Making SOFRITO with Ileana

My almost cousin Ileana lives about 2 miles from us here in Atlanta. She's my stepmom's niece. Anyway, she is a REALLY good puertorican cook - much better than me!! She even makes her own homemade SOFRITO. Sofrito is the base "concontion" that goes into most puertorican dishes. It's onions, cilantro, culantro, green peppers (forgot to add this the first time I posted), sweet aji peppers (we can't find those here, so we used banana peppers), and garlic cut up and mixed together (except Ileana doesn't put garlic in hers because she makes some dishes without the garlic - if she wants garlic then she adds fresh). Because this goes in most dishes, most people pre-make the Sofrito and put it in the freezer or refridgerator and spoon it in whenever they go to cook. This keeps you from having to cut all this stuff every time you cook. My whole cooking life I've used Sofrito that my stepmom buys and freezes and sends or flies over to me. Well . . . Ileana makes her own homemade and she invited me to learn how to make it with her. We had such a great time. She took me to the grocery store so that I could see what ingredients she buys and then we went back to her house and cut and food processed it all together. Sofia and I had such a good time!! Sofia played on her own most of the afternoon and let me help Ileana :o). I'm hoping this becomes a tradition where we make Sofrito together! We made enough for she and I both to freeze for several months. GOOD, GOOD TIMES!!

Here is a video of Sofia and Ileana at the end of the venture! I forgot to take pictures while we were in the middle of the mess - BOO!!! Next time.

Sofia singing

Here is a cute picture and video of Sofia singing (mostly me though :o) one of the songs from her Musikgarten glass!! It's a crow song and the they say "caw, caw, caw" - except Sofia says "cah, cah, cah."

Oh, and here she is digging for gold :o)

Another API Hike

Here we are on another hike with the Attachment Parenting moms! As you can tell, some moms carry their babies, others who are BIG and pregnant bring their strollers to push (or carry because she won't stay in the stroller) their toddlers, and some kids are old enough to ride their bikes. It was COLD, but it was FUN!!

We saw some deer on the hike!!!!!

And here is Sofia trying to chase one of them down!!!!!

Here is a video of Sofia "hiking."

Gabby turns 1!

Deirdre's little girl, Gabby turned 1 today (well, her actual birthday is the 25th, but her party was today)! Here she is with mom and dad.

Here she is eating her first sugar! YUM!!!!

Here are Nathan, Stacy, Gabby and Deird hanging out.

Here is Sofia striking a pose.

Here are Gabby and her Grandmother - Rela (Deird's mom).

Here are Deird's older boys - Owen and Ben (Sofia's boyfriend).

And here is the pretty table set-up. I guess since Gabby's birthday is right after Valentine's Day, she'll always have "heart-themed" birthdays :o)

Sofia TOO BIG for her infant car seat

Nathan and I took stuff out of the attic today for the new baby - car seat, SWING, "my breast friend" nursing pillow, bath tub, etc.! Here is Sofia sitting in her old infant car seat - she's a little too big :o)

Sofia gets her 3rd haircut!

That girl's hair grows like a weed!

Jose Ernesto Comes to Visit

My older brother, Jose Ernesto, came to visit us for 4 days!! He just took a severance package from Ford and is moving with his wife, Claudette, to Vancouver, BC. So before he moves out west, he came to visit us down south!

Here he is cooking us dinner one night! He made a YUM Tortilla soup! He's a good cook!!!!



Here we are after eating the BEST Mexican food in all of Atlanta - Nuevo Laredo Cantina. We took him there the last time he was here in November and he requested a trip back.

His birthday is February 21st, so we celebrated while he was here even though he left a few days before the actual date. We went to dinner with Elaine at Sonny's Real Pit BBQ per Jose's request. We used to go there ALL of the time when we were growing up in Florida. I forgot how much I loved that place. It was soooo good and cheap. We need to go more often. Afterwards, we sang him Happy Birthday at home with a Dairy Queen Chocolate Extreme Blizzard birthday cake.

It was fun having him here. Sofia had a good time getting to know her "Tio" better. We hope to see them sooner rather than later! Maybe at Christmas time this year in Atlanta :o)

Here is a video of Jose cooking and another one of us singing him Happy Birthday.

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus

The circus came to Atlanta and we got to go! Emily (Nathan's cousin's wife) called and asked if we wanted to go with them. Her sister's daycare had an extra ticket so we could go for only $10 for both of us!!! What a show! It last about 2.5 hours, which was way past Sofia's attention span, but I enjoyed what she slept through. They had elephants and horses and dogs and crazy clowns and dancers and motorcycles that ride in those metal cages! Amazing circus for only $10!!! I was smart and brought our popcorn and cookies and drinks we didn't have to buy the $9 slushies or the $6 popcorn!! I'm getting good with my frugality :o)

Most of the pictures I took won't download for some reason - BOO!! My video camera is still broken :o(, so I'm using our older digital camera. Here is a cute one of Sofia eating her popcorn and running down our isle before the circus started.

API Hike

The Attachment Parenting group that I belong to goes on a weekly hike. Here we are after the hike eating lunch. It's so funny to watch all of the kids eating each other's food - no one wants the food that their mom brought - especially Sofia (you can see her in the background in the brown top sitting next to some other mom who was giving her "better" food)! It's so nice to be around these women. I learn something from them every time I'm with them - and I like that!

This hike was especially great because at the end there were play sets for all ages!! Sofia had a blast playing for over an hour. Here are a couple of videos of her playing.

Supper Club at Stacy and Alex's House

We have a monthly Supper Club with my Atlanta girlfriends from Tech (Girl's Weekend crew) and our families. I think I've posted some pics from previous dinners - my memory isn't working so well these days :o)

This month is was at Stacy and Alex's house. Usually we bring a recipe and ingredients and cook the day of - to show each other how to make something new and different. Well . . . since Alex's ribs require 3 days of preparation, needless to say, we didn't get to learn how to make them. All I can say is that they were INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!!!!! He cooked them one day, then soaked them in apple juice and something else another day, then finally cooked them again on his Big Green Egg (he got it for Christmas from Stacy) the day we were there. I'm pretty sure these wouldn't turn out the same on a regular grill - you need a Big Green Egg! That thing is amazing. It's some super special charcoal grill that lets you cook at really low temperatures for very long periods of time without having to put more charcoal on or burning your meat, etc. NICE!!!! They are about $900 though, so we won't be getting one anytime soon! Here is Alex with his baby.

As my friend Kathy would say, "GOOD TIMES!"

Trip to the Atlanta Zoo

Nathan, Sofia, baby #2 and I went to the zoo on Sunday. It was SUCH A beautiful day! We had a great time seeing all of the animals. Sofia's favorites are the elephants, monkeys and kangaroos - but her true favorite at the zoo is the play set they have there. Here she is crawling around inside. She could play on it for hours if we'd let her!

Here she is with a statue of the monkeys.

And here she is with Daddy in front of the kangaroo board and a kangaroo cleaning out it's pouch (looks funny!!).

And hitching a ride on Daddy's shoulders.

On the way back to the car we saw the Bubble Man! That's his name!! He was leaving a birthday party at the park and I guess was marketing to all of the kids leaving the zoo. Sofia looks mesmerized!!

It was such a great family trip to the zoo. We have a yearly pass - so hopefully we'll be going a lot!

Sofia is taking Musikgarten classes

We started going to a church here in Atlanta in January. We really like it so far!

We found out they were offering Musikgarten classes for toddlers, so we decided to sign Sofia up - especially since she's loving music and dancing so much these days. Her Tanta Elaine paid for the classes for her Christmas present!

This picture was taken after the first class. I'll try to get a video at some point during the sessions. Right now it's hard to do that because the parents participate along with the toddlers (big ol' belly and all). She's so cute waving her hands around and bobbing her knees! She loves it sooooo much - definitely something we hope to keep doing.

Dinner at Jody and Rob's house

We went to our friends Rob and Jody's house for dinner. Nathan and I met at their wedding! We had a really nice time hanging out with them. They have 2 girls and Jody is expecting another baby a couple of months after us. Here is a cute picture of all of the girls at the end of the evening. Sofia is wearing her PJ's and ready to fall asleep in the car on the ride home.

Here is a picture of the pregnant girls.