Tuesday, 1/18/2011

We met with our PEPS group at Sara, Aaron, and Ari's house tonight.  At our last gathering, we decided to move forward with the potluck format with a few adjustments.  We are no longer going to have someone bring snacks for the kids.  Each family will be on their own for feeding their kid. The last family to host doesn't have to bring anything the next time.  And, the non-hosting families will be on a rotation for who brings what.  That way we remove the race to pick a dish off of the Facebook event.  Anyway, it should remove some of the stress for the group.  

Tonight we brought a loaf of bread to go along with the gourmet mac and cheese with chicken Sara prepared.  Barb and Tadd brought a caesar salad that was fantastic.  The dressing and croutons came from Metropolitan Market and really made the salad.  Jen brought outstanding chocolate brownies.  Ben and I each had a small bite of Katie's brownie.  I definitely wanted more.  

Everyone stayed until after 8:30 tonight.  The kids were having a great time.  Ronan had fish crackers and was very nicely sharing them with Katie.  They definitely have a connection over food sharing:)  Jackson pushed Ari around on a toy, back and forth across the house, over and over again.  They giggled and squealed and had so much fun!  Oliver got in the mix a bit when his dad brought out a book to look at. 

Tuesday, 11/30/2010

We celebrated 2nd birthdays with our PEPS group tonight.  Barb, Tad, and Ronan hosted the party.  Barb made a fantastic beef stew and fixed up gnocchi to go with it.  Continuing with our cycle of potlucks, we also had snacks for the kids, a spinach and strawberry salad, and crusty bread.  I signed up to bring the dessert.  What fun to make the birthday cupcakes:)  I used a recipe my friend Taran passed to me several years ago for a spice cake made with cream sherry.  Usually made in a Bundt cake pan, it was different to go the cupcake route with the recipe.  Thankfully, it worked great!  Here's the recipe:

SPICE CAKE

Ingredients:
1 yellow cake mix
1 small vanilla instant pudding
2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup canola oil
3/4 cup cream sherry
4 eggs

Directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Butter and flour a Bundt pan. 
2.  Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl.  Add oil, sherry, and eggs. 
3.  Bake for 25-35 minutes.  The cake is done with a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean.
4.  Loosen the cake from the pan with a spatula.  This helps it from sticking to the pan when you turn it over.  Place on a plate and let cool completely.
5.  It tastes great with a cream sherry/powdered sugar glaze on top, or just powdered sugar.  For the glaze, mix a small amount of cream sherry with a large amount of powdered sugar until it reaches a very gooey, non-translucent state.  Pour over top of cake and let harden.  Voila!

Note: This recipe made 6 large and 12 medium sized cupcakes that were all bulging at the top.  I baked them for 23 minutes.  Since the cakes were mainly for 2-year-olds, I didn't think the cream sherry glaze was appropriate.  I frosted the cupcakes with store bought cream cheese frosting instead. I added green sprinkles for the boys and purple sprinkles for Katie. 

Tuesday, 11/2/2010

Tonight we had dinner with our PEPS friends.  Sara, Aaron, and Ari hosted.  We had lasagna, caesar salad, and garlic bread with ice cream sundaes and chocolate cupcakes for dessert.  As usual, the food was great!  Sara also put out bowls of crackers for the kids to munch on and a cheese plate for the adults.

Since we weren't able to get together at a pumpkin patch two weekends ago, we decided to take our group Halloween costume photo tonight instead.  And by group, I mean the kids.  It is always entertaining trying to get them to sit still long enough for a group photo.  The easiest one was definitely when they were all still 5-6 months old:)  Here are the kids in all of their Halloween finest. 


Jackson as Thomas the Train.
Ronan as a frog.
Katie as a kitty.
Ari as a giraffe.
Oliver as a vampire.



Tuesday, 6/15/2010

PEPs was at Jackson's home tonight. Jen and Andy made grilled up delicious jalapeno cheese burgers with grilled buns. I heard Jen say the recipe came from a Weber cookbook. They also had a few small, unseasoned cheeseburgers for the kids. There was a big bowl of potato salad, which Katie liked, and corn on the cob. For dessert, we had warm brownies with vanilla ice cream. YUM!

Highlights from the evening included Ari and Katie giving each other fist bumps. Katie, Ari, and Ronan did some dunking at the basketball hoop. All of the kids taking turns on the wooden rocking horse. Boy, can they rock!

Tuesday, 5/4/2010

We enjoyed a delicious PEPS meal tonight at Sara, Aaron and Ari's house. Sara fixed chicken alfredo with penne noodles, caesar salad, garlic bread, fruit salad, and cookies. I wish I knew her secrets, because each dish was fabulous. The pasta dish in particular had a divinely gooey sauce that I could have eaten like soup. And, the garlic bread was restaurant quality. Rustic wheat bread (I think) with thinly sliced garlic on it. Sara, please share your secrets with me;)

Katie loved the strawberries from the fruit salad, ate a bit of the pasta, and begged for more cookie crumbs than we would give her. But, eating was not her primary focus. Ari's toys were far more interesting. Oh yes, and she was a champion sippy cup tester tonight. She can spot a friend's sippy cup from across the room and has no problem taking a swig or two to see what they are drinking. The parents played a good game of protect the sippy cups.

Tuesday, 4/6/2010

Ben and I joined a PEPS (Program for Early Parent Support) group when Katie was just over one month old. We spent 12 weeks with a facilitator and have since then gathered every other week on our own. There are 5 couples in our group, each with one child about Katie's age, and we rotate between our 5 homes.

Tonight Katie and I went over to Oliver's house for Zeeks Pizza and homemade apple crisp w/ice cream. I had a slice of pepperoni and a slice of Cherry Bomb which has Italian sausage and sweet-hot roasted red peppers on it. Soo tasty! Katie ate some pork and spring vegetable w/pasta baby food before we left our house. Once at Oliver's house she had a little of my pizza, lots of cheese, and a few random crackers dropped by the other kids. It is so much fun to watch these 5 little people walking around, playing, eating, chatting near each other. They don't interact with each other much yet. There were a couple outbursts when food or sippy cups were returned to their owners, but all in all a very fun night.

Ben is out of town on a business trip and told me he had some okay Thai food. Huntsville, Alabama is probably not the best place for good Thai.