Twofer Flop

So I was really disappointed with the Twofer recipe so I'm not going to include it. I don't want to leave you without a recipe though so I'm sending you one of my favorites.

Roasted Cherry Tomato Soup

• Three 1-pint containers (2#) red cherry or grape tomatoes
• 1 1/2 T olive oil
• 1/2 cup chutney
• 1 1/2 T lemon juice
• 2t coarse salt
• 2 1/2 cups chicken or veggie broth

Preheat oven to 500. In a large baking dish, toss the tomatoes with the oil to coat; spread in a single layer. Roast, shaking the pan halfway through, until the tomatoes have burst open and released some juice, about 20 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes, then transfer to a large pitcher or bowl. Stir in the chutney, lemon juice, and salt. Working in batches, puree the mixture in a food processor or a blender until smooth.Transfer the puree to a large saucepan and stir in the broth. Warm gently before serving.

Added Bonus:

Yummy homemade croutons.

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves
• zest of one lemon
• 1 loaf of French bread

Preheat broiler. Place the oil in a small saucepot and add the garlic cloves and lemon zest. Place over low heat and gently cook for 3-4 minutes. Remove from heat. Split the French bread open lengthwise, brush both sides liberally with the garlic-lemon oil, and place under the broiler to toast until golden. Remove and chop the bread into large bite-size pieces.

Put a few of the croutons in the bottom of the bowl before ladeling the soup in and a few more on top.

Today...

...I have been working on these wedding invitations. As I make each fold and punch I send up little prayers that Kim is happy with the end result.

Today I caught this little munchkin smearing her cracker hands all over my newly cleaned windows. She likes to stick her tongue out at me. I couldn't pick a favorite picture so I'm including them all. Oh and she is a little sick (snotty) so you may not want to enlarge these, ha.

Last week at our park date Kendall got a little muddy. When we got in the car I gave her a wet wipe and she was cleaning up and talking to herself as we drove home:

Kendall: Got that dirt off of there.

Kendall: Say it Mommy, say 'get that dirt off of there'

Me: Get that dirt off of there

Kendall: I will Mom, don't your worry about me Mom.

Check back tonight if you want a new "Twofer" recipe. Prep once and get two meals...."Twofer" the prep time of one.

Home At Last

Brian's home! He made it in last night and surprisingly his luggage arrived with him. He didn't even experience any flight delays (this is very unusual for him). The girls were happy to see him and Kendall is excited to share her new big girl-ness with someone else. She runs to tell him every time she goes potty. I think that she has stepped up her game a little more and requests to go potty more frequently just to show him.

We made our trek over to Panera this morning and since we've been home he has consumed an entire bowl of cucumber salad that I had waiting for him.

The girls played really well together today, they really are good at entertaining each other. The end result looked like this though:

Well, EVERYONE else in this house is napping so I'm going to get some of these invitations done. Since I have my camera again the blogging should be back to daily posts now.

Dear Brian,

You better tell that pilot to fly fast, Kate is on the verge of walking. I think that she would have walked sooner had I pointed out to her that she could. Tonight I was sitting on the floor and I just put her on her feet and let go and she just stood there for about 15 seconds laughing until she laughed so hard she fell over. You know how when you hold her she pretends like she is shy sometimes and burrows her head in your chest? Well, when I stand her up she tries to do that so she'll take a step and then when she leans her head forward to burrow into my chest it makes her fall forward....all while cracking up in her 'old man laugh'. Pretty darn cute. We miss you, come home soon.

Happy Birthday Bruce-ey

I love you big brother.



Other updates:

Kendall has been diaper and ACCIDENT FREE for three days now. Last night she slept in panties and woke up dry. Today she left the house in panties (for the first time--other then Lorie's house) and went potty at story time and at Chick-fil-a. YIPPEEE! Life is good. One of my current favorite sounds right now is when Kendall gallops around the corner and sings, "I need to go potty, I need to go potty" with a big smile on her face. I can tell she is very proud of herself.



We're ready for spring here. This week I did the big closet clean out. Obviously all the winter stuff is still in there but I pulled out all the summer clothes from the basement and washed and ironed them. Kendall will be able to fit in some of the things that I bought at the end of the season last year and Kate has a full closet of hand me downs. I will only need a few more pieces for Kendall: summer shoes and a few play outfits. In preparation for Spring today I ordered this
In fact I hope (but don't expect it to) it arrives by Thursday since we have plans to meet a friend for a picnic at the park. I'm also thinking about the veggie garden that I plan on having this year. I want to plant some herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers, red & yellow peppers and either Bibb lettuce or arugula. I am an amateur so any advice or reference points anyone could offer would be much appreciated! Where is the best place to get seeds??? We're going to have to replace Kendall's little swimming pool and the girls can crawl in and out of the pool while I weed...and I think Kendall will like to help me too.
P.S. Jenn, I thought of you while writing this post. The excessive use of the word "panty" was just for you.

Snow Day

I love...

• That Kate is such a muncha muncha. You can always count on her to eat. For breakfast she had a baby food container, a YoBaby yogurt and an entire pancake (her first). As I was wiping off her hands and mouth she was trying to get to the last piece of pancake that was on her highchair.
• The way Kendall mixes up her words sometimes. Example A: She has been in panties for three days now and if she has a little accident she says, "It's okay, sometimes we have accidents" well yesterday she got confused and said, "It's okay, sometimes we need a little attention". Example B: while Pop and Gram were here and taking a walk she turned around to walk backwards and said, "Look at me, I'm upside down". Ha ha

Let it Snow...

There is about a foot of snow outside! It's a good day for snuggling in. I have stew simmering on the stove (Mom's recipe) and bread dough rising on the counter. The house smells cozy and yummy. There are toys all over the floor and art supplies all over the desk. Kendall and I made a little bird nest and robin's eggs collage. If I had a camera I would show you it turned out really cute. We are in our pjs for the second day in a row (different pjs though, I did change everyone) with no plans to change that.

(Lorie has pictures of the snow on her blog)

Graphic

I got lost in the Flickr photo sharing website today here are a few of the favorites that I found.

Cool photos and type make me want to go back to school for Graphic Design so desperately. Once the girls are a little older I will I just can't right now.

Sick of These Yet?

Kristy, this set includes more of the yellow house. I may have more though, I didn't bring all our pictures home Brian has the rest saved on his laptop.

Different yellow house. This was taken in a beautiful little town called Szentendra. It was dark and rainy but I could have gotten LOTS of gorgeous photos here if the weather and time of day had been better. (both above and below)



Paprika anyone? Market in Budapest

Abbey

Fresh spices at Naschtmarkt, Vienna

I have a fascination with doorways

Texture of the yellow house (this could be a third Kristy or I may have one of the green doorway?? on Brian's computer)

More of Naschtmarkt above and below. I think these two along with the one in the other post will be printed for hanging in my kitchen. Or maybe just two of them, one on either side of the big window.

Abbey


We're not going to leave the house today, it's snowing pretty heavily outside. I went to the gym the last two days and I'm pretty sore. I left the camera with Brian so no recent pics of the girls for you. Maybe when Kristy's visitor gets back (Lorie) I can borrow one from her stash of cameras.

More Pictures

Big ole Wiener Schnitzel

above Danube River

below Castle in Tata, Hungary

Cafe Demel, Vienna

This one cracks Brian up...Wiener Schnitzel, frankfurter, or chicken wings

Naschtmarkt, Vienna



After our train ride from Vienna to Budapest Krisztina and Tamas picked us up at the train station and took us to the "Best Restaurant in Town" also known as their house! Krisztina's parents joined us and her mom made the most delicious traditional Hungarian meal. It was so good! Her father was delightful and had chosen a regional wine to go with each of the courses. We had the best time talking with them and seriously the best meal!! I was so excited to receive a very thoughtful gift of a beautiful Hungarian cookbook. It is such a nice book with lots of recipes and historical information about the country. We had such a great time that night.

A Few Favorites

above Naschtmarkt, Vienna, Austria

above St Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna, Austria




Market, Budapest, Hungary

above and below Parliment, Budapest


above, Visegrade Castle, Visegrade (Danube Bend)

above and below, A Home in Tata, Hungary


It's 8:20pm now, way past my bedtime. I'm slowly getting adjusted folks.

Adjusting

My body is still adjusting to the time change. I feel like it is six hours later then it actually is so by the time the girls go to bed I'm EXHAUSTED and I have been waking up at about 3am every day (although I don't get up until about 530). So no kid free awake time means no blogging but Kate is playing and Kendall is sleeping so instead of folding clothes I'm going to do a little post to ward off some of the threatening emails I have been receiving.

We really didn't leave enough time for Vienna, in the morning we went to see the Lippenzar (I know that is spelled wrong) horses then spent the afternoon walking around the city and then the public market. We were practically running back to the hotel to get our bags and make our train when we came upon some local kids. They were running as fast as they could to clock their speed on the speed detector/radar thing for the cars.

I thought it was so funny and we had to try too. Brian went first. My photography skills are seriously lacking so it took me five tries before I caught the speed (which was blinking) in the photo. Needless to say his speed,12 kilometers/hour, wasn't enough to impress the locals (he has also been training for the marathon...long distance training).

Seeing my opportunity and sensing a competition I ran full out and managed to elicit an "Ooooooooh" from the little kids when I put up a 20 kilometer/hour. Impressive if I do say so myself.

The last day in Budapest we started at Cafe Gerbaud. We got pastries and coffee. I'm not much of a coffee drinker so I ordered an Iced Coffee and out came this espresso with chocolate ice cream, whip cream and chocolate sauce to go with my breakfast cake. Here are the before and after shots. Note: This isn't all our food, Krisztina and Tamas were with us, ha.

After breakfast we went to the local market where we got a few gifts then we dropped Brian off at Margaret Island where he met a couple other guys to go running. It was cold and rainy, we gave him a hard time for wearing a garbage bag!

Next we went to the mineral baths and despite the multitude of speedos was actually a lot of fun. The hard part was getting out of the warm water to run through the freezing rain to the next pool or sauna!! Next we went to the Museum of Fine Arts. I could have spent all day here (a saw drawing of Leonardo de Vinci) one really cool part was they had a painting on the wall and then below it they had the "studies" or drawings they practiced before the painting of different faces...that was my favorite. But we had to leave because we had tickets to the opera. It was a great experience but kind of funny to be an American sitting in Hungary watching an opera written by a Spaniard sung in Italian with Hungarian subtitles. Needless to say we understood very little but Tamas explained a lot during "half time" (as Brian called it).

Afterward we went to the BEST Italian restaurant ever. It totally ruined me for any other Italian food. I'm going to try to recreate the soup (Roasted Tomato that had chunks of tomatoes and bread in it, so yummy) and the homemade tortellini filled with Asiago cheese with spinach and pumpkin creme sauce......oh my mouth is watering now.

Self Portrait entitled: Four Hours of Sleep on a Plane

View from our hotel room in Budapest overlooking the Parliament building and the Danube River

More pics to come later. I hear singing coming from upstairs so I think that the nap isn't going to happen today!