dumparings

having mentioned dumplings in my last post, i got dumplings on the brain and had to make some =)  i made a veggie filling (tofu, edamame, rice noodles, bamboo shoots, napa, sauteed garlic, soy sauce and sesame oil) so that the girls could wrap too.  and so that c might actually eat some ;-)

c was able to do it pretty much by herself.  her quote of the night, 'lu and i might be dumpling makers when we grow up.  dumpling makers or dancers!' (note the post-ballet class leotards ;-))



mission accomplished!

year of the dragon

most years, our chinese new year consists of rounding up a few friends for dim sum, if that.   i used to invite people over for a dumpling-making party, but that hasn't happened since pre-kid days.  this year though, we were treated to a homemade feast courtesy of my godmother, coupled with a weekend visit from my parents.  it really felt like a celebration, with good food and good company =)

the girls made some lanterns:

this one is painted carefully and sparingly

while this one's collapsing under the weight of the paint =p

nai nai and ah gong came in the afternoon, with a set of curious george books that was devoured on the spot:

dinner was delicious:

and the after dinner entertainment, well, on the noisy side ;-)

soooo excited to share with my sister ;-)

exercises with nai nai

the girls got their first hong bao (red envelope).  well, i should say the first that was given directly to them =p



on sunday afternoon, we went up to the lakeforest mall, only to find that the chinese new year program didn't start till the next weekend.  oh well!  we hit the library, the train and the play area, so i don't think the girls minded =)

gong shi shin nian!

twenty five weeks

i recently found out that an acquaintance with two girls around the age of ours also has a baby.  i'll go ahead and call her a friend, since i'm hoping that will become the case =)  we met in c's gymnastics class, and it turns out that the baby had been in the hospital that whole time.  she had been born at 25 weeks, a little over a pound.

according to whattoexpect.com, a baby at that stage is "about nine inches long and more than a pound and a half" and "prepares to take his first breath."  reminds me of one of my favorite verses:

just as you do not know how the breath comes to the bones in the mother's womb, so you do not know the work of God, who makes everything[1]

seeing that smiling, cheerful little girl, now 7 months, really struck me because last week we participated in the March For Life.  i have never been an activist, and my interest in politics just barely exceeds my interest in the weather in timbuktu.  maryland law however, has forced even oblivious me to reconsider.  in this state, a fetus, a baby, a nine-inch-long almost breathing whatever-you-want-to-call-it can be aborted.

i don't know what to say to that, except that the thought makes me want to be violently ill.  it's not just the principle but the methods.  i'll spare you the more descriptive yet horribly accurate verbs that can be applied.  i had no idea of the scope of the problem:  according to the Guttmacher Institute, in the US "twenty-two percent of all pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion [...] In 2008, 1.21 million abortions were performed."

there is plenty of information out there, plenty of arguments from all kinds of philosophic and religious backgrounds, and i don't claim to have anything to add or even to be particularly well-educated on the subject.   i only know that when i went to the o-b for the first time with that first positive test, the receptionist asked me if i was the mother.  if i was the mother, wasn't the thing i was carrying by definition a baby?

the girls and i spent most of a rainy monday adding our three small presences to the crowd because, as my friend j said, 'j [her son] is growing up, and someday he will ask me, 'what did you do about it?''

everything is better with friends =)

where's waldo? ;-)

the supreme court

[1] ecclesiastes 11:5

culinary corner: potato and gruyere soup

if you like traditional swiss fondue, this is the soup for you!  and it couldn't be quicker.  i stirred in my cilantro and topped with bacon, but you get the idea.

i've already mentioned my new toy, aka immersion blender.  enter 2-pound block of jarlsberg acquired at a bargain price at - where else - costco, and this is what you get.  i based it off of this recipe, but made some alterations, so i'll print my version:

3 medium onions, chopped fine 

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 cups chicken broth

3  cups water 

3 pounds boiling potatoes (recipe said yellow-fleshed, i just used russet) 

1/2 pound Gruyère cheese, grated (about 2 1/2 cups - i used jarlsberg) 

1 tablespoon Madeira or Sherry if desired (i used whiskey, since it was what i had =p)

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, to taste

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

precooked bacon, optional (microwaved to crispy and crumbled)

saute onions in olive oil till golden.  add broth and water, bring to a boil.

cube potatoes and add to soup.  simmer, covered, 10 minutes.  uncover and simmer 5 minutes more.

remove from heat and stir in cheese till melted.  blend with immersion blender or in batches with regular blender.

stir in liquor, worcestershire, cilantro and salt and pepper to taste.

top each bowl with sprinkle of bacon before serving.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

notes:  i might try blending before adding the cheese.  it was a bit of a pain cleaning melted cheese off the blender.  and don't skip the cilantro!  also, for the kids, i took out a few cups of the soup mixture before adding the cheese and blended it separately using cheddar.  you could easily do a soup buffet by cooking and blending the potatoes, then setting out different kinds of cheese to mix in and different condiments.  you'd have to keep the soup base hot though.

enjoy!

a toy for mama

when people ask me what i want for christmas, i'm always hard-pressed to come up with an answer, and then it's usually in the form of a kitchen gadget.   this year i got top notch versions of two of my suggestions:  a sturdy blender and an immersion blender (yes, i was being rather indulgent in naming both, but for the record, they came from different sources ;-) ).  but when you get what you didn't ask for but secretly wished for, that is the mark of a great gift.  my thoughtful and observant husband, seeing that i'm never without my camera and i mean never, presented me with an unexpected upgrade:  a Panasonic Lumix GF3, a micro four thirds system that's halfway between a point-and-shoot and a DSLR.  the target audience has my name written all over it:

models aimed at compact point and shoot owners who want more control without the bulk, expense and complication of a DSLR

so for my first trial runs, i give you a series on our dancing lu.  the girls are set to start a ballet class together next week, and you can't imagine a more excited pair, constantly changing into their leotards and tights and ballet shoes.  lucy, especially, has taken a real liking to gymnastics and dance (or what little she knows of it).  she figured out how to do a forward roll on her own just a few months after turning two, and she's constantly trying to do headstands, as evidenced below =p.  she even manages to balance for a split second sometimes.  in any case, we'll see how the actual ballet class goes over, but i don't think i'm biased in saying that there's not much cuter than a two-year-old in a pink leotard ;-)

eavesdropping

A Monday Afternoon
by Chloe and Lucy Nicholson

C:  and there are all her things, right here, and here are her pictures.  here's her alphabet.  she learns the alphabet every day.  let's turn it around.
L:  why?
C:  so you can see it
L:  i want to see the lucky shoes again!
C:  the yucky shoes?  they're too dirty for you to touch
L:  why the little girl can touch it?  i wan see the little girl
C:  the little girl's inside.  what do you think?  should we move her back to the fox?
L:  uh uh!  she doesn't wan see the fox
C:  the little girl is not scared of anything, so we should probably move her back to the fox.
L:  okay
C:  her shoes fell down
L:  why her shoes fall down?
C:  out of the attic
L:  why her shoes fall down outta the addic?
C:  aTTic
L:  aDDic
C:  okay, you can call it addic

L:  i touch your lucky sheet
C:  what?
L:  your stinky sheet
C:  what?
L:  dis blue thing
C:  what?  this is not a sheet.  your stinky feet?  [whispers in lucy's ear]
L:  what??
C:  luuucy, i don't want to tell everyone else! [whispers]
L&C:  [giggle giggle giggle]
C:  not your stinky feet!
L:  your stinky face?

could i politely request that you two never grow up any more?? 

homeward bound, by way of cleveland

the day after christmas, after a miraculous packing effort, the girls and i dropped ben off at the airport and hit the road for cleveland.  8 1/2 hours felt pretty short with the girls catching up on a lot of sleep, and we rolled into the hatters' driveway right about dinnertime.  if i was wondering whether the kids remembered us, montgomery set me straight right away.  i'm not sure if his feet or his words were moving faster as he filled us in on all of his latest and greatest =)  oh, sweet reunion of friends and neighbors!

thoughtful joley had organized a playgroup for us the next day so we could catch up with all kinds of friends in one fell swoop.  between hugs and grins, i drank up the chaos and camaraderie, realizing how much i'd missed it all, yes, even the chaos ;-)  hopefully we will be able to find a place soon where we can host little hands and feet to our hearts' content.



some of the newest little hands - lovely little glorianne

baby wesley, barely two weeks!

the gang, minus the foxes

our buddies

 of course, it wouldn't be cleveland without some of this, and of course the kids wanted to go out:

what's better than hot chocolate on a snowy day

sadly, the stay was short, but we're expecting some return visits (hint, hint) before we leave the DC area ;-) 

as a postscript, here's our favorite traveling lunch of applesauce and fries on the way home.  a short 5 hours, and we rolled up just as daddy walked in from the bus stop.  all's well that ends well!