Invites Are Out

Less than a month til my Lia Sophia party so I'm getting in to the details of the party planning The advisor has made the invitation to go with my theme - Bubbles & Baubles. She's sending them out with a mini catalog so people can see the jewelry (and hopefully get motivated to come). I love that she's doing that. The last time I had a party the advisor just sent out those tiny 3x4 generic invites and sent them 2 weeks before the party, so turn out was pretty low.

I came up with a list of 37 people to invite - friends, neighbors, and people I know from my kids' schools who I'd like to get to know better. Now is when I start to get anxious. Aside from our Super Bowl party we don't have any parties, partly cause our kids are still little, partly cause it stresses me out, and partly because I am pretty insecure and always wonder if anyone will show up. As much as I know some people hate these home parties, it is a good excuse to get people together. I mean there are people who hate these home parties and never attend, there are those (like me) who will attend if they like the product because they know they want to buy something, and then there are those who will attend any party if they are available.

The advisor is sending me some of the invites to hand out myself (to neighbors) as well as a few extras if I come up with more people. I plan on just dropping them in the mailboxes as we walk to school. She is also setting up an event on Facebook for me and will send little teasers and pictures of popular pieces and notices about specials as we get closer. She's already tons better than the advisor I worked with last time (who to the best of my knowledge is no longer working with LS. She also doesn't do any cheesy ice breaker games, just one easy one kind of a good "hot potato" where you pass boxes of jewelry based on a text she reads about Lia Sophia and every time a celebrity is mentioned, you pass the box. Whoever has the box when she's finished wins what is inside. She does a couple of demonstrations of some of the more versatile pieces and then leaves people to shop and chat.

My kids are excited cause it means that they get to go out to eat just with their Dad, and will probably watch a movie when they get home to keep them out of the party area.

I have no idea how best to set up the party in terms of flow and seating for the presentation. But I guess I'll work that out once I have a final count. I am having fun trying out new recipes though to figure out what I am going to serve.

So far I'm planning
- raspberry swirl mini cheesecake cupcakes

- baked brie bites (in phyllo dough)

- Cheesecake stuffed strawberries

- Kahlua chocolate cake

- Raspberries with white or dark chocolate chips

I'll probably also include a cheese tray and fruit tray and maybe also Katherine Hepburn's brownies or Nutella fudge

Drinks - All sparkling for the sake of the theme

- Limoncello champagne cocktail (I've had a bottle of Limoncello in the freezer for ages that I used a small amount for a recipe and since no one liked the meal, never touched it again, time to dust it off)

- Bellinis

- Prosecco - probably Cupcake
- St Hilaire sparkling wine (recommended by a friend who like me loves Veuve Clicquot) This is not officially champagne so is cheaper, but still French
- Regular red or white wine
- And just in case there are any pregnant ladies (I think at least 2 on my guest list are), I'll have raspberry ginger ale or sprite

Obviously the final menu will depend on how many people plan on coming, but I figured since the party starts at 7 and most of the women I am inviting have young kids they may eat dinner before they come and just want some desserts or savory treats.

Anyone have an suggestions to add to my planned menu?

Recovering from a busy weekend

Saturday morning I finally took Little Hugger to Land of Nod to order her bed. On the ride up I warned her that even though we were going to pay for it today we may have to wait weeks for them to deliver it. I forgot that being in Chicago, the warehouse is local, and they're going to deliver it next Thursday. So not only does she get her bed before first grade starts, she'll get it before the last day of Kindergarten. She was eager to get bedding too, but I managed to convince her we should look elsewhere too. Land of Nod has really nice stuff, but it is expensive.I'm planning on a trip to IKEA before the bed is delivered.

I let her pick where we went for lunch, and lucky for me she picked my favorite pizza place - NY Slices - the closest I've found to NY style pizza in this area.

This weekend was our 12th anniversary. We went out for dinner Saturday night as that worked better with the rest of our plans. We had some gift certificates to Lettuce Entertain You so rather than going to the same old steak place, I picked Cafe Ba Ba Reeba. Sangria and tapas seemed like a good way to kick off summer.

After dinner we went to a nearby bar for a couple of beers and then back home where we had a bottle of champagne that had been chilling in the fridge for I don't know how long waiting for a worthy occasion.

Sunday we had some friends over for a barbecue. We grilled kebabs and had potato salad. For dessert, I made brownies and the flag strawberries which didn't turn out as cute as the picture because I overcooked the chocolate but still tasted good.

We had set up a kiddie pool in the backyard for the kids to play in which worked out well as it was 90 degrees. They all had a blast and one of the neighbor boys came over to join the fun.

Our friends have a little girl who is just a couple of months older than our Little Man. She's already potty trained and we're still working on it with Little Man.  At one point the kids all went upstairs to chill.  Little Man needed to use the potty, so I took his diaper off and stayed upstairs while he went.  He peed on the potty and then ran into his room where the little girl was reading.  He squatted down next to her (bare-assed) and said very excitedly, "I peed on the potty".  She briefly looked up at him, and then went back to her book.  I guess she wasn't impressed.

Monday we all got up early to head down to the parade. My husband and daughters were walking with Indian Princesses and I walked with my son and my women's group. There weren't a lot of people, but my son had fun throwing candy to all the kids. The route was about 2 miles long, and he managed to walk about half of it, before sitting in the stroller. We headed home for a while to relax (and forced Little Reader to take a nap because she was so tired from the day before) before heading to another BBQ. This time I made the berry tarts arranged like a flag. They were a little time consuming but not difficult and turned out well. They also happened to be the only dessert at the barbecue so were appreciated.

There were about 16 adults and a bunch of kids. Some good friends of ours and other were neighbors of our friends. The kids all had a great time playing in and outside.  Overall a very successful (but exhausting weekend).  I had hoped to finish my book, but I was too tired to get very far. 

Menu Planning

I started planning our meals a week at a time for many of the usual reasons

1. saving time and money by making one big trip to the store rather than daily trips
2. having more variety in our meals
3. finally forcing myself to try all those recipes I've ripped out of magazines or printed off the Internet
4. I give each member of the family one night every week where they pick the meal.

The last reason serves two purposes. I only have to come up with 4 meal ideas a week instead of 7. But more importantly, I only make one dinner each night and everyone eats it. If you don't like it, too bad, I'm not heating up chicken nuggets, just cause they don't like coq au vin. Eat the pasta and the salad and at the very least try everything on your plate. My oldest daughter has discovered that pretty much anything is edible if she sprinkles some garlic salt on it. My youngest is still finicky but once in a while surprises me. She says she doesn't like creamy sauces but cleaned her plate of hamburger stroganoff the other day.

The rules are that you have to pick a protein, a starch and a vegetable (or a meal that includes all 3). No repeating something we already had that week, or repeating what you picked the week prior. The kid choices can be a little tricky especially for my youngest daughter. When we first started this she would pick chicken nuggets, mac and cheese and carrots. She pretty much goes through a rotation of tortellini, baked ziti, and tacos, but sometimes she surprises me. This week she has asked for Bee Bim Bop.

Before menu planning we ate chicken almost every night because it's quick and easy, and most nights I wouldn't think about what to make for dinner until I opened the fridge to start making it. Since I'm not a very creative cook and still rely heavily on cookbooks, we had a lot of repeated or very similar meals.

I keep track of what we ate on my calendar which has the added benefit that if I have leftovers in the fridge, it's very easy to figure out how old they are, just check the calendar.

Post Christmas wrapup

Christmas has come and gone, overall it was good. It was quite a few crazy days trying to buy all the gifts once my husband's advance check cleared, but I managed to get it done. I didn't go very crazy, total cost for Christmas was a few hundred (I had used a gift budget app, but unfortunately my phone reset so I lost all the info). Cool app though, I'll have to find it again next year, it let's you list all the people you are buying gifts for, enter each gift and price and add it all up to keep you on budget. Also helped me track how many gifts I had for each kid. I realized quickly I had more for my son than my daughters, rather than buying more for them I just put some of his away until his birthday.

The kids were happy with their gifts and excited about their surprises from Santa. We kept it pretty low key and my husband and I didn't exchange gifts. I made the French Toast Casserole for breakfast with spiked syrup, always well received. Lunch was processed meats and cheeses (aka Hickory Farms) for everyone but me.

For dinner I made Honey Baked Ham, scalloped potatoes and Green Beans in a Bacon vinaigrette, followed by Swedish Apple Pie.

The next day I made split pea soup with the left over ham bone. I just used the recipe on the back of the split peas, as it is easy and good. Even though split pea is usually served with pumpernickel (which I did have) my husband asked me to make garlic bread. It was really easy and very good.

The next day my parents arrived. It gets pretty crowded and mine had to sleep on our pullout in the basement as my in-laws were in the guest room. For dinner, my husband grilled chicken breasts and I made rice pilaf and asparagus.

In the past we've gone out for dinner on our one night with all the parents in, but this year we weren't in a position to do it. Instead, I finally made something I've been wanting to make for a while, but was too nervous - beef tenderloin. Buying a $40 cut of meat was a bit of pressure, but my Mom convinced me it wasn't that hard, and she helped and together we made the beef and a mushroom red wine sauce, asparagus and another round of potatoes au gratin. It turned out really well. Admittedly the kids didn't really like it, but the rest of us thought it was tender and tasted great. Restaurant quality as my husband likes to say.

After dinner, my daughter put on her Brownie vest, and sold cookies to her grandparents. My parents ordered some to be sent to the troops as they don't actually like the cookies (I don't blame them), my in-laws bought a couple of boxes and we ordered a couple of boxes for us and a few others to send to the troops.

This morning my in laws I took my in-laws to the airport around 830. My parents got settled into the guest room and I started to getting the house back together, doing laundry etc.

As usual my parents have a shopping list of things they want to get. Some things online that we ordered so they can arrive before they leave. Tomorrow we head to LLBean to check on a jacket my Mom wants to get. I'm going to look for gloves for me, and exchange the shirt I got for Christmas from my in-laws. I feel bad, but the past few years they've gotten me sweaters in colors I don't have, and make a point of saying that that's why they pick them, but the reason I don't have the colors they pick is they aren't good colors for me - pinks and light greens mostly. This year they gave me gift receipts for the first time, so the return should be easier. It's mostly my fault though, since I usually have trouble coming up with a wishlist.

Early Intervention - Part 2

Today the Early Intervention ladies came by to analyze my little guy.  When they rang the doorbell he was there to greet them holding a mini Bears football and his sister's baby doll who he occasionally babysits :)  I brought them in to the kitchen and as usual he was chatting up a storm.  They were quickly able to cross verbal delays off their list of possible problems.  One woman was a speech therapist, the other a developmental therapist.  We started with the speech therapist. She gave him some tests to see if he had any muscular problems in his mouth, having him move his tongue from side to side, up and down, blow bubbles, etc.  He passed all no problems.  Then he happened to get hungry so I gave him his usual bananas and they could see that he could spoonfeed himself well. 

The therapist then asked me for some Cheerios so she could get him to play with his food.  She had him smash them, stack them, play with them in some of the banana puree.  He went along with everything aside from putting one in his mouth.  

Then it was time for the developmental therapist.  She asked a bunch of questions and then asked him to do a bunch of things that most 2 1/2 year olds can do - identify colors, shapes, do simple puzzles, make a tower of blocks, follow instructions to color, etc.  The funniest was after asking him to hop in each direction (forward, backward, left and right) she asked him to show her how he walks up the stairs.  He paused for a minute and looked at her. Then he said, "Well, I take a step like this" and put one foot in front of the other, "and then I do this" and moved the other foot next to it.  We all got a laugh out of that, and then I told him, "why don't you take her to the stairs and show her?"  He said, "Oh, ok, come here" and ran off to the stairs, where he then walked up and down :)

Bottom line, they want us to encourage him to play with his food, make a point of brushing his whole mouth (tongue, sides of cheeks, etc) to get him used to those sensations and at any meal where he sits down with us, put some small pieces of what we're eating on his tray.  They're going to file the paper work with insurance and the state and assign a feeding specialist.  They even told me that there is a group of 4 or 5 kids that meets once a week around lunch time to get attention from one of these feeding specialists and see/encourage each other to eat.  They also recommended getting off the sippy and on to real or straw cups. All good ideas, so we'll give it a try. The state covers some of the cost of this until age 3, so hopefully we get it all solved by then.