Easter Fun!

We started the Easter festivities with one of our favorite family traditions - making and frosting sugar cookies! We did cheat a little bit. They had an Easter cookie-decorating day at my work which the kids were too sick to attend. Runny noses, fevers, the works so they stayed home with their germs but I brought home a few stacks of cookies so we could decorate them. Tagg and I made frosting and he picked the colors - pink, blue and purple.

I make some pretty mean frosting (thanks, Mom!). As you can tell by Tagg's reaction, he's a fan. Seriously eating it off the spoon, out of the bowl, licking it off the cookies. Even the sprinkles didn't distract him from job one...eating the frosting!

Next up? Dyeing Easter eggs of course! Or as Tagg calls them "ooster eggs." We ran into a few problems here. One? I usually buy brown organic eggs. I wasn't sure if or how those would color up so I sent Scott off to the store for some traditional white eggs. Check. Two? You should always check to make sure you have appropriate vinegar before embarking on an Easter egg dyeing adventure. I have tons of vinegar, usually. Of course, this is the day I'm down to about 3 tablespoons of white vinegar. So we filled in the the other cups with seasoned rice wine vinegar, white balsamic vinegar and cooking sherry (hey! it was that or full on balsamic and that, I am certain, would not have turned out well!). It was colorful!

The final result? Amazing! Tagg was a little rough with some of the eggs but the resulting cracks and fissures made for some beautiful artistic creations. After the kids went to bed that night, Scott and I stayed up late putting together Easter baskets, filling plastic eggs - Tagg's with candy, Sloane's with raisins and craisins, making fruit salad and french toast for brunch at Marc and Becky's.

My mom hid Easter baskets for us until I was about 30. Scott thought that was a bizarre tradition! I would agree about the fact that she did it till we were so old but I think it's a cute tradition, especially if you live in a place where there are pretty good odds for snow on Easter! I have a feeling my mom must have missed some hidden eggs at one point when we were little and this became a safer, less stinky replacement tradition! He'd never heard of it and he was cracking up as I was trying to find places in the living room that were "hidden" from a 1 and 3 year old's perspective. (epic fail, by the way. we totally had to show both kids where they were, and Sloane's was right in the middle of the floor!)

I tried not to put too much candy and junk in their baskets so I got a little balloon animal making kit, and Scott was a genius at it! Balloon hats for all the kids, including Morgan!

We went over to Marc and Becky's house for brunch and an Easter egg hunt with the kids. Becky is a riot! She is like uber-mom. She had cinnamon rolls with candy bunnies, mini pancakes with green frosting and jelly beans, green scrambled eggs, peeps and rabbit ears for the kids. 

She got all these cute animal eggs for Tagg to hunt in the yard with a Lightning McQueen egg for the grand finale!

And then the girls got their turn!

They did a pretty good job at finding all the Easter eggs in the yard. And happily the weather cooperated. It was probably the nicest weather day we've had in a long, long time!

Sloane really had a better day than this photo shows!
Sure she had a cold and it was nap time but this face!
My goodness!

Backstage at the Photo Shoot

Backstage at the photo shoot during the cupcake carnage.

We did Sloane's first birthday photos today (a month early but at least the pix will be ready in time to send cards and stuff, right?) with Jodi from A Yummy Life. She's amazing. Even helped pick out some photo-worthy clothing options for photo-worthy-clothing challenged me.

Sloane was insanely good. Tolerated five costume changes without a fuss including headgear, in spite of the fact that she hadn't had a nap all day. Impressive! Tagg was really good too, courtesy of the balloons, and the bribe of a potential cupcake at the end of the shoot. He owed me one. Apparently he hit a little girl at the park today and got timeout. Finally starting to figure out that the "timeout" rule applies to everyone, not just his sister!

I bought a few outfits for the photos, brought every single headwear, headband, flower thing I could find, and bought a little bouquet of flowers, balloons and a dozen over-priced jumbo cupcakes for the photos. All totally worth it! I can't wait to see the final outcome!

A Pinch of Salt...

Eggs n cheese!

My lovely sister gave me a very cool gift for my birthday. I didn't realize exactly how cool it was until today. We went to a cooking class at Lugano, a charming Italian restaurant in Salt Lake that idolizes local, organic food and the art of dining. We were there with about 5 other people - a small class apparently - and had no idea what to expect. The theme was "spring produce" which was made a little challenging since it had been snowing for about a week and was dumping snow the whole time we were there. Still, there was a counter full of fresh greens and cheese and eggs, a full compliment of wine and espresso to start the meal. Off to a good start! 

Asparagus flan? Sounds gross. Looks yummy.
Verdict: WAS yummy!

The asparagus flan, finished version.
The blue cheese crumble in the bottom
was the over-the-top moment.

We made asparagus flan. Disgusting, right? That's what I thought! A. I do not like flan. B. How could nasty flan be made better with chunks of asparagus? I have to say, I was happily surprised by the outcome...it was like a little fluffy omelet with a little hit of bleu cheese melted on the top. I am now a flan fan.

Then Chef Greg whipped up some appies (he must have heard my stomach growling) - bruschetta with grilled  asparagus and braised greens and mascarpone cheese. So yummy! Hard to eat but delish! By now I was starting to realize that the key to good cooking is as follows: fresh, good ingredients, a really kick-ass knife, garlic, good olive oil and salt. And then more garlic.

Speaking of olive oil, that was the first thing we did. Tasted olive oil. Yep. He passed around two BOWLS of different olive oils, one from California and one from Spain and we dipped a spoon and took a slurp. Of olive oil. I can honestly say that I never, EVER thought I would eat straight olive oil off a spoon. But it was interesting, like wine tasting interesting, where you can actually taste different intensity, finishes, spices, and so on. Don't worry. I'm not about to start serving straight olive oils at any dinner parties.

We also made a roasted beet salad. For the record, I do not like beets. I pretty much hate them. They looked beautiful going into this salad, which also had fresh basil and blue cheese. The finished product? Looked like a work of art. Still smelled like canned beets. I ate some of the yellow ones and they were pretty good. There was a woman at our class from Costa Rica and she said that she had grown up on boiled, pureed beets and hated them. This dish changed her mind. I'm not all the way there, but close.

We made a citrus/clementine salad with grilled shrimp which was amazingly simply yet delicious. My favorite dish of the day, followed closely by (never thought I would say this) the flan!

Overall, a very cool experience which I would love to do again. My only critique is that I wish the attendees had been more engaged, with the cooking and each other. There were about 3 of us from my generation, the rest were more like my parents. Most of them were feverishly taking notes, on what I'm not sure. All very cool people but I didn't feel like we got warmed up before the cooking started and so the conversation during the meal was a little stunted. No matter what, we had a ball. Highly recommend it! We are starting to plan our next class or wine pairing dinner now. Want in?

Happy cooking! 

 

The Sunday-Snowday BBQ

Roger, Sonal and Jenn enjoying the sun on
Jenn & Chris' deck at the new house.

We headed up to Park City on Sunday for a long overdue barbecue with our friends. They have 4 boys between them, age 7 to 14 months so we all fit right in. I still have no idea how people do it with more than one or two kids. Seriously, we had SIX under the age of seven, pretty close to what Scott's family, and it was nuts. Pushing, screaming, running, fighting over toys, let's not even talk about the after-dinner clean up under the dining room table. Impressive. Crazy but impressive! The weather decided to help us out...by snowing all weekend. Fortunately, the weather cleared up right when we arrived so we got the best of both worlds. Snowballs, sunshine... and burgers on the grill outside!

 

Tagg was a big fan of the snow. Even after he lost his shoes in a snow bank, he still ran around for a few minutes in his socks. 

Sloane and her first boyfriends...Will's pushing her
around the kitchen on a bike and Tyler is keeping an eye out.

Will finally got the foam hammer away from Sloane after she had beaten everyone including the dog with it. Poor Will already had a fat lip when we got there (hazard of being a new walker) so we were happy he was in charge of the weapon for change.

How cute are these two kids?! Four months apart. Apparently Will already has lots of girlfriend's but Sloane's not one to give up without a fight! We had a great time and all of us were very happy to start the festivities at 3 in the afternoon so we could get kids to bed at a reasonable time. That's good times when you're parenting!

First First Birthday

Aunt Tiff had a little one-year-old fiesta at her house. This was technically for Harper since her birthday was a few days passed. We didn't feel too badly about the belated celebration as the birthday girl was actually in California enjoying SeaWorld, the San Diego Zoo, the beach and 70 degree weather. Not too shabby for a first birthday!

Harper was kind enough to let Sloane share in her b-day festivities. They are just 5 weeks apart so it's kind of a joint celebration no matter how you slice it. So how do the girls party? Diapers? Check. Baby bundt cakes? Check. Tubby immediately after? Check.

We didn't get pictures but Harper slapped Sloane on her diaper bum leaving a big red velvet cake handprint. Classic. Both girls stood up on the table and at one point Harper was dancing. Becky said, "I hope this is the last time time my daughter does a naked table dance." Amen sister! I can only imagine the hijinks the cousin-twins get up to in years to come!

Babe

Tagg's gotten into this funny habit of hollering "Scott!" when he wants Daddy to do something for him or wants his attention when he's not responding fast enough. "Scott! Scott! I want milk pleeeezze." or fun the backseat of the car "Scott! Scott!"

So tonight we're sitting at dinner and Tagg says "I'm not done (with dinner). I'm Tagg Davis Harmer." Funny. Then he points at Sloane in her highchair and says, "That's Sloane." So we said "Sloane Ryan Harmer" which he parroted back perfectly. Then, "I'm Tagg Davis and that's Sloane Ryan." Happy he didn't call her Sloaney Baloney which is his nickname for her. So now I'm thinking in my head (duh, where else would you think?) it would be great if he knew our names just in case he ever got lost or something so he would be able to tell an adult authority figure who to call.

Here's how the conversation went down from there:

Me: "Tagg, what's daddy's name? What do you call him when you don't call him daddy?"
Tagg: "That's Scott."
Scott: "What's mommy's name?"
Tagg: "Yeah."
Scott: "If you call me Scott instead of daddy, what do you call mommy?"
Tagg: "Yeah."
Me: "What does daddy call mommy?"
Tagg: "Babe."

A Little Video Love

Tagg says "thanks" to Nana and Papa for a new Wii game where he can paint on the TV. He's a bit of a video game junkie already, unfortunately. Wipeout (yes, like the TV show) is his favorite, and he's actually pretty good at it. We were playing and then I went upstairs to get something and Tagg said “Papa doesn’t want to take a nap.” Out of the blue. I swear. “Papa wants to come play with me. Papa wants to come play with me. Nana wants to come play with me too.” It was very sweet. I wish you could see the video that’s in my head but I did my best to recreate it!

Here's Tagg showing off his songs. The first one (in case you need a translation) is Good Night Moon, a song he and I made up. It goes: Good night moon | You're here too soon | I'm not ready to go night-night | I brush my teeth | I read my books | I pull my blankets around me tight | Good night moon | You're here too soon | But now I'm ready to go night-night. If it doesn't actually sound like that, you're right. He's substituting Tagg for a lot of the words. We don't know why. Then he sings you are my sunshine and then the real version of good night moon. Except that he won't sing the last verse because he never wants to go night-night. As a matter of fact, last night he told me he was going to stay awake for the rest of his life. I fear he may be right - at least until his teen years!

A unique, special moment caught on video! Sloane took her first steps on March 17th. She'd been standing up for awhile but would always drop back down and crawl wherever she wanted to be. The last week or so before this she would take a little step and fall down. This was the first multi-step, official walking day! Luckily, she didn't quite figure out that was her preferred mode of transportation for a couple of weeks. She is currently trying to run.