Saturday, January 30, 2010

The Comfort Table

As you may already know, I absolutely LOVE cookbooks. LOVE THEM. I love reading them, I love the pictures, I love getting inspired. I pretty much love everything about them. I have a LOT of cookbooks! I am constantly adding to my collection. I just think it's fun to try new things, that way, we don’t get tired of eating the same old things over and over again.

One of my current favorites is The Comfort Table by Katie Lee Joel (now known as Katie Lee.) This cookbook is simple, lovely and packed with delicious recipes the whole family will love. One of my favorite recipes in the book is Spaghetti with Meat Sauce. It is sooooooooooooo yummy. The meat cooks in the sauce and it just has the most incredible flavor. The girls actually licked their bowls clean… ahem, manners girls, we must remember our manners. Whatever. Who cares?! When the recipe is this good, you’ll want to lick your plates clean too.

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The all-star cast

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The heavy hitter: Almighty All-Clad

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Going…

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Going…

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Gone!

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Little Miss Spaghetti Beard 2010

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

5 Wonderful Years!

My beautiful niece, Drea, is celebrating her 5th birthday today. I can’t believe she is 5. Where has the time gone? The day she was born was the coldest day ever. It was absolutely freezing. While we were waiting to meet her, my parents and I decided to go out for brunch. I suggested we walk since the restaurant was not that far from the hospital. Two things were wrong with this suggestion. 1) The restaurant was actually farther than I remembered it being from the hospital…  and… 2) It was the coldest day EVER!

I remember meeting her for the first time. Walking into my sister, Roberta’s hospital room and seeing her in the bed holding her newborn daughter was so surreal. I totally cried. It was one of the happiest, most breathtaking and emotional moments in my life. She was and is so beautiful. With a full head of dark hair and a precious little face, she forever changed our family and opened the floodgates of joy in that very instant. We have been so richly blessed all the days of her life. We love you so very much, Drea, and although we don’t get to see you as often as we would like, we think of you often and miss you more than you know.

I hope you have a very special birthday. I know two princesses that would love to be there to spend it with you. Much love, sweet girl, we are so proud of you!!!

Happy Birthday, Drea!!!

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The Three Musketeers.

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Drea, Aunt Carbie and Livie.

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Sleepover with her cousins.

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Meeting her baby brother, Ronan for the first time. At first, she wasn’t too sure, but she quickly came around and embraced her big sister role wholeheartedly.

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Singing her baby brother a lullaby. Drea is such a sweet big sister.

Drea, we hope you have a birthday that is just as fun and lovely as you are!

Chalkboard Rainbows

Picasso-style.

We have a chalkboard/white board easel from IKEA. Liv and Lauren adore it. It is in the dining room at the moment, but when the weather gets warmer, we put it outside on the deck for the girls to draw on it. They use chunky pieces of sidewalk chalk and have an absolute ball with it. I, on the other hand, cannot STAND chalk. I hate the way it feels, I hate the way it smells and just looking at it sends shivers down my spine. I hate the screechy sound of chalk and nails on chalkboards. Back when I was a teacher, I was beyond thrilled when they made the change to white boards.

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Ha! I asked the girls to turn around so I could take their picture, and Lauren was pretending to write on the chalkboard… hmm, just a little off target…

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Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Paper Dolls and Plunging Necklines

There are two things my girls absolutely love, paper dolls and princess dresses with plunging necklines. (They only wear these at home and most of the time we use a clothespin to clip the straps together)

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Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Princesses love to read…

Since my mixed-doubles tennis match was cancelled on Sunday due to rain, I decided to run to the local antique shop on Sunday afternoon for an hour or so. I love antique stores, well, I love the ones that don’t smell like mothballs and luckily this one doesn’t.

One of the booths had an interesting collection of gently-used children’s books. Most of them looked brand new, and they were a great price so I bought a few for the girls. They were super excited. They LOVE books!!!

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Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Lauren’s Eye Surgery

Lauren had minor eye surgery today. She was a total trooper. For a child who has an incredible appetite, she didn’t complain about not being able to eat or drink anything until 1:00 pm. We arrived at the hospital at 9:00am and Lauren was scheduled for surgery at 10:25am. We waited in our pre-op room, which had a toy box and a Little Tykes basketball net. It was awesome, Lauren loved playing with all the toys, especially playing basketball. Craig and I played too. Eventually, one of the nurses came in to say they were running behind schedule, although we didn’t mind because we were having too much fun playing basketball. I think the nurses could tell we were having fun from all the noise and laughter coming from our room.

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Fergus wanted to wish his little sister well during surgery. Here he is giving her a pep talk before we headed to the hospital.

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Lauren’s God-sister, Maddy and her sweet family gave Lauren a lovey to take to the hospital. Lauren was super excited to open her surprise gift. To say she absolutely loved it would be an understatement. She was utterly thrilled. It was the perfect gift. Thank you so much Ann, Rob, Maddy and Grace Ann! It was so thoughtful of you to think of Lauren, it made me tear up when she opened it!!!

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It’s a Pug in a Purse!!! It just doesn’t get much better than that!

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Lauren decided to wear her tiara to the hospital. It was a Christmas gift from my dear friend, Kim, and it has hardly left her head since she opened her gift. She LOVES it! Everyone at the hospital thought she looked adorable in her princess crown. Thanks Kim, Jon, Nolan and Oliver!

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Hanging out with Mommy and Daddy in the Pre-Op room.

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Getting ready for her surgery, all suited up in her awesome, purple hospital gown. There is also an “X” on her forehead to signify which eye will needs the operation.

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There are six muscles that control the direction of your eye. One of Lauren’s muscles wasn’t working as it should so her eye doctor decided he would detach it, and the reattach the muscle in a different spot.

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Princess patient

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“X” marks the spot… or rather, the eye…

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Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeese!

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Snuggling and giggling with Daddy.

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You can tell in the picture below how her left eye isn’t looking completely to the right, it is looking upward. It looks much better than it did when I first started noticing it. 

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Lauren picked out a special toy from the toy shelf. There were a lot of fun things to choose from.

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She finally choose a bag of dinosaurs. (This is a big change from the lip gloss she chose during her ear tube surgery last spring.)

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After playing with her new dinosaurs for a little while, Lauren decided to shoot some hoops!

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Mommy and Daddy shot some hoops too. We laughed. LOUDLY!

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There were lots of toys to play with in our room. Lauren didn’t get bored for one second.

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Lauren went out to the nurse’s lobby and found a Connect Four Game. It only had three pieces… two red and one black. Craig and I laughed really hard at this since technically, you couldn’t even connect four of either color, or four total for that matter. Bahahahahaha!

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Moving on to Princess Monopoly… Can you tell we had to wait a while? Lauren didn’t mind one bit. Neither did Craig and I. We were having too much fun.

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Finally, it was Lauren’s turn, so I put my cap and gown on and took her back to the O.R.

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This was Lauren’s third surgery. She has had two prior surgeries, both for ear tubes. I have taken her back to stay with her while each time while they put her to sleep and this is the first time I didn’t cry!

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It was a quick procedure. Only about 15 minutes. She was delivered to us in the Post-Op room and was a little upset at first but quickly went back to sleep for an hour. Poor little thing.

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Waking up for the second time. She was in a much better mood and did great! Such a trooper!

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Yahoo! A popsicle! Things are looking up!

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Snuggling with her new Pug, post popsicle.

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Lauren, sporting her new Jackie O. sunglasses and ready to go home!

Her nurse asked if she was always so sweet and so calm. That’s our Lauren!

(Good luck to my sister, Auntie J. who will also be undergoing eye surgery tomorrow. xo)