Homemade Goodness

I have an awesome Hubby. It's been awhile since I told you that, so I think it's about time.

Wanna know what inspired this particular gush of Hubby-gloat? If you are still reading, you must. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll show you...

I jumped to this photo on purpose. I think it's a cool shot AND I wanted to keep the suspense going, at least for some of you. Others, I know, probably know where this post is heading. (Like Shannon, who I should just apologize to now, because there's a pretty good chance this post might make her a teeny bit homesick. Or hungry. Or both.)

Let me back up a bit...

Does this shot help? I doubt it. I mean, I took the picture. I know what this is, but you can't really tell just by looking at this shot, which I think sort of resembles a mud pit.

How about now? Is this better?

That amazing Hubby of mine made CINNAMON ROLLS yesterday. From scratch.

His cinnamon rolls are quite tasty. Very. Heck, they're downright delectable.

As I was taking these pictures, I was thinking to myself, "My blog is going to end up looking all Pioneer Woman-ish." Which is cool, 'cause I love the Pioneer Woman. That wasn't my goal, though. I just love the way food pictures turn out when shot with my 50mm prime lens (if you are at all into photography, there's a good discussion on the lens thing here).

Hubby didn't even complain that I was all in his way as he carefully rolled the buttery-cinnamon-sugar-laden dough. He's nice like that. Or he knows that after almost 17 years of marriage it's best to just shut up sometimes (i.e., often) and humor your wife. Maybe it's a little of both.

Look at that focus!

Yes, this image is a repeat. But I like it. Not only do I think it is sort of artsy, it's a great example of where the "roll" in cinnamon rolls comes from. If you've never seen them made, you may not have known that.

Let's say you knew that the dough is rolled as part of the cinnamon-roll-making process. Did you know how the soft, squishy dough is cut without being all smushed? A knife would totally smush the things so you'd end up with oddly misshapen ovals instead of circles.

The cutting tool of choice for this particular baker (aka Hubby) is dental floss. Not the minty kind either. Just plain, ole dental floss.

See how neatly it slices the dough?

Here's another artsy shot. Click on the image so you can see the big version if you really want to appreciate the artiness of the shot.

See how nice and round they are?

The next step is baking. You may need to let the rolls sit for a while first. I'm not sure. The baker is not downstairs yet, so I can't ask. But it doesn't really matter because this isn't a how-to post, it's one of my I-bet-I-can-make-you-hungry posts.

Because I had to leave, I was not able to get a shot of the steamy, fresh-from-the-oven rolls. I missed the whole making of the cream cheese icing, too. In all honesty, I even forgot to take a picture of the finished product until after I'd consumed one (okay, two) and was going through these pictures.

However, knowing at least some of my faithful fans would want to see the end product, I did what any good blogger would do and made sure I got at least one good shot so I could include a shot of the ready-to-eat cinnamon rolls in today's post...

Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go grab myself a cinnamon roll. Or two.

A Great Day for Soup

Winter is finally upon us. Even if we haven't gotten to the winter solstice yet, it's been cold and wet (mostly rain). Great soup weather!

I've made soup each weekend. And this time, I had help.

As I have reported here previously, our oldest grandson, Gaige, is a wrestler. Wrestling is not like soccer or baseball where you show up, play a game and are done. It is played in tournaments and can be an all-day thing. I don't know who that is more torturous for, Amy, since she has to keep track of a very energetic 2.5 year-old in a gym full of people, or Joey and Brianna, who need to occupy themselves while their brother is off doing the Hulk Hogan thing.

So, knowing there was a tournament scheduled for Sunday, Hubby and I offered to keep Brianna and Joey.

It is quite a different dynamic with two kids here instead of three. Or, to be more precise, only one of the older kids. Brianna and Gaige tend to bicker a lot, like any brother and sister. It drives me crazy. My old brain can only take so much noise and chaos. They tend to run (literally) through the house chasing each other, too, which also drives me crazy.

Anyway... we had a very nice and relatively quiet visit with the grandkids this past weekend.

Joey just LOVES all of the emergency equipment we have here. It is all battery-operated with flashing lights and sirens. I have my parents to thank for saving all of the stuff, which was Eric's when he was little. That means most of the stuff has been around for 17+ years!

Amy said that as soon as Joey heard he was coming here, he was saying "Pop and G firetruck. Firetruck at Pop and G's. Etc."

We keep the emergency equipment with the other toys in our formal living room, which we call the library (it has also has bookshelves full of books). You can see some of the books in the background of this picture, which Brianna insisted I take to show that she and Pop finished this USA puzzle.

At one point on Saturday evening, Pop told Joey they had to put all of the trucks back into the "firehouse." What he meant was, before you (Joey) go to bed we need to put all of these trucks away.

Well the next day, while Joey was eating lunch, I said something to Brianna like, "You can leave that in the library when you leave." And Joey said, "Not library G, the firehouse." He'll remember that, too. So from now on, we'll be referring to that room as "the firehouse" when the kids are here.

He really does love those trucks.

He loves this ride-on train, too. All the grandkids do. It also belonged to Eric, who was on it all of the time. Who knew that it would get so much mileage?

As a quick aside... is there anything cuter than a little boy in red, flannel pajamas? Flannel pajamas, period?

Sunday was soup day. As you can see, Brianna helped me make a big pot of beef vegetable soup. The pot you see above ended up being too small, so halfway through the process, we had to switch to a larger pot.

She was really enjoying helping me. It's not often that she gets to be the center of attention. It's hard being the big sister/oldest kid all of the time.

She was telling me how "so not fun" it is playing hide and seek with Joey. First, he only counts to about two before he starts looking, so she has to hide FAST. Then, when he does find her, he decides that was a pretty good hiding spot, so that's where he'll hide for the rest of the game.

Pop must have overheard this conversation. When it was Brianna's turn to be the seeker, once she started to look, walking slowly and taking the high road to find him, Pop ran and grabbed Joey without her knowing it and plopped him in the recliner. She was quite surprised when he wasn't in the spot where she expected him to be. We all had a pretty good laugh when she finally saw him sitting in the chair, smiling away!

She really did make a pretty good helper. See how full the pot is? And we still have more stuff to add!

While Brianna and I were cooking, Pop and Joey were looking at family photos. Something else the boy loves to do. A couple of times, when he saw me in a picture, he'd get all excited and say, "That's G! Look, there you are, G! Pop, there's G!" It was very cute.

Joey really is the smilingest 2-year-old I've ever encountered.

After we got the soup transferred to a larger pot, and Brianna got dressed, the soup-making continued.

While Brianna and I continued to cook, Pop and Joey watched A Bug's Life and ate some snacks.

In this shot, she's adding the diced cabbage, which she had cut up by herself (mostly). I would have taken pictures of that, but she was using a chef's knife as long as her arm. So I figured I'd be better off paying very close attention to that. I mean, documenting this stuff is important, but so is keeping all of her digits and limbs intact.

Joey was quite engrossed in the movie. Shortly after this was taken, we fed him lunch and put him down for a nap.

By then, the soup was finished, so that's what Brianna and I ate for lunch.

Afterward, we worked together sewing a holiday outfit for Klondike (her dog).

I would have made Hubby take pictures of us sewing, but he was napping, too!

This grandparent stuff is tiring. Wonderful, but tiring.

We are both looking forward to doing it again. Soon.

Hubby is My Hero

It's been a while since I talked about how wonderful my Hubby is.

In fact, I can't remember the last time I did that. I always think he's awesome, I just don't Blog about it too much. I mean, that's sort of like bragging, right?

Anyway... this morning I'm thinking of Hubby a lot. Why? Well, I'll tell you. Regular readers will remember my All Good Things Must End post from the other day, where I revealed that my supply of Hazelnut and Vanilla Bean Seattle's Best coffee had been completely depleted. The stuff is just not easy to find around here.

Well, while I was away on Friday/Saturday doing my 5k thing, which I still need to talk about, guess what Hubby did?

He went and found me some Hazelnut and Vanilla Bean Seattle's Best! Woo hoo! I am drinking a cup of hazelnut as I write this, thinking about my Hubby and how nice he is to me, so figured I should share that sentiment with the world.

I love you, Hubby! The coffee is just what I needed to start my day.

Our Distracting Visit to DC

Hubby and I took Thursday off from work so we could drop Shannon off at Dulles Airport. She had to be at the airport at 7:30 AM, which meant we had a whole day to kill. We could either go home and be sad all day or find some interesting distraction. Opting for the latter, we headed into Washington, DC.

After taking about 3 pictures, I realized my camera battery was almost dead. Not only did I not have a back-up, the car-charger was at home in my camera bag.

It was still pretty early at that point. Way too early for retail stores to be open. So we went ahead and walked around the Tidal Basin for a close-up look at the Jefferson Memorial, which is yet another national icon I'd never actually seen despite living like 45 minutes away.

After poking around there for a bit, we headed to Alexandria in hopes of finding a cheap battery charger. (I mentioned the trip to Alexandria on my blog yesterday.)

We saw this cool little ranger vehicle on our way back to the car. I guess if you have to be a Park Ranger in DC, the least you could expect, or hope for, is a cool little vehicle to drive.

After returning from Virginia, we visited the World War II Memorial, which Hubby hadn't seen yet. I saw it on my last trip to DC.



This wall of stars, which is part of the WWII Memorial, is known as The Freedom Wall. It's comprised of 4,048 gold stars. Each gold star represents one hundred American service personnel who died in the war (or remain missing). The 405,399 American dead and missing from the Second World War are second only to the loss of more than 620,000 Americans during our Civil War.

From there, we headed toward the Capitol and Library of Congress, which were planned stops. We figured we'd just stop and see things as we walked, should the urge strike us.

There was lots of activity on and around the National Mall. Preparations were under way for the Solar Decathlon. It was sort of annoying, really, having all those moving trucks and construction equipment and people around. But we made the best of it.

We would have gone to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which is really a very moving (as in emotional) tribute to the people who fought there. But we'd already had enough emotion for the day, thank you very much. Same goes for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, which I really want to see someday.

We saw some cool buildings along the way...

This a the Smithsonian Castle Building. I have to remember to go back there and visit the gardens. We were going to, but were starving and decided to look for a meal instead.

Right beside the castle was the Arts and Industries Building, which is closed for renovation.

I can't imagine what sort of stuff one would see inside such a building, but the outside of the building is very cool.

I consulted the Smithsonian brochure I'd picked up inside the Castle to determine where we should eat. Hubby and I both wanted to see the National Museum of the America Indian. Hubby joked that maybe they had a restaurant serving Indian tacos on fry bread. As luck would have it, they actually did.

Unfortunately, while the taste was okay, the fry bread was rubbery and the meal was way overpriced. But then, we were in DC in a museum, a double whammy as far as inflated costs goes.

The museum was nice--the building is amazing--but it was a bit more historical/educational than we'd anticipated. Not to mention depressing. Knowing what the white man did to the Indians depresses me, especially since Hubby and I have seen, many times, how poorly the Indians in this country live.

I did enjoy quite a bit of the art, though. Like the painting above and these masks...

Hubby just doesn't understand art, I guess.

Though I think he was just trying to make me laugh. He did.

After that, it was off to the Capitol and Library of Congress.

I just love the Great Hall at the Library of Congress, as evidenced by all of the pics below.




The next image is from the main reading hall. Something I need to go back and check out further.


The level of detail in all of the paintings, mosaics and ornamental marble inside is amazing. The detail on the outside of the building is also quite impressive.


I'll leave you with this last shot of the Capitol. Hubby is the one who first noticed the sun streaming through the clouds.

I hope you enjoyed our visit.