We Had Biscuits with Dinner

Dear Carbs,

I love you.

Domestic Diva

I am a domestic diva, y'all. Or at least, I have been for the past few days. It comes in fits and starts. :)

Here's why:

• I made this Cream Cheese Chicken, and it was oh so good. It actually reminded me of La Madeleine's chicken friand, with its creamy, mushroomy, chickeny goodness. And this is where the diva part comes in: I actually made the cream of mushroom soup that it calls for. Yes, people, I did. I know, I know, I am pretty impressed, myself. Truth be told, I just don't like the cream of mushroom that comes in a can. I think it has a funky flavor or a weird aftertaste or something. Anyway, I made the mushroom soup overnight, froze the excess, and kept out just enough to make the cream cheese chicken, which was what we had for dinner last night. It was good over pasta, but it was divine when mopped up with some Maple Buttermilk White Bread, which I made in the bread machine. Next time, though, I will use less salt and will add a little white wine.
• I am also making the bulk of Noah's baby food. Courtney recommended a book called Super Baby Food, and it has great ideas for how to make and store baby food. It also tells you what they can eat when, and so on. Now, before you rush off and buy this book, I must warn you that it is the worst written book I've ever read, and Courtney and I agreed that the author must have self-published it, because no decent publisher would have let this through, what with all its grammatical mistakes, horrible organization, and emoticons. (Yes, you read that right. She does things like this: "Your baby will love this :) !") However, it has a ton of good information. Anyway, my point here is that I feel like I'm doing something so good for Noah by making his food myself. That way, I know exactly what's in it. Plus, it's cheaper. And not too much trouble. You bake four sweet potatoes, puree and strain them, freeze them in ice cube trays, and you've got a month's worth of sweet potatoes. Nifty.
  
• Kendra's garden is producing tons of fresh, homegrown tomatoes, and this most wonderful girl is passing several off to me (everyone together, now: "YAY SUMMER!"). For dinner tonight, I am making Granny's Tomato Gravy. Oh, people, you have no idea. You just don't. Did you try the Banana Pudding? Remember its glory? The tomato gravy is right up there, too. It's going over some nice, fluffy biscuits. I might post the recipe tomorrow. If you're lucky.
• Last night, for dessert, I made Paula Deen's Fried Peanut Butter Banana Sandwiches. I saw her make them on TV yesterday, and y'all, that is the most decadent peanut butter banana sandwich EVER. It is the epitome of southern cooking: throw in extra sugar and fat, and you're set (in this case, you use an unholy amount of butter, then you roll the finished product in sugar and cinnamon). She suggested making these for breakfast or giving them to your kids as an afternoon snack. I was like, "WHAT Paula?! That is like an 879 calorie afternoon snack!" But I was mighty taken with how amazing they looked, so I made them for dessert last night. Yum.
• I made my quilted coasters! Here are a few of them:

What do you think? I think they turned out so cute!

Randomness

1. I have noticed that since I'm right-handed, I always carry Noah with my left arm in order to leave my right hand free to do things with. I really hope I don't end up with a Popeye arm on one side only.
2. I have lost approximately 13 lbs. since I started trying to lose the pregnancy weight. I'm finally starting to see my figure again. Can anybody say YAY? I did plateau for about a month, but something clicked and now I'm losing again. I have about 12 more lbs. to go before I'm down to my goal weight. Halfway there! I'm doing Weight Watchers online. It's the only diet that has ever worked for me.
   
3. I am a sewing maven. Okay, so I've only had my machine for one day. And I just figured out how to wind the bobbin and change out the presser foot (which is way basic). And, well, I haven't actually sewn anything yet. But I have a lot of confidence. ;) You can look for me on Project Runway in about a year, okay?
   
4. The Boy is growing up. He inhales food. He also slept like 11 hours last night. Blessed child.
5. Nathan just got back from a week in the Canadian Rockies, working for his advisor. He's a geologist, in case you haven't read my nifty little profile on the right. So he gets to go there every summer and meet people from all over the world who come to take a class from his advisor. Not to mention that he gets to spend some time in one of the most beautiful areas in North America. The other day, he called me from the hotel where we spent our honeymoon. I'm glad he got to go, but I'm also glad he's back. So is Noah, who has been incredibly smiley since his daddy got home.
   
6. Noah is teething. Ick. Enough said.
7. This zucchini casserole is so yummy! I served it with homemade bread and a rotisserie chicken. Then I made another one and mixed in the meat from one of the chicken breasts, and it was a one-dish dinner. It was good, y'all.
   
8. I just got a bunch of bread machine recipes, and I am going to town, y'all. (Apparently I like saying "y'all" today.) I got really inspired and made three loaves the other day. And Nathan was out of town, so what was I going to do with three loaves of bread? I gave one to my landlady, who was thrilled and said that no one had given her fresh baked bread in 15 years. Aww. I'm glad she was so pleased. There is something about homemade bread that is so, I don't know, caring or something. Even if it's from a bread machine. :)
   

Noah's New Stats

I keep forgetting to put up Noah's new stats. He had his six month pediatrician's appointment last week.

He now weighs 16 lbs., 12 oz. and is 27 and 3/4 inches long. He is still around 90th percentile when it comes to height, but he has dropped below 50th for weight. That's not a bad thing, but I am trying to beef him up a little bit, anyway. He has taken to solid food extremely well, which is helping a good bit. He's long and lean, and I think he is just perfect, personally. Right down to his invisible blonde eyebrows. :)

Literary Thought

I am reading a biography of C.S. Lewis ("Jack"), and in it, the author states the following about Lewis's opinion about how Christianity should be approached by writers:

At this stage in his career, he was not often so explicit about his intent, because he was only gradually coming to realize that he had the power to evangelize through the writing of popular books in which Christianity was implicit. . . . He pointed out that the difficulties of the Christian writer or lecturer arose from the fact that the culture was not at all Christian. This meant that the influence of a Christian lecture or article would be undermined very quickly by the influence of films, newspapers, and novels in which an opposing point of view was taken for granted. This made it impossible for the Christian writer to achieve widespread success. What was wanted was not more 'little books about Christianity,' but more books by Christians on other subjects in which the Christianity was latent. All his fiction is of this sort, as are his philological books and works of literary criticism.

I think this is interesting. It reminds me a little bit of the Trojan horse--sneaking Christian ideals into the culture. Actually, this biography reports that this is exactly what Lewis was aiming to do with the Narnia stories. They weren't intended to convert but to implant Christian ideas and make kids comfortable with them so that when they encountered the Gospel later, they'd be more likely to accept it.

Modern examples of this are bands like Switchfoot and movies like, well, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

What do you think about this idea?

Vacations

So Nathan and I are optimistic that he will be finishing his degree next June. (However, you really can't tell with a Ph.D. until you get a little closer to defending your dissertation, so I have to state this date with the caveat that it may not happen, but we are hoping it does!)

Graduating will be great for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that the time between graduating and starting a job will be the perfect time for a family vacation. Which is a BIG deal. At least to me. Because we haven't gone on vacation since our honeymoon, four and a half years ago. I mean, we've spent the occasional weekend away from home, but we haven't gone on a real vacation in a really long time.

Speaking of our honeymoon, let me just tell you that it was FANTASTIC. We went to the Canadian Rockies, to Banff National Park. We stayed right on Lake Louise, and if you know anything about the area, you know that that is a fabulous hotel. It was a dream. There was snow everywhere and it was like zero degrees (we got married in December), which was a total novelty to a couple of kids from central/south Texas. We loved it. We did some really fun things like hike around the lake, take a gondola to the top of a mountain, and hike through a canyon (which was hilarious, because you would have thought that it was the only canyon in the world by how melodramatic the signage was--like "You would think that this rock would last forever . . . but it won't.") But hands down, the most fun thing we did was go dog sledding. It was a blast.

However, we haven't been on vacation since. There are several reasons for this. First of all, hello, Nathan is a grad student. That means we don't just have all the disposable income in the world. Secondly, we've used all our vacation time to visit family in Texas a couple times a year.

So for the last little while, I've been talking about when we're going to get to go on vacation and where. We figured out that the most likely "when" will be next summer, right after Nathan graduates (if he graduates in June), before he starts his job.

So that leaves us with the "where." At first I was thinking it'd be fun to go somewhere out west, like Yellowstone or Glacier National Park. Nathan is so fun when he is outdoors, because he enjoys it so much. You can tell he kind of comes alive. He has missed expansive space, the smell of the desert, animals, and having a nice tan. :) He is not one to love the city all that much. And although I'm not exactly what you'd call an outdoorsy kind of person, the fact that he gets excited about something makes me excited about it, too, so I think I would enjoy a trip out west. So that is Option #1.

Option #2 is to go to England. Matthew and Emily (Nathan's youngest brother and his wife) are definitely moving to Cambridge in September for Matthew to work on his graduate degree there, and I would love to go visit and tour around England and Scotland. I spent a summer studying abroad at Cambridge in college, and I had the time of my life. I would totally go live there. I loved Scotland, too. And I'm such an Anglophile. I love most things British: the history, the literature, the culture, the accent, the tea. :) Nathan's parents are thinking of going over to do some research next summer, and I just think it would be an awesome vacation to go when all of us would be there at the same time. Nathan loves it there, too--he was actually born in Cambridge and grew up there off and on until he was seven or eight. But he hasn't missed England like he's missed the west.

So what do you think? Where would you go? Would you opt to go out west, to the UK, or would you pick something else?

My New Hobby

I ordered a sewing machine yesterday, and I am DYING for it to arrive! I am so excited!

I am nearly a total novice when it comes to sewing, but I really want to take it up. Meredith inspired me with her cute projects and the fabulous fabrics she uses. So over the last few months I've been trying to decide whether or not I really want to invest in learning how to sew (i.e. whether or not I want to take the $200 plunge and buy a machine--which is actually not much for a machine, if you ask anyone at a sewing store, who all own the $900 versions and think you are scraping the bottom of the barrel with a low-end machine which in reality will last plenty of people 10-20 years). I kept getting more and more excited about the idea of making my own tablecloths, napkins, curtains, gifts, etc., and I also realized that it would be a good thing to have a sewing machine around and have some basic skills as my kid(s) are growing up.

So here I sit, obsessing over my soon-to-be hobby, thinking about what projects I want to start with, and I decided on some quilted coasters. I saw the pattern for these in a book I gave Meredith for Christmas. I drooled over nearly every page in this book. It's called Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts, if you're interested. Anyway, here is the picture of the coasters from the book:

And here is the fabric I chose.Aren't they going to be so cute?! I love that blue fabric. I think I might make a tablecloth out of it eventually.

No TV Week: The Results

Well, it's the final day of No TV Week, and some of you have asked for the results. So here you go.

First of all, in the spirit of full disclosure, I should tell you that I did watch about an hour of TV today, on Saturday. However, it wasn't until the late afternoon, and I decided it had likely been a full 7 days (if you count "No TV Week" starting at 5pm on the previous Saturday, etc.). So there you go.

What I have learned:

• It's okay to miss some things sometimes. It's good for the soul. Helps you practice some discipline.
  
• I really don't waste as much time in front of the TV as I thought. This is not the epiphany I expected to receive from this week. I thought I'd come to find that I could accomplish loads more if I just turned the TV off. This is not so. Turns out that most of the TV I was watching was while I was doing something else, like feeding Noah or doing something online. So this week I just did those things in silence or with classical music on in the background. I really only gained about an hour a day. So the bathroom is still white. (Sigh.)
  

Things that changed for the better:

• I cooked more.
• I did the dishes right after the meal, instead of waiting a while, which drives me crazy, anyway. If they happen to still be dirty the next morning, whoa buddy, I start getting a nervous tick or something. It's just my thing. I hate having dirty dishes around. I also don't particularly like doing the dishes. Oh, the irony.
• I went to bed about 30 minutes earlier, because I wasn't watching something on TV that I didn't really care about but felt like I needed to finish because I started it. This is one thing I will definitely try to incorporate from this week--I need an earlier bedtime, because The Boy is waking me up pretty early these days. It's not like I can just sleep in on Saturday mornings or something and catch up. So I did find that TV was eating some of my sleep, and I am going to be better about not letting that happen.
• Nathan and I did get to spend some more quality time together after Noah went to bed, which was good.
  

Things I didn't enjoy:

• Sometimes it's just too quiet here during the day. I like to hear other adult voices. Also, when it's that quiet all day long, it just gets a little monotonous. I need the day to be broken up more. The positive result from this, though, was that I took Noah out more and ran more errands. It was probably good for both of us to get out more.
• I did miss a couple of shows, but I got over it.

So I think this was a worthwhile exercise. I always appreciate something more after I've had to give it up or cut back, and this was no exception. I think that now I will be choosier about what I watch, and I will spend a little less time with the TV on, but I did not find that it is necessary for me to cut TV out completely. I promise that this is not me justifying stuff so I can do what I want. :) That is my honest conclusion.

Now, what if I gave up the computer for a week? That one is just not happening, folks. Not happening.

Summer Treat

My friend, Kendra, just emailed me her recipe for frozen yogurt. Y'all, this is THE STUFF. It not only epitomizes creamy, sweet goodness, but it also has only four--count 'em, FOUR--ingredients. Not to mention that it's pretty good for you, too.

Kendra made this frozen yogurt for us on the same day that Nathan and I had actually gone to TCBY to have some frozen yogurt. So we got two servings that day.

Let's just say that compared to Kendra's, TCBY's is not the country's best.

Are y'all ready for this? Have your ice cream maker ready. Freezer bowls frozen? Good! Ready, set, go!

Frozen Yogurt with Berries
2 cups lowfat vanilla yogurt
1/2 cup whole milk (or low-fat, whatever you have)
1/4 cup sugar
12 oz. bag frozen mixed berries, pureed and strained to remove seeds. (Or if you don't mind the seeds, just buy a bag of whatever berry you're in the mood for and smash them with a hammer. If you are using fresh berries make sure you freeze them for at least a little while; otherwise you will have a soup)

Combine the yogurt, milk, and sugar in a medium bowl and mix until sugar is dissolved (more or less). Mix in the berries. Turn the machine on, pour mixture into freezer bowl through ingredient spout, and let mix until thickened, about 25-30 minutes.

---

Alternatively, if you don't have an ice cream machine, leave out the sugar, add a little more milk, and blend. Voila! You've got a tasty smoothie.

I know, I know. You're welcome.

No TV Week

Nathan and I decided that we spend too much time being brainless in front of the TV at night, so we decided we'd have a "No TV Week."

I think we got into the habit of watching too much TV because we were too tired to do anything else after Noah goes to sleep, especially for the first few months. (Although we definitely did plenty of TV watching before, too.) It has gotten to the point, though, that we watch stuff we don't even care about, just to fill the time. So it was time to find other things to do with ourselves.

Why?
1. Because TV does very little to actually edify our lives.
2. It eats what would otherwise be our quality time with one another.
3. We get less done around the house.
4. I hate to be so blunt, but it encourages laziness.

So this week we are banning ourselves from TV. I made a list of things we can do instead:
- play games
- read a book we've both been meaning to read
- make a list of our family's goals, sort of like a Benesh mission statement
- paint the kitchen or bathroom (I'm tired of white)
- spend more time on our back deck on pleasant summer evenings

This is certainly not an "I hate TV" post, because I do think that it's okay to be entertained and also to just sit and be brainless sometimes. We've just been doing too much of it lately, and we needed to cut ourselves off for a bit. Lucky for Nathan, he only has to put up with five of the seven no-TV days this week, because he's going to Canada on Friday for work. But he won't have access to a TV there, anyway, so I guess it's okay. I wish I were going with him, though! The Canadian Rockies are awesome. The real sacrifice I'll be making is missing the first episode of this season's Project Runway on Wednesday. But I'm banking on the fact that they'll rerun it a lot.

In other news:
- Noah likes bananas after all. After the first failed attempt at feeding them to him, he decided they were pretty tasty. However, he is not so thrilled about avocados. He acts like he's gagging every time I try to give them to him, which, honestly, is pretty funny looking. He'll eat them if I mix in bananas, though. What a concoction! Avocados, bananas, milk, water, and rice. My gosh, people! The stuff we feed our babies! Ick! At least I'm not mixing in dried kelp and brewer's yeast like this one book I'm reading suggests. Double ick!
- This is a really neat website. This woman is making something in the crock pot every day for a year. Want the other websites I use a lot for recipes? Here they are: Cooking Light, Williams-Sonoma, Weight Watchers, The Food Network. I also sometimes go to The Pioneer Woman because her pictures are purty. I'll be honest. I don't own one cookbook that doesn't have pretty pictures. I just need the inspiration.

- And the big news . . . drumroll, please . . . APRIL HAD HER BABY YESTERDAY! Welcome to the world, little Justus Chandler Drolet! He was a whopping 8 lbs., 8 oz., and Mom delivered him with no drugs! Way to go, Superwoman!

Daddy is Funny

Six Months Old!

Noah is six months old today!

I made him a mini cake to celebrate, complete with half a candle.

Please be kind and ignore the fact that there wasn't enough icing to cover the front. ;)

He was much more interested in the candle than in smiling for the picture.

Because I wasn't about to give him cake before he's had one vegetable, he got to try bananas!
You'd think he'd be thrilled, right? Can you believe the kid didn't really like them? I was all set with the camera to catch the look of glee I was sure we'd see, but he actually turned his head in refusal! We are going to have to work on the banana love.

Noah is doing all kinds of new things. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly he grows and changes. Just yesterday, I walked in while Nathan was giving him a bath and was floored by how much of the baby tub he took up. How did he get so big?

We think he might be beginning to teethe, but we are not certain yet. He is just a little more fussy lately, and he's developed this awful growly cry. I'm hoping that cry doesn't stick, because until now, the sound of his crying has never rubbed me the wrong way.

He is so incredibly active now, and if I don't change things up for him fairly often (moving him around or giving him new toys or carrying him around with me), he gets really bored. Especially now that he doesn't have a plethora of doting grandparents to entertain him every waking moment. I really can't keep up with him and expect to get anything else done. Does anyone have any advice for this? He is so active, and he wants to be doing things and touching things all the time. He very nearly confiscated one man's magazine on the plane, and he launched off my lap today and landed on his face when he was trying to get to one of the cats (thankfully, he landed on the couch). He's going to be such a handful when he is mobile!

And that mobile day is imminent. He is starting to get his bottom in the air and is pushing off with his toes. But before you can crawl, you have to sit, right? Well, today Nathan set him on the ground, and he sat all by himself! I took a quick video to prove it. He did sit for longer than this, but the funny thing was that he couldn't balance and look up at me for long:


He is obsessed with anything with buttons. He loves the remote control, the computer keyboard, and your cell phone. Nathan's parents put a toy next to the remote several times in a row, and he chose the remote every single time.

He is so much fun! He just laughs all the time and LOVES to be kissed. He thinks it's a big game. His version of giving a kiss is opening his mouth really wide and basically slobbering all over you. But it's so sweet. :) As of the last couple of days, he's been giving hugs, too. At first, we weren't sure if it was intentional, but we are now convinced that it is. He just wraps his little arms around your neck, holds on, and then gives you a big, slobbery kiss.

He also loves games. He loves patty cake, peek-a-boo, and so on. And Nathan is great at thinking up new sounds to entertain him with. Noah really likes percussive sounds, as you can see in the following video. Nathan had no idea I was filming him, and his first words when he saw this were, "I am so weird." But I think it's sweet!

Deep in the Heart of Texas

Hello dear readers!

Have you been wondering where I've been? I've been deep in the heart of Texas! That's right, we went on a little Fourth of July visit to see family. We had a really nice time seeing everyone. Noah got to do some fun new things, too, which he really enjoyed, and everyone had a great time playing with him and teaching him new games.

Mom and Dad, meeting us at the airport. Can you tell they were happy to see their grandson? Forget about Nathan and me! NOAH is here!

Granny and Papa were thrilled to have both their great-grandsons together: Noah and his new little cousin, Spencer.
Grandpa and Noah

GG and Noah

Aunt Patti was kind enough to get a kiddie pool for Noah to use while we were in Houston. It was his very first swim, and he enjoyed it a lot!

Notice the strategically placed ball. :)
I had bought a swimsuit for him, but it's a size too large, so I didn't bother bringing it to Texas. Turned out that maybe I should have. Oh well! He didn't mind!

He made funny faces when water got on his little face.
He already has a natural knack for swimming. He knew just how to kick. Nathan claims he is one of those babies who would do just fine if you threw him into the water. I am not very eager to find out.

Drying off

We also got to visit with my most excellent friend, Katie. She is so awesome. We had a great time together, and her mom made us some really yummy key lime pie. They got to meet Noah, and I got to hear more about how Katie and Sean met and how their relationship progressed, with is such a cool story of God's work and grace. You can read more about how Katie and I became friends on her blog.

After a few days in Houston, we headed on to Waco to visit Nathan's family.

Here's my cutie, enjoying the outside. He loves to be outdoors, like his daddy.
One note about this t-shirt: this was taken on the 4th of July, and the cool thing is that that little shirt is the very first thing Nathan and I bought for him while I was pregnant. We saw it at Target when I was only about two or three months pregnant and we were still a little in shock that we were going to be parents. We figured out how old our baby would be the next 4th of July to get the size right, and it felt so foreign to buy baby clothes.


Grandmother, giving Noah some yummy rice cereal.

Here's a video of Noah and Papa, doing patty cake. It's cute because Noah thinks the end is so fun. (The volume is really low, though.)


A sign of the smartie he'll become?

Noah had a lot of fun with Aunt Deb.

And Uncle Andrew is way awesome, too!

And he really loved Uncle Daniel because he totally treats him like a boy, tossing him around and hanging him upside down!
A cool shot of Noah and Aunt Jennifer, with the view out the kitchen window in the background.

Grandma Tanner loves me!

And Grandma Benesh wanted to hold me all the time!

One of the awesome things about visiting our parents was that we got some free babysitting. While in Houston, we got to go have some steak at Saltgrass Steakouse and see a movie. By the way, if you ever go to Saltgrass, be sure to try the Shiner Bock on tap. Somehow it was SO GOOD and even better than from a bottle. By a lot, if that's possible. I am not a big beer drinker by any stretch of the imagination, but that stuff was GOOD.

In Waco, we took an afternoon and did a few things on our own for our date. We tried to go to a neat library on Baylor's campus that I actually never went into while I was a student there, but it was closed. So we went to Lake Waco. I like this picture of Nathan--not only is he a handsome dude, but it captures the expansive sky, which he had mentioned earlier that day as something he enjoys about Texas.

The whole gang at my favorite BBQ place, Uncle Dan's.

We also got to spend a few hours in Dripping Springs with Ken and Meredith. Their church had a Fourth of July fish fry that we got to attend, and it was really fun!

Noah and Nathan.

Noah LOVES to grab everyone's hair. Grandpa Dale is no exception!
Actually, he was kind of asking for it when he put Noah on his shoulders. :)
Also, do you not love the baby flip flops?

GG took Noah to get a close look at Uncle Ken playing the drums.

On our last day in Houston, we got to have lunch with Sarah. Isn't this a cute picture?

Noah and all his grandparents. They were so sad to see him go.

Thanks, everyone, for such a great trip!

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--
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Independent Consultant
Arbonne International
laurenbenesh.myarbonne.com
www.arbonne.com

The Musical Reformer

Did you know that Martin Luther, the man who started the Protestant Revolution, wrote the hymn "A Mighty Fortress is Our God"? I love that hymn--both the melody and the words are compelling, I think. In fact, speaking of the words, it is apparently a very difficult hymn to translate because the German is so vivid, which I think makes it even cooler. There are over 80 English translations.

I recently read this quote by Luther:
"Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. It controls our thoughts, minds, hearts, and spirits."

Nifty, huh?