I took a half day yesterday, and Taryn and I met up to celebrate her birthday. She came to town so we could hit up some Rochester food/shopping. I hadn't been to Black & Blue yet, but I had heard good things, so I suggested we go to lunch there. There were so many tasty-looking items on the menu that I had trouble deciding, and so I did what I sometimes do when I'm being indecisive: I ordered the cheapest thing on the menu. I figure, why not? If it all looks good, why not go with the cheapest? It was their signature burger. It cost what an average burger costs at Fridays/Applebees/RubyTuesdays/Chilis/Whatevers (it was actually less than $8), but it was perfection on a perfect bun. It had bacon and blue cheese, and it was seasoned and cooked perfectly. Did I mention it was perfect? Oh, and it came with shoestring French fries. Perfect. Taryn and I also both got desserts. They were not perfect because they were too big. I ate so much I actually had a cramp for half an hour (and I wasn't even swimming after the meal).
After lunch we did some shopping at Eastview. As I mentioned previously, we recently got an Anthropologie. Taryn and I both came to the conclusion that it's nice to look, but it's too expensive to buy. Even their sale stuff is really expensive. Also, their clothes look like how I would *like* to dress, but it's just not how I dress. I feel like I would buy a dress and then covet it in my closet and then never actually wear it. And that would be sad. I'm glad we have an Anthropologie, and I plan to stop by their sale section and visually enjoy the regularly priced eye candy when I can, but I don't think I will be getting a new wardrobe there anytime soon. I did get two sweaters at Banana Republic for a combined grand total under $35 and a magical pair of boots on super-sale at Macy's. And Taryn found some good stuff too. It was a great afternoon - one that I totally needed. I felt like it was my birthday!
So, amigos, my friend Alex IM'd me the other day to tell me that our former home-away-from-home Mex is celebrating its 10th anniversary this weekend. Can you believe it has been 10 years?? Alex said, "It's been almost 10 years since you kicked someone out of a bar." It has actually been 7 and a half years since I kicked someone out of a bar, but who's counting? 10 years...time flies. I might need to have a gin and tonic this weekend (at New Mex = my living room) to celebrate.
I'm reading a crazy book for book club right now. It's Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, and it's kicking my @ss! It has 6 different sections, and I have gotten into each one eventually, but it takes time. I really need to think about what I'm reading as I read and sort of translate the meaning as I go. If I don't, I sometimes have to go back 10 or 20 pages and reread a section. I have NEVER had to do that - ever. I feel like a pansy because other reviews I've read of the book were all so positive and people claim they loved it from page 1, but I'm struggling. I blame both my job and modern technology for giving me adult-onset ADD. Having a kid who craves constant attention doesn't help much either. It also doesn't help that there are some crazy dilects. I read a paragraph of one of the sections out loud to Pat, and I think his response was, "Oh, f*** that." I like the book, but I'll be sort of glad when it's done.
Tomorrow is my dad's birthday, and we got together today to celebrate. I ended up making two desserts: tapioca pudding and trifle. My dad's favorite dessert is tapioca pudding, but that is not necessarily a crowd pleaser - at least not with most of my family. (I inherited the tapioca-loving gene, though, and Pat likes it as well.) I have made tapioca pudding a few times before with disappointing results, which is indeed disappointing when you spend 45 minutes straight stirring something over a hot stove. Anyway, I tried a new tapioca pudding recipe yesterday from 101 Cookbooks, and it is a winner. So totally worth the effort. And thanks to modern technology, I watched a couple short movies on my laptop, which made the 45 minutes of stirring go by in a flash. It also helps that the novelty of cooking with our new-to-me Wolf oven/range has not lost its novelty.
Not that it's all that much to look at, but here is tapioca perfection in a glass.
Speaking of which, hey Internet peoples, do any of you know what type of glass this is? My grandma gave me a set of 8 of them, and I lost the note she gave me telling me what they are. They're small; they hold about 4 ounces. Juice glass? Cordial glass? I don't know my glassware.
Back to the trifle. For this one I have a tried-and-true recipe that I modified from my Aunt Marianne's original recipe. Hers is homemade pound cake, homemade custard, homemade whipped cream, raspberries, Mandarin oranges, sliced almonds, and sometimes wine, depending on the audience. I make a little lighter version and also cut some corners. I use store-bought angel food cake (which is a huge bastardization of trifle - I know - but I just find the pound cake to be too heavy, personally), custard from a mix (shame on me), homemade whipped cream, raspberries, Mandarin oranges, sliced almonds, and I never ever, ever, EVER let any extra liquid near it. I can't get into soggifying the cake. Soggy is bad.
Lemme know if you want the recipe (the proper one or my little bastard recipe).
So, we all had Friday off, and even I felt quite patriotic whenever I thought about how I got to spend the day with my family, playing with Greta and doing some painting around the house, all while being paid. Come on, America and paid holidays are pretty awesome. I may have chanted "USA! USA!" in my head a couple times on Friday.
Saturday, we headed out to my parents' house for my mom's birthday celebration, which was quite the admiral's feast. As I mentioned previously, my brother got 75 clams and 6 one-and-a-half pound lobsters to feed 6 1/2 people (Greta is not a gal of the sea, so she did not partake in the seafood extravaganza, even though we referenced Green Eggs and Ham several times, which usually works like a charm). It was a very gluttonous meal. We were all slightly sketched out by the fact that there were live lobsters that had to be put to their deaths, but thankfully my brother stepped up to be the executioner. I documented the scene.
This frisky guy was dubbed Pinchy, for obvious reasons.
Nom nom nom
Here are Phil and "Dinner" in all their glory.
It was no trip to Maine, but we had a really nice day. My mom (whose birthday is today - happy birthday, mom!) seemed to enjoy herself.
Here are Grandma Norma and Greta Bean relaxing after lunch, watching Curious George.
Later in the day we headed over to Phil and Becky's to watch fireworks from their back deck. It was a chilly night, but Pat wrapped Greta up in a couple blankets and, even though it was way past her bedtime and pretty loud, she had the best time. In fact, the louder they were, the more she seemed to enjoy them. (This is quite an improvement from the little girl who, not long ago, would cry when we'd use the coffee grinder because it was "too youd.")
Sunday we headed back to the Ro-cha-cha and went to our little friend Maddie's third birthday party. The bad news is we forgot to bring our camera. The good news is Greg and Kimmie did take pictures and will hopefully update their blog here. [nudge, nudge]
The fun just keeps coming this summer. I feel like the rest of our summer is basically mapped out for us. At least we're never bored...
Admittedly, Greta doesn't get much "alone time." Pat and I just don't give her an awful lot of space (I'm what Dr. Phil calls a "helicopter mom"), but after a couple recent instances that made me chickity check myself, I decided that she needs just a touch more independence. This morning, I had some laundry to put away, so I let Greta play in the closet off her room (which is basically just storage), and then I heard her say, "Mom, come look at me." I did, and she smiled sheepishly and said, "Look, I'm in the bucket." She was indeed in a big tupperware bin full of old toys, with some Boppy thing nestled around her. Of course I had to document it. Hello, yoga ball, I've used you once!
My mom has a similar picture of me after I had a little independence. She found me inside a closed kitchen cupboard, eating a raw potato. Raw, yes. I know there is a picture of it somewhere. I might need to dig that up.
In other news, we went to our little friend Colin's house today for his third birthday party. The weather was perfect and we had a great time.
Here is the birthday boy wearing his green "C" super hero cape.
Greta always enjoys running around in their big back yard.
In case you're living under a rock, you know that Greta celebrated her third birthday last week. I swear she seems so grown up all of a sudden. We had a well-child visit at the pediatrician's, and I feel like I watched my little bunny blossom before my eyes. The doctor asked her 15 or so questions, and Greta answered them as clearly, thoughtfully, and cutely as I imagine any three year old ever has. It was really great to see, knowing that Greta has not always been the most agreeable kid or even close to the most outgoing. It was only about a year ago that we had a playdate and her little counterpart buddy asked if Greta was deaf (basing it on the fact that she didn't speak a word the entire time). Girl is practically a chatterbox now but is fantastically unprecocious (in her mom's unbiased and humble opinion).
She is also in the 96th percentile for height. Hellllllo, nurse!
While looking at one house, Greta fell in love with the current owner's pink Pottery Barn chair. We've had it on our to-do list to buy Greta her own chair for a while (she had been sitting in a Bumbo chair every night, which we know is ridiculous [they're technically for kids up to 14 months], but she genuinely likes it). Anyway, we went to PB and let Greta pick out a chair and bought one with some of her birthday money. Of course she picked hot pink, which couldn't possibly clash with our family room decor more, but how could we say, "Pink is so for two year olds. Um, how about this nice red one?" to this face?
Okay, well, I did try to nudge her toward red, but it wasn't happenin'.
This weekend was the big birthday celebration for Greta's great-great grandpa, Floyd. The Reeds came to town on Saturday for the big event.
We were thankful that Greta was in good spirits and that she happily posed for a five-generation photograph. Behold: five generations, people.
We tried to do one two years ago and Greta screamed her brains out and it never happened. Here is one from three years ago. This was the first day beanie got to take her brace off for four hours.
Back to 2009. Greta enjoyed running around the community center, singing and chatting away. Here she is commanding quite a bit of attention.
Floyd did a great job and even made the first cut in his birthday cake.
Quite a few people gave him scratch-off loto tickets, and almost every ticket was a winner. It was unbelievable.
The Reeds stayed over for the night. Since we probably won't see them for Easter, they gave Greta some gifts this weekend, one being a giant bucket of bubbles. Grandma Kathy and Greta had fun blowing some bubbles.
It was really cold, though, and we didn't last long outside.
We looked at a couple more houses today, and I saw one I loved. Oddly, it was the first one we saw that Greta didn't like. Hmm. It had some "buts," too. As in, I keep saying, "I love that house, but..." I keep thinking about it though. Drool.
Greta's birthday party was yesterday, and things went off without a hitch, other than the wine glass I broke (mazal tov?).
Greta and her best buddies had fun playing together. The most popular toy? The box our dishwasher came in.
Colin looking out the "window."
The Princess of St. Patrick's Day making a necklace.
Maddie jumping for joy (notice Greg modeling the necklace Maddie made).
A group shot.
Everyone was very generous with the gifties. (Girl got A LOT of pink.)
As an aside, I can be booked as entertainment for children's parties. Look, Nathan loves me; Greta is ignoring me as usual.
We had ice cream cake and ice cream cupcakes from Cold Stone Creamery. Greta wanted to have Cinderella on her cake, so I put a Cinderella Pez dispenser on the cake in hommage to our wedding cake (which had bride and groom Pez cake toppers).
Here is my favorite shot from the day. Greta and Hoppa.
We don't seem to have good shots of the Reeds (d'oh), but a HUGE thank you goes out to them for coming out Friday night to babysit so Pat and I could go see a show at Waterstreet and for helping us yesterday morning.
Also a big thank you to Rebecca for providing the main course, my parents for providing the wine and a monstrous fruit plate, and Christy for letting us borrow her beautiful cake plate. Seriously, I basically just showed up.
Mike, Christy, and Colin came over on Friday. It was really great to see them, and it was fun to see Greta and Colin getting along so well. Before they came, Greta kept asking, "Is Colin coming over to my house? Is he coming over because he wants to see me really bad?"
Look how cute they are:
On Saturday, we went back to Skaneateles to have part two of Fran's father's birthday celebration. This celebration was originally scheduled to throw Fran's father off the trail of his surprise party, but because we are classy and we love extravagance, we did it anyway. I am not about to deny myself filet mignon and lobster tail just because it's not a real celebration. Fran's father was kind enough to share both a 95 and 96 Opus One with us. Everyone really enjoyed it. What they didn't know is that I secretly bathroom-pounded the Opus and replace it with Carlo Rossi.
Greta, Grandma Norma, and Hoppa
On Sunday, we took a trip to BJs (like I said, we're classy) to pick up household items in obscenely large quantities. While we were out, we all got really hungry, for McDonald's. Greta got a Cheeseburger Happy Meal with apples and milk. She ate most of it, but she could not finish all of the apples. As we were leaving, Greta said she wanted to take the apples with her.
A few minutes later in the car:
Pat: Greta, are you going to eat those apples? Greta: No. I want them, though. Pat: Should we share them with a hobo? Greta: Noooo, they're mine. Pat: Wouldn't you want to help a hobo? Greta: Why? Pat: They might be hungry, and you don't want to eat those apples anyway. Greta: ButI want to save the apples. Pat: It's nice to help people if you can. You could help a hungry person.[Pause] Greta: OK, I wanna share my apples with a homo. Pat: Ok. We'll do that.
