The Mixture that is Leah

Remember when I said the two things Leah wanted for Christmas was a little oven and a football uniform? She had also been asking for a double stroller with babies for months.

So this is her after opening presents (the other baby was sleeping. shhhh. The other is a girl. She named them Adam & Hannah.) - 

Football, cooking, babies. She’s just fantastic. Later she sat at the computer playing her new computer game – still wearing the uniform and the helmet on & off. Too cute.

This is her right after she opened the football uniform. She opened the box and immediately began stripping so she could put it on.

Happy, happy girl!

Southern Pecan Cheesecake

This is all because of Jeff Whitfield (a beloved high school friend). He posted this picture on his facebook wall when he had this cheesecake for his birthday that had me drooling. Since he got it from a shop in Tulsa, Oklahoma where I can’t get to buy a cheesecake I started doing some research about recipes and after reading about 20 recipes. I took tidbits of many and put this recipe together. And holy cow am I glad I did!

Sorry this is so long. It’s a rather involved recipe -

Crust

• 1 cup finely crushed gingersnaps
• 1/3 cup pecans, finely crushed
• 6 TBSP butter, melted
• 2 TBSP brown sugar

For the crust, combine ingredients and press into bottom of spring form pan. (It needs to be a large one if you want one big cheesecake but I used two 7 inch spring form pans and it was perfect with the two. One 7 inch cheesecake feed 6 people with a piece left over. It’s VERY rich.)

Caramel

• 25/26 caramels or half a caramel bits bag
• 6 TBSP sweetened condensed milk

Melt together over low heat. Mix thoroughly. Pour into crust.

Filling

• 3 – 8 oz cream cheese (1 1/2 lbs) – Do not use low fat
• 1 1/3 cups sugar
• 5 large eggs
• 16 ounces sour cream1/4 cup flour
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice (or try using 1 tsp of lemon zest)

1. Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees.
2. Using an electric mixture on low (this matters – stay on low the ENTIRE time. Don’t be tempted to speed it up) beat the cream cheese until light and fluffy.
3. Continue mixing on low while you slowly add the sugar to the cream cheese.
4. Continue mixing on low while you add one egg at a time, beating after each egg.
5. Add flour, vanilla and lemon juice (or zest) and mix on low.
6. Add in the sour cream and mix on low until completely blended.
7. Pour the mixture into the spring form pan.
8. Bake the cheesecake on the top rack of the 325 degree oven for 1 hour 15 minutes.
9. Once the timer goes off, prop your oven door open, turn off the oven and let the cake sit inside the oven for 1 hour.
10. Remove from the oven and let your cheesecake cool in the refrigerator for 24 hours.

Here’s the thing about the 24 hours. We ate my first one after about 8 hours. It was to die for. We LOVED it. But the next day? When it had been 24 hours? Unbelievable. It seriously gets better the longer it sits in there. So make this the day before you need it. And trust me – and WAIT.

Topping

The topping – Pecans pan toasted with butter and brown sugar – arranged in a circle. Pan toasted again with the chopped pecans (more butter and brown sugar) and put in the center.

PS – While I pulled all these ideas from several places – the filling is from a copy cat restaurant site – Cheesecake Factory.

Now – for pictures! I should go get Jeff’s picture so you can see where I started from…

Jeff’s Cheesecake:

See why I needed this?

My cheesecakes -

Merry Christmas

Still my favorite Christmas picture ever…

December 17, 2005

Leah can write.

Who knew?

She asked to write a letter to her cousin. Sat down next to me with a crayon and a piece of paper. I helped with the y and the g. It's all her own content. She asked me how some words were spelled...


PS She's royally ticked off at me for being out of envelopes. The nerve of me. She needs to mail this RIGHT. NOW.

Christmas Party & Santa Trauma

Help me out here. Do you think she liked being a donkey? Do you think she liked those ears on her head?

That was the look on her face the whole time. I did get a tiny half smile out of her but I had to make the most ridiculous faces to get her to do that.

She told me afterward, “I hate those ears! I didn’t want to wear those!”

Poor kid. Drew & I laughed through the entire thing.

PS Sorry about the sad picture quality.

Then she wanted to go see Santa.

Now, first I must explain that I haven’t told my child all about Santa. I love the magic of course Christmas. I love the mystical quality of Santa but I have a really, really hard time flat out lying to her face. So she’s got the idea of him now – I haven’t tried to avoid it. Actually, last year I did say something about people liking to believe that he comes to their house while you’re sleeping and leaves presents – She was HORRIFIED. I told her it wasn’t true to get rid of her fears that some crazy  man in a red suit was going to break into our house. Whew.

This year she doesn’t seem to remember that. And even though she brought it up to me and told me she doesn’t believe in Santa and she knows I buy her presents she seems to be changing her mind…

She says she wants to talk to him but as she’s shy with new people it all seems like a great idea until she was standing in front of him.

He talked to her, he gave her candy and then as she walked away from him… she BURST into tears. She came running to me, clinging and I couldn’t get her to tell me what was the matter. I figured it was one of two things. 1. the whole thing scared her or 2. she was upset she hadn’t talked.

As it turns out it was both. She finally calmed down and went off to play (although she still hadn’t spoke) and then she came back to me crying again – I just want to talk to him. I didn’t tell him what I want. He won’t know!

Okay. Clearly she’s decided whether she’s sure she believes in him or not – he needs to know what she wants for Christmas.

So we stand in line again (forever I might add) and she gets about 6 inches from him and won’t go closer and is too scared to talk again. So I offered to tell him what she wanted. (she had told me earlier what she wanted to tell him)

So I kneeled down next to her and I told him she wants a little oven and a football uniform with a helmet that has dolphins on the side (the child loves the Miami Dolphins!).

This made him laugh (of course – how many 4 year old girls are asking for football uniforms??). He talked to her for a minute about loving football and finally got some grins out of her.

And she left happy – even though she still never spoke to Santa. Mommy took care of it.

Whew.

The best news is I’d already bought those things. They should actually both be here in the mail today.

Yeah Mommy! (aka Santa)

Random Productive Review

I like to do eco friendly things when I see them. I don't go all out by any means but if I see something I'll try it and keep using it if it work. I like that Green Works cleaner by Clorox. It's great.

But this stuff? Palmolive Eco?

It. Is. Awful.

First - it just flat out doesn't work all that great. Second - and worst - it leaves a while film all over everything that's plastic and a few things that aren't. So for instance my black utensils? Spatula, ladle, etc - are all covered in a white film. My red plastic colander.... everything. All covered in some blasted white film.

I don't know how the heck to get it off. And I'm so cheap I keep using the bottle trying to get rid of it all. One more load I think and I can move on to new soap. I should have just thrown it away. Sigh.

There. Just an FYI.

Oh and when I was looking for a picture of the stuff. Well, I'll be. More reviews - and guess what? It leaves a white film on everyone's plastic.

I'm all for ecofriendly but what good does it do me if it means all my plastic dishes are ruined and I have to buy more and more plastic?? Not. Good.

Adoption #2

I've been meaning to post this:

Our Adoption Profile

is officially up and on itsaboutlove.org.

It's similar to the information on the adoption profile blog I did here. Some different pictures and no slide shows.

But it's nice that it's up! And now....

We wait.

That's the adoption thing. Wait.

So if you know someone or know someone who knows someone who... you get the idea. Feel free to pass out our information. You'd be amazed at how adoption connects are often made. You just never know.

Hey Universe? Are you listening? - May it be a speedy process this time!

Schooling

So we're still doing this book: Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. And Leah still loves it! We are in the 50 somethings. I know it's working and I know she can do it but ya know... Sometimes you're doing all this homeschooling stuff and teaching her everything you think she can absorb and you wonder if this is all doing any good. If that makes sense. But then a few things happen and you learn two new things yourself.

1. You underestimate your child and what she "can absorb" or is ready to learn.

The other day I thought I would print out an addition worksheet (just +1 problems. ie 1+2, 4+1, etc) and just introduce her to the idea and the math vocabulary. (I'm tired of counting) And she got down with the whole worksheet in less than a couple minutes. Forget the vocabulary. I explained it to her and the idea just made sense and she did the problems. Here I was all prepared with M&Ms to introduce the concept. Forget that too. She was way ahead of me.

Now we're working on other things with Math 2+3, etc. Those she actually has to stop and count in her head. Or she'll use the M&Ms or hold up two fingers on one hand and three on the other and count them.

I think I'll show her some subtraction today. We'll see how that goes.

2. You have no idea how much she's retaining. It's probably more than you think.

And the reading. I know she rocks at the lessons and she does really well. She loves to walk around sounding out words to herself and rhyming everything she can think of.

But yesterday in the van. She wants us to look at her doodle pad while we’re driving and there was this:

OPRĀT – operate

If she were to see that in the reading lesson book it would look like this: operāte - with a line over the a to mark a long a sound. they make the letters you don't sound out smaller in the lesson. She spelled that exactly right given how she'd learned it.

And don't ask my why she chose operate. We weren't discussing that. I just have no idea. lol

Anyway - look! It's working. I'm ever so glad. Not bad for 4!

Christmas Tree Cones

This was a fun idea I read on some preschool craft site forever ago. I didn’t save the link but it suggested using sugar cones. I just used a regular cone as you can see in the pictures (because it’s what I had in my house) and the candy was leftover from making Leah’s birthday cakes. I also had a thing of white ready made frosting so I just added some green food dye to it. Totally spur of the moment but Leah thought I was a genius.

Gum drop on top to provide the point of the tree (sugar cones obviously would have provided this).

 

The “star” is a piece of cut red licorice, two sizes of M&Ms, some gum drops, and red & green sugar.

Then Leah wanted to eat hers…

She says it’s hard to eat. Of course eating them was NOT the point. Silly girl.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Gluten Free!

• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup chocolate chips (semi-sweet)

Stir peanut butter, sugar, egg, baking soda, and salt together. Stir in chocolate chips. Roll into small balls, smash just slightly (with your hand or a fork) and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes. Move the cookies to a wire rack and let them cool.

Makes about 18-24 cookies.

*****

I made these today for a woman at church. When we were doing the thankful jar thing one of them was to be grateful your teacher (I think that was what it said). Anyway, Leah chose her teacher at church who she ADORES. But I knew she had lots of food allergies so I wanted to ask her first before I brought her cookies she couldn’t eat. She can’t have artificial sweeteners when it comes to cookies  but her mother has celiac disease so she needs gluten (flour) free food. So I wanted to make something they could both eat. Years ago I made a cookie similar this to another woman I know with celiac. Those didn’t have baking soda in them. I like what it did to the texture of the cookie.

I read several recipes today looking for the one I had before. The one I posted above is not exactly like any of them I read but they’re by far the best version of this I’ve had. I think it would be stellar to have some crunchy nuts in there. Peanuts seem like the obvious choice. Maybe walnuts.

Oh PS The cookies are very crumbly while still warm – leave them be until they’ve cooled off some!