Can't wait to try this!

Merry Christmas everyone! This recipe is an excerpt from the Globe and Mail from last Wed or Thurs and I am excited to give it a try. Here is a pic of the test case before it goes in the oven:

Since I assembled it already and will be taking it to my in-laws' house for dinner, I don't think it is going to get quite the puff, but it definitely tasted delicious before baking. And I added chives...also delicious. 

Pommes soufflé

Irreverent and quick with a joke, Joe Beef's Frédéric Morin cooks elevated comfort food in the Little Burgundy neighbourhood. He loves esoterica and history (as evidenced in the madcap decor of Joe Beef and Liverpool House, the restaurants he co-owns with David McMillan), so it's no surprise he finds inspiration for his menu in the obscure French movie Le Grand Restaurant. In it, Louis de Funès plays a restaurateur. "He goes to a table of Germans who've asked for a recipe for the potato soufflé," Mr. Morin says. "So he recites the recipe with a German accent and gets very authoritarian. It's very funny, so I like to do this recipe.

"Start with basic Joe Beef mashed potatoes: two pounds of fingerling potatoes, skin on, seasoned and mashed with ½ cup of warmedmilk and ½ cup of cold, cubed unsalted butter. Separate four eggs, beat the yolks and incorporate into the potatoes, whip the whites to stiff peaks and fold into the mixture. Finish with a dusting of powdered parmesan and bake at 400 F for 20 to 25 minutes.

"Be sure to use powdered parmesan on top or else you won't get a nice crust."

Sent from my iPhone

18 months, 42 months and a summer update

Flower Girl!

It feels very surreal to say that I have a 3.5 year old and a 1.5 year old...guess I better get used to that feeling. Micaela is just at the 18 month mark (now 19 really) and is definitely growing into her, ahem, "personality". Avery is almost 3.5 and coming up on 13 at any moment now. That being said, one minute she seems incredibly grown up and then the next minute she reverts to random, inexplicable crying. That ends at some point, doesn't it? Although according to Greg, I still do that. But I digress.. :)

We have had quite a good summer so far. Highlights have included my step-sister Shelly's wedding, which was Avery first starring role as a flower girl. I wasn't completely sure how she would react, especially in a room with 400 people and all of them staring at her. But she did so well, she looked super-cute in her dress, she posed for pictures, and she partied her litle heart out. She actually cried when I told her at 11:30pm that she couldn't go back and dance more because we were leaving. Then she fell asleep about 3mins after getting into the car.

Party Girl!

Micaela is incredibly full of beans these days and talking up a storm. Our favourite words of hers are: "I hab it?", "I watch PeeVee?", "PEEEEEEEZZZZ!" and "Aveeeery. Aaaaaavery. Averyyyyyyy!" She is a little climber, loves walking all over, enjoys the swings, is a decent eater (as long as we aren't trying to slip any fruits in unannouced, especially those that aren't on the tolerated list which includes apples, bananas, cherries and watermelon - sometimes), and she LOVES to dance. The rhythm is in that kid!

It is also becoming clear that the two girls have two very different personalities and physical capabilities. Avery can be very focused and has the ability to concentrate on one thing for an extended period of time (so much so that she doesn't hear her parents trying desperately to get her attention!), and she often flips back and forth between wanting to be independent, and then wanting us to really baby her. Mikes is definitely more independent in general, quite saucy and a little tease, she is physically much more capable than Avery at this age (with none of Avery's trademark clumsiness), but she is still very hesitant around strangers. And oh yeah, she adores her daddy! Seems like we each got one kid :)

Trying to keep the kids under control during the ceremony...

Both girls are quite caring, particularly towards their special toys, and even once in a while towards each other. Avery has a new favourite stuffed animal every few days, while Micaela has recently fallen in love with "Timmie" from the Treehouse show "Timmie Time". She and I took Timmie on a little walk around the block in the doll stroller the other day, and she wouldn't stop fussing over him - she kept stopping to make sure he was sitting up ok. So freakin' cute! And both girls seem to really like their cousin Jacob - it is clear that he is going to be a little in love with his big cousin Avery, but I suspect he and Micaela will get up to plenty of no-good with each other as they grow up.

Canada Day 2011

The rest of the summer has gone by so quickly - Avery started soccer this year - so far I'm not making any plans to attend the Women's World Cup in 15 years to cheer her on - but she seemed to enjoy it...most of the time. She has become a little fish this summer, which was great as we finally started to make some good use of the pool. Mikes is less interested in swimming, but I suspect next year will be a totally different story. We
has a great trip to Toronto in July - went to Riverdale Farm, the Zoo, had a fun picnic with Grampa Kelly and Nana, and had a very nice visit with Great Grammie Beryl and the great uncles. Not too much more planned for the rest of the summer - but just trying to make the most of it while it is still here!

Averyisms

A couple of cute things Avery has been saying lately:

1) whoa! I say whoa!

(this also works for ooops and sorry)

2) where is Titi (Grossmueti) going? She's going to vote honey. She go boating, and she catch fish for her dinner? No honey, not boating, VOTING.

:)

Sent from my iPhone

And she's three!

(of course this post is about 1.5 months late now...but as usual, better late than never!)

Good morning, 3-year old... :)

Our baby girl #1 turned three years old a few weeks ago...it is starting to get inconceivable how fast it is all going by. Anyhoo, the days leading up to Avery's 3rd birthday and even the actual day itself were not great because, you guessed it, everyone was sick! With ear infections this time. However, we managed to pull off the birthday party anyway, thank goodness! It was a super-fun party at Gymboree which Avery loved, and I think most of the other kids did too. She especially loved the Princess Aurora/Sleeping Beauty cake that Dana made for her. (Thank you again to Dana for a great cake and delicious cupcakes - they were a huge hit with the birthday girl and you really did me a huge favour by taking care of that tiny little task... :) And thank you to everyone who attended, helped and gave Avery presents. Boy, does she now understand the concept of presents!

Micaela wants in on the cupcake action

Birthday umbrella!

The awesome Princess Aurora cake, compliments of Dana Kean

So what is Avery like at three years old? Growing up all the time, that's for sure. She is about 30 lbs, 39 inches and generally full of energy and imagination. She went through a big princess, dress-up, pretty shoes phase this year, but seems to be a little less interested in her princess dresses at the moment. She also only wanted to wear dresses for about 9 months, especially her summer sundresses that are oh-so-appropriate for the dead of winter. Thankfully she now willingly puts on pants and socks to keep warm.

She is full of interesting observations and funny statements - though of course I can't come up with any good examples now. But we have really noticed that her ability to communicate has improved immensely, which is a great thing since this time last year we were actually pretty concerned that her speaking ability and vocabulary acquisition wasn't coming along as quickly as it should have been. That being said, I love it when she says "farkle" instead of "sparkle". :)

Owl ring

Bought this ring today and I totally love it. Even though the eyeballs already fell out... :)

Testing out the email blogging...

Let's see if this works!

And she's one year old!

Just to repeat myself for the millionth time...I can't believe how quickly time is flying! Micaela is now a year old and has had 4 birthday parties to prove it. A mini-celebration at home, one at daycare, one at Gramma and Poppa's house, and then the big shindig with friends and family. That's a lot of cake for someone who really isn't too interested! :)

Good birthday morning, sleepyhead!

At one year old, here is what she is up to: standing on her own and cruising, but not quite walking (although at almost three weeks later as I am writing this post, she is getting really close and has taken a few steps on her own with some success), chatting and singing a lot - her words are mama, dada, peekaboo, thank you, go, Avery, and bye. She has 2.25 teeth...ok, I am just being facetious, but she basically has her two bottom front teeth, one of the top ones, and the second has maybe just barely cut.  Crazy - she must have the slowest growing teeth in the world. Micaela is definitely a little monkey - whenever there is a moment of chaos she makes a break for the stairs and then smiles like a little devil when she gets caught! At her 12 month doctor's appt, she was 29 inches long and 18 lbs, 14 oz.  Guess it is going to be a while before we will turn her car seat around.

Girlie cupcakes

Birthday girl!

Party girl!

Avery had a great time at all the parties for Mikes, mostly because she got to open the presents and blow out the candles. I'm thinking she is really going to enjoy her own birthday party this year. :) Thanks to everyone for the presents for Micaela, and to everyone who held parties, attended parties or helped with parties. So much for a low-key birthday, right? :)

In other news, I have been back at work for the past 4 weeks now - holy! I thought it was 3, and then counted on the calendar to actually figure it out.  Time is going by at warp speed!!! Mostly things are going really well, except for the everyone getting sick phase that happened during the first two weeks. As in, I went to work on Day 1, felt like garbage, and stayed home for Days 2 and 3. Who does that??? Greg has had about 3 different sickness in that time, and Avery had a bout of bacterial pneumonia. It was less than fun...but at least Mikes escaped the worst of it. Even the green eye snot is pretty manageable. Anyway, I will probably do another post (someday) with my thoughts on work. Different perspective this time, knowing that it is very unlikely I will ever be going on maternity leave again.

Learning something new all the time...

So we learned something interesting and totally gross this week. Micaela's eyes were looking pretty crusty in the morning and there was one day that Greg thought a nose booger had actually lodged itself in the corner of her eye. However, after a couple of mornings of this, we decided it must actually be an eye infection.  We spoke to the pediatrician's office and found out, to our grossed-outedness, that because babies/little toddlers don't have very much room in their sinuses, sometimes the secretions that come with colds make their way out through the eyes.  In other words, Micaela's eyes are snotting. So much so that they have been crusted shut the last couple of mornings. I told you it was gross - poor kid, though it really doesn't seem to bother her that much. Except when I try to clean her eyes up.  Then we get to hear about it! :)

Fun with the green garbage bin...

And the green bin saga continues...I thought we didn't need to use the bin liner bags in our big green garbage bin. Result = green garbage frozen to the bin, and the garbage truck didn't take it away a few weeks ago. Therefore, after my MIL worked to get all the frozen garbage out of the bin while we were away (I know, I do have the best MIL in the world), the green bin is now lined with a large garden wate bag. Today's result = most green garbage left with the truck. Almost empty garden bag = frozen to the frozen garbage in bottom of bin. Could have been worse, but man, I almost had a freakout when I saw the bag still hanging out of the bin. I mean, there are only so many times you can go without having the green garbage taken away :) Next challenge: getting the City of Ottawa to respond to my request for a new bin for free because the truck broke ours ages ago. Good luck to me!

11 months old and Christmas

(If the formatting is not good for those of you reading this post on FB, please check out the original post)

As you can see, I have a bunch of blogging catch-up to do.  As usual, really.  Anyway, Christmas was a
pretty eventful day...there's the obvious, of presents, little kid excitement, LOTS of yummy food, and family. Along with all of that, a certain little miss turned 11 months old.  Crazy hard to believe, it is!

11 months old at Christmas dinner

Micaela at 11 months old is definitely coming into her own. She is crawling, climbing stairs (constantly, much to our chagrin), pulling up to standing and letting go for a few seconds at a time, saying a few words and phrases - "uh oh!" is a favourite. Middle-of-the-night sleep training has begun...it is a little rough right now, but I am still hopeful that she will be sleeping in her crib for the whole night by the time I go back to work...in less than 2 weeks! She has also started going to daycare pretty much full-time. She cries like crazy when I leave, with tears and snot everywhere, but she is reportedly doing pretty well settling in, eating big-kid food on her own and napping in the playpen. She loves it when they go outside to play and even cried yesterday when she got the 5-minute warning that it was time to go in. What a monkey! :)

So Christmas this year was a ton of fun. Avery had a much better idea of what was going on and knew that Santa was coming and would bring her presents. And boy did she get a lot of presents! Too much really, and I think one of my tasks in the next couple of weeks will be to do a toy sort and put away some of them to pull out later in the year. And also find some to give away. At any rate, she was pretty excited about most of the things she got, but the favourites had to have been the princess dress-up treasure chest, the princess shoes and the cash register. Here's a video of when she was opening the shoes:

In case you didn't hear it, she said "oh my..." when she figured out what they were :)

 

Opening stockings

Opening stockings

With regard to the "too many presents" issue, I was asking my mom what it was like when Dan and I were kids. I have distinct memories of not getting as many presents as a lot of my other friends - not that we lacked for anything, but it just seemed like most of them got a pile, while we got something big, and then a few other little things and clothes. And I finally figured out why...we didn't get presents from our extended family. My mom's whole side lives in Switzerland, so we typically didn't exchange presents with them. And my dad's side wasn't really into present-giving for various reasons, so basically we received presents only from our little family of 4. And please don't think I am complaining, but it just all became really clear when I saw the ridiculous amount of stuff under the tree on Christmas morning.  I guess it doesn't help that there aren't very many grandchildren/nieces/nephews on either side of our families, and people really like to buy presents for little kids.  I enjoyed shopping for our little nephew Jacob! :) Anyway, next year we will have to come up with some sort of strategy, because this year was really too much. That being said, thank you to everyone for all of the presents, from the girls and from Greg and I too. Christmas 2010 was definitely one to remember!

Another Avery funny

Happy 2011 to everyone! There are many posts planned, mostly to catch up and close out 2010, but here is a cute little story from today:

During "naptime" when Avery was (supposed to be) "resting", I peaked into her room to see what she was up to.  She had one of her books open on her bed and she was running circles around it and saying "Jump!" (you know, because we totally approve of her jumping on her bed.) Anyway, I stood there watching her for a while and when she finally noticed I was there, she got quite a guilty look on her face.  I asked her what she was doing and she said matter-of-factly, "I'm jumping into the storybook."  I had to think for a moment, and then said, "...Oh. Like Dora, right?" Then we had to have a little talk about how some of the things Dora does are just pretend, and that she should just pretend too. I'm sure she grasped everything I said...now I'm just waiting for the day when she tries to handle a baby alligator the way Diego and Alicia taught her to. :)