...and then she was one.

On Saturday, we celebrated Elly's first birthday. Both sets of grandparents, and her aunt Becky, uncle Justin, and cousin Nathan came to party. Everyone was greeted at the door by that same giggling cloud of balloons, which had by now become completely entangled around her leg.

Elly, 11 months old.

Elly is now in full-tilt toddler mode. She constantly keeps us on our toes, as she literally runs from one thing to the next. She has also developed her own little (or rather, big) personality.

Turkey and Turkeys

Cori, Elly and I hosted Thanksgiving dinner for the first time, this year. It was also my first time making turkey. Both were a smashing success, if I do say so myself. But with eight "grown-ups", two almost-"grown-ups", and two babies crammed in our little place, things may have gotten a little silly.

A giraffe and a half

We had a blast at the Brookfield Zoo today. Cori dressed Elly in her giraffe costume (gotta get our money's worth). We asked the guy at the gate if he would let us in free, since we were bringing our own animal, but we had to pay full price...bummer.



I was pretty surprised at how much Elly got out of it. I didn't really figure she'd be interested in (or even notice) the animals very much, but she had a blast.

Elly, 10 months old

Yesterday, Elly passed the 11 month mark. Time to upload the photos of a 10 month old Elly...but first...it appears there was a batch of pics from 9 months that I missed. So to begin, here are a few from right before she turned 10 months old.

Piggy and Me

After Elly was born, Cori took a "Mommy and Me" class at the hospital, where she became friends with a group of women who all had babies around the same time. Over the past year, we (mommies, babies AND the dads) have gathered every few months for reunions. The most recent was this past Saturday, when we met at our church. Now that the kids are getting more mobile, we figured we'd need a bit more space than someone's living room, and the activity room at the school seemed like a great place. We met at lunchtime, and I voluneetered to provide the main course; everyone else brought sides/drinks/dessert. I had been waiting for another excuse to make pulled pork.

Will work for food

We had a fun, but exhausting day on Saturday.

Earlier in the week, I saw a posting on Facebook from a friend asking for help winterizing one of her greenhouses. She promised brunch as an incentive to come help. So bright and early Saturday morning, I headed over to lend a hand. Not only did I get a nice bite to eat, but she also gave me a few fresh eggs, courtesy of her hens (of course it was her hens; if she said her rooster had laid them, I would've been concerned).

After running a few more errands, I headed home to make lunch for our guests. Cori's sister Judi and Judi's husband Herschel and their son Dylan were visiting this weekend, and burgers were on the menu for lunch. When I saw those fresh eggs I had been given earlier in the morning, I had an epiphany: burgers with bacon, a fried egg and avocado. Outstanding!

Happy Birthday Cori

Yesterday was Cori's birthday, and I surprised her with a dish that we had at our anniversary dinner a few months ago. For our anniversary, we had gone to Topolobampo in Chicago. All the dishes were outstanding, but the Sopa Azteca (a traditional Mexican tortilla soup) was truly eye-opening. Thankfully, Rick Bayless has made the recipe available on his website. So I decided to give it a shot for Cori's birthday.

I have a MOLE?!

No, not that kind of mole (but the first person who can name that film gets an invitation to dinner at my place). The sauce...mole...rhymes with frijole. Sounds like a pig-latin word. Mo-lay.

My first taste of mole sauce was during our anniversary dinner this year at Topolobampo, Rick Bayless' restaurant just north of the loop. My entree was roasted lamb with black mole (or mole negro), the same mole sauce that a few weeks later won him the championship on Top Chef Masters. Mole sauce is a classic mexican sauce that comes in many varieties; red mole, green mole, peanut mole, mole poblano...each with it's own traditional ingredients and infinite personal variations. They are generally characterized by rich, complex flavor due to the large number of ingredients. Mole negro is the most complex and difficult to prepare (it can contain 30 or more ingredients).

A pot of chili, a loaf of bread, and thou.

Ok, so it turned out to be two pots of chili, because "thou" doesn't like beans...and Fred came over for dinner, so I guess it should be: Two pots of chili, a loaf of bread, Fred, and thou...
...but first! Elly had her first non-baby-food food. And of course, it was pizza, bbq chicken pizza...and of course, she loved it.



On to the chili...

Elly, months 8 and 9

...and just when I got caught up, I didn't post for six weeks and got behind again. Ok, catching up again. Here are months eight and nine.

Elly, Months 6 and 7

Alright! We're getting caught up with the Elly photos. This group are of Elly at ages 6 months and 7 months. Since she's 8 months old now, I guess we're caught up.

Here's our big girl, right around her 6 month birthday. She wasn't really standing independently at this point, but stayed there long enough for Cori to snap a quick photo.

First day of September

September, day one. Cori and I stepped out our front door to take a walk with Elly and were greeted by this sight. Summer is waning.



We didn't let it keep us from having a good time, though.

July 4, 2009

This summer I took a couple days off to extend the Fourth of July weekend. We packed up the car and drove up to Racine, WI to spend some time with Cori's family. As always, we had a blast spending time on the boat and hanging out with the family.

Elly at 5 months

When Elly turned 5 months old, we started her on cereal. Here she is with her first bites.

Elly photos, months 3-4

Let's continue getting caught up on old photos, shall we? As always, let me know if you'd like a higher-res version of any of these.

Elly (3 months) and cousin Dylan (6 months)

Random photos from month three.

Recent meals

Looking back at some of the meals I've spent time on in the past couple weeks (as opposed to the meals that came out of the freezer), it seems I've been in a piggy mood...or maybe pork has just been cheap lately. Anyway, here are the results:

Pork loin roulade
Want a great tasting dish that looks impressive, but is actually quite simple? This is the way to go. Since it was just the two of us, I used only a portion of loin, not the whole thing, and still had leftovers for lunch the rest of the week. Prep is very easy: trim the loin, "unroll" it, spread the filling, roll it back up, wrap with bacon (optional; otherwise, oil and season), tie it up with butcher's twine, roast 400 degrees until the center is 160 degrees (took about an hour), rest, slice, eat. I used spinach, scamorza cheese, toasted pine nuts and a commercial raspberry-chipotle sauce (if I do this combination again, I'm going to try putting the spinach between the sauce and the cheese; the sauce turned the cheese purple, rarely an appetizing color in a savory dish), but you can use anything that strikes your fancy. Try a pizza theme with marinara, mozzarella, sausage and pepperoni, or go mediteranean with tapenade, roasted vegetables and feta. The spinach in mine did not require any pre-cooking, but if you're using a vegetable that need a longer cooking time, cook them ahead. I cooked mine on my big green egg and added cherry wood chips for a nice smoky flavor. About halfway through the cook, I threw some halved brussels sprouts into the drip pan, where the bacon renderings had started to brown. They were great. If you hate brussels sprouts, but have only had them boiled, you've got to try roasting them; they taste completely different.

Photos of Elly's first few months

Here is the first batch of old Elly photos; from her birthday through the first couple months. You can click each photo to view it in full size, and then right-click and select "Save Picture as..." If you'd like a full-resolution version of any of these, email me, or use the comments feature at the bottom of the post.

A few minutes after birth
Later that evening, a happy grandma

Greetings

Having resigned myself to the fact that Facebook is not the ideal venue for making photos of Elly available to friends and family who wish to download them for printing, screensavers, etc., I have created this blog. As the proud owner of a new blog, I suppose I should do the bloggerly thing and post inane ramblings (accessible to all, of interest to none) for a few weeks, and then lose interest, leaving behind another pile of e-trash to clutter up the webscape. That's the plan, anyway.

I have reviewed the above paragraph, and see that sarcasm and cynicism seem to have a hold on me today. Allow me to adjust my attitude and begin again.

Hi folks! The primary purpose of this blog is to allow me to post photos of Elly for family to download. Along the way, I might begin posting the standard blogjunk about life events, hobbies, etc. If you're just looking for photos of Elly, you can use the categories function on the sidebar to pare down the posts to only those of interest to you. These categories will appear as they are created, so don't expect to see any until I begin posting.

To avoid clogging up my photobucket account with huge photos, I will be uploading them in a slightly smaller size, which should still be big enough for displaying on screensavers, or printing small photos. The photos will appear smaller in the blog, but if you click on the photo, it will display in full resolution. You can then right-click the picture and select save picture as. If you need photos in higher resolution for cropping and printing, please use the comments feature to identify which photos you'd like, and I can upload larger versions of the selected photos.


As an example, here is a photo of little miss sunshine.