Blueberries and Lemon

I'm sure the few people that actually look at this blog lost interest long ago. Spring came and I abandoned a lot of crafting and baking and blog updating for adventures outside. But here is an attempt at returning.

I made some desserts for a baby shower a few weeks ago that turned out really yummy.

I saw these cobblers baked in jars at Not Martha and thought they would be really fun to try. I pretty much followed her directions, but I couldn't find the wide mouth jars. Mine were the same size, just skinnier and taller and they seemed to work just fine. I made my own labels to fit in with a girl baby shower.

Here they are right out of the oven. They smelled so good:


There is something really cute and satisfying about individual little jars of desserts:



(They are extra good with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream dropped inside when you're ready to eat.)

The directions for making the cobbler in jars can be found here.

(Next up...I'm going to make cupcakes in a jar.)

I thought not everyone would like blueberries so I also made some lemon cupcakes. I was really happy with this recipe that I found through Stephmodo. The combination of the cupcake and the frosting was perfect. Definitely try this recipe if you like lemon. I didn't attempt the candied lemon peel, but maybe next time. A simple raspberry on top did the trick.

Richmond Museums

On Wednesday I took the girls down to Richmond to check out the newly renovated Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and go to the Childrens Museum with our good friends the Dyckmans. It was really good for Amelia to see a friend the day after the Sadie farewell.

The Museum of Fine Arts is in a really neat building and the collection is really nice and varied (plus admission is free). Amelia enjoyed checking out the different works of art with me. I predicted that Elsa would just want to get out of her stroller and potentially cause damage. She liked any art work that involved animals, but after about 5 minutes of art viewing, I admit that I gave her my ipod and let her watch an episode of Yo Gabba Gabba to keep her contained in her stroller so I could wander in peace. It was a brilliant idea.






Amelia loves dance so she was really excited about the Degas sculptures. (I didn't realize she was posed like the dancer until I was going through my photos at home.)


We took a break for some lunch on the patio.






This was actually an ant farm.

Elsa was very pleased when we arrived at the Childrens Museum and she was finally allowed to run free. She had so much fun running from room to room and keeping track of Jonah. Amelia and Ethan had a great time together as well.












Amelia never misses a chance to perform on stage.



Of course no pictures of me and Sarah. It was great to just sit and chat with a good friend for several hours while our children were happily entertained with lots of fun activities.

A tearful goodbye.

Last August, a family moved in across the street from us with two girls just older than our girls. Amelia became instant friends with Mercedes (Sadie). They had weekly play dates and LOVED being together. It was so convenient to have a best friend right across the street. It was so nice to leave my girls there and run errands by myself during the day. It was equally nice to have Sadie and her sister London come play at our house and entertain my girls. Ben and I took advantage of lots of babysitting swaps with them and were able to go out a lot during the last several months. Sadie's mom was also Amelia's teacher at church which Amelia loved.

Sadly, they moved last week and we were really disappointed to see them go. Whenever I would tell my girls that it was time to go to Sadie's house, they would start screaming and run to get their shoes on. They loved to watch for them out our windows.

Amelia has had so many close friends here, and they always seem to move away. This time, she was finally old enough to really know what that meant. It was a pretty dramatic farewell. The day they left, the girls were all playing in our front yard having a great time. They gave each other repeated hugs goodbye and then Amelia stood on the edge of our curb and watched as they walked back to their house. Once they were almost gone, she yelled out "I love you Sadie! I love you London!" Then she VERY slowly turned around and walked back to our front door with her head down. She burst into tears sobbing "Sadie was my favorite friend." I'm getting teary just remembering the whole ordeal. We were so lucky to have such great friends living close by.

p.s. Anyone looking for a really cheap place to rent? The house is still available and we make pretty awesome neighbors!


Amelia, Sadie, London, Elsa

Elsa turns 2!

Elsa turned TWO last Friday and we had a fun day celebrating. I really love this age (except that she no longer gets in free at most places and requires her own plane ticket...ugh).

She woke up to a new tricycle in the living room...


Testing it out...




Following our afternoon at the zoo (see post below) we stopped at Johnny Rockets on a whim figuring it would be pretty kid-friendly. We scored a free sundae for Elsa (and a happy birthday song from the waiters) which she thoroughly enjoyed.


Brain freeze! (And some lovely post-zoo hair.)



We finished the party at home with lots of presents. Elsa figured out pretty quickly that they were all for her to open. Thank you to our family and friends for spoiling her!





Elsa with her loot:


Elsa had been singing the happy birthday song all day and was very excited about blowing the candles out.



So much concentration:





Elsa sings Happy Birthday (if you can hear over the loud singing of me and Ben):




This was Elsa's second round of blowing out the candles. She had no problems the first time around, but suddenly forgot how to blow air:



Elsa finally realized she could climb out of her crib a few weeks ago. Since then, we have enjoyed some early mornings with her standing at our bedside yelling "MORNING!" or the much less preferred demand for "MILK!" The other morning she played for awhile after crawling out of bed and then stood by the fridge and started yelling "MILK! MILK!" I wasn't very quick about getting out of bed and suddenly I heard Amelia come out of her room, get Elsa some milk, and then go back to bed. Excellent.

Elsa has been talking up a storm lately. She's trying out new words and phrases every day. Current Elsa pronunciations:
blankie = nanie
flip flop = see bop
i love you = i LUB you
clifford (the big red dog) = t-bird
no = NO NO NO NO NO
thank you = nay new
amelia = mia
birdie = booty
penguin = pagan
diaper = bopper

She pretty much repeats everything that we say. Today she said her longest clearly stated sentence yet while we were at Target..."Mommy, what are you doing here?"

Elsa had her 2 year check-up this week and has moved back up to the 15th percentile for weight (she's up to 24 pounds!), which is actually quite amazing since it seems like she never eats and she never stops moving. She also had to have blood work done. They pricked her finger and it took forever to get enough blood out. She was not pleased. (We had made it through the shots without any crying but the blood work did her in.) They called me a few hours later and said her platelets were really low and it was mostly likely a machine error, but I needed to take her to the hospital's outpatient lab immediately for another test. They actually did it through the vein in her arm the second time which was much faster, although much more traumatic for Elsa. And unfortunately, Amelia was with me by then and witnessed the whole thing. (Just after I had explained that she would be getting blood work at her 5 year check-up and it would be no big deal.) The test results were fine the second time around. I feel like every time I take my kids to the doctor, there is always a small chance of something being wrong and we're sent off to do further tests just in case. I suppose it's better to be safe, but it sure has been expensive.

Celebrating 2 at the Zoo

For Elsa's birthday last Friday, we spent a hot (90 degrees!) afternoon at the Reston Zoo. Elsa loves animals and we thought we would take a break from the National Zoo and get a little closer to the animals.

They have a lot of goats and sheep you can feed. Amelia has always loved goats and wasn't afraid to get close. Elsa started giggling and imitating all of the loud "baaahs" as soon as we entered, but she kept a safe distance. (See video below.)









The highlight of the zoo is a tractor ride that takes you around to see the larger animals (zebras, camels, bison, etc) and they come right up to the wagon so you can pet them and feed them.

An evening in D.C.

Last week Ben invited me to come check out a new World Bank building that he has been working on for the last several months. I left the kids with our amazing neighbors and took the train downtown to get a tour. They gutted an existing building in the Dupont Circle area and it was far more interesting design-wise than I expected. Ben was in charge of designing all of the audiovisual stuff for the building. They put digital signage throughout and there were a LOT of plasma screens everywhere.


This is one of the conference rooms. (Ben LOVES being photographed at work.) They paid over a million dollars just to have a central column removed from this room so it wouldn't obstruct anybody's view of the screens.


The view from the conference room.


Checking out the corner office.



Each corner of each floor had different colored glass and the furniture was all in very bold and bright colors.









I always love to see what Ben has been working on and it's fun to see what kind of new technologies are out there now. Plus, an evening in D.C. is always fun. After the tour, we stopped at the Luna Cafe for some yummy dinner and enjoyed being the only people eating on the patio (as soon as the man with the smelly cigar left).


Check out those sweet potato fries!