Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Bowling and more food

The kids had their first bowling experience Saturday night! Twisted Pixel had a Captain Smiley release party at, The Main Event, in Austin. Its similar to a Dave and Busters. Rowen has been asking to go bowling everyday since. The boys had a blast. Lily enjoyed being there but was too little to enjoy the bowling. She did have a turn though. And Brandon won her a stuffed bear from one of the games so that made her happy.

A rare family photo
Lily's ball veeeeery slowly going down the lane. She tried.
Corbin bowling
Rowen bowling
Corbin playing air hockey with Rowen
Rowen playing air hockey
The score card, naturally Brandon won, but not by very much, haha
I made Captain Smiley (his head) and Star cupcakes for Brandon to take to work on the release day to celebrate.
Lily rockin out with the horns (as well as she can, haha) on the way to the party
Corbin's rockin the horns with his mohawk!
And I'm still cooking/baking when I can. I decided to make the kids homemade granola cereal. Why buy when you make fresh! This is a Pumpkin Granola. I used Rolled oats and mixed in cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger.
I then mix pumpkin puree with applesauce, brown sugar and maple syrup and poured over the oats.
Baked and then when it cooled I added dried cranberries and raw pumpkin seeds.Voila! It is super yummy.
I also gave it a go at Carnitas! It was very easy and tasted AWESOME! I had left over frozen pork shoulder and didn't want to make pulled pork again. Then carnitas came to mind.
I browned it on the stove first then braised it in the oven with some garlic, a cinnamon stick, bay leaf, cumin and water. This is after it was done braising for 3 1/2 hrs.
Then I shredded away. I will definitely be making this again!

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Park and Food

I've been very into baking/cooking lately. Even more than usual. Maybe its the change in seasons. Although it doesn't really feel like it in Texas since its still in the 80's and pretty warm. But still its cooler than the 100's its been. I made a carrot cake a few weeks ago when Tony and Coty came over (but we never even got to eating it when they were here). I shredded too much carrot and Lily found the bowl and decided she was going to take it and snack on the raw shredded carrots and share it with the boys. That made snack easy that afternoon.

With it being so nice out (especially in the morning) we headed out the the park one weekend morning. It was a fabulous 65 degrees! This time Lily didn't go in the creek.
We noticed this time odd looking stuff on the huge rocks. It looked like they were going hair but when we looked closer we realized it was big clusters of spiders.

Digging in the dinosaur pit.
Corbin was happy to finally dig an actual hole. He has been using this shovel in the house pretending to dig holes and plant trees.
Lily finding the buried dinosaur skeleton.
Having a nice snack before the drive home (its only like 15 minutes)
Boys making a goofy face while looking at pumpkins
A whole mess of cactus's at Whole Foods.
Some more of my baking. I decided to give a try at making Apple Cider donuts since finding them in Texas hasn't happened. They were pretty good, but getting them from farm stands up North was way better.

The end result. Good but not quite the same.
Corbin and Lily finger painting when Rowen was out having daddy time.
Having a PC I no longer have iPhoto. But I have a new photo program (thanks Mom Ford) and while adding pics to it I found this picture of Lily having pancakes with blueberry syrup that I find to very cute. She's licking it off the plate.