Standing Chicken

Jana came to visit a few weeks ago. We had so much fun. We hadn't seen Jana since we moved to CA so it was really great to see her.
Whenever someone comes to visit I always have so many places I want to show them. Most of them of course involve food or wine.
The first thing we did after picking Jana up at the airport was head straight to La Note for some creme fraiche pancakes.
They are pretty much my favorite pancakes in the east bay. I've tried a few other things on the menu there but always go right back to the pancakes.
Next, we hit up Trader Joe's to buy some ingredients so that we could make the Vegan Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bottoms from Sweet Pea Bakery in Portland, OR. My MIL and FIL brought some Portland magazines for me to read the last time they came to visit. One of the articles was about vegan baking in Portland.
The recipe was really easy and really good!
Jana brought some Palm Sugar to try as a substitution for regular sugar. It comes in these cute little pucks.
Having never tried Palm Sugar before I didn't really know what to do with the pucks.
Jana grated one of them into a bowl while I broke my food processor trying to grind it up. The processor was already on the fritz, so don't cry for me just yet.
We figured out that if you warm the pucks up you can mash the pucks with a fork or potato masher until it resembles granulated sugar. Probably would have been better to figure that out in the beginning.....
The result, in the end yielded a mildly sweet, moist pumpkin bottom that we all enjoyed.

On Saturday, we went into the SF to shop at the Ferry Building and Farmer's Market. I have to be honest, I wasn't ALL that impressed with the Farmer's Market. I think the we usually go to by Lake Merritt on Saturdays has a lot more variety.
We did score some delicious Olallieberry jam and some really beautiful tulips there though. Inside the Ferry Building we walked around, tasted the samples and tried some of Miette's french macaroons. I think they were rosewater geranium??? They were "different" I didn't really love or hate them. I found the macaroon part to be too doughy which is not how a traditional french macaroon should be.
For lunch we had planned to eat in the Ferry building but so did everyone else so we took a walk down to The Fog City Diner.
I have to say, I remember that place being really good. My dad used to take me there as a kid and my mom and I ate there not too long ago and it was pretty good. This time around it was just "eh." Though, I must admit the bloody marys were quite good.
Jana and I shared a crab salad and an ahi sandwich. Of course we ate the whole thing, so it couldn't have been THAT bad, really.

The weather was so nice that day we took another walk down to Blue Bottle Coffee Cafe. The roastery is near our house in Emeryville and they sell beans on Monday and Friday but of course I never get over there to buy them. Jana mentioned before she came out that she wanted to go there and buy some coffee. I have only had one cup of coffee that Peter brewed since we bought the beans. It was good, but I'm not really a coffee connoisseur so I can't really tell you if it was good or not.

We stopped on the way home and picked up some wine and cheese and bread and had us a little party that night. Oh, how I heart cheese!!!!
Sadie and Jana had a little photo workshop on the floor. Jana taught Sadie how to take a picture and look at it afterwards. Today, I caught her fooling around with my camera, pushing the buttons and aiming it at things. It wasn't turned on of course, but now I sort of wish it had been.

Sunday morning we went over to Chester's Bayview Cafe in Berkeley. Peter and I had been wanting to try it for a long time and we are so glad we did! The rooftop deck, bloody marys (can you tell I like marys?) "no huevos" rancheros, all of it was so good!
Jana's friend Donna met us there. She has a love for cupcakes that just might rival my own.
Sadie and I were playing on top of a table during brunch, she was looking at the flowers and lights hanging on the railing when lo and behold what do I see? CUPCAKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There, right before my eyes, two girls eating what appeared to be 4 cupcakes.

Determined to find out where these treats came from, Sadie and I went downstairs to poke around.
Love At First Bite Bakery is a little bakeshop tucked away between a photography studio and letter press shop.
The place was filled with cupcakes, sweet gift items and the-what-seems-to-be-mandatory punk rock girl selling cupcakes in the front of the shop.
We of course, could not decide what to try so we tried a bunch. Red velvet, Strawberry, Vegan gingerbread, green tea, coconut, and one other one I can't remember the name of.
The strawberry one was made with real strawberries and sort of tasted like Cap'n'Crunch berries. I kind of enjoyed that.
The others fell a bit short for me. Green tea was a pleasant surprise, even though Donna and Jana said it was too sweet. The coconut could have been so much better and the vegan cream cheese frosting didn't taste like anything to me.
The cupcakes were cute, but not that cute. And pricey for what they were.
Still, I will probably go back for another round the next time we eat at Chester's.

The weekend flew by and before we knew it, it was time for Jana to go home. We were sad to see her go. After she left, Peter and I were a little down. Seeing her, talking about NJ made us miss the east coast. For like a split second we contemplated how we could move back.

In other news Sadie is standing up on her own for minutes at a time now. I caught her walking along the wall today while pushing herself off to stand alone from time to time.
I'm excited to see her walk but at the same time I'm not really looking forward to her growing up!
She says "uh oh" "cheese" and "whoa" now. In addition to saying "woof woof" like a dog, she knows that snakes say "sssssss," bears say "grrrr" and lions say "rawr." It's real cute.
Sadie is climbing up and down on the couch which is funny and scary all at the same time. I keep thinking she's going to fall off backwards. It hasn't happened yet, thankfully.

My mom and I went to the The De Young Museum in Golden Gate park to see the Andy Warhol exhibit. It was pretty cool. The exhibit is all about Warhol's involvement with and love of music. There were a lot of photographs, movies, paintings and LP covers to look at.
Sadie particularly liked the psychedelic room with the flashing lights and big pillows to crawl all over. She was dancing and rolling around while giggling and hugging on my mom.

Our recent visit to the pediatrician was a riot. Since our insurance changed we were able to go back to the doctor we had when Sadie was first born.
This is cool because 1) she's a total hippie 2) she hasn't seen Sadie since she was 5 days old 3) they're real organized and nice there, not like Kaiser.
Sadie is 29 inches long, and 19 1/2 pounds. She is totally thin for her age range and I am keeping my fingers crossed she is thin her entire life.
I was worried at first when I saw the chart and it said she was in the 20th percentile for weight. I mean, kid eats, and eats, and eats. The doctor said she was perfect (which we knew) so I'm not too concerned.
Now if only we can get her hair to grow!!!

enjoy!
xoxo

jana's march visit

Birthday Chicken

Sadie's first birthday party/baby naming party on Sunday was a success!
My cousin, Jonathon was nice enough to take pictures for us with my camera.
My parents hosted the party at their house. It was a real nice day.
The rabbi came and gave Sadie her Hebrew name and she ate her first cupcake.
Because Sadie is named after my great grandmother, we had planned to use her Hebrew name, but no one could remember what it was so we chose another.
Naturally, Amelia (Sadie's middle name) isn't a Jewish name really so we picked a first and middle name that started with the same letters.
Shira Ahava
Shira = song
Ahava = love
Cute, right?
I made chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting, chocolate cupcakes with fudge frosting and vanilla cupcakes with raspberry coconut frosting. I made a little vanilla cupcake for Sadie with a pink candle on top. She tried to blow it out but couldn't really figure out how to blow so I sort of helped her.
I think she surprised everyone when she ate the cupcake in 4 bites and didn't even make a mess allover herself. (she actually did make a mess all over my jeans and underneath the table)
Technically, that was her first "sugar." We have been real good about keeping sugar to a minimum in the foods we serve Sadie.
I couldn't tell if she liked it. Eating it in 4 bites doesn't really mean she liked the cupcake. She shovels everything into her mouth as I mentioned last time. So who knows.

Peter's parents came down from Portland to help us celebrate. They brought Sadie a whole bag full of musical instruments. Peter's mom even made a bag to hold everything in out of an old Lifetime shirt!
Sadie enjoyed the maracas and the drum most of all I think. I was pretty into making some noise with Peter's old fife. That thing is hard to play!

We've been having band practice ever since Mookie and Pop Pop left. Sadie plays the Xylophone and Drums at the same time now. It's real cute.
Awhile ago, I wrote about Jimmy and Pat being in a band with Sadie. Jimmy seems to have left the band and I wasn't sure about Pat until the other day Sadie started shaking her shoulder just like she used to when Pat was around. So I took this to mean that Pat was back.

I was sort of hoping that Sadie would be walking by now just because I want her to be better than all the other kids. :)
But I'm pretty sure we're a ways off from that and I'm okay with it. I'm already having a hard enough time keeping up with her crawling from room to room I can't imagine what it's going to be like when she starts walking!

On Peter's bedside table there is a clock radio. I was brushing my teeth and couldn't see what Sadie was doing. Suddenly I heard music in the bedroom! Sadie figured out how to turn the radio on and off.
I turned around to look at her and she was totally dancing and smiling. Hilarious.
The next day, she was napping in our bed, I was out in the living room when I heard her giggle.
Apparently while learning to turn on the radio, she set the alarm to go off at 12noon. When it went off it startled her and she woke up! There she was just sitting in the bed shaking dancing.

Now whenever she can she goes over to the radio and turns it on and off. Each time she dances and says "da da da" and giggles.

The story gets better.....
Again, Sadie was napping in our bed. I was in the living room when I heard a 'thump.' Not a loud sound but enough to make me stop and wonder what it was.
The next thing I see, the bedroom door swings open and there's Sadie crawling out with a smile!

I am trying really hard to lose weight. It's turning out to be harder than I thought. Especially because I just can't seem to get on a schedule with going to the gym. I have to do it at night after Peter gets home and sometimes I either don't feel like it or he gets home late and then I just don't go.
The other night I knew he was going to be late so I thought I would try one of those "watch instantly" videos from Netflix. I chose a silly cardio kickbox video and set the laptop up on the couch.
Sadie was playing by herself on one side of the couch so I figured I'd be safe to kick and hop around.
Once she saw what I was doing she started giggling and crawled over to where I was. Every time I lifted my leg she would try to catch it. A couple of times she pulled herself up on my pants thus pulling them down.
When she finally realized that I was copying the lady on the computer screen she went over to it pointed at it then back and me and laughed. This continued until I finished.
The workout was good, but watching Sadie was more fun and totally made the time go by faster.
If only I could get off my butt more and continue doing the video!

After all the time we spend trying to find toys for Sadie to play with all the girl wants is either a tube of lip balm or a shampoo bottle.
She loves them! When I dry her hair after the bath she points to the shampoo bottle on the counter. She just holds it while I dry her hair all the while looking at herself in the mirror.
On the changing table she either wants to hold her lotion or vitamin bottle. She always hands it to me as if I'm going to open it and then hand it back to her.
With the lip balm, usually she wants a little on her lips first then she holds it.
This was my first mistake. I put some on her and then let her play with the tube. I forgot to watch her and the tube went missing.
No more Philosophy lip balms for mommy! Burt's Bees will be just fine from now on. Not to mention I can buy 4 Burt's Bees lip balms for the price of one Philosophy balm.

In addition to pointing to herself when you ask "Where's Sadie?" Sadie makes dog and cat noises. She talks to the dogs in her fire engine book and tries to meow like a cat when I read "Brown Bear what do you see?" to her.
Tonite, she made hissing sounds like the Boa Constrictor. She looks at me to make the noise then tries to imitate. Way too cute for words, man.

This is probably TMI but I have finished nursing!
Almost exactly 1 year to the day too!
Peter's mom (or the baby whisperer as we call her) was actually a big help in this department. While she was here she took charge during nap time and got Sadie to sleep without nursing. (even if she did have to sit in a chair or lie in bed while Sadie slept on her!)
I was starting to have a lot of trouble with this. I had weaned her off nursing at night and in the morning without a lot of difficulty but since nap time was already an issue with us it was proving to be really hard for me to get the situation under control.
When Monday rolled around and Peter's parents were leaving to go back home I was so worried that I wouldn't be able to get Sadie to nap without nursing.
I was so nervous that I made sure I was in the car during nap time so she would fall asleep on her own.
Yesterday, I was able to get her to sleep on me after dancing around the room with the Bee Gees blasting (just like old times!).
Today was easier, she just put her head down when she was tired. While she was asleep on me, I watched a some TV online so I really can't complain about the forced down time :)

The list of music that Sadie likes is getting longer and longer by the day. The Bee Gees are my go to band though. I guess because I used them as my secret weapon back when Sadie was small to get her to relax and go to sleep she must be conditioned now to hear them and start to fall asleep.
It only seems to work when I'm holding her and dancing around the room though. As soon as I sit down, her head pops up and she shakes it back and forth as if she's saying "no."

One of our new favorite bands is Priestess. Maybe you think I'm a dork for liking them but I do. So does Sadie. Every time they come on the ipod she stops what she's doing and starts dancing. Then she looks at me and smiles.
Sometimes we dance together either while I'm holding her and twirling around the room or when we're both on the floor.
A lot of times we do acrobatics when bands come on that Sadie likes.
I swing her around, or flip her upside down. She likes to jump on the couch or bed too.
She really gets going when I flip her over and hang her down my back. Some times I hold her ankles and raise her up and down to get in a quick arm workout!

As I mentioned before this is most likely (I say most likely because it IS sort of fun writing about my kid, you know!) my last weekly post about Sadie.
Our little Princessgruntingchickendonkeycry, madge, moose, boogs, bubby, birdie, sweet baby, Sadie, Sades made it through her first year of life and there really isn't much else to tell. At least on a weekly basis that is.

enjoy!
xoxo

happy first birthday sadie!