A Tuesday List

1. My masters program starts in T-5 days. If the orientation work was any indication of the course work...yikes! The flashbacks of sleepless nights, stressful phone calls home with lots of tears, and last minute procrastination are becoming more and more vivid as the start date looms. The over thinking of every e-mail and assignment has begun and I am quickly starting to wonder what I have gotten myself into. I am committing now--before the program even starts to not let it consume me. It's school, it's work, and there are thousands of people out there who have completed it under much more difficult circumstances than my own. (I said that with the utmost confidence, can you tell?)


2. Reason Number 867 Why I am the Worst Teacher in the World: During a guided reading book today, I presented a small group of boys the new text we would be reading together. Horrible Harry! I imagined this book to be any second grade boys dream. Harry plays mean tricks like pulling snakes out in front of girls. Don't kids love that stuff? Anyway...here's how it went down...

Me: "I am SO excited to start reading this book with you guys. You are just going to love it."

Sweet Young Boy: "I can't read that book." (In a not so friendly voice)


Me: "Oh, my love, we do not use the word "can't" in this room! Instead we say, "I'll try", right?" (Smiling, batting my eyes, and talking in my most patient voice.)


Sweet Young Boy: "Seriously Mrs. Foster? All you do is say can't! We can't have an extra recess, we can't have a longer snack, we can't choose our own partners, we can't talk during morning work. And really, I know there are more, I just CAN'T think of them right now."


Second graders are truly delightful, don't you think?

3. This whole money saving, budget thing is really cutting into my wine consumption hobby.

4. I made these cookies last weekend. I did not have any robin's eggs so I used Easter peanut m&m's and regular m&m's. They were so delicious. On Easter I ate 5. Not all at once so that makes it a little better, right? Of course I did not take any pictures of these beautiful creations--and of course, they stand as one of the most delicious. I guess I will just have to make them again. Soon.

5. I made my own rendition of this to bring to 10-70 Bible Study tomorrow. I planned to follow the recipe, but did not have everything here, so I improvised. We won't be baking it until tomorrow, so I will try to remember my camera before we all dig in.

6. On Sunday I attended my first (that I can remember) Sunrise service at the church we have been attending. It was great! There was no sun, but His presence was so powerful as we celebrated that HE HAS RISEN! After sunrise service, we drove around enjoying the peace Sunday morning brought. It turned out to be a perfectly beautiful day filled with praising Him, family time, delicious food...so many blessings. I could not have asked for a better way to spend Easter Sunday.

7. I'm so excited for this....

Sunset over Piper

Life is Good.

My two boys after a long day of work. Need I say more?

What's in Your Baking Cupboard?

We are more than halfway through vacation and I have not done any baking. I am ashamed. So ashamed that at about 1:55 today I decided to do something about it. However, I ran into my first road block as soon as I started thinking about what I wanted to bake. My baking supplies are embarrassingly limited right now. Not enough chocolate chips to make my all time favorite chocolate chip cookies, not enough peanut butter to attempt these, and although my mouth was watering, I had nothing to create these. But I did have...

1/4 cup of chocolate chips,

1/4 cup of white chocolate chips,

 1/4 cup  of peanut butter chips, a little bit of oats, a few spoonfuls of peanut butter, a little sugar, an egg...so, I threw together these amazingly tasty peanut butter cookies based on the recipe from Brown Eyed Baker. I almost added m&m's too, but thought that might be a bit too much. Next time. 

(One bite of the batter and it's alllll over.)

Oatmeal-Peanut Butter-Lots of Chips Cookies (with salt!)

(adapted from Brown Eyed Baker)

Makes about 20 cookies

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/ 2 cup sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/4 cup milk chocolate chips

1/4 cup white chocolate chips

1/4 cup peanut butter chips

Sea salt

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Cream together butter, sugar, brown sugar, peanut butter and vanilla. Add egg and mix to combine. Slowly add flour and baking soda until combined. Mix in oatmeal and chips. 

Scoop cookies onto pan in small, round balls. (I like to make them big!) Bake for 10 minutes or until cookies are golden brown. Top with sea salt. (Optional)

The only thing that might make this cookie even better would be a little ice cream and chocolate sauce. Oh, wait. We did that. And yes, it was AMAZING. 

Staycation?

It's school vacation week. 

My husband and I both teach.

 You may be thinking, "Wow, what a perfect week to go away somewhere warm together to relax and enjoy." 

HAHA. Here are the two reasons why we DO NOT get to do that. Number 1. If you can afford to fly during school vacation times, you clearly are NOT a teacher. Number 2. We did this last year (and drove!) and were more exhausted when we got home then when we left. These two reason in conjunction with trying to save a few pennies, helped us decide April vacation would be a little more of a "staycation" than a "vacation". We started the week with a big "to-do" list. Unfortunately so much of it was outside and this vacation's weather has been less than desirable. We managed to get one solid day of raking (for me) and clearing out our land (Matthew). We felt pretty accomplished and even feel a little better about looking out at our yard without snow. The days to follow however have been cold, rainy and a little lazy. We woke up to sunshine today--thanks MAINE, but much to our dismay, there was a chilling wind that kept us bundled up inside. I managed to get Level 2 of the 30 Day Shred in, followed by a walk...but other than that, today was just another lazy day. After an hour or so of grad school work, I decided what I was missing most of all during vacation was a good recipe. I was limited with supplies, but managed to pull of these amazingly delicious cookies. (recipe to follow later)

After taste testing a cooking and thinking about everything we should be doing, we decided to tackle something we wanted to do...brewing our next batch of home brew. 

We had just finished the last of our porter...

(...yep, there it is!)

So, we decided to pour ourselves a beer and start brewing. A few hours later, the sweet smell of barely and hops filled our kitchen. We are now waiting for fermentation and should be bottling next weekend. Then, the 3-4 week waiting period begins. The timing is perfect to kick off the sunny, warm, hopefully not disgustingly cold Maine weather. 

These bottles will soon be filled with delicious (we hope) Pale Ale. Someday this label might be famous. Just wait. Although the "to-do" list still awaits for tomorrow, our Thursday afternoon staycation turned out to be pretty successful. A home brew, burgers on the grill, and amazingly warm cookie sundaes (stay tuned)--could warm, sunny Florida really beat that?

Classic Sour Cream Coffee Cake

There's not a better recipe out there. I promise. The ease and deliciousness of this sour cream coffee cake cannot be beat. It is a family recipe passed down from my mom, and from her mom, and...you get the drift.

I have made this coffee cake more times than I can even count, but I still have not memorized it! I just love pulling out my recipe card. There's something comfortable about baking it. (I try to always call it a coffee cake seeing as I make it for breakfast. It makes me feel better about eating cake for breakfast.) I usually make this coffee cake with chocolate chips which is of course delicious...and I have even made it with cranberries...YUM! But this time, I tried something different...freshly picked freshly frozen blueberries. Last summer our blueberry bushes gave us a very plentiful blueberry crop. Although we love them and even gave many away, we ended up freezing a LOT. I pulled some out of the freezer and decided to give them a shot in this blueberry coffee cake. It was a HIT. (Serious competition for the chocolate chips!)

Here's how it's done...

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

(serves 8-20)

1 stick unsalted butter (or margarine) softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup sour cream

1 1/2 cup fresh (or frozen) blueberries (or chocolate chips)

1 teaspoon Cinnamon Sugar

Cream Cheese or Butter Cream Frosting (I cheat and use Betty Crocker!)

Crushed Pecans or Walnuts (Optional)

Preheat oven to 340 degrees. (330 convection) Mix softened butter, sugar, and eggs together until fluffy. Slowly add flour, baking powder, baking soda, and vanilla. Mix until well blended. Add sour cream. Mix. If using blueberries, lightly toss with flour and then fold into batter. (This will keep blueberries from sinking to the bottom.) If using chocolate chips, toss them in without flouring.

(had to get a shot with the kitchen-aid...)

Pour into grease bundt pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake for 45-60 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cake cool in pan for 15 minutes. Flip onto a cooling rack. After cake has completely cooled, melt 2 tablespoons of frosting and lightly drizzle over cake. Top with crushed pecans or walnuts. 

Serve as is or heat up for 15 seconds. Perfect with a cup of coffee! 

Top 15 Guilty Pleasures

First, I am totally "borrowing" this from Brown Eyed Baker's site. I read her blog entry and fell in love. Her title, My Top 15 Favorite Indulgences made me think of my own favorite delicious indulgences...or what I have come to sometimes call "guilty pleasures". They are my go-to, never get sick of, almost always make me feel better foods.

Here is the list...in no particular order...

Random Thoughts

After a few beautiful summer-like days, a rainy, cool Wednesday has set in. I like Wednesdays most of the time. First, it is my favorite day to spell with the kids--Wed-nes-day. Second, it marks a half way point for the school week. And finally, I have an extra 30 minute break while the kids work with our Speech-Language Pathologist. It's a great break mid week...I actually get to go to the bathroom without first begging my children to stay quiet while I ever so quickly dash out and race back before utter chaos breaks out...Wednesday's are decent.

Today is no different (except that vacation is oh so near!), but I do have a lot on my mind.


1. First, this just might be God's way of telling me to slow down.

Confession

Today I ate a whole bag of these...

...and then finished this whole bowl. And no, I am not exaggerating at all.  (And yes, my stomach hurt very bad for about 2 hours after.) But wait, there's more. I finished the jellybeans at about 2:00. The bright, sunny 65 degree weather created a grilling craving at the Foster household...so, yep...we had red hot dogs on the grill for dinner and two Shipyard summers (it is almost summer you know). And the best part of it all is this. I just ate a small bowl of Ben and Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream. Matt says the ice cream had no calories in it. Oh my.

I get to see this little bundle of love tonight and I C.A.N.T WAIT! (Off the record, she is absolutely the cutest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.)

My sweet niece Avery graced us with her presence in September. Ashley asked me to be in the delivery room for her birth. What an amazing experience! I am pretty sure my husband thought it might be the best birth control around--however, it may have just worked the opposite way. It was a long, tiring, emotional day filled with screams, laughter...and finally tears. Words cannot do justice to the blessing I witnessed that day, but I do feel I have a connection with Avery that is beyond explanation. My only complaint: she is growing up way too fast!

Dear Avery, Uncle Matt loved you right away. He drove from North Berwick to Augusta at 9:00 at night to meet you! 

Auntie Caitlin cried a little. And decided she would totally spoil you. Oh, and loved you right away.

Auntie Caitlin and Uncle Matt got a little bit of baby fever.

Love,

Auntie Caitlin

Are you in love yet?

Grace

After several weeks of "we shoulds", we finally attended 10/70 at the church we have been going to since November. It is a young married couples bible study...10 meaning married for less than 10 years, and 70--having a combined age of less than 70. We finally called for the details last night and showed up tonight at 6. I guess I can admit it now, but I was nervous all day today. I am not really sure why--but the thought of meeting new people and sharing my faith with people I had just met was a little intimidating. Relief quickly set in when I prayed about it. God reminded me that this was my family--these were my brothers and sisters in Christ--and I was going with my best friend. I am so glad we went. There's something about being around people who love God that both challenges, comforts, and relaxes me at the same time. I could just feel God working in that room.

The Reason Behind My Vacuum

This is my sweet Sawyer his first night with us. Oh.my.word. How did I even contain myself with all of this cuteness!? He was the furriest, most adorable little ball of yellow puff. 

It was love at first sight squeeze. If you had asked me how much I would love a dog a year or so earlier I would have listed all the reasons why I would never get a dog. They smell. They drool. They bark. They sniff you everywhere. They shed. They jump. They snore. Ugh, I could have gone on and on. After meeting my husband, I softened up to the thought of a dog, SOMEDAY. 

Monday Night Date Night

Can you guess which flavor I chose and which one my darling husband picked? Thats right, I picked both. I said I didn't care, but seeing as he knows me best (and I tend to need a little variety)--his suggestion was for me to choose the two flavors we would share. Boy am I one lucky gal. 

A Birthday Celebration!

A veryyy happy birthday to my younger sister Lindsey. She very graciously accepted turning the big 2-5. A quarter century! Ah...it seems like only yesterday we were in bunk beds arguing over who's turn it was to turn off the light or in high school ready to kill each other over a sweater. Times have indeed changed and my sweet enemy has turned best friend. (Gotta love that mom told us this all along.) <---GO MOM.

A little switch in tradition brought the whole fam to our house for a Sunday birthday lunch. I love the opportunity to try out a new recipe...insert How Sweet It Is's Crispy Chicken Fingers with Homemade BBQ sauce.

Three Things.

1. Today, I woke up to this. This is one of Mother Nature's worst April Fool's jokes...the snow that is. I was just thinking about a shopping trip for spring clothes. However, there is a silver lining...a snow day home with my handsome husband and sweet pup was an unexpected surprise.