Crock-pot Crazy!

Today Johnston and I played chef.  Which means while we got dinner into the crock-pot we talked with French accents and put "chef" in front of our names.  When we are really crazy we pretend we are taping our own show on the Food Network!  So much fun! (Thanks for this idea "chef" Destiny!)

When I looked in the fridge this morning trying to see what I was going to make for dinner I found half a bag of broccoli that I buy in bulk from Costco.  Usually we don’t seem to eat it fast enough and I end up throwing about a 1/4 of the bag away.  So there it was…..just looking at me.  We have had raw broccoli for almost two weeks straight and I personally was done with it.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw my crockpot and bells started ringing.  I could almost hear angels singing.  Ok…maybe not….but ideas started flying through my head.  I hadn’t done any shopping last week due to Tim’s dad being in the hospital.  So I wasn’t sure what I had that would work.  I grab a few things that I had around and we "created" a soup!  It turned out so good I had to post.  

Johnston cut up two carrots.

One large onion and the carrots ~  sauteed just slightly.

Pouring the raw broccoli into the crock-pot.

All ingredients must be taste tested for quality!

Just about to stir in the cheese Johnston grated.

Ready to eat!  It sure was yummy!

Recipe:
Raw Broccoli (just poured almost to the top of crock pot)
2 carrots (chopped and sauteed w/ butter)
1 large onion (chopped and sauteed w/ butter)
1 small can corn (will use frozen next time)
1 family size can of cream of mushroom soup (any cream soup would do probably)
1 soup can of milk
About 2 cups of shredded cheese (we really didn’t measure…might have been more)
Salt
Lots of garlic powder (only form of garlic my mil had at her house where I cooked dinner, will use
minced garlic next time)
*Throw everything in the crock-pot.  Stir.  Cook on high for 3-4 hours.
**I’m going to play around with herbs next time and I might add celery and rice as well.

Update on Tim's dad!

This has been the longest week we’ve experienced in a long time.  Tim spent Tuesday thru Friday at the hospital from 8am to 6pm each day.  He was allowed a 30 min visit at 8, 11, 2, and 5.  The rest of the day was spent sitting in the waiting room with Dot (his step-mom). 

As of today Tim’s dad has made a miraculous recovery.  On Tuesday Burns (Tim’s Dad) was put in ICU.  This is how things looked:
1. They didn’t know where all the blood was coming from (vomiting, etc.)…but they replaced 5 pints of blood that morning.
2. He was on total life support
3. By 5pm they put him on 24 hour dialysis.  His kidneys had shut down.
4. His blood pressure was 85 over 40…when he got to the ER that morning they couldn’t even get a reading.  This raised questions of how much damage, if any, did his heart have. They were able to get his blood pressure up a little by putting him on 4 different medications.
5. It also looked like he had a heart attack the previous day.
Within the last 24 hours:
1. He has been taken off dialysis.  They still aren’t sure if he will need to do dialysis for a while until his body get’s back on track, but he is off right now and things are looking good.
2. His breathing tube was removed today.
3. He is almost off of the 14 meds that were helping his body function.
4. He was given another 2 pints of blood.
5. Asked for a cup of coffee.
6. They think he will be out of the ICU by this Monday. 
Wednesday we were at the "need a miracle" stage…..today he gave Tim a note for the boys and me.
It read:
I heart JB, JJ and Bky 2.  Heart, Dad
Translation:
(I love Johnston Burns, Jameson Joe, and Becky too.  Love, Papa Burns)
God is so good!!!

JB & JJ with Papa Burns ~ Winter 2005

Happy Birthday Tim!

Today is Tim’s 41st birthday!  Another year gone….another year in our sights.  Johnston and I had a whole day planned for our favorite daddy.  His favorite meals were arranged, notes for him to find throughout his day were ready, a fun after work activity to do, and a movie for us to watch after the boys were put in bed.  

We’ve had to put this all on hold for a while.  Tim’s dad was put in ICU yesterday morning.  He is in critical condition…with small improvement.  Tim being the man that I love has been a rock for his step-mom.  He hasn’t left her side during this ordeal.  He even took her home last night so she could shower, change and try and get some sleep.  He stayed the night to make sure she was ok.  He is such a wonderful man.  This is definitely not the way one wants to spend their birthday though.
I thought I would put a few pictures up of him with our boys.

Tim saying hi to Jameson after being at work all day ~ June 2005

Tim w/ Johnston and the twins (friends of ours) at JumpZone for Johnston’s
6th birthday ~ September 2006

Tim w/ Johnston and Jameson in our front yard ~ Fall 2006

I just love my guys ~ Spring 2007

It smells clean in here!

So Johnston wanted to practice carving again today.  He got everything out and away he went.  He found that he could stab the knife through the soap and twist to make a hole.  He cut the bar in half,shaved part and chunked the other part.  Is he making anything in particular…ummm…no.  But he is doing something way better…he learning the feel of the knife, the feel of the object in his hand.  He’s learning how much pressure to put to make different kinds of cuts and shapes in the soap.  Today he took it even farther…he became the teacher. 

 Jameson came over to inspect what Johnston was doing.

 "Feel the soap Jameson….squish it in your hand." 

 "You have to hold the knife like this…here let me hold your hand…"

 "Now try it on your own…."  It helps to have a big brother apply pressure to

actually make the knife cut through the soap.

Learning to carve!

Tim and I decided to switch things up for 2008.  We school year round so that we can be as flexible with life as we need or want to be.  So we sat down a few days into the new year and with pad, pen and a cup of cocoa we started brainstorming.  What did we want the boys to learn this year….what did we want to see accomplished in their lives.  We threw our old school room ideas out the window and have launched 2008 with a fresh start and outlook.

One of the many things we put on our list of fun things to learn this year is carving!

 Johnston carving a bar of Ivory with his new Buck pocket knife.  He was so excited when Tim took him to purchase the knife.  It was all we could do to keep it in the bag until we got home!

 Learning to carve. (The shavings are on a plastic bag….I’m thinking they can be
used for some sort of project in the near future!)

 Getting the feel of it!  School is such fun!  He hasn’t finished his "project" he is making me yet…I’ll post a picture when he does!

For the love of shoes!

Jameson is in a shoe phase.  Every time I turn around he has someones shoes on.  So today I thought I would snap a few pics of him with my shoes on!  He loves to put them on and just walk around.   Forget the toys…he is  perfectly happy with a pile of shoes.  I’m blessed to have a 2 year old who is so easily amused.

 Who can resist this face?!?!

 "My toes are right here….they almost fit!"

 Someday I’ll be trying on his shoes!

Simply puzzling

Johnston enjoys puzzles.  He’s the only person I’ve met that does puzzles from the inside out.  We haven’t figured out why or how he can….but figure it only adds to his unique personality!  Does it really matter if one doesn’t start with the border?  Once in the beginning of the puzzle era that I now find myself living in I  sat down to do a new puzzle with him.  I pulled all the border pieces out and put the the middle pieces across the table.  That’s just the puzzle rules right?  I looked up to see Johnston standing there watching me with a strange look on his face.  He asked me what I was doing and why was I doing it?  It hit me  that I was just following the simple puzzle rule…start with the border and work from there.    No reason…no thought…just doing what I was taught and my mom was taught and so on.  I realized that I had never "taught" Johnston to do puzzles…he just took off from the wooden puzzles and kept going. 
Since then we do puzzles together a few times a week and he starts with the middle and I start with the border…it works out quite well!!!!!

I started a new puzzle the other day with Johnston and when I came back in
from doing something I found Johnston perched on the table working away!
(You can see my border started.)