Ohhhhhh, summer!

The summer weather here has been very strange this year - very "non-summer"-like. Unseasonably cool (which this pregnant lady is LOVING!) and very rainy (which this outdoors family is not loving!). Luckily, that has not stopped the delicious summer berries from growing here, because I look forward to going berry-picking every year. Not only are they MUCH cheaper than what you get in the store, the taste is soooo much better, too, because they are fresh and in season. And I am all for supporting local farmers, so that is an added perk, as well. Here is what we have gathered so far this year:

Strawberries

Yeah, we went a little crazy with these, but we shared some with my mom, and had NO problem finishing off the rest ourselves on our cereal, in smoothies, and in a fresh-strawberry pie

Black Raspberries

These grow wild in our backyard, and also at the end of our street, and we spent many an afternoon picking them as a family - gotta love free food...

Red Raspberries

We have gone twice to pick these now - I just can't get enough of them...

And this is just on here because it was my first pie that I made with a woven lattice top. I have always been scared to do them, and I finally got over my fear and gave it a shot with the blueberry pie I made for Lou's birthday. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, and I think it turned out pretty good!

So even though the weather here isn't the greatest, we are still finding things to enjoy, like delicious summer berries. Ahhhh, the goodness of summer... :)

Belated blog #2 - The Crawfish Festival

Our other cool thing that we did in May was the Crawfish Festival, a fundraising event to raise money for the ongoing rebuilding effort in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. Crawfish boils are evidently a HUGE thing down south. Lou and I had never had crawfish before, so we decided to check it out. It was really cool, because there was live New Orleans-esque music the whole time, a guy making animal shaped balloons for kids, and other food like Dinosaur BBQ for those wary of seafood.

They don't shell the crawfish for you - they boil them right as they are. And for those of you who don't know, here is what a crawfish looks like (well, a cooked one, anyway...) - kind of like a tiny lobster. That is Maria's hand holding it, by the way. I didn't really want to touch them...

And here was the platter we got - a whole bunch of crawfish, salt potatoes, and a small corn on the cob.

Our friends Scott and Cortnie went with us. They are real southerners, so it was good to have them along to let us know how authentic the food really was.

Maria loved picking them up over and over and playing with their tiny claws. Go her, because I was too creeped out to do it. I just have a thing against my food LOOKING like the thing it came from. I want it to look like food, not like the creature itself.

Here she is modeling the little sucker right up next to her face...

...and showing how tiny it is next to her. She thought they were so cool.

All in all, despite the fact that I made Lou shell them for us (I know, I'm a wimp), they really were tasty - very similar to shrimp in flavor and texture.

Josephine was talking about trying a crawfish nonstop for 2 days before the festival. She just kept saying over and over "I'm going to EAT one!". She was so excited, and then she saw them...

...and decided to stick with corn on the cob instead. She wouldn't even try one. Too much like me, I guess. :) I ended up going to get her a hot dog from the Haufmann's stand, and you should have seen the relief on her face when I brought it back for her. "Hooray - normal-looking food!"

It was a fun time, though. We got to try some new food, hang out with friends, listen to good music and take a stroll around the harbor afterwards. That's one of the things I love about central New York - all the festivals that are held almost year-round!

Belated blog #1

This post is yes, a bit late, but I didn't want to leave it out. May is a busy time around here, with all of the birthdays in our family so packed together. Mine is the 12th, then Josephine's is the 22nd, and Maria's is the 29th (and Lou's is a week later on June 6th - yes, that's all four birthdays within 3 weeks, and yes, it is tiring).

Lou wanted to make me a special birthday dinner this year, and I requested a dish that I had previously had at Ruby Tuesdays, "shrimp diablo". Lou looked up the recipe online, and found it to be quite, um, complicated. Besides the weird ingredients - brandy and white wine, to name a few - it is quite a fussy recipe, involving flambéing and all of that...

I told him to skip it, since it sounded like way too much effort for my birthday dinner, but he insisted that what I wanted was what I was going to get - aint he sweet? :)




So here is a picture of my dinner. I don't really know that the picture does it justice, but oh my gosh, it was the best pasta dish I have EVER had, bar none. He flambeed the shrimp in olive oil, sea salt and brandy (this was the first time we've done this and he really loved the whole idea of setting food on fire on purpose), made the wine sauce from the freshest ingredients (don't any of you worry - all of the actual alcohol burns off in the cooking process - this dish is Mormon and pregnancy-safe), and served up the whole mess on linguini. It all ended up tasting nothing like the one I had at Ruby Tuesdays, and by that I mean that it put their dish to shame! Next to Lou's gourmet creation, the restaurants' tasted like a jar of Prego poured over some penne with a few puny shrimp sprinkled on top. I'm so glad he insisted on making it for me. I felt so special to be getting such a fancy dish on my birthday. :)


For dessert, my Mom made my favorite - homemade strawberry shortcake - ohhhh, so good.

After dessert, it was present time (I never get too old to get excited about this part!). My mom handed me this huge box wrapped in black paper, decorated with black, white and red ribbon with these forks tied on top. So I'm looking at these forks, knowing they are a hint of some sort, but really not getting it. Was it a picnic set? Why were there forks? Forks, forks, forks...
And then I got it. Do you?

Ah, but my mother is a clever one. Get it? Forks? As in Forks, Washington, where the Twlight series is set? Once I figured out what was inside, I tore that package open so fast!!

I thought it was really cute, and was soooo psyched to get the entire set, all in hardcover. Now if I could just find time to read them all again...

And my sister Dana got me the movie, because a true Twilight fan MUST have the books AND the movie, don't you think? :)

Josephine's was the other May birthday that I wanted to share. Okay, so I wanted to share Maria's, too, but my camera broke literally ON her birthday, and everyone in my family forgot to bring theirs, so alas, I have no pictures of her birthday. :( But suffice to say that she gots lots of cute clothes and dolls and LOTS of great dessert, between the cupcakes I sent to school, her friend birthday party and the one for her family. She was inundated with desserts, and loved every minute of it.

Anyhow, here is Josephine and Lou right before their first annual daddy-daughter fishing trip (he started doing these with Maria on her birthday when she was three, too). It's a fun tradition, and the girls look forward to it for months in advance. I don't have any pictures of her with the fish she caught, because Lou said they were all too small to legally keep. But she did catch a few, with Lou's help, of course - go Josephine!

Ahhh, and here is the dessert - a golden butter cake, filled with fresh buttercream and frosted with my own creation - a fresh strawberry-infused real whipped cream frosting (I hate Cool Whip). I had to make a special kind of whipped cream, since the normal stuff won't hold up for frosting a cake - it just melts down after a short while. It is one of my favorite cakes that I have ever made. You just can't go wrong with strawberries!

The blowing out of the candles - Happy Birthday, Josephine!

And that's it! Birthday season is over in our house, and THANK GOODNESS! I have to say, that although it kind of stinks being pregnant in the summer heat, at least this baby's birthday is far away from the May Madness! :)

Am I the only one? #258

As I mother, I have many moments where I am asking myself: "Am I the only one that..." fill in the blank with the frustration of the moment. I'm sure that the answer to this question most of the time is "no", but I still find myself asking it over and over, wondering how many other woman are going through some of these crazy, maddening moments of motherhood. So, I have decided that, from time to time, this blog will feature an "Am I the only one?" moment. After all, it is my firm opinion that blogs should not be all sunshine and butterflies and life-is-a-bowl-of-cherries, because that is just nonsense. Parenthood has it's sunny, wonderful, heart-warming moments, to be sure, but in the inbetween, there are lots of "Am I the only one?" times, when you think you might just have to bust out the straightjacket.

Today's "Am I the only one?" moment is the following: Am I the only one who HATES mealtime on a semiregular basis? I mean, I REALLY detest it a lot of the time. It just seems like the older my kids get, the more of a battle it is. Being someone who loves food and takes eating very seriously, :) I just don't understand why children have to be prodded, begged, and threatened to eat their food. I mean, they have no trouble with snacktime, why is it that as soon as it's a family meal, it becomes this huge battle? I can't tell you the number of times I have said (and, admittedlly, sometimes barked) the phrase "EAT YOUR FOOD!!" It's not like I'm serving liver and onions here, folks. The food I make is normal stuff, and it doesn't seem to matter what I make - it can be their favorite meal, and we still have this problem.

Josephine's problem seems to be that she just isn't interested in eating a lot of the time. She would much rather just live on milk. And her new thing is to chew up one bite of food, and then refuse to swallow it. She just lets the whole mess sit in her mouth indefinitely. Maria's problem is that she won't stop talking long enough to put the food IN her mouth in the first place (surprise, surprise there). We constantly have to tell her to stop talking and start eating. Yesterday, it took my girls an hour to eat one small bowl of cereal - AN HOUR, FOLKS!! Does that seem crazy to anyone else? And that is quite typical of these two. Lou and I will finish our dinner, and then spend at least 30 minutes getting the girls to eat theirs. It makes mealtime so frustrating.

We have tried so many things to combat this problem. They get no milk until they finish their food (we figured that maybe they were filling up on milk and then had no room for food), and I don't give them snacks after 3pm, to make sure they are good and hungry by dinnertime at 6pm. The weirdest part is that in the hours before dinner, they are whining around about how STARVING they are, and then they sit down and play with their food instead of eating it - aaaaarrrrggggghhhh!

I am just starting to feel like a food-Nazi, saying over and over "Eat your food. Eat your food. Eat your food. EAT. YOUR. FOOD!!!" But if I take it away from them, ohhhhh, you should see the freakout that starts. And yet when I return it, still no eating...

My girls didn't used to be like this, but gradually mealtime in our family morphed into what it is today - a battleground. Not everytime, but enough to make Lou and I want to rip our hair out.

So, I ask, "Am I the only one?" Or are there fellow mealtime Nazis out there who suffer along with me...

Adventures in Virginia - the end

So, our last night there, after a whole week of eating home-cooked meals in our hotel room via our kitchenette, we splurged on a local seafood buffet. My girls were so excited for all-you-can-eat shrimp!

" Woo hoo - our cheapskate parents finally took us out to eat!"

Josephine showing off her fried shrimp - ohhhh, how she loves it.

This was the first of Lou's MANY plates of crablegs. He takes the "all-you-can-eat" seafood buffets very seriously. He has a whole game plan - he concentrates soley on the crab legs, since they are the priciest item. He was a man on a mission, cracking stack after stack of crab legs - I think he ate his weight in them before we left...

Our last night there, the girls wanted to take a walk on the beach "one last time". They were so sad to leave. We brought the last of our bread, and they had a great time throwing it to the seagulls to eat.

Maria was a good girl and just tried to feed them

Josephine, however, was intent on "catching one and EATING IT!!!" Seriously, she tried for over a half hour. She didn't get one, by the way.

Our last night there, I had a craving for some ice cream, and so I asked Lou to go out and get me some. When he came back and told me he had Ben & Jerry's, I was really excited, until I saw the container. In case you can't tell, this thing is TINY, like, the smallest carton of ice cream I have ever seen in my life.

Here it is inside a small bowl, to give you some scale. I was like "Are you KIDDING me?!! I ask you for ice cream, and you bring me six bites worth?!" As much as I was annoyed, though, I did find it kind of funny - what a goof he is...

It was the day we had to leave. The van was packed up, we were checked out of the hotel, but Lou wanted to do ONE more fun thing before we left. So, we went to the local putt putt golf place with a jungle theme. The girls saw it on the way in on our first day, and so they were really excited to get to go.

Maria did her best, but truth be told, Josephine was a way better putter. They both had fun, though, and that's what counts in the end.

We squeezed a couple of visits in on the way home. My cousin lives in Richmond and had just had her first baby a week earlier, so we dropped in to see her and the new baby boy for a couple of hours.

We joked that there were two babies in this picture - one newborn, and one half cooked!

After we left my cousin's house, we headed up to Springfield, to visit out long-lost friends, the Tolboes! They moved out of our ward a year ago, and it was really nice to catch up with old friends. Maria got to see her buddy Gavin and her pseudo-little brother, Josh, which thrilled her to no end.

My friend Linda and me! I have missed seeing all of the friends that I have made over the past few years, and it was sooo nice to be able to see one again and be able to talk, just like old times. Seriously, it was like they had never left, and also served as a nice reassurance that friends who move away don't have to disappear forever!!!

Ahhh, what a great trip - relaxing on the beach, seeing the sights, visiting with family and old friends. We felt so blessed to be able to have such a wonderful family trip together. I just love family vacations... :)

Adventures in Virginia - MORE other stuff

Our last stop outside of the beach area was the Virginia Aquarium. We actually spent a long time there - almost four hours! Our girls love sea creatures, so they were completely enthralled...

The seal exhibit was actually outside, at the entrance of the aquarium. We loved watching them swim, and Maria loved pretending that she was petting them through the glass.



There were two separate portions of the aquarium - the fresh water portion and the salt water portion. They were set way far apart from each other, so it was quite a hike to get from one to the other. It was a beautiful walk though, through a marsh area with tons of look-out spots (like the one below) and lots of info about plants and wildlife in the marsh.


Lou found a hawk circling, saw it rest in a tree, and we all got to see it through one of those look-out binocular thingys.

This was part of the walk along the marsh. A replica of what a hut built on the marsh would look like way back when people used to live in them.

Maria inside the hut. Nice bed, eh?

Another one of those exhibits like they had at the zoo, where there is a crawl space and a plastic bubble where you can stand up and be "in" the exhibit. In this case, Maria (if you can see her here, sticking out her tongue...) was inside the aquarium.

They had a whole aviary section, which was really neat. We even got to see the workers feed the nasty grubs and fish to the various kinds of birds. There were some everyday birds there, like ducks, and this turkey - Thanksgiving, anyone?

And there were funky birds that I have never seen before, like this duck with an electric blue beak. Yes, that is the ACTUAL color. Weird, huh?

This is kind of a funky picture, but it was really dark in where they had the sharks and sea turtles. This is Maria reaching up to "touch" one of the sea turtles. I've seen these before (one time was while Lou and I were snorkeling!), but they always amaze me with how graceful and beautiful they look while they swim around.

And this was one of the coolest parts, where you got to pet a sting ray! They had a whole pool where you could put your hand in and try to touch one of the dozen or so stingrays that they had there. I always thought stingrays were dangerous, but according to the workers there, they are actually pretty docile (they even feed them by hand, which we also got to watch), as long as you don't touch their tails and/or barbs. It was actually not easy to feel one, because they swim very fast. We all got to touch one though - they were pretty slimy, but it was a really cool experience.

and now a word from our sponsor...

We now interrupt our regularly scheduled program, "Adventures in Virginia", to bring you this message. This woman is pregnant - 23 weeks pregnant, to be exact. And here is her pregnant belly for all to see. There, now don't you all feel much better? And now back to our regularly scheduled program...