Gotta love him

Carver and I have been traveling back and forth to KY during our time off to visit his grandparents.  Since I am off work, its a nice change of pace to have somebody to hang out with during the day.  He has nurseries at both grandparents' houses, so I really only have to pack his clothes.  Last week, we hit the road and spent the week in the bluegrass.  Unfortunately, this leaves my husband to fend for himself in our absence.

I have a menu board in our kitchen to list my plans for meals for the week.  He often gives me a hard time when I don't have it updated.  When I got home on Sunday, this is what I found:

Too funny not to share:)

P.S. The Sip n' See is coming.  Look forward to a lengthy post in a few weeks:)

Cupid is my BFF

Since I have been a stay at home mom for the past 10 weeks, I have to tried to connect my inner Suzie-Homemaker (what was left of her after taking care of a newborn for a month or so).  Now that my baby is a little more predictable, we have a chance to get out more.  I have become mildly crafty and have been searching for new recipes to convince my husband to try.  Of course, I am forced to shop some in this spare time too.  My husband says I can never stay at home full time because I have more time to spend money:)  I decided to fully embrace all of these new traits on Valentine's day.

I know its way cooler to pretend like you don't care about this Hallmark holiday, but if I am being honest, I do care.  So I went all out.  Problem is, I had to find a way to go all out at home since babies are not always the most welcomed guests at fancy restaurants.  Both of us have been a little home sick since it is so easy to have our families' help, so I decided to make it a Kentucky night at our house.  We had burgoo and hot browns.  The links to the recipes are below.

Crockpot Burgoo

Hot Brown

Carver and I also spent the morning making Valentines for our families.  He hated the finger paint, so being mother-of-the-year (please insert sarcasm), I waited for him to be asleep and applied it to his hands.  You won't judge me so much after you see how cute they were...

Pinterest is my new obsession.  Found the ideas for those there.  I finished day by making dessert for the hubs.  Chocolate covered strawberries are a staple for v-day if you ask me.   And for those sceptics out there, he did a great job surprising me too.  He came home from work early (to find a messy house, an unshowered wife and a baby still in PJs at 2:00 since we weren't done with all our projects yet) and brought me my favorite candy and some jewelry from him and my new baby boy.  I'm a lucky girl!

Wrapping Up 2011

I am a pathetic excuse for a blogger, yes, I realize this.  But if one ever had an excuse for getting behind on sharing their thoughts with cyber space, it would be a new baby.  That's right... baby Carver has arrived.  In fact, he is almost 10 weeks old now.  Unfortunately I go back to work in 2 weeks, so I need to catch everybody up on the past 4 months... pathetic.  Here's a quick wrap up:

The Pank's Not-so-Scary Halloween

I suppose that is where we are now in our lives... Halloween is now more focused on treats than tricks and the celebrations are more fun for the kids than the adults. But i had to ask myself, why can't a good time be had by all? You know, parents get to play with other grown-ups while the kiddos run around entertaining each other. After all, it was only a few years ago that we were all childless, crowded into my apartment dressed as saved by the bell characters and drinking flavored rum. So this year, I decided we were having a Halloween party and age, marital status and number of children wouldn't matter.

Logistically this means you have to start early so those with little ones can stay awhile and those with scarier thing to do can attend your party first.  So party we did.  We had all kinds of costumes, from Elmo to pirates to the Green Lantern (and the lantern was a grown-up, not a child).  I did a simple chili bar, apple wedges with caramel and pulled pork sandwiches.  For dessert, had a pumpkin trifle (mentioned in my last post) and cupcakes.  Finally, we had apple cider (a.k.a. witch's brew) with bourbon sidecars and premiered my husband's homemade Octoberfest beer.  Thanks to all those who joined us.  Here is the pictorial documentation.

I was a bun in the oven and my husband was the baker.

Thanksgiving!

We spent the week before Thanksgiving at Disney. I will never be to old for that place and now I have a baby that I can use as an excuse o keep going back.  Despite being 8 months pregnant, I enjoyed myself.  Then it was off to Louisville and Lexington to celebrate the holiday and make our last trip home before I was banned from traveling.  

Christmas:)

We spent December 25 in the hospital since I gave birth 2 days earlier.  But we did have some fabulous celebrations prior to that.  We started with my in-laws the second weekend in December.  I got to cook Christmas dinner for the first time in my house (even if it wasn't on actual Christmas).  The weekend after that, my parents and grandparents visited and I got to cook a second Christmas dinner.  

At my house, Christmas breakfast was always a big deal, so I made breakfast also.  Since this blog is supposed to be about food (for the most part), below a recipe for the most fabulous crustless mini quiches you will ever taste.

4 oz. cream cheese
1/4 c. mayo
1/4 c. milk
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/2 c. Swiss cheese, grated
1/2 c. smoky links, grated
1 t. instant onion

In small saucepan warm cream cheese, mayo and milk till smooth. Beat eggs in small bowl, add cheese and smoky links and onion. Add to cream cheese mixture. Spray mini muffin tins with PAM and fill almost to the top. Bake @ 375 for 18 minutes. May be frozen. Warm in electric fry pan on low. Makes 18 mini quiches.

Then we got our real Christmas gift on December 23 at 9:48pm.

That pretty much wraps it up.  But on last picture of our beautiful baby boy is below... just to kick-off 2012:)