Today

Today on my to do list was "wash our sheets" and in my mental to do was "take pictures and practice before my last photography class this week".  So while the sheets were being laundered, the crisp white background of the mattress pad enticed me to lay the baby on it and grab the camera.  So I snapped and practiced different things and enjoyed my model.  He's so adorably willing.

Time to change it up...

And there's the teeth that poked through over the weekend.

Later, it was time for playing outside for the little man and inside for the little babe, so since the camera was still handy, I snapped more.  Don't worry the little man is just fine, just not in the mood to pose onto of the snow pile for me.

Mr. Content

Happy to be where he is.

Hope you enjoyed your views today too.

The Best Homemade Brownies I've Ever Made

Now that's sayin' something, huh?  The BEST homemade brownies I've ever made.  That's what Shawn told me these were.  You see lately I've been on a quest to find a really good homemade brownie.  Actually I've been on several cooking related quests lately, but for now, just the brownie quest.  This quest really hinges on what kind of a brownie person you are.  You have to decide between: chewy or cake-like, nuts or no nuts, frosting or no frosting.  For me, I'm definitely in the chewy, no nuts camp, and I favor the no frosting versions.  So over the past few months I've been experimenting with different brownie recipes in search of one that meets all these standards and tastes fantastic.  I suppose my quest could be over now that I've made these and received such a positive response from my family.  But come on people, we're taking brownies here.  What could continuing the quest hurt?  After all, who knows if I might find another really good brownie recipe.  And one can never have too many good brownie recipes.

Here is the recipe:
The Best Homemade Brownies I've Ever Made
aka: Double Chocolate Brownie Bars

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Heat oven to 350*F. Grease a 9x13x2 inch baking pan.
2.  Place butter and 1 cup chocolate chips in a medium or large saucepan.  Melt over medium heat stirring occasionally until melted and smooth.  Remove from heat and add sugar, flour, eggs, vanilla, baking powder, and salt.  Stir with spoon until smooth.  Stir in remaining 1 cup chocolate chips.  Spread batter into prepared pan.
3.  Bake 30 minutes or until center is set.  Cool completely in pan on wire rack.  Cut into bars.  Store tightly covered.

Adapted from: Hershey's Classic Recipes cookbook

If you make these sometime, I hope you enjoy them as much as we did and will again! :)

Bounce and Kick

Lately I've really been struck with how easy going and content this little babe of ours is.  If his older brother was Mr. Destruction (and he still is), then this guy is Mr. Contentment.  Sometimes I catch myself looking up at him just to check if he's fallen asleep because he seemed so quite.  Usually he's not sleeping but just sitting peacefully.

At six months, he's generally happy wherever he is, but one spot he seems to really like is his bouncy seat.  And it doesn't hurt that we got it for only $5!  But no matter the price, with as happy as it seems to make this little guy, it's priceless!  My only complaint about he seat is that is uses batteries like crazy.  I think we have to put a new one in it every 6 weeks.  The seat also has a toy bar that lights up and plays some music if attached and turned on.  That feature has also come in very handy. 

Lately he's also figured out that in addition to the vibrating of the chair, he can get the whole chair to bounce by kicking his legs.  So it's becoming more and more common to find him happily kicking his legs and sucking on his lower lip while he sits in this seat.  Yep, that's right, "sucking on his lower lip".  This is turning into his way of comforting himself--or maybe just passing the time! :)  Either way, it a pretty nice alternative to his siblings attachments to pacifiers.  I think I'll take the lip sucking over pacifiers.  You can't drop or forget your lips!

Here's a parting shot (albeit a little blurry) of him sucking on his lip.  Such a cutie.

I'm also learning SO much about our new camera lately.  I'm actually taking a photography class through our local community continuing education group.  I've learned a lot and have even more confidence in my photography skills.  I'm not even shooting in auto anymore--all manual baby!  All the pictures in this post were taken at night in our kitchen--with fluorescent lights--and I still think they look really good.  Not that all my pictures are perfect (ahem...notice the photo above) but I can definitely see an improvement.  And if you remember, that was one of my goals for 2011.  Feels good to already have results on one of those goals.  Hopefully very soon I will be able to share more about how some of my other goals are going.  Life just seems to be moving along at light speed, so finding time to fit in blogging is a little more difficult.  I'm not giving up on blogging by any means, so stay tuned.  Hopefully I won't keep you waiting too long.

Be My Valentine

We had a great time celebrating Valentine's Day this year.  I think it is quite possibly becoming my favorite holiday.  It's definitely one of my top three: Christmas, Independence Day, and Valentine's Day.  We're also starting to have a few traditions with Valentine's Day.  For me it's all about showing love to my family.  And one fun way to do that is to make food in the shape of a heart.  For breakfast this year, I made heart shaped pancakes with heart-ish strawberry slices for the little miss before school.  And after I got her off for the day, I made the full meal for my valentine who was still snoozing away.  I think he enjoyed waking up to the smell of bacon and coffee. :)

We also made some time for reading valentine's from our friends and family.

For lunch, we joined the little miss in her kindergarten class for a valentine party.  We dined on hotdogs and root beer and had some valentine treats.  Then we watched and helped her open her valentines from her classmates.  That was a really fun time and we're glad that all 5 of us were able to spend it together.

Here she is with some of her friends from her class.

For dinner, I continued the heart theme but branched WAY out from previous years.  For the last two years now, I've just made a pizza in a heart shape.  But this year, I challenged myself by making homemade heart shaped cheese ravioli.  The kids loved it.  Of course, they love cheese and spaghetti so it's not too surprising.  And I was pleasantly surprised that, albeit a little time consuming, making homemade pasta isn't all that hard.  I do think that I'll need a pasta maker/sheeter attachment for my kitchenaide mixer the next time I want to do this though.  Making it "by hand" really made it a "labor" of love.

After dinner, we sent the kids on another valentine tradition of ours--a photo scavenger hunt.  Earlier in the day I went around the house taking pictures of different spots in our home.  We then printed them on our home printer and set up the hunt.  Some of the pictures were pretty obvious like this one, 

But then others I tried to make trickier.  Like this one,

They truly know our home, because they only hesitated on one picture.  When they got to the last hunt spot, they found three little packages, each with a valentine treat.

We hope you had a great Valentine's Day giving and receiving love to those you hold dear.

The Moose--Full Circle

1 1/2 years after his historic moose hunt, the antlers from Shawn first moose have been mounted on the wall in our home.  Shawn has been working on this, his first taxidermy project, for several months now and we all think he did a great job.  (photo above taken September 2009, below February 2011)

The moose antler mount project has ignited some sort of taxidermist switch in my darling husband and he's already working on his next project--his caribou from this fall.

This was the scene in my backyard this past fall after Shawn got his first caribou on his annual moose hunt.  Yes, you read that right.  He went on a moose hunt with his brother and came back with a caribou.  Both animals were in season in the area they were hunting this year, but you could only have a tag for one or the other.  Shawn had the caribou tag and his brother had the moose tag.  As it turned out they never saw any moose, but on one of their last few days they found a group of 8 caribou crossing the road in pairs.  (Don't worry no animals were shot from the road and all fish and game regulations were followed).  Are you thinking what I'm thinking?  Yeah, what other group of 8 caribou that travel in pairs do you know?  Mmmhmm.  Those belonging to a certain St. Nick, perhaps?  If that's so, then...*sigh*...my husband murdered Blitzen.  I know it was Blitzen because he shot the last caribou out of the last pair.  And we all know, thanks to Clement Moore, that Blitzen is the last reindeer in the line up.  So I guess if you didn't get what you wanted for Christmas this year, it might be my husbands fault.  Sorry to rat you out, dear. :)

But in all seriousness, Blitzen will soon be looking for a home on my wall.  And as often as my husband likes to go hunting, I feel like we're going to be running out of wall space VERY soon.  I remind him often that it's a living room not a museum of natural history.  He usually just smiles at me.  So yes, I'm doomed. :)

5 Months

It seems his photogenic side came out strong in this photo shoot, or maybe it's just his little personality blooming.  Such a happy boy and on a sunny day too!
During his 5th month he continued to work on his rolling skills and could do a couple of rolls in a row.  The first stages of mobility...dadada (insert horror music)!  So far so good.  He's still a sweet boy and quite content.  Not quite sitting up yet, but close. Not sleeping through the night, but only wakes up once and is pretty quick to get back to sleep. 
Enjoy the 5 month pictures--I got a lot of good ones this time.  It helps to have a newer, better camera.

Not sure what was happening in this picture, but it looks cool!

 with the doggie--no longer peacefully sitting beside him.  He must pull all things into his grasp.

 profile pic

 "back off big bro...give me some space"

Just kidding, he loves his big brother and sister--and they LOVE him.

 Ready for school.

"Yes, you, young man in the front with the green tractor shirt."

 Also happy on his belly...or his back...or well, anywhere.  He's just a happy baby!  Which makes for a happy momma.  What a blessing he is.

4 Months

Even though this little one is already 6 months now, I wanted to update the blog with his monthly photos.  I took these back in December when he was 4 months.  During that month he started rolling back to front.  He also started scratching himself like crazy.  We think he may have signs of eczema and is dry on his forehead causing him to scratch himself.  We try to keep his nails trimmed and his forehead moisturized, but he still often has "signs of a struggle" all over his forehead.  Oh, well...
So the 4 month pictures with not so much light outdoors.  Remember this is Alaska in December...translation, dark and cold.  Good thing we have this guy to keep us smiling!

With his doggie...getting bigger.