Grandpa and Grandma Hughes

My grandparents popped into my head this morning as I was getting ready. All of them actually. But I want to dedicate 1 blog post to each set of grandparents.

First up are my Grandpa and Grandma Hughes.

Otherwise known as J.P. and Ruby Hughes.

My Grandma passed when I was about 17 years old. My Grandpa passed almost exactly 2 years later. But this post isn't about their deaths.

I want to talk about the memories I shared with them.

~Grandpa and Grandma~

Growing up my family lived in Texas. My Grandparents lived in Florida. Kissimmee, FL to be exact. About an hours drive to Disney World. My brother and I visited them most summers and most summers they would take us to Disney World. It was fantastic! (Brag moment) I think I'm getting this right...my Grandpa helped in the constructions of Epcot. My dad did too I think. Growing up I always bragged to my friends about that. I thought it was pretty darn cool. Heck..I still do!

Going to my Grandparents house always guaranteed one thing. Tons and tons of fabulous food!! Man, that woman could cook! Every single morning she would make homemade buttermilk biscuits. My favorite thing to eat was a biscuit with a big ol slice of fresh out of the garden tomato. When I moved to the country and started growing my own tomatoes I restarted the tradition of biscuit and tomato sandwiches. I think of her every time I have one.

One time I asked her to show me how to make her famous biscuits. But it consisted of "a handful of this a handful of that. Mix it to it's about this consistency" At my young age I couldn't really grasp that whole idea and I gave up on trying to make them. This may be silly, but when she passed I would often miss her biscuits. Maybe because I thought if I had them, I would have her too.

I never have been able to recreate her biscuits. But I found a recipe a few years ago that comes pretty close. Close enough to qualify to have a slab of tomato applied to it!

~Grandma and a baby Amber~

Another food favorite. Black eyed peas. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my Grandma and Aunt Gladys (Grandma's sister, still kickin!!) shelling peas and talking. They always set me up with a big bowl of peas and let me go to work. I rarely finished a whole bowl by myself. But I loved sitting there and listening to their conversation and feeling all grown-up like. I have to note that they always went to the local farmer's field to pick and bring home multiple bags of black eyed peas. So it was usually an all day affair.

After all the shelling was done, the cooking began.

This is another recipe I have yet to master. But man oh man were they delicious. I feel sorry for you poor saps that have never tasted them. Ha!

She would make a huge batch and separate it into batches and freeze them. I would then come in grab some and warm it up. Add a slice of onion from the garden and I was GOLDEN!! Bonus if she had made cornbread that day.

The last time I had those black-eyed peas, she had already passed. My Aunt Gladys had found a batch in the freezer and sent them home with my dad just for me. Have I told you how much I love my Aunt Gladys? I think she deserves her own blog post.

My Grandpa was often stern, but always loving. He loved to tease me. Like when I would come in and out of the house 3 or 4 times in 10 minutes he would tell me. "You can't go back outside until those hinges cool down!" At the time I didn't know what hinges were. I just thought he was talking about the doorknob. So I would tentatively touch the door knob (like I thought it was going to be hot) and he would smile.

They had these wonderful spinning chairs in the kitchen. I loved to sit and spin in a circle while we were eating. He told me many times that if I didn't stop he was going to put me in a straight back chair. I listened...for a little bit. But I couldn't resist the call of the spin and I would be spinning my heart out not long after.

There was one (really, it was only one) time he made me sit in a straight back, non-spinning chair. It was a sad day for me. But I returned to the spinning chairs and I'm pretty sure it didn't slow me down too much. In fact, If I had a spinning chair I'd probably be spinning right now. Which is why I only have straight back chairs. Ha!

He loved to watch baseball games. I often would sit with him and watch too. I remember asking him what his favorite team was that was playing. Whatever his response, I would tell him that was my favorite team too.

There's so many more memories I could share. But those were the ones that stuck out in my head the most. I hope I did them justice in writing about them. I miss them very much.

Learning to Cook

Matthew decided today to try to make yeast doughnuts. With minimal assistants from us.

Well, he's just learned the first lesson in cooking.

IT'S FRUSTRATING!!!

At least it is when your still learning, or trying a new recipe. He was getting upset because he just had to throw out his 3rd batch of scalded milk. This time because he put 1/3 of a cup of salt into it.

Mom...Dad, if you reading this...go ahead and laugh. I know you are.

Let me share a story of long ago past:

When I was just about Matthew's age (I think I was 12) my Grandma gave me some cookbooks for Christmas. They were magnificent!! It was a complete set of 10 books. Each one containing recipes from different cultures and styles of cooking. I remember sitting and perusing each and every one of them. Marveling at all the wonderful food I would be able to create with them.

Truth be told, I rarely used them.

But there is one thing I made that sticks out in "The History of Amber."

One day I found a recipe for pineapple upside-down cake. That just happens to be my Dad's all time favorite cake. I told him my plans and he went out and bought all the supplies so I could make it.

I went to work! I measured and mixed and baked. It looked spectacular!! Really, it was a work of art. I called my dad in to marvel at my masterpiece. He "Ooh'd and Ahh'd approvingly. I was so pleased.

Then the time came for him to taste it. He grabbed a spoon and scooped up a mouthful...only to almost immediately spit it out into the sink. (Luckily it was close by)

As it turned out. I had mistaken a cup of sugar for...wait for it...a cup of salt.

There is a happy ending to the story. Being the awesome Dad that he is, my Dad returned to the store and bought the ingredients so I could try it again. The second one was a success. But no remembers THAT one!

I had to share this story with Matthew this morning as he was making his own cooking mistakes.

And let it be known, my family has yet to let me live that story down.

Super Goobs!!

There isn't really a whole lot to say about this picture. Basically...I got bored. I decided to start playing with my makeup. It was supposed to be a masquerade mask. I pranced around the house showing off my handy work. David kept looking at me strangely. He said "Mommy?? Mommy??" I knelt down and he gave me a big hug. I asked him if he would like to be a superhero. His face lit up and he sat still all of 2 minutes while I quickly drew on his face.

Matthew, always willing to one-up his brother, said "I can sit still for a long time!" So he sat down, told me his mask idea and I got to work.

My husband was a poor sport and wouldn't let me touch him with the makeup. I didn't pout though. I'd already had my makeup fill. Plus my boredom had been cured!!

Easter

This year we spent Easter with just our little family of 4. It was amazing and relaxing and tons and tons of fun. Matt and I stayed up entirely too late the night before and ended up sleeping in on Easter day. (Boo...) That means we missed the church service. Note to self: please start going to bed earlier...PLEASE!!

I'm hoping that once the craziness of Matt's college schedule stops, we can return some normality in our lives.

But I'm getting off topic.... EASTER!

The kids woke us up promptly at 7:30 yelling "Candy! Candy!!" (that was mostly David doing the yelling) We decided to just let them have at it. We opened packages and Matt popped on an Easter movie the church had put out. We then fell back to sleep and woke up around 10:30.

Thank goodness Matthew is such an awesome big brother. He took care of David while his Mom and Dad slept in. That kid is awesome. He didn't complain once! Of course having an ample supply of chocolate didn't hurt either I'm sure.

We finally got around to the hunt once we woke up. Matt had bought some edible grass to put in the kids baskets. Thus the picture below. I will say, just because they say it's edible doesn't mean it tastes good. It was like sweetened styrofoam. Blech.

But that didn't stop the boys from shoving handfuls in their mouth and mooing around the house.

I had boiled a dozen eggs for the hunt and Matthew colored all of them. They were magnificent. Unfortunately his brother saw the beautiful eggs and threw half of them on the ground. I think he liked the crunching sound they made.

So we were left with 6 eggs to hide. Matt had just sprayed weed killer the day before. So we didn't want to poison the kids by hiding cracked eggs in the sprayed area. The kids couldn't have cared less that there were only 6 eggs to hide. Matthew just adapted. He came up with the idea to have his Dad and I hid the first round of eggs. They hunted and found.

Next, Matthew hid the eggs and the rest of us had to find them.

Lastly, Matt hid the eggs. I ended up sitting and taking pictures. I didn't get any really cool ones. But I love any picture of my kids.

David was super excited about the whole "find the egg" thing. Of course he needed lots of help from Dad to find any. But he had lots of fun. Everytime he found one he would come up to me and say "Mommy wook! A egg!"

If you look closely in some of the pictures you can see our "free-range" chickens. They're usually in the chicken shack but Matthew said he wanted to let the roam around the backyard that day. (I suppose he was feeling sorry for them)

After wards we went inside, snuggled up on the couch and rented two movies online. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt1, and the new Narnia movie (which was awesome!!)

It was so much fun to just hang out with my little family. We played, we laughed, we were lazy.

It was lovely.

David was happy of course because of the amazing bounty of chocolate he woke up too.

Fun with Play-Doh

For Easter this year we got the kids some Play-doh. In the past I've tried making my own only to have David almost immediately try to eat it.

I felt he had matured some since so we decided to try it again. It was like love at first sight. Matt showed him how to make little worms by rolling a piece between his hands. He then spent the next half hour meticulously rolling little worms. It looked like my bed had been invaded! Ha!

Afterwards Matt (the husband) was playing with the play-doh and started applying it to the kids. The end result...Harry Potter kids!!

Matthew and David both donned their father's glasses to complete the Harry Potter look. Matthew found a stick and it instantly became a wand!!

Next up...wall art! This face thing was made by Matt and Matthew. Enough said.

David was inspired by the face thing and tried to make one himself.

This was the end result. I live with a bunch of goofballs!! But I love every second of it.

Quick product review: It's been a few years since I've bought Play-doh. I noticed that they changed the formula. Here's what I like.

~it doesn't become hard as a rock if you leave it out for 5 minutes.

~it doesn't meld with the other colors when you create.

~it doesn't stick to surfaces, or leave a color residue. (which is why I allowed the wall art. They cleaned it up afterwards and you can't tell it was ever there.)

Overall I am very pleased.

Invasion!!

The things we do to make our kids laugh...

The other night the electricity went out in our neighborhood. We had put the kids to bed about 30 minutes prior, so David was sound asleep when it happened.

Matt and I were busy lighting candles and finding flashlights when Matthew came down saying he couldn't sleep. The blackout had him a little freaked.

Matt, in an attempt to "lighten" the mood, started joking to Matthew that we were in the middle of an alien invasion. It started to make him feel better so I went ahead and took it a step further.

I whipped out the foil and fashioned some crude alien invasion hats for us. You know...so the aliens can't read our minds!!

We had fun sitting and posing on the bed. We sent him to bed about 10 minutes later. He felt much better and the electricity came on soon after that.

That was pretty Risky

Matthew recently discovered a record player and records that were in our attic, left by the previous owner. I don't recognize any of the songs, they're mostly old country songs.

He has become obsessed with them!

He starts up the record player as soon as he gets home from school. This morning he found one that had nursery rhymes. He put it on and told me "This is for David when he wakes up." and then left for school. Just now he was jammin to some records while I was in my room. Out of the corner of my eye I see him do this. (see video) I instisted he do it again so that I could record it and share it. It was just too funny to pass up. It was taken on my phone so I don't know how to flip it. Just...you know...turn your monitor on it's side.