Hi, Everyone!

Hey, I'm back. It's been pretty messy on the internet for the last little while so I've been avoiding it!

We've been doing pretty well. Just hanging out, avoiding the disgusting Utah inversion air, watching movies, and wishing for spring.

I'm thinking about putting some more recipes up on the blog, largely for my own ability to remember them, but also so that others can try them out! I really try to make everything cheap and easy. I've got a good recipe for Easy Peanut Thai Noodles or Hamburger Gravy or Chicken Noodle Soup. Maybe I'll try posting a recipe every other week or so, just to have something new on the blog!

A couple days ago we went to the doctor and, turns out, Milo has an ear infection. That makes sense with him tantrumming often and not eating well. He never had a fever until Wednesday and he was only really tantrum-y for a while, so I guessed it was just him growing up quickly and not that he was in pain. He's on antibiotics now, though, and has been acting more like himself. Which I'm definitely grateful for!

Another thing I've done recently is I made a toy rotation for Milo! He has, let's just say, a ton of toys. I made 5 different theme boxes and we're starting them in rotation this week! Today's toy box is Building themed! There's toy tools, blocks, duplos, a house, a construction set, and our foam mats. We also have Animals, Dinosaurs, Music, and Transportation themed boxes. It feels really great to have all those toys put away, but I still feel like there's so many toys on my floor! We'll just have to see how it works out and adjust to our needs. I'll probably do a blog about it too eventually.

Sean has started putting our basement together! We've made the plans, priced stuff out and put up the framing for the bathroom so far, and it might take some time to actually complete, but at least we're making progress. It'll add a lot of value to our house and be a nice space for guests and movie-watching.

I've also started watching a neighbor boy 3 or 4 days a week and it's been going pretty well. Milo has been pretty good at getting along with him and it's nice to have a little extra income for myself. It hasn't been too difficult, he's a pretty easy going kid.

That's basically it for now. Next week is Sean's and my 5 year dating anniversary, then there's Valentine's day... so we're all booked up!

Love, Ellen

Also, we have a new addition to our family! Congrats, Damien and Rebecca on the new pup ;)

Oscar John Donner

Christmas Music Mix!

In our house, it's not long into December when we have to take a break from Christmas music because there's just too many of the same songs. For a while when I was a kid, my parents would make a Christmas mix-cd every year for family and friend gifts. This year, I decided to make my very own Christmas playlist! These 8 songs are my favorites this season. They're not all new (in fact, only one of them really is), but they're ones that haven't gotten old yet in my house.

1. Jacob Marley - Ace Enders and Nik Brusseze

This is the new one. Ace Enders is from The Early November (Sean's and my top 10 favorite band) and this is the perfect blend of Christmas and non-Christmas music. 

2. Christmas Day - MxPx

This whole album is pretty good. 

3. His Favorite Christmas Story - Capital Lights

Sorry for the tears.

4. It's Christmas Again - Varsity Fanclub

Sorry for the tears again. At least this time it was accompanied with laughter, right?! 

5. Chiron Beta Prime - Jonathan Coulton

This one cracks me up.

6. Silent Night/Away In A Manger - Relient K

7. I Wish It Was Christmas Today - Julian Casablancas

This one is everything I could've hoped for. You can watch the original from SNL here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Jcp9pNLzE&list=RDa3Jcp9pNLzE

8. We Wish You A Merry Christmas - Weezer

9. One Little Christmas Tree - Stevie Wonder

What's Christmas without a little Wonder, amiright?

The Donner's Christmas Card 2016

Merry Christmas, Everyone! 

Thanks for such a wonderful year. 

Instead of sending an actual card (because reasons... you get it), here's our virtual card and year update! Yeah, I know, I've been keeping you relatively well updated here, but I'm doing it anyway! Wahoo! 

Milo was not happy to be put onto someone's lap. He wasn't scared of Santa at all, he just wanted to destroy the nearby Christmas tree. Then Santa showed him the jingle bells and Milo was happy as a clam.

This year, though, huh? It started out with Sean having 2 months of jury duty, alongside regular work (because of its length), then went into me having pneumonia for a month, and then we had a couple months off before Milo turned one! Then we took a 2 week trip to MN for a family reunion. Sean and I celebrated our 4th anniversary, went trick or treating with Milo for the first time, hosted our first Thanksgiving, and we're just about ready for an excellent Christmas. 

• Sean is a guy whose job title does not match its description and is hard to explain. He learned how to drive a bus and fly a drone this year. He likes cars, robots, dinosaurs, and baseball.
• Ellen started up a tee shirt company (mamaceratops.com), cleans the house on a regular basis, and keeps some pets and a kid alive. She has an gained an affinity for ancestry indexing this year and has done over 700 records to date.
• Milo's favorite things are cars, robots, dinosaurs, and baseball (bet you can't guess whose kid he is). He knows his body parts and animals and their noises. His mess-making skills are impeccable.

Ellen's Homemade Clam Chowder Recipe

Hi, friends!
I made some clam chowder last night and posted a picture of the leftovers today and had a few requests for the recipe. It was a bit of a mix between me following a recipe and me making one up. Which is how you learn how to cook, I guess. Anyway, here's my recipe!

Clam Chowder

Ingredients:

• Onion (diced - about a cup)
• Celery (diced - about a cup)
• 2-3 Potatoes (diced)
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup flour
• 16 oz half and half
• 2 cans clams (DON'T drain the juice!)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 tbsp salt
• enough pepper 
• 1 tsp sage 
• small sprinkle rosemary 
• parsley
• bacon bits

Directions:

1. Put the potatoes in a pot and cover with water, bring to boil and let the potatoes cook. Drain.
2. In a large saucepan, melt a stick of butter. Add the onion and celery (you can also do a carrot but I didn't) and stir. Cook until the onion is lightly translucent. 
3. Add the flour to the saucepan while stirring. Once it's well incorporated, slowly pour in the half and half while stirring. 
4. Dump the cans of clams INCLUDING the juice, potatoes, milk, salt, pepper, and spices (you can also add whatever spices you like, those are just my go-to ones). 
5. Bring the chowder to a simmer and let it cook for 15ish minutes, stirring regularly. 
6. Dish up the chowder and sprinkle parsley and bacon bits over top. (You may also want to use fresh bacon and add to the chowder as it's cooking. We did not have bacon, so this is definitely an afterthought on my part.) 

This was my leftovers! I heated it up in the microwave for 2-3 minutes, stirring at the halfway point.

Enjoy! 

Mamaceratops!

Hi, friends! 

As you might've noticed if you're checking this from facebook, we have a new business up and running! 

Go check out the website and buy yourself a funny shirt! 

www.mamaceratops.com

I kept one of the Nap shirts for myself and I LOVE it. It's seriously one of the most comfortable casual shirts I have. Sean and I are pretty proud of them! 

Besides that, we've mostly been doing normal stuff. Milo's first trick-or-treating went SO well. He was so cute walking up to doors and knocking on them and putting the candies in his bucket. There was one house where he went and picked out a candy and then backed up, and put his head to the side and gave the guy the cutest look I've ever seen on a trick-or-treater and I about DIED. So cute. 

Sean and I are doing our annual Every Night's Another Status as a tribute to the band The Early November. Basically, we just post a song lyric for the first 10ish days of November. And we're still figuring out plans for Thanksgiving. My favorite holiday!

Milo has been a little troublemaker, but I don't think that's really news because he's a toddler. No surprise. However it is a surprise when he's snuck upstairs to our bedroom and pulled out half the tissues in the tissue box... but that's normal toddler behavior, as far as I'm concerned. 

Anyway, go check out our new store, get something for yourself and some as Christmas presents! We'll start doing weekly shirt deals soon so keep an eye out!

Love,

Miss Ellen

The Reason This New Song Makes Me Reminiscent

It was late October 2014, not yet halloween when I broke down sobbing while driving Sean and I home from the hospital. We were visiting a friend who had recently been in an accident and Sean fainted when she was talking about her injuries.

But that's not what this story is about. I was driving home because he was still feeling woozy and about halfway home a song came on called See Her On The Weekend by Andrew McMahon. It talks about his girlfriend being pregnant and at that moment, Sean brought up that one of our close friends was expecting. Without another thought, I shut off the song and broke down. Of course I was happy for them, but there was another reason.

It was early November 2013 when Sean and I were watching Rosemary's Baby. I had stopped taking my birth control because they were making me incredibly sick and irritable. Later that night, Sean and I decided we were going to start trying for a baby. I knew I had weird cycles, but I was still hopeful and every doctor I'd talked to about it said it shouldn't impede my ability to get pregnant.

Flash forward to our drive home. It had almost been an entire year filled with dozens of pregnancy tests and no luck. I had only one more breakdown before that during Mother's Day at church and it had been close to 6 months (I'm not going to do the math because). We got home, I was still pretty broken up (and happy for our friends) but I really started worrying. I didn't want to face that I might be infertile and we'd have to be trying for who knows how much longer.

It was early November 2014 when I came down with a really weird bug. I threw up 12 times in the middle of the night and had a pretty high fever. We were living with my parents and I was working as a special needs tutor at a nearby charter school. I went in to work the next day (a Monday) and told them about what I was feeling and they looked at me like I was crazy and sent me home. After a quick nap and no more vomiting that day, on a whim, I took a really cheap pregnancy test we had on hand (that came with our ovulation kit) and a very faint second line appeared.

Sure I was going crazy, I went upstairs to consult my mother. It definitely seemed positive to her, and luckily I had another nicer test in my bathroom. So, naturally, I took it and it also showed positive. I had no words. I had no brain power to comprehend. I was elated.

I know I've already written this post before, but I omitted one big important aspect. Infertility. It is the most terrifying, frustrating, and heart-wrenching thing a woman who wants to be a mom can experience. I know I've only had a taste of it. A bit, year-long taste. I couldn't imagine going yearS or having to do infertility treatments or being told out-right that I won't be a natural mother. I am so proud of the strength women who experience it have. As a little girl, I would stuff animals up my shirts pretending to be pregnant and I couldn't imagine having to tell that little girl that her dreams are impossible.

Flash forward to today and my little one is running around in a thermal shirt & diaper, waving around a ladle and repeating the same sounds over and over (and over and over) again. I turn on youtube and Andrew McMahon has a new song out. I've heard it before, but today was a little different. Milo's adorable baby-toddler figure, crazy hair, and beautiful blue eyes were watching the video with me and I knew all the waiting and wondering was worth it.

Milo, "You're the reason I'm still up at dawn, just to see your face."

(Disclaimer: the song doesn't have anything to do with having a baby, it's really just Andrew McMahon's voice that's the reminiscent bit. But still listen to the song because it's beautiful.)

If anyone is suffering from this silent demon, please know that I would be more than happy to listen to your struggles and buy you an ice cream (or cheeseburger, or whatever).

Love, Miss Ellen

Sean's Pumpkin Pie Recipe

I go through kitchen phases constantly. Ellen teases me for it, constantly. When we got married a friend gave us a pie making kit (2 pie pans that are still my favorite, a rolling pin, and an apple peeler/slicer/corer). So naturally I started a pie phase, but it never really ended. I've tweaked almost every recipe I've ever found to be really good and have decided to start writing them down. So, seeing as it is Autumn, here's my Pumpkin Pie.

Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin Puree

Preheat the oven to 350°

Cut a pie pumpkin (about the size of a volleyball) into quarters

Scoop out the innards

Place the pumpkin quarters skin down onto a foiled cookie sheet

Bake the pumpkin for about an hour

Pull the skin away from the fleshy part and dispose of the skin

Using a potato masher or food processor mash up the pumpkin

Crust

1 ¼ cups All-Purpose Flour

¼ tsp Salt

⅓ cup + 1 Tbs butter flavored shortening

¼ cup cold water

Mix Flour and salt in a small-medium sized bowl

Chop the shortening into the flour mix

Using a pastry mixer or two forks mix the shortening into the flour

(it will look chunky when you’re done)

Add the cold water in and mix together with your hands

(wash your hands and remove any rings)

You will end up with a ball of dough that can me refrigerated or rolled out immediately

Roll it out so it’s about 1/8 of an inch thick

Roll it up with the rolling pin and unroll it onto the pie pan

(Double this recipe if you want two crusts, but for Pumpkin Pie you probably don’t)

Pie Filling

1 ⅓ cups of Pumpkin Puree

1 ⅓ cups of Sweetened Condensed Milk (1 14oz Can)

1 Egg

2 tsp Cinnamon

1 tsp Nutmeg

1 tsp Ginger

½ tsp Cloves

1 cup Hot Water

Mix everything together in a big bowl using a whisk

Dump it into the pie crust

Before it goes in the oven brush melted butter onto the crust and sprinkle it with sugar if you're really feeling crazy

bake at 350° for 1 hour

Halfway through baking, brush more melted butter on the crust. It will be worth it.

Enjoy!

Sean Donner