Ellie Nova Ottati - First Birthday!

Ellie is one year old today! We had her birthday party a day early so my mom, my brother and my sister in law could come over. It was so fun to see how happy she was when I gave her the smash cake I made. She would look at it and touch it carefully, poking it with one finger. Then she would smear some of the icing off. Then she would squish the cake in her hands and dig into the middle of it. Finally she started smacking it and dumping the cake everywhere and smearing it all over her face and dress! I loved it. 

Me in my jammies getting everything ready.

Murray is a love bug.

Uncle Will and Aunt Cyndel in the morning playing with Ellie, and Murray's doofy face.

I made cake pops, a heart cake and a smash cake. 

Happy birthday!

What is it?

 

My little chunky monkey!

All cleaned up.

This was actually from the week before but they were too cute to leave out. She was pooped from her party though!

Passover / Easter Weekend

Friday morning was my yearly tradition of saying, "Hey, is it Passover? It's Passover! YESSSSS, I'm making FOOD!!"

I have this memory of a certain mystery food that was spread on matzo bread from Passover when I was a kid. It was sweet and I can never figure out what it was. 

I made matzo ball soup with parsley, dill, parsnips, tri-colored carrots and celery. I love that purple carrot. Matzo ball soup is delicious if you have never tried it. Usually it has chicken in it too but I didn't think we needed two meats since I also made salmon with a horseradish and dill cream sauce. For the side I made tri-colored fingerling potatoes and roasted beets.

I also made challah from scratch.

Saturday I decided to dye some eggs since I planned on making egg salad. I'm obsessed with egg salad. We watched the original TRON too. I don't know why you need to know all that.

The dog found the first Easter egg and brought it into his bed with him before I caught him. Ellie found the rest and tried putting them all in her mouth. She got a nice little goth lipstick look!

Happy Spring!

Ellie Nova Ottati - 11 Months!

Growing? Her molars are coming in and she probably has 10 teeth total now. 

New and Exciting? She can walk along furniture and can go from sitting to standing up by herself without holding on to anything.

Loves? She loves music and dancing to all kinds of stuff like Mozart, Rancid, Sublime, Sade, Goldfrapp, The Black Keys and many others. Ellie's favorite items to play with (or try to) are her play house, her books, anyone'e cell phone or ipad, the computer mouse, my laptop, nail polish bottles, coasters and power tools. She is always trying to get her hands on a wrench or a hammer.

Hates? She doesn't like being stuck behind the baby gate very much unless Murray is there with her for entertainment.

Looking Forward to? Her first birthday.

We've been behind on the updates since we moved and got a little too busy for it. I also just found the quilt I've been taking photos of her on. 

BTW, Happy Ultimate Pi Day everyone!

A Very Merry Unbirthday

Ellie spent her first Valentine Day celebrating her "unbirthday" with her grandma and great aunt! My aunt took the train over to New York to visit my mom and they decided to come out to Buffalo to spoil Ellie for a day. It worked out well because they didn't mind watching her while Joe and I went out for the night.

I feel like Ellie looks like Max from Where the Wild Things Are in this picture:

Morning bed head!

Joe and I had a great time. We went out to a really modern sushi place and got sake jello shots (pretty good!) We went bar hopping in Allentown and eventually ended up at a local Art House were they had a string quartet playing.
The only tough part was walking from our hotel to all the bars. It wasn't a far walk but it was super cold! Nothing like Alaska, but still, it was yucky. Why didn't we decide to make Valentines Day in the spring??