Reece, the climber

Well it looks like Reece may not have to perfect his crawl after all. He's got the lowman army crawl down pat. Only a few times has he crawled on all fours. But it looks like he's decided not to mess with all that nonesense. He's started pulling himself up on everything! It started at his grandparents house and their low coffee table. Combine that with the candle he just had to have, and we've got a little boy who has figured out there is a whole lot more to see up higher.  His new favorite past time is figuring out just how many things there are to pull himself up on.  This picture was taken the day he turned 9 months old.

Baby Back Ribs

This is one of my favorite recipes. I use this dry rub every time I make ribs. And I've recently started using it on other cuts of meat. We just had it on tri-tip a few days ago and it came out wonderful. This is the first time I've made this BBQ sauce, it was really great and had alot of flavor.

Dry Rub

I usually quadruple the recipe then put it all in a jar with a screw top lid. Then I could use whatever I needed and wasn't remaking it all the time.

3T brown sugar

1 1/2 T paprika

1 1/2 T salt

1 1/2 T pepper

1t garlic powder

Rub into ribs, front and back, cover and let ribs sit in fridge overnight.

BBQ Sauce

This makes ALOT. I had a single rack of babyback ribs and cut the recipe in half, I still had some left over.

Ingredients

2 cups ketchup

2 cups tomato sauce

1 1/4 cups brown sugar

1 1/4 cups red wine vinegar

1/2 cup unsulfured molasses

4 teaspoons hickory-flavored liquid smoke

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon celery seed

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper

Mix all ingredients and simmer on stove. The longer it simmers, the thicker it gets.

Turtle Bars

This week's recipe is Turtle Bars. I found this on allrecipes.com (which is my go to recipe site) I altered the recipe a bit based on allrecipe.com reviewers and some experimenting.

Ingredients

Crust
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 c butter softened
1 cup packed brown sugar

Filling
1 cup chopped pecans
1 1/3 cup butter
1 cup dark brown sugar

Topping
2 cups Semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions
Combine crust ingredients in large mixer bowl. Beat at medium speed of electric mixer 2 to 3 minutes or until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Pat mixture evenly onto bottom of ungreased 13 x 9 inch baking pan.

Sprinkle pecans evenly over crumb mixture.

Combine butter and brown sugar for filling in small saucepan. Cook and stir over medium heat until entire surface is bubbly. Cook and stir 1/2 to 1 minute more. Pour into pan, spreading evenly over crust.

Bake in 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) oven 18 to 20 minutes or until entire surface is bubbly. Remove from oven; and let set for 3-5 minutes, then sprinkle with chocolate pieces. Let stand 2 to 3 minutes to allow chocolate to melt; use knife to swirl chocolate slightly.

Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Use sharp knife to cut into bars.

So behind!!

Well we're just going to concede in the fact that I haven't really been keeping up. I guess we got a little busy with two kids, the holidays and vacation! I didn't even get to decorate my blog for Christmas. Oh well. One of my New Year's Resolutions is to try and keep up with my blog. I'm also going to try and post a weekly recipe for everyone. So here's a cliffnotes version of the last few months.

Christmastime





Then on January 8th we took a cruise to the Carribean!








You can see all the pictures on my facebook account.



Keegan has been going to preschool and loving it. He barely says goodbye to me when I drop him off. But he is always glad to see me when I pick him up. Today we had to keep him home from school because he's nursing a cold, and we just found out this morning he has double ear infections poor baby.

Reece is all over the place. He'll be 9 months old on the 8th. He's got his little army crawl down pat and working hard on his regular crawl. He's also pushing himself up into a situp position on his own. And just a few days ago, he pulled himself up on his grandparents coffee table. Standing position all on his own! Somebody please slow him down LOL!

Pumpkin Patch

Battle of the Salons Final Four!

Yes I'm back again

Do I get to use the excuse that I have TWO kids now so I don't have time?! NO!? ;) Well this time I'm going to be selfish. A few months ago, I was invited to compete in a Battle of the Salons. We were paired with another salon, and we had all day Friday to style five models hair, using a given theme. The salon that earned the most points advanced to the next level. Well we won our first competition and are on our way to the FINAL FOUR. So here are some pictures.