Thanksgiving Photos

Ryan has long declared Thanksgiving to be his favorite holiday. Why? There's no hassle, no stress (usually)-- it's all about food, friends and family. We usually go out to his parents' house in Minnesota. His siblings, with the exception of us on the East coast and Taylor & Lisa out in California, are scattered around the midwest so it's pretty easy for most of the kids to get home for Thanksgiving. This year the midwestern contingent gathered at Kim & Clark's new digs in Bartlesville, Oklahoma but we decided to stay home. It was the first time in the entire time Ryan and I have known each other that we did not travel or host family and it worked out great. I missed hanging out with Ryan's family; playing ultra-competitive matches of Settlers and Ticket to Ride; going running with Kirsten, Kim and Lisa; eating Ryan's mom's famous jello "salad" (no kidding, it is a pièce de résistance--Ryan loves it so much that has lost its original name and is known by the family simply as "Ryan Jello" ); and witnessing Blake's obsessive insistence that the Christmas decorations go up the minute Thanksgiving is over.

This year we got together with our good friends Ali & Mitch and Kim & Jason for a really low key Thanksgiving fiesta. Ali hosted and provided scrumptious side dishes, I made the turkey (see Cackalacky Kitchen for more details), and Kim made two outstanding pies. I was in charge of photo-documenting the event and sadly, I was a dork and didn't take any pictures of the food! Let me assure you, it was a pretty amazing spread. I was too distracted by all the cute kids and took lots of pictures of them instead. So here are some pictures of our Thanksgiving celebration.

Ali has such great style. The table was beautifully set with fresh flowers and pewter goblets.

These guys are in HEAVEN playing with cars and trains.

The kids' table. But where's Oliver?? He had about three bites of a roll and went back up to play with cars in the playroom.

The ladies took the kiddos on a walk/Big Wheel ride throught the neighborhood between dinner and dessert. Oliver had a major freak out (see post below) because we were riding bikes in the street. He made me hold his hand the whole time. He steered his ride-on car with one hand and held mine tightly with his other. In truth, I'm glad that he is fearful about going into the street because unlike some of his other fears, this one has merit.

The boys watch in anticipation as the pie is served

This little guy was definitely a big fan of the chocolate cream pie. Who can blame him for digging in? That was some seriously delicious pie!

The Only Thing He Has To Fear Is...

...EVERYTHING. Apparently.

So Oliver, who has never been fearless in the sense of being reckless or impulsive, has recently developed a full-blown case of sissiness. He started to think everything is "scawy." Really. It started with this adorable (I thought) navy blue winter hat that I bought him. It had ear flaps and tassels on it. Cute, right? Well, I guess he thought that was scary. OK. Whatever. I tried a few times to get him to put it on and he totally freaked out. He couldn't stand to look at it much less have it on his head. It was on the ground in his room near the door and he was afraid to go through the door. I can only guess that he's thinking that those tassels might come and get him.

It doesn't help to tell him that something he is convinced is scary just isn't scary. He doesn't see it that way. So, the approach that I'm taking is to show him that he has the power to make something scary not scary anymore. The other night he was going to bed and he thought that his pillow was scary. What?? What is scary about a pillow?!? He said it was a crocodile. Hmm...I thought that maybe it was the ties on the back of the sham that were so offending him and somehow reminding him of a crocodile. I told him to turn it over and it wouldn't be scary anymore. He did it and agreed, "piddow not scawy enymore." I remind him of this when he thinks that other things are scary. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

What I'm trying to figure out is whether this is a common childhood phase or is this weird? Abby thinks that it is an appropriate adaptive response for a preschooler. I don't know if this is something she learned in medical school or if she is just inclined to think that anything Oliver does is smart and charming. :-)

Whatever happened to Family Values??

Some sharp-eyed readers have noticed that I wrote a post titled Family Values that is no longer up here on this blog. The subject of the post, gay marriage, is a controversial topic that elicits strong feelings from people we love on both sides of the issue. Ryan felt that our family blog was not the right forum for divisive political discussion. So I have moved that post here, to Cackalacky Kitchen, which will henceforth serve as a place for my musing on politics and pastry, among other things. Cackalacky Kitchen is co-authored by my sister, the amazing Dr. Abigail Ford.

If you are interested in what we're cooking, or what thoughts are keeping me awake at night, please visit Cackalacky Kitchen and leave a comment. If you just want to check out what we're up to and see pictures of our kids (can I blame you??) continue to check out this blog.

In any case, thanks for taking the time to read our blog!

The Baker's Apprentice

This morning Ollie's playdate cancelled so we found ourselves with a free morning. Oliver has been talking about going down to the fire station to see the fire trucks for a while so I decided to make that our outing. It's beginning to dawn on me that I get a lot more out of our little jaunts than Ollie does. He likes nothing better than to stay at home and play at "Ollie's fouse" as he calls it. I however, NEED to get out of the house, whether that be to the gym, the grocery store or even the fire house, I can't spend a whole day cooped up in our house.

So...with that outing in mind we decided to make some treats to bring over to the firemen. We made these, frankly delicious, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. They were a big hit with everyone, Elliot included. Should I be feeding a 6-month old cookies yet??? Probably not. He certainly thought it was a good idea and made all sorts of happy noises as he gummed away at a (chocolate-chip free) cookie.

Oliver's newest favorite, race car Lightning McQueen, took part in our baking adventure this morning. After we finished mixing the flour (Oliver uses his bare hands to sift the ingredients...I promise he washed them!) Lightning had some "off road" adventures making tracks through the flour on the counter.

The cookies turned out really well. The recipe is below. They were so good that I realized I would eat them ALL if I didn't get them out of the house so in addition to the plate we made for the firemen, I brought some over to a friend and neighbor. Ryan, there is one (1) left, I'm saving it for you. :-)

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
or...I just used 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips

Position a rack in the middle of the oven . Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Stir the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices together in a medium bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until smooth and lightened in color, about 1 minute. Stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl as needed during mixing. On low speed, mix the oil, pumpkin, and vanilla until blended. Mix in the flour mixture to incorporate it. Mix in the chips.

Scoop by teaspoons onto parchment paper. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

This is my kitchen after a morning of chaos...usually a scene like this would drive me crazy. For some reason I just want to document it and remember that sometimes it's ok to let the house get really messy. Notice the toilet paper "race track" in the background and Ryan's shoes that Ollie was wearing around this morning.

And finally, here we are at the fire station. The firemen were really nice and gave Ollie this helmet and a coloring book. He was a little shy and scared at first but he warmed up.

Daily Ollie

This post is for our most devoted Ollie and Elliot fans (oh, you know who you are) so apologies to everyone else. I have been sort of distracted/preoccupied...more about that in another post.

Sorry for not posting Halloween pictures sooner, as you can see, those didn't turn out so well. The preschool Halloween parade was somewhat traumatic, I guess it freaked some kids out that there were so many parents staring and taking pictures, and then when a couple of them started crying it caused a chain reaction.

Oliver was excited to be a fireman but he didn't want to wear the helmet. Which is funny, because he wears his "helmet" and puts on his "face mask" every time we read his Fire Engine book. See below.

Elliot also likes reading (and drooling over) the Fire Engine book.


Here are some more pictures...I don't have time to write pithy comments. In fact, the rest of this is going to be super boring to everyone except abby and mom...don't say i didn't warn you.

Even though most of what Oliver says is incomprehensible to the untrained ear, what does come out is often pretty funny. I thought I'd record some of his little expressions and funny moments.

Ollie pulls his hand inside the sleeve of his shirt and then asks, "where hand go??" I say "Oh, Ollie, where's your hand?" "Hiding" he replies with a grin and then shows me his hand, like he is revealing the secret to a fabulous magic trick.

Oliver really loves applause. When he does something really great we clap for him and say, "yea!" Instead of saying "yea!!!" he says " laai! laai!"

"Dok bak yaa" = Dark Back Yard ~ What he really means is: Hey, check it out, the sun is going down. He says this every night when the sun begins to set. It sounds like he is speaking Vietnamese.

The other night he was doing something that he thought was pretty funny. Elliot was lying on the ground on a blanket. Oliver shouted over to him, "Eddie, turn 'round! Watch DIS!!" Of course Elliot is still working on the finer points of vestibular control and can't exactly turn around on command.

He calls sneezes "bless yous" so when he takes his allergy medicine (which he calls his vitamins) he says, "bidamins, no bless you, no neezes."

What I hear about 100 times a day: "MOH cha cha milk!" (Please, mummy, I'd like some more Pediasure.) "Watch race car now" (Can we turn on CARS the movie, again?)

"Oh VOW! Loo da dat!!" Translation: "oh, wow, look at that!"

"Oh say, uh huh, right now." Translation: "Roger that. 10-4. I'm on it."

"Hoo-die! Hoo-die!" = "hurry, hurry!" He must hear this a lot as we are frequently running late. Sad testament to life Chez Halverson.

"Free mimis." Literally: Three minutes. Translation: Let me play/splash in the bath/watch CARS for three more minutes. He usually requests "free mimis" and holds up three fingers on both hands to underscore the earnestness of his petition. If he is really serious, he will hold up both hands with all ten fingers splayed...but he'll still ask for "free mimis".

"Dis one is?" = "What's your name?/What's that called?"

"New baddies" = "new batteries" In Oliver's world view there's not much that new batteries or tape can't fix. In a way, that's fairly accurate. I have become an expert library-book conservator with my tape roll always at the ready.

"Makin fidah." Literally: Making fire. Translation:look at that steam/smoke/exhaust/dust/condensation, which looks like fire"

"Makin fidahwooks." Literally: Making fireworks. Translation: "I have explosive diharea."

Happy Birthday Ryan!!

My sweet husband turned 35 today. He claims that he is now officially middle aged. I'd like to put that milestone a little further out, especially since I'm not too far behind him. In any case, he is a very youthful 35. I love him with all my heart. Happy Birthday babe!

I don't think Ryan ever checks this blog on his own...but I know he gets the comments sent directly to his work email, so if you want to wish him a Happy Birthday post a comment.