Fall guests, part II

This weekend we had guests again! One of Mike's childhood friends and said friend's wife came to town. We had a lovely time seeing them, and we hope they come back soon!(These pictures were all taken just before they left for the football game, hence all the purple. Our guests didn't dress like that the whole weekend. Or maybe they did. I'll never tell.)

Our guests also took a brief side-trip to Austin while they were with us. They brought these back:(I did mention they could come back any time, right?)

Natalie isn't walking yet, but she does stand independently for longer and longer stretches of time.Here are a few other action shots of her:And here are some less mobility-focused shots (blah, blah, blah, all baby, all the time):Cheerios remain Natalie's go-to snack:
Natalie's first word was definitely kitty cat. "Ki-cah" means kitty cat, but it also seems to mean all other animals, too. The other day, a friend's dog came over for a few minutes. We had the dog in the house and were supervising very carefully - the dog wasn't overly interested in Natalie, but Natalie kept wanting to crawl after the dog, saying "ki-cah, ki-cah". The next morning, as we were coming down the stairs, Natalie suddenly, hopefully said "ki-cah? ki-cah?" It was like she remembered the dog in our living room! How adorable is that?

We have, though, been working on teaching her "dog", which pretty much comes out like "dah". Our success has been mixed: yesterday, I was wearing a shirt with a photo of a dog on it, and she looked right at it and said "ki-cah"; however, today on our walk, we ran into three dogs and their owner - this got "dah, dah" over and over again, plus lots and lots of laughs.

As an aside, I'm realizing that it must be really hard to decode the various different images of the same animal and map them back to a master form - looking at the variety of ways in which Natalie encounters dogs and cats (different illustrations in picture books, photos, real live animals, video, etc.), I'm just in awe of her little brain!

The interest in animals, though, is no indication that Natalie has mastered "gentle touches" enough to be a good animal/baby companion.
I've been cooking a little, too. In preparation for our annual pesto ice-cube production (the way in which we've opted to preserve all the basil our garden produces), I've been cleaning out the freezer. I ran across some frozen pulped persimmons. These were left from last winter when my arm was broken and I wasn't doing much in the kitchen. What to do with them now? Some quick internet searching revealed a recipe for persimmon bread. Our house lacks both bourbon and whiskey, so I subbed in what I had, which was brandy. It was awesome - and might be even better with a little brown sugar caramel frosting and some toasted nuts on top, if one wanted to go that route.One more picture of Natalie. As some of you know, we're going to Hawaii this spring. Here's Natalie getting ready for the trip by wearing her sunglasses (yes, we put them on her; yes, she pulled them off 10 seconds later).
Later, dudes!

New schedule for fall

It is officially autumn in Fort Worth, and it is finally starting to feel like autumn. Tomorrow the temperature is not even supposed to reach 80, which is very exciting for us.

Because it is fall, the students have returned to campus, and I have begun teaching them again. I am teaching three classes, and they are going well so far. Also, I am taking one class. More specifically, Natalie and I are taking a music class together. We sing, dance, play drums, hit sticks together, and Natalie occasionally crawls around the room and bangs on the walls. It is outstanding. Also, because the weather is cooling down, it is easier to take walks with Natalie. Here is a video of Natalie inspecting her jogging stroller:



Also, here are some other videos of Natalie being cute:

SYL and Kris come to town!

Last weekend (and I mean last-last weekend, not merely the weekend that just passed - just so you understand the depths of the delay here) SYL and Kris came to town. They are great friends to visit us again before we've even made it back to Seattle to visit them. Our spring and summer are already filling up, but someday, right? Maybe. Hopefully.

In typical SYL and Kris fashion, games were played and delicious food was eaten. What more could a girl want? They actually did most of the cooking (and I don't have any pictures). We did take them to some local favorite places, though.

However, for those who read for the recipes, Mike and I recently made this summer peach and tomato salad. It was awesome. Here's our kitchen muse:
Okay, back to the SYL/Kris visit. Here are the pics:The visit really didn't have as much crying as the above picture suggests. Although, you may want to check with the Seattle guests for their opinion . . . .Here are "my two best girls" (as the stupid workout video I've been doing lately puts it):
Here's the one-year-ago picture, for contrast. In the intervening year, I have - perhaps - learned to take straighter pictures, although I'll admit that while the subjects are great, the composition is, uh, lacking.We played a lot of this fairly complicated card game called Glory to Rome. Everyone, it turns out, has his/her own style of holding the cards:

In other news, Natalie is great - and as cute as ever. She isn't walking yet, but she's become quite the yoga devotee.She's also reading - no comment on whether this first work goes in the fiction or non-fiction pile. The second, I'll allow, is pretty clearly non-fiction.And here's some other random cuteness:

August

Now that it's September(!), I thought I'd share with you what we've been doing since we returned from Detroit.

Nothing much, really. Just hanging out.Listening to music.Playing cards.Doing laundry.Reading books.Cooking.Just to clarify, the above cabinet is "Natalie's cabinet". It's filled with cooking utensils that she can bang and play with (we wash things well upon removing them from the cabinet to use them ourselves). We didn't expect her to climb in (like the dog-in-dishwasher picture), but, hey, whatever works.

Seriously, even though it was about a billion degrees for all of August, I still managed to spend some time in the kitchen. First up, a no-cook tomatillo-avocado soup from Sunset Magazine. This one is a total keeper. I added some croutons and an extra avocado, and it was a meal for us. A little like liquid salad, but also totally cool and delicious and refreshing.Next, what does one bake in late summer but zucchini bread? I was torn between two recipes. I ended up, ultimately, going with the one from Cook's Illustrated (the second link). Can you believe that you can fit a pound of zucchini in one loaf?! I used toasted walnuts, cut the sugar slightly, and added golden raisins. Totally yummy. This bread actually has quite a cake-like texture - perhaps from the yogurt (I did half full-fat, half nonfat)? Anyway, I could see this as a cake with some yummy brown sugar / caramel glaze drizzled on it.
Continuing on the baking theme, I made these red onion and gorgonzola flatbreads. The dough recipe called for semolina flour, which I didn't have. I subbed all purpose, and they were pretty good. I'd like to actually try it with semolina flour, though. Also, since I am not a huge lover of blue cheese, on half the flatbreads I used mango chevre from our local dairy (bought at our farmer's market that morning!).
I've also been knitting. I finally finished Natalie's baby blanket. I had started this back on the bedrest days, had actually taken it to the hospital (I know, right? But in my defense, I was told that I could have been setting up for a long induction), and had been working on it intermittently ever since. It's all cotton, so it was the perfect summer project. I also think it's the biggest thing I've ever knit.(Natalie conducting the ever-important blanket taste test. I think I passed.)

Also, on the knitting theme, here are two projects I completed during the Winter Olympics this year. I actually did something called the Knitting Olympics, where you cast on for your project during opening ceremonies and have to cast off before the closing ceremonies. Since I am, like, the world's pokiest knitter, this truly was an olympic endeavor for me. I did it, though! Since these projects were to be gifts, I didn't want to share the pictures right away. (That's Natalie. Doesn't she look just like a doll? Also, I know that hat is slightly small on her; it was designed to be the right size for the recipient)

Last, we also took Natalie for her first haircut this week. I worried this was sort of going down the slippery slope of toddler beauty pageants or something. However, since we are heading into the germier season, I didn't want us to always be touching her face to brush her hair aside. And I didn't really trust myself to put sharp scissors near her eyes - nevermind my lack of hairstyling skillz. Here's a before shot, to prove this was really necessary:Here's an in-progress shot. This was about 37 seconds before she started howling. And she screamed the whole way through. It was awesome. Also, Mike will be taking her next time.And here's the after shot. Isn't it just right? And one more cute (pre-haircut) shot, because I just couldn't resist.