v.2

When Sienna went for her 1 year well being check up on the 14th, the doctor said she can basically eat whatever we are eating. I was so excited! Woopeee! I thought life was going to be easier now that I didn’t have to wonder what I was going to make for her. I was feeling guilty about giving her the jar food, besides which there is not much variety, but now I didn’t have to wonder! Or feel guilty! YAY! She’ll just eat what we are eating. Simple. As. That. HA! I don’t know why I thought it was going to be simple as that. Besides her being totally messy and most of the food ending up everywhere except in her mouth (Skippy is totally lucking out!), she takes about three times as long to eat now! I guess I just thought she was going to be like us and eat what was in front of her in a very straightforward manner. I must have had a temporary brain fart! I seriously do not know why I thought that it was going to be that easy.

I started off giving her pieces of cheese. She was into that! But I wanted to give her something more than that. I made her whole wheat pasta with peas and butter. Yes, I know. I don’t like peas. Yves doesn’t like peas. But it’s easy to give to her and it’s a vegetable. It was met with a lukewarm response. She sorta ate it. When I tried to give her more the next day. She wasn’t having it. She likes grilled cheese and it was something I didn’t want to end up giving her every day. She’s had it about 3 times last week. I made ground meat with lentils for me and Yves and she seemed to enjoy it the first night. And even the second night. But not the third.

I know it’s going to take some time for this and I know we’ll get through it! I wish it didn’t drain so much energy tho!
Here’s a video that goes with the top picture. If you don’t have the password, please leave me a comment and I’ll send it to you!

Messy Mohawk from Lisa on Vimeo.

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Even though we had a celebration for her on Saturday, we couldn’t let the official day go by unnoticed! My parents got her a cake from the chinese bakery. I guess they don’t know how to spell HAPPY. LOL. It was the first time we had a chestnut filling and it was very sweet. Grandma and Grandpa M sent a birthday card that she got yesterday with a gift card to Toys R Us. Woohoo! Grandma and Grandpa C got her a toy vacuum. We gave her an Elmo stretch doll and a wooden drum.

Not a fan of the hat (or any hat!)

Blowing out the candle

Munching away

Sitting on Grandma’s lap while Grandpa and Daddy set up the biggest gift of all….

A new flat screen TV!!

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So here is the food post for Sienna’s birthday celebration on Saturday! First I prepared the patty dough Thursday night. This was my first time making dough of any kind and first time using shortening (which is kinda gross!). I realized the next day that I was short on shortening (*giggle) as the recipe called for 2/3 cup of Crisco and I only put in 1/3 cup. Oh well! I went ahead with it anyway and it still tasted fine!

Friday I rolled it out to fill and even though by that point I already read the recipe at least a half a dozen times, I was doing it wrong. I did not cut them into 16 pieces first but I realized my mistake pretty early on and did not waste too much time rolling out a big slab of dough! Rolling took some getting used to and since I didn’t have a stockinette I had to keep flouring my pin.

And here they are all filled up! Patties with ‘character!’

Saturday morning I worked on the pork dumplings, a recipe I got from Everyday Food and Yves teased me about not being a true Asian! I’ll have my dad teach me one day because his wonton recipe uses shrimp. I’m not a good shrimp handler so I would need help with that! Anyway, it’s really easy!!

Here are the patties cooked. Doesn’t really look much different than before!

Cupcakes pre-frosting. I also had an icing malfunction. I wanted to write out Happy 1st Sienna but the 2 frostings I had just sputtered out of the tube. So I just put sprinkles on them. Oh well!

Here are Brenda’s sinfully yummy bacon cheddar muffins and Theresa’s beautiful zucchinis (you know you are a real geek when you call produce beautiful!)

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I haven’t updated my blog all week and it’s because I finally relented and joined Facebook from Richard’s invitation. It’s actually kind of fun and I got sucked in playing the music challenge and the never ending movie quiz. Sigh. Well, if you are on Facebook, let me know and we can be friends! 😉

So Saturday we had a little celebration for Sienna’s first birthday, which is officially on Wednesday. Can you believe it?? There are so many pictures to post, I’ll have to divide it into 2 posts. I made Jamaican beef patties from scratch (even the dough!), pork dumplings (my own filling!) and cupcakes. I also put out brie. Can you get the reason for this international food smorgasbord? Brenda made bacon and cheddar muffins (yum!!), Theresa brought asparagus salad (yum!!), Tammy and Mark provided the punch and since Joy was a late addition she just brought her big mouth. LOL. I’ll do the food post later.

As you can see, she really took to Mark pretty fast, just like she did with Peter last week. Hmmm, I guess we shouldn’t worry about her comfortness with males until she is older…HA!

I think Sienna was a little confused about what was going on and probably wondered why there were a bunch of people standing around staring at her! She didn’t really have much of a reaction to her birthday hat or her birthday cupcake or blowing out her candle. LOL. I gave her her cupcake and in true Sienna fashion, threw it on the floor but after she had some frosting. I picked it up and just gave her the insides and of course, it got messy!

She’s probably thinking ‘this is not my usual fare…but I’ll try it’

Here’s a video of the cupcake eating event. If you need the password, please leave me a comment!

First Birthday Cupcake from Lisa on Vimeo.

We had to do a wardrobe change after the cupcake so she can open her presents and not have cupcake and frosting everywhere! I thought it was appropriate to put her in the cupcake shirt that Tammy and Mark got her for Christmas!

Sienna really made out good! There was a gift that came for her during the week from Fed Ex from a company in Brooklyn. There wasn’t a card or message that told us who it was from so we were calling it the mystery gift and joking that Sienna went online and ordered it for herself. We found out it was from Yves’ parents! They ordered it from amazon and I guess from a third party so they didn’t have the option to include a gift card. It’s the little push thing that she can also sit on. She also got a cool ball blowing toy that also plays music from Joy, musical maracas and 2 super cute dresses from Brenda, a cute outfit and book from Theresa and a crocodile xylophone from Tammy and Mark. Hours of entertainment, that is for sure!

It really turned out to be a great time for everyone. And I’m really happy Sienna got to enjoy her first birthday party with some very cool friends of mine. I did not want to have a big blow out party so I did not invite a ton of people so I’m glad people showed up despite the rainy weather. My patties and dumplings were well received too!

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As I mentioned in the previous post, Pete came over on Saturday. Originally it was to cook a meal but we couldn’t figure out what to cook so instead just made ricotta cheesecake (the one I was going to make for the bumblebees). It was fun! The recipe is from Martha Stewart’s baking handbook.

Pete purees the ricotta.


I mix the egg whites which I screwed up and got a little bit of egg yolk in there and so would not stiffen.

Pete whisks the ricotta, egg yolks, flour and salt after I grate in some orange peel

which I used with the microplane my MIL got me (thanks Mummy! I love it!)

It’s ready to go in! Without Pete tho!

While we are waiting for it to cook, Pete has fun with Sienna!

Fun with Uncle Peter from Lisa on Vimeo.

And now the cheesecake is done!

Pete was making fun of the waffle marks I made while flipping it over. I’m just listening to Martha, she said to use another rack to flip it over!

Pete is deciding if he likes it or not. And he does! We figured out it tasted more like a custardy orange cake. It was good tho! And it worked out perfectly as he took 3 slices for himself and Nate and Mari for later. I had a slice, Yves had a slice and I took the remaining 2 over to Tammy and Mark on Sunday!

Pete and Sienna give each other a kiss goodbye. AWWW!!!!

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We had a pretty filled weekend! I started and finished 2 projects and am almost done with another one! Peter came over and made ricotta cheesecake with me and I helped Tammy with her baby registry at Buy buy Baby (which is soooo much better than BRU! I wish we knew last year!) So much stuff going on that I will have to make 2 posts about it! Today I’ll show my crafts because I am so proud of myself!

I’m almost done!! I still have to sew them all together and make the edging. It should be interesting to see it once it’s sewn because not all the squares are completely square! I guess I crochet unevenly. Must be from the muscle I pulled in my right arm from doing all this crocheting! And do you notice the little hand reaching for it? She took all of them (minus the 3 she couldn’t reach) and threw them all on the floor one by one!

And remember the onesie from my MIL that I said I would make into a t-shirt? I did it!!

It looks great on her!

The third project is a wristlet I made for Tammy. I was trying to think of something to get for her that is useful and thoughtful. I’ve used this pattern a few times and use the bag I made for myself everyday. I’ve gone through at least 3 different types of diaper bags, all of which I’m not completely satisfied with and the wristlet is very useful in this aspect. I can keep my wallet, keys, tissues, chapstick, etc. all within super easy reach. The diaper bags usually end up getting too stuffed once I put a few of my things in there and who wants to carry an extra purse? So the wristlet is perfect and I thought Tammy would like one. She likes Day of the Dead so I got this fabric online and started it Friday night and finished it Saturday morning. I probably would have finished it Friday night if I didn’t run into a couple of problems!

The pattern calls for one long piece for the outer layer, which essentially gets folded in half. Because of the nature of the fabric, if I did that, the skulls would be upside down on one side. I thought I was being so smart that I realized this before the fact! So I just cut it into 2 pieces and ironed it on the interfacing (which I kept as one long piece) opposite sides. I continued with the bag, did the corners pretty well and then turned it right side out.

Oops! Forgot about the rough edges! I totally spaced on this because I made another bag with similiar type of fabric and I did not leave any rough edges. I was kinda bummed about having to undo the corners that I tried to be clever and just sewed the bottom without undoing the corners. Did not work out. In the process of this, the needle broke on my machine! A first!

So it was getting late and Sienna and Yves were waiting for me for dinner so I had to continue this Saturday morning. Plus I had to rip out the seams of the bottom and did that Friday night in front of the tv.

Fixed! Yay! Tammy loves it!

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Yesterday me and Sienna went to open play at a nearby playgym. It was our first time. For $6 you can hang out in an indoor space for up to 4 hours, us and every other mom/kid in town! Initially it wasn’t so bad. Sienna is still too young to go climbing in the ball pit area but there were lots of mirrors and cushions and balls for her. It started getting more crowded with unruly kids but it wasn’t the kids that annoyed me, it was their parents! For the most part, the parents were keeping a watchful eye on their little ones, especially the one that had a crush on Sienna. She kept following her everywhere and saying how cute she is! I’m glad the mom was close by yelling at her to not touch the baby and not to kiss the baby. But after awhile, she was just getting plain annoying! Sienna didn’t really pay her much attention in the beginning but I guess by the end, she was worn thin and almost kissed her back! Then there was the kid that was running around coughing and not covering his mouth and then the kid snacking with only a quarter of the food getting into her mouth. Uh, hello, where is your mom? Kids snacking on food under signs that said “please no outside food.” HA

Well, I can’t wait for Spring!

And here is a cute video I took last week. Just leave me a comment and I will send you the password to view!

Maggie Monster from Lisa on Vimeo.

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Sienna’s Aunt Natalie sent her an early birthday present. A beautiful hand knit sweater! It’s such a pretty green color and has a cool lizard button on it. Apparently, Aunt Natalie just started taking up knitting last year and has been working on this sweater for some time. I can totally understand that! Knitting is harder than crocheting, which is why I don’t want to venture into it. Aunt Natalie, crocheting is easier and less time consuming! Anyway, she got it last week and I put it on her straightaway but learned that I had it on backwards. The button goes in the back, which is probably a better thing so Sienna doesn’t stick it in her mouth!

So, thanks Aunt Natalie for the beautiful sweater! It fits perfectly!

And here it is backwards

Here is also a picture of Sienna wearing a onesie from her Grandma. It says Smile Mon! Jamaica. It’s so cute but it’s a little too short on her. It’s a 12 month size but it’s wide and short. I don’t know what kind of babies they are having in Jamaica but Sienna is lean and tall. LOL. But no worries, I’m going to make it into a t-shirt for her instead!

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Monday was President’s day so Yves had off and we went out to Queens to visit very pregnant Aunt Tammy and Uncle Mark. Of course we stopped off at A.C. Moore (big yarn sale!), Trader Joe’s and the new Michael’s. Can you believe I did not buy anything in Michael’s? The lighting was really dark in there and I think the high ceilings didn’t help make it appealing but it was pretty big. Anyway, they let us gorge on chips and dip and grilled chicken and vegetables. And Tammy made brownies with a coffee icing. YUM! I think it was a pretty successful outting for Sienna as she doesn’t get to visit many other homes. We brought her booster seat so she can sit at the table with us.

Mark is going to make a fine daddy!

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A close friend of my MIL, Auntie Sharon, was in town visiting with Liz and the girls before their big move. They came over for lunch on Sunday and will probably be the last time they are all over for a long time. I know Liz loves my chili so I made that for her and also tried out a new recipe for a lite carrot cake (made into cupcakes). Everything was yummy despite cutting my pointing finger and burning my pinky all on the same hand!

The next time the 3 of them will be together, they will be soooo much bigger!

Carrot cupcakes

Talking to Grandma

Sienna listens intently to her older cousin’s wisdom.

I let Eli take hold of the digital camera and she took some very nice pictures:

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