pancake day

Here in England, Fat Tuesday is Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day!  It's a day of indulgence before the period of abstinence that is Lent, hence the pancakes! 

I love pancakes.  I planned to make a day of it and have different types of pancakes, dressed different ways, for all three meals.  I planned on American and English pancakes.  England has thinner pancakes, more like crepes.  Mr. R brought home a container of shake and pour pancake mix for me.  I figured I would save that for the meal I felt least like making.  We had a bad start to our day so that ended up being breakfast.  Straight away I didn't like the looks of these pancakes.  I cooked them for a loong time and they remained moist.  I don't like moist bready things.  I tried them the traditional way, with honey and lemon.  I couldn't eat the entire thing.  Again, moist bread...  The next one I tried with peanut butter and Nutella.  I was able to eat that one, but I still didn't love it.  Nutella makes everything better, by the way.  Scooch didn't love his either.

For lunch, I made American pancakes.  I served them to Scooch with sliced strawberries, blueberries, and banana/apple puree (aka- baby food).  For mine, I added some maple syrup that I bought special for Pancake Day.  These were MUCH better aside from the maple syrup.  It was only 40% maple syrup. The rest was flavoring and something called carob fruit syrup.  Maple syrup on it's own is sooo sweet.  Why, oh why did it need to be made sweeter?  I thought I had a sweet tooth until I moved here.  Everything has the sweet factor turned up to extreme and it really isn't for me.  But, I guess there had to be something for me to miss in the states.  If it wasn't for the food, I might have no reason to go back (only joking Mom!).

After lunch, I had a seriously sweet stomachache so I put the kibosh on our Pancake Day and made spaghetti for dinner (see previous post).

scooch monkey!

Hello imaginary friends! I know you've all missed me in my long absences lately.  I do apologize.  Not much crafting, or even cooking, has been going on in this house lately.  Most importantly, no SLEEPING has been going on either.  Ugh.  I feel like a first time mother all over again.  O is soo different from his brother, nothing that worked for Scooch is working this time.

We do, however, have a nickname for O!  Monkey!  Hence the blog revamp and new name!  The address has remained the same for now. I will notify if it changes in the future.

I'm trying to think positively about this sleep situation we find ourselves in.  I'm planning big.  I've got plans for baking, sewing and knitting.  Right now, I'm dreaming in pasta.  We got this package yesterday from my mother-in-law.

Holy moly, would you like some spaghetti?  I'm a happy girl with all this spaghetti!  It's hard to find thin spaghetti here, and we prefer angel hair.  So get this, my MIL paid $45 to send us 11 boxes!!  Crazy?  Yes.  Awesome?  Oh yes, indeed.  Thoughtful?  She is nothing but.

Other than mountains of pasta, I do have some finished items to show, but I need to get my butt in gear and photograph them.  That's always the hard bit, actually getting around to taking the pictures.  One is a Christmas stocking.  From three months ago!  Oy.  Better get to it...