Friday, October 29, 2010

Chasing the Mountain

I go to a mommy group at my church on Fridays. Last season I attended with Little G because there is childcare. This year, Little G is in daycare on Mondays and Fridays, so I go all by myself.

And weirdly, I am totally jealous of those mommies who are there with their little ones. Mostly because I have apparently completely lost any memory of how freaking hard the first year of Little G's life was.

Seriously. I mean, I can remember specific incidents, but as far as the day to day grime of it all...I seem to forget it the second I look at all those mommies with their cherubic little babies and my ovaries start kicking me.

Weirdly, I am proclaiming this love for the babies in my mommy group when I just today shared with them how scared I am to have another baby. I liken it to standing at the top of a double-black diamond. I know how to ski...but I am no expert. The first time I went down the double black-diamond I fell. A lot. And I eventually got to the bottom. And I had a blast doing it. But it all seemed to whiz by.

And now I'm standing at the top again...KNOWING how much it hurts to fall down and how awesome it will be when I get to the bottom and I am realizing that I am WAY more scared than I was the first time. Do I just jump forward and know that eventually I will make my way down the mountain, or should I try to make my way back to the chair lift?

Monday, October 18, 2010

Took me long enough...

...but remember that post from a while back about my kitchen conundrum where I was about to go all Ikea-hacking-lunatic on a shoe cabinet in the name of a space-saving kitchen laundry collecting area?

Well, I finally figured out what to do and posted all about it over at Flor today.

Go check it out and be sure to leave a comment :)

--me

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Come One, Come All!!

This past Sunday, on 10-10-10, my good friend got married at the Franklin Park Zoo here in Boston. She's known for throwing a pretty awesome theme party just for an everyday shindig...so we knew to expect some awesomeness for her circus/carnival themed wedding!

The location of the wedding within the park was next to a playground with a super-duper, crazy-go-nuts fast slide that Little G LOVED!!





The ceremony was held on a lawn just outside a tent with picnic tables. The guests were seated at the picnic tables in the tent and there were chairs in rows for family members closer to the ceremony area. All of the picnic tables were covered in white paper and there were cans of crayons and sheets of coloring book excerpts from Circus books all over the place. There were also really fun, colorful candy centerpieces on the picnic tables as well.




Sarah had made super huge bunting to decorate the inside of the tent and keep things festive:

Each table had a carnival game on it and if you won you got a number and could go up to the prize table and collect your prize:

They also had candy apples for everyone:


Here's Little G and my husband coloring and NOT eating the crayons!

The bride was sequestered on the opposite side of where she needed to be to walk down the aisle...so her bridesmaids camouflaged her with their pashminas while they walked her to the correct place:

The bridesmaids all wore black dresses and had underskirts in different colors. They carried paper flowers that matched their underskirts:

They set up a fun backdrop to anchor the ceremony:

After the ceremony, instead of cutting cake, the bride and groom bit into whoopie pies!!

Sadly, this is the only shot I have of her AWESOME shoes!!



After the ceremony, the backdrop was used for a faux-to booth with clown costumes, paper mustaches, old fashioned cameras and a strong man ensemble:

The wedding guests were given tickets to ride the zoo's carosel:





This wedding was so much fun and it was really great to see two good friends who are so loving to each other, their families and their friends have such a joyous event!!

Did you go to a wedding on 10-10-10?

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Pumpkin Fried Rice

A couple of weeks ago we were in Seattle visiting Little G's Great Grammy. While there, I caught up with a couple of friends from the 'ole Bee and we had dinner at Ginza, a Japanese restaurant in Bellevue. The food was fantastic, but the best part of the evening was the pumpkin fried rice.



The server was kind enough to explain how they make it...first they steam a whole bunch of pumpkins whole. Then they make the fried rice with onions, egg, soy sauce, etc..and then they add in really finely chopped bacon (YUM!). Finally, they add in the steamed pumpkin and serve it in the scooped out shell.


It was sooooooo yummy I decided to try and make it at home myself.


First step: set up a distraction area for the munchkin so that he 'thinks' he is cooking just like mommy...

I didn't have a pumpkin, but I did have these gords that I got from our CSA, so I used those instead.
I decided that I prefer roasting my winter squashes instead of steaming them...the caramalized flavor you get out of them is FANTASTIC. The most annoying part was peeling them since they are so small and knubby. In the future, I might just cut them in half and roast them cut side down in a pan instead of cubing them up like I did...


After they were cubed, I drizzled them with olive oil and salt and pepper and roasted them for 35 minutes at 400 degrees...

While they were roasting, I made up some bacon...
...of course I TOTALLY forgot that at the moment I only have one baking sheet with sides on it which was in use for the squash...so I couldn't bake my bacon in the oven like I usually do. What's a girl to do? Fire up the ole' microwave!

I put the bacon slices on a paper towel on a plate and then covered them with another paper towel and cooked them on high until they were crisp...about 2 minutes.


After a quick mince, the bacon was ready to go:

Next, I chopped up an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic:

I sauteed them until they were softened...

...and added in a pile of left over rice from a few days prior.

And stirred it around with some soy sauce until it was heated through:


Then I made three 'nests' and added in an egg to each nest. I scrambled each egg in the nest and once they were cooked I mixed it all into the rice:

Finally the squash was done and it smelled heavenly!


I added in the squash and the bacon and mixed it all together:

Finally, I served it up with pan seared pork chops and sauteed green beans.

The rice was so yummy but no where near as awesome as what we got from Ginza. Perhaps it was the atmosphere or the fact that I didn't have to make it, but whereas I came away talking about the Pumkin Fried Rice from my experience at Ginza...I don't think anyone at my dinner table wrote home to their mothers about my recipe.

Oh well...at least it was super yummy :)

Next up in my foray into food blogging...turning a bunch of CSA greens into a yummy chicken dinner that even my toddler ate!