Thursday, February 17, 2011

Welcome Baby Teo!!

It's a boy! We welcomed baby Teo on Sunday, February 13th at 7:37pm. Here are some pictures from around the big day.

Sapphie getting ready to be a big sister

Playing in the snow

On my due date, we went for a mummy-auntie snowshoe

Cabot waiting for the baby to arrive

Friday evening, drinking a virgin spice bloody mary.

Sunday morning, timing contractions...Just like with Sapphie, the dogs laid on the bed while I was in labor
At the hospital, in the tub. Just a few minutes away from meeting our baby!It's a boy!!!!! I still can't believe it.
Unlike Sapphie who was sleeping, Teo cried when he came out. He was pretty cozy in my belly.
He's a total mama's boy already
With auntie Hannah, about 1 hour old
Hello!
He had his first bath on Monday, February 14th and got a Valentine's Day hat.
Late on Monday, we went home!
So good to be out of the hospital and into my RL cashmere.
Sapphie's first meeting with Teo was amazing. She was so good!
She was so excited and climbed all over him
Squeezing "little my brother". You could tell she's been waiting for this baby to get here.



Exchanging gifts with the baby






Sapphie really thinks it's funny that Teo has "no teeth at all" (a line from Beatrix Potter)

She always says "I wanna hold that"
With LaLa
Sapphie now comes up to me and says "hold us both". It's so cute.

Snuggling "all together" as Sapphie saysHaving a morning snooze


Wednesday, February 9, 2011

My Sister is Engaged to a Chef

Yes, that's the name of my new hit reality t.v. series. Jealous? You should be. Forget the fact that we totally love Richard and everything about him, not to mention the fact that he is an amazing chef. How has this affected me? Well, for one, my life has changed so that every now and then, when I least expect it, a magical chef fairy (actually, Richard hates fairies. Let's call him a wizard instead) swoops into my house and in hours, puts an absolutely gorgeous (as cousin Phil would say) meal on my table. It's unbelievable! Just the other night, I was going through my normal Sunday routine, minding my own business, when, all of a sudden, Hannah and Richard barged in for family night and whipped up this fantastic Ethiopian spread. No joke, it was amazing. Kevin loved it, and Sapphie too. And, they wouldn't take any leftovers so we enjoyed it for lunch the next day! Then, a few days later, they showed up with Mexican and blew our minds with black bean soup and outrageous tacos (get this - Richard fills the tacos with meat and cheese, then puts them in the oven so the cheese melts and stays hot even when you put the cold fillings on - genius!). It's almost like a fantasy. It gives me an idea of what it would be like to have my own personal chef. Pretty amazing.
The second way this has influenced my life is that if I want to make something from scratch, Richard encourages me and gives me the confidence to do it. My most recent task: to make my own yogurt. Sound scary? Well I'm telling you I was scared. I kept putting it off. Then, when I finally went for it, I realized it's so easy it's laughable! How much money I've spent on yogurt, oh God I don't even want to think about it! And, my yogurt came out so yummy!! Here I will share with you Richard's tried and true method for making your own yogurt:
Ingredients
-1 gallon whole milk (Hood milk seems to make better yogurt than Monument. Richard isn't sure why but I'm going to figure it out somehow).
-1/2 cup dry milk powder (you can get this in bulk at City Market, very cheap)
-2 packets of yogurt starter OR, 1/4 cup live plain yogurt (I used Butterworks. You just want to get plain, and a good brand that you know is fresh so the cultures are good).

Directions
1. Pour the milk into a large pot that has been freshly rinsed with water (to remove soap residue), add the powdered milk, and put the pot on the stove. Cook on medium high until a nice froth forms at the top, or the temperature reaches 180 degrees. Don't let the milk boil or burn!
2. Remove from heat and let it slowly cool to 116 degrees, or when it's cool enough that you can put your pinky in and count to ten without burning yourself.
3. Add the yogurt or starter culture, stir
4. Keep it at 116 degrees, covered, for at least 6 hours.
5. After at least 6 hours, the yogurt will be ready! It should be a nice thick consistency, like yogurt. If it's still too runny for you, you can strain it (I did because I love Greek yogurt). Simply pour the yogurt over a colander lined with a clean white dishtowel, place on top of a mixing bowl so the fluid can drip down into the bowl, and let it sit for 1-2 hours.

Depending on how thick you like it, this recipe will make you 3-4 quarts of yogurt. I used yogurt as my starter culture, instead of spending money on the packets.

What I did is cook the yogurt in the late morning, then put the pot on the warming burner of my stove for the rest of the day, then bottled it up before I went to bed. If you don't have a warming burner, you can either put it in your oven on warm (although my "warm" is 170 degrees), or put it in a sunny spot, or next to a heater.

That's it! If you are a fan of yogurt, you must try this. It's so easy and inexpensive, and you'll be so proud to serve your own homemade yogurt to friends and family. We've been eating ours with lemon curd mixed in, or maple syrup depending on our mood. Sapphie likes hers plain too. Thank you uncle Richard! I can't wait to try and make more of my favorite foods from scratch. xo

Friday, February 4, 2011

With Love from NYC

Sapphie doesn't get to see auntie Kiki and Uncle Ryan very often, but she loves them very much and talks about them all the time. Every time Kevin goes skiing, Sapphie says "going skiing with Ryan daddy?" And if we say no, she says "going skiing with Ryan!!" So we usually say yes to appease her. A few weeks ago, Sapphie got a big package in the mail...full of presents from NYC!

First we opened the card. She loved it!!

The first gift was a photo from the wedding...it's a great photo of Kristen and Kevin

She has gotten really good at getting presents from under the tree!


Oooo...a Patagonia vest! She loved it and kept saying "thank you kiki!!"

Posing with Daddy in her new vest
We can't wait to see them in February!! xoxo

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Bathtime for two, part two

This is weird. I just sat down to write an entry about bathtime. Then I remembered I had written one when Sapphie was really little. Would you believe I looked back, and the entry was on February 2nd, 2009, exactly two years ago today! Wow I just can't believe how weird that is. In case you never read it, click here.

Sapphie and I have had a water bond since she entered the world. She was born in the water and we have been bathing together since she was a newborn. Early on, I discovered that I am not into infant bath tubs. They are lame, cold, hard, and awkward. They make you bend over and strain your back, with your cold little baby looking up at you. It felt so much better for me to get in the tub with her, to snuggle her and help her to swim, to nurse her when she went through her fear of water phase, and to continue playing with her to this day. I look forward to our bathtime together.

Tonight, I took a bath alone because Sapphie had gone to bed. It felt so weird not to have my little buddy with me. Relaxing, yes, but also a little lonely. And too quiet. No songs, or splashing each other. I've been having some feelings of sadness to think that very soon, I won't be able to give Sapphie 100% of me all the time. Don't get me wrong, I'm fully excited for the baby and I know that Sapphie will be too. But, it's a big change coming up. No longer just us three, and never just us three again. I really hope the baby waits until Sunday or later so that we can take her on the sleigh ride we've been talking about. Anyway, back to the bath. I've been wondering when the new baby comes, what will change about bathtime? I'll need to take one with the new baby, but I won't want to give up my tub time with Sapphie. I'm not sure what I'll do. Take 2 baths a day? Alternate baths each night? Will daddy give Sapphie a bath? Um, I don't think so. Not to provide too much information, but I don't want Sapphie to be traumatized by the gigantic hairy spider (think 1970's) that she refers to as "Daddy's Tweekies".
Of course when the baby gets bigger, Sapphie and the baby will take baths together and hopefully I'll join them. For now, though, I'm going to give Sapphie as many baths as I can, and I think I'll plan to continue our bath time, whatever it takes. It's just too much fun!!


Fish face!
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