The Best Compliment

A couple of weekends ago I made an apple pie from the apple's on our tree in the backyard. I made this for my mom and dad. My dad is somewhat of an apple pie connoisseur, he eats it at many restaurants. I was not really out to to impress him, but just use up the apples we had. In the end my dad said it was THE BEST APPLE PIE HE'S EVER HAD. The best compliment... So I thought I'd share the recipe with the world. It's from my favorite recipie website: All Recipes.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup water with a bit of vanilla (but totaling 1/4 c.)
  
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 8 Granny Smith apples - peeled, cored and sliced
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• Sprinkle of nutmeg
  

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add water, white sugar and brown sugar, and bring to a boil. Reduce temperature and let simmer.
2. Place the bottom crust in your pan. Fill with apples, mounded slightly. Cover with a lattice work of crust. Gently pour the sugar and butter liquid over the crust. Pour slowly so that it does not run off.
3. Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes, until apples are soft.

Pouring the liquid over top makes the top all toffee and chewy goodness. The best apple pie ever.

Till Tomorrow

Jenn

Fun Times at Chez Jenn

So I haven't posted a whole lot of pictures lately. Why you ask, becuase with all the house selling craziness, that is almost over, (you can read more about it here) I haven't been the best blogger. So as we took all the picture off our camera for our NYC trip I decided to post a couple of the best ones. I'm still madly in love with my super good camera.



Here is Lucas playing outside on a fall day. He was getting brave and going down the slide head first. Plus don't you love that hoodie he's wearing. I bought it for 8 dollars at a used kids store. It's a nice Gap one so it's great quality.


Darryl and Lucas having fun. Darryl has always been such a great dad but there have been a couple of instances in the last couple of days that amaze me at what a fun interactive dad he is. Even as I type this Darryl is upstairs trying to teach Lucas "a" words.




Okay this picture is a classic. I am also amazed at what a great Grandmother my mom is. Like I said with Darryl, I always knew she'd be good but sometimes I am amazed at how good she is with Lucas. Here she is riding around on his plasma car with him. Which I can tell you from experience in no easy feat to ride it endlessly. Yeah for Grandma.

I hope everyone has a great long weekend and remember's what they are grateful for.

Till Tomorrow

Jenn

Getting Fat - But For a Good Reason

Well it's a good thing I kept all my size 10 pants I had before Lucas was born. There is a new baby on the way for Darryl and I and I'm digging out all my old size 10 pants to wear. I was one of the lucky ones that lost lots of weight from breast feeding and became a size smaller after having Lucas. Now I am wearing all the size 10 pants becuase I am getting fatter. I am at the stage where I want to get a shirt that says: Yes I'm pregnant!

The new baby is due on April Fool's Day. Which seems kind of appropriate based on this pregnancy. Other then the fatness I've had very few symptoms. No nauesea or morning sickness. I actually didn't believe I was pregnant until I saw the ultrasound and there was a baby heart beat in there, but there is and in 6 months there will be a new addition and I'll be living Haley's life.

Mom and Alexis did buy me a beautiful maternity winter coat, it's red and cordoroy.

Till Tomorrow

Jenn

The Winter is Going to Be Over Soon

Well after a horrible time over the past 3 months I'm hoping that winter will be coming to and end in the next month or so. The stress level is still high, but we are getting some resolutions. Slowly. Slowly the snow is melting.

There will be more posts in the next couple of days as they are my days off and I can catch up on some sleep. I will also spend more time trying to find the camera we left in the taxi in New York, if anyone has any ideas that would be great.

till tomorrow

Jenn

Last Day

Well it's our last day in NYC, it has been a blast. So good for Darryl and I to get away.

Today we went to Chinatown and it was a wild experience. Again I'm on the clock so I can't go into detail, but it feels like a whole new world and lots of people out there "wanna buy a watch". The good thing is you can get tons of good deals.

We saw the Color Purple tonight with Fantasia, although I'm not neceassarliy a fan of hers, she did great!!

Till TOmmorw

Jenn

NYC Day 2

We'll yesterday continued to be an eventful day. We went to the very cool apple store on 5th Ave. I'll add a picture later, when I'm not on the einternet clock. But you can google it sooner if you'd like. Walked up and down 5th ave and Madison and Lexington. Did some shopping, but those are usually higher end stores, so not to to much shopping. Darryl was disapointed that the apple store was sold out of itouches. You can google that to if you don't know what it is.



We also went to the MoMa and it was great! I love to see paintings. It's amazing that that painting is the actual one and some genius was once standing infront of this canvas.



We did go to the top of Rockerfeller Center but it was really hazy, as you'll see in the pictures we add later. I did do a bit of successful shopping, but our feet were killing us by the end.



We did enjoy dinner at the Shake Shop. But my clock is running out so I'll post more later.



We didn't bring Lucas with us, he's at home. We can do a TON more without him. If the people who are taking care of him read this, give him a big hug I miss him desperatly.



Till TOmorrow



Jenn

NYC: Some interesting observations

We've only been here for 5 hours but here are some things we've noticed already:

1. The Jewish people. I don't know if this is common or not but I can't believe all the men walking around with yamaka's. Not sure if a holiday or just alot of Jewish people, but I'm not use to that living in Calgary.

2. We had an excellent meal. I will be tasting the garlic for the next day (doesn't that sound yummy dad). It was one of those meals you just had to finish even though you were full becuase your taste buds were willing you too.

3. We say a paddy police car driving backwards down the road.

4. There is a funny smell.

5. Lots of people here have dogs. I was really surprised at how many were out walking there dogs. Not just little dogs but big dogs too. Although people seem to pick up the poop, becuase I haven't seen any of that.

6. Garbage on the street. There is no "out back" for resturants, so alot of it goes in "cages" at the side of the street. Odd.

7. We had dinner outside tonight becuase it is so nice there (I hope all of you at home are enjoying the snow =). A guy came up to me and told me to move my bag off the chair beside me, that was closest to the sidewalk. I was a little skeptical at first, but he said someone could come and steal this as quick as anything. He was so right, but it was still a strange experience.

8. Building Up. Even car dealerships have cars piled upon cars. You can't expand out but up....

K i think that's all for now. There may be more tomorrow.

Enjoy your long weekend.

Jenn

Fabulous Fall

Today Lucas, Emma and I all went to the offleash park. With our crazy house crap that is going on I'm having trouble doing things that were part of my "pre-stress" life. One of those things was taking Emma to play where other dogs play and run around and have a blast. With Fall here it's great to walk in the leaves and I forgot how much Emma loves the park. She jumped like a gazelle through the long grass, hunting mice. She chased dogs and caught her frisbee out of the air. Lucas also enjoyed the fresh air and dogs. I do love fall.

Till Tomorrow

Jenn

Tantrums

Oh me oh my. So we had our first major tantrum ever. Luckily it was here in the house rather then out at a store. But my god, there must have been crying for 25 minutes. It all started because he didn't want to wear pajamas but wanted to stay in his clothes. In hind sight I should have just left him in his clothes. But once I said no, he had to wear pajamas, I couldn't go back on it. I didn't want him to think if he cried and went on I would change my mind. At one point I thought he was going to throw up. But he didn't. Although I wasn't really sure what to do, what do you do during a tantrum. Try to calm them? Ignore them? Leave the room? I did try all of the above and eventually it seemed to subside. By the end of the night he was out like a light, exhausted from all that crying, and wearing his pajamas. =)

Till Tomorrow

Jenn

Media

Oh I'm so happy Thursday night TV is back. What did you all think of it? The Office made me laugh and scream with delight. Yeah for Pam and Jim. Man Steve Carrell is so funny. I was also cheering out loud for Izzie and saving the deer's life. So glad she won the Emmy. Plus the speech the new intern gave George. I hope Grey's Anatomy is back to being good. =)

Also thought I'd include a copy of my Fall Playlist, it took me a while but here are a bunch of new songs for this fall.

• How Far We've Come Matchbox Twenty
• Flathead The Fratellis
• 1234 Feist
• Money honey State of Shock
• Hold On KT Tunstall
• Dreaming With A Broken Heart John Mayer
• We're Going to be Friends White Stripes
• Paralyzer Finger Eleven
• In the Sun (Gulf Coast Relief) [Featuring Chris Martin] Michael Stipe & Chris Martin
• Catch My Disease Ben Lee
• Wake Up Call Maroon 5
• Get Your Freak On KT Tunstall
• Mad About You Chantal Kreviazuk
• Relax (Take It Easy) Mika
• Ordinary Miracle Sarah McLachlan
• Snow ((Hey Oh)) Red Hot Chili Peppers
• Were All in This Together Ben Lee
  

Till Tomorrow

Jenn