8 days and counting

Lots of things going on around the Benton house this week.  Most are in reference to the big birthday blowout that is in 8 days.  We have been deep cleaning the house this week (read scrubbing baseboards and cleaning fan blades)--you know all the fun stuff that you don't normally do when you clean house each week.  You can only imagine how my house has gotten a little dirtier over the past year.  The bottom 3 feet of my house have smudges and handprints, and I LOVE it, but I don't think my company will think it is as cute as I do.  A few weeks ago, I posted that Martin was being very particular about the texture of his foods.  Well, just in the last 3 days he has figured out big people food is fun and yummy!  He has had a waffle, a chicken nugget, some pasta, and a cookie.  I know--so healthy, right?  He enjoyed them all.  The cookie is a whole story by itself.

So, let's cut right to that.  I am making anchor and sailboat sugar cookies for the birthday party so I wanted to do a trial run this week to avoid a meltdown.  Well, let's just say I am glad I did the trial run, but I didn't exactly avoid a meltdown.  I feel certain it was close, but luckily I was too tired to do anything more than laugh about it.  I should have taken pictures.  Keep in mind this was the same day I cleaned every inch of my kitchen, AFTER I cleaned it, I decided to bust out flour and powdered sugar.  It looked like Christmas had come early.  I was covered, and so was all of my work space--I blame the Kitchen-aid stand mixer.  I love to cook, and I love to bake, but sugar cookies to me are the break apart and bake kind.  So, I went on the hunt for the "perfect" sugar cookie recipe.  Don't know if the recipe was perfect, perhaps it was the chef that was the issue, anyway, I digress.  I whipped up my dough and put it in the fridge to chill.  1 hour of time elapses, and I remove said dough to roll out and get my cookies cut-out.  Roll out my foot.  I kept adding flour, because it kept sticking to my rolling pin when I hear "are you sure the dough is cold enough?" from the couch in my living room.  At first I snapped my head around to see if he was being funny--he knows NOTHING about the kitchen except that I make a lot of noise and mess in there, and then voila sometimes he gets something fabulous to eat.  Well, no smile--is he being funny?  Guess not.  Next thought--did someone take over his body?  On further inspection it still appears to be my husband.  So I go straight for the jugular.  What the heck are you talking about??  I don't need an armchair sous-chef, what do you mean did it chill long enough?  It said 30-60 minutes, last I checked 60 minutes was an hour.  To which he quickly back pedaled and said, I was just wondering, seems like you were having trouble.  So, I dump some more flour, maybe it needs more flour and ignore the "help" from the living room.  So, Bryan comes to help, by help I mean inspect and offer suggestions while he gets a snack from the pantry.  You know, my home ec teacher always said "you actually CAN use too much flour". I about fell out.  He is still trying to tell me what to do?  Wait, more importantly....."you took home ec"?  I was probably giggling like a school girl at this point.  He then informed me that lots of guys took it and then said "I mean do you know how many girls are in a home ec class?  in high school that is a jackpot!"  After I ribbed him about it for a while I put the dough back in the fridge, and tried again in a little while.  The cookies took a lot of work, but I learned a lot, and they turned out very yummy.  I will take pictures of the real thing next Saturday.  I learned 3 huge things making the cookies, cookie dough needs to be really cold before you try to roll it out, you CANNOT use too much flour, and my husband took Home Ec in high school.  All in all a successful night.  So, then next day I decorated them, and Bryan and Martin both gave them two thumbs up.

Just a little icing for Martin

His new face!  What a funny kid

Martin is getting too big for his britches around here.  He loves to hold onto my curtains in the living room and walk far away with them in his hands, and then pull them down the curtain rod to the other end.  Don't worry, I am always right there, and we have baby safe curtain rods/rings so he can't get caught up in them.  And, he loves to play peek-a-boo anywhere.  This morning he was riding his walking toy around the house, and was in the hall way and would peek his head around the corner and scream to get me to look at him.  And, after lunch, he was hiding behind aforementioned curtains and would put it over his face, and then pull the curtain back and laugh when he saw me.  He really does engage in a lot of self-play.  Thank goodness, because entertaining a baby for 13 hours straight while your husband is at work makes you run out of ideas!!  Well, I need to get busy making food for the tailgate tomorrow, so I better go.  Hope everyone has a great weekend!