Orange Cake

This weekend, we celebrated Nathan's birthday with both of our sets of parents and his brother, Andrew. For lunch, we grilled steaks and had birthday cakes. And for dinner, we went all out and had more steak at Fogo de Chao, which was an experience. Basically, it's a Brazilian restaurant, where you go through an extensive salad bar, then you sit at your table and have roaming gauchos who carry around 15 different types of grilled meat slice you a piece here and there. Whoa. Personally, I'm not a huge meat eater, so I stuck with the salad bar, but for a meat lover, it is the place to be! My favorites were the good wine we had, the cheese bread, fried polenta, fried bananas, and the excellent imported cheese and cured meats. By the time we left, we were stuffed! Especially since they brought us a piece of cake, since it was Nathan's birthday.

The cake they brought us was alright, but I actually preferred the cake I had made him earlier in the day: orange cake. Sweet and totally addictive, this cake is always a hit. I got the original recipe out of a little booklet that came with an Oster kitchen appliance I got as a wedding gift. It calls for you to use a Bundt pan and to drizzle a small amount of icing on top, but usually I make two 9" rounds and go birthday cake style, with a normal amount of icing. The recipe that follows is the original cake recipe, with my alterations to the icing recipe so that it is enough to ice an entire cake. One of these days, I might come back and develop a from-scratch orange buttercream, but this works for me for now.

One note: this cake and its icing are spiked! I use Grand Marnier, but if you prefer, you can substitute orange extract. However, it really is not enough alcohol for it to affect anyone. I've never had any qualms about giving it to Noah, for example.

Also, I would have taken a picture of the cake, but I'm a little embarrassed at how little is left after only 24 hours! It's pretty addictive, as I mentioned....

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Orange Cake

Cake:
1 package yellow cake mix
3 oz. orange Jello
2 eggs
1/3 cup softened butter
1-1/3 cups orange juice
1-1/2 tablespoons Grand Marnier

Icing:
1 can vanilla frosting
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier
grated zest of one orange

Combine all the cake ingredients and, using a hand mixer, beat for about two minutes. Bake according to cake mix instructions. While the cake is cooling, stir the icing ingredients together. It may take a bit of stirring to get them to combine, but they will. After the cake is cool, frost as usual. Enjoy!

Nathan's 29th

Nathan turned 29 today!

He's a fantastic daddy, as you can see. He's also a wonderful husband, a fun person to be around, and very good looking, which doesn't hurt. :)

I made him some birthday cinnamon rolls this morning, and since Noah kept telling him what his birthday gift was, I went ahead and gave it to him at breakfast. He received tickets for us to go to the Rodeo, a shirt to go with them ("a cowboy shirt," according to Noah), and "a princess movie with a monster!" (Beauty and the Beast, which Nathan has always enjoyed). Nathan remarked that it's nice to have a 3 year old around when the presents are still wrapped. Ha!

This weekend, I'll make him an orange cake, per his request, and we'll go out to eat at a nice Brazilian restaurant where they bring all kinds of meat to your table, slice it off a stick, and you can eat as much as you want. Sounds pretty manly to me. I think it'll be pretty fun. His parents are also coming into town, and we're planning to have a little get together to have lunch and play washers.

Next year is the big 3-0, and I already have big plans. Hee hee.

Happy Birthday, Babe!

Really, New England?!

As I write, it is -2 F in Belmont, our old town outside of Boston. In all of our time in New England, we only experienced below-zero wind chill once: during our first winter, it was -13 on my walk to work one morning, and from time to time the actual temperature would hover just above zero. But I don't think it was ever below zero while we lived there. So when I read Amy Swint's Facebook status the other day--about how they had -13 temps overnight this weekend--I was really surprised. And a few minutes ago, I read an article about temps around -30 in northern New England.

Y'all, this is not normal! All that snow, and then these breath-catching, make-you-cough-as-soon-as-you-take-a-breath-outside, I-hope-you-are-wearing-a-scarf-over-your-face frigid temperatures! This is one rough winter!

Dearest New England friends, I heart you. I hope you are snuggled up and warm in your dear homes, having some soup or a casserole and a warm baked dessert. I hope you have some serious slippers and a fuzzy blanket on hand at all times. I hope you don't really need to go anywhere, but that if you do, that your car starts in the morning. I hope your neighbor has a fantastic snowblower. And I hope you are enjoying cozying up and spending a little extra time with the people you love best.

Jane Lately

Just Your Normal, Everyday Dinner Conversation

Snippets from the conversation at our table tonight at a work dinner of Nathan's (all paraphrased):

• "Did you visit X Island in Venezuela? I loved living there." Others, just at our table, have lived in Malaysia, Calgary, Sydney, Vienna, etc., many of them in multiple places.
  
• "When I was working in Russia right after the Soviet Union fell, flying home was quite an experience. After we (thankfully) got off the tarmac, they started passing the Vodka. Then the surly flight attendants came around with buckets of sloshing liquid with rubbery chicken pieces in them, and that was our meal."
• "That guy over there has an undersea mountain named after him. He was one of the people in the submarine that first landed on it. It's called 'Mount Mike' or something."
• "So and so was a CIA spy in the Cold War. And the Soviets thought that other guy was a spy, but he wasn't; he was just crossing the border every weekend to go see his girlfriend."

And let's not forget this one:

• Yeah, that guy had a tiny third ear removed when he was a kid.

Wow. I don't know if I've ever been in a group quite like this one.

All the Things I'd Like to Learn

A few things I'd like to learn about but don't have the time to invest in sufficiently (not at all a comprehensive list):

• photography
• web building/design
• cooking fancy stuff (it takes too much time when you have a baby trying to climb up your leg)
• becoming a better knitter/crocheter/quilter/sewer
  
• photography
• aaaaand photography. Although I've been wanting to learn about it and get a good DSLR camera for a long time, this interview and website particularly inspired me today.

What about you? What would you spend time on if you had a few extra hours a day?

Three Years Old! *Updated*

My Noah Thomas is three years old today! We love him so much!

I've taken so long to update this post because how can one measly blog post contain or define my Noah? It's impossible. The task has completely intimidated me and kept me from writing anything, but eventually I decided that it's better to write something and give everyone (and my future self, when reading this later) a sampling of what my boy is like than to write nothing at all.

Noah is hilarious and loves fun. He loves to make jokes and play games. Lately, we've been playing a game where we go to different planets: the tickle planet (where we tickle each other until breathless), the kisses planet (where we kiss each other), the dinosaur planet (where there is a lot of roaring going on), and so on. Nathan started this game, and it's been fun! I have to say, though, that one of the creepiest things Nathan has ever come up with came out of this game, when he had a tickle spider climbing up Noah's leg. Can you think of anything worse climbing up your leg than a tickle spider?

Another thing Noah loves is flashlights. He goes to bed with at least one (maybe two or three) of them every night. Nathan taught him how to make finger shadows. Last night, as I was lying in bed with him, he was making a dog and saying "Wuf wuf." Most nights, and many times at nap time, he asks us to "lie in bed with Noah little bit?" in the sweetest, most plaintive little voice. He loves to go to sleep next to one of us. And for a while, he'd come to our bed when he woke up to snuggle for a little bit before getting up for the morning.

Eating is a bit of a battle with this kid these days. He does like food, and he will eat, but he is just so dang slow. He can keep a bite in his mouth for minutes at a time before he swallows and moves on to the next bite (he's actually been known to have the same bite of food in his mouth for over an hour). This means that dinnertime can be a quite trying and long. It also means that Noah has the tendency to get up between bites and wander around, which just makes the process even longer. If it were practical to strap him into his chair, I'd do it. But instead, we have made some rules, including not getting out of your chair when you're eating (not going so well with that one) and not being done with a meal until you've been excused from the table.

Another thing: the kid does not like Mexican food. In fact, in some ways, he is a Boston boy. He doesn't like Tex-Mex, and he doesn't like to be hot. At all. I remember one time when we were getting ready to leave Boston and I put him in his car seat one afternoon. He started wailing so frantically that I thought he was hurt. But no; he was just hot. And although he likes for you to lie in bed with him, he doesn't want you to touch him because it makes him--yep--hot. His poor future wife. I have sympathy for her. He'll never want to snuggle. "You sit right over there, Honey. But don't touch me." Ha!

It's fun to see Noah's creative side. For Christmas, we got him and Jane a play kitchen, and one of the first things he did was to make me some hot tea in the coffee pot. Then, he put the plastic corn cob in there and made me corn coffee. Over Christmas, he would put a lemon in a bowl with some water and call it Lemonade. "I need make yemonade now," he'd say. We joked that it must be some special beverage from Yemen.

"I need" is an interesting phrase, you know. It is equivalent to "I want" for Noah. For example, "I need to go outside" or "I need a treat." We have yet to hear "I need a nap" or "I need some asparagus."

This kid might end up being an engineer or a scientist. He likes to know how things work. For example, his Mother's Day Out teachers told me one day that he was underneath the tables trying to figure out how they were put together. And he'll often examine something then tell me how he thinks it works: "The water go in through here, Mommy, and in the wall, then through that hole to the outside."

Noah loves Janey. He loves to hug her and give her a kiss, and he plays with her often. However, he will sometimes try to push her down or step on her or will exhibit some other form of short-lived aggression. Thankfully, this has not been a big issue, and the consequences are on the severe side for hurting his sister, so we haven't let it get very far.

It pleases me a lot that Noah is starting to understand concepts about God. The other day, I was singing a song, and he said, "Mommy that song is about Jesus." "Yes, Baby. That song is about God." "Jesus is God, Mom." "Yes, Kiddo, that's right. Jesus is God." We also pray together, we talk about obeying God and what Jesus likes us to do (like be kind and obey Mommy), we talk about what it means for Jesus to live in our heart, etc. I love that he is starting to understand.

Our Noah Thomas at birth, January 9, 2008

First birthday, 2009

Second birthday, 2010
Third birthday, 2011

Christmas Review!

Having just uploaded all our pictures from the last month, I thought it was time for a quick Christmas review. Unfortunately, we have fewer pictures than I'd like, partially because my battery died while we were out of town (family, feel free to send any good pics you got).

A week or so before Christmas, we had Spencer and Julie over for dinner and to look at Christmas lights. We also decorated a "Happy Birthday, Jesus" cake. The boys had a lot of fun doing that.

Noah knows that it's better to eat the decorations than to put them on the cake.

The finished product. Ha!

Then the kids opened the gifts I had made: a Very Soft Pillow for each of them. Very Soft Pillows are special things--evidently, my aunt had a pillow she named "the very soft pillow," and she used it whenever her girls were sick or to make them feel special. They still love it, even now that they're grown. So one day, my mom dubbed a pillow I had made Granny a Very Soft Pillow and used it in the same way. I thought that was a sweet idea, so I made each kid his/her own Very Soft Pillow.

The thing was, I knew it had major bomb potential. Giving two two-year-old boys homemade pillows might have elicited moans of disappointment. But, happily, they loved them!

Ken and Meredith came into town a few days before Christmas to celebrate with my family. Here's Uncle Ken with Janey.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any more pictures of Christmas with my family, and none of Meredith! It must have had something to do with the fact that Aunt Merri and I were too busy making Christmas dinner. Y'all, we made Giada de Laurentis' roast with mushroom gravy and cheesy polenta (along with several other dishes, including a chocolate pecan pie), and they were huge hits. We had a lot of fun with my family, and it was really good to see Ken and Meredith, who we don't get to hang out with too often.

Next, we headed up to Waco to visit Nathan's family. With the original family of seven, plus spouses and children, there are now twelve stockings hanging above the fireplace. I took this picture early on Christmas morning, after we had filled all the stockings the night before (the Benesh Christmas Eve is spent filling one another's stockings--it is so fun!). Also check out the crazy number of gifts spilling from beneath the Christmas tree!

I know I just posted this picture, but it bears repeating, doesn't it?

Opening stockings on Christmas morning.

Look at that face. If it doesn't express the magic of Christmas to a child, I don't know what does.

A creative wrapping job by Uncle Matthew.

The Lone Ranger.

Christmas dinner. Check out these rolls. They were amazing.

A few days after Christmas was Deb and Matthew's birthday. They're showing you that they're 25.

It was a great holiday! Happy New Year, everyone!

Ten Months Old!

Can you even bear the cuteness of that face?

Miss Jane Elisabeth is ten months old today. She is the most precious thing, often laying her head coyly on my shoulder when she smiles at someone, or happily rolling along with whatever the rest of the family is doing. She loves her brother so very much and likes to play with him and his toys, which Noah is getting used to. And one of the things that makes her squeal with loud delight is when he rides his "motorcycle" into the room.

Although she is still very sweet, Janey is definitely getting more opinionated. For example, if she doesn't want to eat what I'm feeding her (green beans are often the culprit), she'll just spit them back out, which is new for her. In fact, the other day, she realized she could just reach into her mouth and pull out the chunk of sweet potato I had put there. She'll also fuss or throw that little body around when she doesn't want to do what you're trying to get her to do. In fact, she is really strong--Nathan says that when he is holding her and she wants me, it's like holding a little ball of muscle that's trying to swim through the air to me. Ha! Unfortunately, Jane also has an affinity for carpet fuzz. We often find her eating it, and I have to vacuum more often these days. The fuzziness must be an interesting texture to explore or something!

The poor girl is getting three teeth at once right now. The first one just cut through yesterday, and she is in a lot of pain. Overall, she has not had as hard a time with teething as Noah did, but it is painful enough for her to wake up in the middle of the night and be satisfied with nothing less than cuddling. Tylenol is our friend these days. It makes me really grateful that we can't remember what it was like to get teeth! It is really painful!

I took this picture today of both my kiddos playing with their new kitchen. Cuties.

We love that Janey Beth! She continues to be such a pleasure, and we are so glad she's part of our family.