My little mommy

Erica is walking so much now. She had a great time the other morning pushing the shopping cart all over the house.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We ended up having a very quiet day at home - just the four of us. We watched the parade - Stephanie was enthralled by all the performers and balloons. Erica was so cute. I caught her dancing with her baby doll during some of the songs. She was also singing along in a sweet, little voice. I didn't quite catch it on video, though. I was able to cook the whole meal and it all came together so nicely.

Cha-Cha-Cha-Chia Pet Roast

Hee hee... I thought the roast looked kind of cute. I loved the color of the crust. I had to take a picture. I don't think the girls quite knew how to react. It is a beef roast studded with garlic and asiago cheese. I like to make a paste out of any left over garlic and cheese and olive oil. This time I added some parsley and basil - thus the color. It turned out really good. It is my adaptation of Christian's mom's recipe called, "Cheedoo".

Grocery Shopping with the Cook's

Jessica and I had some Thanksgiving shopping to do, so we decided to do it together. We met at Central Market where the girls were able to play on the playground for a while. She also helped me get into Costco - Thank you! We had a bunch of fun.

Erica wasn't too thrilled to share the cart with Julian. He was so excited and was trying to touch/hug her. She practically crawled out of the cart! Ha ha!

Fun with Daddy

Playing the Marvel matching game

Trip to the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science

On Friday, November 19, we spent the day with the Cook's at the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science. It was an amazing experience. Stephanie and Josie had a blast together. There was also a bunch of things for Julian and Erica to do, too.

When we got home, I made pizzas. Instead of making big pizzas, I made little individual ones. They turned out really good. The girls loved them.

Playdate with kids from church

We had a great time playing with some kids from church today. This was the girls' first exposure to a sand box. Erica hated it. It took Stephanie a little time to warm up to the idea, but she finally got into it, too. Erica did really well playing by herself or with the other kids, too. So, I was actually able to talk to other adults! Yay!

And ... oops ... and ... oops ... And She's Off!

I finally got a movie of Erica walking. She's been working on it for the last week or so. I would say that she is probably walking 30% of the time, but it won't be long before it becomes the preferred mode of travel.

She really likes to go to the playground across the street. Any time I let her loose out front, you can just tell she is trying to figure out a way to get over there.

Erica Finds the Project Cupboard

Steve, are you sure you want to hire Erica? Ha ha! (Steve asked if they could hire Erica to help them organize their kitchen)

Freaky Nap Day

Well, some moon is aligned with some stars somewhere. The girls are still sleeping and it's almost been a 4 hour nap. So ... what do you do? Make ravioli! Ha ha! I even got an hour nap in. The raviolis were fun, but tedious. I have some leftover sauce from last week and we have some wonderful, local made italian sausages to go with it. Yum! I hope the girls wake up soon!

See, Camila? This is how you do it!!!

Erica got an early start on dinner tonight, so she got down early. Here's the project she decided to take on while we finished eating. (Camila is my friend's daughter who is also interested in helping her Mommy organize her cupboards)

For anyone interested, I ended up making a quadruple batch of kolaches for the women's brunch this morning. I made 3 fillings. I made the tomato basil filling again. I made 2 egg based fillings. Instead of scrambling the eggs over the double boiler, I basically made 2 quiches - just without a crust. I scooped the cooked custard out of the pie dishes, rolled it in a ball, rolled them in flour and put them on the dough that I had brushed with egg white. The 2 quiche flavors were quiche lorraine (bacon, gruyere, onion) and sausage (sausage, cheddar, green onion). The milk/cream in the quiche mix made the eggs perfectly smooth and soft. For the dough, I followed the ATK recipe again, but used bread flour (per a recipe I found online) and bloomed the yeast before mixing it in. The dough was much softer this time and rose beautifully. If I had a Czech grandmother, I guess she would be proud. Ha ha! The ladies really enjoyed them and one of them even threatened "ordering" some for Christmas. Yikes! I guess I better go to a real bakery and see what they are supposed to end up like. Ha ha!

Kolaches

When we were playing at the Cook's house the other day, I was talking to Jessica about the Women's brunch coming up on Saturday. I have been asked to bring a savory dish and am still trying to figure out what to bring. She told me about Kolaches. Kolaches are Czech rolls that are usually filled with something sweet, but many bakeries offer savory ones, too. It inspired me to try making them to see if they would be fun to take to the brunch.

I actually found a America's Test Kitchen recipe for the dough (halved the sugar, doubled the salt - since their recipe was destined for sweet filling). Jessica suggested a sausage/egg/cheese filling and gave some great input on how to make the filling. I was inspired by a recent Giada De Laurentiis recipe to do a tomato/basil/cheese filling, too.

Here they are. I am glad I took a picture because Christian and I plowed through a bunch of them while we were analyzing them.

They are very tasty and fun to eat because they are so small - no more than 3 or 4 bites each. I ended up cooking the eggs in a double boiler to keep them soft and moist. Per Jessica's suggestion, I combined the eggs with sausage (Jimmy Dean tube sausage, precooked and chopped up) and cheddar cheese before filling the dough. For the tomato basil ones, I ended up mixing the tomatoes with Parmesan, Asiago and Mozzarella cheese. Both fillings would have benefited from more cheese.

First Steps!!!

Erica took 4 steps today. I don't think she was even paying attention to what she was doing. I will keep the camera handy and try to get a movie next time.

Polar Bear Club

I know it is the middle of November, but it really was warm today. The girls were having fun playing outside when Stephanie requested to play in some water. They had a ball!

Music Fun

We were listening to music this morning and the girls started fighting over the drum. So, I showed them how they could bang the blocks together. They started really getting into the music.

Playdate with Josie

We spent another day playing with Josie again. She and Stephanie are so cute together and get along really well. Stephanie is dressed in one of Josie's dress-up dresses. She was so pretty! They are looking at the birthday card that Stephanie decorated for Josie.

Playground fun with Daddy

We went to the playground when we got home from church. The girls had fun with Daddy.