Shrimp with Green Sauce from the New York Times Cookbook
Butter Lettuce Salad with Pomegranate Seeds, Apples and Blue Cheese from the January Bon Appetit
Roasted Vegetable Tart from the January Bon Appetit
Key Lime Pie with Chocolate Almond Crust from January Food & Wine
I haven't taken any pictures in 2012! I keep thinking to myself that I have a ton to post-- so maybe if I purge these to the blog, it'll convince me to keep snapping the camera.
As I type, Erik is currently crawling...backwards. He hasn't mastered forwards yet; it's quite frustrating to him that the more he moves, the farther away from a desired toy he becomes. Yet, above, the holidays were all about rolling to get where he wanted to go.
How I don't have a picture of Addie up on the blog is criminal with how much time we spend together. Anders and her have a really special relationship because she's been babysitting for us since Anders was 4 months old, and she's always up for anything-- exhibit A above.
The men at Tamarine on Felix's birthday. If you haven't had their Banh Mi' Roti-- run don't walk.
Christmas Eve Brunch. Mom made a yummy egg torte andI made a New York Crumb Cake. Apparently, there are VERY strict rules about New York Crumb Cake. No chocolate, no swirling, no nuts, and the topping must be almost as thick as the cake beneath it.
A too-close-up shot of the cousins. Do we look related? Jesse Sandberg, you better have some boys so you can carry on the family name! ;)
That is how Erik looks at you when you are eating and he is not. Intensely confused why you aren't feeding him.
Happy with Baba.
Christmas morning. We must have been very good this year.
Christmas bruch. Salmon Shittake Fritatta, Orange and Chocolate Scones, Egg Nog Yogurt, granola and berries. The scones were made with rye and wheat flour and not quite as good as I wanted them to be-- but I also think I like nuts and berries in my scones rather than orange and chocolate.
I love seeing presents under the tree wrapped in Williams Sonoma paper. Anders wanted to ride the present over to me.
I had asked for new pots and pans this Christmas-- I thought that I might cook enough to get a really nice set. :)
And Anders got his first bike.
Christmas dinner. We bought those crabs live. Kinda morbid to kill them in the house-- but also makes me appreciate the animals that die for my meals. I rarely think about the cow that has become my steak.
Erik is ready for Tahoe and snow! Too bad there wasn't any of the latter.
But there was some of the former-- we loved the place we rented up in Tahoe, and loved even more that we brought my old student, Emily, to help us out with the week.
Since there was no snow to ski on, we took walks around the neighborhood each day; Erik can now fit in the Boba backpack-style.
This wouldn't be an honest holiday roundup without a picture of Horsie. He is still Anders' best pal and goes everywhere with us.
Appropriate naked bath picture.
Emily would take Erik on walks in the afternoon while we played Bridge.
Like so. Felix took this picture and then came around and showed it to me. I saw that my dad had no more black cards, and then I made the contract. Just kidding. We don't cheat. Very much.
The people who owned the place had a board game called Green Eggs and Ham. Anders was interested in it for about 15 mintues. Not bad.
Those dark circles under my eyes signify the 3-5 hours of sleep I was getting each night. Erik slept in one hour chunks the whole time we were there. So, Felix would take the 10pm-3am shift, and I would take the 3am-8am shift. Most nights I would end up sleeping on the floor in the family room with Erik by my side so I could just pop the pacificer back in his mouth every 45 mintues. It was the first New Year's I haven't been up for since I can remember. We celebrated with New York, and went to bed.
Wow, did we need this. The grandparents were nice enough to each take a kid and we headed off to Napa...
The porch at the restaurant. It may look like a tree is coming out of Felix's head, but they built the deck around the tree. It's like the centerpiece of the bar...
A hike.
Brussle Sprouts at a farm to table place called Jole. Thick balsamic dripped around them.
It's not in focus, but that's some unsuspecting coconut cream pie that is about to be stalked, killed and eaten. Its predator looks pretty happy. :)
We have a beautiful house for Christmas this year: a great big window facing the street where we put our tree-- and our living room can hold the presents and decorations while the family room can still be a home-base for the toy-sprawl.
After Anders and Felix got the tree, Anders and I made some gingerbread cake with a lemon-curd cream topping. Then, my parents came over and we had cake and hot chocolate and put ornaments on the tree. Well, actually, Anders decided that he wanted to put all the ornaments on the tree-- but he didn't want to use hooks, he just wanted to lay each ball gently on a branch. Felix got the shatter-proof ornaments. Brilliant.
We hosted our first Thanksgiving this year, and it took a village; my mom helped me cook all day while Mei Wen came over and entertained the kids with Felix.
We're making a lemon chess pie; apparently a southern favorite.
Pass around the baby...
Anders decides the Periodic Table of Elements is more exciting than cooking.
My Aunt Deb and Cousin Jesse dish with me in the kitchen about Jesse's recent OB rotation in med school. Outcome: Jesse doesn't want to be an OB.
Dinner is served.
I would tell you what everything is, but you know.
Erik weighs as much as the turkey I put in the oven.
Wonderful and tiring day of family and food.
Mei Wen-- how did you end up by yourself with four kids? Anders, when I say, "smile for the camera" I don't mean for you to show us your Peagoo ("butt" in Chinese...frequently heard in the Lo household during dinnertime " Peagoo in the chair, please. Now.")
Peagoos are easy to put in chairs when you have pie, ice cream, and football. :)
My birthday weekend started off with a trip to Atelier Crenn in San Francisco with Felix, Katy and Erik.
Of course, I picked one of those places that has a bizillion courses.
And this dinner happened to also take a bizillion hours.
Ok. Four. Hours. Which is way too long for a mom who gets an equivalent number of hours of sleep every night. That is mackerel skin above. Crunchy. Fishy. Pretty good.
That was one of our palate cleansers. It's white chocolate with a cherry liqueur inside.
The beef tartare course.
Another palete cleanser-- eucaluptus popcicles.
Pear sorbet in the shape of a pear. The crumbs around it were some kind of freeze-dried sugar-milk.
Definitely some of the most amazing presentation I've seen in a while. Fun dinner-- glad we were with good friends whom we could talk to a long period of time! Going here on a buisness dinner would be awkward.
The next day, EJ and Aaron, and Fu Chang went with Felix to see Stanford lose against Oregon. No Rose Bowl this year...
Erik is now old enough to enjoy this contraption; this is a wonderful thing because I now eat many fewer meals with a baby in my lap. And somehow,because he's "standing" he feels more in on the action whether he's watching us eat, cook, or play in the family room.
Like so.
Sunday, Anders and I made an upsidedown pear cake. Back on Friday when he learned that Felix and I were going out to celebrate my birthday without him, he was a little upset (cue major meltdown while getting his shoes on for preschool...) So, I said we'd have another little celebration with the family on Sunday, and that Anders could make a cake with me.
After we made the cake, Anders had some quiet time and Nana and Tappa came over for bridge.
Dummy held the baby (the word for the person who lays down their cards-- not what a usually call my father).
For our little party, I had arranged for an old student of mine, Sneha, to come over and hold Erik so that the rest of us could all sit down to Tacos and cake.
But while we were doing this, I glanced over at Felix and noticed a gray hair on the side of his head!
Ah, a right of passage. Felix, I don't know why you would have a gray hair-- I mean, with two kids, two hours of commuting a day, and a stressful job in a down economy, I would think you live a pretty relaxing, carefree life. No?
Erik, how am I your mother? If I didn't remember your birth in vivid detail, I would think Felix cloned himself; you are the mirror of your baba! (Though, you did end up with my personality...) On another note-- on the table, check out the new iphone I got for my birthday!
It was very nice that our other son (looks more like me (than Erik), acts more like Felix) wanted to celebrate his mom's birthday. Well, let's be honest, he probably just wanted cake-- but I'll take what I can get.
Yup. He wanted cake. :)
What a wonderful birthday weekend.
Come closer.
Hi!
I should have known better than to just pick out a costume for Anders this year without asking him.
See, he watches this show on PBS called "Word World" and it features a different phonics lesson with each episode. Anders loved the episode where Duck befriends a Ssss--Hark, but later discovers he has really befriended a SHARK! A cute story about the sound "sh."
Anyway, Anders went around the house for weeks, making jokes about sss-harks, so I thought getting him a shark costume would be a welcomed surprise.
I was wrong. And, above, you can see the shark tantrum that ensued. What Anders really wanted to be for Halloween was a wire basket. Go figure.
We did convince him to put the head back on and trick-or-treat at our house, but that's the only house he would trick-or-treat at.
I guess the good thing about this is he didn't end up with too much candy-- it'll be all gone by the week's end.
And Erik wanted to be a bear (ok, not really, but that's what we had because Anders was a bear when he was four months). Above, Nana had to shush him to keep him from freaking out when we put the bear head on him.
Last Thursday our preschool had a Harvest Festival. The kids could dress up (Anders chose not to...) and everyone brought a dish to share.
Anders showed Baby Horsie and me the pumpkin patch.
His friend Cole told us about "the force." May it be with you. :)
After some pizza, Anders wanted to show us all his tricks on the structure.
It was nice to have an evening where Anders got our full attention; Erik stayed home with our night nurse, Jessica-- but there's a picture of us before I left for the party.
Both Anders and Erik now have friends named Milo. Milo's mama, Joanna, was nice enough to drive down to Palo Alto and we took a picture of the boys before a lunchtime walk.
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