Tabby’s party was today and it was a great success! But, I don’t think I’ve stopped moving since Friday night. Mom and Dad had the kids and Matt and I worked incessantly on Tabby’s party.
Secret Agent Party Part 1
Brain Dead
Last week I felt like I had oh-so-many things to post about. And this week it’s quite the opposite. I feel boring and just generally tired. I haven’t made it to the gym once this week (VERY VERY unlike me) but I’m giving myself a break because I’ve been going pretty hard. It’s OK to not be superwoman this week, really.
- We did clean out the “media closet,” as we refer to it, last night. Once upon a time, it was a coat closet, but we added shelves to house our ridiculous DVD collection. Then when Tabby came along, I moved our ridiculous DVD collection to a bunch of binders and moved her toys and DVDs into the closet. Last night we got rid of the remaining toys and now it houses all the DVDs (ours in binders, the kids where they can see them), a bunch of video game paraphernalia and the kid activities that can’t be in the playroom, namely anything with tiny pieces or the potential to destroy the house. It’s actually got a mostly empty shelf. Weird.
- We made IGE’s Chicken Parmesan Meatball Subs last night. They were very tasty. Ben’s having some of the meatballs for lunch today. I’m having a meatball sub for lunch today. Clearly, it is a good day.
- On the side, I steamed some green beans and mixed them with a little butter, some garlic salt and pepper and then tossed them with just a little panko and parmesan. Excellent side dish.
- I also fully intend to keep photographing and cataloging our family’s favorite recipes, but I hit a snag this week when I made Broccoli Cheese Soup and used the 2% cheddar I had in the fridge instead of the regular stuff. It got all separated and weird looking. It still tasted great, but would not have photographed well.
- We scoped out the site for T’s party last night and now I need to spend my lunch hour making up some clues for the kids to do a scavenger hunt.
- I also need to do a dry-run on making the cake. Luckily, my parents are taking the kids Friday night. That means we can have a super sexy baking date. Yep. We know how to party.
- Ben continues to be pretty freaked out by floating on his back in the water. Funny thing is, he is pretty OK with having his face in the water … I feel bad for him though and I hope we can resolve this soon, both for his sake and my wallet’s!
- Tomorrow is our company ski trip. I know it will be fun, but I’m not particularly excited at the prospect of leaving town. Again.
Tabby at 6
Yesterday got away from us, like so many days do. There, happily, is just so much living to be done that I couldn’t fit in an update on her sixness on the day of her birthday so now I will recall. Tabby spent most of her sixth birthday in one of her favorite places – kindergarten. She got to be VIP which means she got to help with the calendar, lead the line and other various honors. After school, she played with one of her new favorite toys, a set of “fashion” stencils my mom found for her that allow her to “design” clothes. I came home and she told me all about her day and then we picked up Ben from school and went to swim lessons, another highlight of any day for Tabby. Dinner was the pizza quesadillas she requested, served while watching Phineas and Ferb. She had a hedgehog cookie to finish. After dinner, she wrote a thank you note (to the sender of the hedgehog cookies), cleaned the (real) hedgehogs’ cage, opened a present from Matt and I and read a book to me. Just like that, the first day of her 7th year was done.
This day epitomizes Tabby at this age. She is doing so much and having so much fun doing it. Her enthusiasm for everything is wonderful. I can’t help but marvel, and in some ways lament, at how quickly it’s gone by. But every day, I see what an amazing, kind, thoughtful, creative, positive, and loving little girl she’s become and I’m happy. We’re so so lucky to have her in our family.
We Went to Vail
We spent a few days in our favorite home-away-from-home, Vail, in honor of Tabby’s 6th Birthday (actually tomorrow).
The weather on Friday looked like this ….
So Matt and I got a re-do on our semi-disastrous date day two weeks prior. Mom hung with the kids – who couldn’t ski in the deep powder and who didn’t want to brave the snow – and we skied our butts off.
We also had a great date lunch at The 10 which is a reservations-only restaurant at the top of the mountain. We’d never tried it before, so we treated ourselves. You get to go in and disrobe, including ski boots which is a big treat because even the most comfortable ski boots are decidedly uncomfy. Then you wear furry little slippers to lunch.
The average lunch fare on the mountain is chili and fries and pizza. And actually that’s what we had too, though upscaled versions of those with figs and lamb and stuff. It was tasty. As an after, we shared this sundae. Salted caramel ice cream, brownies, chocolate sauce and candied bacon. Mmmmmm
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Mom totally spoiled the kids. They had a picnic, read a billion books, painted with water colors and skipped naps. Is it any wonder we had to beg them to go skiing the next day?
The next day was super beautiful and with tons of nice snow, so we spent the morning at the bunny hill with the kids. Over to the left of the bunny hill happened to be a little event called the US Snowboarding Open, specifically the finals.
We watched from afar as crazy talented guys, including Benji Farrow, pictured above, did their insane tricks on the half pipe.
Back on the bunny hill, it was our Benji’s big day. After some initial regression from his victories in January, he rallied beautifully and …
Took his first runs on the gopher hill, which of course, means his first ride on the chairlift! Big time big boy!!
After Ben’s excellent morning, it was still beautiful weather, so Mom took Ben home and Matt, my dad and I took Tabby up the mountain.
It was a wonderful time. Tabby gets better and better every time we take her out and she really seems to enjoy skiing and she’s so proud of her achievements.
After our ski day, Kelly joined us and we went to dinner for Tabby’s birthday. After dinner, we came home to the cake I’d baked for her and presents.
Exhausted from two days of skiing, we went to bed early and woke up even earlier to pack up and head home.
February in Instagrams
Here’s a quick look at February. It’s a lightweight, coming in at just 28 Instagrams, but I think it’s a keeper. I am loving this project and the pretty results it produces.
Favorite Ben Photo: I just love the one of him playing around with me (11).
Favorite Tabby Photo: Love the photo of her reading – it sums up beautifully where she is right now (3).
Favorite Non-Kid Photo: Not to be narcissistic, but I like the one of JUST me (23). It is rare I actually like a photo of myself and I love this one.
On to March!
A key for posterity’s sake. Continue reading “February in Instagrams”
I Taught Bootcamp – Yay Me!
So I taught Bootcamp on Wednesday. Our teacher was away for the week and she asked me and some of the more experienced campers to be in charge while she was gone and Wednesday was my day. I’d been to a peer-led class the day before so I had some idea what to expect and it was a blast! This isn’t like an aerobics class where I get my leotard and leg warmers on and adjust the mic just right. We have a prescribed workout and we do it. I was just there to demonstrate the exercises and double-check form.
The experience was great. I’m certainly no Robyn (or regular coach who is phenomenal), but I did a good job. And it was a real testament to how hard I’ve worked at Bootcamp. I am not the most senior there (in tenure or age) by a long shot, but I come regularly and I work hard and it was very nice to be recognized for that. I have no designs on coaching Bootcamp full or part time (our coach is mostly a one-woman show anyhow and I’m not leaving her gym anytime soon), but I’d be happy to fill in again.
It made me reflect on the fact that I really am good at quite a few things. I’ve talked about this before, but it seems to be such a problem with adults – we can’t admit when we’re good at something. Ben tells me once a day how awesome he is at something. And he is utterly, wholly, completely convinced. Adults brush off compliments and make self deprecating remarks. I think in part, it’s because with our greater breadth of knowledge, when compared to our kids, we know that there is ALWAYS someone out there better than us. And I think we also fear being found out as a phony.
So I want to, more frequently, take inventory of all the things that I’ve done well lately. From this week:
- taught a darn fine bootcamp class
- won my DietBet
- got my project out of a logjam
- fixed a coworker’s iPad
- found a damn good bargain on backpacks and lunchboxes for the kids for next year
- planned one helluva surprise
- comforted my baby girl with an earache
- made some awesome party invites that were a huge hit
- successfully completed another month of daily Instagrams
Yay me! 🙂
Kangaroo Poop
When it comes to what happens at school, Ben is a man of few words. We ask questions and we get monosyllabic answers. It’s like he’s already a teenager. Tabby was the same way and I wonder if it’s just because they enjoy it being their own world, away from us. I suppose that’s OK, but I’m curious too.
So I’ve always enjoyed the reports his school sends home. Sometimes they’re merely informative. Sometimes they’re hilarious. Ben’s personality definitely shines through. Recently though, they did away with the paper reports and now send us daily emails via an app called Tadpoles that is specifically for this sort of thing. This is even better because A) no paper to deal with and B) now we get photos.
So the photo we got yesterday was the only indication he’d gotten to see a live kangaroo at school yesterday! When asked about it, his only comment was (with a wry grin), “He pooped in the gym.”
A Long Strange Trip (but we stayed home)
The past 24 hours or so have been… bizarre. See, Sunday, we had a ton of snow in the Denver area. Nothing like the blizzard of ’03 or the Blizzmageddon of ’07, but there was a good foot on the ground by us and almost 30 inches in some parts of the front range. And, as you might imagine, it messed around a bit with things like air travel.
Matt’s mom, who was scheduled to fly out on Monday had her travel plans go off without a hitch. She had a good time to fly out, a late-morning flight on the nicest day so far this week. Matt’s cousin’s wife on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. She and her brother had been in town for a Masonic ceremony celebrating her father’s achievements and their evening flight on Sunday was cancelled. After much back and forth, they finally were able to book tickets back to Nashville on Tuesday morning. But they were rapidly accruing rental car and hotel bills they hadn’t anticipated, so they reached out to us and we were more than happy to get to see our cousin-in-law and meet her brother.
So Monday we worked a relatively normal day and went home and did the mad-dash to swim lessons. As soon as they were over we went back to our ‘hood and met up with CIL and CBIL for dinner and then headed back to our house. They met the hedgies, we put the kids to bed and we settled in to visit. Much whiskey may or may not have been consumed by the gentlemen folk. We had a wonderful time – they are awesome, funny, interesting people – and I was up WAY past my bedtime.
Shortly after I fell exhausted into bed, a little girl came into our room complaining of earache. She was crying it hurt so bad. So we gave her Motrin and sent her back to bed. She was still in pain though and kept coming back to our room. We finally just let her sleep with us and so I was sandwiched and hot and uncomfortable and whatever. I didn’t really sleep past 3 AM and around 4 AM, I reached over, grabbed my phone and scheduled an appointment on our HMO’s website for Tabby at 10AM and sent emails to work letting them know my plans for the day. I got up with my first alarm (the one I hit snooze on about 3 times) at 4:20. I got dressed, did a little housework and headed to bootcamp. After bootcamp, I came home, screamed “WAKE UP BUTTERCUP!” in my hung-over hubby’s ear (that may not have happened – I’m actually a pretty nice person), and we got the kids fed and Ben off to school.
Since our house cleaners had arrived to scrape 2 weeks worth of foot gunk off our floors, we ran a couple of errands and then it was off to our doc’s for me and Tabby. Her sweet pediatrician determined she was borderline on the ear infection. She could clearly see why it hurt, but it didn’t look bad enough for antibiotics. Since we’re heading out of town this weekend, we took a “just in case” script that we can have filled if things go awry and set off for work. Tabby played nicely in my office while I conducted a meeting and then we grabbed lunch, headed home and NAPPED FOR THREE HOURS. YES!
Normal is just a setting on the washing machine.
Sizzling Asian Steak Salad
I haven’t been great about posting recipes lately. It’s because I’ve been busy, not because I haven’t been cooking. We cook all the time. I think we have some sort of bizarre street cred at Ben’s school because he is always bringing semi-“bizarre” lunches. But I have resolved to continue putting up the recipes that our family enjoys the most for one little reason. Tabby asked me to.
Well she didn’t ask my specifically, but she said something to me a couple of weeks ago about teaching her how to cook and her being about to make food for herself when she leaves our house (she sometimes has strangely long-range planning for an almost-six-year-old). So I resolved to make sure I post the recipes that have caught our fancy and someday, I will make them into a book for the kids.
This recipe has been on our radar for a few months now. It comes to us from one of my favorite food bloggers, Iowa Girl Eats. It is changed VERY little because it is basically perfect as conceived, but I will adjust quantities and some instructions to reflect how we make it.
Sizzling Asian Steak Salad
Serves 4
Ingredients:
For the steak marinade:
1/4 C extra virgin olive oil
1/4 C low-sodium soy sauce
2 T mirin (sweet Japanese cooking wine)
1 heaping T brown sugar
4 cloves garlic
24 oz strip steak, cut into bite-sized pieces
For the salad dressing:
1/4 C extra virgin olive oil
1/4 C low-sodium soy sauce
3 T honey
2 T lime juice
4 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons fresh ginger
For the salad:
1 small red onion, quartered and thinly sliced
12-16 cups baby spinach (or other lettuce)
1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
2 green onions, chopped
Directions:
This is a recipe made for the immersion blender! We stick all the ingredients for the marinade (except the steak, obviously) in a bowl and blend until smooth. It makes things super simple. But if you don’t have an iBlender, you can just grate or mince the garlic. Then you place the steak in a bag or a shallow dish and pour the marinade over it. 30 minutes or up to 2 hrs to marinate, stir halfway through. To make the dressing, you can do the same routine as the marinade. Place all ingredients in a bowl and iBlend or you will need to grate or mince the garlic and ginger and then whisk together or shake in a jar.
Once the steak is done marinating, heat a fry pan to medium high and then add the marinaded steak and onions. Saute for about 3-4 min per side (flank gets tough if you over-cook, so don’t!). Remove from pan and set aside. Combine salad greens, tomatoes and dressing (you will probably need less than 1/2 – just save the rest for next time) and toss until coated. Divide evenly amongst 4 plates, top with steak and green onions and ENJOY!
The Weekend Thing
Matt’s mom was in town this weekend from Nashville. She’s pretty low key so when she’s here we typically do basically what we do on a normal weekend … work around the house, have an outing or two, see my family and get ready for the week.
Saturday was very pretty, particularly early in the day, so we went to the zoo! We are members and so we never feel compelled to see it all which is nice. After the zoo, we grabbed lunch at a new-to-us restaurant, Park & Co. It’s sort of a hipster bar with really tasty food. Ben had chicken fingers (surprise, surprise), Tabby had french toast and the rest of us had some of their burgers and fries. All excellent.
In the evening my folks came over and we had some Mexican Stuffed Shells and Sopapilla Cheesecake.
Today was super snowy. The Denver area has had a lot of snow – 20 inches in some areas and probably a foot where we are. We had a nice morning at home and made blueberry muffins (above) and then went out for just a short while to the used book store. The kids have found a set of old encyclopedias on animals and they are slowly buying them up one at a time. We had long naps, did lots of cooking and laundry and prepared for our busy week.
Matt’s mom leaves tomorrow, assuming no flight delays. In a funny twist, a cousin of Matt’s is also visiting from Nashville and is stuck in our area until Tuesday and will likely be staying with us tomorrow night. Gotta love Denver weather.