Peyton got the noodle gene

 A week after I boiled the chicken for noodles I finally made the dough. 

Peyton wanted to roll out the dough.

So I let him.

Making noodles is really hard work!

So he rolled harder.

And stared harder.

And rolled some more.

And they were SOOO good!!!

I may or may not have had three bowls of noodles.

How do I know Peyton got the noodle gene? 

He said, "I love noodles, too". 

And ate two Peyton-sized bowls.

Peyton's Christmas Program

Since this would be Peyton's last Christmas program at Westwood, and especially since Brandon couldn't be there this year, I took off a morning from work to watch him.  Im glad I did!  It was very cute!
This is the video of his class:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaN5cvT-tgw

Time To Eat. And Eat and Eat and Eat.

What a weekend!  Friday night was relaxing but uneventful.  Which was good, because Saturday was a marathon of a day!  Kathy graduated with her Bachelor's degree from Southern Nazarene University on Saturday!  Peyton and I took the morning to get ready for the afternoon.  Peyton spent a good chunk of the morning showing Mae Mae and Paw Paw his room, "carrying them around" via iPhone FaceTime.  I heard him reading to them and later I asked what book he was reading.  He told me, "All of them".  Wow!  I guess I'm glad he's a 'reader'.  Who would have thought Mae Mae and Paw Paw would be able to babysit all the way from TN?  Thanks, technology!

That afternoon Brandon met Kristine and Peyton and I and we watched the parade of regalia march into commencement.  Peyton was fascinated by their 'capes'.  There were some pretty good ones!  He did really very well through the graduation, which went remarkably fast.  After graduation we all went to Cheddars for dinner and then to Walls to shop for Brandon's birthday.  Everyone except Brandon found something to buy so we headed to the mall.  Somehow I ended up eating my way through the evening - a donut here - a pretzel there - coffees in between - and went to bed with an unhappy belly.  I would have thought Saturday was enough food for the weekend. 

I was wrong. Sunday was a chilly, overcast, dreary winter day and I felt the need to cook. So Peyton and I set to work in the kitchen.

We started with spiced tea.

Then I looked at Pinterest and decided homemade salsa looked easy enough. 

It WAS easy and SOOO good!!

Around the same time I decided to make spiced tea, I decided it would be a good day for noodles and started boiling a chicken for the broth.  And when you boil a chicken, you have to do something with all the... chicken.  So I checked to see what Pinterest had to say on the matter.  We came up with chicken enchiladas.  And then I decided that it would be a good time to have Kathy and Kristine over for dinner.  Kristine came over early to do her homework at our house and brought doughnut holes.  SOO good.

Sidenote: I dont know what my deal is with donuts lately.  I took them to work for a birthday on Friday and it was the best thing I had ever eaten.  Since then I have NEEDED to eat donuts.

Moving on.

While we waited on dinner, and snacked on donut holes, I decided to try another Pinterest find.  This is pizza monkey bread.  Pepperoni and mozzerella rolled up in crescent roll pieces.  Sounds pretty good, right?  Its only OK. 

So finally the enchiladas were done (and they looked MUCH better than the picture!!) 

And they tasted at least as good as they looked! 

Monday is Brandon's birthday and he requested his customary Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Icing. So I went ahead and made it that night while we were all around and I had time. 

There is no picture because... it was bad.  I did the toothpick test and it came out perfectly clean and the cake looked beautiful in the pan and I let it cool and I turned it over to dump it out on the plate and... it was NOT done in the middle, the outside broke apart and gooey batter spilled out all over my stove.  Apparently there was an air bubble right where I poked the toothpick and it was NOT done.

 About that time Brandon walked in.

His mom is baking a cake today.

 

I still had one more Pinterest recipe to try.  Peyton and I made little smores pockets with chocolate chips and mini marshmallows tucked inside crescent rolls.  Now THESE were good!!  I could only eat 1/2 of one, though. 

So the food rundown for Sunday:

Breakfast:

Boiled eggs

Coffee 

The rest of the day:

Homemade Salsa & chips

Spiced Tea

Donut Holes

Pizza Monkey Bread

Chicken Enchiladas

Smores Pockets

More Coffee

(the noodles will have to wait for another night)

It must be the Holidays!

Christmastime Is Here!

I promised myself and Peyton and everyone else that Christmas WOULD be evident in our house this year.  And thanks to Pinterest and some good timing, I have gotten decorations inside (and a little bit outside) our house this year!  Most of the projects are 1/2 done!  But Peyton and I worked hard all weekend and got pretty far.  I think I'll be done with all of the projects I started by this evening.  There are several others that I didn't picture.  The mantle is one of them.  Its so far from done that I didn't put up a picture.

The top of the tree is bent a little- its not touching the ceiling.  Peyton insists that we need a star on top but I'm not sure.  I kind of like it without.  We'll see.

These are cookie cutters hung from ribbons.  I had intended to make wreaths out of the cookie cutters as I had seen on Pinterest but that was an epic fail.  (twice)  So I decided to try it this way.  I might like it better!  Tonight I'll finish the other side so that they go all the way across the window. 

This is an old cabinet we found in a storage unit.  We've had it on Craigslist for a while with only one bite and no sale.  I've loved it from the moment I saw it and when I needed to move it to put the tree in it's place, I decided we'd keep it.  I'm definitely not done decorating it for Christmas but I'm really happy with it there.

We got a bunch of discarded limbs from our tree and others when we bought our tree.  This is one of three arrangements I made with them.  The other two are on the outside of the office windows.

Peyton needed a picture, too!

Basketball & Projects from Mae Mae

Peyton opened his box of goodies from Mae Mae and couldn't wait to start playing.  (see?  he's still wearing shoes)

He loves his basketball game. 

He tried the big purple ball but (surprise!) it doesn't fit in the launcher or the basket.

After supper Peyton and I did "projects". 

We still have lots of stickers for the next cold day!

Thanksgiving in Colorado

I took THREE pictures on our Colorado Thanksgiving trip this year.  I think I took 15 in Chicago last year.  I'm getting very bad at picture taking.

We saw this elk on the way up to Estes Park.  He was HUGE.  This picture doesn't do him justice.  I was sitting in the car taking the picture.  Too cold and too in-the-back-of-the-yukon to get out.

Peyton standing NEXT to the snow at the top of the mountain.  (I don't know which one)  I wouldn't let him get in the snow because he didn't have the right shoes on.  The guys promised me that we would just be driving and not getting out of the car in the snow.  That was their method of avoiding a trip back to the hotel for me to get proper clothing for the snow.  Oh well!! 

Peyton enjoying his Thanksgiving.

Peyton's Froggy Hat

A couple of weeks ago I went on a girls shopping trip in honor of April's 30th birthday.  We had THE BEST time!  I bought several things for Peyton, but this frog hat was the only thing he really thought was for him.  (The rest were boring things like cups...)

Now he's just posing.