Living in Munchkinland

Mom and Dad bought us all tickets to go see Seussical the Musical yesterday afternoon. Gigi and Gramp, Aunt Tiff and Kade, MiMi and Papaw were all in attendance as well. Sam, while invited, decided to take his afternoon nap at home instead. This was Davis' first full length entertainment opportunity. We have never taken him to a movie or play before. He did very well! Mom and Dad brought a booster for him to sit on so he could see the play. A lot of it went over his head, but he still enjoyed it and sat relatively quietly and applauded when appropriate. It was fun to watch his reactions. He was concerned each time the house lights went down and was a little bored during the ballads, but he really enjoyed the dancing and was often swaying in his seat. The musical itself was only so-so. The soundtrack has never been one of my favorites, but the costumes were fun and the choreography was good. The actress who played Gertrude was very good. (Those were the good points and

We have been having a surprisingly fun weekend that has been full of spontaneity. On Friday afternoon I called my cousin Manie begging her to babysit for us so we could go see my dad's band play on Saturday night. She wasn't available, but she did offer to come over for a bit that evening and let us go to dinner. We decided to take her up on it! Michael and I dashed off to the sushi bar at Kobe Steakhouse. We drank sake and ate sushi and filled out Michael's survivor application. It was so fun! Then we came home and sprawled on the couch and watched Sex and the City. We're on the last season and it's getting so exciting! Saturday was the Luling Watermelon Thump . This is a festival that looked interesting to us and is in a town that is only about twenty minutes away. We decided to try it. We loaded up after nap and headed that way. It was HOT, another over 100 degree day. So hot that we only stayed for about an hour before we grabbed some watermelon slic

I was just looking at the different airlines that fly out of Austin and I found an amazing rate. Vivaaerobus has direct flights from Austin to Cancun for 29.99 a person each way. Are you hearing me? Let's go! Anyone? Anyone? We stayed here and it was lovely.

Will somebody make these for me please???? The most amazing looking/sounding cupcakes. My birthday is in March. It seems so far away, but I don't bake. I guess I could try, but I would be so sad if I attempted these and then destroyed them. Sigh.

Soup swap was fun. I was so excited and nervous to throw a party without Michael or my parents. I seldom do it. This little get together was something I had been looking forward to with great anticipation. I left my house early enough to give me an hour at my parents place to get ready. It was hard to leave because Michael caught the bug we all had just kicked and was hanging over the toilet as I left. Luckily my mom came over and gave him a hand with the kids and saved the day. When I got to Austin, I realized I had given myself too much time and had about half an hour of wait time until the party started in which to get nervous. Still, people arrived and I was thrilled. The soup selection was marvelous. We had eleven people attend and thirteen different kinds of soup. We had orzo soup, taco soup, gumbo, watermelon gazpacho, spring chili with pesto, cream of broccoli, roasted gazpacho, pork pozole, chicken coconut soup, summer chili, carrot, beef and lentil, Armenian apricot.

Last winter, I attended a soup swap in honor of National Soup Swap Day . It was so much fun. Since then, the Austin Mamas have been having monthly soup swaps. Tomorrow I am hosting one and I am so excited. There will be wine and friends and good food and no children! I'm making two different soups so that I can swap for plenty of soups to share with Gigi and Gramp. One of soups that I am making is my Summer Chicken and Vegetable Chili. It is delicious and I can make it from the veggies in Uncle Larry's garden. I've posted the recipe before here. The other soup I am making is a roasted gazpacho. I've never made it before, but I am so excited about it. The smell of the vegetables roasting was amazing. I'll post the recipe below. I got it from Mark Bittman's cookbook, "The Best Recipes in the World", which I am really enjoying. Michael and the kids got it for me for Mother's day. I'll let you know how the soup swap goes, but the prep

We have turned a corner. My children PLAY together. This having your kids 19.5 months apart thing is totally working in my favor. Yes, yes it was hard at first. But now, that closeness in age is reaping benefits. Right now they are sitting on the couch, sharing raisins and graham crackers and watching Baby's Einstein's Old MacDonald movie. Sam announces, "Tractor!" or "Apple!" and Davis agrees and then gives an additional explanation like, "Yes! Tractor! It's a Combine Harvester!" Or "Yes! Apples! Red and Green Apples!". I can just sit over here and blog while the kids bond. And the day goes on like this. Davis will ask Sammy if they want to play monster trucks and two minutes later they each have a monster truck in their hand and are running around the playroom making vrooming noises. After dinner last night, we had an hour before bed time and so I laid down on the couch to read my book group book and the kids entertained t

We had a great time this weekend. We spent a lot of time on the beach. Finally, both kids are old enough to have a good time in the surf and sand. Both the boys loved jumping the waves and using the sand toys to build castles and "hot tubs" in the sand. Davis and Cheris and Rob's little girl Violet are BFF. They love each other so much and play so well together. We all played well together. We had good times. We ate food, got sun and spent some quality time with each other all around. Vacation with our children is still lots of work and less relaxation than pre-baby, but the odds are changing in our favor. We are able to enjoy the vacation with our children more and more and they are getting to be so much fun. I uploaded the pictures to the blog. Enjoy!

Are you watching? I used to throw a party every year to watch them. Last year I got so depressed I couldn't watch them. This year, I'm enjoying them solo. Maybe next year I'll live blog them. What do you think? Anyone else watching?

Did you see this? Beaches, my favorite dream resort to take my children to, but always too expensive for me, is having a sale! A really good one! Like half off! I'm going to tell Michael all about it, but first I thought I'd tell you. Anyone want to go? By the way, we're home from Port A. It was awesome! I can't wait to post pics. And I am in no way diminishing that fabulous trip by scoping out a new beach. It's just that I can't help myself. I'm addicted. I've been working on making sure I enjoy the vacation I'm on while I'm on it, but I still usually end up having so much fun that I start thinking about where I'm going to get my next vacation fix. Anyway, back to the next travel dream: Beaches Resorts -- top family all-inclusives in Jamaica and Turks & Caicos, with everything from kids programs and nurseries to butlers to hurricane guarantees-- has some tempting deals and perks. "WonderFALL"offers savings of up to 4

We're at the beach. I spent all yesterday cooking and packing and loading. I made muffins and two roasted chickens and black beans and a summer veggie chili and hard boiled a ton of eggs. I packed sunscreen and books and diapers and toys and clothes and monitors and lovies and dvd's and computers and chargers and coolers. And then I bathed the children and dressed them in their jammies and then I loaded the car. When Michael came home we were ready to go. We got on the road and fled for the beach. The plan for having the children sleep on the way down was a dismal failure, but they were pretty good anyway. We didn't care. We were on our way to the beach! We arrived late and put the kids in their beds. We woke up this morning to the sound of the surf and seagulls. We threw on our beach clothes and went down the sand where we built sand castles and jumped the waves. We're about to load up and go to down to have lunch. This afternoon, my friends Cheris and Rob an

I have a favorite blog called Slashfood . It takes stories about food from everywhere and collects the articles all in one place. It's addicting and wonderful for a foodie like me. I've learned so much about food since I started reading it! Today there was an article about the food crisis. They provided a link to a quiz that will allow you to find out what you do or don't know about the food crisis. I really liked it. Take it and let me know how you do and what you think. The quiz is here. What's up with the Food Crisis?

I've become a salmon lover. I'll admit it. I used to not like salmon unless it was sweet. I liked it with a brown sugar, lime juice, soy sauce glaze and baked in the oven. That was pretty much the only way I enjoyed it. In the last few years though, I've been trying new things with salmon and loving it more and more. I have a great new poached salmon recipe that I've been dying to share with you. I'll do that soon. I've already shared my barbecue salmon recipe. The trick is to use fresh fish. I tried it once with fresh salmon and once with salmon that had been frozen and it was so much better with the fresh. Tonight I'm making South-of-the-border Salmon Burgers. I've made them before and they are fast and easy and yummy. This recipe is very south beach friendly and would be appropriate for phase one. I got this out of the South Beach "Taste of Summer" cookbook. If you don't care as much about cutting out carbs, you could put t

I'm considering buying my own domain and moving the blog. I want to maybe refocus and add some search features, etc. I need your input though. What do you like me to post about the most? Recipes? Parenting? Kid updates? Travel? Politics? South Beach? What kind of blog would you like this to be? Or do you like it so general? Also, who is reading this? How many people? And, do you use a news aggregator like bloglines? Will you help me? Thanks! Amber

My Grandparents gave us some beautiful t-bone steaks last week. We are preparing to put another cow up on the ranch and so they are encouraging me to pillage their meat freezer in order to make space. I am so lucky! Yesterday was a horrible day. Both children were sick and I couldn't leave the house. (They are both well today! Healed! Miracle of Miracle! In case you were wondering.) By the end of the day I decided I deserved the fancy, delicious steaks. As always, I face the constraints of wanting delicious flavors, but having little time and being exhausted. My mom had been to the Farmer's market this week and picked me up some produce since I had been unable to leave our plague filled house. This produce was just begging to be paired with the organic beef. I was ready to cook a home-grown, organic, south beach friendly meal. Here is the menu: Broiled T-bone Steaks (these could have been done outside on the grill, but it was too hot and humid outside.) Mashed Caulifl

Sam is still sick. Plus, Davis has a fever today. I have no words.

Sam is so sick. An unknown, evil virus has taken over his body and caused a Fever. This fever likes to hang on at about 103 degrees despite huge doses of tylenol and motrin. This Fever has had it's grip on our Sam since Monday. Today we had Complications. In addition to this mystery Fever, but not related, Sam has contracted a case of Conjunctivitis (pink eye) in both eyes and a double Ear Infection. The Conjunctivitis is pretty bad and the ear infection is mild, but lordy oh lordy, my poor sweet baby. My poor sweet baby is also spending most of his time crying and/or clinging. I am about to lose my mind. Send some healing vibes our way and keep your fingers crossed that he keeps these ailments to himself. Love, Amber

I joined the land of twitter . I don't know much about it, but I'm already enjoying it. Let me know if you have an account and I'll follow you. Cheers! Amber

It will taste better. I am telling you the truth. Before I became a South Beach devotee, I never worried too much about my sides. I could always make rice and pasta and some veggie and it would be good. Now I often feel the need to have two vegetables on the side of my main dish. I usually like them to be different colors as well. Green can be boring. Because I now need twice as many vegetables on my plate, I have begun to try new recipes and shift my focus. Now I am full time mother with two small children, so creating an elaborate side dish to go with my elaborate main dish is not what I had in mind. But I also am a foodie and I was sick of steamed whatever. And then I learned about roasting. You can put a vegetable in the oven and roast it until it carmelizes slightly and it is wonderful. Vegetables that I used to think that I didn't like very much, like turnip, rutabaga, fennel, bell peppers are all improved tenfold for me by putting them in the oven. Asparagus are