Portrait of a Potato

I gave Max some sweet potato "fries" yesterday. They didn't really crisp up in the oven, but that's okay because he still likes food he can squish.

Anniversaries

Thanks to a good friend being available to babysit and to family for providing a gift card to ease the financial sting, Jeff and I were able to go to a swanky restaurant downtown last night for our wedding anniversary. Since we spent our honeymoon in Hawaii it may become a habit to try and get Hawaiian food for our anniversary. We've done it the past two years, and this year was much better than the last.

We went to Roy's and being a Monday night there was no shortage of tables. There were a few other people there though, so it didn't feel desolate. The little steamed edamame dish they serve as you are seated was kind of odd, but not bad. The wait staff was pleasant. Considering the menu prices, the wine prices weren't terrible. And either they serve really cheap sake, or they have awesome sake prices. But it's not a cheap place to eat and we'll definitely not be going there multiple times a month like one of the reviewers I saw online.

I ordered from the Prix Fixe menu and I was not disappointed. The beef potstickers were actually fried dumplings not potstickers, but I suppose most people don't know the difference anyway. Despite the somewhat flawed labeling of the dish the taste was excellent, just keep that kim chee cucumber away from me. Next up was the lamb chops. The menu lists them as "Herb Grilled Lamb Chops - Port Wine Bordelaise Sauce" and that does not do them justice at all. What I got were huge delicious grilled lamb chops with tasty sauce, on top of fabulous green beans, with a side of awesome cheesy scallop potatoes. I suppose it's either not fashionable to list what the sides will be or they want to leave wiggle room to use different ingredients, but I was quite happily surprised to find all that extra yum on my plate. I ended up bringing about half my meat home because I also had a dessert coming. The molten chocolate souffle was SO GOOD. My only complaint was the ice cream that was served with it. The boring vanilla bean ice cream would have seemed fine if we hadn't also ordered the raspberry pineapple upside down cake. The cake came with mascarpone ice cream that was out of this world. I think they should serve it with the chocolate souffle instead of the vanilla bean. Mmmm, I bet it would make a killer shake.

I tried the yellowtail sushi that Jeff ordered, and I thought it was okay, but the texture still kind of creeps me out. I have decided to continue trying it when he orders some. Who knows, maybe someday I'll like it, and then I will no longer be the world's cheapest sushi date. For dinner Jeff got Roy's trio, which is salmon, ahi, and butterfish. I tried the salmon and thought it was okay, and so I also tried the butterfish but did not like that even one little bit. As I mentioned we got the raspberry pineapple upside down cake for the second dessert, and it was not very good. Jeff felt that there was too much pineapple, and didn't even notice the raspberry because you couldn't taste it. My complaint was the dryness, it was so dry stuck in my throat in an unpleasant way. If you go I'd steer clear.

After our lovely dinner we came home and helped get Max back to sleep, because he had been a little difficult, and then bid our lovely babysitter good night. We curled up on the couch, had a beer and watched House before shuffling upstairs to sleep. It was a really great night, and I'm so glad that Jeff arranged to make it happen.

Happy Anniversary to us, and here's hoping for many more!

Optical Illusion

Jeff took a sequence of pictures this morning that happened to line up beautifully... or maybe I mean scarily. With proper Photoshopping an outsider might think that we had twins, instead of just the one baby. I rather like leaving the photo boarders around it though, so I just collaged them in Picasa.

Thank goodness there's only one of him, or I might never make it off the floor. I have no idea how people with twins manage.

Fun New App

I finally downloaded the Hipstamatic app for my iPhone yesterday. I'd been admiring it from afar, but never made time to go and purchase it. I only have the basic version right now, and haven't purchased any of the other lenses, flashes, or film options that are available, but I'm having a lot of fun so far. I've only taken a few pictures, but I'm going to share them here with you. There will be more of these. I find them charming. It cracks me up that we (I know I'm not the only one) seem to have a nostalgia for the badly developed photos of our youth and are using advanced technology to recreate them. I wonder what my dad will think when I show him these pictures? Will he love them the way I do, or will it irritate him that they aren't as "good" as they could be, or will he think I'm a dork for asking?

Like Forever

This last week has been a long one. The whirlwind of activity started on Thursday when we traveled to Houston for a single day, to see Daniel open the envelope that contained the hospital that he will serve his residency at for the next 4 years. Well, we actually didn't think that we'd make it there in time, since we were leaving Austin at 7:30 am with a baby in tow, and we needed to be parked and in "the plaza" by 10:30. Then we were only minutes away and it seemed like we really were going to make it, but we had trouble deciphering where to go, and ended up passing our destination. Then the real fun began. We sat in the worst traffic I've ever been in as we crawled past a really cool looking park. We were going slow enough for Jeff to get out of the car, walk to a bathroom in the park, use the bathroom, then walk back as traffic inched forward.

We missed the envelope opening, but managed to eventually disengage from traffic and head toward the Mexican restaurant where the family was meeting for lunch. We stopped at a book store on the way, because I had to pee and Max needed to drink some milk before there was so much excitement that he wouldn't eat. It was a good plan, except for the part where Max wouldn't eat at the book store and the part where Jeff thought someone would call us when they were on their way to the restaurant. We did have a good time playing in the kids section where there were benches and a train set to play with. And once we hopped back in the car Max drank his milk with no fuss. We were a little late to lunch, but it was still fun to see everyone. We went back to Daniel and Tricia's to hang out for a bit and then went to my dad's for a rest before heading back to Austin. I'm still surprised by how good a time a had that day considering the amount of driving involved, and the fact that we were hauling around a little baby that does not enjoy spending his entire day strapped into a car seat.

Friday morning Jeff headed out with his mom to Iowa along with 500 lbs of baby stuff for Laura. They had a great time driving into a blizzard and making an unexpected stop at a Prius dealer Saturday morning before leaving Kansas and barely making it to the baby shower. While I'm sure it was no picnic I'd like to point out that I was the one with Max since Friday morning.

Honestly Max has been mostly pretty good. Each night bedtime seems to be getting harder. Jeff is normally the toothbrusher and every time he isn't there to do it I think Max gets a little more upset. The first night wasn't too bad, but Saturday night he didn't want to let me brush his teeth at all, and last night was worse he kept trying to squirm out of my arms and was looking all over the place. The days haven't been too bad though, we've kept busy. We went to Ikea and met up with Beth and her 4 kids on Friday. Then Saturday we went to a birthday party, and yesterday Grandpa (Jeff's dad) came to visit and we went out to lunch at Red Robin. (I recommend the Southwest Chicken Salad, just make sure to ask for dressing on the side otherwise it will come already in it.)

Today we're going to head out to a couple stores and see if we can't get Max a pair of shoes that fit and some saline drops in case his nose gets more stuffed up. Hopefully Jeff will get home tonight before it's time for Max to eat dinner. We're all missing each other and this is the longest that we've been apart as a family. I can't wait for Jeff to get home.

Blockimals

Max has 4 things known as Blockimals. If you want to know, he has the 4 that are pictured on the left there. For the uninitiated a Blockimal is a block that is painted with an animal face (and sometimes body) that can be opened to reveal the same animal inside it. Like little tardis animals they can contain not only themselves but also a suitable living environment.

When Max got his first Blockimal (the yellow duck) I thought it was really cute, I also thought it was really boring. This has been one of the toys that has caused me to rethink buying toys for babies. There are a lot of things that I think are boring that absolutely fascinate Max, like a thick strip of paper from a magazine cover - he can play with that for minutes at a time. In fact he's currently occupied by wrinkling up and trying to tear a single magazine page. While earlier today a few minutes peace was bought with a purple straw from a coffee place.

The critters inside are supposedly fun. The mouse and hen squeak when you press them, the duck sproings, and the pig clicks when you twist him. Max only notices they are in there when they are convenient as handles, but then he's still below the recommend age (9 months +) so maybe in another month he'll discover something new. He does like opening and closing them. He also seems to enjoy the struggle of pulling them out of his toy bin, although I've yet to see him succeed. Still he likes these a lot more than I expected.

So I'm wondering, what other "boring" toys I should be on the lookout for. More to the point, what should Max be asking Grandma for when his first birthday comes up? Or should I just get him a magazine subscription?

Grumps

I’ve been faithfully knitting on my Hemlock Ring Blanket and finishing up socks that were cast on in 2008, but I needed something new. I wanted to knit something for Max, and I wanted it to be a quick project, and one that I could use stash yarn on.

I pulled down all my knitting books. I looked at socks, puppets, toys, and even pulled out the crochet book I have. I tried a couple options but nothing was working out, so I went to my bookmarked knitting projects and Grumpasaurus stuck out immediately (it’s one of Max’s nicknames*). The first day I was able to knit and stuff the body. The next day I knit and stuffed the tail, as well as made the arms and legs. Today I knit the spiney ridge on his back, and attached all the bobs and ends.

I am very pleased with the 3 day time frame to get this piece done. Frequently I get hung up on projects like this and dawdle because I'm not really sure how to do the sewing bits involved, especially embroidering the facial features. This time I just kept momentum and plowed through no matter that I felt very out of my element. The worst part for me was trying to embroider the face before he's stuffed and completely formed. I ended up going back and adding some stitching to his face after all was said and done because it was too hard to see his eyes and mouth. Since I was already doing that, I added some fanginess to his mouth instead of the straight line from the pattern because mine just didn't seem grumpy enough.

Now I just have to keep the cats from getting hold of him and ripping him apart before Max is old enough to play with him. This would be one of those toys that doesn't do anything and doesn't feel good in the mouth, so it will have no interest for Max at the moment.

Honestly I think I may have spent almost as much time figuring out what I wanted to work on as I did actually knitting this guy. I wish that I had better pics to post, but if I wait until daylight to get the camera and take them before writing this then it may never happen. Instead I will make use of my insomnia and iPhone and just be done with it.

*Like Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde, Max is Snugglesaurus and Grumpasaur. Although mostly he's just Booga.