As Bad as a Hallmark Commercial

Me and the video cam are not good buds … I don't feel like I've got much prowess with it, but the still camera? We're tight. We took around 10,000 photos last year … and a few of them were of Ms. Tabby. I did not get the freaking scrapbook finished (or even close), and I was all angsty about having photos for her party for reminiscing and such. So the morning of her party, I got up bright and early and went crazy with Windows Movie Maker. I hadn't really used it before (at least not the Vista version), but I found it INCREDIBLY easy to use and in a mere 3 hours, while Matt tended to Tabby and finished up cooking for the party (he is truly Super Dad), I made a 15 minute video with a photo or two from Tabby's first year. It turned out brilliantly … burned to DVD and displayed at the party. I would LOVE to share it with you, but since everyone is all CYA about copyright stuff, Google Video rejected my upload (it contains … get this … copyrighted music). Party poopers. If you're dying of curiosity, you can see the title screen in the background of this photo.I had decided to do Italian food for the party. Tabby is a big fan. So mom and I made a *ginormous* traditional lasagna. I also made a caramelized onion and mushroom lasagna (vegetarian and light) and Grandma P's mac 'n' cheese. I also made two different stuffed mushroom recipes. They were both good, but this one from Giada is the only one I can find right now. To round out appetizers, I made zucchini chips … I should type out a recipe, but I'm feeling lazy. But the jist is that you bread up zucchini with breadcrumbs, italian spices and parmesan and bake them for a few minutes … and serve with marinara. Dessert was moist yellow cupcakes filled with chocolate pudding (Jell-o, yes I cheated) and sour cream chocolate frosting. Yum-o. Tabby ate like a little champ as usual and absolutely devoured the cupcakes.

As the final bit of her b'day celebration, tomorrow, we're going to take her to Papadeux where we were dining when we got the call to bring me to the hospital for induction. Properly, we probably should have done that yesterday since the call came in on March 2 … two days before she was actually born, but oh well.