Photos from the phone

Adeline and Nana after her dance recital.


This kid loves his bubbles.


Her last day of dance class. She was so excited to dress up silly.


Fun with Abby and Ellie in Florida.


Bobby loves playing marbles!


Story time.


Popping popcorn with their cousin Grant.


Trying to fit.


Bobby helping grandpa Bob and Daddy "dig" a well.


Lots of rain lately. Kids loved playing in the drainage through the backyard.


Adeline's Rapunzel braid.


Father's Day gift the kids painted for Daddy.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

My Very Own Cooking School

I really enjoy cooking and baking and learning new things to make in the kitchen, so I decided I'm going to keep track of the new things I learn and share them here in case anyone is interested.

So for my first lesson, I learned how to make croissants.  I knew this would be a big, time consuming project, but I also knew it would be a yummy and fun to try, so here is what I did.

First I had to find a recipe and after looking through a lot of them, I decided on this one from epicurious.  The actual shaping and baking directions can be found here.

After I found the recipe, I watched a bunch of youtube videos to see the technique and read through all the recipe reviews and felt confident I was ready to try it myself.

The dough was really easy to make and I love to knead a nice smooth dough, so that was fun.  Then I had to make the butter piece, which I did by folding off the dimensions listed in the recipe into parchment paper and putting 3 sticks of butter in it and rolling it out to the exact measurements.  After chilling that, I had a nice flat rectangle of butter.  I rolled out my dough into a bigger rectangle and started my folds.

You fold the butter into the dough like you would fold a letter to fit an envelope and then turn it and roll the whole thing out into another big rectangle.

Then you fold it up again and chill it.  

The recipe said 1 hr in the fridge in between each fold, but I did 20 min in the freezer instead because I'm not that patient and you have to fold it 5 times!

There is a lot of rolling out going on to create all the flaky layers.  It was a good workout, especially since the dough was cold and you had to work quickly so the butter layers wouldn't get too warm and melt into the dough.

So after all the rolling and chilling it was finally time to shape the croissants and let them rise.  One of the reviews I read said your risen rolls should wiggle like jello and you should be able to see the layers. Mine wiggled a little, but I was definitely excited to see the layers.  Plus it was 11:30 at night by this time, so I was really ready to bake them and be done with it all!  

The recipe didn't call for an egg wash, but all of the videos showed them and said I should egg wash them before they rise and after they have risen so that's how you get the nice brown color.  

I probably should have waited a little longer before cutting mine open, but it was midnight and the house smelled so intoxicatingly delicious that I just couldn't wait.  I was thrilled to see all the layers and they tasted great!  I ended up freezing half of the dough, so I'll be able to make them again!  (Luckily I already did all the rolling and folding steps, so it will be much less time consuming next time)

Next time I make them I think I will do a little research on what to do to make sure they don't fall in the oven.  I could tell mine fell a little.  They still tasted great, but I think they could have looked a little nicer.

10 Things I'm Loving Lately

1.  Caprese Salad!  So happy to have tomatoes in season again and basil growing like weeds all over the garden!

2.  This kid!  Could he be any cuter?  And the delicious homemade cinnamon rolls pictured that Rob made me for mother's day.

3.  Dried Strawberries.  We went strawberry picking the other day and froze half of the leftovers and dried the other half.  We picked them super ripe, so they were very sweet.  The dried ones tasted like fruit leather/fruit snacks.  A perfect healthy snack for me!  Adeline liked them too, but they were too tough for Bobby to chew.

3.  Being a stay-at-home mom in Charleston.  We do playdates at the beach all the time!  Adeline and Bobby are finally at a point where I feel comfortable taking them to the beach on my own (without Rob).  They are pretty safe in the water and mostly just play in the sand.  Its actually relaxing for me this year (last year I was constantly chasing them, trying to keep them from running straight into the waves, etc.).  The beaches we usually go to are pretty empty during the week since school isn't out yet, so we are really enjoying it before the big kids take over!

4.  Doing art with Adeline.  I really want to foster Adeline's love of art and she really likes to learn how to draw things.  We pull up easy how to draw videos on youtube and she follows along.  Here is her picture of a dolphin...sorry I posted it sideways and I'm too lazy to try to fix it!  (I did help her get started by drawing the line for the dolphin's back, but she did the rest!)  The second picture is her pterodactyl (she didn't watch a video to do this one). I like drawing and painting too, so its fun for me to sit down with her and do my own pictures while she does hers.

5.  My Rodan + Fields Products.  Namely, the Unblemish regimen (has REALLY helped get my acne under control and even my skin tone), the Redefine eye cream (top picture from January, bottom picture from May), and the Macro Exfoliator.  I used to wear foundation everyday, but I don't feel like I need it anymore.  I also just won some mineral peptides powder from the IRF facebook page for commenting on a post, so I'm excited to use that!  This is one of the few Rodan + Fields products I haven't really tried yet and I can't wait to get it!

6.  Bobby's use of the possessive when talking about people.  ie. "Where's my Adeline?"  "I love my Grayson." He also asks questions in a high pitched squeaky voice.  I think he recognizes that voices go up at the end of questions, but he starts his questions high and goes up even more at the end.  I love that he's talking so much now!  And another thing about Bobby that I just can't get enough of is his running.  He's recently learned to use his arms when he runs and he "winds up" before he starts running (leans forward and pumps his arms a few times and THEN starts to run!)  This age is so fun.  

7.  Greek Salads.  Romaine lettuce, tomatoes, kalamata olives, red onion, green peppers, feta cheese, greek dressing, and croutons.  I swear there is some lettuce under all those toppings.  YUM!

8.  Long Weekends!  The one good thing about Rob working nights is that he sometimes gets longer stretches of days off in between shifts.  When he is working, he goes in at 5 and doesn't get off until 7 the next morning and then he sleeps all day (and I have to try to keep the kids quiet/out of the house) and then by the time he does wake up, it seems like he only has an hour or 2 before he has to leave again!  So the longer breaks are much needed for me to keep my sanity throughout the month!  We just got back from a trip to Oklahoma to visit Rob's brother and his family, we're headed down to Florida to see friends from med school this weekend, and we are planning a trip to Atlanta at the end of the month as well.  Bobby loves traveling and getting to sleep in the same room with Adeline and cuddle with her.  She's not as thrilled about it though!  I think we'll all be exhausted by the time June comes around!

9.  Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcom Gladwell.  Thanks to Jaeleen for letting me borrow your copy!  This is probably the most interesting book I have ever read.  It puts things in a different perspective and was just fun to read and learn about the stories behind successful people.

10.  Huge cookies.  America's Test Kitchen Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies 

and Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies  to be precise!  I think they turn out best when I pre-shape them and then freeze them (or at least refrigerate) before baking.  And you need to make them BIG!  Don't mind Adeline crying in the picture.  Rob was being a little cruel by taking a picture of her crying in front of the cookies after she realized she wasn't going to get any because she didn't eat her dinner.  (By the way, one thing I'm NOT loving lately is dinner time! The best nights are the ones when we feed the kids cereal for dinner and then put them in bed and make ourselves a nice late dinner where we don't have to coax anyone into eating!)

Botany Bay

A few weeks ago we went camping with our good friends Brian and Melissa at Edisto Beach.  The weather was perfect and we had a great time.  We even invented my new favorite camping treat:  marshmallows wrapped in crescent roll dough and cooked over the fire.  You can even stuff some chocolate inside for extra deliciousness!  One of our favorite things about going to Edisto Beach is taking a trip to Botany Bay.  It is a gorgeous beach and is protected, so you can't take any shells or anything from it.  It is the absolute best treasure hunting beach because there are massive shells everywhere!  I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking...

Gotta love camping hair!

Decorating the trees

"Look Mom, I'm making music just like on The Little Mermaid!"

Too many shells to hold!

Unfortunately, we didn't catch anything.

Bobby is the worst at piggy back rides!  So bad that he fell asleep in the middle of his ride.  

More driftwood decorated with shells.

Since the piggy back ride didn't really work out, this was the easiest way to carry Bobby back to the car!  We probably walked a mile down the beach, and he slept the whole way back!

Worst Blogger Ever

So I feel like the worst blogger ever lately.  I really enjoy writing blog posts, but life has just taken over and blogging has been pushed to the back of my mind.  But I love reading my friends' blogs when they update, so I will try to post here a bit more often.

So here's what 2013 has looked like for us so far:

Rob worked nights last month so his work schedule was crazy, which throws mine and kids' schedules off too.  We were all very thankful when February came along.

I hosted a pasta class for my cooking club last week and it was a blast!  I also learned some new pastas for the class and everything turned out delicious.  We even made chocolate pasta!

I've been working fairly regularly for my Rodan + Fields business.  It is so nice to have a "job" that is not washing dishes and doing laundry.  Now when the kids go down for a nap/quiet time I can look at the messy house and say "I'll clean it later.  Right now I need to "go" to work!"

For my birthday Rob made me a delicious chocolate cake with salted caramel frosting that was to die for!!!  We both keep trying to find an excuse to make it again.  Who wants to come over and give us an excuse to make you cake?

Adeline and Bobby are both growing up so much.  Now that we've cut Bobby's hair, he looks like a little boy, not a baby anymore.  Bobby loves to do anything Adeline does.  His favorite color is orange, his favorite movie is Tangled.  He loves to wrestle and play rough and jump off couches and tables and beds (thanks to his cousins, Jack and Grey, Bobby has realized how much fun it is to be a boy).  He talks a lot more now, but we still don't understand most of what he says.

Adeline is very into arts and crafts right now.  She can entertain herself for a long time if she has paper, crayons, scissors, glue, watercolors, play dough...(you get the picture).  She loves writing strings of letters and asking me what they spell.  She is also very interested in numbers and counting and is always asking me to add numbers for her (Mommy, what does 2 and 2 and 3 and 5 make?).  She can almost count to 29, she skips numbers 13 and 14 every time though.  I'm not sure why those ones are so tricky.

Neither of the kids like sleeping in their beds lately.  Adeline gets up in the night and wanders the house and either ends up on the floor or the couch or even our bed, if she's sneaky enough (the only down side to having a king bed is that we don't even notice when she crawls in at night).  Bobby just likes to sleep on the floor with a huge pile of pillows and blankets.  He's improving though.  I think he slept in his bed once last week.

Hopefully it won't be so long before I post again!

Top 10 from 2012

 Top 10 Egbert Moments of 2012

A quick update before getting to the good stuff:  Bobby turned 2 this December and hit the “terrible twos” right on cue.  Adeline turned 3 this summer and is just starting to get more independent.  I regretfully joined Rob in the 30-35 age group this year.   And Rob started his 2^nd year of radiology residency this summer.  We absolutely love living in Charleston and welcome visitors any time!

10.  Watching Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 eight hundred times. (Adeline and Bobby’s favorite movies)

9.  I can’t believe we’ve made it this long without cutting Bobby’s hair!  We love our little hippie. We’ll see if that hair makes it to 2013…

8. Adeline has a very vivid imagination and one morning kept talking about wanting to fly to the store. Later that day when it was time to get in the car to run errands she asked me to put her on the roof of the car so she could fly.  When I told her that she can’t really fly she burst into tears and sobbed “but Mommy, I promise I’ll be really careful!”

7.  Rob finally mastered the art of baking sourdough bread.  After years of nasty tasting bricks, the bread finally has a nice sour flavor, rises perfectly and has a fantastic texture.  Talk to Rob if you want to know his secrets!

6.  I have started a business working with the doctors who created Proactiv in their new venture, Rodan and Fields Dermatologists.  They are now in the anti-age skin care market and I LOVE trying out all of the fabulous products.  I work part time from home and am grateful to have something that makes me feel professional, even if I’m working in my jammies with kid snot on my shoulders!

5.  Bobby has finally learned how to use the word “no” correctly.  At the beginning of the year, he used the word no to mean either “yes” or “no.”  This has been a struggle for us, but he finally has incorporated yes into his extensively limited vocabulary.  Oh, and he still favors “no.”

4.  Adeline started dance class this fall and she absolutely loves its.  At “parents watch” day last week, we were happy to see our money well spent as 90% of the time Adeline was either laying on the ground or crawling around the room or running around squealing while the other kids were dancing.  Her spring recital should be very interesting…

3.  We met some random people who live about a mile down the road who volunteered to let us garden a large plot of their land in exchange for clearing and prepping the land for them for next year.  It was great, at first. Then the hot month of July happened and Rob was on call all month. Left to their own, the garden quickly became a battle between squash, melon, tomatoes and peppers. The winner? Last time we checked, sweet potatoes. No contest.

2.  I started a cooking club with some women from church and it has been a big success and so much fun. It’s been fun to teach a few classes myself and also to learn from some very talented people.  We’ve learned how to cut up whole chickens, make Japanese food, make authentic tamales, bake bread, cook with pumpkin, make a Thanksgiving feast, and even had our own version of cupcake wars!

1.  We celebrated our 10-year wedding anniversary in Tulum, Mexico this year.  The beaches were absolutely incredible, and just our style.  We had big plans to do all kinds of adventurous activities, but quickly realized that there is something to be said for sleeping on the beach all day when you’re on vacation without your kids!  (PS…thanks mom and dad for watching our kids for the week!)

We have made some great memories in 2012 and look forward to making even better ones in the New Year.  It has been so much fun seeing everyone’s Christmas pictures and reading your letters and we hope to stay in touch for years to come!

Love,

Rob, Haley, Adeline and Bobby