we set up our jack-o-lantern tv again this year. it’s quite fun and can be re-used year after year. to make your own, just buy a super cheap tv at the thrift store, apply some painters tape on the screen for the eyes & mouth, and spray paint orange. peal off the painters tape when it’s dry and voilà, you have your very own jack-o-lantern tv! it’s a super easy fall project!

happy halloween!

– ryan & gub

i enjoyed some old fashioned cocktails this evening! i would say it came from the combination of being on both a rye whiskey kick on top of a mad men kick!

for those interested, i went with bulleit rye and angostura bitters.

– ryan

old fashioned:

1 tsp sugar or 2 sugar cubes
2-4 dashes angostura bitters
2 oz rye whiskey
1 large ice cube or ice cubes
splash club soda
2 orange wheel
1 orange wheel rind
2 maraschino cherry

directions:
• rub an orange wheel rind around the rim of a highball glass
• muddle sugar, orange wheel, cherry and bitters in glass
• add a splash of club soda and swirl around
• remove orange rind and add ice
• pour in rye and stir
• garnish with a fresh maraschino cherry and an orange slice

– ryan

making some garland for sweet clem’s birthday. purple, of course. i’ve learned sewing the paper strips together is way more sturdy and takes less time than glue or tape. it’s definitely an easy diy birthday decoration!

– gub

it was a bow tie evening for us! we went to a great wedding in our neighbor’s backyard, which was a blast! i had to watch this video to remember how to tie a bow tie. it all came back pretty quickly though.

– ryan

one bucket of water. one bucket of sand. HOURS of entertainment!

highly recommended!!!

– gub

we have been working on potty training clementine. it’s a long process, as you may be able to tell with the sandwich in clementine’s hand. grey likes to hang out and offer his moral support!

we purchased this handy toilet seat from lowes, which has been helpful. it’s a normal toilet seat that also has a fold-down kids seat for dual-use. it’s a space-saver for sure and clementine is excited to use the same toilets as us.

– ryan & gub

being a huge fan of soft pretzels, i’ve always been intrigued by the bake-at-home kits you see at grocery stores. with clementine way into all thing baking & cooking these days, it seemed like a good time to try one out. so on a recent saturday afternoon, clementine, her grandmother and i attempted an auntie anne’s at-home baking kit i bought at kroger.

the kit included all of the necessary ingredients, so measuring was not required. the instructions were pretty easy as well, although time consuming for sure. i started by pitching the yeast in a mixing bowl. i then added the flour and mixed the dough. next came the kneading, which clementine was super helpful with! once the dough was prepared it had to sit for 30 minutes in a warm spot to “rest.”

after resting, we flattened the dough and cut it into 1.5″ x 8″ strips. the strips were then stretched out and shaped for baking. we went with normal pretzel designs and some twists, but you can get creative and make letters or animal shapes or whatever you can think of!

once the pretzels were shaped, i prepared a bowl with warm water and baking soda. i dipped each pretzel into the liquid (like you do with bagels), added toppings (ie. salt, cinnamon & sugar, etc.) and baked for 5 minutes at 400. the pretzels were then rotated 180 degrees and baked for an additional 2-5 minutes. i brushed on some melted butter and voilà, home-baked soft pretzels!

in the end, the soft pretzels were amazing! the process took way longer than i expected, however the pretzels tasted restaurant quality and were totally worth the effort. plus clementine had a blast kneading the dough and helping out, so i would definitely make them again.

next time i’ll have to try the egg in a pretzel recipe!

– ryan

we made some old fashioned banana pudding homemade ice cream on the 4th of july. somehow we found the time while also watching grey crawl for the first time!

we set up our wooden bucket ice cream maker on the front porch and used a recipe from nutmeg nanny, which turned out amazing! how can you go wrong with nilla wafers and fresh bananas in your ice cream?

you should definitely try this frozen summer treat at home!

– ryan & gub

old fashioned banana pudding homemade ice cream

recipe from nutmeg nanny.

ingredients:
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 1/2 milk
3 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
1 teaspoon lemon juice
3 tbsp instant banana pudding mix
2 small bananas, sliced
1 cup nilla wafers, coarsely chopped

directions:
in the bowl of an electric mixer, mix the whipping cream, milk and eggs. slowly add the sugar, lemon juice and salt. finally, add the instant banana pudding mix and blend well.

using a wooden spoon, add the small banana slices and stir to incorporate.

pour into the freezer bowl of your ice cream maker. turn on and freeze according to the manufactures directions. during the final 10 minutes of freezing, add the coarsely chopped nilla wafers.

remove frozen ice cream. serve immediately or place in a freezer proof ice cream container and serve when ready.

last fall we upgraded our thermostat to a nest, the super smart thermostat from the guy who created the iPod! to say the least, we are quite impressed and love our nest, which sounds weird to say about a thermostat.

the thermostat was super easy to install. it probably took 30 minutes or less. all i had to do was kill the power to the old thermostat, take off the face to see what wires were plugged in (label the wires if not colored), unscrew the wires, remove the old wall plate, install the new wall plate, connect the wires to the nest, put on the new face and turn the power back on.

the longest part of my installation was touching up the paint around the old thermostat since the new one was much smaller. once the nest was powered up, it was a few steps to get the thermostat connected to our wifi and up and running. from there it was a breeze to program, unlike most thermostats. the first week nest built a schedule based on how we used the thermostat. from there we were able to easily tweak all seven days settings on the thermostat, laptop or on our cell phones!

remote access to the thermostat is pretty cool. if you are traveling home from a vacation or a hot day outside, you can easily set your house to be nice and cold right from your phone! plus it actually gets to the requested temperature at the time you set, most thermostats just turn on at the set time.

there are also motion sensors to avoid wasting energy when no one is around. nest will auto-adjust to an efficient temperature when sensing you are gone. during the summer months the thermostat also keeps your fan running after the air turns off to keep air blowing across the cold coils. this helps keep the house cool even without the AC on. it’s little things like this that make this a very energy efficient device.

another cool aspect about a wifi enabled thermostat is the ability to receive firmware updates. that way your device won’t be outdated when new features come along. plus the firmware updates happen automatically in the background so you don’t have to worry about it. the nest also keeps track of your energy history to see how and why you saved energy. you receive a monthly newsletter letting you know how efficient your thermostat usage has been and compares it to other nest users locally and nationally. what a nice treat!

nest claims you can lower your energy bills by 20% using their thermostat and make your money back in energy savings within the first year. we are about to reach our one year anniversary having the thermostat, so we will update you on how our quest for energy efficiency went and if their claims are accurate!

you can watch a nest demo video here!

– ryan

clementine had an awesome second birthday party! she had a morning gathering at bessie branham park, which is right down the road from our house in kirkwood. we went with a krispy kreme doughnut mound instead of a cake, which was quite the hit with the kids. so was the line drawing fabric from ikea! we laid out some fabric markers and the kids had a blast drawing all over it.

– ryan & gub

bessie branham park

2051 delano drive ne
atlanta, georgia 30317