What a Dementor Might Sound Like

This is me today.  It's quite fitting that I sound like a zombie on Halloween.  Make that a zombie who smoked two packs a day for twenty years.  And was forced to have a laryngectomy.  Scary stuff.

Happy Halloween

I love that Koby and I both have jobs that encourage us to dress up.  Here I am as Harry Potter on Celebrity Day during Red Ribbon week, and Koby is a Rodeo Clown.  Explanation below.

Koby spent his week preparing his 3rd, 4th and 5th graders for the annual Clown Circus at the elementary school on Friday. It's a tradition and a big deal in town- the kids learn to juggle, jump rope, build human pyramids, and walk on barrels. (?!? Yeah, sounded dangerous to me, too). The parents come to watch the hour and a half performances. Needless to say, he's had entertainment on the brain. I tried to wake him up yesterday evening from a nap, and when he had halfway woken up, he looked at me and said

"Hula hoop?"

I laughed, and then may have egged him on a bit.

"Wh-Wh-where is the, where is the... Hula hoop?"

Poor guy. We're glad that's all over.

This boy didn't let being sick stop him from doing any of his favorite things this week.

Knox went to the doctor in Abilene on Thursday because he'd been throwing up more than normal and we wanted to make sure everything was okay. Koby took him in, which was awesome and sweet and ALSO gave me a chance to exercise my control issues (I still may have written down a list of things for koby to tell/ask the doctor). Of course, the next day Knox actually got sick- lost his voice, gassy and upset stomach, drainage, cough... the works. Why is it that when you take them in they're fine? Anyway, he's on some sort of baby antacid now, and hopefully it'll help. His voice is already back and his tummy does seem a bit more settled. My poor baby.

His worst night was probably Friday, which is when I was chaperoning (...is that a word?) the high school Halloween dance. (Thrills upon thrills.) A friend watched Knox while I watched my students do the stanky leg... It was probably not the best babysitting debut for Knox. You usually want your baby to be his normal angelic self the first time someone watches him.

 

Nana (my mom) came to visit for about an hour on her way back to austin from Lubbock, where she was visiting her mom. She got to see Knox's fox hat, which one of my very talented student made for him. And she brought the crib skirt she's been working on for Knox. It looks great! (Need a pic.)

Knox's first Halloween is almost over, which means it is completely acceptable for me to start listening to my Christmas music and watching Love Actually on loop. When do you think the Halloween candy will go on clearance? Because I should probably avoid stores until that business is all wrapped up.  I only just stopped myself from taking Knox trick-or-treating on Friday.  He's still drooling on himself - people would see right through me.

Share the pictures from your Halloweek!  Check out

If It Has Heavy Cream, It Must Be Good

The things I cook taste this good, but why don't they ever look this good?

Alright, I've been feeling like cooking lately.  It also helps that while I cleaned this weekend I found a bajillion recipe pages torn out from old Real Simple magazines.  And so, here we go again! (Round 3?)

COCINA DE ANDREWS!  Sans lung damage this time.

Creamy Chicken with Corn and Bacon
Grade: A

I swapped chicken for the shrimp it called for.  (Koby is allergic.)  This recipe is GREAT!  As I was making it, I realized it's a lot like my mom's Sauteed Chicken in Cream recipe that I grew up with, and now Koby has deemed an "A+". Which is rare people, rare.  Those plusses are hard to come by.  All I added was some Parmesan cheese (because I didn't think it had enough calories) and I don't think I'd change anything else!  

Mushroom Sauce
Grade: A-

Lately cooking has been extra fun because I had some fresh bell peppers from a friend's garden to cook with.  I used them in this recipe and also added garlic, 1/4 cup Marsala wine, Parmesan cheese, and switched cream of mushroom for the cream of chicken it called for.  To Koby's delight, I used radiatore pasta instead of penne.  These little swirls held the sauce really well and they're much more interesting shapes than the penne tubes, which is also fun for me.

I feel lame writing a post just about food, but I don't have any anecdotes about nearly burning down the house and it's almost my bed time.  Good night!

Before You Speak

James 3, thoughts on the tongue.  Sometimes it's like mine's not even connected to my brain...

Taken from this designer's blog.

Tres

Knox turned three months old on Thursday the 20th (which also happened to be his Aunt Elizabeth's 21st birthday, wahoo!!).  I am loving my time with Knox - he's at that point where 'he really likes us', as Koby puts it.  I find myself laughing with Knox (maybe we're not laughing at the same thing, but so what?) and that is such an exciting thing to me.  He didn't exist outside of my body three and a half months ago and now we're laughing together?!  I think it's pretty special.

He's totally picking up on social cues now, too.  (We think he's advanced for his age.)  For example, he spit up at exactly the right moment the other day and helped me prove a point to his Daddy.  Perfection.  We're in this together, little buddy.

I really think he's going to be a thoughtful, unselfish, sweet boy.  I can tell by the way he looks at me.  I wrote this little note to him a few weeks ago:

Knox,
Today was really awful.  The kids at school were wild, your Dad and I both woke up late, and it was like I was running behind all day.  I had to run an errand with you RIGHT after school, which completely went against your normal routine.  But you were perfect, and as I bustled you into a shopping cart and wearily began to push you through the aisles as WalMart, I happened to look down at you, and just as you caught me glancing, you broke into a HUGE smile.  Like you'd just been waiting for me to look.  I think you knew I needed some encouragement, I really do.  And my whole body relaxed, I smiled back, and for the first time all day I felt calm and contented.

(Thanks to Lovie for our numerical onesies!  Now if I could just get to where I stand in the same place when taking these pictures! It's hard to operate the camera within the ever-so-small spit-up-free window that Knox allows me.)

He has also started doing this thing where he'll 'cry' if he's not being paid enough attention (i.e. any time I'm sitting next to him but not looking directly at him), and then as soon as I turn to look at him, everything's miraculously all better, big smile.  Just kidding Mama.

The weeks are starting to fly by.  Koby's already enjoying the slightly lessened workload that this upcoming bye week is bringing.  I took Friday off to keep Knox while our nanny went out of town and ended up keeping Landry, the sweet girl of another teacher/coach friend at school.  AND Knox and I took a nap until 11 a.m. today.  Uhh-maaa-zing!

Koby and I are excited about going to church tomorrow - we're taking Knox for the first time!  Hopefully tomorrow I won't have any 'Can you believe this?!' stories.

A Little West Texas Family

Revisiting the Cocina de Andrews

Well, I haven't been cooking much lately but I have tried these two recipes fairly recently.

The first we tried tonight, and Koby and I both agreed that it tastes remarkably like 'Country Club' food.  Just tasty enough that you'd finish the whole thing, just rich enough to hurt your stomach just a little bit, and just bland enough that you'd forget about the dish as soon as it came time to eat again.

Bacon Wrapped Chicken
Grade: C+

Here's what I'd change: I'd swap the cream cheese for something with a little more zest and perhaps add garlic.  I'd season the chicken breasts and I saw on one of the comments that someone had also wrapped the chicken in spinach, which I thought sounded good.  Some people also mentioned substituting sour cream for the mayo.  Also, I'd cook the bacon a bit before wrapping it around the chicken.  Or I'd totally revamp the recipe and try something with some pesto.  Definitely a rich dish, almost no matter how you spin it.  I chose it because it had the highest number of stars on my AllRecipes app, and it had lots of positive reviews, but I really can't figure out why...

The second I liked A LOT, but I also changed up quite a bit as I cooked.  Let's see if I can remember, it's been a few weeks.

Chicken Marsala
Grade:  solid "A"

So... I added onions, sundried tomatoes and 'Italian' seasoning and left out the mushrooms and sherry.  I want to say I did something else spur of the moment but I can't remember just what.  Hmmm it may have been that I added cherry tomatoes.  I think that's what it was and it was really good.  Koby says it would be an A+ if I would just stop cooking with penne pasta.  And there you have it.

This would probably be a whole lot more interesting with pictures, but I don't have any of the food (it's hard to take pictures before eating when there's a very tiny window of time in between 'cooking' and 'eating') so I'll leave you with this.

Oh!  I've just remembered.  On a related note, I did almost set fire to the cocina de Andrews over the weekend.  That may be a slight exagerration, but real talk y'all... there was a LOT of smoke.

You might notice how you can so precisely see the sunshine streaming in through the windows?  If you'd like to be able to see the light in this way, you could do so easily by building a small bonfire in your house.  Took about a year off my life.  Let me tell you what happened.  I started cooking some bacon and stepped just out of sight for thetiniestofseconds to try and win something on this blog ... seriously, it was just a millisecond of time, and next thing I know, smoke is billowing out of the kitchen and it smells like bacon-scented garbage.  Did you know that bacon will disentegrate in its own grease if cooked too long?  So I grabbed the skillet off the burner and stood in the kitchen, pan still smoking out of control, completely frozen.  Do I pour the grease out in the backyard?  I'm envisioning our poor dogs being terribly surprised and scalded after trying to eat the bacon-lava.  Do I run through the house and pour the grease out in the front yard?  I'm seeing now smoke throughout the ENTIRE house and somehow tripping and spilling fire-hot grease onto my baby, who is sleeping in the other room about fifteen feet from the doorway... Seriously, it took me way too long to make this decision. 

I finally opted to go out the back door and poured the grease near the fence, and managed to escape the entire experience with only one small burn on my hand.  And the dogs didn't eat the grease, either.
Luckily, the weather was absolutely gorgeous and I was able to keep the doors open for at least 3-4 hours to get some of the stank out.  To no avail, apparently.  When Koby got home from his football game around 1:30 that morning and woke me up, the only thing I remember him saying is "We won," and "The house smells really bad".

We Heart ACU

Knox stepped  foot on our alma mater's campus for the first time today...  well. not literally.  But he was there.  DT Homecoming Breakfast with old friends, and then the ACU Homecoming Parade with family as well.  Knox is a trooper and a saint of a baby.

Troop Leader

Look at this.

Blehh.  Remember back in January when I chose 'fawns' and 'foxes' as my nursery themes?  I spied this little write up in Parents Magazine (yes, I read it and yes, I semi-enjoy it) today.  I know I should feel like a trend-setter, but in actuality I'm only irritated.  Foxes are Knox's.  Ughhh.

Immediately after I tweeted my annoyance, one of my friends sent me a picture she'd seen on Pinterest.

Knox blocks.  Look familiar?

Does this mean we can look forward to four other boys having Knox's name in his kindergarten class?  I know it's a dumb thing to have get under your skin... but still.

These are basically my pictures for the week - it's been a hazy, sleep-deprived blur of PDAS evaluations, football trips, and half-hearted cleaning attempts here at the Andrews house.  I still haven't completely unpacked my suitcase from the Alabama trip. 

* Troop, leash, skulk, earth, and lead are all names for a group of foxes.  If you win a game show because of that little fun fact, I think you owe me a cut of your prize.

** Even though I'm mildly annoyed, you can still bet that I'm going to have to get at least two of the items from the Parents magazine for Knox as Christmas presents.  Or maybe Thanksgiving presents.  Seriously, they're too cute.  Better yet, can I carry a fox backpack to school?  My kids already think I'm weird.

Curiouser and Curiouser

Here's how tired I am.

I had one of those nightmares last night that sort of ruins your coming day because it's just that disturbing. But, during the nightmare I remembered that I was dreaming, and like Alice, began to tell myself,

"Wake up, Christie! Christie, wake up!"

Usually, this works.

Not last night. It seems my brain would rather me be utterly terrified than rouse me from barely restful sleep. Needless to say, real Christie and dream Christie were very frustrated with my brain. But as we realized this, our focus shifted and said dream ceased to be horrifying.

But still. I should have woken up. Ugh.

Wedding at the Gulf

One of my best friends got married in Alabama this past weekend.  And I must say Helen did a FABULOUS job planning her wedding, not to mention being a stunning bride! 

It was hard to leave Knox - every time I thought of him while I was away my heart genuinely hurt.  BUT there isn't anything I can think of that could be more worthy to steal me away than watching a friend get married!  And I do love to travel.

I had to leave the house at 4 in the morning to catch my flight to Mobile by way of Houston.  Needless to say, when I arrived (the standard two hours early) it was fairly empty.  Right after I took this picture a mom and her little boy walked up and I nearly cried watching them interact, already missing Knox terribly.

Hmmm, this view can cure some blues.  Gulf Shores is AWESOME.  I spent most of my time in Orange Beach.  I can safely say that with each trip, West Texas is becoming less appealing...

It was so fun to be a part of Helen's day and I LOVED getting to know Devon and Liebelei, her best friends from college, better. We had a great time before, during, and after the wedding.  It makes my heart happy to meet people who love the people I love.

I didn't get a ton of pictures from the weekend because... well, it's just hard to take pictures with a DSLR when you're dancing your little bridesmaid heart out  :-)

Things didn't go as smoothly on the way home - Koby told me on Saturday that it'd been rainy all day (I was a bit jealous that I was missing the perfect read-a-book weather) and apparently it headed to Houston on Sunday.  Which delayed my flights for hours and eventually one ended up being cancelled.  At that moment I realized how much I really missed my little family.  The thought of being away from Knox and Koby for ANOTHER WHOLE DAY made me want to curl up under the airport chairs and cry.  Luckily, one of the airport employees had already reserved me a seat on the last flight to Lubbock that night when it looked like I wouldn't make my connection.  And thus I avoided a mommy melt down.

While I was gone, Knox's wonderful Lovie came to stay and help out since Koby would be spending most of his time with football.  She kept me sane by sending regular pictures so I wouldn't have to send the "What's he doing now" text every few hours.  Here's my smart boy checkin' himself out on her computer.

Let's hear it for friends and family!

A Blessing

By becoming the answer to someone's prayer, we often find the answer to our own.