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

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

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!

Sledding

Sapphie loves her little sled and since we haven't gotten much new snow, the golf course is perfect for sledding. It's all packed down and Kevin can pull her forever! Here we are after a long walk and a few little hills.

Yoga with Daddy

Kevin started taking Sapphie to yoga on Friday mornings. It's great bonding time for them and they both have such a blast. Here are a few pictures that my co-worker took. His daughter Jill is in the same class, and she and Sapphie will be going to pre-school together in the fall!

Sapphie's in the gray and black dress with the knee high socks (yes, she dressed herself).

Sapphie Turns 2!

I'm sure you've noticed my blogs are a little out of order, but it's all a function of how much time I have to make a post. I've been dying to put up some pictures from December and of course Sapphie's 2nd birthday! We've had such a wonderful month and it's really flown by.

First, we went to visit Great Grandma Ree and Great Grandpa Dick in Leeds. We had such a relaxing visit, I forgot to take any pictures so I've only got a few. We just hung out, played and talked, and of course enjoyed the new kitchen and took naps every day. Sapphie took to calling Ree "Grandma Ree", which is what we all call her, and she called Grandpa Dick just plain old "Dick". It was pretty funny. Here she is trying on my earmuffs:


Kevin was so excited to take Sapphie to Look Park, where he used to go as a little boy. It's a HUGE park and every winter they do a winter wonderland and cover the entire park with figures made of lights. Sapphie had a blast! Here we are in a sleigh...

On the bridge

And, my favorite, the hayride! No it wasn't pulled by horses, so I had gotten her all excited to see some and it turned out to be a tractor. She didn't mind though, she was so excited. The ride was about 15 minutes and took us all around the park to see the lights.

At the Gleason's, flirting with "Dick"

The next big event was Christmas, which we had in Burlington this year!! I must say we were pretty torn about our decision not to travel, but both sets of parents were so supportive that we went for it - and LOVED it!! It was so nice to have Sapphie wake up in her own bed and enjoy the tree during this special time of year. Penelope and Colin put on an amazing feast, and we partied at their house. Here's Sapphie reading the new book that Auntie Lucy and Uncle John gave her:

Opening more presents...this is the first of many!!

Figgy pudding shot. It was, as always, amazing.

Hannah and Richard.

And, the next day we celebrated Sapphie's birthday! It was so fun, just family (and Isaac, but we consider him family). Sapphie got a new bike from Nonna and Grandpi. She's so excited!!!

This is the cake I made for her. It's a carrot cake and came out so yummy. No coconut on the head since Nonna hates it...Sapphie's really been into snowmen lately so I was really excited to get her reaction.

She loved it!! She still asks for some snowman cake. What she doesn't know is I have an entire section in the freezer for us to eat when the baby comes home.

Another gift from Nonna - a new kitchen!! This has been a big hit.

To go with her new kitchen, Christina sent Sapphie a new apron and oven mitt. And, Papa LaLa gave her a new stool! She's been using both every day to help me cook.


And a few other random shots. Colin (Onkie as Sapphie calls him) has taught Sapphie Awkward Pose. This is not the true yoga pose, but a very awkward stance that Colin made up and we named when we were in England. Sapphie's good at it.

Reading, her favorite thing to do.

Reading to her babies

Dancing video

Sapphie loves dancing, and she's got the most terrible cheese face I've ever seen. See both in this video below.