Buster Boo

John seems to be under the impression that our dog's legs work in an odd manner.

Unofficial Chef

I love to cook and bake.  And I mean: LOVE.  I find that taking basic ingredients, putting them all together, and having something new, delicious, and amazing come out of it is like art.  Art in the kitchen.  Art you can eat.  Mmm, eating.

While I definitely appreciate the beauty of food, I really like the taste of food.  I guess the term is "foodie", but I don't feel experienced enough in different cuisines to really call myself that.  Over the past few years, I've been getting much more adventurous in trying different things (both in eating and creating) and I find that sometimes I crave trying new food over eating something I know well.

I got out of the habit of "creating" for about two years while I was working (working and being a mom seemed to zap any creative energy that I had).  I stopped working just before summer and I tend to stick with simple meals over the summer months (mostly from being busy and feeling too warm to cook), so it's just recently been since it started feeling like fall again that my chef side has made a full comeback.

I've been obsessed with baking/cooking blogs, I spend hours on weekly meal plans, and I've been spending more and more time in the kitchen each week.  Oddly enough, I've been keeping up on cleaning my kitchen much better now that I'm cooking a lot, and that's mostly because if I DON'T wash those dishes and clean off the counter, I won't have any dishes or space to cook more food.  It's a strange little motivator, but it works.  And not only am I developing (or re-developing as it were) my love of cooking, but we're eating healthy meals together as a family 1-2 times per day, the boys are discovering their own love of cooking, I'm keeping a better handle on our grocery budget by meal planning every week, and we've essentially stopped eating fast food.  Home cooking isn't just comforting - it's healthy for everyone and good for the budget!

Gaming

We bought a Wii about two years ago, mostly for John and I.  We knew that it was a more little kid friendly system than others and that definitely made it appealing, even though the boys were still a tad too young to really figure out the hand motions needed to play anything.  We haven't invested in too many additional games for it because quite honestly, the Wii Sports that comes with it gives us tons of entertainment.  Although I won't lie; I do really want the Lego Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean games.  Who can resist cute little Lego Johnny Depp?!

Anyway, back to the boys.  Aiden learned how to play Wii bowling a while back, but has only recently hit his stride with it.  He's quite good and is on track to go "pro" pretty fast (he will happily tell you that it's his goal).  But in the past two days, Nathan has learned to play.  In the first few games they played, Nathan kicked Aiden's bottom big time.  It was hilarious, although Aiden didn't think so.  Funny enough, Aiden has gotten a LOT better since Nathan started playing.  Almost like losing to his three year old brother was a motivator....

Their games definitely aren't without occasional fights, but they love playing the game together.  And it's been a great activity for them to do when I need to cook dinner!

Costuming!

In case you weren't aware, I love Halloween.  I was going to say that I take Halloween very seriously, but that's not at all true.  I wasn't allowed to recognize Halloween for a very long time growing up because my mother believed that it was satanic.  Once I was old enough, I decided that it was only satanic if you made it that way.  For me, Halloween was a season for tons of fun and especially since I have kids now, I try to make it as fun as possible.  I'm definitely not one of those people who puts up dismembered limbs as decorations or watches scary/gory movies that are made for the season.  Halloween in our house means coming up with super silly decorations, carving funny faces into pumpkins (but we did choose one scary face this year), making yummy Halloween/fall foods, and choosing the perfect costume.  I think the boys get almost more excited about what MY costume is going to be than their own!  I've let them choose my costume for the past few years and they really enjoy getting to make the decisions for me.  I hope I can continue these Halloween traditions with Aiden and Nathan for many years to come (until they get too embarrassed to be seen with me).

 Ballerina mommy with Buzz Lightyear and Woody.

My costume!  And yes, I really did have all this just sitting in my closet.  Being able to still get up on pointe without breaking my ankles was a huge thrill for me, and my screwy knee held up just fine!