Family Time

Today we left the dreary, foggy, misty weather behind and went to the big house. A calls the Biltmore House that.  She really wanted to go to the farm and see the animals to start, but we had to go to the house as well. In leaving from our new house we discovered it takes just over an hour to get to Asheville, not bad as this means we can go more often. We left after breakfast and made it before lunch. We went to the farm first and played with some kids and chickens before going to the mercantile. A couple of the kids were around three months old, so they were the date old kids we saw at Easter. They also had some 9 well old kids there. We watched some horses and a chicken lay an egg. A was really excited about it all. We went up to the mercantile to play and A didn't want to leave. She and G played for over an hour with the variety of this there.

While out and about we discovered why G's teachers think he has a rash all the time. He gets heat rash like no one's business. It took him 20 minutes in the backpack to have it starting on his neck and chest. At least I feel comfortable saying that it isn't contagious. It also make me want to move somewhere cold.

We got to go through the top of the Biltmore house. They had the tower rooms open so it didn't take nearly as long to go through the top portion as it normally does. There were lots of pretty dresses that we got to see.  In every room A determined that she would sleep in the bed with me, Chris would sleep on the couch out chaise, and G would sleep in the bassinet since the first room had a bassinet in it. It was rather sweet.

We got to play in the gardens today. I find it interesting that we spend less and less time in the house with each visit. With our children getting older and no longer content to just be carried they prefer to run. Hopefully this fall we will get to do bikes.
Here are some fun pictures of us playing around the estate today 

Scotchies

Well, I'm waiting. In waiting on Chris and A to get in from the lake and for cookies to be done. I've been thinking about how to increase my oat consumption and cookies my grandmother and I used to make seem to be perfect for the job. They are called scotchies.  Basically barely enough flour, a couple of eggs, a lot of oats and as many chips as the mixture will hold is what it ends up being. So using my grandmother's cookie sheets, Google, and my new kitchen I put together a passable recipe. We will know more once Chris gets home. I've had a couple of the rejects from the first sheet and I think they are yummy. Here is the recipe and a couple of pictures.

1.5 cups of flour
1 heaping teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 cup butter
.75 each of brown sugar and white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups butterscotch chips
3.5 cups of oats

Cream the butter. While creaming the butter, mix the dry stuff together. Add in the sugars and cream some more. Add in the eggs. Beat on high and add the vanilla. Add the dry stuff to the moist stuff. Add in the oats and chips by hand at the end. Bake at 375°F until browned. 

Stuff I did faithfully as my grandmother taught me:
- Measured out the cookies on the sheets using tablespoons ensuring each was the same size so they would cook the same
- put the cooked cookies on paper to cool on the cooling rack after checking the bottom to make sure the cookie is done
- freeze some for later
- eat some dough
- I enjoy baking with A, since she isn't here I notice that she is gone

Stuff I realised I changed since baking with grandma:
- I'm willing to experiment (more of this and less of that type of things) more than my grandmother would
- I make larger cookies even though I use the same spoons
- I use parchment paper instead of wax paper. I even line the sheets to bake so that they are easy to clean

I'm sure there are lots of differences in the end, but my cookies are well on their way to being done and I have a few more dishes to do before my travelers get home.

Everyone here is doing well.  G is taking unassisted steps if he wants to. Normally he lunges at things. He eats a ton and is working on eating is out of house and home since the day care doesn't like any food brought on to be house prepared.

We Moved Again

Well, we moved last weekend. We now live closer to work for me and school for the kids. We aren't sure about our routine as now we all leave around the same time. It just make it interesting. Hopefully this week will be a bit easier.

We went to Charlotte yesterday to see if maybe the Costco there was better than the one in Winston. We also went to IKEA to find some of the needed organisation things for our new house. We managed to see a few things and got a couple of them as well. We will have to go back and get some more things, but we have a good start.  Here is a fun picture of the kids playing with some of the toys.

Rockstar?

Not often do I write G centered posts, but how much does this make him a rocker? Or is it a sumo wrestler? I think he looks like A, but Chris says that is because we put her hair up like this for so long. We have to figure out what to do with his hair as G has decided that food is fantastic. He particularly loves cheerios because he can put them in his own mouth. He also likes some pear/cherry puree that they actually had as samples from school. He really likes the couple of sample things that we tried.

This week has been troublesome for us. A has asked about football as we've been watching the world cup religiously. We are having a blast and the drama is intense! I've made a few coworkers football fans, so that's exciting! Chris is getting into this one too, really getting into it. We kind of set a boundary though with A tonight. She wouldn't nap all afternoon and then wanted our attention throughout the match tonight. As it was going into extra time and penalties we told her she could watch with us or go to her room and occupy herself.  She tried a few times to really push us, but we kind of ignored her so she went to her room and watched a movie. She then fell asleep on her floor. She is currently asleep and I'm trying to decide if I want to wake her up or not.

Hopefully the US will blast Belgium out of the World Cup Tuesday, but A is once again in for a rude awakening. I'm going to go in early so that I can be home in time for the match. With so many of the teams we regularly play doing so well it is giving us lots of hope that we can succeed, maybe if the USA does well then we will have a new national sport.  Chris was discussing with me how the US/Portugal game had more viewers in the US than the Superbowl! Go us!!

Anyway, I need to get stuff together for work tomorrow. Hope you have a good week.

USS Wisconsin

We got to visit the USS Wisconsin today. It was a lot of fun to stand on the deck of a floating fortress that served in our military for six decades. Here are some of our pictures from the Wisky and the accompanying museum.

Father's Day

Well we had a laid back day here. Chris and A went to church while I stayed home with a sleeping G. While I miss church, G missing his nap is much more painful for everyone. Yesterday I ran a 7 miler and did fairly well. I averaged just over 10 minutes a mile and ran the race I set out to run. I met a couple of guys and talked some World Cup in those 7 miles that made it a fun race.

I'm conducting an internal audit this week so it will be interesting. It has officially begun as I've done some documentation auditing already. It is going well and hopefully it will continue.

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures for this past week.

Goose Egg and Baths!!

We have decided that baths are fabulous. Both kids enjoy the water and clap for bath time. They get a bath every night, but don't always get soaped off, mainly just a way to get them together playing. If we pull G out first then he tries to get back in, see picture below.  We've had a few experience teachers this past week. Saturday A found out why monkeys don't jump on beds. She will hopefully not jump on her top bunk again. She didn't fall off, but rather introduced the ceiling fan to her head.  G introduced a wooden crate to his temporal lobe today. He did this at school and has a fantastic blue bruise right between his eyes. See picture below. 

Other than that we are heavy into house hunting. We are required to move by the end of July as we did not renew our current lease. We are packing, just not sure if we are moving thirty minutes down the road, or for a much further move. Its weird. Its wild and quite stressful truth be told. This isn't the first time we've had to do something like this though so we know that it will all work out in the end. 

We had our ninth wedding anniversary yesterday. :) We got crazy storms so no one wanted to sleep. Hopefully tonight more sleeping will happen. I need to go feed the small one who has decided he loves his mommy and is just starting to have separation anxiety issues so that hopefully he will sleep a bit. :) Hope all is well with you. 

yep, i'm working on gumming cheerios to death.