Tales of a Peanut: December 2011

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Friday, December 30, 2011

Jamesy-Wamesy

James is growing bit by bit every day and sometimes it takes me by surprise how grown up he is! Before Christmas Charlotte was eating lunch and I sat James in his Bumbo while she ate so that he could interact with us. He had a blast sitting up with us and just talked and talked. After about 10 or 15 minutes I tried to put him back in his activity gym because I figured his little torso would be tired but he cried and cried until I picked him back up and sat him back up. He is so happy and loves his Bumbo!

Thursday, December 29, 2011

December happenings

In order to try and catch up quickly I'm just going to post a hodge podge of pictures from the month of December leading up to Christmas. Please excuse the long post and multiple pictures!

After being introduced to her hat before we went to Santa's Village, Charlotte didn't want to take it off and wore it around the house for a day or two. With it and her flannel jammies she wasn't getting cold!

James has really mastered his head control and does well with torso control too! Before we know it he'll be a rolling and sitting machine!

Charlotte's imagination is in overdrive. As evidenced by this picture where she was "being a ghost"...

and this one where she was being a "draggin-fly" by dragging herself across the floor!

James got to try out his Bumbo for the first time and did a great job with it!

Later, Charlotte continued to encourage him during his tummy time and then promptly...

stole his Bumbo for herself. It's now her favorite place to sit and she says a lot that she had a pink one when she was little.

Serious James in his elf jammies.

Serious Charlotte too.

Before we took Christmas card pictures at my parents, I wanted to make sure that the outfit I had on looked ok on camera. So Charlotte agreed to take some pictures with me and they turned out so cute!

After the Christmas card picture I bribed Charlotte with two M&M's before dinner if she would hold James and take a picture in their matching Just Ducky Santa outfits. I think that bribe was well worth it!

James also went to church for the first time this month. He did great and slept through the entire service in his car seat! It was a little crazy taking two little ones to the service (Charlotte just loves the music and is really good so it's hard to make her go to the nursery that she doesn't really enjoy) but we managed somehow and were glad to get back in the groove.

Jamesy and I went and hung out with Gramme one morning

Charlotte enjoyed her last day of school for 2011. When I picked her up she had stickers in her hair and told me that she was being "fancy" like Fancy Nancy!

We had our annual Christmas party in mid-December and our friends Kelly and Tripp came up for it. They brought their new little girl, Catherine, and we were so excited that we finally were going to get to meet her! She was just as precious as I expected and she and James hit it right off. We were glad that we got to spend some time with them and look forward to seeing them again this spring!

James remained a happy baby even though he got his first ear infection. He kept Memma up most of the night when he spent the first night away from us. But we got him to the doctor and got him numbing drops and after a switch to a different antibiotic he was much happier. This smile is one day two of his new meds. Once he got those he was back to his happy self.

Charlotte fell and busted her lip a few days before Christmas. Thankfully it healed pretty quickly and hopefully she learned her lesson about horsing around like that.

Charlotte became obsessed with two bracelets that KayKay made for her. She was being silly on this day playing with them and posing for me with them!

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Recipe Wednesday - Brown Sugar and Balsamic Pork Loin

If you're looking for a good recipe for New Year's this one is a winner! I cooked it for dinner one night for our family and it was a big hit! Jason even suggested that I take a picture of Charlotte enjoying it so much...

I ended up doing the recipe with pork tenderloin's in the oven. We just baked for 45 minutes to an hour on 350 and they were perfect. I took them out and basted them for like the last half of the cooking time every 5-10 minutes or so. Turned out wonderful and is very easy! I also made this for Christmas with Jason's family and it was a big hit with them also.

The highlight of this recipe is the sauce. You could put it over any kind of meat that you want and it would be fabulous. For one pork tenderloin I made one recipe of sauce and had plenty left over for us to use during dinner and then some. For Christmas I made a little over four pounds of tenderloin (four one pounders) and made two recipes of sauce. I still had plenty to baste with, eat with dinner, and left over. But the sauce is good so you don't want to have too little!

Brown Sugar and Balsamic Pork

Some kind of meat -- I used pork
Sage
Salt
Pepper

Glaze
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1 Tablespoon Cornstarch
1/4 cup Balsamic Vinegar
1/2 cup Water
2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce

1. Combine glaze ingredients in a sauce pan.
2. Heat and stir until glaze thickens.
3. Cook meat according to directions -- in oven or slow cooker. Brush meat with glaze 2 or 3 times during the last portion of cooking time.
4. Serve meat with remaining glaze.

From Let's Dish via Pinterest

Monday, December 26, 2011

Our friend Frisbee

This year, Santa sent one of his elves to our house to help us celebrate Christmas. Charlotte pronounced his name to be Frisbee and he kept us occupied through the month of December! He came to our house on December 1st and would put himself in a different spot in our house every morning when he came back from hanging out with Santa! We were sad to see him go on Christmas Eve but enjoyed him while he was here!