Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's out there. 

Instead of talking about how grateful I am for being a mom, I thought I would just post the above picture. It pretty much just sums it all up.

I love you, honey! I love you, Tesla!

A Shiksa's 1st Passover

Okay technically it's not my first. Last year we celebrated Passover with some good friends who are religious and I was able to experience a real Passover. Even if it wasn't a first night. See Passover lasts 7-8 days depending on the website you look at. Yes it's true I just googled "How long does Passover last?" I'm not proud, I don't claim I actually know anything at all.

 Jason telling us the history.

Anyway, I do want our daughter even if we are not a religious family to have good solid family traditions. Growing up we always had traditions despite our religiousness. We celebrated all the holidays with the exception of the Jewish ones and I guess the Catholic ones because we don't put ash on our head or anything... I guess you can say we were uncomplicated folk. So part of giving our daughter traditions is to teach her about the Jewish holidays. I'm not sure how we're going to do this but we'll do it by trial and error. There's a whole lot going on in September that is highly confusing and symbolic, one step at a time!

 Veggie Kugel (Left) Tzimmes (right)

So what is a Shiksa's Passover if there is not a religious aspect to it? Well it's food, good conversation and the story of the travel through Egypt by the Jews as told by Papa in a very animated way. (I'm hoping to make dolls to represent everyone and then we can act it out! Wouldn't that be fun. But then Papa said I had to make dolls for each of the plagues, including the frogs... not sure about that. Although I was looking at a windup frog yesterday and thought hey! Maybe we could fill the table with windup toys. Or not.) I started cooking on Tuesday. The menu was:

• Lamb
• Veggie Kugel
• Haroset
• Tzimmes
• Asparagus
• Gifelte Fish
• Matzoh
• Matzoh Ball Soup
• Macaroons
• Wine
• Decaf Coffee

We decided to celebrate Passover just one of the nights and picked Wednesday since that is our regular dinner club night. Our friend Nigel joined us as always. It was quite fitting because Nigel is originally from New Zealand, and complains that we American's just do not know how to do Lamb. He said it was very good, which of course it was, but apparently kiwi's like their Lamb overdone, and I just cannot do that to anything. 

I did make a sedar plate, but nothing was really done with it. (Oh yes, that's really a picture of our sedar plate. Not it's not, it's from Wikipedia. Thank you Wiki!) A sedar plate contains:

• Bitter herbs (Parsely soaked in salt water)
• Horseradish
• Roasted Egg (boiled egg works)
• Haroset
• Lamb bone (we didn't do this part because we're entirely to cheap to go buy another lamb to get the bone and we just don't have east coast butchers.) 

Tesla found the Afikomen. The Afikomen is a piece of Matzoh that has been hidden. (See how I dumb that down? So simple.) In Tesla's case I showed it to her, had her chase me around the room and then placed it on the floor behind her wedge pillow... Then said "Tesla get the Afikomen!" I can't believe she found it! She's a genius I tell you!!! She loved the Matzoh, it turns into quite a mush when mixed together with all the other foods. She's a great eater though and had everything except the fish. The fact that I served fish in my home is a miracle. The fact that it's still in a jar in my fridge is because I love my husband very much.

Let me know if you would like any recipes. Everything came out fantastically with the exception of the Haroset. Jason said he's had it much more soaked in wine and my recipe only called for 4 tablespoons. Perhaps the apples were to big in relation to the wine. Not sure.

Yes she's just wearing a diaper. She's taken to crying for no reason and once I remove her clothes she's fine. She must be my daughter!

Follow the links if you're interested in more information about Passover. We had a fun night and will continue our tradition.

Grandma's Visit!

We had a wonderful visit with Grandma! She came to visit on Thursday and stayed until Monday. It was so nice to see her and spend time together. We had a busy weekend. On Friday we went to the Seattle Aquarium. It was Tesla's first time. It was so much fun to point out all the different sea animals. She enjoyed sticking her hands in the tide pools but could just barely reach. I managed to lift her up enough so that she could put her whole hand in. When she learns the meaning of gentle we'll be able to touch the different animals.

The ring of jelly fish was really interesting. The jelly fish just swam in a large plastic tube, it was like a hamster wheel for jellyfish. Tesla enjoyed  watching them but most likely just enjoyed playing on the tube. There was a super cute little boy that was just sitting on the floor next to it until Tesla came along and started trying to climb it. His mom said they'd been there for a few minutes. Way to go Tesla, make those boys jump!

Later that day we went to Pike Place Market and walked around. I managed to pick up a few new cookie cutters and Grandma bought a beautiful bouquet for just $5.00! Pays to get to the market just as they are closing!

The next day we spent with my mom to the mix, and visited Whidby Island. We had lunch at the Langley Cafe, a Mediterranean restaurant on Langleys main shopping street. It was very good. It was fun to go in all the little stores. I came away with a super cute pair of socks, but I seemed to be the only one interested in shopping that day so we left the island early. On the way home we stopped at Orvis. Orvis is one of Grandma Myra's favorite stores and she managed to find a few things that would be good additions to her wardrobe!

Sunday we went to Sears and had pictures taken. Of course the deal was for $7.99 but I managed to spend just under $50.00. We were initially going to do photos of just Grandma Myra and Tesla but then decided to add Jason into the mix and some of just Tesla. When these decisions were being made there was not enough time for me to get ready to be in the pictures too. So next time we'll get the whole family. We won't get those photo's for a couple of weeks but they turned out very well and I'll scan and post them as soon as I can.

Monday, Grandma Myra was the biggest help! She let me run errands and she stayed in the car! It was amazing!!! I ran three times as many errands as normal, just fantastic. I also went to the Fedex Kinko's and was able to get one of Tesla's posters laminated. It's a poster of Scientists for her room, which of course includes a picture of Nikola Tesla. We also had lunch at Molbak's. They have a very nice little cafe in their garden, and it's such a nice feeling. Highly recommend it.

So then Grandma left, and now Tesla sits and listens to her book that Grandma Myra recorded for her and looks around the room for her. We had such a great visit, we hope that she can return soon and spend more than a couple of days with us. Pop pop better visit too!!!

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day, Everyone! We had such a wonderful Valentines Day this year. I usually find that because of the cost that's associated with Valentine's day that it's a bit stressful leading up to it, but this year we don't have any money to be spending on such things so I took matters into my own hands.

About a week before Valentine's Day my niece Sophie came over and helped me decorate. We made Crayon Hearts using waxed paper, crayon shavings and an iron. Shaving the crayons took the longest time, the rest of the craft was super quick and good to do with Sophie. I also let her use the iron! Which was a big deal. Of course I supervised the whole time, and although some melted crayon ended up on my pants, shoes and floor, we were able to clean it all up and there was no other catastrophe. We also made sugar cookies. I rolled out the dough and baked all the cookies with Sophie's help watching Tesla. Then after we had melted all the crayons, we decorated the cookies. I filled pastry bags with icing then piped it on while Sophie spread the icing and then sprinkled it with pretty sugar crystals. They looked fantastic! We hung up all the decorations and packaged up the cookies to be given away.

Since the house was decorated we had to do dinner in for Valentines Day, (well that and the fact that it could have cost a fortune.) We invited my parents over to celebrate. I made Osso Bucco and roasted carrots, served with a hardy sourdough bread and the Liberty School Cabernet. For dessert we had something that looked like a giant eclair, made with a puff pastry, that I shaped into a heart, then split open, filled with whip cream and poured chocolate sauce over. It was pretty darn good!

Overall it was a great day! The best part was spending it with my wonderful husband, who shows me his love everyday!

Happy Valentines Day!!!

Tesla meets Santa

Tesla and Santa Claus

We took Tesla in her holiday outfit to see Santa. Grandma got her a beautiful outfit, I made her a little shawl and plopped a head band on her at the last minute. Typically she wouldn't smile for the camera, (she'll smile for me if I take the picture but not for others), but we did get a very cute picture of her looking up at Santa. Right after she took a good look at him she looked over at me and completely melted. Totally worth it though. I had been told that after Thanksgiving that there are insane lines to see Santa so we decided to do it before so we wouldn't have to worry about it. Plus it means we get to look at it that much longer!