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Pete came over on Sunday to help us do a test run of the first ghetto BBQ pool party sans pool. We weren’t sure how well it would be since there isn’t any grass (hence the ‘ghetto’ term) but we got a nice shade umbrella and 2 fold up chairs with canopies. It’s been awhile since we had a BBQ but I think it turned out well! We kept it simple and just grilled hamburgers and I made potato salad and blueberry crumble! The potato salad required bacon and apples so I was a little leary of that combo but it was delicious! The blueberry crumble was actually a blackberry crumble recipe from Everyday Food but I didn’t have blackberries. It was so good I made it again later that week.

Waiting for Pete!

Checking out our canopy chair.

The Master at work.

The “enough with the pictures and gimme more food” face!

Pete also brought his Wii with him.

I would say the first ghetto BBQ of the summer was a success and it was a great day!

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Monday I went to see The Swell Season (Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova of Once) with Brenda at Radio City. I didn’t bring my better camera so I knew I wasn’t going to get good pics inside so I made sure to take a pic of the marquee. They played for over 2 hours! It was a good show albeit a bit slow for my mood and Glen Hansard talks a lot! I was a little disappointed that they didn’t play one of my favorite song songs from the Once soundtrack, Fallen From the Sky. But Pete pointed out that they must not have packed their Casio keyboard on tour with them. LOL. We left right before their last song and I read here that they had a standing ovation. It was a good show.

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Sunday we met up with Tommy and Maureen for lunch at First Oasis. I am ashamed to say that we haven’t seen them since the baby shower last year!! I’m sure we won’t let another year pass before getting together again. I have been friends with Tommy for quite a long time and he went to our wedding in Vegas in 2001. And speaking of wedding, they got engaged in December 2007! Yay!!

Well, sorry there aren’t any pictures of the food. I tend to forget when Sienna is around but I managed to get the waiter, Rami, to take our picture after the meal. Sienna liked Rami. Sienna tends to be leary of waitstaff, more specifically female waitstaff and then they become scared of getting too close to her. Well, I think Rami was the first male waiter we had. Sienna kept looking at him and waving at him and smiling at him. It was cute. For now. 🙂 Rami was very nice too. We started off with the vegetarian combination on the advice of Rami. It was good! Stuffed grape leaves, hummus, babaganuj, falafel and salad. I know Tommy is not a fan of non-meat but Rami was so nice, I wanted to take him up on his advice. I got the mousakka, Yves got the chicken kafta kebab and Tommy and Maureen got the Roasted Spring Chicken. It seems like everyone enjoyed their food and Sienna tried some rice, hummus, falafel and pickled radish (which she seemed to like) and gasp tomato (which she also seemed to like!) and she was picking from my plate.

And they were so super sweet to give Sienna a birthday present! Lots of cute clothes from The Children’s Place!

Here’s a video of Sienna and Yves walking from the car on the way to meeting Tommy and Maureen for lunch. If you need the password, please leave a comment or e-mail me and I will send it to you!

Street Walk with Dad from Lisa on Vimeo.

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The band got together this past Wednesday and we realized Coachella is this weekend (where we first got dubbed the band by Yves-I think…can’t trust my memory these days!) Anyway, we went to Calidad Latina for some delicious spanish food. Everything was delicious and the waiter and staff were super friendly. We started off with the mofongo.

This is after we tackled into it and started playing with it by putting the garnish on top. Our own little Joshua Tree (more reference to Coachella).

Joy got the fried pork chops and mixed rice and we all shared a side of tostones with garlic sauce (not every place gives garlic sauce with their tostones). I got the breaded steak and Pete got the marinated steak.

I couldn’t decide between breaded steak or marinated steak so Pete offered to get one of them so we can share it. What a friend! And Tammy got arroz con pollo! Check out her mounds

of food!! 😉 Everything was delicious! The only disappointment was the mixed rice. It wasn’t very flavorful. But just a small setback to an otherwise wonderful meal.

We managed to save some room in our tummies to go to Billy’s Bakery for some cupcakes. It was sadly disappointing. Dry and not much flavor. They don’t have anything on Sugar Sweet Sunshine.

Pete’s mounds.

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I told Yves I predicted that Sienna will walk on April 12 solely because when people ask I can simply answer, 1 month after her birthday. And technically, she might have actually took a few steps on her own during that week, it was really Saturday the 12th that she took quite a few steps on her own! And I got it on video the Monday after. (Please leave a comment if you don’t have the password)

Walking Alone! from Lisa on Vimeo.

This past Saturday, we met up with Peter, Nate and Mari at Raymund’s in Williamsburg for pierogies. YUM! Here’s a picture of her eating her first pierogie. I think she liked it! And of course she prefers the potato and cheese one over the meat one.

And while we were leaving, we grabbed the bread that came with Mari’s borscht and gave Sienna a piece, which she promptly chomped on and ate the whole thing. I then decided to take all the bread. LOL. I was surprised she ate it because it was just plain bread. Hmmm, good to know!

And more walking! And no, the similiar outfits between Yves and Sienna were not planned!

After lunch we walked around a little bit since it was so absolutely beautiful outside! We walked over to Peter Pan donuts so Pete can finally compare those donuts with the ones in our ‘hood. He agrees with Yves in that the one in our hood is better.

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Last Wednesday was the April mixer. No mix again. I really, really have to make one for the next one. Anyway, I met Joy at Skyway for Malaysian food. It was yummy! We got roti canal, poh piah, hainese chicken and fried pearl noodles. We’ll be back for sure and hopefully with more people to try more stuff.

We went to Stanton Public again for the mixer. It was like girl’s night out since it was me, Joy, Brenda, Alison and Robyn. And then Eric, Robyn’s husband but he’s a good sport and didn’t care since he was working on his list. The bar has a thing that if you drink 57 different beers (not in the same night!), you get your name on a plaque. That’s what he is working on. My tolerance went up a little, I drank 1.5 pints of beer and did not feel as groovy as I did last month. LOL. It’s getting there.

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Joy got her the monkey mirror.

Sunday was Tammy’s baby shower held at Alison’s place by Prospect Park. Needless to say, beautiful views! (And also needless to say, stopped by the Christie’s Jamaican patty place and brought some patties home for dinner.) I did not bring Sienna with me, although she was more than welcome. There were 3 other babies/toddlers there.

I got her the diaper changing pad that goes on top of the dresser and the orange cover (of course) that covers it. They were both on her registry. I also got her alphabet links because I love links and they come in very handy. I don’t have the alphabet ones but they are really cute! I also got her a monkey vibrating hanging toy. After she opened the gifts, we did crafts! Stephanie set out plain white onesies, fabric paint and brushes. I got on a roll and made about 6! I was having fun!

Opening one of my orange wrapped presents. 🙂

Let the crafting begin!

Well it looks like I exceeded the amount of pictures for this post! I’ll have to post the pics of the babies there another time!

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Saturday turned out to be a beautiful sunny day and felt like the 60’s. We went to Michael’s since I had a 50% coupon and took the opportunity to go to Trader Joe’s and also try out the shopping cart cover I finally finished!

It works!! I didn’t doubt the pattern, just my abilities to follow it. LOL. If you look at it closely (in person), you’ll see all the character in it.  And I’m not talking about the Elmo fabric I used. This was my first time using bias tape, using elastic (my thumb hurt from threading it through) and the buttonhole feature on my machine. Let’s just say I still need a lot of practice in all those areas. LOL

Since it was such a nice day, we decided to grab some lunch at Nathan’s in Coney Island. Yves got 2 dogs and I decided to get a cheeseburger to share with Sienna. She didn’t really care for it and happily ate her jarred food (which she only seems to do outside of the house!). We did not share the hot dogs or fries with her. Figure there is plenty of time for her to try that junk food! We took a little walk to the rides and she really got a kick out of seeing them and the arcade area.

Sunday was the opening of the much publicized Brooklyn Flea. We were meeting up with Joy and Brenda, who had tickets to see Sharon Jones across the street at the Masonic Temple. The main reason for meeting was to finally try the famed Waffle truck. Which wasn’t in the truck for the flea market. It was good!! Me and Yves got a waffle with maple syrup and then a cinnamon one with nutella. Joy got the cinnamon with dulce de leche and Brenda got the regular with fudge. I think Brenda’s fudge was the best one. Sienna enjoyed some waffle too!

We also ran into Carrie, who was very excited to finally meet Sienna. It was a lot colder that day than Saturday and overcast so we did not really roam around the market. But it’s going to be there every Sunday so I didn’t care.

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Sienna, Ezra and Mirabel

Sienna had a playdate yesterday with Mirabel, Virginia’s daughter. I met Virginia through the yahoo group I belong to. We went over to their house because Virginia also watches a neighbor’s little boy on Friday mornings. It was great to get out of the house and out of the neighborhood. When we got there, Hazel was also there, another little girl we met briefly when we first met Virginia and Mirabel. All the toddlers were within a few months of each other in age. It was great fun!! Sienna had a blast!

Sienna and Mirabel

Cutie Hazel crawling down the hallway.

Now it’s Mirabel’s turn!

And here comes Sienna!

Since Virginia watches Ezra every Friday, we plan on joining them every Friday as well. I feel very relieved and happy that Sienna will get to be with playmates her age. Plus it seems to knock her out. She fell asleep on the way home even before I got around the block! Here’s a cute video I took of everyone playing. If you need the password, please leave a comment and I’ll send it to you!

Playdate! from Lisa on Vimeo.

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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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