Growing girl

Today Rose discovered my (one) lipstick...

lots of random updates

1. Sometimes I catch myself saying things as a parent that I never would have expected and that sound completely ridiculous. Like today when I had to say, "no, sweetheart, we don't put Legos in our undies." 

2. I wanted to make myself something special for my birthday, so last weekend I tried making a black forest layer cake. It was delicious, if I do say so myself!

3. Today I was feeling all smug with myself as I pulled into the Target parking lot, then called my parents so I could talk to them via bluetooth from the comfort of my car. (Smug because I wasn't talking while driving, and also because I wasn't wasting gas by keeping the car idling.) After we talked for about 30 min, I did all our grocery shopping and was ready to head home. But my car wouldn't start!!! Thank heavens for my free 3 year/36000mi roadside assistance. The guy was able to come jump my car after about 40 min. Sigh. Not feeling so smug anymore now that I realized what I did just totally drained my battery! Ugh.

4. Rose got to go to a birthday party last weekend at Pump It Up, her absolute favorite place in the whole wide world. We are now prepared for numerous months of her begging for her next birthday party to be there, just as she has done after every other party she's been to at that place. It is like crack for kids, I swear.

5. I read this article in the WSJ a couple weeks ago about "bullet journaling" and now I'm totally addicted. Love the new BuJo I've created! I'm sure Mike has bets in his head about when I'll give this up as yet another organizational fad, but so far I'm loving it.

6. After much internal debate (for four whole days) I decided to spend the bulk of my "birthday money" on new baking supplies. I've made more trips to the Nordic Ware factory store (conveniently located down the street from us) in the past month than I have in the first 13 years that we lived here! I now have some beautiful - and very high quality - 9" cake pans, two bakers half sheets, a sheet cake pan, small and large offset spatulas, silicone mats for the half sheets, and parchment rounds. (Prices are MUCH cheaper at the factory store than on line, particularly if one chooses to purchase the "not quite perfect" versions.)  I quickly realized that aluminum scratches VERY easily, but they also bake things evenly, quickly and consistently, so it's a small price to pay. (Note: don't cook acidic or spicy food, or cook at high temperatures, in/with aluminum.)


7.  With all my new supplies, we had cake again for dessert tonight! I don't mean to brag or anything, but it was pretty darn good -- lemon cake, raspberry filling (with fresh raspberries from our garden), vanilla buttercream frosting, and candied ginger decoration. YUM. 

8. The wall is here!  They are making progress on the construction that has been going on outside our house for the past year and a half. I've been so nervous about this huge wall that's been in the works and, well, it IS huge, but it's not as awful as I feared. It will be interesting to see what it's like after it's painted and after highway 7 opens up again.

Today. (Use the tree on the right as your reference point for the coming photos.)

One month ago.

Three months ago.

Two years ago. (Look how close the cars were!)

9. ...and a goofy photo of Rose to close out this long blog post:

:)

Labor Day weekend

SATURDAY
Mike and his dad went golfing, while Rose and I joined Marsha (Grammy) and Anne (Trula) at the State Fair.

 Between the four of us, we had:
-chocolate milk
-poutine
-cheese curds
-honey ice cream (two flavors)
-french toast bites
-bacon maple BLT
-spicy pork bowl
-blueberry lemonade
-cheesy bread
-corn dog
-malts (two flavors)
-cotton candy
-sweet corn

And we had a lot of fun:
-riding the ferris wheel
-going down the giant slide (twice for Rose)
-petting horses
-looking at rabbits
-watching butter sculptures being carved
-touring a Christmas light display
-looking at arts and crafts
-spinning the Medica trivia/freebie wheel
-playing the midway duck game
-looking at different dog breeds
-riding the bus to and from the park and ride

Rose and Grammy at the top green stripe on the far right

"I had ice cream TWICE today!!!"

First ever taste of cotton candy. (She's in love.)

SUNDAY
Sounds silly, but we enjoyed taking care of business on Sunday. Mike and I each did some "homework" in the morning, then he did some yard work while Rose and I ran errands. (Did you know that vacuums require a belt to, well, vacuum? I'm a little embarrassed to admit how long I was perplexed by our vacuum not working properly. I had cleaned the hose multiple times, to no avail. And our carpet kept looking dirtier and dirtier. Sigh.) So Rose and I bought a new vacuum belt at Sears, and also did some other shopping at MOA:  Lands End, LLBean, the Lego store, and the Disney store -- I'll let you guess who picked which stores.

Making her own princesses and castle.

For lunch we went to Noodles, and somehow Rose managed to swallow part of her spoon.

I'm working really hard not to freak out, since all of my frantic internet research says not to worry as long as there is no pain, blood, or difficulty breathing. She seems fine, so I'm telling myself that I'm fine too.

And when I'm stressed, I bake. So after we got home I whipped up a new recipe - maple cake with maple frosting. I'm not super impressed with it (it's fine and all), but I think in retrospect I was really wanting more of a spice cake with maple frosting...maybe next weekend that will be my goal! (Actually, upon further reflection I think I might attempt a Black Forest Cake for myself for my birthday!!)

Since one meal of pasta clearly wasn't enough, Rose requested "long noodles with just a little bit of sauce and lots of cheese" for dinner. Mike and I were happy to comply (despite the 80-degree heat) since she so rarely requests ANYTHING other than "mac and cheese." Yes, I know that pasta with red sauce is really not THAT different from M&C, but I'll take what I can get.

To make it a little more exciting than our typical weeknight pomodoro, I decided to branch out and attempt a Bolognese. Having never made one before, I naturally read about 50 recipes (to figure out what seem to be the necessary components) and then made a weird amalgamation (choosing what optional add-ins sounded good to me) of all of those. We didn't have carrots or celery in the house (time to go to grocery store...), but otherwise my version was closest to these:
Marcella Hazan
Pioneer Woman
Now, I don't want to toot my own horn or anything, (warning! Tooting ahead!!) but this sauce was AMAZEBALLS. Totally worth the ~2 hours it took. And we have a cup or two leftover that will be GREAT to pull out of the freezer one cold winter night. :)

Here's my attempt at writing out my version from memory:

Steph's Bolognese

• Olive Oil to coat the bottom of the le creuset
• 1 small onion, Diced (or half of a large one)
• Many cloves of Garlic, Minced
• 3/4 -1 #  grass fed Ground Beef
• Dried Oregano and Thyme
• A dash of cayenne
• a handful of Fresh Basil, chopped up
• a big glug or two of Wine (I used some of the box of pinot noir I was drinking from)
• 1 big can (28 Ounce) Organic Crushed Tomatoes
• 1 small can (15 oz?) Organic Diced Tomatoes 
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1 cup Whole Milk
• Sea Salt And Pepper, to taste
• Fresh Parmesan Cheese

Heat oil in a large Dutch oven or skillet over medium heat. Add onions and cook until translucent. Add the garlic and cook about 30 more seconds.

Make a well in the center, then add the ground beef. Cook until brown. 

Add the herbs and spices. A minute or two later, add the wine (about a cup?).  Let the wine simmer off, then add the cans of tomatoes (not drained - add it all) and an additional ~cup of water. 

Let it simmer, stirring occasionally, for about an hour so it's nice and thick. At some point in there, add a little sugar.   (Meanwhile, start boiling some water for your pasta.)

About 10 minutes before you want to eat (e.g., just before you add your box of linguine that takes ~10 min to cook), add 1 cup of milk.  Let it simmer for those 10 minutes. At the very end, stir in 1/4 c parmesan cheese.

Serve with your pasta of choice and a generous sprinkling of Parmesan cheese.

MONDAY
There was a HUGE storm last night, so I watched the lightning and sheets of rain for quite awhile around 3am last night. It didn't help that I was still worried about Rose and that spoon that she swallowed. Ugh. So when Little Miss finally ventured out of her room with her typical greeting ("Is it morning time yet?"), I was exhausted but thrilled to see her. And thrilled not to see any bruising, coughing, etc.

So we celebrated with a Dutch Baby! I love oven pancakes / yorkshire pudding / German pancakes / popovers / whatever you want to call these things. (I'm really not a fan of traditional American pancakes, unless they are more like crepes.) Next time I need to plan ahead a bit more so my ingredients are all at room temperature, but it was still delicious today even without a big "puff" to it.

The rest of the day was incredible because I felt BORED for the first time in I can't ever remember how long. I did my grocery shopping, cleaning a little bit, researched some cake recipes, bought some embroidery floss, baked brownies to bring to work tomorrow, and prepped some dinners for the week. It is SOOOO nice to feel relaxed!!!

Hope you all have had a wonderful long weekend too!!