2009 - The year in pictures...

Last year I did recap of the year in pictures. Since I can't really think of anything better to do this year, I've gone ahead and done it again. Here is the year in pictures from the House of Crackers.

January - Fun in the snow!

February - Family goes on a Disney Cruise...pictures go missing from Mrs. Crackers' hard drive. Imagine cute (yet mischevious) children smiling in front of blue carribean skies. (I think I know what I will be doing this afternoon. Something tells me I will be trying to recover files from my recycling bin. oops!)

March - Finally a warm day! C celebrates by wearing cones on his head.

April - A perfect day at the zoo.

May - A Mother's Day weekend shopping trip!




June - K playing in the sand on family vacation in Hilton Head.

July - A visit with cousins...Mia & Aidan come for a week of fun.

August - C plays soccer... season seems to last 6 years.

September - K is finally old enough to take ballet lessons...there is much rejoicing!

October - A visit from our good friend Karen

November - A great smile from K on a beautiful fall day.

December - A holiday hug that warms a Mom's heart. For a moment all is quiet in the House of Crackers until C decides to grab K's new present from her for a closer look.

Happy New Year from the House of Crackers. May 2010 bring you health, peace & happiness!

Christmas 2009 sponsored by Lego

Time to finally wrap up Christmas here at the House of Crackers. The fire hazard known as our Christmas tree came down early on the 28th. Not only do we like to get the tree down by the time C's birthday sneaks up on us, but we also wanted it down before our good friends come to stay with us in what has become an annual visit.

Looking back, Christmas day was a little more hectic around here this year than it has been in the past. We hosted both a Christmas morning brunch with my family early in the day, then later a Turkey dinner with all the trimmings for Mr. Crackers' family. While the events of the day had me spending a couple of hours in my kitchen, I have to admit that it was really nice to stay home. Both of my two hooligans got to relax a bit a have a great time playing with all of their new toys - 90% of which seemed to be Legos.

I really think in hindsight I should have bought stock in the Lego company sometime earlier this year. The only thing C wanted for Christmas was Legos. Well, I guess strictly speaking he did have one other request...he said he also wanted a robot that would "serve him". I'm not sure where that idea came from, but since Santa wasn't going to fill that request, realistically speaking all he wanted was Legos.


K also caught Lego fever this year. Her 2 big requests this Christmas were a Lego Duplo Zoo set & a "fairy, butterfly building set". (After a little investigation, I discovered that this was a Superstructs Pinklets set, which I know aren't really Legos but since it's a building set...it might as well be.)




Since it seemed a little strange to only get them Legos, Mr Crackers & I got a little creative with the gifts. C got a new radio for his room and a Jr. Electronics kit. K got some new Calico Critters to add to her ever growing collection of small woodland animals she can undress and leave naked in her room.

But since the hooligans had such a short list of gift requests, we made sure we had the Lego bases covered so to speak.

Even though we did try to diversify the gifts a bit, it is amazing how many Legos made their way into our house this holiday season. Between Christmas & C's birthday 3 days later, our home has been turned into Legoland. It seems like that red Lego logo or a pile of bricks can be found in nearly every picture I took Christmas Day. It's like where's Waldo...

Look Ma! More Legos!

Can you find the Legos in this picture?

Here's Katie's Duplo Zoo set. It's really cute & has gotten a lot of playtime over Christmas break so far. I have to say one thing for the Lego company. They sure know how to make toys that seem capture both of my children's imagination.

This is how one of C's large sets looked early Christmas morning. It was a Star Wars set with something like 900 pieces...

Here's how that same set looked a couple of hours later. Geez, that kid is getting fast. I have lost complete track of just how many Lego sets C has built over the holiday break, but let's just say that we've had to do some major rearranging in his room to give all of his new Lego sets a home.

While I am a little sad to see the Christmas season come to an end, it will be nice to get back into our routines again. I am craving a little quiet time once the 2 kiddos head back to school.

Now we just have 2 more events before our lives can get back to "normal". We'll be heading to our neighbor's annual New Year's Eve party on Thursday(which is always a great time), then we have C's birthday party on Saturday for his friends. I have quite a bit to do to get ready for the party, but since it's a relatively small one this year, I think I'll be able to finish pulling it together pretty quickly. The theme he picked this year (Lord help me) is ... Legos.

Looks like we may have to make a little more space in C's room before the week is out.

Seven

For the past seven years, my son C has kept us smiling. OK, not all the time, but for the most part he is a really good kid with a great sense of humor. He is also bright, affectionate, curious, and outgoing. I don't think he's been at a lack for something to say since he came into this world.

Last year I wrote a blog in his honor showing 6 of my favorite pictures of him. Since today is his seventh birthday, I thought I'd share 7 more pictures with you.


This shot was taken when he was 5 months old, those cheeks are killin' me! He still sleeps with that blue dog & it's in much better shape than you'd expect for a stuffed animal of his advanced years.

He spent countless hours in the summer and fall of 2004 in just this spot. I'd get in the car later to take us somewhere and the volume on the radio would be at 10, the windshield wipers would start up & the heat would kick on full blast.

Oh, the green boots...we got those as a hand-me down from our neighbor. She raised 5 boys. I can't say how many of the boys wore these particular boots, but I can say they had developed an unpleasant odor by the time we got them.

Of course C fell in love with these boots on sight & it was a struggle to get him out of them. When several attempts at washing them failed to get rid of the odor, these green boots mysteriously disappeared one day never to be seen again...

This kid has always loved dressing up & clowning around. Here he is at around 4 1/2 in his favorite costume at the time.

I've always loved this picture...it's hanging on the wall right outside my office. A perfect fall day, playing in the leaves.

Our Disney trip. One of the best times we've ever had. It was two years ago and we are still talking about it. One of these days we'll make it back there again...

Have I mentioned before how much C loves Legos? The boy received 5 large Lego sets for Christmas (3 of them had more than 850 pieces) and 4 of them are already assembled. I'm sure he will put together the last large set today. We're having a Lego party next weekend with his friends for his birthday. It's an obsession I don't mind fueling...it kept him from asking for a Nintendo DS this year and has him occasionally turning down computer time or playing games on the Wii.

Happy Birthday C! Thank you for being the sweet, funny, zany boy you are. I love you more than words can say.

Merry Christmas

May the gifts of love, peace and happiness be yours this Christmas Season. Merry Christmas from all of us here at the House of Crackers.

It's that time of year again...Happy Birthday Linda!

In honor of my sister Linda's birthday last year, I posted some pictures from her past. Since I happen to enjoy embarrassing her commemorating her birthday this way, I thought I'd do the same thing this year.


Happy 38th Birthday Linda. Hope you enjoy the day (& the pictures!)



An Easter picture (I think). Is it just me, or does my dress look a little short? It also looks like someone (dressed in yellow) needs a diaper change...

It's not just a hat - it's a pair of sunglasses too!

I'd make fun of your pants in this shot, but what would be the point?

Now, I'll make fun of your pants!

Aww...it's an Olan Mills Wagon Wheel shot from the early eighties. Look how cute you are! I love those freckles!

Happy 38th Birthday Linnie Linda! Hope you had a great day. I love you!

It might be time for Barbie to update her wardrobe

A few weeks ago, my sister & her family came into town for the Thanksgiving weekend. On their final night in town we all gathered at my Parent's home for a family dinner. After helping to clear the table, I ventured down into the basement to put the dirty napkins into my parent's laundry room. As I threw the napkins in the dirty clothes hamper, I happened to look to my left & was struck dumb when I saw this:

Did a tragic laundry incident reduce this load of laundry to 1/10th of their normal size?

Upon reflection, what seemed even stranger to me than the size of the clothing was the fact that all of these outfits seemed strangely familiar.

I just stood there for a minute afraid to move, trying to figure out what was going on. And then it finally hit me why I recognized these tiny clothes...they belonged to my sister. Or more specifically, they were the clothes that my sister's Barbie dolls wore during the mid 1970's.

Apparently, my Mom had kept a lot of Linda's Barbie stuff from her childhood & Linda had decided it was time to pass these items on to her own daughter. She & Mom had washed the tiny clothes in preparation for the trip back home.

I couldn't resist a closer look.

Shall we explore some of Barbie's favorite outfits from the mid 1970's?

A caftan! No closet is complete without one. I am really grooving on the gold and brown trim.

Nice pants Barbie! I'm sure this versatile pattern goes with everything.

Wow! Even my camera was shocked by the pattern on these pants.

Apparently Barbie was not afraid of bright colors. Here's hoping she never wore that sweater with either of the pants we just saw.

This one isn't too bad. I'd certainly pick this outfit over any of the other ones we've seen so far. It kind of reminds me of something Florence Henderson might have worn.

"Here's the story of a lovely lady, who was bringing up three very lovely girls. All of them had hair of gold, like their mother, the youngest one in curls..."

Um, this one just feels wrong, even for the 1970's. I'm just not sure this look was ever really "in fashion" was it?

And, I'm not at all sure what to say about this coat. Is it just me or is this coat just screaming for some platform shoes and a purple fedora?

Wow! While I am impressed by the durability of these clothes, I really think that it's probably past time for Barbie to go ahead and take a trip to the mall. Quickly. Seriously Barbie, if money is an issue, I'll front you some cash sister. If you won't do it for yourself, think of the children and run to the mall. Now.

I can only hope that my niece's own sense of style won't be permanently damaged by what we have seen here today. You can bet that I'll be paying close attention to her outfits in the Christmas photos this year.

Some holiday stretching

In the spirit of trying to stretch our holiday dollar a little further this year, I decided that I would try & make something for the brave souls who enter into the classroom everyday & patiently try to impart some knowlege on my 2 hooligans.

I am not a very crafty person, so my options for hand crafted items were pretty limited. I can't sew, or knit or crochet... at all. I can bake, but I figured the teachers probably get pretty tired of the tins of cookies brought in by other families. Since I love making cards, I decided to get on the computer and try my hand at creating them all some personalized stationary.

For the most part, I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out. Each teacher will get a dozen cards in 4 different colors with matching envelopes. I asked Mr. Crackers for his opinion on the idea and discovered that the concept of personalized notecards seems to be a complete mystery to him (to paraphrase Mr. Crackers a bit... apparently the appreciation of personalized notecards requires a vagina).

The most exciting part is that I had everything I needed for this project up in my office already, so the out of pocket cost for this project is $0. All it took was a little time & creativity.

Now that I've gotten started, I just can't seem to stop making them. I've been playing with the colors & fonts and designing them for other special people as gifts. And yes Mr. Crackers, all of the recipients will have a vagina.

Updates here & there

Since I know you've all been on pins and needles waiting for me to do a little follow up on some previous posts, (said with a dose of heavy sarcasm) I thought I'd catch you up on things here around the House of Crackers:

Supper Gourmet Club
You'll be happy to know that the dinner we hosted for Supper Gourmet Club on Saturday was a success. Yea! I'm sorry to say that I have no pictures to share of the evening because I was a bit stressed out about frying up my first ever batch of chicken for a group of people with discriminating palettes. (of course it could also be said I was too also too busy sampling martinis...)

The chicken turned out both crispy and juicy (which it should have been considering it spent 24 hours brining in a salt water bath, followed by another 24 hours soaking in buttermilk). It was a fun night filled with delicious southern favorites and tasty martinis. I think the star of the evening was the Bourbon Glazed Bread Pudding served with brown sugar ice cream (Haagan-Daz, I will be soon be writing a love sonnet for your brown sugar ice cream). Sweet, sweet bourbon bread pudding, where have you been all my life?

Now I just have to figure out how to get the smell of fried chicken, bacon & lard out of my house. It smelled delicious as it was all cooking Saturday night, but 2 days of living in a place that smells like KFC is starting to bring me down a little. A friend of mine suggested leaving out bowls of white vinegar & that seems to have helped a bit. If I ever make another batch of fried chicken again, I'll do it in a warmer month so I can open all the windows to air the place out a bit.

If I can't get the smell out soon, Santa will be expecting a plate of fried chicken when he comes down the chimney instead of cookies.


The Dining Room Dilemma
As a follow up to my post about my complete lack of decorating prowess, I wanted to let you know that we decided to replace the curtains in the dining room. Since the "Harry Potter" red plaid curtains in the room seemed to make Mr. Crackers' a little anxious when paired with all of the other patterns in the room, we decided to replace them with solid green panels. Of course it was also considerably less expensive than option #2 which was replacing the area rug. We hoped the new curtains would help us tie the conflicting patterns of the newly covered chairs with the patterned area rug.



Here's the result:


And from another angle:


Did it work? Hmm, good question. I will tell you that these green curtains definitely work with all of the patterns in the room better than the plaid ones they are replacing, but I'll also tell you that I definitely shouldn't be allowed in a fabric store again anytime soon.

Misplaced priorities on my to-do list
And finally, just thought I'd share what I did while K was napping today. I'm sure you are thinking I was working on the normal things that keep us all busy this time of year: writing Christmas cards or Christmas shopping or even starting to pull together my son's 7th birthday party which will be here in just a few weeks...

Nope, I spent my "down" time this afternoon organizing my spices & putting little tiny labels on them so I could actually find them quickly without doing my usual 5 minute spicy scavenger hunt.



I am very excited about the labels, don't they make it so much easier to find the spice you're looking for (yes I know I am dork, we've discussed that before haven't we)? In my defense, I will tell you that my Mom was performing the same task today & put the idea in my head so I will shift the blame to her. I'm just saying that if your Christmas cards are late this year, now you know why. It's worth though isn't it?

Thanks for the idea Mom. Hope you got your cabinets done too!

I'll take the lard... with a side of bacon

This evening Mr. Crackers & I take our turn hosting Supper Gourmet Club. Supper Gourmet Club was the brainchild of a friend of ours who thought it would be fun to get together with a group of friends once a month every other month whenever we can find time on everyone's schedule, for a night of cocktails and fine dining WITHOUT CHILDREN. While I've always had trouble referring to the dinners as Gourmet Club (which definitely sounds a like something I would not get invited to under normal circumstances) the meals themselves have definitely warranted the title.

So far we've had delicious meals inspired by the cuisines of Italy, South America & Japan. All of them featured sumptuous food & tasty wines and cocktails. Truly, they have all been meals that rival the food found in some of the best restaurants around town.

So, tonight it's time for the House of Crackers to host the group. What is the theme, you ask? Well, Mr. Crackers and I picked Southern Cuisine. You see, one of the couples in the group (the couple whose idea it was to start the club in the first place and who are the "glue" that holds the rest of us together) will be deserting abandoning moving to Atlanta sometime in the next couple of months. Since we ourselves just moved from there a few years ago, it seemed a fitting theme.

But, this meal really won't be a true Gourmet Club event, at it's heart it going to be Supper Club. While there are a lot of innovative dishes that are part of the cuisine of the "New South" this dinner will be paying homage to traditional family-style southern recipes. I will be frying up my first ever batch of fried chicken. If you've never cooked fried chicken before, let me just tell you to go to KFC instead it seems like there is a lot that could go wrong....I am feeling more than a little pressure about this evening's dining experience. I know now why I prefer getting my fried chicken right from the Colonel himself (It only takes 5 minutes of waiting in line & it always tastes good). We'll also be having wilted salad, squash casserole and bourbon glazed bread pudding.
Mmm, I think my mouth is already watering.

I hope everyone has a great time tonight & that the food will live up to the high standards set by the meals we've had in the past. But perhaps I should lower my expectations a bit. Honestly, I will just be happy if no one keels over from clogged arteries by the end of the evening. The amount of butter, bacon, mayonnaise, and (lord, help me) lard that is being used tonight to prepare these dishes may have us all wishing this night of traditional Southern cooking never happened. It's a good thing we restocked the bar.

Bon Appetit Y'all!