Favorite Things

Every night after C goes to bed, F has a little "me" time. He NEEDS the following things:

(1) his kiki
(2) his sippy
(3) goldfish crackers
(4) pink panther cartoons

Sometimes he will supplement the aforementioned list with random toys, cars and/or tractors. It just all depends.

Papa Barrow brought C and F a couple of big boxes today. It was better than Christmas. So, as we speak, this is what F looks like:

Dancing Queen

C had her dance recital Wednesday night. As always, she did awesome. She did her tumbling routine first. The little boy she was standing next to never stood a chance. He kept getting confused and C stepped right in and started bossing him around. Pushing him and yanking his arm in the right direction. It was awesome.

Ballet/Tap Costume:


Tumbling Costume:

F, never one to let his sister have all the limelight:

We have the rest of the summer off. Hooray!

Martha's Blueberry Buttermilk Scones

I had a few buddies ask me for the recipe, so here ya go. It is soooooo goood. Just one word of advice - make at least quadruple the glaze. You'll need it. Oh, and this recipe, along with tons of absolutely to-die-for recipes, are from the Bountiful Kitchen blog. She cooks some seriously good food. When I want to try something new, that I KNOW will be delicious - this is where I head to. The author of the blog is a friend of my sister-in-law. She is a very talented cook. Enjoy!

Martha's Blueberry Buttermilk Scones

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup cake flour (not self rising)

3 tablespoons sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

4 oz. (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1 cup blueberries, fresh

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Whisk together flours, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry cutter or rub with fingers until the mixture has the texture of coarse meal. Add blueberries. Set aside.

Whisk together buttermilk, egg and vanilla in small bowl. Drizzle over flour mixture

and stir lightly with a fork until dough comes together and all but a small amount of the flour mixture comes together in a bowl. Add about another tablespoon of buttermilk, and turn out onto lightly floured surface. Gently knead dough once or twice just to incorporate flour into dough. Pat dough into a 1 inch round. Cut into 12 wedges. Transfer to prepared baking sheet. Bake until golden brown and cooked through, about 22 minutes. Let cool for about 10 minutes. Mix together glaze. Drizzle glaze onto scones. Serve immediately.

Glaze:

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1-2 tablespoon cream

pinch salt

Whisk together, drizzle over scones.

* To see pictures, head over to the Bountiful Kitchen blog. She has an index of all her recipes.

Boys will be Boys

Because I am a good wife (*ahem) I made Blueberry Buttermilk Scones for J last night. The glaze that you drizzle on top of the hot scones is made up of the following:

(1) Powdered Sugar
(2) Heavy Cream

So, not the healthiest by any means, but its sooooo good. I mixed the glaze together in a small glass bowl. While we were eating our scones out on the front porch, F made it back inside, grabbed the computer chair, slid on up to the counter, grabbed the bowl and started to drink the glaze. This is the result:

It was one serious milk mustache.

On another just-as-weird note, there is this huge tree out front that drops those helicopter things. Subsequently, they are tracked into the house constantly. My poor vacuum can barely keep up. Anyway, F found a couple of them and J turned them into bug-rhino-something horns. They are both weird.

Struggling

Last Thursday I decided to hose off our front sidewalk. To do that, I moved my planter, my front door rug, and the big, heavy camp chair. This is no ordinary camp chair. Its more like a camp "couch." It seats two people. It has a set of legs on either side and a set right down the middle for support. Anyway, after mowing the lawn and edging, I'm feeling rather Rosie-the-Riveter-ish, so I grab the camp couch, pivot, and then slam it down on the lawn. Except that my foot was in the way. The stupid couch landed right on my big toe on my left foot. I cannot fully explain the amount of pain I instantly experienced. You know when you get hurt and the tears involuntarily come to your eyes, and words that you didn't even know you had the capacity of uttering, come hurtling out of your mouth? Well, that was this. After saying a few choice words, I stood there, hunched over the camp chair, wondering if I would ever walk again. It took about 15 minutes, but I was able to get a hold of myself and continue hosing off the sidewalk. I must say, I am a tad bit disappointed that the pink-checkered Vans I was wearing, that I just so happened to pick up in the Men's Department at Nordstrom Rack for $6.99 failed to protect my foot. Exact model seen here:



The fact that these are technically for men, is another post altogether. I would currently to like to focus on my inability to be normal and non-clumsy.

It was difficult to go to sleep Thursday night. I kept singing songs in my head, keeping time with the throbbing, located smack dab in the middle of my toe.

Friday morning = black & blue toenail. Also, F thought it prudent to step on my toe, wearing none other than his Sketcher Nascar Light-up clodhoppers. Pain.

Monday morning. Cleaning day. I was sweeping out the laundry room when I ever-so-gently nudged the bottom shelf. Located on this shelf is the fire extinguisher. It tipped off and landed on my toes, on my right foot. Again - same situation. Pure physical pain. Blurry vision because of involuntary tears. Expletives that I wasn't aware that I knew, but at least was able to whisper. This fire extinguisher is heavy! My poor toes look red & flattened. It broke the skin on impact on the 3 middle toes, so they are covered with neosporin & band-aids.

I told J what happened. He called me his puberty ridden teen girlfriend. Ouch.

I can't do another foot/toe incident. My pain threshold or eternal progression cannot handle it.