that after 10 years of marriage Matt still has a few tricks up his sleeve. And I love that he is being so adventurous in the kitchen. I'm really bummed that he has decided he does need to find a job up here. I keep trying to convince him that he should just be a house husband, but apparently he wants to join the working world again. I can't argue with that, I think I would go crazy if I was home all day. Well, I would probably watch waaaaay too many cooking shows and forget to change out of pajamas most days. So it's probably better I stay gainfully employed. :)

Happy Anniversary Matt, looking forward to many, many more!!!

How Quickly We Forget...

How quickly we forget what it is like to have a newborn in the house! They really do just sleep all day! Other than eating and needing diaper changes, he really has been snoozing the days away. I suppose I should be grateful, it gave me a chance to get some sleep as well. But he does have one stretch in the day he likes to be up - right when I want to go to bed. Figures he would be a night owl like his dad...!

And in case you didn't notice, Henry showed up with a full head of hair just like his brother did. About the same shade too - wonder if Henry will go blond in the next few months like Thomas did?

And Thomas is adjusting to having a baby brother. When he met him in the hospital he wasn't interested in being close to Henry at all. And the first few reintroductions at home were met with backing away and side glances at his baby brother. But he quickly started peeking at him over the side of the crib and exclaiming "baby!". He's even turned into quite the helper - bring diapers for changing time and running Henry's bottle back and forth to the kitchen. The little guy aims to please at this age. I love it!

Of course when Henry is asleep, we all go back to our usual habits. Like spending too much time on the iPhones... Does it count as family time if all three generations are using them??

Happy Birthday Henry!

After what seemed like forever of waiting, we finally got to meet our little Henry! I should give him credit, he actually came 2 days before his due date. But when you move to a new state, start a new job, sell one house, buy a new house, and celebrate several holidays - all while being pregnant - it has a tendency to warp your perception of time...

But he was on his own time table, which included going in to labor right before I was ready to go to bed for the night. Luckily Brittney and Duncan were back from Hawaii and we were able to take Thomas and the girls over there and get everything arranged before heading off to the hospital. And after only a few short hours in the hospital, little Henry made his grand entrance into the world at 3:32 in the morning on February 19th! (That should explain why I look a little tired in this first photo...)

As hard as it was for me to believe, Henry was a "big" baby. Having a toddler skews  your perspective on baby size I guess, but they were right! He was 8lbs, 13 ounces and 21" long. He beat Thomas by 12 ounces and 1.25" inches even though Thomas was past due by eight days. I'm guessing he'll be outgrowing his brother at some point - maybe about the same age I outgrew my sister? :)

Our first "night" in the hospital wasn't all that restful, but after a quick nap, I was ready to take some photos of my little guy. I mean, what's the fun of having a fancy camera if you can't start taking photos from day one? Plus I get harassed all the time about making sure I have lots of photos of child #2 since I was a #2 and constantly complained about the photo count discrepancy growing up. ;)

A few things have changed since we had Thomas (or maybe just because we were in a different hospital). They don't even try to weigh the baby or get the vital stats until after he has had plenty of time bonding with mom. And the first bath isn't until after he's been around for more than 12 hours. They did take him to the nursery to check his blood oxygen and take some blood for tests, but since I went with him he never left my sight the whole time we were there. They even did his first bath in the room:

Henry wasn't letting the nurse use that washcloth on him without a fight, but he loved getting his hair washed. Look at that contented look on his face. Of course he didn't open his eyes at all - this boy has been hiding his baby blues almost the whole time he has been in the hospital. The pediatrician had to startle Henry to get a look at his eyes at all... I guess he was worn out from the early morning entry into the world as well!

We opted out of staying an additional night in the hospital because we were ready to be in the comfort of our own house and not being woken up for checks every few hours. So after passing all the newborn tests and filling out all the paperwork, we were ready to go!

Welcome little Henry! We're so glad you joined us after the long, long wait...! :)

Happy Valentine's Day

Tommy's school has a tendency to celebrate as many holiday and events as possible. I try to go to as many as I can, but work has a tendency to be scheduled at the same time. I missed the Christmas party, so I figured I would try to go to their Valentine's Day party. They asked all the parents to bring snacks, so I made Rice Crispy Treats with freeze dried strawberries - it felt a little more festive to have the strawberries in there than just plain. Of course I couldn't find freeze dried strawberries, so I bought a box of cereal that had them and dug all the strawberries out. Hey - you get creative when you live in Alaska... :)

When I got there, Thomas thought it was time to go and was a little upset with me that I kept putting his jacket back in the cubby and showed no signs of leaving with him. So he sat in my lap mad for a little while. I finally got him to cheer up by taking photos of us and showing them to him - the boy loves his technology!

Then it was party time! His classroom is only five kiddos, and they are all boys. So they probably didn't appreciate all the pink snacks as much as I did, but they certainly chowed down on them! I think all of them licked the icing off before eating their cookies. And my son refused to share his goodies with me! His teacher put extra on his plate and he would only let me eat the raspberries, not the cookies. Which isn't to say I didn't risk the wrath of my pint-sized man by stealing them off his plate. ;)

And since it was a party, the boys all got juice boxes. It was apparently the first time they got boxes to drink out of and the results were a bit mixed. I had read online that if you pull the tabs up on the side, it gives them something to hold on to that won't make them squeeze all of the juice out of the box. Apparently that only works for older kids... but Thomas sure had fun with his box of juice anyhow. And he didn't spill *too* much of it!

And although he had enough sweets to last him for a while, they gave them all cupcakes to take home. He was pretty excited about carrying his cupcake out to the car. His dad ended up getting the cupcake in the end, but that was long after Thomas had forgotten about it. If I had wanted it, he probably would have remembered - I swear those boys are already sticking together!

The Northern Lights

We've been wanting to see the Northern Lights since we moved up here. Well, honestly before that - we were really hoping for a show when we were up here visiting Brittney & Duncan for Thanksgiving. But it just hasn't worked out. We subscribe to several Facebook sites that notify when they are out and they have stubbornly been hiding from the Anchorage area. Until yesterday...

Of course the auroras seem to prefer to be out in the wee hours of the morning. Luckily for me, Matt is a night owl and happened to see the notifications. He found the one window in our house that looks north and had a momentary freak out when he realized he could see them even with all the lights in the neighborhood. I got woken up to come see them and we had a moment that most parents know well. Do we wake the toddler up at midnight to drive elsewhere and try to get a better view of them?

Of course we did...

Tommy didn't know what the heck was going on, but he was along for the ride whether or not he wanted to be. We decided to head to Flat Top - Matt said there was a nice viewing area from the parking lot, so we figured that was our best bet. The drive over to Flat Top actually had the best views. There were green lights cascading and dancing all across the sky. I'm pretty sure that Matt and I were giggling like little kids at the sight. :)

Of course when we got to the viewing area, the lights had calmed down. And the parking lot was iced over enough that we didn't feel safe for the 9 months pregnant woman or the toddler to safely cross it. The hubster confirmed this by slipping and falling multiple times checking it out. So we only got a few pictures of the lights that don't do what we saw justice. I figured I would share them anyhow, just to prove we saw them. But they were so much more amazing in person.