Tuna and eggplant stew
Nathan found this recipe on the New York Times, and when I read it, it initially did not appeal to me. But Nathan was game, and we had most of the items. For items we didn't have we did a bit of substituting.
No anchovy fillets (not a staple in our cabinets)
Eggplant for the bell peppers
1 fresh tomato, 1/2 can of tomato paste, 1/2 cup water for the 14oz can of chopped tomatoes with juice (we usually have this in our cabinet, but we were out!)
Cooking sherry for dry white wine (the white wine we had was really too sweet)
Russet potatoes for red potatoes
Ahi tuna filets for albacore
Cilantro for parsley
We also were short on time so we cut out the 1st 30 minute simmer and reduced the second simmer to just enough time to get the potatoes soft.
During the middle of the cooking process I tasted it and was really disappointed! But once it was done I was quite surprised at how delicious it was!
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Spontaneous laughter
Elizabeth has been giggling for quite sometime now. She giggles on the changing pad when you tickle her belly and under her arms. She has recently started giggling when you hold her up in the air above you head and lift her up and down and just today I started giving her a little toss and she laughs even harder!! But this afternoon she giggled for the first time spontaneously. We were standing at the bottom of the stairs and I was holding her on my shoulder with her looking up. Pancake started running down the stairs and Elizabeth broke out into laughter! It was the best!!! We still haven't gotten it on tape yet, but hopefully soon.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Wilco at the DPAC
As Jim would say: "It was epic"
What an amazing evening! First we met up with some friends for dinner at Piedmont (I got the steak I have been craving), then a quick walk to DPAC. While it was a little chilly, it was a perfect after dinner stroll across downtown Durham. And since it was dusk we could see all the people milling around outside and inside of the theatre. This really pumped me up to see an awesome show!
Now, I've seen Wilco once before at Memorial Hall about 4 years ago and then a solo acoustic Jeff Tweedy show that same summer at the North Carolina Museum of Art, but this show was definitely the best of the 3. While I'm not a big fan of their newest album, I am huge fan of all the ones preceding it, and they did not let me down. The show started a little after 8, and they played until sometime after 11... around 3 hours of straight awesomeness (all except the girl 2 seats away from Nathan having a reversal of fortunes. We didn't notice until the attendants came to clean it up). Below is a setlist I grabbed from another website. As you can see, they played something off almost all their albums.
Wilco (the song)
Bull Black Nova
You Are My Face
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
At Least That's What You Said
Deeper Down
Handshake Drugs
Side with the Seeds
One Wing
She's A Jar
I'll Fight
Impossible Germany
Summerteeth
California Stars
Poor Places
Spiders
Forget the Flowers
When The Roses Bloom Again
War on War
When You Wake Up Feeling Old
Laminated Cat
Passenger Side
Airline to Heaven
A shot in the arm
Hate it Here
Heavy Metal Drummer
You Never Know
Jesus Etc
Walken
I'm the Man Who Loves You
Thank You Friends (from Big Star)
Encore:
Via Chicago
Hoodoo Voodoo
I'm A Wheel
I especially loved the production. They had these cool single bulb long lights that lit up with the rhythm of the songs. During the middle of the performance the went from rocking out on their more intense instruments to playing almost acoustic in a living room like setting. They did this by having floor lamps and bringing the piano guys and drummer to the front of the stage with stripped down instruments (a miniature drum set almost looking like a child should be playing it compared with the giant one for the rest of the show, a bass, and small keyboard).
To end the night we went to Whisky where it was extremely crowded at first, but we scored a table and spent the rest of the evening in good conversation. We even tried a new beer from Highland brewing company: Black Mtn Bitter. The website describes it as an organic pale ale, but it was dark and extremely tasty. It turned my mood from - 'eh, I wouldn't mind going home to bed' to 'hey, let's stay and drink this!'. The table and seats didn't hurt to turn my mood around.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Elizabeth 4 months old
Today Elizabeth turned 4 months old.
We measured her at home on our bathroom scale and a tape measure on her changing pad and she is roughly 14 pound and ~23 inches. We will get better measurements at the doctor on Wednesday.
Overall Elizabeth is a pretty laid back little baby. She is really very good most of the time and when she melts down it is probably due to over stimulation (which is completely our fault), but these times are few and far between.
Sleep:
We are extremely (and I can't even express how extreme this is!) happy that she has been sleeping through the night since 7 weeks. There have been a few times that around 4 or 5 we go up and give her her pacifier. And at 3 months she woke up in the middle of the night, and only because I had been reading that children have growth spurts around that time, I fed her. I realized I didn't want it to be a habit so if it happened again I'd try to soothe her before nursing, but it hasn't happened again! We've been lucky that she also goes down really easily. This also happened around 4 weeks. We started with a bedtime routine of getting her in her PJ's before her last feeding which is around 10pm and then nursing her, taking her upstairs to her bedroom, laying her on her changing pad and changing her diaper if it is wet, while playing a song that her Grandpa Kevin wrote her. Then we zip her up in her sleep sack and read her a story. We've been going through all her books and all three of us love: All of baby nose to toes. After reading we turn on her sound machine to ocean waves which is on an hour timer. We lay her down in her bed and then swaddle her in the cool swaddler that is attached to her sleep sack. (however they only make it in newborn, and she is about to grow out of the sack it attaches too, oh no what to do then?), spin her mobile, kiss her goodnight, and close the door. For the most part she puts herself to sleep. About 50% of the time we have to go upstairs and put her paci back in if it falls out before she is in deep sleep. Otherwise we just watch her drift off to sleep on our video monitor... the lifesaver for having a downstairs master and an upstairs nursery. She wakes up around 7:30 every morning. Nathan goes up stairs to get her when she starts stirring and I get ready to nurse her. As I'm nursing Nathan either gets ready or sleeps in for a little while longer. When we are done, we all have our morning cuddle and then Nathan gets up to get ready for work and I stay in bed with Elizabeth a little while longer as she drifts off to sleep for a while longer. She may sleep until 11 during which I eat breakfast, search the internet and clean up the dishes.
Our daytime schedule
Play:
She is becoming more and more interactive every day. Just today she would not stop giggling when we lift her up and down above our heads. She also seems ticklish under her arms and neck and giggles when we tickle her. However, she is stingy with her giggles and once she has done it a few times she stops. She is not stingy with her smiles though and smiles a lot. She is especially smiley in the mornings.
She just started using her Johnny Jumper (or as we call it Lizzy Leaper). She doesn't jump in it yet, but she just looks around and sucks on the front of it. She plays a lot on her playmat both tummy time (try to get her to roll over more consistently) and on her back grabbing at the toys dangling in front of her and putting them in her mouth. She puts everything in her mouth. She doesn't much care for her bouncy seat very much anymore, but I sitll put her in it when I need to take a shower and she is awake or I need to do something else and I don't want her "getting into to trouble". She loves her bumbo chair, but I can't leave her in that without watching her at all times. She has started to arch her back and I'm afraid she is just going to pop out of it. She also likes to lay on our bed and gaze and talk to our ceiling fan. She does this on the changing pad in our bedroom too. She was really interested in the ceiling fan from early on and we used to put her on the "changing pad of solace" when she was a new born because it would snap her out of any funk that she was in.
She loves watching Pancake, but he does not want anything to do with her. I am kinda glad it is like that right now. They coexist in the same house, but he would prefer his own space.
Nicknames:
We call her Elizabeth, baby, and chublet - because she is pretty chubby :) and you just want to eat her up! (sometimes we call her Pancake too by accident)
Nathan's parents call her Liz (for the record, I'm not a huge fan of this)
My parents call her Elizaberry... a combination of Elizabeth and Strawberry (her name we gave her while she was in the womb since we did not share her name)
Elese calls her Eliza
Baths:
She gets a bath every other day or so and she loves them! We put the bathtub on the kitchen counter that is beside the sink so one of us can stand on each side of her. It makes it really easy since we aren't breaking out backs and knees leaning over into a tub. We will probably keep doing this until she starts moving more and sitting up on her own - which will be too soon!
Eating:
She eats about 6 times a day around every 3 hours from when she wakes up and goes to sleep. She is a pretty good nurser, but can get distracted. When we were on the plane taking our first trip we were glad we had brought a bottle because she did not want to nurse - she just wanted to look around. She still eats on both sides. I use the my brest friend and I love it, but I can nurse without it.
We measured her at home on our bathroom scale and a tape measure on her changing pad and she is roughly 14 pound and ~23 inches. We will get better measurements at the doctor on Wednesday.
Overall Elizabeth is a pretty laid back little baby. She is really very good most of the time and when she melts down it is probably due to over stimulation (which is completely our fault), but these times are few and far between.
Sleep:
We are extremely (and I can't even express how extreme this is!) happy that she has been sleeping through the night since 7 weeks. There have been a few times that around 4 or 5 we go up and give her her pacifier. And at 3 months she woke up in the middle of the night, and only because I had been reading that children have growth spurts around that time, I fed her. I realized I didn't want it to be a habit so if it happened again I'd try to soothe her before nursing, but it hasn't happened again! We've been lucky that she also goes down really easily. This also happened around 4 weeks. We started with a bedtime routine of getting her in her PJ's before her last feeding which is around 10pm and then nursing her, taking her upstairs to her bedroom, laying her on her changing pad and changing her diaper if it is wet, while playing a song that her Grandpa Kevin wrote her. Then we zip her up in her sleep sack and read her a story. We've been going through all her books and all three of us love: All of baby nose to toes. After reading we turn on her sound machine to ocean waves which is on an hour timer. We lay her down in her bed and then swaddle her in the cool swaddler that is attached to her sleep sack. (however they only make it in newborn, and she is about to grow out of the sack it attaches too, oh no what to do then?), spin her mobile, kiss her goodnight, and close the door. For the most part she puts herself to sleep. About 50% of the time we have to go upstairs and put her paci back in if it falls out before she is in deep sleep. Otherwise we just watch her drift off to sleep on our video monitor... the lifesaver for having a downstairs master and an upstairs nursery. She wakes up around 7:30 every morning. Nathan goes up stairs to get her when she starts stirring and I get ready to nurse her. As I'm nursing Nathan either gets ready or sleeps in for a little while longer. When we are done, we all have our morning cuddle and then Nathan gets up to get ready for work and I stay in bed with Elizabeth a little while longer as she drifts off to sleep for a while longer. She may sleep until 11 during which I eat breakfast, search the internet and clean up the dishes.
Our daytime schedule
Play:
She is becoming more and more interactive every day. Just today she would not stop giggling when we lift her up and down above our heads. She also seems ticklish under her arms and neck and giggles when we tickle her. However, she is stingy with her giggles and once she has done it a few times she stops. She is not stingy with her smiles though and smiles a lot. She is especially smiley in the mornings.
She just started using her Johnny Jumper (or as we call it Lizzy Leaper). She doesn't jump in it yet, but she just looks around and sucks on the front of it. She plays a lot on her playmat both tummy time (try to get her to roll over more consistently) and on her back grabbing at the toys dangling in front of her and putting them in her mouth. She puts everything in her mouth. She doesn't much care for her bouncy seat very much anymore, but I sitll put her in it when I need to take a shower and she is awake or I need to do something else and I don't want her "getting into to trouble". She loves her bumbo chair, but I can't leave her in that without watching her at all times. She has started to arch her back and I'm afraid she is just going to pop out of it. She also likes to lay on our bed and gaze and talk to our ceiling fan. She does this on the changing pad in our bedroom too. She was really interested in the ceiling fan from early on and we used to put her on the "changing pad of solace" when she was a new born because it would snap her out of any funk that she was in.
She loves watching Pancake, but he does not want anything to do with her. I am kinda glad it is like that right now. They coexist in the same house, but he would prefer his own space.
Nicknames:
We call her Elizabeth, baby, and chublet - because she is pretty chubby :) and you just want to eat her up! (sometimes we call her Pancake too by accident)
Nathan's parents call her Liz (for the record, I'm not a huge fan of this)
My parents call her Elizaberry... a combination of Elizabeth and Strawberry (her name we gave her while she was in the womb since we did not share her name)
Elese calls her Eliza
Baths:
She gets a bath every other day or so and she loves them! We put the bathtub on the kitchen counter that is beside the sink so one of us can stand on each side of her. It makes it really easy since we aren't breaking out backs and knees leaning over into a tub. We will probably keep doing this until she starts moving more and sitting up on her own - which will be too soon!
Eating:
She eats about 6 times a day around every 3 hours from when she wakes up and goes to sleep. She is a pretty good nurser, but can get distracted. When we were on the plane taking our first trip we were glad we had brought a bottle because she did not want to nurse - she just wanted to look around. She still eats on both sides. I use the my brest friend and I love it, but I can nurse without it.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Baking...
These tasty treats were the perfect finish to a tapas girls night dinner party. Very easy to make, and I highly recommend them! Follow the link above for the recipe.
Making...
A little fabric book for Elizabeth
I was inspired by a friend of mine from college, Kristina, who featured this craft on her blog Thimbly Things. If you'd like to make your own follow the link and she explains step-by-step. I used some of her patterns but added some of my own. Also it was really easy and allowed me to use some of the scraps of fabric that I've been racking my brain with what to do with. For the book itself I used the scraps of fabric from our curtains in our bedroom instead of denim.
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