Out like a lamb?

It's the end of March!  Whew.  What a month!  Good one.  Spring is not in the air temporarily - ouch on the weather this week...the sun is finally shining today but it's still at about freezing.  We've had freezing temps, wind, rain, sleet, thunder, lightening, snow, etc.

Graham's birthday extravaganza was fun.  Friends and family on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.  The five-year-old guy.  Such a kid.

Little Stellars does a palm-grab-and-bottom-drag method for her version of crawling.  Not a traditionalist.  Fingers-supported walking is the preferred activity at any given time.

I hope she likes bows...hmmmm

Jason made some stunning dinners the past few weeks...here are two:

Couscous with chicken, asparagus and fireroasted tomatoes

Penne with peapods, zucchini and almonds.  Seriously good.  Not your typical St. Patty's day feast but notice the milk!

In like a lion

It's March - big month.  Graham, that little pipsqueak, turns 5 next weekend!  Five.  Big boy.  Man-o-man.  Fantastic kid.  SIX of his friends also have birthdays this month - lotsa cake and fun to be had! 

Exciting to see the snow melt a bit and you can slightly smell spring in the air, I think.  But there is still more lion weather to be had.  March in WI, I say.  Love the change in seasons we get here.  Hopefully, March will go out like a lamb though. 

Jason's boarding in Utah for a long weekend and mi mama is coming to hang out with we who were left behind ( : 

Here's a handful of snaps from the last few weeks:

Jason did the Birkebeiner (negative ten degrees at the start) he made his own granola bars!

REALLLLLL good wine from Trader Joe's - went back to get more and they were sold out!

One of the frequents from Jason's arsenal - it's a thin cut sirloin, pepper, onion, parsley, garlic, parm & moz ciabatta open-faced sandwich from a Rachel Ray recipe

We hung with Jason's parents while he went on to the Birke.  Graham built an 'animal hotel'

It seems Stellars is going to forgo crawling for now - she really likes to cruise and is always looking to grab onto some fingers to take a walk around.  Looks like she's doing the hula hoop but she covers some decent ground!

Estelle points like there's no tomorrow.  Always pointing.  Pretty cute.

Another communication method is doing side bends as seen here.  She always does it when we start praying before dinner.  Also real cute.

Zucchini and Family

The last ten days we've seen a lot of family - SO nice.  Last weekend was Brooklyn's birthday party and Emmett's baptism and we had Jason's parents, Mary and Dave here, too, along with Jason's aunt and uncle Dar and Rog plus Jen's whole family of course!  Wednesday my Dad came over for dinner on his way back from IL, Thursday my aunt Kathy stopped in to see the kiddies bearing little Valentine's gifts, Friday my cousin Mike stopped in to say Hi and played hard with Graham and had a little lunch and then Saturday my Mom, two aunts, Connie and Julie, and cousin Emilie came to take in a play and dinner out!  WOW.  What a gift and a treat to see so much family in a short span of time.  Awesome.

These sunshine-less days get to me a bit...however, I've been trying to take a bunch of minutes to commune with God and pray and just be quiet, etc. daily.  God Calling recommended by my Mom and Jesus Calling recommended by my friend Beth - both UNbelievably fantastically calming, inspiring and they spur me out of any doldrums - along with that solitary, quiet time.  Thank God.

And on to Zucchini.  Another sultry pasta dish de Jason.  Woo.  Just so good.  He sautees coined zucchini and canned fire roasted tomatoes (these had some heat with chipotles!) and we had some feta in the fridge and it worked!  Yummmmmm.

A good meal, a vid post-blizzard and the Superbowl...Yahoooo Packers!

Jason picked up salmon and made a spinach salad with hot bacon dressing and some Tandoori rice along with the old reliables - bread, evoo and vino:

 

The snow was and still is overwhelming but was so fun...

 

Ryan and Jen had a Packer party and the Packers came up with a Superbowl W!!  Pretty exciting.

Estelle...

Gotta put a pic of Stelly up - she was sleeping during the shoveling and igloo sculpting...a FEWpics I should've said...

SNOW...

You can see the gate sticking out a little - rough shoveling the alley - nowhere to go with the snow!

The drifts were incredible.  You can see the imprint of the garage door behind Graham

The igloo

Jason's boots - I'm claustrophobic a bit - that entry is smalllll but next pic - I did with Graham's gentle?? encouragement!

Soooooo fun - what a blizzard.  Looks so beautiful outside.  Things are quiet and muffled by all of the snow and people are out armed with shovels and friendly and helpful and connected. 

Happy Birthday to our little 2 year-old niece BROOKLYN today!!!  And our good friend Nev is 6 today, too!  And it's groundhog's day AND it's a seriously awesome snow day!  The highway, schools, stores - all shut down!  No tracks in the road until the plows came through late morning. 

The pasta maker was out again:

Butternut squash ravioli.  Jason probably won't make it again - a lot of work and it's not loads better than store-bought - still really good...and really special knowing the effort and craftiness that went into it!

Final product with the ravioli

Homemade pasta with tomatoes and basil.

Finished reading the Power of Kindness by Piero Ferrucci today.  One of those that I could read over and over and over and over (like A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle)...everything makes so much sense and seems so obvious and essential yet I don't live by it day by day.  Paramount - being kind and others-focused - his chapters are: Honesty, Warmth, Forgiveness, Contact, Sense of Belonging, Trust, Mindfulness, Empathy, Humility, Patience, Generosity, Respect, Flexibility, Memory, Loyalty, Gratitude, Service, Joy.  So much yet so simple yet so seemingly difficult to attain or even aspire to in our consumer, self-serving, instant gratification culture.  God give me the strength and focus and calm to do it.  Let me know if you want to borrow the book.  Boswell has had it as their registers permanently for months...which is pretty cool - the preface is by the Hi Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Bunch of good stuff...

A few impressive meals by Jason:

Fajitas - this is the guacamole - Jason gets emails from Whole Foods and it's roughly that recipe.  My aunt Kathy makes the best guac - still - she adds a bit of green salsa and sour cream I think - always REAL GOOD, Kack.  *side note: I've been adding a pinch salt to the shaker for margaritas (instead of the rim) and Jason's lovin' it, I agree.

That top avocado seemed flawless.  It's avocado season - The most are sold in the month of January...I learned that from the Whole Foods guac article

Grilled chops from the pig that Aunt Dar bought, roasted broc & cauli courtesy of Jay & Ken's recipes and grilled potatoes

Bob M gave us Cooks Illustrated as a gift!  SO nice!  Thank you Bob!  And so useful for Jason - it's a neat mag.  The fish is nut-crusted according to a recipe from there then sauteed asparagus and a brown rice concoction that Jason makes

 Aaaaaand a bunch of pictures of sweet Estelle...I could eat her up, too!

And a picture of proud Graham with his K4 'culture collage' assignment.  Pretty cool.

And lastly, a soup that I actually made - my Mom makes it and it's so good.  Got the recipe from her...

A somewhat rare moment...I made dinner Sunday night.  Still good!  Onion and garlic saute in olive oil, chicken broth, boil then tortellini, can of crushed tomatoes and spinach last, with a little S&P!