Cutting Cookies with Boys

A couple nights ago our friends Drew and Jason came over for dinner. Drew and Jason were also on the Summer Project where Brian and I first met. Drew goes to Mines with Brian and Jason was in a small group with us this past year. They're two friends we're glad to kept in touch with.

Before dinner Brian and Jason put together a cookie recipe that I found for them over at Girltalk. We let them chill while we ate Erin's Balsamic Chicken with quinoa and rosemary potatoes. After dinner I floured our coffee table and gave the guys cookie dough. I should have known that they would make weapons and sci-fi characters out of the dough.

We Found Cows Downtown!

These cows are outside of the Denver Art Museum. Brian and I were so enamored with them that we didn't make it to the museum in time.
For Jerry :)

Graduation!

As some of you may know Brian graduated yesterday. It's been a challenge at times, but overall has been a great privilege to be a part of Brian's last semester of his engineering degree. As I've mentioned before, Brian did the best he could to create a stable homelife for us by fitting all of his projects, homeworks, and classes into a 8-5 (which most days looked more like 7-5) work day. He finished up with the best grades of his college career. I'm so proud of the work he's done.

His family was proud too :) They came up from the Springs for his early graduation (9:30am) which means they had to get up WAY early. After one of the most genuinely interesting graduations I've been to, we went to Jose O'Shea's to eat some yummy mexican and then back to our place to have pumpkin cheesecake for dessert.

Brian made the crust:

1 1/2 graham cracker crumbs

5 T melted butter

1 T sugar

I made the filling:

3- 8oz.pkgs. cream cheese, softened

1 cup sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup canned pumpkin

3 eggs

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. allspice

Mix crust ingredients together, just till coated and crumbly. Press onto the bottom and 2/3 up the sides of an 8" springform pan. Bake for 5 min. at 350. Set aside.

Combine cheese, sugar and vanilla in large bowl, mix until smooth with an electric mixer. add pumpkin eggs, and spices, beat till smooth and creamy. Pour into the crust. Bake for 60 min. or till the top turns a bit darker. Remove from oven and allow to come to room temperature, then refrigerate. After it has thoroughly chilled, remove the pan sides and cut

I also added a small top layer:

8-10 oz sour cream

1/4 c sugar

1 t vanilla

Spread this evenly after cake has been in the oven for 1 hour and bake 5-10 more minutes.

The cheesecake turned out to be good. I was a little worried since I combined three different recipes to make it ;) The time with family was even better though.

Congratulations Brian!

Young Married Life

I've been blogging over at YoungMarriedLife.com again. This week I make a confession that you'll want to hear.

And The Winner Is ...

Thanks to all 14 of you who voted on our whole sale club poll. I have to admit that what swayed me most wasn't the votes but the comments. I'm a sucker for healthy/organic foods and if Costco has the monopoly on them, that's where I'ma goin'. So Costco is the winner of the poll and the winner in my heart :)

Sleeping In

This morning is the first time ever that I did not get up with Brian to fix his breakfast and drink coffee with him before he went off to work. I was SO tired and he let me sleep in. But now that I'm up ... three hours later, I'm a little worried.

Was he able to make his own breakfast? Surely, he did it before we married and does it on Saturday mornings when we have pancakes. And there's a dirty knife in the sink where he spread peanut butter on his toast, so all is good on that front.

Who talked to him as he ate it? No one, he actually got to read the scriptures in peace this morning without his wife interrupting every five minutes to talk about Christmas lights or dinner plans.

So I guess it was a win-win. He had an uninterrupted quiet time and I got three hours extra "quiet time." But I'm a little sad that I missed out on our morning routine.

Making Brian's breakfast at 6am can be a drag some mornings when I really want to sleep, but it's one of the ways I get to serve him. Brian serves me all day long by working hard and preparing for his engineering career. His study habits and posture toward his studies have radically changed since we got married and I know he's making his work a sacrificial offering first to God and then to me. And on my good days, I can see that and I'm thankful for it.

Being a companion to Brian and caring for his more domestic needs is how I'm best able to sacrificially love him in this season of our marriage, so I probably won't make sleeping in a routine thing but it sure was nice this morning.

Quinoa

Ahhh. I love Quinoa (pronounced Keen-wah). I made some last night in my rice cooker and added some chopped green onion, apple, carrot and balsamic vinegar dressing and let it sit over night. It's one of the few things I buy at the health food store because it's actually cheaper there and it's so worth the trip. I highly recommend this for anyone who packs a lunch and is tired of sandwiches. I gave Brian a turkey and cheese break today by sending this with some spinach in his lunch bag.

Here's what wholehealthMD had to say about quinoa:

Nutritionally, quinoa might be considered a supergrain--although it is not really a grain, but the seed of a leafy plant that's distantly related to spinach. Quinoa has excellent reserves of Protein, and unlike other grains, is not missing the amino acid lysine, so the protein is more complete (a trait it shares with other "non-true" grains such as buckwheat and amaranth). The World Health Organization has rated the quality of protein in quinoa at least equivalent to that in milk. Quinoa offers more iron than other grains and contains high levels of potassium and riboflavin, as well as other B vitamins: B6, niacin, and thiamin. It is also a good source of magnesium, zinc, copper, and manganese, and has some folate (folic acid).

An ancient grainlike product that has recently been "rediscovered" in this country, quinoa has a light, delicate taste, and can be substituted for almost any other grain.