annie blog

In the life of E

E, my youngest boy,my baby, is 2 and a quarter. He is almost done with his transformation from baby to full blown little boy. A few illustrations….

Yesterday, I took him to the park while oldest brother watched a movie and brothers 2 and 3 waited like hawks to swoop down on the TV when the oldest was finished watching. They have XBOX fever, but I digress. On the way to the park, E wants to run down the street. I tell him that we need to save our running for the grass, instead of down the hill because it scares Mommy. He replies, very seriously and with a very low voice, “O-tay, Mom, o-tay.” (His responses almost always make me want to giggle a little — he is just so earnest.) We get almost to the park and he sees something of interest, “Beeg steek!” he exclaims. (The joy that big sticks bring to the lives of little boys everywhere really cannot be put into words.) What does he use his big stick for? Well, he uses it to get the fuzz off of dandelions when blowing doesn’t do the trick. Dandelions are another of his great loves of the moment, along with the already mentioned big sticks, Toy Story and Poppy the cat. While at the park, we meet some kids. E always says “hi” now. Usually he says this before the people are within earshot. Then, he will say it again when they can hear. While swinging in the swing, he dropped his toy and one of the children handed it back to him. What did he say? “Thanks, Man!!” What a hoot, I think that he learned that one from Toy Story.

One other thing about E. He has his preferences. I have thought all along that he was an “easy” child. And, I think that I was only partly right. He is easy-going but I think that the rest of it was just that things were going his way. Now, he loves being decisive with his “yes” and “no”. And he will tell you exactly what he wants now. Which I also love. The other day, I got him out of his bath and was drying him off. I started to talk about diaper and desitin and jammies. He was alarmed. He looked at me in a questioning way and asked, “Run nekkid, RUN NEKKID!?!”. Another of his favorite things. 🙂 So I let him run and run. The joys of a 2 year old. It makes me happy to witness them all again.

In the life of E

E, my youngest boy,my baby, is 2 and a quarter. He is almost done with his transformation from baby to full blown little boy. A few illustrations….

Yesterday, I took him to the park while oldest brother watched a movie and brothers 2 and 3 waited like hawks to swoop down on the TV when the oldest was finished watching. They have XBOX fever, but I digress. On the way to the park, E wants to run down the street. I tell him that we need to save our running for the grass, instead of down the hill because it scares Mommy. He replies, very seriously and with a very low voice, “O-tay, Mom, o-tay.” (His responses almost always make me want to giggle a little — he is just so earnest.) We get almost to the park and he sees something of interest, “Beeg steek!” he exclaims. (The joy that big sticks bring to the lives of little boys everywhere really cannot be put into words.) What does he use his big stick for? Well, he uses it to get the fuzz off of dandelions when blowing doesn’t do the trick. Dandelions are another of his great loves of the moment, along with the already mentioned big sticks, Toy Story and Poppy the cat. While at the park, we meet some kids. E always says “hi” now. Usually he says this before the people are within earshot. Then, he will say it again when they can hear. While swinging in the swing, he dropped his toy and one of the children handed it back to him. What did he say? “Thanks, Man!!” What a hoot, I think that he learned that one from Toy Story.

One other thing about E. He has his preferences. I have thought all along that he was an “easy” child. And, I think that I was only partly right. He is easy-going but I think that the rest of it was just that things were going his way. Now, he loves being decisive with his “yes” and “no”. And he will tell you exactly what he wants now. Which I also love. The other day, I got him out of his bath and was drying him off. I started to talk about diaper and desitin and jammies. He was alarmed. He looked at me in a questioning way and asked, “Run nekkid, RUN NEKKID!?!”. Another of his favorite things. 🙂 So I let him run and run. The joys of a 2 year old. It makes me happy to witness them all again.

Team Barlow
You know, when you have a few children, all of them male, you start to get comments like, “Wow, just x more boys and you’ll have your own basketball team, etc.”. And, I’ve never been offended by such comments. I mean, they are much better than, “You know why this keeps happening, don’t you?”. The thing that I think is funny is that I can’t see all of our boys wanting to participate in the same activity, be it baseball, basketball, tennis, nothing, in fact, except for this. It is something all Barlow males enjoy….from the moment they crawl over to a wall and pull to standing just to dance a little. It is in their blood. You should hear them in the basement. They totally rock out. No, I don’t think that they will ever play on the same team, not a sports one, anyway. Now, a Barlow rock band — that I can totally see. I’ll be their number one groupie. 🙂

Team Barlow
You know, when you have a few children, all of them male, you start to get comments like, “Wow, just x more boys and you’ll have your own basketball team, etc.”. And, I’ve never been offended by such comments. I mean, they are much better than, “You know why this keeps happening, don’t you?”. The thing that I think is funny is that I can’t see all of our boys wanting to participate in the same activity, be it baseball, basketball, tennis, nothing, in fact, except for this. It is something all Barlow males enjoy….from the moment they crawl over to a wall and pull to standing just to dance a little. It is in their blood. You should hear them in the basement. They totally rock out. No, I don’t think that they will ever play on the same team, not a sports one, anyway. Now, a Barlow rock band — that I can totally see. I’ll be their number one groupie. 🙂

Team Barlow
You know, when you have a few children, all of them male, you start to get comments like, “Wow, just x more boys and you’ll have your own basketball team, etc.”. And, I’ve never been offended by such comments. I mean, they are much better than, “You know why this keeps happening, don’t you?”. The thing that I think is funny is that I can’t see all of our boys wanting to participate in the same activity, be it baseball, basketball, tennis, nothing, in fact, except for this. It is something all Barlow males enjoy….from the moment they crawl over to a wall and pull to standing just to dance a little. It is in their blood. You should hear them in the basement. They totally rock out. No, I don’t think that they will ever play on the same team, not a sports one, anyway. Now, a Barlow rock band — that I can totally see. I’ll be their number one groupie. 🙂

Petite Apple Galettes

This recipe makes 4, 4-inch galettes. Now, I usually don’t go for recipes like this. I usually don’t buy things that are already made for me, like flavored cream cheese and puff pastry, to make a dessert. But it is worth doing for this dessert. This is a great thing to make for when you are entertaining because you assemble it early in the day and bake it at the last minute. It is extremely easy and it is really beautiful. Just a tiny scoop of vanilla ice cream would be a great addition. An easy, beautiful and yummy dessert that looks much harder than it really is. It doesn’t get much better than that. 🙂

Ingredients:
frozen puff pastry (I used half a package of Pepperidge Farm)
white sugar
2 apples (Granny Smith worked well)
cinnamon-swirl cream cheese (Philadelphia brand)
2 T butter
2 T brown sugar
1 cup sliced almonds

Thaw the 1/2 of the package of puff pastry. Halve the apples and peel and core them. Place them in the microwave and cook until kind of soft…I did mine for about 4 minutes. Cool the apples a little and then fill each with 1 T cream cheese (where the core was). Cut 4 (4-inch) rounds in the puff pastry. (A pizza cutter works really well for this.) Place on baking sheet. Cut 1 inch slices around the circumference of each round (about 8 to 14 equally spaced scores). Sprinke the pastry with a bit of white sugar. Place each apple cut side down in the center of each round of puff pastry. Refrigerate for 4 hours. When you are ready to bake the galettes, preheat the oven to 400. Microwave the butter, brown sugar and almonds for about 30 seconds. Divide the butter mixture 4 ways and spoon it over each galette. Bake about 15 minutes.

Petite Apple Galettes

This recipe makes 4, 4-inch galettes. Now, I usually don’t go for recipes like this. I usually don’t buy things that are already made for me, like flavored cream cheese and puff pastry, to make a dessert. But it is worth doing for this dessert. This is a great thing to make for when you are entertaining because you assemble it early in the day and bake it at the last minute. It is extremely easy and it is really beautiful. Just a tiny scoop of vanilla ice cream would be a great addition. An easy, beautiful and yummy dessert that looks much harder than it really is. It doesn’t get much better than that. 🙂

Ingredients:
frozen puff pastry (I used half a package of Pepperidge Farm)
white sugar
2 apples (Granny Smith worked well)
cinnamon-swirl cream cheese (Philadelphia brand)
2 T butter
2 T brown sugar
1 cup sliced almonds

Thaw the 1/2 of the package of puff pastry. Halve the apples and peel and core them. Place them in the microwave and cook until kind of soft…I did mine for about 4 minutes. Cool the apples a little and then fill each with 1 T cream cheese (where the core was). Cut 4 (4-inch) rounds in the puff pastry. (A pizza cutter works really well for this.) Place on baking sheet. Cut 1 inch slices around the circumference of each round (about 8 to 14 equally spaced scores). Sprinke the pastry with a bit of white sugar. Place each apple cut side down in the center of each round of puff pastry. Refrigerate for 4 hours. When you are ready to bake the galettes, preheat the oven to 400. Microwave the butter, brown sugar and almonds for about 30 seconds. Divide the butter mixture 4 ways and spoon it over each galette. Bake about 15 minutes.

Petite Apple Galettes

This recipe makes 4, 4-inch galettes. Now, I usually don’t go for recipes like this. I usually don’t buy things that are already made for me, like flavored cream cheese and puff pastry, to make a dessert. But it is worth doing for this dessert. This is a great thing to make for when you are entertaining because you assemble it early in the day and bake it at the last minute. It is extremely easy and it is really beautiful. Just a tiny scoop of vanilla ice cream would be a great addition. An easy, beautiful and yummy dessert that looks much harder than it really is. It doesn’t get much better than that. 🙂

Ingredients:
frozen puff pastry (I used half a package of Pepperidge Farm)
white sugar
2 apples (Granny Smith worked well)
cinnamon-swirl cream cheese (Philadelphia brand)
2 T butter
2 T brown sugar
1 cup sliced almonds

Thaw the 1/2 of the package of puff pastry. Halve the apples and peel and core them. Place them in the microwave and cook until kind of soft…I did mine for about 4 minutes. Cool the apples a little and then fill each with 1 T cream cheese (where the core was). Cut 4 (4-inch) rounds in the puff pastry. (A pizza cutter works really well for this.) Place on baking sheet. Cut 1 inch slices around the circumference of each round (about 8 to 14 equally spaced scores). Sprinke the pastry with a bit of white sugar. Place each apple cut side down in the center of each round of puff pastry. Refrigerate for 4 hours. When you are ready to bake the galettes, preheat the oven to 400. Microwave the butter, brown sugar and almonds for about 30 seconds. Divide the butter mixture 4 ways and spoon it over each galette. Bake about 15 minutes.

Thank you, IKEA
One thing that we did while in Chicago was to visit IKEA. Now, Jon and I have never been there, and we’ve been wanting to go for a long time. I love that place. Really. It is a good thing that we are living in an apartment that we don’t care about fixing up — rather than a home that we own, for example — because I would probably still be there right now, looking and dreaming and taking notes and measurements. It also helps that I’m thrifty, kind of, and don’t want to buy something unless I really, really need it. But Jon and I both loved this light fixture and decided that we must have it for our dining area.

Don’t you just love it? And it was a great price too. It is just part of the revamp that we do around here every few years, as opposed to moving on like everyone else. But don’t get me wrong now, Annie is not complaining today. The ten years we’ve had in this apartment have been good. Really. 🙂

And, I promise that I’ll post that recipe for Miniature Apple Gallettes tomorrow. So check back if that sounds yummy to you. 🙂

Thank you, IKEA
One thing that we did while in Chicago was to visit IKEA. Now, Jon and I have never been there, and we’ve been wanting to go for a long time. I love that place. Really. It is a good thing that we are living in an apartment that we don’t care about fixing up — rather than a home that we own, for example — because I would probably still be there right now, looking and dreaming and taking notes and measurements. It also helps that I’m thrifty, kind of, and don’t want to buy something unless I really, really need it. But Jon and I both loved this light fixture and decided that we must have it for our dining area.

Don’t you just love it? And it was a great price too. It is just part of the revamp that we do around here every few years, as opposed to moving on like everyone else. But don’t get me wrong now, Annie is not complaining today. The ten years we’ve had in this apartment have been good. Really. 🙂

And, I promise that I’ll post that recipe for Miniature Apple Gallettes tomorrow. So check back if that sounds yummy to you. 🙂