Erik's Culinary skills

I'd like to pick a secret ingredient for Erik this weekend so he can do iron chef but can't decide. Would you please vote in my poll? I deleted the poll so Erik would not see it and know what his next secret ingredient is!

Iron Chef Peanuts

Today was another iron chef experience at the Cooper Household! Today Erik brought me peanuts as the secret ingredient! He got peanut butter, butter toffee peanuts, honey roasted peanuts, dry roasted peanuts, and even hot and spicy peanuts. So I had lots of peanuts to chose from! I love peanuts and peanut butter so this was a lot of fun for me. I love peanuts much more than Erik but he still enjoyed the food I made.

I made:

• Fruit and nut salad with peanut ginger dressing. This salad consisted of strawberries, nectarines, and butter toffee peanuts on a bed of lettuce. I mixed peanut butter, honey, ground ginger, and oil to create a dressing for it. It was yummy!
• Peanut chocolate oatmeal carmelitas. These were not actually cookies, rather it was oatmeal with peanut butter, chocolate, and caramel mixed together. I used hot and spicy peanuts to make it more interesting. This was Erik's least favorite since he thought it was not chocolatey enough even though it looked chocolatey.
• Lobster pasta with peanuts. YUM YUM YUM. I steamed a lobster tail mixed it with bow tie pasta and a butter herb sauce with fresh parsely and herbs. Then sprinkled peanuts throughout. I had originally planned on making a peanut sauce but decided that it would not pair well with the lobster.
• Peanut selection. This was my favorite!! When I think of peanuts, I think of pb&j, bananas, and buckeyes. So I wanted to feature each of these in a different way. I made a peanut butter, confectioners sugar mixture and put it on a piece of french bread. Then melted chocolate on it. This was my buckeye sandwich. Next I made a pb&J sandwich without the bread. I used a peanut butter mixture, flattened it, then put jam inside. Finally, I made a mini sandwich with banana and peanut butter in the middle and chocolate on top. This three item peanut selection earned me a perfect score on originality!
• peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. I made a standard chocolate chip cookie with peanut butter and layered them on a pretty plate. This was yummy too.

Erik and I scored my dishes exactly the same - 15.1 points as average out of 20 points average. Pretty good :). I loved this secret ingredient. I have one in mind for Erik. I'll keep you posted when we do the next iron chef - probably after Easter.

Sarah likes to hug Scruffles. In fact, she follows him around the house so she can "hug" him (actually tackle). Here is a video of her following him and saying "cat". Sometimes she will walk up to him and say "hi", then tackle him. Maybe she will be a linebacker...

I got 78 on Quiddler today and made the word clingy! Sometimes Sarah is clingy to me :). She's a mamma's girl.

Not Quite the Appalachian Trail

On Saturday, we walked a 3 mile trail through Highbanks with Jon and Michelle and Aaron and Michele. Jon and Michelle will be hiking 75 miles of the Appalachian Trail in June so we thought we'd break them in :). Pulling both girls in the wagon for the 3 miles was a challenge but doable. We are excited for camping this year and hope to take the girls on some hikes (very minor ones!). We scheduled our first camping trip for Mother's Day weekend - this nice weather is so wonderful!

Since I'm a little crazy about making cake, I made a three layer red velvet cake. The cake layers were chocolate with an entire bottle of red food coloring in them and the frosting was cream cheese. This cake was fantastic - I wish I could give you some through the computer.

I also must include some cute pictures of the girls. Jenna was wearing her Snow White dress and decided she didn't like the collar so she put it on Scruff. Poor Scruff. I will need to get a picture of what Sarah does to him. She body hugs him that is almost like a wrestling mood. Poor Scruff. Sarah also decided to sit in the sink - so I just stripped her down to a diaper. She had a good time.

In Photoshop news, I took a picture of my hands to make the shape of an A and made the word PRAY. I'm so excited about my Photoshop progress. someday I'll be good at it.

73 on Quiddler today!

Jenna's Survey About Dad

Ask your kid the questions and write them down exactly how they respond.

1. What is something dad always says to you?
I'm his girl

2. What makes dad happy?
hugs

3. What makes dad sad?
when I'm not around

4. How does your dad make you laugh?
tickle me

5. What was your dad like as a child?
me

6. How old is your dad?
34

7. How tall is your dad?
Daddy is very tall

8. What is his favorite thing to do?
keeping Sarah and Scruffles away from the fire

9. What does your dad do when you’re not around?
sometimes he goes to work and sometimes he works on his computer

10. If your dad becomes famous, what will it be for?
a show

11. What is your dad really good at?
painting with mommy

12. What is your dad not very good at?
trying to look underground to find a groundhog or the velveteen rabbit

13. What does your dad do for his job?
work

14. What is your dad's favorite food?
pizza

15. What makes you proud of your dad?
when my daddy comes home for lunch

16. If your dad were a cartoon character, who would he be?
spongebob

17. What do you and your dad do together?
we play together

18. How are you and your dad the same?
we're not even the same

19. How are you and your dad different?
Daddy's hair is shorter

20. How do you know your dad loves you?
he tells me he loves me

21. Where is your dad's favorite place to go?
a music place

Note: I do not think Erik resembles spongebob, nor do I think Jenna thinks so either. However we just got a book from the library about spongebob so it was fresh in her mind. I'm sure normally she would choose a prince from some Disney movie :)

Learning Photoshop

I've been working more with photoshop and have posted my first attempt to make my teeth whiter along with my second attempt. You might also notice that I changed my eyes, lips, and removed the design from my shirt. So I've gotten somewhat better but Erik thinks my mouth looks a little crazy in this new version but I like it (certainly better than my first attempt).

Sarah is walking all over the place. Check out this adorable video. She is also talking so much! She loves to point at Scruff and say "cat". I say "point" but she actually tackles him.

For years Erik and I have talked about having more land. Now is not a good time to buy, but Jon has inspired us to buy land! Unfortunately, what we want does not exist at the price we want it unless we move far away or live with the Amish. So we are bummed. But we would love to buy land and build on it someday.

86 on Quiddler today!

Jenna's Survey About Mom

Ask your kid the questions and write them down exactly how they respond.

1. What is something mom always says to you?
I don't know

2. What makes mom happy?
hugs

3. What makes mom sad?
I can't think of anything

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
tickle me

5. What was your mom like as a child?
maybe me

6. How old is your mom?
33

7. How tall is your mom?
I can't guess

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
working on her computer

9. What does your mom do when you’re not around?
I don't know, I'm not around

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
I don't know

11. What is your mom really good at?
painting with daddy

12. What is your mom not very good at?
trying to get something from under the ground

13. What does your mom do for her job?
work

14. What is your mom’s favorite food?
that's a hard one

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
when me and my mom go to the library together

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
she would be she

17. What do you and your mom do together?
we go to some grocery stores whenever we need groceries

18. How are you and your mom the same?
we're not even the same

19. How are you and your mom different?
my mom has longer hair than I do

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
mom tells me she loves me

21. Where is your mom’s favorite place to go?
everywhere

I'd like my daughter to meet you

Someone recently said this to me. Several people have said this to me back at my old job and at my current job. Which makes me wonder why. Do they assume that I am a role model? I know me and know that I'm not which is why I think this is odd. Are we lacking female role models?

This brings me to the church. I find it interesting that if a business did not allow women in leadership roles it would be considered sexual discrimination. Yet so many churches do not allow women in leadership roles. How is it that the secular world has it right and the church is so backwards? I've discussed this topic before. But we do need more women as role models in the church and elsewhere (not that there are none since I know there are many great women role models, I just don't know why people count me as one).

Okay so in Quiddler today there were so few vowels that I got -46. That was pretty awful. However the second time I only got 28 points. It was actually pretty hard today.

I posted a 3 layer cake that I made for Erik's birthday again. If you're keeping track this is the third cake I made for Erik's birthday. I made a caramel cake to eat with my family, a chocolate truffle torte to eat with Erik's family, and a 3 layer butter cake with chocolate buttercream frosting to eat with our small group. Now I'm wondering why my pants are tight!! Of course, Erik is losing tons of weight since we've been playing squash. I've just been eating more :).

Enough Parties already!

Erik turned 34 on Sunday and we had two parties with two cakes. One was the caramel cake I mentioned previously (why is it spelled "caramel" when so many people say "carmel"?), and the other was a chocolate truffle torte. The chocolate truffle torte has 3 ingredients - bittersweet chocolate, eggs, and butter. It is loaded with fat and goodness but is doable for a diabetic or someone on the atkins diet. Not that I'm going on the atkins diet or diabetic *fingers crossed*.

Erik got several movies for his birthday. They were mostly old Arnold S. movies since he seems to like them. Hopefully I won't have to watch them.

My new semester starts this week. It is the first semester that I'll be teaching during the day since having the girls. I got a babysitter and am hoping this will work out well. It will be nice to have more nights free. With those free nights Erik and I plan on playing squash!!! Last night I scored 7 points against Erik in two games. As the games go to 9 points, that was pretty good. However, I feel like John Cooper in that I can't quite pull it out at the end. I can never beat Michigan (or Erik for that matter).

Lent started on Wednesday and I've decided to give up coffee and read through the gospels. Erik has decided to read through the gospels with me and it has been going well. We are reading the CEV version which should actually be titled "the 8th grade version" as the wording is very simplistic.

91 points on quiddler today and I was able to make the word "purl". I didn't know that was a word - not that I'm going to look up what it means :)