Spa Day

Lorelei loves baths just like her mama! She sits incredibly still and relaxes in her little hammock. I like to cover her with a wet dish cloth to keep her warm and snuggy. I wash each little part while keeping the rest of her covered and she's happy as a clam. Had to snap some pictures of her deep in thought in the tub. 

After her bath, she turns into a wiggly worm and is very difficult to get dressed.  

She's so cozy and snuggly when we finally get her dressed. She usually sleeps for a good hour which is when she gets her manicure. If only we could all enjoy such pampering! ;)

Spring Pizza

Todd and I are addicted to "Spring Pizza". Todd found this recipe but we made a couple of slight adjustments to make it easier and more delicious.

We love Trader Joes' do-it-yourself pizza ingredients, but our crust pretty much always ends up soggy. (We have since been informed by literally all of our friends that it's because we don't have a pizza stone. I always forget I need to get one of those until the night I want to make pizza).

Anyway, Todd used a whole wheat Boboli crust when he made Spring Pizza the first time, but I've since discovered Meijer sells TWO of their own brand of whole wheat crusts for the same price as one Boboli. Sorry Boboli. When I get that stone, we'll go back to using TJ's whole wheat pizza dough. (Actually, that's probably a lie. I will forget to buy a pizza stone again, and let's be serious, we have an infant now, so saving half an hour by using the pre-made crust is totally worth it!)

Our tweaked version of Shine Food's Spring Pizza:
3 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 bunch asparagus (about 1 pound)
1 bunch snipped chives
1 whole wheat pizza crust
1 4oz log of goat cheese (We use half of a 10oz log from Costco. I'm a super frugal shopper and love that I can get 20oz of goat cheese for under $5 at Costco. A 4oz log at Jewel is $3!!!)

1. Position rack in lower third of oven, place a large pizza pan (or stone if you know what you're doing when it comes to pizza) on the rack and preheat oven to 450°F for at least 15 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, combine 2 tablespoons oil and garlic in a small bowl; set aside. Trim asparagus spears to about 6 inches long; slice any thicker stalks in half lengthwise.
3. Carefully remove the pizza stone or pan from the oven and set on a heatproof surface, such as your stovetop. Place the crust on the stone or pan and brush with the reserved garlic-oil mixture. Arrange the asparagus in a circular pattern on the dough with the tips facing out (or if your crust is square like mine, just get them on there so every piece has some). Top with chives and brush with remaining oil.
4. Crumble cheese on top.
5. Carefully return the stone or pan to the oven and bake the pizza on the lower rack until crispy and golden and the cheese and asparagus are slightly browned, about 15 minutes.
6. Enjoy. Try not to eat the whole thing like we did.

Veggie Garden 2012

I'm super excited that we have a backyard this year to have our own veggie garden and don't need to join a csa or organic co-op. I also hope it will keep me from dropping loads of money at the farmer's market since I tend to get VERY "inspired" there and generally purchase enough produce for a family of 12, or vegetables I can't pronounce, much less cook, (seriously, what does one do with kohlrabi?)

Megan recommended the site Smartgardener.com which is super fun and easy to use and taught me things about gardening I never would have known, like how some types of veggies should be planted next to each other to help clean the soil and increase vegetable production!

This sight is similar to the farmer's market in that it's organized, very colorful, and again, I found myself feeling inspired and ambitious about growing A LOT of different veggies.

The site recommends plants for your region and soil type and gives direct links to a few seed companies. I used the tools to figure out our plants and plot out our garden. Because I needed to start my seeds inside soon, I got almost all of our seeds at Menards so I didn't have to wait for the seeds on back order or delivery time. I am very particular about my tomatoes and peppers though, so I ordered a few different types of heirloom seeds, which arrived quickly enough to start with the others.

If all goes as planned, we should have
- 3 different types of heirloom tomatoes
- 4 different colors of heirloom bell peppers
- carrots
- beets
- chives
- Swiss chard
- cucumbers
- peas
- green beans
- zucchini
- watermelon (these were an impulse buy because watermelon is my FAVORITE food. My dad has tried to grow them for the last 3 years but the rabbits have gotten the sprouts. Hoping for better luck since we will be putting up a mesh fence to keep Peter out of our garden).

For our planters:
- dill (cucumber salads!)
- cilantro (grilled shrimp tacos!)
- basil (caprese salads!)

Now I'm just getting hungry!

Here are the starters I photographed on April 22 while playing with the new camera, only a few days after they were planted. They've already grown so much, Todd said one morning he was creeped out that they were downstairs growing so fast while we were sleeping. I'll try to continue to update on our garden's progress and ample harvest, (fingers crossed!)

Camera is here!

My new Canon XSi arrived at the end of last week, and I had a little bit of time to play with it over the weekend. I don't know how to use all of the different settings yet, but I'm learning and managed to get some great pictures while I was messing around: 

Happy Baby

The camera even captures the eye boogers on her poor little eyes that have clogged ducts. 

Handsome Man

Baby hands are amazing!

Fletcher is actually terrified of the camera. I was calling and calling him, which is why that ear is cocked just a little to listen, but this is his, "I'm very sorry Mom, but I'm not coming any closer no matter what you say" expression.

One Month

I can't believe our sweet girl is already a month old! We visited the doctor yesterday and confirmed she's growing like a weed. Already 10.4 pounds and 23 inches long, which is the 99th percentile for length! Maybe she'll be long and lean like her dad.

Birthdays are AWESOME!!!!

Road Trip!

My mom, Lorelei and I went to visit Great Grandma Koonce and Great Unlce Mark last week. It's about 2 hours each way, and Lorelei did great both ways. (Ok, she happened to sleep right when got on the road, but still, I'll take it!) We had a nice visit and even though Lorelei was a little fussy, she got some snuggles in with Grandma and Uncle Mark. Gram is hoping Lorelei will know her name when we visit next month. :-)

Easter

We enjoyed a very nice, relaxing Easter. We watched some golf and visited Grandma and Grandpa Bowers in the afternoon. I have lots of clothes for Lorelei that used to be mine, and while it was was too cold to actually wear this bunny outfit, I couldn't resist putting it on her since it will never fit next year. She appears to enjoy it only slightly more than I did.

Smiles!!!

Lorelei is starting to smile when she sees and hears her favorite people. I've made it my mission to try get some pictures of her sweet smiles. 

I was able to dig up my baby photo albums and we went through Todd's baby book. It's been a lot of fun to go through the pictures to identify where Lorelei gets some of her features. I'm very excited for my new DSLR camera to arrive so we can continue to plaster our home with *high quality* photos of our girl. While I have lots of iphone pictures and digital pictures from our point and shoot camera, I've been bad in the past about getting photos printed, and while I'm no scrapbooker, I want to make sure to put albums together for Lorelei so she can enjoy them when she gets older and has babies. *Better pictures coming soon!

*I will obviously be a pro at using this new camera since I took photo in high school, and I have about 100 pins on my photography Pinterest board. 

Great Grandma & PawPaw Kempka's Visit

Great Grandma and PawPaw Kempka flew in at the beginning of April to meet Lorelei and spend a few days. Their visit was short but it was great to see them! We enjoyed watching lots of golf and they treated us to Chinese food on Saturday night before they made the trek back to Albuquerque on Sunday morning. 

Lorelei & Great Grandma Kempka

Lorelei and PawPaw Kempka

Lorelei with Grandma & "Rocky" freshly bronzed from their St. Thomas vacation.