Check out what my good friend and former teammate Heather Calomese is up to these days:
She’s in the eighth picture and if you watch the video, make sure you watch it until the end.
My husband watches some quality television shows.
The other night, he was watching something called Fight Science where they do things to test the outer limits of military personnel. On this particular episode, they were trying to drown a Navy SEAL.
The SEAL was, of course, impressive, a model of superior training and conditioning. But perhaps the best part was this particular individual’s commentary. In addition to being very emphatic with his hand gestures, he said “period” at the end of every sentence. (Probably to let us know he was done…)
But here’s what he said that had us laughing when it probably wasn’t intended for us to do so:
“I will say this: any time you strap weight to your body in the water, you will sink.”
Hilarious.
Oh, and, they weren’t successful at trying to drown him until they had strapped 75 pounds to him.
Of course neither one of them is actually asleep… but it’s still adorable.
Magnus received not one, but two, Tonka trucks for his birthday. On that day, his Papa set him in the back of one of the dump trucks and pushed him around the floor. Magnus thought this was great, really great, and since then, he has been climbing into the back of whichever available truck and saying, “Oooh! Oooh!” Which translates loosely into: “You! Come push me!”
Imagine his chagrin when I just showed up with my camera…
Magnus likes his hat. So much so that when he saw it on the stairs, he pulled it through the bars of the baby gate, put it on his head and took off for the front door.
I may not have mentioned this but Michael bought me Mastering the Art of French Cooking for Christmas. Since then, I’ve sort of been messing around with the preparation of French food. Bouf Bourguignon and creme brulee on New Year’s Eve and last weekend Bifteck Saute au Beurre and lemon souffles.
The most interesting thing about French cooking is how much about it I already knew. How to add a little olive oil to unsalted butter to keep it from scorching. How to swirl the butter in at the end of a reduction to make a velvety sauce for just about anything. One thing I did not realize, that Julia Child couldn’t emphasize enough, was the importance of making sure meat was dry before attempting to brown it. It seems tedious, but the result is unbelievable. Particularly with beef. Anyway, I digress.
The lemon souffles… I was loathe to break out the stand-mixer, wanting to try and do things the old-fashioned way. So instead I whipped the eggs by hand until my arm about fell off and “stiff peaks” formed. The souffles rose and browned according to promise and it really was thrilling to watch everything go according to the recipe despite all of the dire warnings about a souffle that might not do what it was supposed to do.
Michael uncorked the champagne as I dusted the finished product with powdered sugar and took pictures. Then we sat down side-by-side at the kitchen table to enjoy our dessert. The first few bites were good… light, sweet, lemony-flavored custard… But as our spoons neared the bottom of the dish we noticed that the souffles pretty much tasted like lemon-flavored scrambled eggs.
My best guess is that I did not whip the egg whites enough. But in retrospect, a dessert of lemon juice, sugar, and eggs is sort of disgusting anyway. Ah, well, the champagne was good.
Last weekend my parents came over for a bit of a visit. Grandma Karen took it upon herself to teach the children a new skill… standing on their heads.
Magnus began to practice immediately:
Magnus enjoyed watching the Hawkeyes win the Orange Bowl the other night… Maybe some day he’ll be a Hawkeye too.
Here’s another adorable little future Hawkeye, circa February 2007:
Sometimes it’s hard to remember that she was ever that little and sweet. Ha.
Magnus may not yet be walking, but he can pull himself up and stand like no body’s business. He also likes to pluck things off the table with his freakishly long reach:
Such a big boy… and growing so fast!
Magnus’s new favorite thing is dropping things and saying “Uh-oh!”…
It all started when he knocked the baby soap off of the edge of the bathtub and I said, “Uh-oh!” and it hasn’t stopped since. He throws toys out of the bath, “Uh-oh!” Drops his binky out of his crib, “Uh-oh!” And his favorite, throwing his cup or his bottle onto the floor… “Uh-oh!”
So cute!
Recent Comments