It's about to get interesting in here

We have recently started watching a show in Hallmark Channel called Mad Hungry with Lucinda Scala Quinn (www.madhungry.com).

Lucinda is not just someone who loves to cook and got a show. Not by any stretch. She is the Executive Editorial Director of Food and Entertaining for Martha Stewart's empire.

We have really gotten into how and what she cooks. Everything in moderation and nothing is off limits. Yet her food is easy, approachable, and can uses ingredients that be found in most (if not all) grocery stores. Seriously. For example. Her Basic Tomato Sauce is:

2 T olive oli

2 cloves garlic, minced

A pinch of red pepper flakes (or more if you like some spice)

1 28-ounce can of low-sodium (or organic) whole plum tomatoes

In a blender (or using a hand blender), puree the tomatoes to the level of chunky or smooth you like. Get the oil hot in a pan and then throw in the garlic and pepper flakes and cook just until you can smell the garlic (about 30 seconds). Pour in the tomatoes and bring up to a boil and then simmer for 30 minutes. Now I add 1 teaspoon sweet basil in the last 5 minutes of cooking and that is it. Now a tip I learned from her is when to add the herb. If you put the herbs in right at the beginning, you will cook out all of the flavor. Instead, add it at the end and then the flavor will perfume throughout the sauce. Huge thing to learn and makes a difference.

Anyway. I was watching her show on DVR, as my wife and I do every day, my 11-year old son came in and sat down about 3/4 of the way through. He was quite intrigued by what was being made. He grabbed the remote to see what the theme was. You can only imagine what his reaction was when he saw that it was an episode on bacon. 

Shortly there after, he restarted the episode and watched it completely. Once the show was done, he went into the kitchen and grabbed my copy of her book (http://amzn.to/hTbkVg).

Studying Lucinda's book quite intently

So when making the grocery list this week, he informed us that he wanted to make everything in that episode. So for breakfast - Bacon, egg, and cheese bagel sandwich (http://bit.ly/gdAaZq). And we are teaching how to properly clean the cast iron - now that we own some.

Making the eggs for the sandwich

The completed product

 Dinner was Pantry Bistro Salad (http://bit.ly/fqGgiJ) and the Spaghetti Carbonara (with whole wheat spaghetti - http://bit.ly/e9dWFA). I believe I could eat this salad with her tomato soup (http://bit.ly/eLdMkV) every day for lunch. Without question! This was a really good dinner. The recipe says that the salad is 4 servings and the pasta is 4-6. For us, the pasta is probably about 8 servings. But I ate quite a bit of the salad (which has a poached egg on it - part of the recipe).

The end results for tonights dinner

Even my 6-year old asked to try the salad and she does not do salads. I now need to get her other two books!

"Oh, that boy" or "You suck Dad!"

So yesterday I took the kids to the new pool here in town.

Going to the pool, I stopped to get drinks and lunch at Sonic. When we got there, I put the food in my gym bag because it was going to make it easier to carry and we carried in our drinks.

Well, Jackson saw on the wall a rules list that had "No outside food or drink" listed on it. When I went to pay our entry fee, the guy didn't say a word even though I had set my drink plainly in front of him. Well, I never saw the sign.

When we got in and got settled, and I started to had out our lunch. Reid munched along happily. But not Jackson.

I asked Jackson what was wrong, and he didn't answer. I asked him if he was going to eat or not because if the answer was no, lunch will not wait long on in the sun (even though it was chicken strips).

Turns out,  Jackson was so conflicted that he didn't want to eat. I mean, he was sitting practically in the fetal position on deck chair. His response "Dad, I don't want to knowingly break the rule and also turn around and do it in their face." I replied "Jackson, the clerk didn't say anything about it when I set down my drink" He fired back, "Just because he didn't enforce the rule doesn't make it right because it is posted." I was 1/2 way through my sandwich by this point and about choked. Nice.

I didn't make him eat. But an hour later, his tune had changed and he was ready to eat the canopy. You have to give the boy his convictions and principles.

More later...

Busy couple of months

So I have talked about the dining room and the rest of the paint projects and meeting The Pioneer Woman. Once that all died down, it was time to decorate for Heather's party. Let the chaos ensue: a total of 7 trees.

First up: the living room

This tree the photo tree. It has wallet-sized picture frames hung with red ribbon on the branches along with 4x6 and 5x7 framed photos stuck into the branches. The small frames a silver and the larger frames are black along with red ornament balls.

Next is the dining room.

This tree has all of the ornaments that we have either been given, kept from childhood, or things the kids made that they want to hang. Heather calls is the Heritage tree. I call it the tree with all of the old stuff. Then in the middle of the dining room table is the wreath. We just pulled the table slightly apart and dropped the electric cord through. The cord is run under table and the across a small part of the rug with piece of plastic that is the color of the rug to hide it and for safety.

The other three trees are a set of a 5, 4, and 3 foot trees that we call our forest. Then each of the kids have one. Don't be that impressed.

So the day of the party this is how the room looked.

The jars on the table look like this:

You can thank Bakerella. It's all her fault.Heather made 30 of these. They weren't too expensive but you spend about $65 to make 30.

So after that not much happened. Heather went to OKC this last weekend to see Beth Moore along with Precila Shirer and Kay Arthur with several friends and had a great time. Sunday morning all of the kids in the children's choir had their performance and they did well.

Yesterday was Heather's birthday. So instead of trying to go out to dinner last night, we went down to Tulsa and went to Ted's Cafe Escondito. The place was very good. Until....

The waiter asked if we had been there before while Heather and Reid went off to the restroom. I answered "No, we are here for my wife's birthday". Heather and Reid get back and just shortly after getting our food, they came over and ...

began to sing. The sombrero was an unexpected, but welcomed side benefit. Shortly after I took this with my iPhone, Heather yanked it out of my hand and took this:

This way there was evidence that I was at least having a good time before the bodily harm started. They needed a way to ID the body. But no, Heather decided that I should pay in other ways.

My penance - purchasing her a

iPhone 3GS. 32 Gigabytes. Black. So her device has 4 times the storage and has some features that mine doesn't have. I'm thinking that her tactical maneuver was more psychological than financial. So much so that I actually had a slip of the tongue when were talking about her phone: I said "my phone" instead of "your phone". She immediately said "Excuse me?" Oops. Bad Damon.

The funny thing was as Heather was getting instruction on how to use the device, the kids were over at the iPhone display playing games that were on their demo devices. When we went to leave, Reid asks "Where's my iPhone? I want one!" I couldn't contain my laughter. Sorry dear Reid. Not any time in a future that you can comprehend at the age of 4 3/4!

I had another doctor appointment this week for some follow ups. I think I have just one more but we'll see. Heather gets an MRI Thursday for her knee. Looks like she may be having some repair done on her menisci on her left one. We'll just see.

More later.

So what we have been up to this weekend?

We have been busy little bees this weekend. We have spread out decorating the house over 2 weekends. So here is what happened last weekend:

So we set up the tree in the den and the moved on to the mantle hanging our Pottery Barn stockings. Then moved on to set up out "forest" in the dining room (just need some "snow" to complete it).

On our tree this year (and last), we bought a bunch of Making Memories frames and plaques (with a Christmas Tree shape) and we printed pictures from the year and put them on the frames. Finished the tree out with red ornament balls and red beaded garland. See the close ups:

In other fun, we drove down to Tulsa to go to Rhema Bible College to see all of the Christmas lights. Reid was beside herself. There is just a lot to walk around and see. Here are a few:

The lights to this bridgeway are timed and change with music.

So today we put up lights on the house. We promised Jackson that we would this year since we ran out of time last year. He was itching to help. Then he decided that playing in the leaves would be more fun than helping Dad with the lights (since he couldn't get the lights clipped on).

So, that is what we have done. Any one else?

Wii will play

Yes, we now have a Wii. If you have not heard about these, here it is:

This is really just a a cool thing. Depending on the game, you get you butt off of the couch and are actually participating in the game. The unit comes with a set of games called Wii Sports (you can see some videos from the Wii Experience here). Oh, my. The boxing can kick your butt. I stayed home with Jackson today, who was feeling a little under the weather, and wii (OK, I'll quit now) played quite a bit. Heather came home and said "How do I turn it on. I want to play tennis." Ten minutes later, she was sweatting. Shortly after, Reid wanted her turn. It was just too cute watching her try to swing the controller to hit the ball.

Heather and Jackson as set to go to Denver Sept. 10. He went to the doctor Friday and the took 6 vials of blood. That is not a blood draw; that's a freakin' donation. He didn't even get cookies and juice after that, man. I personally feel that he got the shaft on that deal.

Work is good. Employees who participate in a particular retirement plan today found out what our stock allotment was. All I'll say is I was suprised and thinking it was very cool!

Well, I guess I'll be off to bed here shortly since I do have to go to work tomorrow (darn it). We're off the Independence, KS to the water park Saturday and then to Wichita next weekend. Jackson wants to go to Kobe Steak House for this birthday. Pawpaw really opened a can or worms with that one. Kobe a japanese restaurant that cooks on the grill right in front of you. He is all over that.

I need a weekend from the weekend

So, this weekend was busy. Heather's friend Heather A. came down from Arkansas City, KS with her boy Price. Reid loves it when Price is here. They are only 2 1/2 months apart in age so they both play until they cannot stand up.

Saturday we went to the Tulsa Zoo after eating at Red Robin in Owasso. That was really good. My Heather got the Teriyaki Chicked Burger and I got the Burger Parmigiana. Jackson has stated that he wants to eat there every time we are in Owasso. I guess that says something when the kid chooses that over Chick-Fil-A and anywhere that has a playground. We rode the train around the zoo and went in a few exhibits, but it seement to suddenly get really hot and sticky. We left after about 2 hours. Got some cute pics (I'll post some later). So Saturday night we decided to skip Kiddie Park since we were kind of wiped from the zoo and I from also mowin the yard. And it is not like the two little ones were going to notice. So, instead we went to Maggie Moo's (so darn good, too) after our dinner of steak and mashed potatoes.

So Sunday morning, we all got up and went to church. I swear, poor Heather A. Seems like every time she goes with us the Pastor's message is some verison of fire and brimstone. So after a simple lunch at home, we drove over to Claremore to Simply Scrapbooks. Came back home and then Heather and Price headed back to Ark City.

We had a good time but I think we were all zapped. Heather and Price will be back in 3 weeks. We'll get Kiddie Park in then.