35 Wishes, Talking to the Moon, a Homemade "Learning Tower" and still time for a quick Tantrum

Springtime is here in Powder Springs, Georgia! These are the blossoms from our pear tree!

The tower is supposed to help with vocabulary development especially in the kitchen....but who has time to talk when there are so many grapes and cucumber slices to be eaten!

Elijah slumps as we come in from outside. He loves the horses in the back and loves to feed them.

My first flan...

This is another little friend, Lucas. Elijah knew him when they were both in utero. We call him the "word whiz ."

My girlfriend Lorraine found this and we lucked out!

This little guy is Logan. We've all agreed that one day he will be a trapeze artist or an escape artist. He runs circles around little Eli. And Elijah loves every minute of it.

A rainy day for Eli and Logan... today instead of climbing on the jungle gym outside they were discussing the effects of the rain and its correlation to the brown marmorated stink bug invasion.

GOGURT... for the old fashioned older fogies ...that just translates into yogurt in a bag!

Lijah loves his babies!

When it comes to food, he always keeps them in mind. Nevermind the doggie bag, he pretends he is mother bird, right from the beak.









Spaghetti dinner for all!

Mike turned 35 and Dave 39...hmmmmmm.....

A beautiful day to celebrate. What were your 35 wishes Mike?









Step away from the food.

Step away from the mic!


Apparently Kurt broke both mics. (pulling, fighting and tugging at them. ..shame on you)

The veggie girls from the block: Luma, Arlene and Steph

SHOOTERS...

Elijah is making great use of his new HOMEMADE

learning tower...

the Triscuit robots of P-Springs

Mike is busy making the tower.

the Evita inspired cushion

I cannot believe I actually got my mother's sewing machine working.

I made Eli a mod cushion for his new piece of furniture.















The first snowfall I have seen here!
elijah had a great big tantrum even in sub zero temperature

yummy marshmallow fondant , a practice run before Mike's birthday party.



Does this picture speaks 1,000 words!?

Of course, Elijah is victorious as always...

Chris, Jr and Kylie drove all the way from Jersey!

Elijah has always been mesmerized with the moon. This night he was talking to it, laughing and pointing. Daddyn and I soaked it all in.

Kylie and Elijah gossiped about the party.

Greetings everyone!

It has been almost a year since writing on this blog. However, I try to show the goings on about town with the pictures I take. As you can see, we have just had a great big shindig for Mike's or as Elijah likes to call him "Daddyn's" 35th birthday.

But before that...

Georgia had its biggest snowfall in many years.

Elijah got to play and then throw tantrums in the snow. We were forced to go inside (not for the cold but for his nap)!

Mike created Elijah's homemade learning tower from scratch. No, he did not grow a tree and harvest its wood but he did purchase wood at our local store and hand carved a masterpiece. I have been trying to get him to sell a couple on Craigslist but to no avail.

So, I sewed a great fabric cushion, added some velcro and voila! We had an amazing learning tower for Eli to climb on and have recently acquired my thriftiest find yet- an electronic plastic blender for Elijah to use right alongside us (55 cents)!

I tried my first fondant cake and gave little Eli the bowl to lick! Chris helped me as we applied the fondant to the mini cakes- Yumalish! How many did we have Chris? Well I am paying for it now (I have recently gotten back to the gym)

This was of course after their 14 hour drive from NJ. The party was a success.

GREAT SUCCESS! We had a great menu including foods from South Africa, Jordan, Dominican Republic, and Georgia's fried green tomato!

Here was the special appetizer I whipped up:

a slice of cornmeal dipped fried green tomato topped with a king crab cake. ..drizzled on top was a roumelade sauce sprinkled with mango and smoked paprika bacon. (I will add a photo)I also added a little beet puree for color- My cranberry colored fingertips were not so attractive but I think the crowd overlooked that small flaw!

So the party started off with great champagne as always, we attempted to compare 04', 05' and 06' merlots but got a bit ADHD ...

So everything turned out great! We now await Lina and Nick this April! YAY! I cannot wait for you to see all the amazing little things Elijah knows already!

PS. Thank you to my Photographer and to my Pastry Sous Chef! Thanks Junior and Chris and Kylie for driving so many hours! The party turned out to be great fun!

Steph and EJF

http://www.recipezaar.com/Marshmallow-Fondant-255227

for the marshmallow fondant

http://www.cooking.com/Recipes-And-More/RecDetail.aspx?rid=3792

for the mini crab cakes

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1915,149170-253203,00.html

for the remoulade sauce
For the petite fours I baked two thin sheets of homemade banana cake and then placed nutella in between (after that I coated with cream cheese frosting with one pureed banana and covered with the yummy totally edible fondant) but I have found a recipe that combines the nutella right in with it which would eliminate one whole step! This blogger is a Nutella addict, ahem, like someone I know...

http://bleedingespresso.com/2008/01/banana-nutella-cake-for-world-nutella-day-2008.html

OKAY...GOTTA RUN!