Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Napoleon Chronicles - Part 7


So I recently got married and have inherited both a husband and a step-dog Jake :)

Napoleon is LOVING his new life with a larger family. He persters Jake all the time (who handles it like a gentleman) and spends most of his evenings laying in his dad's lap.
 
Napoleon laying on Mom's new bed.


At first he really hated his holiday antlers but he grew to love them :)


 He is so adorable when he wakes up in the morning.
 

Nap with his "step-brother" Jake.  This picture always cracks me up.
 

So angry... 


 Sleepy Nap.
 
 

The day before Christmas break started Napoleon came and spent the day with me at school.
 

Those teenagers really wore him out!
 

Family sleepover.
 



Apparently I love to photograph him most when he's sleeping...but that's the only time he's still!

My First Kitchen Part 1

My second most favorite thing about being married is having my own kitchen.
The first is of course getting to spend every moment both waking and sleeping with my best friend. I grew up in a family where we didn't go out to eat very often, it was reserved for birthdays or Sunday afternoons spent with family friends, so I've always been familiar with the concept of "the kitchen". I can't remember how old I was when I first asked my mom to start teaching me how to cook but it instantly became a hobby of mine. When I was younger it was mostly cookies and strange sugar sculptures but as I got older it turned to baking and challenging myself to make a whole meal on my own. When I graduated from high school I was well equipped to head into college. I knew how to do my own laundry, how to make my bed and how to cook more than macaroni and cheese.  Unfortunately I spent 3 years living in dorms and was unable to practice my craft as often as I would have liked so when Julie and I moved into our own apartment in my fourth year I went a little crazy.  November of 2009 was the first time my brother and I were both away from home for American Thanksgiving so I took it upon myself to cook my very first Thanksgiving dinner in the smallest kitchen of all time, all on my own.  When I say "smallest kitchen of all time" I mean that I literally had to hip check the turkey into the oven because it was too small to fit (we just cut off the burnt parts).  Dani and I had to YouTube how to carve the turkey because we had no idea what we were doing. 
Number 96 on my List of Things To Do Before I Die is to "cook my way through a cook book".  Thankfully I unknowingly registered for nearly 1,000 cookbooks when Mr. Hinderlie and I got married so I have several to choose from.  I have been having SO much fun paging through them and book marking recipes I want to try out in my new kitchen.  I think I am going to make Mr. Hinderlie and I very fat...