Goofy Gabe

The other night Gabriel was just being a goof!

 And he kept wanting his picture taken and he kept wanting to give kisses...

 And he moved onto Daddy after he was done with Mommy. Can you tell Josh isn't so excited about this kiss?

 It was a very wet kiss!

 But wet kisses and all he is our little handsome man, goofy Gabriel!

Pilgrim's Bread

Today I tried Pilgrim's Bread! It was the recipe that my cousin Leah gave me and it is so darn yummy! I think after having fresh baked bread for the last week or two it's going to be hard to ever go back to store bought bread but at least with this recipe and some of my others I will hopefully not have to buy any more bread (except for french toast bread!). 


Something I have learned through out my few years of cooking and baking is that recipe's are just guide lines. You can always change them if you want to and it is always best to learn how to cook things from the masters. For instance, I could give you the recipe to my Apple Turnovers (and the next time I make them I will) but I change things here and there to make them perfect. Or you could get Josh's Brownie recipe but if you actually watch him make it he adds a little bit more of some things until it looks just right. So considering my cousin said she has been baking this bread for 7 years I would definitely consider her a master at it! So all the little substitutes and extra tid bits are from the master herself, hopefully they are as helpful to you as they were to me!


Pilgrim's Bread:
1/2 c. yellow cornmeal (you could use corn flour)
1/3 c. brown sugar (you can use maple syrup)
1 T salt
1 c. oatmeal (rolled oats)
2 c. boiling water
1/4 c. oil
4tsp. yeast
1/2 c. warm water
2 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c. rye flour (you could use whole wheat flour (I did!))
white flour - 3 c.?

Mix cornmeal, brown sugar, salt and oatmeal in a large bowl. 

Add boiling water. Now Leah said that the left over water from boiling potato's makes the bread taste really yummy. We're not big potato people so I didn't have any to use when I made my bread. But I plan on saving my potato water the next time I make potato's... whenever that is, I don't think it's on my meal plan... or maybe it is... Anyway. Stir in oil. 

Cool until lukewarm (30min.) 


Soften yeast in 1/2 c. warm water and use your super awesome bowl that you got at the 100 yen store in Japan (I love my bowls!) and stir into cooled cornmeal mixture. 

Add whole wheat and rye flour. Mix. 

Add enough white flour to make a moderately stiff dough. 

Knead 6-8min. by hand or about 3 minutes in a kitchen aid mixer (which are glorious things!). 

Shape into a ball, place in greased bowl turning once to grease surface. 

Cover and let rise in warm place until double - approx. 60min. Two secret's on rising your dough if you don't have a window with direct sunlight. One way you can do it that I learned from my mother is to place a cooling rack over two burners on your stove and put you pans/bowl on the rack and cover with a towel. Turn burners on for 45 seconds and it should be warm enough to rise your dough. The second secret is from Leah, she said to preheat your oven for 2 min. and then shut it off and turn on the interior light (granted you have a light, I do but in all of our other places we didn't) and put the bread dough in to rise.


Punch down and divide into 2 balls, let rest 10min.

Shape into loaves and put in pans. 

Let rise in warm place until double -approx. 30min. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes while you get to watch your two adorable children play!

And then the bread will be done and you will be in heaven!

You know you're a cloth diapering Mama...

when your living room looks like this after you wash diapers...

"Seeeeee!!!!"

So Gabriel and Eli played their first game together. It was the other night and Gabriel wanted to pretend to sleep on the couch/go "ni ni" with Eli next to him. So I laid them next to each other and got Gabriel's mankie, teddy, fishy and boomer, all of which he cannot sleep without and tucked the boys in. They were having a grand old time playing together. Gabriel was so excited that Eli was sleeping with him and kept giving him kisses and Eli was soaking it all in!

And then Gabriel realized that I had the camera pointed at them and lately when he sees a camera pointed at him he freaks out because he wants to see what the picture is and he starts yelling "see"...

See, you can tell it on his face, "see, see seeeee, See, SEE, SEEEEEE!!!!!" Eli on the other hand looks like he's saying "what the heck Mama?"

Then he totally left Eli in the dust to play ni ni all by himself while he went to see what picture Mommy was taking except Mommies whole point of taking the pictures now was standing behind the camera, not with his brother being extra cute on the couch playing their first game...

sigh... at least the played their first game together!!!

Delightful French Bread

So I've been looking for bread recipes in some of Josh's old cookbooks that he picked up somewhere throughout his existence. I don't know where these cookbooks came from but he's had them since before we were married. While looking through them I came across the recipe for 'Delightful French Bread'... delightful? I was intrigued so I decided to try it except I didn't want purely white bread as the recipe called for so I used half wheat flour and half white flour (I hear it's a bad to substitute all wheat flour when the recipe calls for all white flour, things can potentially not work out so it's better to only substitute part of it).

Here's what you'll need:

2.5 Cups warm water
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon salt (yeah it's a little much for bread but it is spread out over two large loafs)
2 Tablespoons cooking oil
2 Packages dry yeast
6 Cups white flour (I used 3 cups white and 3 cups wheat flour)
1 Egg
Sesame OR Poppy seed

Pour warm water (105-115 degrees) into large mixing bowl and dissolve yeast in water...

Stir in sugar, salt, oil and half the flour...

Beat vigorously for 3 minutes. Stir in remaining flour and mix thoroughly...

Leave spoon in the heavy batter and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Stir down. Again allow to rest for 10 minutes and stir down again. Repeat this process until the dough has been stirred down 5 times. The texture of the dough will change quite a bit...

Turn dough onto floured surface. Knead dough enough to coat with flour so it can be handled (5 or 6 times). Divide dough in half. Roll each part into 9x12 inch rectangles. Roll up from long side like a jelly roll. Pinch seam to seal dough and arrange loaves on a large baking sheet that has been sprinkled with corn meal, allow room for loaves to expand as they rise.

Cover lightly and let rise at room temperature until nearly doubled (about 30 minutes). With a very sharp knife cut three gashes at an angle on top. Brush with slightly beaten egg and sprinkle with sesame or poppy seeds. I forgot to take a picture of this before I put it in the oven so I turned on our oven light and took a picture while it was baking...

Bake immediately for 25-30 minutes at 400 degrees. Remove from baking sheet and cool on racks.

And there you have it! Delightful French Bread! It actually was very very good! I will definitely be making this bread again! It's not exactly what I'm looking for but I still have yet to make the bread recipe that my cousin gave me. Either way, we have been eating this bread up like it was candy, so good!

a little piece of metal heaven

Does anything in this picture look extra super duper fantastic?

Well to me there is! It's this!

A very shiny, very new Kitchen Aid Mixer!!!

LAAAAAAAA!!!! (do you hear the angels singing?)

I have wanted one of these F-O-R-E-V-E-R!!!!! And I mean like, seriously FOREVER! How did I end up with one of these metal pieces of heaven? Well I'll be happy to fill you in.

So, we have been trying to sell Josh's car for a long time, as in over a year, as in before we ever moved to Korea, it's been forever. So all the sudden, MIRACLE, it's sold! Now, this was not the first thing that came to mind when we found out the car sold. No, about a billion other things came to mind like clothes (which yes, I finally got!) and saving it for Christmas ect (which we did this too). But then I baked Granola Bread and I used my hand mixer to mix the dough like the recipe said and then this happened...

The dough grew up and up and up the mixer medal thingy's that spin around and before I knew it things started smelling like a burnt motor and yeah, we had to stop things. Then my loving husband said he'd clean it and took the whole thing apart and found mounds and mounds of dough all over the inside.

Then I said something along the lines like 'someday we'll have a Kitchen Aid Mixer and then you won't have to worry about it doing that' and then my husband said something I thought I wouldn't hear for another 7 years 'well, do you want to go get one?' I was SPEECHLESS! See, I have always joked that if I won a million dollars the very first thing I would buy would be a Kitchen Aid Mixer, in red to be exact. Now I don't have to win a million dollars to get one because now I ACTUALLY HAVE ONE!!!! YAY!!!!

(lalaaaaaaaaaa.... I'm pretty sure I hear angel's singing again!)

Isn't it beautiful? Sigh... I'm in kitchen/bakers heaven!!!

Granola Bread

I am on a mission! I am on a mission to find a whole wheat bread recipe that I like and can make without a bread machine. I tried one this last weekend and it turned out pretty good but it's not exactly what I'm looking for. I'll bring you along on my escapade if you care to read about it! I have two more recipes that I want to try. One if a french bread, but it's with white flour, so we'll see how it goes using wheat flour. The other is a recipe is from my cousin Leah, which I am the most excited to try, but I don't have all the ingredients for it so I'll have to wait until after my next shopping trip to make it. Yes, I do only live 3 minutes from the grocery store but I hate shopping, especially grocery shopping so I avoid going at all costs, so I will wait until this weekend to get all my ingredients.

The bread I tried this past weekend is called Granola Bread. It is actually very yummy bread but it's more of a breakfast bread with butter and jam, not a sandwich bread. It's worth a try if you are looking for a new bread. Plus, if you make this and go to buy your orange marmalade at Super One you get this really awesome cute jar to hopefully use for canning in the future...

Alright so it's not the only reason to make the bread, it truly is yummy!

Granola Bread
2 Tablespoons Butter
1/2 Cup Orange Marmalade
1/4 Cup Molasses

1 Cup Granola
2 Cups Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 Cup Wheat Germ
2 Teaspoons Salt
2 Packages active dry yeast

4 Cups all -purpose flour

Put 2 cups water and first 3 ingredients in pan over low heat until very warm. Stir in next 5 ingredients and 1 cup flour. Pour heated mix over the remaining flour mixture. Beat at medium speed, scraping side of bowl occasionally for 3 minutes (Note: DO NOT USE A HAND MIXER!!! I Repeat, DO NOT USE A HAND MIXER, I will explain in a later post). Turn out on floured board and knead (the recipe didn't say for how long, I did 7 minutes). Flatten to rectangle (FYI rather hard to flatten to a rectangle but if you make it big enough you don't have to roll it out like it says later, you can just cut it in half). Let dough rise in a warm place free from draft for 1 hour 15 min until double in size. Punch down and divide in 2 loaves by rolling dough from short end of rectangle. Seal ends and put in loaf pans. Let rise another 1 hour 30 minutes. Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes.

It's like a whole wheat bread with a bit more flavor and when you get a piece of the orange marmalade peal it's a little zing of sweetness. Tastes great toasted with butter (and if you like jam, but I'm not a jam type of girl, I just like butter on my toast).

Golden Birthday

At the very last minute we decided to have a little party for Gabriel's second (and golden) birthday. Our original plans were to head up to Gooseberry Falls and go hiking and let Gabriel throw rocks in the lake, which he loves the outdoors and throwing things so it would have been the perfect day for him. But in the end we had to change our plans and we invited some family and celebrated another way.

First we let Gabriel open up some gifts when he first woke up. We didn't want him to open up all of them so we hid some for later.

Then we got everybody and headed to the zoo! It was a beautiful day out and perfect for walking around. We also dressed Gabriel in about the cutest outfit ever, seriously, I think about 20 random strangers commented about what he was wearing while we walked around the zoo.

Gabriel loved all the animals, he kept making animal noises whenever we saw them. This particular lion kept looking at the children like one yummy snack. I for one was very thankful that there was the glass to separate the lion from her prey the kids.

We couldn't resist getting a few pictures of Gabriel in his adorable train outfit...

And then we actually found a train at the zoo and Gabriel got to take a ride with his Daddy and his cousin Rowan.

And we saw the seals...

Eventually we got a little tired of walking around and once the words 'presents' and 'cake' were mentioned Gabriel wanted to go home anyway:)

*We had cake in between these two pictures, hence Gabriel being naked. 

Gabriel ended up having a wonderful birthday party and everybody had tons of fun! Happy Golden Birthday Gabriel!

last day of one

The day before Gabriel turned two I was freaking out. I was not ready for my little boy to turn two, he was still my little baby, he was my one year old who seemed like he just had his first birthday. All day I was freaking out about it. I think I gave Gabriel a few dozen extra hugs because I felt like I was saying goodbye to my baby and having to accept toddlerhood the next day. I know, it's really only a day difference and it's silly but if your a mother you probably understand how that one day can make all the difference in the world.

After we tucked Gabriel in bed that night I went and hugged my husband for a long long time. I went on and on about how that was our last night to tuck in our one year old, we would never be able to tuck in one year old Gabriel ever again and we just lost our baby. Yes, I was being dramatic. Yes, I am ok with that. And yes, my husband thought I was silly, he even told me that, he's more logical then I am like that.

Later as we were laying in bed and my husband was trying to fall asleep and I was still going on about losing my baby I decided I needed to capture the last moment my baby was going to be one. So I got up, grabbed my camera and snuck into Gabriel's room. I stood over his crib and knowing fully well that a flash might very well wake him up, I snapped my picture of my sleeping babe. Amazingly, he didn't even flinch, so I took another!

And then I went back to my hubby and made him open up his eyes (he was half asleep after all) and look at my picture and talk more about my overly dramatic emotions about my baby turning one.

Then he told me to be quiet.

I hit him with a pillow.

He sighed.

And then... then I kept talking.

Then he fell asleep and then I took a picture of him too. After all, it was the last night he was going to be a father to a one year old Gabriel.

Colorful Bums

 My babies have colorful bums!!! Plain and simple their butts are colorful! Why? Because I clothe diaper of course! And now they are more colorful then ever before because today I got Gabriel's next size in the mail and since gDiapers just came out with their new line of colors I was able to order the new gPants instead of their old ones! So now I have the new and old colors and my babies bums are more colorful then ever! And yes, I am excited about it!

So from left to right, top to bottom we have galactic blue, vanilla bean, good vibe strip, gooseberry purple, goodnight blue, grubby knees grey, midnight black, great orange, guppy green, goo goo blue, go fish blue, and got chocolate brown! I also have grateful red (below) but currently it's on Gabriel's bum so it's not in my picture above... 

Thank heaven for colorful bums, they make your life a little brighter, literally!