happy weekend

We had such a nice weekend . . . the weather was unseasonably warm, so we were outdoors a lot, including a trip to the zoo on Friday with friends from Lucy's preschool, and a lovely Saturday afternoon at Brookside Park, followed by grilling some incredibly yummy lamb-burgers made from Wempe lamb - so delicious! Sunday it turned a bit chilly so we spent out morning at the "Metropolitan Lawn and Garden Show" at the American Royal. The kiddos had a lot of fun, and I got lots of garden inspiration! I can't wait for spring!

David's Birthday

Although his birthday is today, we had our family birthday party for David yesterday. We celebrated with homemade tamales (David's request) - which came out incredibly well. I don't even care for tamales all that much, but these were great. My sister Vanessa and her boyfriend Bo helped us make them, and they brought margarita fixings too, which was lots of fun. We also had a chocolate cake with fleur de sel caramel filling, but it wasn't that amazing - weird recipe, caused me much grief. Normally baking is my strong point, but this cake wasn't that great. The kids still loved it though, so I think everyone was happy. In these photos you can see how badly J. needs his hair trimmed. I am almost ready to take him for a haircut, I swear! Poor J. I love his fuzzy little head

snowy fun

The bitter, bitter cold ended in the night, and it warmed up very nicely today, so we spent some time outside playing in the snow this morning. It was kind of a thin little snow, but the kiddos had lots and lots of fun nonetheless.

H. Stern Nude Models

Yep. This is what I saw when I turned on the T.V. tonight. James had been playing with the remote control, and when I turned the T.V. on to watch a bit of he news what I saw was a pay-per-view channel screen asking me if I wanted to pay $9.95 for "H. Stern's Nude Models" - David said "that's my boy" . . . hmmm.

well, let's just skip Christmas

So I sort of missed Christmas. Not literally, just here in the wonderful world of blogs. So, here we are, a nice New Year's Day photo, or at least, a photo or two of what we ate. Mario Batali's recipe for a Mythic Pasta Dome (Timpano di Maccheroni) - the crazy centerpiece dish in the movie The Big Night. It was truly awesome, delicious, lovely texture, not overwhelmingly rich . . . actually quite simple to make, just lots and lots of steps involved in the process. We celebrated New Year's Day with my sister and her boyfriend, David's big kids and our two little ones. Lots of fun was had by all, and we are all just so darn glad that 2008 is over and done with . . . hopefully 2009 has happier healthier days in store for all of us!

Family Visit

My parents and my grandmother came to town for a visit last week. It was really lovely having them here; the weather was great, everyone stayed healthy, we had some fun outings and some delicious meals. All in all, I think much fun was had. Here are a couple of pictures of L & J with their grandparents and great-grandmother!

Where are my children?

The other morning my children disappeared while I was doing the breakfast dishes. They weren't begging me for an after-breakfast snack, they weren't whining to watch somethng on T.V., they weren't pulling the ornaments off the Christmas tree. Where could they be?

Ah ha! They were upstairs with my Grandmother, reading stories. Yes, I got totally misty-eyed. I wish my grandmother could stay with us all the time, but a week-long visit was wonderful, and my kiddos adored spending time with her!