Vapors

"Don’t shed another tear over a chopped onion. Sturdy plastic goggles feature comfortable foam seal that protects eyes from onion vapors; with anti-fog lenses for maximum clarity. One size fits most. " From Sur La Table

I saw these goggles when I was out shopping the other day and it reminded me of a story. About 5 years I had to chop tons and tons of onions for some food for a party. I wasn't feeling up to it, so I cajoled a certain someone to do the dirty work for me. I left this person to the task and when I came back to check on the progress he/she was wearing swim goggles and rubber gloves to block the "onion vapors" and keep the smell from being on the hands all day. I had a good laugh about that one. This would be the perfect present for this person. I've always wondered how those tv food show hosts get through chopping onions without tears. I've tried every trick I've ever heard- sticking out my tongue, holding a pencil in my mouth, breathing only through my mouth, chilling the onions first. Nothing works for me. I've shed many a tear over my onions.

Funny Hannah

The other day I was drying Hannah off after her shower and I pointed out that she had wrinkly fingers. She stretched out her hands and said "Mama, do you want some of my wrinkly?" No thanks, I've got enough of my own.


We took Hannah to a park downtown last weekend and she had a lot of fun playing in the leaves. It's a good thing that we got out to the park before the snowstorm hit a few days later.

If you want to make Hannah happy, just take her to a bookstore. She loves this one- Tattered Cover. She'd spend all day there if she could. Almost everyday she asks to go to Tattered Cover or Barnes and Noble, by name.

Here she is decorating her very own Christmas tree.

At the Children's Museum she loves to play in this boat. I caught her putting this fish in with her and saying "Seatbelt so you can be safe. Seatbelt so I can be safe." And she did the motions to buckle them both in. Good job safety girl.

And what did you have?

Our Thanksgiving feast this year turned out pretty well. With some help from my in-laws (thanks Lanny for gutting the turkey) we had quite a spread:

On the menu:

Perfect Roast Turkey (a la Barefoot Contessa) recipe here

Butter, Lemon Zest, and fresh Thyme gravy made from the drippings

Smoked Turkey Gravy (a la Tyler Florence) recipe here

Herbs de Provence stuffing from a La Brea bakery mix

Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes (another Ina Garten) recipe here

Spinach Salad, Dedra's recipe

Yams, Lanny's recipe

Buttery Bundt Rolls, my mom's recipe (pictured below)

Homemade Cranberry Sauce, recipe here

and for dessert, Pumpkin Cheesecake- recipe here

The weekend before Thanksgiving, Hannah and I flew back to California for a visit with friends. Besides enjoying an afternoon out with my friends and seeing "Twilight" here are some other things we did:

watching The Little Mermaid

Hanging out with friends at Megan's house

Hannah and Sabrina

Watching the surfers on the pier

I missed the ocean!

Weekend Update

We drove up to Fort Collins yesterday to see BYU play Colorado State- we eeked out a win. Lately Hannah has really been into football- probably because we now have cable and we watch all of the BYU games and Ryan loves to play NCAA football on his Xbox. So she has had a lot of it since we moved to Denver. She gets really excited about Cosmo, the BYU mascot, so we had to get a picture with him at the game. She wanted to show him her bear that she calls "Cosmo"- you can see he's holding it in the picture.

Football is so fun! It wasn't too crowded where we were sitting so Hannah enjoying being able to run around and stomp on the benches. She started to cry the first time there was a touchdown because everyone was yelling so loud, but after that everything was fine.

What a devilish little look, like she's thinking "It's mine, it's all mine!"

Waving her glow stick. She kept saying "Hocus Pocus, I'm waving the bats away!"

On a Halloween treasure hunt at a friends house

Happy Halloween!

I'm a butterfly!

Hannah had a great time trick-or-treating. It's the fastest I've ever seen her walk! When she'd get the candy she'd say "The next house" and start off on her way. After about 45 minutes she said "That's enough"- probably because I told her she couldn't eat any of the candy until we got home!

Around town

This past weekend we got out of the city and headed up towards the mountains to see what we could find. We went and explored around Red Rocks (you can see downtown Denver in the background) and managed to get Hannah to ride in the backpack. It would be great to see a concert here because the surroundings are amazing! I got winded in the first 15 minutes of carrying Hannah because I'm not used to the elevation or carrying around 25+ pounds on my back!

Hannah spying on a buffalo herd

Cowboy Ryan

Hannie Oakley

We had to take shelter in a teepee because it was so windy

Buffalo Bill Cody's gravesite

Yum

I made this for dinner last night. Ryan and I both agree that you can't go wrong with a Barefoot Contessa recipe. It's funny because he'll ask what's for dinner and I'll say that I'm making one of her recipes and he'll ask "does it have heavy cream and butter in it?" Inevitably, my answer is yes. That's why her recipes are so good! This one had cream, garlic, lemon, and lots of tasty vegetables.

**A sidenote- while Hannah and I were at the zoo today we went to see the elephant demonstration. It's in a building that doesn't have very good ventilation and when we got in there Hannah immediately said "It's stinky. Let's get out of here." I tried to persuade to watch them give the giant elephants a bath, but she kept covering her nose and complaining.

Our Weekend(s)

Ryan went on a hiking trip to Canyonlands and Arches with a friend. That left Hannah and I to have a girls weekend. It started off with pitching the tent in the living room (we didn't have our furniture yet so there was plenty of room) and watching Sleeping Beauty.

Hannah touched a snake at the zoo (I think that she was more excited about the sanitizer she got after touching it!)

A trail at the Botanic Gardens

Beautiful fall weather

Hooray

So tonight was the night- the night that Hannah and I had to say goodbye to her binkies (she has 6 of them that she always sleeps with)..... I had been telling her for a few months that when we moved to Denver that she was going to throw her binkies away. She seemed fine with it and would respond by saying that her friend Sabrina threw away her binkies too. So right before it was time to go to bed I had her go in and get all of them out of her bed and carry them outside to the trash chute down the hall. I was surprised that she was so excited to do this. She grabbed them all and then practically ran down the hall saying "I'm going to put my binkies in the trash. I'm a big girl." The funniest thing was that before she would throw them in, she had to suck on each one, one last time. When she was done she said "Hooray!" And then when it was time for bed I said to her "Now that you don't have your binkies to sleep with anymore, you get a sippy cup of water!" When I was in the kitchen filling it up I could hear her saying "Hooray! I get a sippy now!" All of my worries were for nothing. She probably could have done without those binkies months ago!

Ketchup

I have some serious catching up to do. The last month has been pretty crazy- from Boise to New York, Tahoe, Blackfoot, and then Denver- we've been living out of suitcases and Hannah's been crammed into a pac 'n play. So here's an attempt, probably not chronological, to post about what we've been up to:

Ryan and I took a trip to New York sans baby. The main purpose of our visit was to go to really great restaurants. We did manage to squeeze in some of the obligatory tourist destinations as well, but the best part was eating the most delicious food. The picture above is of our favorite restaurant we ate at- Per Se. Thomas Keller (of the French Laundry) owns it and it was outstanding. We had the most amazing food and the experience and service were fantastic. Some examples off the tasting menu we had:

"Sabayon" of Pearl Tapioca with Island Creek Oysters and Sterling White Sturgeon Caviar

Golden Beet "Cannelloni", Heirloom Beets, Watercress Leaves and Juniper Berry "Gastrique"

"Blueberries and Popcorn"

Cornmeal "Financier," Candied Popcorn, Blueberry Parfait, Lemon Verbena Gelee and Popcorn Sorbet

Needless to say, after the 9+ courses and endless chocolates and truffles, we decided to rent bikes and ride around Central Park so that we would have room for the other places we wanted to eat at. We also enjoyed our meals at Jean-Georges, Caracas Arepas Bar, Grimaldi's, and Max Brenner for the most delicous milk chocolate milk shakes. Besides all of the eating, we went to Ellis Island, saw The Lion King, watched the opening night gala at the Metropolitan Opera on huge screens in times square (nothing like opera mixed with the sounds of cars and sirens), and went to the Tenement Museum and MOMA. All in all a great trip.

Ryan on the ferry to Ellis Island

Federal Hall (site where G. Washington was inaugurated)

Ryan semi-annoyed that I'm taking a picture of him eating pizza- too touristy for him!

Posing with David Blaine when he was doing this stunt in Central Park- notice the umbrella girl- what a fun job!

Post trip- at my friend Wendy's wedding in South Lake Tahoe. It was the first time I've ever had my hair styled in a salon and it was fun to be pampered like that. It took 41 bobby-pins to get it to stay!

Hannah hunting for animals in Blackfoot with Grandpa.....

You don't need a permit to hunt for this kind of elk!

Hannah

Lately, Hannah has been saing the cutest and funniest stuff ever! (I may be a little biased....) So I thought I should at least write them down so that I wouldn't forget.

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The other day we were at a furniture store and I had to take her outside due to some really high energy she was exhibiting. So we were outside dancing around and singing the song from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse- the one that goes something like "hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog" (she loves it by the way) and after we had finished she kept bouncing around and singing "doggie poop, doggie poop"- this made me start laughing and she looked up at me and said "Mom, that's my special song. It's my very special song for my birthday cake." She was dead serious.

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She was on a roll that night (it must have been the chocolate granola bar that I bribed her with in the store to stay in her stroller) - I was holding her outside and she started reaching for the sky saying "I want to go to the sky. I can't reach it- I need a balloon to go to the sky"

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And a few minutes later she put both of her hands on my cheeks and said "Mom, I'll give you ice cream if you promise to be a good Mommy!" Ok- I promise.

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When I was eating soup the other night Hannah asked if she could try some. When I gave her a spoonful she said "Oh Yummy! Now my tummy feels so happy. " I gave her another bite and she said "My tummy isn't grouchy anymore!"

Vacation Fun

Roasting marshmallows in the backyard firepit

Playing in the fountain at the farmer's market

Here are some funny things that Hannah has said while on vacation:

She got out a little flute and tried to play it. It took her a few tries, but once the sound came out she said "Mom, look....I fluted!"

When she woke up from her nap the other day she started yelling "Mom, whatcha doin'?" until I came and got her.

Scan Toaster

"Sometimes two slices of toast on a plate can look pretty dull and unappetizing, but imagine if you could jazz up this boring breakfast staple with a cool picture or a sweet note to your significant other -- that would be pretty neat, right?
The Scan Toaster makes that possible. The toaster, by designer Sung Bae Chang, uses hot wires that rotate within a 30 degree radius to burn the image or text of your choice onto your toast. Since this thing can print literally anything, the possibilities are endless."- from Serious Eats

Too bad this is still in the design phase. Now that I'm going to have a bigger kitchen, I would have room for this!

crazy month

August has been crazy around here. On top of the usual stuff going on- we're moving. So with all of the logistics involved with that, blogging has taken a back seat. It's not that I really ever posted a lot, but still...... I haven't been taking many pictures lately. So hopefully I can get that going again soon. It's our last week here so we're trying to fit in visits to Disneyland, the beach, going away parties, and saying goodbye to great friends. We've moved around a lot in the past 7 years that we've been married and it never gets any easier. It seems like the last month or so I start wishing that I had seen more things in the area, or spent more time doing this or that. But mostly I think about missing the friends I've made. That's always really hard. Anyway, we'll be staying with family for a few weeks and then flying to Denver to our new apartment. If you come and visit us, then you can see this outside of the airport....

Top Chef

Look who I got to meet on Saturday- Antonia and Richard from Top Chef! It was at the Top Chef Tour- basically a giant semi-truck pulled trailer hitting 20 cities across the country. They do cooking demonstrations and meet the "cheftestants" at each location. Richard was my favorite one on the show so I was really excited when I found out that he would be at the Los Angeles site. These chefs are amazing and really likeable in person. It was fun to watch them cook and answer questions about food or about the show, giving anecdotes and behind the scenes information. Apparently, Richard is going to open up a hamburger restaurant called "Flip" which will have the world's first liquid nitrogen milkshake bar. Sounds interesting.