The Birthday Party--Part 1: The Food

Here's just the beginning of the Sammy Westphall 2nd Birthday Extravaganza. The whole party had a golf theme, since that is one of Sambo's favorite things. Here's what we ate for lunch:

"Sand Trap" cupcakes. They were chocolate cake with homemade peanut butter frosting, then covered with crushed Butterfinger bars to look somewhat like sand. Regardless of appearance, they were delicious!
Meatballs in the Crockpot were re-named "Bucket o' Balls" For those of you who don't golf, when you visit the driving range you pay for and hit a bucket of golf balls to practice.
These were Open-Faced Club Sandwiches. I used cocktail bread to make little sandwiches. The joke (besides referencing a country club) comes from The Simpsons: Homer is taking golf lessons and Tom Kite says "Homer, you need an open-faced club, a sand wedge" and Homer replies, "Mmmm...open-faced club sandwedge."
The Fruit Cup, complete with #2 flagsticks.
We were drinking Arnold Palmers, too!
Here's a snapshot of Sammy's custom golf shirt for the day...Mommy made it :)
More to come from the birthday boy!

Satistics Update

Both kids have been to the doctor in the last week, and here are their stats:

Anne (6 weeks shy of her 4th birthday)
32 lbs
41 inches tall

Sam (2 year and 1 day)
29 lbs.
36 inches tall

Anne did all the things the doctors asked her, such as naming colors and drawing shapes. He joked, "So, what's left for you to learn at preschool?"

Sam did not show quite as much personality, but he did not scream hysterically, so we'll call that progress.

The Next Food Network Star

Anne has decided that she loves watching "cooking". We watch a ton of Food Network AND Cooking Channel (and Anne can tell the difference).

It all started one day when she asked, "Can we watch the pretty girl who cooks?" It took me a while to figure out who she was talking about, but we figured out it was Giada deLaurentiis from "Everyday Italian" and "Giada at Home"

Now that she has been watching Giada (and Paula and Ina and Kelsey and "The Pioneer Woman") she has quite the vocabulary of cooking terms. Here are a few of my favorite things she has said:

Mom, whisk your chicken broth!

Is this fresh basil?

I will get my baking sheet.

My lemonade has to rest in the fridge for 35 minutes.

There are many more things she has said, which I (of course) can't remember. Watching cooking also made Anne aware of what we buy at the grocery store. On our last trip she recognized chicken broth, pasta (not "noodles"), and read the word "Sargento" on the cheese. She's so casual about it, too. She looked at me and said, "We know that. It's Sargento." Like 3-year-olds everywhere know that stuff! She's such a funny girl.

Here she is, whipping up a little somethin' on the deck.

Pudding Face

One baby boy. One chocolate pudding cup.

Summer Randoms

Some snapshots of our day-to-day life!

Here's Anne during "quiet time" She rests every day while Sammy takes his nap. Usually she watches a movie in the living room, but sometimes she chooses to rest on our bed. On this particular day she fell asleep on top of all my pillows.

My handsome man!
These two have been my nearly-constant companions this summer. It will be a bit strange to head back to school and not be with them all the time. I won't miss their constant eating and my constant food preparation :)
Babies! I clearly have my hands full.
Soon to come--Sammy's birthday and Uncle Will's wedding. A bit later to come--Anne's first day of school and her 4th birthday. Keep checking in; our busy season is just getting started.

Parade

We took in our local parade on Sunday. I have always enjoyed the fact that our town festival is held during the first weekend of August. It gives us something to look forward to as summer winds down.

The parade was a good one--lots of candy! We also walked away with bead necklaces, a slinky, and several pencils. If it had been an election year our kids would've been covered in stickers, too.

Here's Dad and Anne, taking it in. Anne got those Dum-Dum suckers up off the street and into her mouth pretty quickly!Mom and Sammy. This was right at his naptime--he wasn't really diggin' it.

(These pictures illustrate our "divide and conquer" parenting strategy. When we go out I let Sam pick which kid he wants to be in charge of. I usually get Sammy since Sam doesn't like to push the stroller.)

Blue tongue!
Seriously, take me home and put me to bed...
Check out Moammar Gadhafi standing over my shoulder. Someone should tell Obama he's in the country.

Summer is soon to end for the Westphalls. We're trying to make the most of the few days we have left!

Faith like a child

Anne has been attending Bible school at our church this week. There is much that I can share about that, but I think I will wait until I have some pictures or video or links to share with you.

Last night, though, she and Sammy were being noisy after bedtime. I was just about to get up and tell them to be quiet when Anne said, "Sambo, let's pray. Dear Jesus, thanks for all my Bible school stuff. Thank you. Amen."

She is obviously learning quite a bit and enjoying herself!

Week of Recipes--Day 7

BBQ Chicken Wings

I'm taking the lazy way out today and linking you to the recipe I made. Deal with it :)

As a general rule, I do not like chicken wings. They are small and bony and hard to eat. However, I was in possession of a bag of "party wings" and I wasn't going to just throw them out.

Enter: the CrockPot

My mom suggested making the wings in the CrockPot. I didn't think it would work, since meat in the CP gets really tender and falls off the bone--something you do not want when cooking wings. However, I went to the Crockpot 365 blog and found several recipes for chicken wings. We went with Apricot Barbecue Wings and they were delicious! I used a jar of grape jelly instead of apricot since I was not about to drive to the grocery store with 2 kids just for a jar of jelly.

Even when I was dishing up our dinner I was thinking "I'll just eat a couple, to try them, and leave the rest for Sam" Well..."a couple" turned into half a dozen--they were so good! Sammy ate some of the meat, too.

Give these a try. I am sure you will enjoy them!

Week of Recipes--Day 6

Party Leftovers Pie

After our rocking s'mores party, we had some random leftovers. The kids ate the chocolate marshmallows as snacks A LOT (Sammy would say, "Kah-kit mahmeshow?") and Anne enjoyed the few remaining Hershey bars ("that chocolate in the brown paper")

When the supply dwindled, I created this pie to use up what was left.

To begin, make a graham cracker crust. We had one sleeve of graham crackers that was broken in the box, and I had saved the shards. Combine 1/3 cup butter, melted; 1/4 cup of sugar; and 1-1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs (about one sleeve's worth). Press into a 9-inch pie plate and chill in the fridge for 1 hour.

When the crust has cooled, cook up a large (6-serving) box of chocolate pudding. You could use instant, but I accidentally bought the cook-and-serve kind, so that's what we used. While it cools, spread your remaining Nutella on the pie crust. Then, using kitchen shears, cut a giant marshmallow into slices. I used 2 marshmallows, which made enough slices to cover the pie in one layer. Pour the pudding on top. Throw it back in the fridge for 3 hours to let the pudding set. If you are using instant pudding it will be ready faster (duh).

Slice and enjoy--consensus was that it would've been even better with whipped cream on top!