Birthday Month & Bread

February brings several birthdays for our families again. January is packed full of them but February had a couple notable ones.

My youngest brother, Michael turned 12 years old on February 6. I am twice his age this year... crazy. I remember watching when he was born - how blue his skin was and how he didn't cry for awhile until the nurse rubbed some color back into him, how we really wanted him to be the 7th kid born on the 7th of February but he came at 11:50PM on the 6th, how he didn't have a name for almost a week because my parents couldn't decide what to name him. Some of the options on the table were: Harrison, Jason, Michael, and Travis and Justin's pick: Roly-poly-poop-and-pie. Thank goodness mom and dad didn't go with that one! :)

Anyways, Michael fits him perfectly and our family wouldn't be the same without him. He's in 6th grade this year and plays soccer, basketball, and baseball. He plays oboe in band and loves polar bears and the computer game Madden. He's still got HUGE eyelashes, adorable freckles, and shock blonde hair. He loves to tell you stories but he takes forever to get to the point... And he's still pretty small and cries at the drop of a hat.... maybe we babied the baby a bit too much. :)

Love you, Peanut! He was so small when he was born that I started calling him Peanut and it stuck. His other nicknames vary depending on which sister is talking to him.

If it's Katie, she calls him Sonny.

If it's Rachel, she calls him Babushka (which I realize is Russian for "grandmother" but who knows where she got it from)

If it's Amy, she calls him Bubba.

blowing out candles on his Superbowl cake

Mom & Dad with their baby

Mike & sister Rachel

Mike's birthday guests, who also may have been in town for the Superbowl...

Me & Zach, Trav's friend Jake, brothers Travis & Justin, Mom & dad, Rachel & Jared

The other milestone birthday we celebrated was Grandpa Cook's 92nd birthday on February 17. Yes, you read that right 92, as in ninety-two, as in 9 tens and 2 ones!

We went to Harbor Beach to their farm on Saturday for a birthday dinner and gifts. Zach, me, & my in-laws spent the night so it was nice to get some extra time with them when it wasn't so stinkin' loud from the rest of the Cook family chatter. :)

Grandpa Cook is doing so well for a man of his age. Actually, he's doing a lot better than most 70 year olds I know! He just wears glasses and has NEVER had a cavity in all his life! He sailed the Great Lakes as a young man, married Minnie, had 5 children and ran a farm complete with crops and cows for many years. He's also got a memory for dates like none other! He can tell you the date to the date when he started sailing one season, or the exact date and year he bought out the neighbors farm, or how much sugar beets cost in the spring of 1952. It's pretty ridiculous but also pretty impressive!

Happy Birthday, Grandpa Cook! You are loved by many!

Singing Happy Birthday!

It's probably a good thing they didn't put 92 candles on there!

Grandma Cook, Sue, & Aunt Marge prepping the cake for eating

If I back up to January for a bit, I got to make a few exciting purchases! And they're only exciting because I waited and waited and waited to get them and now I'm so glad! One was a cozy down comforter. It's the best. Sinking into our pillow top bed with that comforter on top is SO lovely. I could stay in there all day! Well, at least all morning, which I've gotten to do a lot of lately due to our snow days and Presidents' days. :)

The second thing was the duvet cover for the down comforter. I went back and forth on colors, patterns, and designs but finally went with a complete bedding set from Pottery Barn. I was not disappointed at all! It gives our room a little pop of color which it desperately needed since all the walls everywhere are white. Plus it fits over the comforter perfectly too since we also got that at PB. I'll be sad when summer's here and the down comforter will have to go away. But until then, I'm enjoying it!

And last but not least, I have found a WONDERFUL bread recipe! I've made it twice now because the first time I didn't bake it long enough and the middle was still doughy, whoops! Anyways, I made it again Monday and it got my in-laws stamp of approval when they came over for dinner last night. Zach loves it too! I got the recipe from here. I followed her directions exactly. Bread is too sensitive for me to go messing around with the ingredients or doing my usual measuring method of estimating... I learned that the hard way.

Just beware, it makes 2 big loaves and it was pretty tough on my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. Probably because there's between 6-8 cups of flour might be the reason it was a huffin' and puffin' away.

But who cares.

The machine lived and we got yummy warm bread!

I usually eat as many slices as possible when it comes out of the oven because it's only warm and fresh once. Reheating is just not the same. My recommendation is to slather butter on it then drizzle some honey on top. Or put raspberry preserves on it. That's good too. Actually, just about any way you eat homemade bread is good.

bread straight from the oven

It might be weird to say, but I was super scared of making bread from scratch. It just seemed so complicated and too many things could go wrong then I would have wasted lots of time and ingredients. But it's not so bad after all. The result was worth the risk of learning how!

homemade bread success!

Love,

Sarah

Fall

Well, a whole bunch of things happened this past week.

1. The leaves are turning colors and are in their prime. The weather has been gorgeously sunny and warm which makes it so much easier to enjoy them.

2. I picked a few pumpkins and squash from the garden at the farm. One little pumpkin went to my co-worker and friend for her son's first birthday! The others are on our front steps for decoration. Can't wait to pick some more and carve them! I also took a few pictures of my mother-in-laws squash. They are HUGE! I forget what they're called, but they're ginormous and look like a goose body with a long neck. Apparently you can use them for things similar to what you would do with pumpkins. I'll have to experiment. If I can find one small enough to fit in my oven that is...

3. The monarch chrysalis in my classroom finally "hatched" and the butterfly came out! It was hanging on a file cabinet drying out its wings when I arrived around 7:15 on Tuesday. I borrowed a big butterfly net/cage thing from one of the second grade teachers, added so sticks, and soaked a napkin in apple juice to feed the new butterfly. The kids loved stopping to look at it during the day. Around 2:45 we went out to the playground to set it free. This was the most nerve racking part because sometimes when you toss the butterfly in the air, it falls straight back to the ground... I warned the kids about this then told them to back away if it fell. So, I took a deep breath and tossed the little guy up into the air and away he flew! It was SO COOL! The kids chased it waving and yelling, "Goodbye, butterfly!" I wish I had my camera there that day. Seeing the whole transformation from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly was a fabulous reminder of how cool and awesome God is. With every change that happened, I was amazed at the creativity of God and his power over creation.

4. I took my students out to the Reading Garden this week. The Reading Garden is a grassy area just outside my classroom with picnic tables, benches, and huge sunflowers. They took a stuffed animal outside to read to however I'm not sure how much reading got done. They were so distracted by dewey grass, hot sun, and bees buzzing around the flowers that they did more talking than reading. Oh well. I'm trying. Here's a few pictures:

5. Friday night was the Homecoming parade and football game for Big Rapids High School. A couple good high school friends met me at the parade. Zach met up with us for dinner at Pizzeria Vivo (a relatively new restaurant in town that was a house they converted into an italian restaurant). The pizza was delicious. Whitney & I split a pesto garden vegetable pizza while Eric & Zach split an all meat pizza. Then it was off to the football game. Which unfortunately was not much fun to watch since we got blown out of the water.... We played the "Bay City John Glenn Bobcats" and that's how the announcer said their name every time over the loudspeaker. The whole name. All words. City. School. And mascot. Instead of, "The fumble was recovered by the Bobcats," or "The ball is on the Bobcat 34 yard line, " he said, "The fumble was recovered by the Bay City John Glenn Bobcats!" and "The ball is on the Bay City John Glenn Bobcats 34 yard line!" It was one of the only humorous things about that game.

6. Zach and I took the Trinity Fellowship membership class Saturday. It was scheduled to be from 9AM-4PM and we thought, "No way it will actually go until 4. We'll probably get done around 2:30-3:00." Oh no. It went all the way to 4. Zach was starting to get antsy because he's got another field of soybeans left to harvest and the weather was beautiful yesterday. We finished the class and he zipped off to the field. I ran errands around town and stopped in my classroom real quick to bring some stuff home to work on. I didn't feel like working there after being in a meeting all day. On my drive home, I saw a bunch of little kids standing on the edge of the field watching Zach drive the combine. They live across the street from the field and saw him working yesterday and asked for a ride but he was done for the evening. He told them to come back the next day and they did! Zach said they rode 4 rounds with him and kept asking questions but something wasn't working right on the combine so Zach was trying to figure that out and answer all their questions (all 3 of them packed in there with him at once!). He did manage to find out that they attend Crossroads (where I teach) but when I asked him what their names were, he said he didn't know. He never asked. :) Oh, Farmerboy.

7. I made Pumpkin Monkey Bread yesterday and it was DELICIOUS! It took nearly 3 hours to make because I had to let the dough rise twice (an hour each time). The best part was when it was baking in the oven and the whole house smelled like pumpkin and cinnamon! It turned out well, besides that it fell apart a bit when I turned it out onto a tray... It was 9:00PM by the time it was done and I got to eat some but it was so worth it! Full post on this yummy fall treat to come.

Crazy Bread Lady

First I was the Pickle Lady.

Now I'm the Bread Lady. I've made 3 loaves in the past 3 days. I think it's this fall weather that makes me want to smell cinnamon & pumpkin pie spice in the kitchen ALL the time.

On Friday I made a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread, minus the raisins. I didn't realized I didn't have any until it was too late. Threw that in the bread machine on Friday night, set the delayed start timer, and woke up to delicious, warm, cinnamon-y bread.

Saturday I took the day off bread making because I was crazy busy. Football game. Driving my brother around to get a few last minute things for the homecoming dance. Small group. It was a long and tiresome day. Not what I needed after a crazy week again last week with the kiddos at school.

Today after church I threw a batch of pumpkin bread into the bread machine. I'd never made it in the bread machine before and I was interested to see how it would turn out. Once that got going, I set to making a handmade batch of pumpkin bread.

Well, here are the results:

Bread machine pumpkin bread = bread that tastes a bit like pumpkin, slightly sweet. Would probably be good topped with apple butter or regular butter and cinnamon sugar.

Handmade pumpkin bread = sweet and cake-like full of spice. Maybe top it with some butter. Maybe. It's that good by itself.

The difference lies in the ingredients. Take a look at the sugar and fat content in these puppies:

Bread machine: 1 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp butter

Handmade: 3 cups sugar, 1 cup oil

Ummm yeah. That's why the handmade one is so much better. :) But don't worry. The handmade recipe yielded MUCH MUCH MORE! I got 1 loaf plus 24 muffins out of it. The bread machine recipe yielded one loaf.

All that being said. We're carb loading until it's gone. I'm sending some (most) of the muffins with Zach to work. The rest I will thoroughly enjoy.

Happy Fall!

Love,

Sarah

P.S. I'll update with some photos at a later time.