Summer Basket List

Summer is over. Well, not really, there is still a month of summer weather left, but summer break is over, and school starts this week, and so we have crossed off as many of the remaining bucket list items as we can. I needed this summer to be something redemptive after last year, which was a sh!t show of emotions and baby soothing and feeling like I was failing everyone around me, and then feeling resentful about the failing, and yeah. This year was better.

I had a page in my notebook where I jotted down ideas the kids named as things they wanted to do this summer (a few times, someone got ahold of a pen and added ideas himself), and we got to almost all of them.

We also renamed it The Basket List because at the beginning of the summer Anneliese could never remember what it was called, so she kept saying that, and it stuck for the rest of us even though she rolls her eyes and refuses to partake of the cutesy rename herself. HER LOSS. CUTESY IS FUN, YO.

And truthfully we didn't even look much at the list because we were busy just hanging out and having fun. Montreat was a freaking delight. Our family road trip was more fun than I ever could have dreamed. And lots of little fun things in between the travels too:

1.) Ride on a ferry. This list was born in April when Nathan, indignant that I would go to Seattle and ride on a ferry without him, made a page in my notebook and put FERRY as the first thing on it. We... didn't actually get to this. But we have Outer Banks camping plans next month, and we will ferry to Okracoke and then Hatteras. The ferry will happen! I promise, buddy!

2.) Visit Northfield. Check and check. 'Twas delightful. Here are all the kids at St. Olaf:

Oh Charlotte. I don't even know, y'all. She just doesn't stop.

Road trip blogs still to come. (They are all half written and still need pics and there's a lot to sort through so eh.)

3.) Crayon A. This is a craft I have been intending to do for years with Anneliese and we finally did it, and it turned out great, and she loves it, and I love it.

NAILED IT. Suck it, Pinterest, I own you.

4.) Go camping. Not yet - this will be with the ferry ride next month.

5.) Eat purple carrots. Okay so Anneliese asked for this for weeks, and I wrote it down for her, even though you can't get any carrots at the farmer's market, much less purple ones, until fall. So this is still to come also. We did, however, make several stews with parsnips, and Anneliese has a new favorite vegetable. (She is an odd child.)

6.) Strawberries. There were no carrots, but there were strawberries, and Anneliese used them to bake her very first dessert for all of us. Bisquick shortcakes, and warm strawberries, and cream she whipped herself, and oh she was so proud.

7.) Cinderella movie. Anneliese saw this with Grandma. That counts, right? (I still haven't seen it.) (I am totally interested, but secretly more for the Frozen short than for the movie itself. Don't judge me.)

8.) Rise Biscuits and Donuts. This is a place in Durham with apparently really great breakfast treats. We never made it there, but I am counting our Duck Donut outing as a check mark on the list for new treat places.

9.) Learn ponytails. Anneliese did it! This is a life skill, I mean really.


(If you can't see the embedded video, click here to watch it on YouTube.)

10.) Learn shoe tying. Yeah, no. This did not happen.

11.) Watch Jurassic Park (not with the girls). Yes finally, Nathan, of years-long dinosaur obsession, has seen the original Jurassic Park movie. It totally scared him. But I think he thinks it was worth it. (It still is delightfully scary to me too.) We have listened to the soundtrack a thousand times this summer since then. Currently the girls' favorite song to dance to. We are That Family, apparently.

12.) Tropical Pick'n Chicken. It's a new (to us) local chain restaurant near our house, with Caribbean food and such. Nathan is enamored with it. It's just okay for me. But! We went! Summer dreams coming true over here y'all!

13.) Build legos. Um, duh. Done and done.

14.) Sleepovers. Yes, Nathan and Anneliese, every Friday, all summer (all year actually, but the summer was no exception). These two are best buddies, and never moreso than on Friday nights. We don't understand how they spend all day every day together and still have things to talk about into the wee hours. They say more to each other than they ever do to any of the rest of us.

15.) Baking contest. This got added to the list in summer's eleventh hour, and we still did it!

16.) Read lots of books. CHECK. We have been very library busy. And library days are the best days, aren't they? Let's not forget the afternoon I found the kids all outside reading their library books sprawled on the sidewalk WITH THEIR BEDDING, why children, why?

Master Chefs, Goettsch Junior

We are home from our long road trip (seventeen days, eleven states, very fantastic) and I will do lots of blog catchup about that soon, but in the meantime, there is a cooking competition to tell about.

On the last leg of the last day of driving, we rented that American Girl movie about Grace who goes to France to be in a cooking show to earn some prize money to save her French grandparents' French bakery (or something?) (I don't know y'all, I was in the front seat and only halfway listening) and somehow because of that story, the kids have been very into Master Chef Junior now that we are home.

Which means they have been begging for days to have a cooking competition here in our house.

And apparently all those days of family togetherness made me nuts, because I said yes.

So they made their lists and we went to the store and we picked out groceries - they needed things like ice cream and berries and various candies and syrups and cookie crumblies. YES COOKIE CRUMBLIES. The secret ingredient, duh.

So we made the most ridiculous grocery run of all time, I put All The Things on the counter, set a timer, and let them go at it.

(It was super cute actually. Nathan even made a big show of being RULL BUSY/IMPORTANT in the final seconds -- which he insisted I count down for them -- and then throwing his hands in the air when he was done.) ("Done.") (It's not like any of these actually reached any stage of completion, per se, they just... stopped adding more crap in when I told them to stop. Nuanced chefs, they are not.)

Anyway, I'm the sole judge and juror here, so somebody kick off my drumroll and I will present to you the results of GOETTSCH MASTER CHEF JUNIOR, FIRST ROUND (also last round, because yeah):

Entry 1: Blue Ants on Moss, by Anneliese.

(Just going into it, I hated the name and the look of this. Food should never be this color. Food also should not have bugs in the name. I MEAN.) Okay so this was like 90% sprinkles/candy/coconut, and only one tiny spoon of ice cream (and food coloring) to bind it together. (Mmmm crunchy.) This is fit only for Buddy the Elf. Even he might not be that into it. She was terribly proud though. Mostly an F, but an A+ for the smile that she presented it with.

Entry 2: Pinkalicious, by Charlotte.

This is ice cream with softened cookie pieces, lots of strawberries and blueberries, some coconut, a splash of milk, and more food coloring than I want to think about. She, too, gets an F for plating, but at least it had a pretty color. Also it had an excellent name and was surprisingly delicious. (I voluntarily took a second bite, so.)

Entry 3: Kids Playing In Snow, by Nathan.

Okay first: that name, I don't even know. (Is that a 'rhea diaper under the snow? I think it is.) This is chocolate ice cream with insane food coloring decisions, layers of fruit and coconut, melted chocolate chips that got hard again (legit mmmm), and m&m's. I would have eaten the whole bowl of this if it didn't look so gross. I mean, layers! Fruit! Chocolate! WINNER!

So then they ate their desserts (none of them stomached more than a third of what they created) and were very kind and praised each other's work. Adorable.

Oh and they each also made a beverage for me to taste with their entries. Mostly it was milk tinted odd colors, so I just closed my eyes and said mmmmm.

Motherhood is exactly like I pictured it'd be.

Ice Cream Layer Cake

Okay so, y'all totally flatter me. I got questions on fb and instagram about Nathan's birthday cake, which, haaaaa, when y'all see that it's basically a glorified box mix that just got stacked with some other stuff during several trips to the freezer, you will be less impressed. 

But here it is anyway, behold the ice cream cake info:

1.) Make the cakes. I made three 9-inch cake layers. I just used the sour cream white cake recipe I always do, which starts with a box mix. He requested blue, so we made it blue. And then I cut off the tops to flatten them, and frozen them in freezer bags for several hours. (Confession: I burned the sh!t out of the first three layers while I was making his birthday video and not paying attention, so I had to do them over the next day. Don't do that.)

2.) Layer with ice cream. I softened some ice cream (half an hour, til you can almost stir it) and layered it with the cakes in an 8-inch springform pan. (The internet told me to do a deep springform one inch smaller than the cake pans, since they shrink a bit when cooking, and you want a tight fit for the springform mold. Do that.) (The internet also told me to put a sheet of parchment paper down in the bottom of the pan before stacking the cakes in, to make it easier to move to a plate later. Do that too.) 

The top layer of cake stacked sort of on top of the pan, which was fine. Then I wrapped it all up in saran wrap and froze it for another few hours. I don't have a picture of what that looked like (I only took these pics for soliciting text praise, not recipe posting) ("recipe" hahahaha *wipes tear*) so just use your imagination: top cake layer sticking out on top, it's fine.

3.) Whipped cream frosting. The internet told me (are you sensing a theme here?) to use just whipped cream as frosting that buttercream doesn't taste good with ice cream cake, since it's much sweeter and it's jarring. Also, butter doesn't stick to frozen ice cream very well, because duh. 

So I made some whipped cream and sweetened it a bit (a few spoonfuls of powdered sugar) and added some vanilla, and it worked great. I frosted it and stuck it back in the freezer.

4.) Ganache. In one of the ice cream cake videos we watched, Nathan saw one that was finished with a ganache, and he wanted that. But the video was very unhelpful ("and then, frost and top however you like, and serve chilled!") and so I did a LOT of brainstorming on ganache. I needed it thin enough to pour over the top (yet thick enough not to totally run off), yet not so warm that it would make the whipped cream fall apart. And not so sweet that it would taste jarring, like I had been warned about the buttercream. 

So! I used bittersweet chocolate, chopped it up super finely so it would melt fast without the cream needing to get too hot, and then I used two parts cream to one part chocolate. And I stirred it while it cooled forever and ever (seriously like an hour) before I poured it over the top. It worked great! Not too sweet, just the right thickness, I give myself an A+.

5.) Sprinkle and serve. I put sprinkles on and put it back in the freezer til it was time to eat. We only thawed it about five minutes before we tried to put candles in, and that wasn't enough. It needs 10-15 minutes at least, to be soft enough to cut and serve.

Nathan loved it; it's exactly what he wanted, so it's a win for that alone.

Alleluia!

{Update 5/21: Still catching up on the happy things from April. Still not in the mood to hit "post" on the Craptastic. Instead, here is some Easter loveliness.}

We had a fun and lovely Easter this year, which I desperately needed, because April was hard, and also because I felt super detached from church through Lent (with mono, I was trying to do only the most bare minimum of outings, so extra worship services seemed expendable, and I guess they were, but dang it messed up my churchy rhythm, especially in Holy Week, and good grief I just realized I sound like a big ol nerd, but there you go).

We had the kids up and Easter dressed by 7:30 (!!) (Mark and I would like our parenting medals now) which means we got to barrage them with pictures before we went to church, which was totally worth their eye rolling because I loved all of their spring outfits so much this year.

Our church, like many, does a flowering of the cross every year on Easter. All the children bring plants and flowers and decorate a cross in the courtyard -- bringing new life to a symbol of shame and death, which is kind of the whole point, yknow? Anyway it is a cool thing that the kids love, and this year they were the first ones at church so they were the first three flowers on the cross.

We went back after all the services and took some pictures, with Another Nathan too. I've said it before and I'm sure this won't be the last time either: we love being his Raleigh family.

Because I was trying to lay low, we didn't make any grand brunch or big meal plans, which at first I felt kind of sad about but then ended up being a good thing. We just did a simple dinner of mini Easter pies (there is nothing made from puff pastry I won't eat) and a strawberry almond tart (thanks for the idea, A'Dell!) that looked nothing like the picture in the recipe but was kind of tasty nonetheless. 

Nathan and I spent the afternoon making it, and he basically did it all himself. I supervised a lot but he is getting really good at reading recipes and stirring carefully on the stove and slicing gently (while I watch nervously and try not to panic). He spent a lot of his cooking time saying adorable things like "Do you think the blended strawberries will taste like a smoothie? That is my hypothesis." (He took a kitchen chemistry elective at school last quarter. You could have guessed that, right?)

Anyway he has been my kitchen buddy for years, and I love it more than ever.

So, yeah. It was a sweet day. Happy Easter!

Snow Day Bakers

Last week, by the fourth day off of school, we were getting sick of the snow and looked for some indoor entertainment. So, cue giant messy baking project. (Who am I anymore?)

Okay first - look at these two adorable little bakers, and everyone stop and close your eyes and say a little prayer that they will always be the bestest of friends that they are now.

I am serious. Pray and hope for them, please. I am mommy sentimental, and these two together make so happy it almost aches.

In my mind, this one below was an outtake, blurry with closed eyes and all, but I couldn't quite make myself delete it. Feels like some kind of Moment. Oh my happy babies.

Okay so anyway we made some peanut butter cookie batter, and cut them into all sorts of shapes like dinosaurs and stars and letters and airplanes and snowflakes and punctuation.

We burned some of them. We ate some of them. And we were busy for hours.

Summer Bucket Did-it List

It was an easy first week of the school year with the girls here at home, since they aren't staring back til this week, and verrrrry graaaaadually. (Well, I say "easy" without accounting for the bickering, which I am about sick to death of, and also the fact that Anneliese has been stuck in The Grandparent Hangover That Will Never End, alternating between delightful and then suddenly sobbing, pushing my nerves to the outer limits of human understanding. And without accounting for the heavy job stuff still hanging around like a wet blanket over our ability to feel relaxed, or Nathan side-stepping a little to find his place, and yeah, suddenly now writing this it doesn't sound like an easy week at all.)

*record scratch*

Okay, well it was a slow week together with the girls, at least. I just couldn't make myself do much besides hang out here at home. After we get through our variety of first days this week and the mmo/preschool schedule officially kicks in, it will bring an era of one-on-one time with each of them, which is yay! for me but maybe not as super for them? So I just wanted us to be home and be together for a few more days. Normally I cherish and protect my afternoon quiet during their naps, but these days I have been pushing errands and appointments for that time instead of dragging the girls along in the morning, and reserving mornings for relaxing and playing.

I just want to BE.

Anyway.

(Mark and Another Nathan have been laughing at me for how often I say anyway. It seems it's not just a written tic in emails/blogs, but an out-loud voicemail disease I can't cure myself of.) (Leaving voicemails in the first place is apparently another one.)

ANYWAY.

What am I blogging about again? I don't know. The end of summer? Yes, okay. That.

It was a good summer, y'all! I wanted it to be, I was ready for it, and I was also prepared to feel over it -- but aside from a few frustrating days, I really haven't. Basically this summer taught me that I want all summers home with my kids, and whatever work I go back to (someday) will maybe need to allow that. Like, the content of the work matters of of course, but the "career potential" might matter less than the schedule. (I have to put that in quotes. It seems so laughable. I don't know what I want to be when I grow up! Still! "Career potential." Ha.) So yeah. Our super summer means that kind of thing has been stewing in my head a bit.

So! Super summer! We did (almost) everything on our bucket list:

1.) Eat hot dogs in the back of a pickup truck. DONE.

2.) Throw water balloons onto the side of the guest house. Oops? Totally forgot about this.

3.) Make surprise crayons. DONE, with side effects.

4.) Go to that place where everyone gets to choose their own restaurant. The mall food court, hell slash paradise. DONE.

5.) Take swim lessons. DONE.

6.) Take dance lessons. DONE. (I will post more about this. Soon.)

7.) Go on lunch dates. DONE.

8.) Go to the beach for the day. DONE.

9.) Read 99 books. DONE. Look at sweet Nathan with his complete and stapled list!!

10.) Make a cake that looks like dirt with worms on it. DONE.

11.) Go downtown and go up in that big tower again. DONE.

12.) Camp in the backyard with Daddy. DONE.

13.) Go to lego camp. Oh y'all. This was a heartbreak of the summer. We found out at 5pm on Friday before his camp started (Monday morning) that it had been canceled due to not enough kids having signed up, which, first of all, what. Not enough kids interested in legos? I don't understand. Also, a little more notice would have been great, considering it was the last week of summer and they gave us no time to make alternate plans and oh my heaven he would have been crushed, so good thing we had added Montreat in and were fresh off the heels of that. Boooo lego camp. This one is definitely happening next summer. (Also if y'all want to see Mark's rage face, which doesn't come out very often, cancel his kid's lego camp at the last minute. Rage face!)

14.) Go to the zoo and ask Charlotte what her favorite animal is. DONE. Her favorite is a dutt! (She calls all birds dutts.) (And dinosaur statues too, apparently.)

what is this, Daddy? this is not a dutt.

15.) Have a dinosaur pool party. DONE, and with gusto.

16.) Dance in the car. DONE.

17.) Have sleepovers in Mommy's room. DONE.

18.) Do a picnic at the airport. Ummm we forgot about this too. I went to the airport, more times than I would have preferred, for less glamorous reasons than I preferred (lots of picking up and dropping off and not enough of me going anywhere myself) but we did not picnic or watch planes and we should have!

19.) List item added by Grandpa: go visit Grandpa! (And other various grandparents and relatives.) So all the kids got to visit grandparents at some point this summer, but Anneliese really knocked this one out of the ballpark with a marathon ten-day trip to three different houses. Which was fun for her, and logistically/driving smart, but too achy for me. Will share more pics of that at some point too. You should see the outfits she (my mom?) picked for some of her outings. Internet gold.

Not on the bucket list but also completed: catch the kitchen on fire, have many Starbucks dates, play in the pool a ton, kill a snake with a shovel, have an incredible trips to Chicago and Montreat, watch the trailer for this upcoming dinosaur movie three hundred thousand times (that youtube link has 371 thousand views, and 300 thousand are from Nathan), eat a lot of post-gym dunkin donuts in our sweaty clothes, and drive ourselves nuts trying to solve The Mystery of the Sticker Mail.

That'll do, summer 2013. That'll do.

In Which Ashley and I Sound Craftier Than We Really Are

My sister came to visit for a few days this week (and brought Anneliese home with her! finally! YAY!) and it ended up being good to have her here -- the unbloggable work drama continues, and Mark and I were glad for a distraction. Especially one as fun and funny as Ashley. (I mean, not that I'm not the funny sister. I totally am.)

Mostly we lazed around the house which probably isn't super exciting for her but is a nice change of pace for me (I am terrible about hyper-scheduling us, even with "fun" and "relaxing" things. I have to plan to stay home or I won't ever stay here and just be).

But in between our lazing we did do a couple of summer bucket list things, like... painting the driveway with chalk paint.

Wait that sounds way fancier and craftier than is is. We mixed up cornstarch and water and added food coloring. And gave the kids dollar-store paintbrushes. And let them have at it.

if you look past the kids you'll see the *really* cute part of this pic --
my colorful pretty new flip flops. #piorities
(pretend you don't notice Liam's shoes mmmkay?)

So yeah that was a fun and easy way to kill an hour. Done and done. (We recommend doing it on a sliiiightly less muggy day, or maybe when you're not five months pregnant.) (Have I mentioned Ashley is pregnant again? I have another nephew on the way!)

Also we finally made our dirt pie with worms. Gummy anything would have tasted weird with pudding and cream cheese and oreos, but hey the worms looked cute, and the pie part was actually kind of tasty.

my next career will be in food photography

It was much better cold, right from the fridge, than after it had been out for a few minutes. (I like a denser texture for that sort of thing.) The recipe was pretty easy with kids, too. The secret ingredient is letting Liam take a bite of every oreo before he puts it in the food processor.

(Hey, people know what they're getting into when they eat food at my house.) (Also, toddlers, food, feet, counter, eh whatever.)

Whoa yikes, sanitation score aside, I just made our week sound way more crafty-cooky-planny than it really was. Y'all know we aren't Those Moms, right? Full disclosure. I mean, we also went out and drank beer and played trivia one night, to be clear on what our Type really is. Well, Ashley didn't drink beer, you know knocked up and all. But I did. And I got carded. Which is irrelevant except to say WOOO HOOOO.

(I used to roll my eyes at "grownups" who were flattered to get carded but now I don't care, so I repeat: WOO HOOOO.)

This Week's This and That

This was one of our "easy" weeks this summer, without much scheduled. The following update format is shamelessly stolen from the lovely Emily.

LOVED THIS:

The kids and I made individual pizzas for dinner one night. It was a huge adorable mess. Charlotte ate more than she prepped. Who put that baby on the counter with a bag of cheese anyway?

TORMENTED BY THAT:

The sticker club mystery mail continues. Other chain letter replies are now coming in fast too (I think we can expect like thirty or something if everyone does it) but these anonymous ones are killing me. We have now added Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and a Herd of My Little Ponies to the list, with postmarks as far away as Texas and Alaska. I CANNOT EVEN. WHAT IS GOING ON? I have a few people I suspect (I don't know that many people with enough get-go and boredom to do something like this) but every time I think I have a lead, I get confused again.

(Not that I have the whole stack of envelopes on my nightstand to ponder over clues before I sleep at night or anything. *ahem*) (Every time I talk through my theories, Mark tells me my crazy is showing.)

(I told him I should totally be a professional mytery solver! He reminded me that is already a Thing, called a detective, and pointed out I am failing my first case. Well, then... hrmph.)

SWOONED AT THIS:

Sweet Charlotte has started reading to herself in the car. I mean, not just  paging through books, but babbling along in a story voice. I can't quit it. (Nathan remains the king of the photobomb.)

SOBBED AT THAT:

So, what you think you're looking at is cutie Nathan holding his tee ball trophy, and you are. But what you don't see here is that I put the wrong time on the calendar, and we missed the last game. And awards. The photo we didn't take involves Nathan in his uniform, standing at the field with none of his teammates or coaches in sight, all long gone hours before. And crying. Next to me, also crying. MOM FAIL. I feel horrible and guilty every time I think about it. I know mistakes happen, but breaking your kid's heart over one kinda sucks like nothing else. The last game! His trembling lip! Waaaaahhhh! *sob*

But, I guess this is as good a time to show you his "official" YMCA tee ball pics. They are awkward and delightful.

First five people to speak for them can have one of these beauties for fridge mounting. It will come with a personalized note from Nathan. (Hopefully not deriding his mom for ending his season in disappointment. Okay and we're back to *sob*...)

TERRIFIED BY THIS:

There was a snake in the backyard. We don't think it was poisonous, but it was big and sort of scary and far less hesitant around us than we thought it would be. Like, slithered right up to us, and right up the swing set leg where Charlotte was standing. Yikes. I killed it with a shovel. It isn't the first snake I have killed but it was the hardest one. And the only one I ever killed in my church clothes. And I cried afterwards. Poor snakey. (Stay away from my baby though, for real.)

APPRECIATED THAT:

Y'all are such lovely people, with all your congrats messages and kind words on our anniversary last week. I don't think we knew how much of a milestone ten years really was until we told the internet, and people were so affirming. Whoa! Ten years! Sappy memories aside, that's kind of a big deal! Your emails and comments and thumbs ups and texts and high fives at church? All wonderful. You made a great weekend even better by being our friends who love and support us. Thank you so much.

Sweet Genius

Ever seen that dessert competition show on the Food Network, Sweet Genius? (Not an endorsement, it's terrible, don't watch it, but definitely go read that link about it.) I only really like the name, and the funny accent the host uses when he says "sweet genius."

Anyway.

I think about that every time Nathan wants to make treats. And he is always looking for any excuse to make some treats. (I don't know where he gets that.) This time, it was peanut butter and jelly bars for youth choir.

(Yes, we make bars in a pie pan. Clearly I am not a sweet genius.)

Two Cooks

Last month we had a friend who needed some good luck on a work trip, so we decided to make some key lime bars to send along. Which isn't the point of this post. The point of this post is to say that Nathan and Anneliese helped, and whoa dang if those two don't have scarily different approaches to cooking.

There's this one, who is focused and methodical and neat. And who, at barely five years old, knows how to separate eggs. (Not that he doesn't love a good chocolate cake-batter-beater mess occasionally.)

And then there's this one, who is messy and hands-on, and revels in the task where she can literally dig in. (Not that she doesn't have her I hate sticky hands moments resulting in soapy chaos in the bathroom.)

I guess it takes all types? To make key lime bars, anyway.

Nathan Apron

We've made several rounds of cupcakes in these parts lately, mostly for the youth choir girls. I posed a question to them in their facebook group and I thought I'd ask here too...

Two different Nathans, two different cupcake batches, two vastly different levels of baking success and productivity... one blue apron.

So who wears it best?