stanlemon

Henry is pretty much the perfect subject, most of the time he's still as can be.

I like this one because he's smiling.

My Son Hank resting after a long day.

Day 2: Lucy watching cartoons before Church.

Bonus Photo: Lucy trying to be like mommy and changing her baby's diaper.

Tonight was Chili night and rather then make corn bread like we normally do I thought we would mix things up a bit and try beer bread.  I called upon the wisdom of Susan Buetow for a recipe, and she sent one my way with the added request to take pictures for her scrapbook.  So below is the recipe and below that are some pictures.  It turned out to be pretty tasty, we used Yuengling Light for the beer and added a small amount of cheese as well.  Next time we make this I'm going to try a different cheese to bring the flavor out some more.

Ingredients 

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 bottle beer-your choice (12 oz)
• 2 T sugar
• 1 T baking powder
• 1 t salt
• 2 honey
• 4 T butter, melted

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a loaf pan. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir the beer and honey into the dry ingredients until just combined. Don't over work it. Pour in half the melted butter into the loaf pan. Add batter and then use a pastry brush to add on rest of the butter. Bake 50-60 min until top is golden and toothpick inserted comes out clean from the middle. 

Kitchen Notes

You can also add 1 cup of cheese to this-yum. I have left out the honey and it still taste great. Jalapeños can be added, too. 1 fresh one chopped or 1/4 cup of jar peppers. You can also melt 2 T of butter and pour it over the loaf once it comes out of the oven.

Artifact from Extinction (sounds more dramatic then, cup of coffee on a winter's day from a school with a new name).  I promise tomorrow's title will be more more bland.

Side Note: If anyone knows about the post-to-posterous from SmugMug is supposed to work, please hollar at me.  Whatever I did, did not work and I am pretty bummed about it.

My good friend Jon Kohlmeier picked up a new Rebel T3i at the begining of the year and challenged himself to take a new photo every day.  He had the idea in order to help learn how to use his new toy/tool, and I thought that was pretty cool.  Then Michael Schuermann jumped in on the challenge, hoping to refocus in on his hobby of photography. Jon suggested maybe I jump on board, and that seemed to me like a pretty neat idea.  To be honest, I've become a little laxed with my photo taking. More often then not the only thing my T1i is doing, is collecting dust. So, here it goes...  Like Jon said on his blog, I can't always promise I am going to post religiously and I can't even guarantee the photos I take will be worth looking at... but I'm going to give it a try anyhow!

Lastly, I'm a tech guy, so a quick note about the gear seems in order...  I have  Rebel T1i and most of the time I am sporting the kit lens, a Canon 18-55mm or I quite often will use my Canon 18-200mm.  I also have a Canon 50mm 1.4/f USM that I like to use when taking pictures of my kids.  I import everything into Aperture on a Mac Mini server I use at home, and then I'll be uploading to SmugMug.  I'm going to post here, but I'll also be cross-posting to a WordPress blog because both Jon and Michael are doing that too. From time to time I will probably use my iPhone 4S camera as well. It is without a doubt the most handy camera I have, it's always there!  And, truth be told it takes some pretty darn good pictures too.

Stormy Weather: Are Americans prepared for a rainy day? bit.ly/xeCQEi

— Mint.com (@mint) January 10, 2012

You gotta wonder who they were polling.  I find it hard to believe that half of all Americans have three months of expenses on hand, or that they have access to 2k in a pinch.  It makes you wonder if the community that answered these questions either didn't understand the questions (does credit count?!?!) or were they scoped wrong?  I just find it hard to believe that high of a percentage of Americans are saving that aggressively.