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.