Backyard fun!

May Snapshots

Sleepy head.

Macaron tasting.

She loves her dinosaurs!

Ellie's garden. Not as single thing has stated growing.

Lilac Festival

Festival season is here and we have been trying to get out to as many events as possible. My dad used to go to the Rochester Lilac Festival when he was a kid. It was fun even though we got rained out only a couple hours after getting there. We still managed to get in some dancing!

Japanese Candy Donuts - Popin' Cookin'

My mom came to visit for Passover weekend and I made her make a Doughnut Popin' Cookin' with me while Ellie took a nap. This kit was so adorable and smelled delicious when we were making it.

This kit was a little more confusing than the last one I did so we had to look up exactly how to do it so we didn't mess up. I may have spent 5 years studying Japanese but I can't read a word of it! Well... I can make out "Do-na-to" on the package... lol

I made the chocolate donuts and my mom made vanilla. The chocolate ones reminded me of the chocolate glazed from Dunkin' Donuts, my favorite, besides Krispy Kreme original glazed of course. Ugh. Now I want donuts! 

The chocolate sauce was delicious! They also had strawberry and vanilla icing, sprinkles and little crunchies for decoration. When we finished we both ate a doughnut and they tasted really great! The texture of the donuts was weird but all the flavors were yummy. Much better than the sushi kit! We even stole some extra tastes of the chocolate sauce that we didn't use. 

It was a fun afternoon experiment!

Lately

My mom came out to visit again so Joe and I could do a little more unpacking. We actually got Ellie's bedroom all set up! We added an armchair I rescued from a coffee shop last January too, so now I have a spot to work on my laptop while Ellie plays in her room. She usually wants to "type" on the laptop keys though, so sometimes I unplug the mouse and let her play with it for a while.

I ordered the Jelly Belly Bean Boozled game off Amazon and played it with Joe and my mom. Wow, let me just tell you, these were SO NASTY! The game came with a spinner and we combined it with our Shots and Ladders game. My poor mom got almost ALL bad ones. It was fun but I will never play it again! 

Ellie's finished bedroom.

We stopped at the local coffee place in Buffalo since my mom is a coffee addict. The red velvet doughnut was sooo yummy!

Ellie is now using Murray as a balance to stand up with. He lets her grab his ears and "pet"him. I even got a video of Ellie giving him a kiss!

It's been nice having Joe's stuff finally combined with our things from Alaska and Louisiana. We both had things in storage in different places for so long (a lot of my stuff was in San Diego until last year and Joe's was in New York.) Now we have Joe's stereo system from his childhood and I've been having fun playing music in the house that isn't coming out of a laptop or phone. It sounds so much nicer! We have his record player I got him for Christmas too so we can play some records when we dig them out of the last of the boxes. It's amazing how long it takes to unpack a house when you have a little baby around. 

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??