owen's saturday morning muffins

Every other Saturday morning Owen helps me make muffins. Most of the time they are Raisin Bran muffins but this week we added blueberries to the recipe. Nuno was using the iPod as we were baking and he caught some cute moments.

Here's Owen's big job of lining the muffin tin. He's very good at this job, but even better at counting.

Then he helps by mixing the ingredients. Here he is mixing the wet ingredients into the dry, "Stir, Stir, Stir".

He then stopped for a musical interlude as I filled the batter into the tray.

This is the moment he's been waiting for - licking the bowl and spoon time!

So, what'd ya think? Is he not slated to be the youngest Food Network star, or what?!

owen is two today

Two years ago Owen arrived and enriched our lives in every possible way. I'm so in love and amazed by him daily. How he counts to ten and names every colour and shape, how he tells us how he's feeling with words, how he sings songs and loves to hear guitars, how he runs around carefree, how he draws and uses his imagination. He's funny, goofy, fearless, opinionated and loving. 

He's our beautiful boy and he's getting big.

how big is owen? this big!

Our longest time away from Owen was our trip to Montreal. How'd he do? Having Nuno and I away didn't seem to bother him one bit. What a great relief it is that Owen's such a cool little guy. I'm still kinda shocked by all the changes we saw upon our return. He learned to say Outside "zoutzide", Owl "wowl" and "My Guy" along to the Mary Well's song. 

A huge step is his constant experimentation of repeating words and sentences back to us, such as naming off every colour in his crayola box. And then there's the not so desirable words that come back to haunt you. I had a frustrating moment with Hot Tot's incessant barking and asked her, "Why must you be so nasty?" Three guesses what came from Owen's mouth after hearing that? "Nasty!"

I thought I'd share a little bit of our lives with Owen caught on iPod in the past 2 weeks.

Owen's been into stickers for a while. Aunt Katie brought Owen some Yo Gabba Gabba stickers the other day and they are quite the hit. He sings the character's names as he places the stickers on whatever surface he pleases.

Owen's taken to dressing himself in the morning. Here's his first attempt.

Owen enjoys time at Nana and Papa's house and gets so pumped up sometimes he feels the need to entertain (especially when Aunt Katie is home too!)

easter weekend in sarnia

Our Easter weekend wasn't exactly the most food-centric. However I did capture this adorable moment Owen decided Great Grandma's angel food cake looked delicious even before its final coating of whipped cream!

Really, this whole weekend was about Owen and all the changes we've been seeing. As a parent you find there are just some weeks your baby/toddler seems to grow more in one week what you'd expect to see over the course of a month. Here are some of the new discoveries we had over the weekend.

While staying at the hotel, Owen showed us that he wants to walk Hot Tot and has been picking up her leash. So he took her walks up and down the hotel hallway. For anyone who's crazy enough to be 'those' people who stay at hotels with babies and dogs, you learn pretty quickly that you've struck gold when you find a way of keeping the two occupied simultaneously.

This was Owen's first moment walking on the grass. I know, strange to think. But Owen learned to walk just as it got cold, so we never had him playing in the yard. He spent the first 3 minutes getting used to the feeling of it.

Before long he was free as a bird!

I always said Owen's going to be my roller coaster buddy. He's a pro with the swings which we discovered at the tender age of 6 months, but now he's on board with slides. 

 Over and over again. He started out sliding with our hands guiding him down the slide, but soon enough we just let him rip right down.

 Then there's the playground equipment he needs our assistance with.

Owen's convinced he's a master at the stairs. As you can tell I'm not as comfortable as he is with this, especially outdoors.

But he's a cool little cucumber at the playground. Looks like we have an upcoming spring and summer with lots of playground fun!

We were so pumped about taking him to the animal farm since he's now calling animals by name and sounds. We expected to see him full of wonder with all the animals he reads about. But it wasn't what we expected at all as he seemed quite bored with the whole experience. Instead he loved to chase the nasty Canadian geese around. 

Geez, we could walk 10 steps to the Welland Canal Parkway and get the same experience!

I had trouble imagining how Owen would take to an Easter Egg Hunt. Our Easter Egg Hunt plan was to hide his Batman eggs in plain sight, give him his soft basket and see what happens. What could he possibly do without chocolate as motivation? I thought he'd pick up a random egg, put it in his mouth and then chuck it. 

Nope!

Much to my surprise, he got right on the idea of the hunt and picked up every single egg and in minutes they were all in his basket. 

 Then he dumped it and did it all over again.

OK, I'm not going to play innocent here, all along I said that I'd reward Owen with one chocolate Easter egg. A Reese Peanut Butter Egg to be exact. One taste and he was in love!

Traveling with a toddler and dog is not for the faint of heart. Owen's passed out pose here pretty much sums up how we felt come the end of the day Sunday. But it was an awesome weekend!

I don't keep a baby book and I guess this blog as the closest thing we have to one. In a few short weeks Owen will be a year and a half. But within just this past week we've seen Owen begin to sing songs with lyrics "mama & dada", dance up a storm, eat his whole meal with a fork, move onto a booster seat for meals, travel up and down stairs by himself (kinda scary, but he's quite successful), play with puppets and toys on his own using his imagination (even giving them voices). It's lots of fun watching him grow and it all feels so perfect just in time for spring!

our little artist

This weekend I was writing a menu plan for the week when our ever curious 15 month old grabbed my ball point pen and scratched his own addition to the list. My first reaction was "not near the light lime green couch", but then I realized he's showing us that he has a little creative streak happening. We took him down to his playroom with his crayons and paper to see what he would do. 

He sat himself on his chair and scribbled to his hearts content. That afternoon we purchased a couple colouring books and Nuno illustrated a few drawings to inspire Owen. For people like us who love all creative endeavours, seeing the beginnings of a budding artist is so thrilling.

Owen Turns 1 - part two

We were so lucky to be able to throw Owen's First Birthday Party exactly the way we envisioned it. It was a lot of time and effort, but *so* worth it. We put a lot of love into it. It was such a fun day and is a day we'll always look back on as one of the best days we've ever had.

Nuno and I had lots of ideas on how to custom make decorations for Owen's party. Most of what we used was purchased from the dollar store or made by us, so it really wasn't a huge investment - by our party throwing standards.

Here is the upstairs party spread. I made a Cherry Bomb Punch, a bowl full of red and blue salt water taffy from our trip to Florida, homemade Chex Mix and had a few of the Everyday Food appetizers and cupcakes I blogged about in the last entry.

The salt water taffy didn't go over too well at the party so I brought the rest with me to work and everyone at the office loved it. It was blue raspberry and red licorice flavoured.

We had a monthly time line of Owen photos.

Since there were a few older kids attending we decided to give magnetic colouring sheets with crayons as favours. Adults took home robot magnets.

There was a ton of food, more than enough to feed our 50 guests. It included broasted chicken, potatoes, penne & meatballs, cabbage rolls, salads and dinner rolls.

Owen wasn't in the best birthday spirits during his baby party, but a quick nap did the trick and he was in a tip-top shape when it came time to eat. 

 He ate Aunt Maggie's couscous salad and potatoes. 

 Then it came time for the cake.

Nuno and I ordered a sheet cake and carved into the shape of the knitted robot. I have to give all the credit to Nuno on accomplishing this and his commitment to fondant (when I thought it was beyond our skills). He nailed it.

He even molded Owen's first birthday candle.

Once the candle was lit Owen knew something special was about to happen.

He loved the birthday song.

And when it came to the cake...

well his face says it all.

"Nom-Nom"

We made sure his first birthday cake was his first taste of chocolate.

If chocolate cake, vanilla cupcakes and sugar cookies weren't enough, I also made a couple batches of David Lebovitz's Malted Milk Ice Cream. You need ice cream with cake and this flavour is a really nice accompaniment to chocolate cake. It had bits of crushed Whoppers in it. Everyone loved it and, surprisingly, malt is a flavour that is quite unfamiliar to people. I think most people thought it was milkshake flavoured ice cream.

 

The gifts Owen received were quite staggering. We are very humbled by our family and friend's generosity.

Owen loves his toys and is very stylish for day care.

Every evening Owen plays and reads until bed time. 

I'd say he's a lucky little one year old.

Owen Turns 1 - part one

One week ago Sunday was Owen's First Birthday. We arrived back from Florida Friday night at 9pm and his party was Sunday at noon, leaving us one day to scramble to get everything ready. It was totally worth the sleeplessness we experienced because everything went off exactly the way we planned. 

The party was inspired by two plush robots of Owens. My sister knit a blue robot when I was expecting Owen so he was our main inspiration. Here are the party invites.

We had Owen's baby friends over for a play date party in his playroom downstairs first. This is where we had several Everyday Food appetizers out. 

First were the Crunchy Paprika Chickpeas. These turned out great and are a lot like the roasted salted edamame I'm hooked on. It's a great munching snack which I enjoy more than opening a bag of chips. Second was Sweet & Spicy Almonds which were a party fav. These were quicker and easier than the chickpeas but just as delicious. Next up were the Spicy Cheese Crisps. These are, in a way, a savoury shortbread. Minimal ingredients but very tender and melting with a nice kick. All three of these are dead-easy and I'll surely make these in the future for party snacks. 


Then there were a couple more substantial appetizers we put out. This Hot Spinach Dip took a lot of spinach. Two large containers (2lbs) of fresh spinach were mixed with 6 oz of cream cheese, which in relation was very dense with spinach. Everything went off perfectly with this dip and just as the party started the top layer of toasty mozzarella was perfectly golden. Then I did something regretable - I layed tin foil over the top to prevent it from drying out. Once I removed the foil the top mozzarella layer came right off with it. No biggie really, only I didn't snag a photo when it was beautiful. I didn't bother to shred more cheese on top to fix it, I was simply too busy.

The final appetizer were these Pot Stickers. I've made dumplings in the past and they are very labour intensive, but these are so quick and easy. I made them the week before Florida and froze them, that way when we got back they thawed in the fridge and were fried just before serving. I didn't get a chance to taste them but Nuno said he heard many people saying they enjoyed them. 

All the above appetizers are complete make-again's. I was really pleased with their simplicity and flavour. If I could make 4 of these along with cupcakes and decorate a birthday cake in one day you've gotta know they were quick and easy.

Two desserts I made from scratch which are also Martha Stewart recipes were the Cog Cookies and Vanilla Cupcakes. They aren't part of the Everyday Food book but I thought I'd link to the recipes anyways.

These cog cookies are simple Sugar Cookies with blue food colouring added. I chose to do this because I didn't think I'd have time to ice them. We created the shape by using a pumpkin puree can to cut out the circumference of the cog and a shot glass to remove the centre. The notches were created by using the stem portion of a maple leaf cookie cutter.

The Vanilla Cupcakes were very basic. I used my King Arthur flour with these because I wanted to guarantee a great texture. The frosting was Sub's Plus vanilla buttercream they set aside for us on our cake order. Since Owen's birthday cake was to be finished with fondant with only a thin buttercream crumb coat, we had lots of frosting leftover. I used a pastry bag with a star tip and piled the frosting high. The robot paperliners and toothpick illustrations were purchased from Williams & Sonoma. Worth every penny spent!

Next entry will be all about the party!

family recipes

I'm back from a short trip to spend time with my family in Sarnia. I stayed with my grandparents and it was wonderful for them to enjoy their great grandson.

Owen was good as gold and his personality really came through. Turns out he's a real ham and loves to impress people. The only real issue we had was that he was uncomfortable sleeping in a playpen alone in the room upstairs. I had to be in his line of vision to get him to sleep and he managed to wake quite a bit more often through the night.

I requested my grandma to make my favourite coconut tarts, but I guess my mom forgot to deliver the message. So in a lucky twist of fate, my grandmother said she'd show me how to make them. They started from scratch with pastry crust. I haven't had much luck with pastry crust in the past. But with her guidance grandma showed me how she does it. And through her demonstration I now understand how the pastry should feel when working with it.

We made my great-grandmother's recipe for Coconut Tarts and my-gosh! These are so crazy delicious. Raspberry filling with coconut custard on top. My grandmother's pastry is quite flaky and it's rich in a nice way but not overbearing. It is a nice platform for all the different desserts you can bake into it. She shared with me her butter tart recipe (which was all in her head).

I also typed out so many of my other favourite childhood desserts like marble squares, brownies, peanut chews, angel pie, maid-of-honour tarts and so many more.

I'm sure as I work through them I'll be blogging about it. But it looks like in order to do that I'll have to deal with that pesky oven...