Just me and my little man

Just us at home again :( Jacob started his new job this morning. He didn't have to be there until 8:30 this morning so we all got to wake up as a family again. He left ridiculously early this morning, (arriving late on your first day just doesn't make the boss feel too confident in his decision) but only got there about fifteen minutes early due to the traffic. Hopefully he can work with his boss to have earlier work hours so he can avoid rush hour from now on! Curtis and I are going to spend the day relaxing from our hectic week and weekend. We are both looking forward to getting back on a more normal schedule this week, although we will definitely miss daddy! By the way we had our second session of our NFP class this Saturday and it went amazing! 10 of our 13 couples returned on their own accord to take the second class (our priest requires engaged couples to take the first class before they can marry in our church). We were thrilled at the huge turn out. Maybe it was our amazing teaching ability?! Or the holy spirit I suppose :) ! Only one more class to go before we are officially certified instructors!

Fantastic Week

We have had such a wonderful week with Jacob home for nine whole days! He is taking the entire week off before he starts his new job on Monday at Ion Geophysics. It has been wonderful to wake up as a family every morning and to be able to run with my two boys at the crack of dawn. We have also done some much needed chores around the house: Installing light fixtures in the play room, touching up paint around the entire house, painting our guest bedroom and ripping out plants in the back yard. Today we are going to work on that dang shower door and hopefully get our new stove installed (if Uncle Mark makes it to our house). We are so blessed to have had an entire week to spend as a family. Hope you have had a great week too!

It is finished

He-who-must-not-be-named is finished. And so I am with those crazy books that are SOOOOO addicting. I have been caught up in books five, six, and seven for the past month now during Curtis's nap time (he actually naps daily now :) what a relief!). If any of you have read the books you will understand just how captivating they are. They really get inside your head. So I'm done now and looking for another interesting read. If you haven't read them you are sorely missing out. The ending is fantastic!

I leave you with a tushie picture of my love bug and my precious niece Clare. I can hardly believe they are nine months old already! They are a blast when they get together and crawl all over the place. It is absolutely not possible for me to love those two any more!!

Brownies A La Mode

So everyone that knows me knows that my biggest weakness as a "domestic goddess" is my lack of cooking ability. In an effort to improve my recent poor performance (read: Digiorno pizza fest) I decided to read up on some new recipes. I turned to The Catholic Daughters cook book from St. Theresa's in Sugar Land. My mother in law gave it to me for mothers day this year (thank you again Jan!). As I combed through the pages this week however, I discovered that the creation of this cookbook had absolutely nothing to do with cooking but everything to do with showing off the recipe that you and only you have the skills necessary to make. For example a recipe for dark chocolate pecan brownies would look something like this:

Mix the ingredients as follows:

* 4 cups and one pinch Flour ((hand ground and made of pure organic wheat (see page 558 for instructions))

*1 and 1/4 cups sugar (Take the tour of the Imperial Sugar Factory down the road, it takes about 35 free packets of sugar...its fresher straight from the source)

*2 cups butter (It is best when freshly whipped from a jersey dairy cow, if no cow available in your back yard try your local farmers market)

*3 robins eggs (Only available from April to July they are best when freshly laid)

*25 Suzie's Dark Chocolate Delights (page 75 for recipe)

Mix all ingredients in a glass bowl. Stir counterclockwise for ten minutes then clockwise for three and one half turns. Place in a dutch oven for thirty-five minutes, rotating every seven minutes. These brownies are delicious with homemade mocha frosty cranberry ice cream (recipe on page 89).

Are these women serious?? Did they ever have children? I would like to join Catholic Daughters one day and enter my own recipe for brownies:

Open box of Betty Crocker Fudge Delights
Follow directions on package
Enjoy with Blue Bell Vanilla Ice Cream :)

Yum...now we are talking! Brownies anyone?

ION Geo-something-or-another

Times are changing in the Counts household...we are no longer bleeding Boeing blue. Jacob has verbally accepted an offer from ION Geophysical Corporation in Stafford, Tx. If all goes well with the paperwork (which I am sure it will) he will start there October 22nd. He decided to make this move in order to gain some more technical experience and to actually use those crazy hard circuit skills he learned at Baylor. I am so proud of him for working so hard to make this change happen. It was definitely not easy to leave such an awesome company but I am sure this will be a great change for his career and our family. Yahoo for ION!!!

This is Curtis contemplating the strong side tackle game plan at his first football game. He has serious coaching potential. Look at the concentration on his face!

Family Fun Day

Today is family fun day :) Daddy stayed home to play with us (or he is taking care of us...depending on who you ask) So far we have had a wonderful day playing in bed, taking walks, watching Curtis crawl around the house and mastering throwing his baseball. Curtis has officially started to sign we get a kick out of watching him practice. So far he has signed Dad, Mom, milk, and outside. He is still perfecting all the signs obviously but he definitely gets a kick out of being able to communicate. The real reason Jacob stayed home today is because Curtis has been pretty sick for the last week. He has Coxsackie (sp?) virus otherwise known as mouth, hand, and foot disease. I took him to the doctor on Monday after six days of extreme fussiness and nose run. When the doctor looked in his throat he found lots of ulcers and inflammation. Poor little man! No wonder he has been a fuss pot! Tylenol seams to help quite a bit and hopefully he will be back to his happy self by the end of the week. Another reason Jacob is home is so that he and I have some time to discuss all of his job offers (three in all) and decide what change, if any, we are going to make. I think we need to decide by the end of the week. Have a great Wednesday!

Excuses Excuses

I have a million of them as to why I have not posted in almost a month...been sick, been traveling, been teething, really I could go on but why?! You are my closest family and friends and you love me despite my lack of blogging. So there I posted... Happy? Will post more if little man decides to tajke a nap today. Be sure to check out our pictures from San Diego on our picassa site! love to all!