I love you. ... I know.

Liam sure is proud of his Millennium Falcon. He’s gotten lots of emails about it over the past few weeks. No one was more impressed by his sweet ride than his girlfriend, Emerald, though. When Emerald and her parents (Our good friends Jake and Jenn) visited us this week, our little Han Solo couldn’t wait to share with his Princess Leia. You know we had to take pictures, right? I’ll let them tell the story.

BABY STAR WARS
EPISODE I: THE FIRST ENCOUNTER

And the rest is history. Do you like how our Han Solo decided that formal wear was the way to go to impress his princess, instead of his everyday smuggler’s getup? Little do they know that this meeting is only the beginning of their future happily ever after together… in a galaxy far, far away.

To check out all of our pics of Liam’s Millennium Falcon and how we made it from start to finish, including pics of Liam posing with his schnauzer wookiee sidekick and romancing the lovely Princess Emerald, check out our Flickr gallery: We Made the Millennium Falcon. Love and thanks to Jake and Jenn for their permission to share Emmy’s photos. If you’d like to contact them, drop us a line.

For those of you that really know me, you know I love creative projects. And our kid. I collect creative projects like some women collect shoes. I don’t have a lot of shoes, but I do have a lot of creative projects. It may be a bit of an obsession.

Okay, back up. Instead of saying I’m obsessive, I’ll say that I am passionate about documenting the life story of our son in a wide variety of FUN ways to share with him later in life. We already write him letters here on our blog, and I wanted to do something different with our photos.

We take SO MANY PHOTOS. You have no idea just how many; take what we put up daily on Flickr times 100, because there’s just as many photos taken each day that don’t even get posted. I’m not kidding. We’re always trying to capture our daily life and memories in photos. We’ve always taken a lot of pictures, but it wasn’t until Liam arrived and we saw how quickly time flew by and how much he changed even from week to week that we realized we needed to step it up if we wanted to capture and preserve all of those fleeting memories.

Keeping all of these photos in a gallery doing nothing is so boring; using them to tell a story instead is better. Using the cartoon/comic medium to tell that story makes it FUN.

So that’s what inspired Geekling Comic, and what will continue to drive this project. We are using comics as a vehicle to tell the story of the friendship between Liam and his BFF Winston in a fun and creative way to imagine what they’d be thinking or saying as they grow and learn about each other and the world around them together. And as Liam grows he’ll be able to contribute and write the stories himself.

So I present Geekling Comic and hope you like it. I have loads of story ideas, and the second strip has already been made and is ready to go. The plan is to update weekly, but you know… being Liam’s mom will always be my number one priority. On top of my full-time teaching job, successful GEEKSOAP business, updating our family blog, committing to taking at least one photo a day and reading and logging at least one book a day with Liam PLUS everything else we make and do…it can get a little busy. But life’s not going to move any slower so we’ll *have* to update regularly if we want to keep up!

Also, thanks to a dear friend of ours for reminding me today when I expressed a little shyness about the project what the ultimate goal is: I’m doing this for Liam and no one else. Even if no one ever reads Geekling Comic but us, it’s already a success in that it will be a unique method of storytelling for us to share with Liam one day. Hooray!

Just think: this obsessi… erm, passion means that when Liam grows up, we’re going to have so much documented in photos and text to share with him… that he’ll be able to keep. All the letters we’ve written him and comics we’ve made can be compiled into one big digital and physical book of awesome. And photos. So many photos. ALL THE PHOTOS.

Heaven help us if we ever have a second child.

Thanks, everyone, for your support as we launch our newest family project <3

I rest my case.

I know it’s April, but this project started back in January and it has just taken that long to find the time to finish. We had bought the geekling this exersaucer thing that came in a huge box shortly after Christmas. Per usual, we put it all together and the kid enjoyed climbing in and on the box more than he did playing with the thing that came in it. This caused Lucas and I to do a lot of reminiscing about our own childhoods, and how much fun it was to make believe with boxes. We pulled out a couple more boxes we had lying around for Liam to play with. It took less than 10 seconds for me to make the jump from pretending one of the boxes was a car to, “How cool would it be to have a Millennium Falcon?” … everyone’s other vehicle, of course.

In no time at all I had formed the body of our Millennium Falcon out of cardboard using the exersaucer box and cutting some additional framework from extra boxes we had stored in the garage from our move back in October. I even had the perfect box to form a geekling-sized cockpit to sit in. We used a lot of packing tape to piece it all together. Then all we had to do was wait for decent weather so I could papier-mâché the whole thing out on the driveway. I’m sure our neighbors thought we were crazy. Or cool, maybe? I’m leaning towards crazy, though.

Anyway, fast forward a few more weeks and all of the papier-mâché was thoroughly dry. The Falcon was looking sweet! Then it was time to paint. We picked up some silver spray paint at the hardware store and I then proceeded to destroy the brand new garage floor with it. Hey, at least the paint on the floor is in the shape of the Millennium Falcon, am I right? Besides, that’s what garage floors are for; a constant reminder of how we did stuff in there, plus the shape is like a badge of awesome that makes me smile every time I get out of the car.

Lucas insisted that the Falcon stay out in the garage for awhile after spray painting, and for good reason; it smelled pretty strong. Our little project aired out for over a month. I’d say it was because it needed plenty of time to air out, but in reality, we just got busy. Fast forward now to this week, my spring break. (Perk of being a teacher.) Number two on my Spring Break To Do List was “Finish painting the Millennium Falcon.” Isn’t that on most peoples’ to do lists? Just a typical weeknight for our family. (For those wondering, number one on my Spring Break To Do List was re-hanging 76 pieces of dinosaur artwork in Liam’s nursery. Check!)

Sure, our Millennium Falcon was satisfactorily silver, but it needed some detail work. I admit I scoured the Internet for good reference material, (I also like that when searching for the Millennium Falcon on Google that I get no less than 70 personal results. That’s because we have so many cool friends with similar interests.) but in the end, I took a lot of artistic liberties with my details. I still think it turned out alright.

For those of you that know us, we tend to take a lot of photographs. Of everything. So you won’t be surprised to find that I took photos all along the way, to document our progress and process in making a Millennium Falcon for our 9 month old son. Because really, how many kids can say they have their very own Millennium Falcon? Mine can’t, but that’s only because he can’t talk yet. But when he can… he’ll be one of a very small number of kids that can say they have their own Millennium Falcon.

Over breakfast this morning I threw together a bandolier for the Schnauzer out of craft foam. He makes a pretty convincing albino wookiee sidekick, amirite?

For the full gallery of 47 fun photos including more cuteness than you can stand + all of the process photos, check out our Flickr gallery here: We Made the Millennium Falcon. The photos go in order to show you how the project progressed.

Update! Liam’s girlfriend Emerald came to visit and we just happened to have a Princess Leia outfit for her, and we just happened to take pictures and write about how they shared the Millennium Falcon together.

We took Liam to the neighborhood park for the first time and have made a point of getting outdoors, if even for just a short while, at every opportunity. Though we’ve used the barbecue at least three times a week since we got it at Christmas, it just seems natural with such nice weather to hang out in the sunshine a bit longer while dinner cooks. The smell of chicken or steak on the grill makes me eager for summer to arrive. Yes, I know spring has just barely sprung, but the idea of lazy summer days spent playing outside with the kid is so close I can hardly stand it. We’re planning a Canadian summer trip to visit family this year; hard to believe that Liam will be a year old by that time! We can’t wait to see our friends and family members in Vancouver, the Okanagan, and Calgary. We’ll get to take Liam through the Canadian Rockies, my most favorite drive ever. We’ll stop at all of our usual places along the way, including Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park so that we can take Liam to the place where Lucas proposed. I can’t wait to get back up there to visit!

The tulips I planted in November have started to sprout, albeit slowly. I think it’s because they were planted along our front walkway, which gets next to no sun. Next year I should plan accordingly, but if I get at least one or two bulbs to fully bloom I’ll be happy; it’s our first home and the first time we’ve planted anything. Can you believe we’ve lived in the house for nearly 6 months already? Time sure flies.

Needless to say we’re enjoying the recent warm weather trend and sure hope spring is here to stay! And if we get snow tomorrow, I’ll take the blame for jinxing it.

Making a custom board book was super easy. You literally pick a plain and simple layout and upload the pictures that you want for each left and right page spread, and add text if you want. Our board book was composed of 16 pictures; 2 of those included the front and back cover image, so there were 14 interior pictures. I used a picture of Liam for the front cover, and a cute photo of him over Lucas’ shoulder for “The end.” The pages include mama and daddy, all of his grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, and a few (but not all!) of our closest friends that we consider family and refer to as “aunt” or “uncle” with Liam… like the best man and maid of honor at our wedding. I like that he will be able to learn all of the faces of the people he sees the most and who love him in a special book made just for him. Right now he is completely enamored with books and obsessed with faces. What a perfect gift for him, right?

When I placed the order I honestly expected it to take at least three weeks for the custom printing and shipment. To my happy and unexpected surprise, I ordered the book on January 28 and received it on February 3. No kidding. The pages are thick with a coating that makes them very durable against baby drool; the printed images don’t flake off at the corners when they get wet from constant chewing, unlike several board books that Liam has. I think some of the pictures printed a little darker than I thought they would, but they’re clear and decent quality. I admit that only about half of the photos I used were at their full, original resolution; some I was unable to find originals of so they were uploaded at 800 x 600 pixels, but they looked just as good when printed as the pages that were uploaded at their original resolution. Overall I was really pleased with the quality of our book. Liam LOVES it.

I also have to point out that Pint Size Productions sells a lot of exclusive Sandra Boynton stuff. We have quite a few of her books, and they’re a lot of fun to read aloud because they’re full of silliness, something we’re never short of in the Karpiuk household.

Seriously, a truly personalized board book is a fabulous gift idea. I’m thinking of doing something similar to the pictures-of-family-members idea for my nephew’s next birthday, and I’ve already got ideas for other books I could make for Liam. I’m in love! Here are all of the pages of Liam’s Family. And if you’re not in the book, don’t worry, we already have a part 2 planned. It was hard getting everyone in just 14 pages!

2012 is here, and we’re wasting no time jumping right in and embracing change and new events in the household.

This week we’re all adjusting to a new daily routine now that Liam has started daycare. It was hard letting go and having him stay with people we didn’t know for the first time, but we got through it somehow. His teachers are all very kind and caring, so that helped. They also seem pretty tolerant of all of my questions, which I appreciate. I think they must be used to dealing with new parents leaving their kids for the first time, eh?

Before the week started, I was thinking that Liam switching to daycare wouldn’t be any different from my perspective than when he was at home with Lucas; I wouldn’t see him any less, right? But so much time is spent in the car or getting ready to go, and by the time I get over to pick him up and get him all ready to go and we drive home, it’s at least an hour before I really get a chance to sit down and interact with him when we’re not trying to go somewhere. And by the time we get home some nights and get through dinner, Liam is ready for bed already and I feel like I’ve barely seen him all day. It’s been hard on me. This week he’s been ready for bed so much earlier since he’s getting up earlier, not to mention that daycare wipes him out. I hope this is just a brief adjustment period and that once we all get into the groove, it’ll be better. We’re just not quite there yet, so it’s been a bit of an emotional week.

However, getting home and the three of us spending time together, even for a short amount of time before Liam goes to bed, is the best part of my day. I’m finding ways to make the most of every second I have with my boys.

Speaking of, we’ve spent this first weekend of 2012 doing all kinds of things together! The boys put the barbecue together yesterday, and we grilled steaks and asparagus for dinner last night, which was delicious. I finished a bunch of soap orders now that the store has re-opened, and I even found time to make homemade candles to give Liam’s daycare teachers as a thank you gift for helping us get through his first week successfully. We finally took the Christmas tree down, and I made homemade ice cream using our new Kitchen Aid ice cream maker attachment. Throughout the weekend we’ve enjoyed lots of snuggle time together and read books; I love how much interest Liam is showing towards books. Especially ones that squeak or that have different textures on the pages, like That’s Not My Dinosaur. (His current favorite.)

And speaking of dinosaurs, I’m finally getting around to putting art back up on our walls, including all of the dinosaur art in Liam’s room. Our original plan when we moved back in October was to get the walls painted right away, so I held off on hanging anything. Now that we’ve decided to wait until the spring to paint, I figured I could start putting things up. Not only am I tired of bare white walls that lack personality, I also realized that the holes I create when putting up art will still be visible after we paint anyway, so what was the point of waiting? I digress. With the Christmas tree gone and art on the walls, it’s beginning to feel even more like home.

What else this week? Liam is now up to three new foods – sweet potatoes, which he likes; bananas, which he loves (funny, right?); and green peas, which he doesn’t seem to really like. While he’ll gobble up two tablespoons (or more) of sweet potatoes and bananas easily, he makes faces the whole time we try to feed him peas. He’s barely eaten more than a teaspoon of peas on every occasion we’ve tried, and sometimes the icky face is accompanied by a whole body shudder, which is kind of (totally) hilarious. Next on our list will be either pears or apple.

Have I mentioned yet how much I absolutely love making our own baby food? (Sarcasm there for those that are tired of hearing me talk about it.) I think it has to do with the way that I associate cooking and baking for my family as being one way I show how much I love them. For example, this weekend I was craving more family time with my boys after a long and busy week. I was drawn to cooking up a big homemade breakfast, grilling steaks and asparagus for dinner, and making ice cream from scratch with them. FOR them. The idea of steaming fresh veggies and fruit and making baby food for Liam myself really makes me feel like I’m doing something good for him. I love it! (And I know the Baby Bullet is totally gimmicky, but seriously… I adore it so much, it has made making and storing all of Liam’s food fun and easy.)

Oh! And I almost forgot. We started a “Project 365″ photo project on January 1. The idea is that we take at least one photograph a day every day for a year. I’ve been posting the photos in our Project365 gallery every day so far, and over time these will create a visual timeline of our life in 2012. I really like the idea of journaling everyday life through photos to see how we all grow over the course of year. I’ve decided that keeping up with our Project365 is my 2012 New Year’s resolution, because it takes some work to post each day, not to mention remembering to photograph something each day. And some days it feels like there’s nothing exciting worth photographing, but I’m trying to use this project as an opportunity to try new things with our fancy DSLR camera, too.

With so much jam-packed excitement in only the first week of 2012, just imagine how much more we have in store to look forward to! Wishing you and your family all the best in 2012.

I saw a picture of a hand print Santa floating around Pinterest recently but there was no how-to, so I decided to replicate the idea and turn it into a special gift to celebrate Liam’s first Christmas. We even made the clay together, too! The best part? This project was “free” for me to make since I already had all the materials at home, and I bet you do, too! Here’s how we did it:

First you’re going to need some clay. Teaching 4th grade and making salt dough maps of Indiana in the classroom paid off; here’s the recipe I used to make the perfect salt dough clay:

Perfect Salt Dough
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup lukewarm water

Mix the flour and salt thoroughly in a large mixing bowl, and add the water. Use your hands to combine it all really well and begin forming “dough.” Knead, knead, and knead some more until you get the right consistency. I found that if it was a tad too dry to form the perfect ball of dough that all I needed to do was wet my hands a little and get back to kneading.  You want a nice soft, smooth ball of dough to work with. Not too grainy or dry, and not too sticky.

Sprinkle flour on your work surface and grab a rolling pin. It’s kind of like making holiday sugar cookies now; roll your dough out to form an even, flat disc of dough. I didn’t grab a ruler or anything so I can’t tell you exactly how thick or thin we rolled our dough out to, but remember that you need it to be thick enough so that when the hand is pressed into the dough that the indention doesn’t make the ornament too thin in places, and thus super fragile.

Making the hand prints with a 5.5 month old took two sets of hands. (Not including Liam’s hands!) Lucas held Liam and I pressed his hand into the dough. With his hand down, I made sure to give a little extra (gentle) press of each finger and the heel of his hand to ensure a good impression. Then I just rotated the dough and we repeated the process until I had eight little hand prints. If the dough is a little sticky, rub some flour on your kiddo’s palm before pressing. It helps!

When the hard part was done, I used a sharp knife and cut out around the edge of each hand print, leaving a thin edge around the whole hand. Don’t forget to punch a small hole near the heel of each dough hand print so that you can add a ribbon for hanging later! Remember that the hand is going to hang on the tree with its fingers down, since the fingers form Santa’s beard.

Now let the hand prints dry for about 4 days. Just like cut-out sugar cookies, we used a spatula to transfer the little hand print cut-outs onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Don’t bake them, though! Just set the cookie sheet in a safe place and let the hand prints dry out. In 2 days, turn each hand over so that the back side can also be exposed to the air and the ornaments can dry out all the way through. The waiting is actually the hardest part!

Now that you have perfectly hardened little hand prints, it’s time to paint! I like to spray each with clear acrylic spray sealer first, just to give me a good, smooth base for painting. For painting, I didn’t use anything fancy, just acrylic craft paints in red, white, black, and flesh tone.

I painted our Santas in layers, that is, that I went through and painted the swipe of skin tone on all of the ornaments first, then went back and painted the white pom pom in the thumb and made the white fur trim of the Santa hat next, and then did the red hat. By the time I had finished painting the same layer on all eight ornaments, the first one was dry enough to continue to the next paint layer. Then I went back with white and painted the length of each finger and had them meet up with the face to form the beard; I also did a quick set of “bumps” in white that overlapped the face a bit to create a mustache at the top of the beard. Then I gave all of my Santas a red dot nose. Once noses were done, I went back with a little pink that I made from mixing my leftover red and white on the palette to add dots for blushing cheeks, and a dot for the mouth just below the nose. I let everything dry for about 10 more minutes, and then I used black and a super fine paintbrush to add in details like outlining the mustache area, adding eyes, and outlining a bit on each finger of the beard and the pom pom to make those parts of Santa really stand out.

Let the paint dry thoroughly and then get out your Mod Podge. I gave the fronts two coats of Mod Podge each, allowing for ample time to dry between coats. (Until the white of the Mod Podge had gone completely clear.) Then I flipped the Santas over and got out my black paint and super fine paintbrush so that I could put Liam’s name and the year on the back. Once the black paint dried, I then gave the backs two coats of Mod Podge, too.

I gave both the front and back of each ornament a final quick spray with clear acrylic sealer just to add a finish to the entire project. This gave each ornament a little extra protection and a slightly glossy sheen. I also feel like it helps keep the ornaments from having a bit of a tacky, sticky feel from the Mod Podge.

For the finishing touch, I strung up each ornament with festive red and green ribbon so that they could be hung on the Christmas tree. If the holes you made in the dough initially for this purpose are a bit clogged from all of the Mod Podge and spray sealer layers, grab something like the tip of a pen to punch through and clean out the opening so you can get your ribbon through.

And voila! Your child’s hand print is forever preserved as an ornament for the tree, and these ornaments make great gifts for grandparents and other family members. Don’t want to do Santa? No problem – just follow the steps to create the ornaments and when it comes time for painting, paint the whole thing a single color or decorate them another way. No matter how you paint, you’ve got the memory of your child’s hand print to keep.

I’m thinking of making these Santa hand print ornaments every year so that we can compare how Liam’s hand grows as he gets older, what do you think?

Happy holiday crafting with your kids!

I was looking at my work calendar today and suddenly realized that next week is the last full week of school before winter break. Not that I’m complaining about an impending vacation or anything, but WOW. Suddenly Christmas is here. Thankfully my shopping is done and we even managed to get the Christmas tree up this weekend, something I’m proud of considering how busy we’ve been.

This will be the 6th Christmas that Lucas and I have spent together. In the past we’d always had a pretty standard 5′ Christmas tree. This year, though, we inherited my grandparents’ 12′ Christmas tree with plenty of ornaments and decor to accompany it, which is perfect to go in our brand new house. But let’s be honest: while the ceilings in our house are higher than standard ceilings, even they can’t quite accommodate 12′ of tree plus an angel on top. Thankfully the trunk is made up of several pieces that fit together, so we were able to leave out a single 2′ section to make the tree fit in our living room with the crown on the angel’s head just shy of the ceiling. Success! It was an all day affair fluffing and decorating, but totally worth it; not only is it nice to have grandpa’s old Christmas tree stay in the family and begin getting used again, it’s totally gorgeous and HUGE. It’s neat to remember all of the memories of it down at the lake house each year and think about how it’s got a new life being a part of the memories we’re creating for Liam in our house now. Sounds sappy, right? Newsflash: I’m a mom now; EVERYTHING and every moment is sentimental!

“OHMYGOD THE BOY JUST FARTED, QUICK HONEY GRAB THE CAMERA!” Yup, pretty much.

So then of course, what’s an all day event like putting up the Christmas tree without photos? Not an event in the Karpiuk household, that’s for sure! We obviously took a ton of photos, because putting up such a huge tree for our first Christmas in the new house and Liam’s first Christmas was a momentous occasion.

Here are just a few pictures from yesterday; the rest are all up on our Flickr account in the Christmas Tree 2011 set, which will eventually be part of a larger Christmas 2011 collection since you know there’ll be a heck of a lot more photos to come.

Oh, and that photo of Liam looking like he’s about to eat your face off? That’s his new thing: the snort laugh. He wants to join in on our laughter, so he’s developed this hilariously hideous snorting laugh where he crinkles up his face and does a lot of repetitive, quick snorts in a row with his mouth WIDE OPEN. It’s hysterical. I need to get that on video, seriously.

Anyway, I guess all that’s left to do now is to wrap gifts and pick a picture or two for our Christmas cards this year so that they can get mailed. Considering how ambushed I feel by December, at least I’m mostly on top of things, right? Good luck with all of your holiday preparations!

We’ve been living in our new home for a few weeks now; I’ve been back to work for a few weeks now. Things have settled down and we feel comfortable in our new surroundings and routine. We’re getting the hang of it. This morning Liam woke early, and Lucas brought him to bed with us to eat and enjoy some snuggle time. We all watched a replay of last night’s Flames game and played (Liam loves to “stand” and “fly” in the air these days, so he mostly played) all cozy under the blankets together. Lucas fell asleep, and Liam went down for a nap. I got up and decided I was in the mood for some homemade chicken soup, it being a lazy “sick” lay-around-the-house day, so I threw together something for the slow cooker that would simmer all day and make us feel good at dinnertime. I even put together some homemade bread to bake. The boys woke up as I was finishing in the kitchen, and we lounged around the living room together and played on the floor some more. As we were all giggling at each other on the floor for no reason at all, it hit me.

This is perfection. This is happiness. And this is my life.

I am incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful husband and our beautiful son. Snuggling together, smiling and laughing and eating something that’s cooked all day from scratch together (Well, Liam didn’t have soup and bread, but… you know) in our new home, without anything else to do but enjoy each other’s company all day… well, if that’s not perfection than I don’t know what else it could possibly be. Even with my cold still lingering, and even dealing with the heartbreak of seeing my four month old with his first runny nose… today was great. And I look forward to many more days like it.

So now as I reflect over the whirlwind of the past few months – having a baby, moving into our first home, going back to work, the wonderful visit with my in-laws from Canada, celebrating my nephew’s birthday with family and friends last week – I realize that this is just where I was meant to be. This is just how things were meant to be, and I truly am blessed to have such a great life and a great family. 2011 has been good to us, even with the setbacks (Lucas’ kidney issues in January, whew, glad that’s over!) and I am thankful for every minute of it.

You may have noticed that the “Dear Liam” posts have “disappeared” from the front page of our blog here, but they’re not gone – we’ve actually put together a whole Dear Liam section of our website where we are going to continue to compile letters to our son (Can you believe he’s four months old this week?! He’s getting so big!) as well as links to video clips and photos, and other snippets of memories all into one place for easy access, sorting and archiving as we build a digital memory book for him. We welcome letters from family and friends, too, so if you ever feel like writing Liam a letter to include in his book, send it to him in an email and we’ll post it to our archive over in the Dear Liam section. If you want to be a regular contributor to the Dear Liam posts, we can even set you up with an account on the blog so you can just login and post directly – just let us know if you’re interested. I know one day Liam is going to appreciate reading about these early memories and how his family and friends felt about all of his milestones and our everyday happenings that are a part of his life.

Oh, and Liam took time out of his busy schedule to show off his Halloween costume; for baby’s first Halloween he dressed as Yoda from Star Wars. As if you didn’t see that coming. Our little geekling… we’re so proud! Happy Halloween!

Sunday’s opening Bears home game was Liam’s first, and we sure enjoyed dressing him in his little Bears jersey for the first time and watching the game together as a family. Liam is a pretty adorable little Bears fan, if I do say so myself.

To celebrate the return of football I decided to try my hand at making cheddar beer soup and homemade soda bread to eat for lunch during the game. I got the recipes from watching Claire Robinson’s Food Network show, 5 Ingredient Fix, the other day. Everything turned out really great; I followed the recipe for the soda bread exactly and formed two small rounded loaves from the dough instead of one larger loaf so that Lucas and I could make bread bowls for our soup. (This turned out to be a great idea, by the way.) The bread was the perfect density for a bread bowl and sopped up the flavor of the soup well.

For the cheddar beer soup we used Newcastle brown ale, whose nutty flavor blended nicely with the extra sharp cheddar cheese. I used whole grain flour instead of the all purpose white flour that the recipe called for in the thickening process, and I liked the whole grain texture that this produced. And speaking of the flour, we made sure our tablespoons were heaping, based on the recipe reviews that I read ahead of time. It seemed a lot of people took issue with the soup being too thin when made as written; heaping tablespoons gave us the perfect consistency, though.

One of my favorite parts of cooking together with Lucas is how we discuss the food we’ve made as we eat it, and talk about how the flavors turned out. For these recipes we talked about how different beers and/or cheeses in the soup would change the flavor and what combo we’d like to try next time. The recipe calls for 2 cups of cheese, and I think one thing we decided was that we’d want to add even more when we make it again. The soup was perfect in the bread bowls, and it’s definitely a fantastic football Sunday meal that we’ll make again and again, especially as we head into cooler weather.

Here we are, about mid September, and we haven’t begun packing yet. We close on the house on September 29, and we’re planning to make the move on October 5. This means we have just a few short weeks to get everything together! (Thankfully my mom is coming up to help watch Liam so I can get some packing done.) Then once we move, that gives us 5 days to get settled in the house before I return to work from maternity leave on October 10… nothing like cutting it close, huh? Speaking of returning to work, part of me is ready, but part of me is sad that these days cuddled with my tiny, precious little boy all day is coming to an end. He’s growing up so fast! I’ll also miss watching non-stop Food Network while nursing, too, but one perk to the move is that I’ll  be able to act on all of this foodie inspiration in my huge, brand new kitchen with my boys. The layout of the kitchen and living room is an open concept plan, which means we’ll be able to cook and interact with family and friends at the same time now; I’m so excited because this is without a doubt where we spend the most time. It won’t be long until Liam can help mama in the kitchen, too!

We’re going to be pretty busy the next few weeks but we’ll be sure to tell you all about it once we’re settled and back into the swing of things!