Little Old Man

Ever wonder what you will look like when you are old? How about what your kids will look like as they grow up? 

Well, we think we have a bit of an idea of how Caleb will look when he is 70 years old. 

Our little old man

Do you see it? Just a little bit?

Grandma Lapka

Grandma Lapka passed away this past week. The funeral was yesterday, but, unfortunately, we were unable to go back for it. We were sad to not get to spend time and celebrate her life with the family. Although we are far away, it is a privilege to celebrate her in this post.

I met Grandma and Grandpa Lapka for the first time when I was dating Paul and joined him for a trip to Aberdeen. The thing that stands out in my mind is the warm welcome and hospitality that Grandma showed us. Every time we visited, there were snacks and sweets and plenty of conversation. (She made the most decadent candy mints for our wedding, a special request of Paul's and one that I thoroughly enjoyed!)

Grandpa Lapka died a year after we got married, and we were able to go back for his funeral. It happened to be my birthday while we were there, and I was overwhelmed when Grandma and Judy pulled out a cake and everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to me while we were all at the house--what a surprise and another example of Grandma's hospitality!

Grandma holding Caleb (eight weeks old)

Grandma celebrated both of our boys' births with an afghan that she crocheted. She seemed to always have a project going when we visited. We have a few big afghans that she made as well. 

Sharing ice cream AND cake and a laugh with Grandma

Although we did not get to see her often, Isaac enjoyed visiting with her.  I think it is especially because she was good at pulling the "Grandma Card" (as we call it).  Look at the table above. His plate has cake and ice cream and toppings--something Grandma and Aunt Judy insisted he needed.  I am not sure what he was telling her, but it was fun seeing him as a two-year old interacting with her and enjoying snack time with her!

DUPLOS!

Grandma's house always had toys for playing. The Duplos got pulled out for this visit; this is only part of the picture--Isaac had so many to play with plus other toys and stuffed animals as well!

And Grandma was so good at celebrating various holidays throughout the year with the boys. She never missed sending out a card with $1 in it for each boy. She did not send them one card to share but sent each boy his own separate card; oh, the celebrating they had when they realized they each had their own mail to open! (Here is a prime example of the joy they showed when opening her cards: Halloween Cards 2011.)

Visiting Grandma in the hospital

We will miss you, Grandma!

Chocolate Popcorn

This post is for Rebecca...the "recipe" (if you can call it one) for the chocolate popcorn that we enjoyed for our Super Slumber Party Movie Night:

1. Pop the desired amount of popcorn. (We use our air popper--a lovely wedding gift that continues to get great use--for this recipe so there is no extra grease or salt. I am guessing a very light microwaved popcorn would probably work.) We popped 1/3 cup of kernels for our fun night.

2. Melt the desired amount of semi-sweet chocolate chips (about 1/4 cup) with a little bit of peanut butter (just a dab for this amount of chocolate) for smoothness. (Butter can be used in place of the peanut butter if you are trying to avoid it due to allergies.)

3. Pour chocolate mixture over the popcorn, and mix until most of the popcorn is coated. Stick in fridge for a short while so the chocolate is not so messy on the fingers. (Or make this earlier in the day so it has time to cool.)

And that is it. Easy-peasy! 

For those of you who like a lot of chocolate, by all means add more and liberally coat that popcorn. You could substitute white chocolate in place of the semi-sweet or do some of both. The possibilities with this are nearly endless for the creative-minded. Have fun and enjoy!

The Next Day...

I was going to label this post "The Morning After" but thought that had connotations I preferred to not have in our list of post titles.

Both boys slept soundly through the night. And they slept later than normal. And they woke up happy and even played nicely with each other.  All sound reasons to call our first Super Slumber Party Movie Night a success!

Breakfast...ready to go into the oven

One of my favorite magazines has been Quick Cooking. (Terrible transition between paragraphs...I know that using a picture is not a true transition but assure you that this will tie in to the start of this post!) The magazine has been renamed Simple and Delicious and has changed over the years so I am not as much of a fan today as I was ten years ago. However, I found a cheap subscription for it this past year so I have enjoyed reading through it every other month and still find a recipe or more worth trying in each issue. While watching our movie last night, I found a recipe for caramel rolls buried near the end of the most recent issue and decided to try it for our late breakfast this morning since I had crescent rolls burning a hole in my fridge. (See, I told you this would tie back in to the thesis of this post...)

Cooling in the pan...smells nummy!

Voila! Cute mini rolls turned onto a platter and ready to eat

Mini Caramel Rolls (from the December 2011/January 2012 issue of Simple & Delicious)

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup butter, cubed

2 Tbsp. light corn syrup

1 1/2 tsp milk

1 tube (8 oz) refrigerated crescent rolls)

2 tsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1. Combine first four ingredients in saucepan and heat until butter is melted and sugar is dissolved, stirring constantly. Pour into greased 9-inch pie pan.

2. Separate crescent dough into four rectangles. Press perforations to seal. Combine cinnamon and sugar; sprinkle evenly over rectangles. Roll up jelly-roll style starting with the long side; pinch seams to seal.

3. Cut each rectangle into 9-10 slices; place in prepared pie pan.

4. Bake at 375° for 15-18 minutes or until tops are golden brown. Cool in pan for one minute before flipping rolls onto a serving platter.

We decided that these were delicious and a great way to use crescent rolls. I liked that they did not have a crescent roll flavor at all.  But I especially loved that they were quick to put together; I spent less than ten minutes from start to oven-ready. 

It is official; we are going to have to do Super Slumber Party Movie Night again.

Friday Night Fun

The weekend is stretching before us with nothing on the agenda besides praise team on Sunday morning. To celebrate an open weekend (a rarity in this household), we declared our Friday to be Super Slumber Party Movie Night. (Yeah, family movie night would have worked, but I did not think of that one first.)

Tonight's almost double feature included Kung Fu Panda and Kung Fu Panda 2 (dubbed "almost" due to some technical difficulties with Kung Fu Panda--major scratches which are to be expected when getting your movie for free from the public library). The boys decorated everyone's tv tray or lap desk--Isaac's idea to make it more like Red Robin--while I made the chicken nuggets. 

"Eating" dinner while watching the movie--like their table decorations?!?

After enjoying our dinner, we had a short intermission (due to the technical difficulties mentioned above) to find a point in the movie that actually played and used this time for bathroom breaks, jammy time and bed making (rolling out the boys' sleeping bags). They snuggled in to finish the first one. 

These new sleeping bags have room for the boys to grow!

Nice and cozy

When the second movie started, they excitedly set up their little tables to enjoy the chocolate popcorn we made in preparation for our big night.

Delicious!  A movie time favorite in this house

Focused on the new movie!

As I write this, the boys are cozy in their sleeping bags on the living room floor. Not asleep...yet but hopefully soon.

Paul has already talked about showing Cars and Cars 2 for Super Slumber Party Movie Night #2. I guess we will have to wait and see if we do this again (you know, see if they actually fall asleep and are not too unbearably cranky tomorrow since we overloaded them with media tonight).

Our Little Artists

Creating "deco glass" creatures

The boys have been getting a lot of use out of our little art table...constantly coloring, painting, or creating something. We are amazed at their creativity and imagination as well as their contentment with some very simple things (i.e. the iPads they each created with pieces of cardboard and proceeded to help their cousins make, their own angry birds set, and so much more). I am thinking about investing in some Scotch tape stocks since our boys go through it like it is nobody's business.

Angry Birds artwork including their original piggies and blue birds

A cardboard iPad

Here are a few pictures of the boys being creative. I especially love the way they focus while creating things--either their tongues hanging out or their lips pulled between their teeth.

The finished "deco glass" creatures

 The fun they have during the process is worth the mess we get to clean up afterwards!

Donuts...Yum!

Paul's family has a homemade donut recipe that is absolutely wonderful. The boys have been asking when Grandma and Grandpa N will be visiting so we can make donuts again. Unfortunately, they will not be out here soon, but they did send us a donut maker for Christmas so we tried it out today. (Caleb kept asking when we were going outside since that is where we usually fry the donuts when Grandma makes them with us.) Not frying the donuts in lard did change the flavor a bit, but, overall, we thought they tasted delicious (just a little bit healthier if a donut can be called that).

Putting the batter into the donut maker

Dipping in the frosting

So proud of his creation

Also proud...

The finished donuts with frosting and sprinkles

It was fun making donuts this way, but it is definitely more fun making them with Grandma and Grandpa!