The Blondes of Winter

Thatboy is still incredibly close to his best friends from high school.  I remember the first time I met Magski, I felt so much pressure for her to like me.  After all, she'd been in Thatboy's life much longer than I had, and a good word from her would go far.

His little group has hit similar milestones at similar times.  Magski got married the summer before we did.  (Vegas got married a couple years earlier.)  And within the past 3 years, we've all had our first children.  Our first, male, blonde children.  Each about a year apart.  Each tiny little blonde terrors.  Each wanting to be just like the bigger one.

While we were up visiting the inlaws, we had our very first playdate with all three boys together.  We took them out to Tilden Park where they could run around being small boys.  Doing things small boys do.  Like playing with sticks in the dirt.

Cheeks was so excited when the big boys presented him with a stick of his own. But he is just starting to enter the toddler phase, so he did less drawing with sticks and more chewing on them. 

He wanted to do everything the big boys were doing, but he's just not there yet.  Next year is going to be much more fun.

One of the reasons Magski picked Tilden Park was because they had a steam train for us to ride.  She knows how much Thatbaby loves trains, and Ace is a big fan too.  In fact, at Ace's request, we got to ride around twice!  The second ride Ace and Thatbaby got to sit together on the seat, which was very cute.

In general, Thatbaby and Ace were incredibly cute the entire time.  Ace rode to and around the park with us, sitting in the backseat with Thatbaby and singing as loudly as they could.  We played a cd and every song was met with Ace chiming in "I know this song!"  And Thatbaby echoing "I know this song too!"  He wanted to be just as cool as his older friend.

We also, after getting lost a couple of times, made our way to the Tilden Park Carousel.  Magski and I took turns taking family photos, which ended up with me playing stunt artist as I maneuvered through a moving carousel and jumped, one handed onto an animal near the lion Thatbaby had ridden on.

Cheeks had fallen asleep on the way to the carousel, so it was really the two older boys enjoying the ride around and around.  And they certainly enjoyed it!  Even though Thatbaby managed to pick a non-moving animal, because he really wanted to ride a lion, he still cried when we got off because he wanted to go again.

Although I'm sure a lot of that was due to the fact that he was fairly napless that day.  After the carousel, we headed back to Magski's house where the boys rode bikes, scooters, and skateboards up and down the street.  At one point, Thatbaby was riding Ace's scooter, Ace was riding Thatbaby's skateboard, and Cheeks was on Thatbaby's bike.  It's going to be really fun watching these little blondes grow up and play with each other.

My plastic surgeon doesn't want me doing any activity where balls fly at my nose

The other day Thatboy took part in a dodgeball competition. Like any good wife, I went and cheered on his team, and offered them pointers like "maybe y'all should drink more because drinking less doesn't seem to be helping."




His team failed miserably. Shut out in every round they played. And watching them, I can't say I was especially surprised. Watching other teams, you could see they had strategy. A plan. Maybe even a little talent. Thatboy's team had none of this. It was every man for himself - just grab a ball, throw, and hope it hits someone. When the whistle blew for their first game, the other team got every ball out there, then stood dribbling the balls like basketballs and chatting with each other like they had all day to pick and choose who to take out. And frankly, they did.

His team's strategy, or lack thereof, made me realize that most of the time my cooking has a similar style to the dodgeball matches. Sometimes I have a strategy. A plan. Maybe even a little talent. I have a recipe, or have studied several recipes to get a feel for how something is made - the ingredients and techniques that make up a dish. Othertimes, I'm more like Thatboy's team. I grab whatever I can and throw it together, hoping it's a hit.

Most of my mashed potato recipes fall into the latter category. I have a couple methods, but usually I just toss in whatever ingredients I find handy. Without even measuring. Butter? Eh, that sounds good. Something milky....oooh look, there's some half in half in the back of the fridge! And of course there are the old standbys of bacon, cheese, and sour cream.

This makes enough to feed a crowd - perfect for some of those holiday dinners you might have coming up - and it's filled with all our favorite potato toppers.

Baked Mashed Potatoes

• 10 large russet potatoes, peeled and cut into quarters
• 12 Tbsp butter
• 2 tsp garlic salt
• 2 tsp onion salt
• 2 pkg cream cheese, cut into cubes
• 1 can evaporated milk
• 16 oz sour cream
• 5 strips bacon, cooked until crispy

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add potatoes and boil until potatoes are fork tender.
2. Drain potatoes, then return to pot and mash them with a fork (or a couple of forks)
3. Add butter, garlic salt, onion salt, cream cheese, milk, and sour cream to potatoes.
4. Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 13x9 baking dish with cooking spray and pour the potatoes into the dish.
5. Cook potatoes 30 minutes, or until the potatoes are golden brown. Top with bacon and serve