Christmas Eve Fries

It's our Christmas Eve tradition to have steak and French fries for dinner.  Since he was on a milk only diet last year, he was very happy to be able to fully participate in this year's dinner.  Okay, he had a hot dog rather than steak, but close enough.  He was very happy--especially with the fries.  I'm sure you've all tried dipping your French fries in a Frosty.  Delicious, right?  But have you tried fries and orange juice?  It was a little slimy, but other than that, Colton seemed to enjoy it.

Pour.

Drink.

Slurp.

Despite the fact that he put it there himself, I think he was a little confused about why there was a French fry in his drink.  

Let there be lights!

Christmas growing up always included a trip to Temple Square in Salt Lake to see the lights.  And by always, I mean that I think we went at least when we were really little.  Either way, it is a magical memory.  (I must admit that the joy of seeing the lights faded over time as my abhorrence of being cold increased...)

Anyway, I have not braved the cold since moving to D.C., but I decided that Colton might get really excited by all the lights.  I was wrong.  He was moderately excited by the lights.  What he was excited about was being able to run free through crowds of people (darting much more quickly and easily than Justin or I could), and he was extremely excited by the random forklift in the parking lot.  Oh well.  It was still a festive night of family Christmas fun.  (Oh, and note to self:  next year go at 5 pm instead of 7 pm, and go on a night that Jenny Oaks Baker isn't performing.  We might actually get in to the Visitor Center that way...)

Colton did not want to pose for this picture.  He also did not want to pose for it for the fifteen times it took me to get them in focus instead of the trees behind them.  I've developed a serious inability to focus correctly.

We love to see the temple...

Too bad Colton wouldn't look at the camera.  He was in full posing rebellion by this point.

Justin is so handsome in the glow of the Christmas lights.  There's nothing like being back-lit to make you look fabulous.

French Peasant Bread

Did you know that making homemade bread isn't hard?  Seriously, why do we all eat Wonder bread when it takes maybe 10 minutes of active work to pull a delicious bakery-fresh round out of the oven.  I have recently discovered this recipe (in the Ivory Favorites cookbook--my go to recipe book) that is insanely easy...and delicious.  So if you want your house to smell like bread on Christmas morning, I'd highly recommend giving this one a try.


French Peasant Bread:

1 package dry yeast (2 1/2 tsp)

2 cups warm water

1 tbsp sugar

2 tsp salt

4 cups flour

oil

corn meal

melted butter

Dump the first four ingredients into a bowl (I put them right into the bowl of my kitchenaid) and stir until dissolved.  Then add the flour and stir until it is blended.  It is sticky and wet.  Don't knead.  Cover and let rise about one hour until it has doubled in size.  Grease a cookie sheet using oil (vegetable or olive...it doesn't matter) and then sprinkle the sheet with corn meal.  Flour your hands and remove dough from the bowl and form into two rounds.  Place both rounds on the cookie sheet and let rise another hour or so.  Cook at 425 F for 10 minutes.  Open oven and brush the tops of the rounds with a little butter.  Lower the oven temperature to 375 F and cook for another 15 minutes.  Voila!!  

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good bread!

Working on the pucker

Colton loves giving kisses.  Unfortunately, he hasn't quite figured out how to pucker up those cute little lips of his.  As a result, his kisses are pretty, well, open-mouthed.  Here is the evidence:

Progress

Today Colton ate his entire lunch by himself--with a spoon.  I didn't feed him a single bite.  In fact, I wasn't even paying attention.  I came back to find his entire bowl of soup gone and him making the sign for "more".  I don't think he understood why I was so excited, but he really liked all my clapping.  (I fear he may have been extra focused on this meal since I made the mistake of giving him Lucky Charms for breakfast.  I thought it would take him a while to discover that the marshmallows are the only part of that cereal worth eating, but it turns out that wasn't the case.  I don't think he ate anything but marshmallows starting with bite one.)  Oh well.  Now that he's well on his way with a spoon, maybe there's hope that he'll someday learn to say "mama".

Note: This picture is technically from several months ago.  We discovered that Colton really liked spaghetti, and clearly, he fed himself quite a bit that day as well...

I have a muscle

Those of you who know me well may recall that I gave up exercise from 1996 - 2002.  In fact, I actively campaigned against it.  It just seemed so stupid to go running for no particular reason.  If you're playing a game then fine...but exercise just for the sake of exercise--I was completely against it.

Well, it turns out that I was wrong.  Exercising is not such a bad thing after all, and I've actually been doing it regularly.  This is officially my new favorite picture of myself.  Doesn't it look like I have a muscle?  Watch out cousin Ted,  you're not the only one with sweet biceps now!!

Since Justin didn't have to work on Columbus Day, we went to Cox Farms for some Fall festivities.

Like posing behind a plywood car...

...and sliding down giant slides.  (Nothing says "I'm glad Columbus discovered America" like giant slides and cheesy plywood cutouts.)

All this celebrating really makes a man thirsty...

...and tired. Thanks, Cox Farms, for a wonderful day!

Restoring a little sanity

We may have gotten there late, and left early, and seen or heard pretty much nothing in between (it's hard to work your way into a crowd pushing a stroller)...but we did our best to help restore a little sanity to our great nation.

(It looks like Colton was on team fear...The cheering from the crowd may have terrified him a little.)

Live long and prosper

Since Colton didn't seem to have much input on what he wanted to be for Halloween, I took it upon myself to choose his costume.  I looked through dozens of cute little animal outfits, but nothing really jumped out at me...until I saw the mini Spock outfit.  I had to have it.  I mean, Colton had to have it.  And if Colton was going to be Spock, it only made sense for Justin to be Captain Kirk.  When young children (who are apparently not aware of the existence of Star Trek) asked me what we were supposed to be, I simply answered: "We are voyagers on the Starship Enterprise..."  Good times.

When I told Justin we were going to dress like star trek, he insinuated that I had made a very nerdy decision.  Well, if that is the case, I think nerdy is the new cool.

Thievery

It turns out shop lifting is easier than you might think.  Colton and I went to REI on Friday to check out their big sale.  Sadly, I found nothing long enough to cover my arms and wrists.  So we went home empty-handed.  Or so I thought.  Colton apparently found a lovely lamb's wool ski cap that he just had to have...  Needless to say, we made another trip back to REI on Saturday to rectify the situation.  I'm thinking our lesson in family home evening this week will focus on "thou shalt not steal"...

Important life lessons...

You are never to young to learn how to make chocolate chip cookies.

Start out with a bowl and spoon (and some other stuff).  

Now add some vanilla.

Stir.

Sample.

(Okay, so this is technically a picture of him eating his birthday cake.  We didn't take a picture of the finished product, but I think this picture is a good representation of what you would have seen had we kept the camera out...)  We did however film him performing for chocolate:

Our evil little dictator

When Colton was about eleven months old, he started doing a crazy little laugh.  It sounds like a cross between an evil dictator and Woody the Woodpecker.  Along with hearing his fantastic laugh, this video also highlights his love of lids.  He's really into them right now.

And if that wasn't enough...nothing brings on a good laugh like going through the refrigerator in your underwear.  He usually goes right for the choptle hot sauce, but this time he got distracted by some plastic bags.  Either way, he's giggling with delight throughout.

This post is specially dedicated to the ladies who watch him at the gym.  They can't get enough of his crazy laugh!

Overhaul

You may have noticed that my blog looks different.  It's been needing a change for quite a while now.  I made that Vegas-like Scott family blog for a class, and never really meant for it to be a permanent fixture on my blog.  But the look isn't all that's changed.

I started this blog about four years ago, which seems like about four lifetimes ago by now.  If you can think back to 2006, you may remember that in those times everyone and their dog didn't have a blog.  A friend of mine shared with me a link to a blog--the first that I had read--of a guy in our ward.  It was funny.  He came up with the most random things to write about, and then he'd get like 37 comments on each post...and each comment was funny.

Well, as I was reading this blog, the thought hit, "Hey, I'm funny too!  I think I could make a blog at least as funny as this one."  And thus began the Critique of Pure Reasons.  (And I'm sure you all recognized that title as a play on Immanuel Kant's famous work The Critique of Pure Reason...or am I the only one whose father is really into German philosophers?)  Anyway, the idea was to write funny things in the form of a top 10 list.  Well, if you scroll through my archive, you can see that I ran out of funny topics somewhere in 2007.  So I've been trying to think of a new title for my blog since then...to no avail.  Blog titles are tough!!  I mean, do I make it a "family" blog, because I'll be honest, this is MY blog.  I'm the author and star.  Justin and Colton are main characters, but it is definitely the world as I see it.  I literally couldn't sleep the other night because I couldn't stop trying to think of a name for my blog.  I know.  I'm crazy.  Anyway, I finally just decided on a new title and made the switch.  I'm pretty sure I like it.

And even though I've given up my quest to entertain the world and rack up 37 comments per post (although it is still kind of my dream), hopefully there is still a laugh every now and then as you "glimpse into our happy little life."

Dr. J's Death March of Fun (a.k.a. The Subway)

I love family vacations.  Growing up, our family vacations usually consisted of either a beach or poolside destination--most often, St. George.  Activities usually alternate between swimming (and by swimming, I mean lying next to the pool), watching movies, and playing games--and eating way too much.  I'm not going to lie.  Our vacations are usually not very active.  In fact, they are deliciously inactive.  Despite our proximity to Zion National Park and my dad's love of "beauty," his desires to get out and see some of it are usually ignored as we head to the pool.

This year, Justin decided to take matters into his own (very active) hands, and took a small group of us (Me, Emily, Dan, and Margaret) canyoneering down "The Subway."  It was a small group because some people had to stay behind to babysit, and some apparently only go "hiking" if it's on horseback.  

We had an amazing time.  Justin and Margaret in particular came much closer together through this experience.  Let's just say that in a tricky maneuver climbing down a tree, Margaret sat on Justin.  And let's also say that it's a good thing that Justin turned his head at the last second so that she straddled is shoulder instead of his face...  We now like to refer to this as Margaret and Justin's cheer-leading move. I almost peed my pants.  It was really that funny.

Anyway, I had to officially document the Durham's getting active on vacation.  The pictures were taken with a disposable under-water camera, so they aren't the best quality...but you can use your imagination.

This is technically the last picture taken when we finally found the trail marker to get out of the canyon.  (The hike out of the canyon is really long.  Some might even call it a death march...)  We were really happy. Really.

We just stopped for a casual rest along the way.

I look like a total girl in this picture, but that water was seriously cold!!

Now can you tell why this canyon is called "the subway'?  In the distance, you can kind of see (from left to right) Margaret, Emily, Dan, Me.

This was the part when we saw the angel.

There was a lot of swimming...in really cold, murky water.

We posed like this together to show that we are sporty and in love.

I soooooo wish that you could see Margaret's facial expression in this picture.  This was the first swim...and the water was shockingly cold.  Her look was priceless.

Those are two wild and crazy guys!

Blondies

Despite the fact that these three boys live as spread out across the country as possible (VA, UT, HI), I see no reason why these little blonde cuties can't be best friends.  Isn't it great that three sisters can have three little boys all the same age?

And isn't it also great that a brown-headed girl like me can belong to two cute blonde-headed boys like these?  I think so.

Going in for the kiss

Colton's reaction to seeing himself in the mirror:

He's so darn cute, he can't even resist himself.  At what point in life do we stop wanting to kiss ourselves when we see ourselves in the mirror?

Surprise!

I really wasn't going to throw Justin a party.  He's not the kind of guy who wants a party.  I mean, I'm the kind of girl that wants a party and lots of recognition on my birthday (November 30th hint, hint), but Justin has always been pretty low-key about his birthday.  When I found out his parents would be flying in the Saturday after his birthday (September 2) thereby providing the perfect excuse to get him out of the house, how could I not throw a surprise 30th birthday party?  It was a small affair, and one that I know I forgot to invite many people to attend.  (Do you know how hard it is to come up with a guest list without being able to brainstorm with someone else?)  Anyway, to those I forgot to invite, I'm very sorry!

But it was really a huge success.  The only hitch was that they got back from the airport WAY sooner than anticipated.  People were supposed to show up at 6:30, and I got the text from Barbara (Justin's mom) at 6:10 that they were ten minutes away.  Yikes!  She did a great job stalling.  She told Justin that she'd been craving Dairy Queen all day.  Too bad the good folks at DQ are so efficient because I got a text at 6:25 saying that they were on their way home.  That's when Justin's sister Cortney (just arrived from NY) helped out by calling them and telling them they had to go back to DQ to get her a blizzard as well.  Two trips to DQ later, and we'd made it long enough to have a nice group of people at the house to surprise him when he arrived.  Too bad I forgot to get out my camera (or take any pictures at all), but I can assure you that my 30-year-old hubby was completely surprised!  I suppose the decor pictures I made for the event will have to do for this blog post.

The never-ending story

Didn't I just fold the laundry?  I swear two days ago I washed every textile in our house.  And yet here it is (what seems like) a few short days later and once again the laundry must be done or there will be no clean underwear tomorrow.  Hollywood made the never-ending story seem like an exciting adventure with a flying pink dog.  What a rude awakening to discover that the true never-ending story is downstairs in my basement waiting to be folded...

Daddy's Boy

We got the proof on tape...

C-dawg's sweet bangs

When your son wakes up from a nap with your same bang-style from 1989, you know it's time for a haircut.

Even in 1989 my hair was already a disaster.  We'll do our best to keep Colton from such a fate...

Still working out...

It's a little known fact that correct pull-up form includes sucking on the bar when you get to the top. I was unaware of that because I so rarely make it to the top when attempting pull-ups...

Just Because...

This little watermelon was just too darn cute not to post.

Happy First Birthday Colton (Take 1 and 2)

It's hard to believe that Colton has already reached the life-altering milestone of turning one.  Okay, maybe it isn't life-altering, but for some reason, it seems like a really big deal.  We decided not to worry about having a party (since I think a first birthday seems really important to us as parents--not so much for the kid), but I think a fantastic birthday cake is essential.  Really, that's what it means to turn one, right?  You get to go to town on a big piece of cake while everyone takes pictures of you.  

So I had big plans about the cake I was going to make for Colton, but it turned out that on the actual day of his birthday, we just plain ran out of time to make a cake--something about driving from St. George to Sandy to Provo...  My mom was kind enough to grab one for us at the grocery store so that we could at least sing to him and such, but something in my heart felt that it was just sick and wrong for him to celebrate his first birthday with a store-bought (vanilla) cake.  Granted, I think he was perfectly satisfied with his first cake experience, but I had mother-guilt.  So when we got back to Virginia, I made him another one--bug themed since we like to call him "little bug." 

So here you have Colton's first birthday celebration part 1:

The best part about this celebration is that Colton's cousins and grandparents (unfortunately not pictured) were there to sing to him and watch him attack the frosting.

Celebration #2:

The bottom layer had peppermint frosting and regular M&M's decorated like ladybugs.  The cupcakes all have chocolate frosting and peanut butter M&M's--some with coconut, some without.  Colton was intrigued by the little bugs on the cake.  He was so speedy, he managed to grab one and get it to his mouth before we could stop him.  I'm pretty sure they are a choking hazard.  Don't worry.  He survived.

And clearly, the chocolate cake was a winner!  Happy birthday little bug.  We love you lots!!