My Latest Hobby

Back when I had only 1 or 2 children (and therefore more time), I had several hobbies that I enjoyed doing on a somewhat regular basis. I scrapbooked, made jewelry, sewed cute decorative things (mostly for my sister, lol!) did cross-stitching, etc. to name a few. While I would love to pick some of those things back up one of these days, they are just difficult to do with 5 little boys running around, and, quite frankly, none of those things are terribly useful to my family right now.

I have taught myself to knit recently and picked up crochet again, mostly because we spend so much time traveling and those are easy to do in a car. But I've been missing having a "useful" hobby that I could really enjoy AND bless my family with at the same time!

I really enjoy cooking for my family and others, and I'm also always interested in saving money...I figure if my husband is the one working to earn the money, the best way I can help out is to spend it as efficiently as possible! I've also been trying to do more and more cooking from scratch, both for financial purposes and health purposes...it's nice to know exactly what's going into all the food we eat! So although I've been cooking for a long time now, this month I've decided to embark on a new hobby...one that I'm excited about because I know it will be a fun learning experience for me, AND bless my wonderful family at the same time!

I'm teaching myself (with help from all over the internet, of course!)...how to make all the bread we like to eat! Now, I've been making our basic sandwich bread for about 2 years now. I rarely bought sandwich bread at the store the last year or so we were in Austin, and I've finally gotten back to making all our sandwich bread in the last few months here. But I've still been buying at the store what I'll call the "fancy" stuff...like sourdough bread, pitas, bagels, tortillas, french/italian bread, etc. My new goal is to learn how to make all those things at home. I think it will be fun to learn, and the satisfaction of knowing my family enjoys eating them AND saving so much money over buying them at the store should make the endeavor well worth the effort! I'm also going to include my dear children in the fun, and of course chronicle our kitchen adventures here on our blog!

Today we made bagels. But before we get to that, I must pause to show you two of my adorable "kitchen helpers!"
**Disclaimer** I scrubbed my tiled kitchen floor just before taking these pictures. After all, I couldn't show the entire blogosphere (or even just the 6 or 7 people who actually read this) what my kitchen floor really looks like usually. But wouldn't you know it, my silly mottled tile comes out looking downright DIRTY in the pictures...even though it's NOT! Something is inherently unfair about this...I scrubbed for nuthin', LOL! **end of disclaimer**

Here are Josiah and Jordan hanging out in our kitchen. As you can see, my kitchen is only about 30" wide. I've become quite adept at hurdling little people while cooking at the same time!


Aren't they just the cutest?





Look who's crawling, and quite proud of himself!!











Now, on to our bagels! We used this recipe. The only change we made was to use 1/2 whole wheat flour and 1/2 white flour. Next time I might cut down the salt a little.
Here is Jordan (or Jordan's hand, more specifically) stirring water, sugar, and yeast together.


Jordan loves to help me cook. He wants to do everything by himself. He did a pretty good job measuring the flour...


Here he is stirring the salt into some of the flour...


Watching the dough mix...


Here's our ball of dough, ready to rise! I turn on my oven for a couple minutes, then turn it off and put the dough in. It rises for me really well that way, as opposed to out on the counter.


After the dough rose to double in volume, I punched it down and cut it into 12 chunks. Jordan and Jonathan rolled them into balls for me...





Here the balls are "resting." When Joey came in the kitchen to see what we were doing, Jordan yelled at him, "Don't touch the dough...it's sleeping!"


After letting the balls rest for 5 minutes (Jonathan minded the timer), it was time to shape them. Jordan and Jonathan successfully pulled holes in the center of most of the bagels. Joey mashed, squished, poked, and otherwise mangled the one he tried, but he was proud of his efforts nonetheless.





Here they are resting again while we got the water boiling...


Now doesn't this look like a sweet little boy who NEVER gets in trouble for anything at all? Just look at that angelic grin...NOT! :) You can usually tell by looking at Joey what our previous meal was...yes, our dinner included spaghetti sauce...chicken parmesan really, but he's wearing the tomatoes!


Watching the bagels boil. They have to boil for 45 seconds, flipping halfway. So we all counted out loud for each batch. Gotta get those math skills in there!





Jordan is absolutely "all boy!" This is what I got when I told them to look at the camera and smile!


Here they are, boiled, brushed with an egg wash, and sprinkled with sesame seeds. Then we popped them in the oven for 35 minutes...


And voila! Success! Don't they look nice?


Everybody gobbled them down happily, with a little cream cheese...








Even Daddy liked them!


Well, I'm happy to say that our first attempt at making our own bagels was a success, not to mention a lot of fun! Next time we're going to try adding cinnamon and raisins. We can't wait! Stay tuned for our next bread-baking challenge...I'm sure we'll be trying something new later this week!

Our Sweet Baby Boy!

In honor of our sweet baby Josiah who so rarely ends up in the photos of our outings, I've decided today to post some recent pictures of him. He is 11 months old now, and getting so big! And we think he is just about the cutest thing ever!

Here is Josiah sitting on the living room floor, being loved on by big brother Joey. Joey loves his baby brother, and hugs him as often as he can! Josiah doesn't always appreciate the love, since Joey is not known for being careful or gentle, but here he is at least tolerating it!


Big boy! I'm not sure what is up with his eyebrow here...he must've gotten into something sticky and rubbed his eye.

Showing off his first two teeth!

Sitting on the couch with Daddy, watching his brothers play Wii. I think he might be getting tired of Mommy, camera in hand, trying to get his attention!

This is from a week or so ago. I had put him in the pack and play in the living room so that I could make lunch. Apparently he was tired. My guess is that he fell asleep sitting up and then plopped forward. Here he is sound asleep, folded in half with his face between is feet. It doesn't look comfy to me AT ALL, but I guess it works for him!

Now to move on to our mischievous little Joey. He disappeared from the lunch table while I was doing something in the kitchen. I found him minutes later in the living room, hiding out (while still eating his PB&J) in this large duffle bag that is usually stored under the sofa. He has that "Oh, no! I've been caught!" look, doesn't he?

He's quite the little ham...

See what I mean?

"Oh, yeah...look what I'm getting away with..."

It's just so hard to resist this cute little face! He really does get away with entirely too much, unfortunately!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Guess what all of our loyal fans in the blogosphere get for Valentine's Day? Yep, you guessed it...a new blog entry! :) After oh, I don't know, about 6 weeks of neglect, I've finally gotten around to posting here again. My plan, of course, is to get back in the swing of things and update this regularly again.

Well, now that you've recovered from that shock, let me show you what I decided to do for all my best guys (minus my littlest guy) for Valentine's Day. Jeremy is a huge fan of chocolate chip cookies, and the boys don't mind eating them either, so I decided to get creative and make mini cookie cakes for all of them. I was going for something like the ones you get in the mall, only smaller. I'm not quite as skilled as the professionals in the mall, but I think they turned out pretty cute. And they were definitely yummy!

Here's my cookie batch, cooked up in my jelly roll pan. Before I baked the cookies, I messed around with paper and scissors to make heart patterns that took up as much of the pan as possible while still getting in 4 equally sized small hearts and one larger one. I placed the paper patterns on the cooked cookie and cut around them with a knife...


I had to remove some cookie from the corner to slide the spatula under...those corner bits also doubled nicely as a taste-test of the cookie. I wish I could tell you that that corner bit was all I taste-tested...


The 4 smaller cookies cooling. The bigger cookie, being in the center of the pan, wasn't quite cooked enough and went back into the oven for a few more minutes.


My original plan included home made buttercream frosting, but in the end I came to my senses and decided that the tub of Duncan Hines Homestyle Vanilla hiding in the pantry was a much more expedient option. Here are a couple of the cookies, piped and sprinkled with red sugar.

Jeremy's cookie. It's a good thing I have no aspirations to work as a cake decorator, LOL! Although I have bought grocery store cakes with worse writing...

I put them in gallon zippy bags, plates and all, so they'd stay fresh overnight. Jeremy's, being on a dinner-sized plate, got well wrapped with plastic wrap. In the morning, I placed them all on the table before breakfast, complete with a bit of red curling ribbon for decoration.

Here are some of my adorable boys with their cookies...

Joey...

Jordan...

Believe it or not, this picture was BEFORE the sugar rush kicked in!!

There, a much sweeter picture of my Jonathan...

And finally Joshua...

Just in case you are wondering, I did give them cereal for breakfast in addition to their cookies. I'm not THAT irresponsible, holiday or not! :) Jonathan and Jordan actually decided that cookies were not acceptable breakfast food and saved all of theirs for later in the afternoon! Joshua and Joseph ate about half of theirs. I think Jeremy might have just had cookie for breakfast. Jeremy and the boys also surprised me with sweet Valentine's Day cards. Even Josiah had "signed" one of them.

After breakfast, we decided to go out and get some of the boys some much-needed hair cuts, and go exploring in Central Park. We even took along a picnic lunch...when was the last time you ate a picnic outdoors with temps in the 30s? That might have been a bit more "adventure" than I usually enjoy, but it worked and kept us from spending $40 to eat at McDonald's!

All in all, we had a very pleasant Valentine's Day, and hopefully created some fun family memories. I can't ask for much more than that!

New Year's Resolution #1...Out with the Clutter!

Okay, so it's not really a New Year's Resolution, but since the beginning of a new year is a great time to make some much-needed changes, I figured this was as good a time as any to pare down some of the unnecessary "stuff" filling our closets and shelves! When we were packing up to move back in July, I purged what seemed like about half of our possessions, although it probably wasn't quite that much. I had a huge garage sale and donated what didn't sell to a local group that helps teen mothers. Then what I missed putting out in the garage sale was taken to Goodwill a box or two at a time. Furniture that we knew we wouldn't have room for in Manhattan was sold on Craigslist.

So why do I STILL have so much stuff? I think I moved many things that I thought I would use here but so far I haven't. Usually I have a hard time tossing an item that I think I might need at some point, because I don't want to have to pay to replace it. However, here our biggest need is SPACE, so I've decided if it isn't loved or useful right now, OUT IT GOES! I'm giving the boys' clothes a slight exception...if it won't fit within the next year, it's going! So far, I've gone through all the boys' clothes. All baby stuff up to 9 months as well as all the size 7s are going to be lotted up and put on Craigslist. A few items that we have in excess are in a box for the thrift store. I've also gone through their rather large dress-up clothes collection and boxed up some of those for the thrift store. I've got a bunch of baby bottles and related items all ready to go to a new home, and my collection of disposable sippy cups is finally in the trash! Next I will be going through the hall closet and the cabinets in the living room. I might even have stuff in the kitchen that I can part with! And, of course, I'm determined to pare down the ever-expanding toy collection--hopefully the boys will cooperate on that one!

As hard as it is for me to let go of things, I know I'm going to enjoy having clutter-free surfaces, better organized cabinets and shelves, and room to put away the things that we DO use and love!

If I'd known It Would Wash the Dishes, I'd have Bought It a Long Time Ago!

This Christmas my parents bought us a Wii as a family gift. We had played one this summer while staying with some friends before we moved, and it seemed like something the whole family would enjoy. Jonathan loves video games in general, Joshua likes the competition, Jordan is our sports nut, Joseph likes to be in the middle of anything active and noisy, and Mommy and Daddy like things we can all do together as a family. That just leaves Josiah, who isn't terribly interested yet, but you can't please everyone! :)

We've been playing the sports games the most so far. Joshua and I enjoy bowling--turns out Josh is really good at it! Jonathan and Jordan have the most fun playing tennis. You'd better not stand too close as they swing their remote "rackets" back and forth! All the boys like golf, although Jordan for some reason only wants to aim in the total opposite direction and hit the ball as hard as he can...it's even better if he can hit it over a cliff and into the ocean! Jeremy has become quite a good boxer, although Jordan can just about take him on!

The sad part? Jeremy and I have been downright sore after several days of playing Wii Sports. Yes, we are obviously in pretty bad shape if we get sore playing a video game! I mean, it's not like I'm bowling with a 16-lb. ball or anything. It's a small, plastic remote! Pathetic. Maybe I need to just go ahead and buy Wii Fit and get in shape! :)

So back to the title...Jonathan usually works pretty diligently at his school work, although he is a bit less responsible with his chores. Yesterday he finished his schooling quickly and did excellent work, so I offered to reward him by letting him play the Wii, even though video games are usually only allowed Friday evening through Sunday. There was one caveat, though...he had to finish his chores first. I have NEVER seen that child work so quickly or so well at chores, and he even came to me after each one to ask what ELSE he should do!! Hmmm, this thing could be really REALLY good for me! I don't want to wash dishes? "Hey, Jon! Wanna play Wii?" Bwahahahaha!!

Happy New Year!

What do you do for your first New Year's Eve living in New York City with 5 children under 10 years old? Why, you bundle everyone up and head down to Times Square, of course! Never mind the huge crowds, the temps in the teens (with a windchill factor near zero!) and the fact that the closest we could get was about 58th street...we still had to at least go check it out! We had no intentions of staying until midnight, but it was fun to brave the weather and the crowds, and the boys enjoyed yet another new experience in NYC!

This is as close as we could get. The two columns of bright light at the center of the photo are the huge TV screens in Times Square. We are a good 16 blocks away or so here.


Jenny, Joshua, and Jonathan...


Joseph studying the crowd...


Jeremy lifting Joshua up for a better view...

Before going back down into the subway station at Columbus Circle, we stopped to take a few pictures in front of the Time Warner Building.

Poor Jordan...his hat is so low on his face it looks like he can't even see! They were bundled up well!

Ahh, back where we should have been all along...watching the Dick Clark show on TV in the comfort of our own living room!

Even Josiah stayed awake for the festivities!

Is he adorable, or what?!?!

He's watching the TV intently...just waiting for the ball to drop! :)

After ringing in the New Year, we all gathered at the table (minus Jordan and Josiah, who were ready to sleep!) and had hot chocolate and toasted pumpkin bread. It seems a certain Mommy had promised some boys a snack while we were out, and of course promptly forgot about it when we got home and started watching the New Year's Eve show. I was insistently reminded as soon as the celebration was over that snacks and hot chocolate had been promised, so I had to follow through! I think all the boys finally got to bed around one a.m. Hopefully they will all sleep in this morning!

On a parting note, here are a few photos from the park earlier this afternoon. Now how many kids do you know that have snowball fights with THEMSELVES?? Well, I've got one. Joshua, when he couldn't get his brothers interested in throwing snowballs with him, decided a one-man fight was in order. And I took the pictures to prove it! May I present exhibit one, the snowball:

Now here we have exhibit two--said snowball being smacked into Joshua's face:

And finally, exhibit three--the snowy aftermath...with a big grin! :)

That's my silly boy!

I'm thinking I might post later (much later) today about some New Year's resolutions, one of which might be to keep up with this blog better! But I'm not making any promises...;)