G1 Summit!

Time goes WAAAAYYY too fast.

Little baby G turned a year old this past Saturday! Oh my. How is she that big already? I'm floored. Good morning, sunshine! Thanks for being a birthday girl for us with breakfast.

And here she is opening her penguin from her brother.

We had a party and it was a blast. Family and friends joined us for her big day (which nicely fell on the weekend this year). Here are some pics from our little soiree for our little cupcake.



Her cake featured "chocolate art" created by our wonderful in-village bakery, The Riviera Bakehouse - now there's an example of a business that changed owners and remained a quality operation. It matched the invites, courtesy of Tiny Prints. (If you don't know Tiny Prints...do go online and introduce yourself.)



And here is her big birthday news...she is standing on her own! Okay, we don't have a photo yet but it's adorable...the way she kind of stands like...she's surfing. Hilarious.

She is such a wonderful, happy, verbal, demanding, love of a baby girl. Once again, we're so lucky.

Chopped Inspiration

C and I do not watch a lot of "quality television" or even "hits". We make totally questionable choices that we're often embarrassed to admit. I will say we both enjoy "Life" quite a bit, as well as "Paranormal State". I know, I know. Honestly not worth discussing most of the rest of it.

However, one other theme that carries throughout our TV-watching is FOOD. Food Network (almost anything but Emeril), anything on public access...anything food. Recently, there has been a new show introduced (at least to us), "Chopped." Stars Ted Allen as the host; you know, the food guy from "Queer Eye".

Premise is this: four competitors, three courses. A competitor's dish is on the "chopping block" each round. Trick is, they hand you a basket of random - and I mean random - ingredients that you must use.


Many times people get booted for not using all the ingredients, not cooking their food properly (there's a time limit for each round), lack of creativity, etc. Best ousting? Messed up and used salt instead of sugar in his dessert.

Well, this has been a long lead-in...my copywriter friends would likely scold me for that. Long story short, Chopped is a bit of an inspiration of late.

If you are one of the very few dear regular readers of this blog, you'll know that on occasion I post up a "Dinner Surprise" post. Tonight I really did a dinner surprise. But I forgot to take a photo of it. Ditto with yesterday.

Dinner surprise means...no recipe, no plan, seat of my pants.

Yesterday: Seared shrimp with fresh parsley and mint, butter and orange zest, served over Israeli couscous; side dish: sauteed cauliflower.

Today: Boneless pork chops, lightly grilled then baked with coconut milk, black beans, green onions, cumin, lime juice...and banana. Side dish: my homemade guacamole.

Verdict from C and O: thumbs up on both! Woo-hoo. G ate well too. I am so proud.

I don't really know what the point of this post is except to show that I can cook creatively. Yep, that's it.

Organizational High

Isn't it wonderful when things just come together?

I am finally pulling together our little back room as my office. A real desk chair, filing, a place for everything. Places that actually make sense.

We went to Target this weekend in search of bins, baskets, containers, thing to put things in. We have a shelving unit from Crate and Barrel we got years ago that's affixed to the wall. We've got video game bits, stationery, photos/memorabilia that needs to be put into albums, books, albums, some of my son's craft/work books...all of which needs to be somewhere.

Cue the angels singing. There they were, staring at me on an endcap in Target. Orla Kiely flowered fabric-covered storage containers. Ooh la la! We were meant to be! Check them out.


We had only picked up three. I am now so in love that I am sending my husband to grab some more this week. (Mind you, can't find them online.)

Glamorous, no; but adorable. I like comfortable. Now a happier little nook.
Perhaps I am getting to the 2009 organization resolution a bit late...but better late than never.

Miss G Makes Milestones

Alliteration always makes things sound important, doesn't it?

Well our little lady has conquered a series of milestones...so before her upcoming big "1" birthday, let me tell you where she is in her adventures.

• Standing. On her own. But only when she's not paying attention that we've let go of her hands.
  
• We've got cruising, full speed ahead. Those little well-shod feet are working hard.
  
• Babbling. And some words. She mimics us quite a bit. "Bye-BUH" (bye-bye) and "eyees" (eyes) and mama and dada and a half-variant of our son's name which is insanely cute.
  "Hi" and "apple" and "cookie" and some version of "Cheerio" and...oh, it is so FUN. She's got this kind of raspy little voice.
  
• She loves, loves, loves books. Can sit and flip through board books for ages.
  

• She sleeps with her blankie, pink spotty puppy and the little pink bear that her brother picked out for her before she was born.
• She just busted her 8th tooth! The last few days have been tough with a lot of back-arching and scream-crying. But it has freed itself. The scary part is that we know that two more are close behind!

Not to mention, as you can see...I think she's getting some bad-ass hair. Must be her dad's.
Mmm...baby.

Supper Club, Baby

File this one under "well, did you take long enough?"

Prior to the end of the year, we got a lovely invite from friends up the street - those whom we share post-renovation stress disorder with - for a black tie potluck dinner. Really! Because that is how we roll in the Freshchester suburbs...during a recession.

The rules were:

• Dress up like you are going to a "fancy wedding".
• Bring a dish. And if you want, bring what's in your fridge...leftovers are totally legit.
• Kids welcome (of course). And yes, they dressed.
  

Now, as I alluded to above, E & J recently renovated their home and it came out positively gorgeous (check out the wild kitchen...fabulous). It created a courtyard of sorts right in the "middle" of the house - really in two parts - so unique and absolutely perfect for entertaining. I love it. (Once you've renovated you can really appreciate the thought and creativity that people put into their house renovations.)

Not to mention the adorable kitchen booth that the kids took over for dinner.

Well, we didn't go quite black tie but I think we pulled it off pretty well. (Yeah...there were no pictures of me. I'm ok with that.)

We had such a good time--let's hope they didn't think they were going to get rid of us earlier than they did--one of our other friends commented "I'm not sure if they knew that we're always the ones that close down the party." Which is totally true. Yes, even with the kids. God knows, after all that wine we stayed for hours playing Catchphrase.

That's C with little G right there. She partied like a rock star, falling asleep during our wild and highly competitive play of Catchphrase. (Wine makes you creative, people.)

We decided collectively that an official "supper club" is in order. We have a couple options:

• Seasonal: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall
• Themed: for example, this was black-tie potluck

See, I needed to post this before we set the next one!
What's your vote? I knight myself (okay, I think I was nominated) official blogger for the club...most likely because I have the least-focused blog in the village anyhow. I find myself saying "club" like Fitty. What is up with that?

Cheers!