Life Lately

This is my nephew Cole. He's four years old. I asked if I could take his picture and this is what he did. He's so cool.

Here's the dessert the kids & I made for my mother-in-law Juanita's Halloween party. Graham made the "fence", Caris made the scarecrow, Malachi made the haystacks & then he & I stacked the pumpkins all around.

My Mom invited me over for dinner when Megan was in town last week. She made us THE CUTEST drinks - PINK hot chocolate in these adorable cups, with pink & white jelly beans in the drink and on the plate, whipped cream and pink sugar. Do you think we are just a little bit excited that my Mom's breast cancer treatments are OVER?

I took Canaan along with me to dinner at my Mom's. He was playing here and being so silly.

Here's the gang after pumpkin carving at the party. Top Canaan & Malachi, bottom cousins Cole and Brea, Caris, Korean friend #1, Graham, Korean friends #s 2 and 3 (I'm sorry, I forget their names).

Christian & Canaan, both in the pajamas Grandma bought them and both thinking Christian's sippy is quite intriguing.

I love sleeping babies. And toddlers.

Look at the smile on this kid's face. Do you think they just won a big game? They did not. They have, in fact, lost EVERY game of the season by a landslide. I absolutely LOVE that my boy has such a good attitude. He is competitive and one of the best players on his team, and he really wants to win. But if they don't, he still smiles. He is a very good sport.

I am SO GLAD that this phase seems to have died down. For a while, I found Canaan in the refrigerator like this no less than 10x a day. It was enough to make a mommy batty!

This was Bible hero dress-up night at Awana. Caris was Mary and I was Sarah. Graham and Malachi didn't dress up - party poopers! I stopped to pick up one of Malachi's teammates, whose mother I had never met. I thought she probably wondered where I was taking her son . . .

Malachi with his long locks. He decided that he wanted it cut - SHORT. I like it better long.

Speaking of long, it is so much fun to style Caris' hair! I asked Alif if he liked this one and he said, "It's different!" LOL

Malachi and Graham were on a BIG sewing kick. Malachi made 4-5 awesome pillowcases.

This little boy makes my heart melt!!

And now the post that I had started before I uploaded pics and Blogger would only let me put them up top:

Let me start by saying that my computer is dead. Or sick. I don't know what's wrong with it but for now I basically only have access to Alif's laptop, and that pretty much only during naptime. It's really kind of a good thing. I needed less time online. Well, my family and home needed me to have less online time. Now we're thinking of getting me a laptop. A Mac, actually. Would that be called a Macbook? I'm clueless.

I made the best dinner EVER last night. It was also my first time ever cooking with alcohol. Concidence? Hmm. Here's the recipe - I hope I'm not forgetting anything. It's from Everyday Food magazine.

Irish Beef & Stout Stew

beef cut into 1" cubes

1/4 cup flour

12 oz tomato paste

2.5 pounds new potatoes (the white ones)

2 cans beef broth

1 can (12 oz) irish stout

2 medium onions, cut into 1" pieces

10 cloves garlic, sliced

20 oz frozen baby peas

Toss beef with flour in a big pot. Stir in tomato paste, then everything else except peas. Bring to a boil. Move to a crockpot on low for 4-5 hours. Add in peas & let heat through for 15 minutes or so. OH SO GOOD!!