A little before-bed reading

So excited for this one. Why?:

Sesame-Crusted Tofu over Vegetables
Stovetop Fideos
Tomato & Spinach Dinner Strata
Chilled Maine Shrimp with Cabbage & Peanuts, Vietnamese-Style
Chicken Cordon Bleu Burger
Chicken with Quick Mole Sauce
Sesame Chicken Cucumber Noodle Salad
Sesame-Ginger Pork Patty with Grilled Pineapple
Steak Burritos
Apricot Grunt
Double Corn-Blueberry Cobbler

Sent from my iPhone - please forgive typos.

37

THIS YEAR, I WANT....

1 A healthy, fit body.

2 A healthy mind.

3 A healthy spirit.

4 To do more yoga. 

5 To speak my truth.

6 To FIND my truth.

7 To listen to more new music.

8 To find something that I love to do and make a lot of money doing it.

9To get my car washed more often.

10 To get my knives sharpened more often. (More often than never shouldn't be too hard.)

11 To enjoy my kids more, and yell less.

12 To spend more time outside. (To remember earlier in the year that I like spending time outside.)

13 To have more parties.

14 An organized house.

15 To be less afraid.

16 To love to live with less stuff, an love the stuff I have more.

17 A great wardrobe.

18 To learn to ride a bike again. (Stop laughing.)

19 To find out more about myself, and become more well rounded.

20 To learn how to do something new - create something meaningful.

21 To blog more.

22 To journal more.

23 To meditate more.

24 To be a peace more.

25 To go through all the baby stuff, put away what's important, and let go of what's not.

26 A scrapbook of all the cool things I get to do.

27 To write a cookbook. 

28 To be more grateful.

29 To pay more attention.

30 To have a few communities to lean on.

31 To read more.

32 To find a few new really great pieces of jewelry.

33 To wear nail polish more often.

34 To be the best wife I am able to be.

35 To be the best daughter I am able to be.

36 To be the best mother I am able to be.

37 To be the best friend I am able to  be.

(and one to grow on) To be more content than I've ever been.

Oh hai, blog.

I'm sorry to have been neglecting you.  It's Spring Break and my husband is out of town and I am very busy keeping little children busy so they go to sleep when they need to.  We went Roller Skating on Monday.  Wow.  THAT'S harder than I remember.   Roller Garden, where I had my 18th birthday party, looks exactly the same.  Right down to the carpet.

The kids did pretty well.  Boy mostly played the arcade games and got tickets.  Girl made it around the rink about 5 times.  Her heinie hurts from falling, but I have to give her huge props for her persistence.  She just kept going no matter how many times she fell.  Also, I introduced my 6 and 3 year olds to Pixie Stix.  

Six Years of Motherhood

My daughter turned 6 on Sunday.  Saturday we had six little girls over to our house for a party.  It was very loud and very cute, and it only lasted two hours in the morning, which was great.

I was dubious about how the Jessie The Yodeling Cowgirl Hat Cake was going to turn out when I started...

But it ended up really cute!

We broke two plastic golf clubs on this bad boy.  My husband had to deal the final blows with the broom handle.

Sunday found us at my parents' house for the Family Party.  My Mom made the traditional Bunny Cake.

Yesterday I spent much of the day getting over-packaged things out of their plastic.  My daughter's first Barbie Doll was eventually liberated, even though her head was literally  attached to her box.  Is this really necessary?

I keep re-living her birth over in my head, and I feel so lucky and grateful that I get to raise her and watch her become whatever adult is inside this smart, funny, clever, moody, passionate, talented six year old.

Me, six years and four days ago:

I'm still that happy about my baby girl!

Dinner Tonight

Shrimp Scampi and grits with steamed broccoli.

Shrimp recipe here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/shrimp-scampi-recipe/index.html

This is the best scampi recipe I've found. Lots of lemon!

Sorry no link, I'm writing from my iPhone.

What a difference 12 hours makes

Remember this morning when I posted about seeing the hippo? I wrote
that last night. This morning I woke up to thi out my front door. I
knew it was going to snow a little, but come on, now.

Catch Up Part 2: Eating Well for a few days, Planning a Birthday Party

Still catching up.  This ought to do it.

To lighten things up a little on last Friday after St. Patrick's Day we had Eating Well's Tuna Sesame Salad.  Super Awesome Use of canned tuna.

This Monday I made Eating Well's Chickpea, Spinach & Squash Gnocchi.  Here's another post about it with process pictures.  We drizzle each portion with balsamic.  Two tablespoons seems like a lot, even for this balsamic lover.  Sans the balsamic, my kids loved this.  Three year old boy identified gnocchi as a chef was making it on Chopped the other day.  I love my foodie kids.

In other news, the hippo has been sighted - a sure sign that spring is, in fact, coming.  Even though it's supposed to snow tomorrow.

 I was in my jammies at 6:43pm Monday night.

Saturday is my daughter's 6th birthday party. She's way into Toy Story.  If you know a girl who's into Toy Story, you will also know that Disney has apparently decided they're not interested in making money from female characters unless they have miniscule waistlines and live in castles waiting for Prince Charming.  Nothing. Has. Just. Jessie. On. It.  Apparently, Toy Story is a Boy Movie, even though it's got a kick-ass girl character.  After looking through cake catalogues and online for ideas, I decided I'm making a cake that looks like Jessie's cowgirl hat (inspired by these cookies) for my daughter.  Though getting this one at my local grocery store was tempting...

 Trees, hunter and hunted are 3-D figurines.  Keepsakes!

I'll post about the success or Cake Wrecks potential of my Jessie hat cake .  I'll also show you the sure-to-be-yet-again-brilliant Bunny Cake my mom will be makes for my daughter's actual birthday every year.  This year it's on Sunday - just like the year she was born.  But in 2005, that Sunday was Easter Sunday - hence the Bunny Cake.  

PS -  Why yes, I will be having chocolate cake with buttercream frosting for days and days on end.  Perhaps I should make some more ice cream to go with it.