cause for celebration

one whole year!! a year of infanthood and a year of parenthood - there is no way to express how unbelievably quickly it's flown. here are a few pics...we mostly took videos, so I'll see if I can get some stills to share down the road. (the 'official' party with grandparents and uncles is in a week - these are from our mommy/daddy party on Sophia's actual birthday.)

playing with the ribbons...the wrapping is just as fun as the presents!

her little cake, complete with flowers and a duck (her favorite things at the moment)

reading a birthday card from Kathy Wargo, while eating some green beans. (She was so happy, relieved even, to be eating veggies instead of the cake!)

odds and ends II

more random thoughts and observations....

-I decided I would be extra adventurous and cook some Indian food a few weeks ago. Not just curry thrown in with some chicken and rice...oh, no. This was straight-up authentic, go out and buy some garam masala for my spice cabinet, this is the real deal kind of Indian food. The finished product was fairly decent, but I discovered something sneaky about one the spices! Beware if you use turmeric in any of your cooking endeavours - it will turn any white utensils (such as nice spatulas and immersible blenders) bright Easter egg yellow! There could be a fun crafty use for that if it didn't have such a potent smell. :D

-Ever flipped past QVC when watching TV? (I won't ask anyone to admit to watching, or even *gasp* buying something. heh heh) They were selling something (I forget what) for about 20 bucks, and you could use the easy pay plan with four easy payments of 5 bucks if you wanted. Seriously folks - if you need to use the easy pay plan of four easy payments of 5 bucks, you probably shouldn't be buying anything on QVC!

-Sophia's first birthday was yesterday (the official b-day post with pictures is coming soon!), and I decided to make her a 'healthy' cake, as this was her first foray into honest-to-goodness sweets. The recipe called for carrots simmered in juice concentrate pureed to a pulp with some raisins, along with wheat germ, whole wheat flour, eggs, oil, and some other non-sugary ingredients. The batter looked HORRENDOUS (anything with ground raisins cannot be a pleasant color), but the finished mini-cakes and muffins smelled pretty tasty. Sophia gobbled up the little tester crumbles I gave her, so I figured we were set. But as they cooled completely, they definitely developed....crusts. Not bad crusts, just healthy quick bread crusts. Not something cake-like that she could mush her hands in, and definitely not something you would put frosting on. So...into the oven went mini-cakes and cupcakes, round 2. (Fortunately I had bought a back-up box of yellow cake mix in case the nature-baby-all-natural cakes tanked.) Her finished mini-cake was so cute, if I do say so myself, when all was said and done and decorated. And do you know which one she would not eat? Yep, the cake mix one. Four or five licks of frosting for the camera, one or two test nibbles of cake that we broke off for her, and she pushed that sucker away from her. Even after we cleaned her off and offered her a few more bites of plain old cake....nothing. I guess she is a nature baby after all. Or maybe a salt-lover instead? (considering her passion for deli-chicken slices, string cheese, and olives) How the heck a salt-lover came from two die-hard sweet-tooths (sweet teeth?) is beyond me. xD

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odds and ends

Sometimes my posts are longer than others, and sometimes they just end up being random lists of things that have recently caught my attention. This is definitely one of the second sort. :)



1. The other day, I ended up behind this SUV that was some sort of mobile veterinarian unit. It's hard to tell from the cell phone pic (don't worry - we were stopped at a light!), but not only does it have "no narcotics on board" painted on the back, but it has one of those little oval decals on the back, this one with the letters "SN" printed on it. What did it stand for? "Spay and neuter." I am officially sick of the little oval decals.

2. Sophia's food tastes are ever changing! She loves finger foods, but the ones she loves make no sense to me! She enjoys some of the typical ones (cheerios, cheese, deli chicken, anything breadlike, bananas), but she must have some serious texture issues going on. She adores pureed fruits and veggies, but she won't touch them if they're in chunk form, not even if they're steamed to the level of softness known as "mush." Know what she likes? Hummus. Yep, my homemade over-the-top-with-garlic-and-cayenne hummus...and peeled and diced olives. heh heh...my little Greek baby.

3. I saw the American Idol guy when I was at the grocery store a few days ago. (see earlier post) I thought about getting someone to take a cell pic of us, remembered what he had actually done on American Idol, and decided against it. :)

4. I've had several other little epiphanies/random trains of thought that I thought would be worth sharing over the past few days, and of course, they've all escaped somewhere now that I have a moment to sit and blog. I guess this means there'll be a part 2!