Sunday, May 27, 2012

Making BBQ Rub

In honor of Memorial Day, and all the cooking on the grill that goes along with it, I decided I'd share my recipe for making dry rub for BBQ. This is a basic rub that I use for lots of different meats. This works well on ribs, pork chops, brisket, and chicken. 

Start with 1 1/4 Cups of brown sugar

Add 1 1/4 Cups of white (granulated) sugar

1/2 Cup of salt (I use kosher)

1/4 Cup pepper (I usually use fresh ground pepper, but I didn't have any around today)

1/4 Cup paprika

Once you have all of this layered goodness together, 

take a fork and stir it together

After it's blended a bit, put the lid on your air-tight container and shake it up until it's really well blended. Since it's all dry goods, it will keep for months, but hopefully you're cooking out enough that you'll go through it more quickly than that.

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Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Styling in tongues

"Mommy, do you know how to make a French braid?"

"Not yet."

"Do they need to be done in French?"

 

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All-knowing

"Daddy, how did Mommy know what I was going to ask her?"

"Because she's your mother. She knows eve-ry-thing."

"Nooooo! She doesn't know everything like Santa Claus!"

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Thursday, May 03, 2012

April 2012

Dear girls,

This past month marked the end of the baby years at our house, and the grand enterance of the big girl years.

Emily, you're getting all of the honors this month because you've finally made a big accomplishment, and transition. You are officially out of diapers! It was just like everything else you've done, from crawling to walking. You did it on your own terms and in your own sweet time, but when you were ready, that was it. There was basically no transition at all. On a Friday you were wearing diapers, and on Saturday, you weren't. You did have a couple of small accidents the first week, but we could count them on one hand. And now you're all in. The only time you wear any kind of diaper or pull up now is when you go to bed or when we are going to be away from a bathroom for an extended amount of time.

Even then, though, we're finding that you can hold out for a couple of hours without having to go. In fact, at night, we can get you up one time before we go to bed, and you'll usually wake up dry. When we went to King William Fair last week, you held it for 2 solid hours because you absolutely refused to go in the port-o-potties. And when you have to do #2, let me tell you girl, we need to get you some books. You can stay on that thing for half an hour or more. We have had some very lovely conversations, though, while you were sitting on the throne.

Another transition you made this month, Emily, was one in your speech. I had mentioned before that you were starting to lose the baby words and use the correct words for things a little bit at a time, and the one you lost this month made me a little sad. You have completely stopped calling your sister "Yay-yay" and now call her "Yay-chel." I was really hoping that would be one of those nicknames that just stuck with her for her whole life and we could always tell the cute story of how you heard us calling her Ray-ray, and it just stuck with you. But it didn't. And it was another one of those that happened so quickly, it caught me off gaurd. One day it was Yay-yay and 5 minutes later, it wasn't any more.

Rachel, this has been an interesting month for you, too. After taking off so quickly on your bike at the end of last month, you didn't want to have anything to do with riding your bike for the next few weeks. It was all the result of a fall you had, and you were scared it was going to happen again. After a lot of coaxing, we finally got you to ride around a little bit on the street in front of the house. After you got your confidence back, you started wanting to ride every day, and even started asking to go on bike rides around the neighborhood. Last weekend we took a 4 mile ride on the Leon Creek Trail, and you did a fantastic job!

You and I also got a chance to go to a Spurs game thanks to you being such a great student and having great citizenship. I've always know you were a really nice girl, and it's great when others recognize that in you, too. You and I had a great time at the game, especially because the Spurs won.

You both had a wonderful time at Easter, and were very happy with the new things the Easter Bunny brought you. Of course, as always, your favorite thing to do was smash cascarones on everyone's head. Emily, I think this was the first year that you really understood what that was all about, and you would ask anyone and everyone if you could crack one on them.

This was the first year that we went to Fiesta without a stroller, and I think we probably could have gone one more year with bringing it, but hopefully next year you both will be able to enjoy the things we go to a bit more. It's not that you didn't enjoy what we went to, but with constant worries about having to go to the bathroom, we didn't get to do quite as much as we would have liked.

May will be another big transition for both of you, since you'll be ending your daily routines at the end of the month and starting with your summer routines. As always, we can't wait to see what the next month brings for you both. We love you very much.

Love,
Daddy 

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Sunday, April 29, 2012

Sunday morning bike ride

Rachel and I went for a 4 mile bike ride today. Emily chilled in the trailer. More than once, we passed people who said that Emily was the smart one.

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Sunday, April 15, 2012

A Sunday Ride...

Rachel has been scared to get back on her bike after she fell a few times. But I promised that I'd run beside her today and within 10 minutes she was riding up and down our street by herself, back and forth, without stopping.

2012-04-15_09.37.09.mp4 Watch on Posterous

After about 30 minutes, I asked her if she was up for a little bit longer ride, so together, we rode to the end of the street and back.

2012-04-15_09

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Sunday, April 01, 2012

March 2012

Dear girls,

Spring has sprung, and we've had a lot of changes in the past month. To begin with, your gandparents headed back to Illinois. We were all very sad to see then go, but I think you've both managed to adjust pretty well.

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The week after your grandparents left, you both discovered the other neighborhood kids. You've played with them before at our "National Night Out" parties, but now you've started playing with them every day. It's nice to see you all playing together and wearing each other out. I'm sure their parents feel the same way. Of course, since it's light later in the evening now, it's harder to get you to come inside when it's time, too.

Emily, we finally found out that you have been accepted into preschool for next year, so we're starting the countdown to you going to school. Along with that have started the "is she ready" questions, because we just worry about you a lot. It's still 5 months off, though, and if the last 5 months have been any indication, we think you'll be more than ready to go.

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Your speech gets better and better every day, and it seems like at least once a week now you ditch a baby word and start saying the actual word. "Bankie" has given way to "blanket" recently, and every time you do that, it takes us a few days to adjust and realize that your vocabulary has changed. You've also started repeating almost everything everyone says to you, much to the annoyance of your big sister.

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Rahcel, you got a citizenship award this month! We are so proud of you. As a reward, your school is giving you a free ticket to a Spurs game. That's going to screw up my "I'm not watching the NBA this year," but I think it's for a great reason. Your teacher has nothing but great things to say about you, and we know you're going to blaze right out of kindergarten and into first grade. We already knew this, but in your reading tests, you came out way above grade level. You can read words no kindergartener has the right to know. The other day, you were reading a box on the counter and it had the word "protein" on it. You read the whole thing without skipping a beat, like you've known the word "protein" your whole life.

We've had a lot of fun checking the garden each day since spring break, and some of the things we planted are coming up fast. However, a lot of the things we planted are getting eaten by bugs, so we're going to have to do something about that. It's great to see you both so interested in the things that are growing, though, and I can't wait until we're able to harvest some good things to eat.

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Finally, we had a very exciting thing happen on the very last day of the month. Rachel, you learned to ride your bike! You've been riding around with your training wheels up off the ground a few inches for the past couple of months, and doing a great job of balancing when you ride. It didn't take you long at all to get up and riding, and within an hour or so, you were starting on your own, and riding in the street. I can't wait to start going for bike rides with you. I just hope the weather stays cool a little bit longer so we can enjoy it.

Next month is Fiesta month, and we can't wait to take you both to some events to see how much fun you have. We love you very much!

Love
Daddy 

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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Everything's coming up green!

After our rain last night, we checked the garden today to discover that we had a lot more plants coming up!

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