singer/songwriter...

makenzie loves to sing and dance, but all in the privacy of her own room. she will NOT perform at all. but then she tells me she wants to be a famous singer and actor. i told her you have to do it in front of people and she got chicken again. :)

she spent her birthday money on a hannah montana wig, outfit and microphone. it's so cute.



she also has been into writing songs. she won't sing them for me but she is so proud to write them. i'll have to find some of the other ones she's written but this is her latest...

how cute is this...

(ignore the period placement at the end of each line, haha)

the craziest month of my life...

march 1, 2010

we sent our landlord notice that we would not be continuing our lease. not exactly sure what we were going to do or where we were going to go but just decided we were leaving this house. not that we didn't love it, just decided to move on.

march 2, 2010

thought we'd look in the orange circle area for a cute house to just to downsize, not spend so much in rent so we could travel more, thoughts of maybe getting a place in nyc soon, etc.

march 4, 2010

driving around looking at places, not really feelin' it for any of the areas, and we mention moving to new york city. "what if we moved to nyc in april instead"

march 5, 2010

are we really going to do this?!?! :) super excited, nervous, overwhelmed, all the emotions.

march 6-29, 2010

tell our family and friends of the move, sell everything we own, michael flys to nyc to find us an apartment, 2 garage sales, packing, cleaning, sorting and storing.

march 30, 2010

our baby doll turns SIX years old. can't believe it. i love her so much.




march 31, 2010

makenzie's last day at school. pack up 8 suitcases

april 1, 2010

leave at the crack of dawn, 11 belongings, 1 kid and 2 dogs in tow, we head to the airport to fly to nyc to our new home.

see...it was crazy. obviously, this is why i haven't blogged!

jessica took this picture of us as we headed inside the aiport... :)



i promise to fill in the spaces, catch up and stay caught up. :)

who needs toys...

makenzie LOVES to make a mess playing in the kitchen. i would rather her actually make something but lots of times she just asks to play with flour and water. which turns into a complete disaster as you can imagine. well today she added food coloring to the mix. i win fun mom points on this one.

here's some pictures of her having a great time. she did this for about an hour and a half today. :) oh, and have i reached a phase of dorky poses for pictures?!?!?!

breakfast for daddy...

makenzie made a little coupon book for michael for valentine's day. one of the coupons was for her to make breakfast. so, yesterday makenzie decided it would be a good morning to make michael breakfast in bed. :) i had the ingredients to make a blue cheese soufflé so she made that. she did so much of it all by herself. she grated the cheese, she measured the ingredients she stirred the pot and used the mixer. she loved it. and michael loved the soufflé! :)

doesn't get much cuter than this...

last night i was watching some old videos of makenzie and found this one. it is so so cute, i thought i would share...

makenzie turns 3 from cn on Vimeo.

valentine's day...

michael and i trade off on who is in charge of planning valentine's day. michael came up with the idea about 8 years ago by telling me it was my year to plan valentines :) so, this was my year to plan. but, since we just went to the french laundry restaurant just last week we didn't really need to go out somewhere. but i started feeling like that was kind of a cop out on my turn and decided to plan something else. we have been cooking at home for several weeks now and have really been enjoying it. we've made some wonderful food and it's been fun cooking together. so, i decided to plan a several course meal to cook and have together. then i decided to give it a valentines theme and have all the courses have the same ingredient of chocolate. my own little version of iron chef. except that we weren't competing and there was no way i could do it all in an hour. :) but it turned out so fun and tasted great!

i wanted a soup that was savory, not dessert like. i found a chocolate mexican soup. it was good but not great. i think it just needed more. it wasn't super flavorful, it was just kinda eh.



next course was a baby arugula salad with mangos and a white chocolate sriracha vinaigrette. it was really good! the dressing had great flavor. (recipe here)



the first entree was braised shortribs with homemade tagliatelle and bittersweet chocolate. so so good. our homemade pasta turned out absolutely perfect and the ribs were so tender and wonderful. and the chocolate was a great addition! (recipe here)



the second entree was enchiladas pollo con mole rojo. i'd never had a mole before that i know of and it turned out so amazing. the recipe we used called for the chicken on rice with a side of corn tortillas. michael had the idea of shredding the chicken and crisping up the corn tortillas enchilada style. it was perfect. (recipe here)



the first dessert was a chocolate soufflé. i've always thought that these cakes were hard to make and was surprised at how easy it was! they turned out absoultely perfect. the chocolate was ooozing in the middle. so so yummy. we actually were able to flip it out of the dish but since our ramekins were a little bigger than a normal molten cake size they weren't quite as cute. (recipe here)



the second dessert was homemade profiteroles with coffee chocolate sauce. they were little french ice cream sandwiches. so light and so tasty! (recipe here)



i started the cooking at 5:00 and we didn't finish eating until 1:00am! it was a long time but i was so happy it all turned out so good and was so fun to do. the only thing that wasn't fun was all the dishes. :)

me and my valentine :)

such an imagination...

the other day makenzie was busy playing upstairs for a really long time. sometimes that worries me that there will be a huge disaster of some sort. she came downstairs and asked michael and i to come see what she had made. she was so proud. :) in the stairway we have these cut out areas that are meant for like a statue or fake plant or something but we've never put anything in them. makenzie fits in it perfectly and often plays there while pretending. well this time she made it her house she told us. it was really pretty cute. the cutest part to me was that she used kleenex and tied ribbon on them and taped them up as curtains for her windows. :)

well the next day she decided she needed a tv in her house. she had gotten a box out of the garage and she made all these papers for the screen to be different channels but she couldn't figure out how to make them change channels. i really had no clue and passed it on to michael "go ask daddy, he's inventive". so she did. oh my gosh, apparently this is where she gets her creative imagination. he spent like an hour making her this awesome tv. he made it have handles that scroll through her papers as if she's changing the channel. it is so cute. she loved it and happily put it in her house. :)

while, i love her imagination sometimes it can be exhausting, especially when i don't have a clue to actually make whats in her head become real. :) but this time it totally worked!

i'm thinking we will eventually have to clean up the "house" that is in the stairway but for now she thinks its pretty fun. :)

i should have take a picture of the two creative people but here is the outcome...

the paper inside the curtains is the actual outside, it's sunny. and the paper next to it is a picture of a bridge. we have a picture of the brooklyn bridge next to one of our windows. :)





here's her Food Network channel... :)