Fleur de Aleta

I have to be honest, part of me is sad to see 2013 go... The Year of the Snake.  My son's Chinese birth year.  2013, the year Gregory Jr made life a blessing I never could have dreamed would happen. But most of me.. is happy, because there's another year to watch and learn with my son and my husband.  Besides, how can I not be happy at the beginning of each new year? Every January 3rd is a celebration - our anniversary! My husband asked me, "What is the 5 year anniversary gift? I looked at Greg, "It's unchartered territories for me.  I have no idea!" We had always joked that for our 5 year, we would throw a huge party.  It was my milestone.  I've never reached 5 years in a marriage before. Both sets of our parents want to take our son and let us go somewhere just the two of us for our 5 year anniversary, but that won't be the case.  We want to celebrate it as a family, all together :) Looking forward to the wonders that 2014 have in ...

One tradition we will be keeping, as long as we live in this area, is to go to the Park to see the Christmas lights.  This year we went with Madelyn (Greg's younger sister) and Bella (a beautiful little girl that Madelyn babysits for). We were surprised to see pony rides (with *cough* antlers… reindeer, right?  Ok)… It was chilly, but Gregory was very alert, looking at the sites and people watching as well (In the below picture, he didn't know what to make of the pony).  Afterwards, we followed up the tradition with beignets (if you've been to New Orleans, you had to have tried this). Do you have any Christmas traditions? Wishing everyone a wonderful, blessed Christmas!

Greg's parents have a tradition that every year when they buy their Christmas tree, they invite the family over to decorate the tree and the house (both inside and outside).  Then afterwards, everyone sits down for a nice lunch and pie. This year it was key lime pie.  It was sweet. Bonnie (Greg's older sister) was holding Gregory and she had her piece of pie in front of her.  Gregory reached for it and Bonnie said, "No, you can't have that."  I said, "It's ok, let him try a small amount."  She dipped her finger in the pie and then in Gregory's mouth. He liked it.  A lot. So much so.. when Bonnie tried to pull her finger away…. He bit her HARD.  (As you might be able to tell from her expression.)

When our friend, Rene, came to visit, my husband said, "This is my life, Cheerios on the floor."  Our son has been given the go-ahead to eat solids and regular food.  We give him Cheerios after his meals to get him used to the texture and taste. When Greg said those words, he woke up my muse.  I used to write a lot of poetry.. it's been a while… (For those who "know" poetry… I'm just doing my own style, nothing formal.) Cheerios Life By:  Aleta O’Brien A home once graced by Crystal and China figurines A home where clean was In daily oversupply A quiet haven of order Now trips over toys And finds Cheerios by toe Now forego dining out Suffering the loud noise Brought by chaos and disorder A shower becomes a luxury Dust bunnies claim the place A high chair owns space by the table All eyes become the jury Privacy is no more Nice clothes lost in the closet Make-up a long forgotten thing Nice mea...

Dear Son, Mommy took pictures of you yesterday.  You were on the bed and Mommy had the camera out.  Daddy had to help, because you were crawling very fast to Mommy and we didn't want you getting close to the edge of the bed.  Daddy would pick you up and put you back at the head of the bed and you were off again, crawling super fast.  Officially you started crawling around 9 1/2 months.  Small crawls, but it was there.  At 10 months, you have it down. At 10 months, you are walking around holding our hands.  Twice now for about less than a second, you stood on your own.  You are quickly pulling yourself up on anything that is vertical. And you are eating EVERYTHING.  Including things you aren't supposed to be putting in your mouth.  Mommy is a nervous wreck and she is going to go on a huge spring cleaning (cleaning behind the sofas, etc) because heaven knows what lurks with the dust bunnies.  But one thing Momm...

Gregory now has another reason to look forward to Gym Rompers classes.  He flirts with the girls.  One girl, Brooke, who lives in Florida, was in town for a couple of weeks.  They hit it off great!  They would sit next to each other and babble conversations back and forth. I'm not kidding… she would babble and Gregory would be quiet.  Then it was his turn and he would babble and she would listen.  Then one of them would stick out a tongue and the other would give a raspberry!  It was hilarious.  Even Brooke's mom was amazed and we all wondered what they were saying to each other.  They held out hands and touched each other's face. Sadly though, a long distance girlfriend is wayyyy too early of an experience for Gregory Lol  and he won't be seeing her for a while again.  I think she's coming back in town for Easter. Here they are together.

Have you ever traveled outside of the United States (or your home country)? I've visited Canada and Mexico, but I think of that as "tame" in comparison to overseas.  This year my parents went to Ireland and just recently returned from their trip to China.   They said that New York City with all those sky scraper tall buildings must look like a hick town to people in China, because their cities of sky scrapers last FOREVER….. No one in China owns a home.  Many of them live in apartments the size of 100 square feet - with no bathroom and no kitchen and it costs them 1200 (in US dollars).  They have to use a community bathroom between floors.  And they have to go out to eat. During my parents visit, they couldn't update anything on Facebook, because China blocks the ability to get on Facebook.  They would email me pictures and ask me to post the pictures for them.  This issue about blocking FB bothers me.  I guess it's kind of like wh...

Our son can pull himself easily into a kneeling position and if he has something to grab ahold of, he can pull himself to standing.  He's growing so quickly, it brings tears to my eyes.   I am so glad I take pictures, because I want to treasure the early memories and enjoy the right now as well. Here he is, looking over the crib.  So very proud of himself!

My husband asked me twice on two different days, "Have you updated your blog yet?" The second request made me realize it's been a while.  So, today, while the red sauce was cooking.  (A request by my husband as well.  He says it's better than restaurant red sauce  - Woot!) .. I decided to update my baking blog and Fleur de Aleta. Have you ever tried the Greek dessert, Baklava?  It's sweet and yummy.  Greg and I made this for our contribution towards Thanksgiving meal at his family's home.  Did I mention that it's sweet? I posted the Baklava  recipe here .  Greg had me laughing a couple of times while we made it.  He swears he'll never do that again, because it does require some time. For Christmas, I ordered an ornament for Gregory on Etsy.  Etsy rocks with it being small businesses. Not long ago, the three of us went to JC Penny's and took family Christmas pictures!  The photographer did a good job with Gregory...

Baklava – Greek Dessert When my Mom and I took a Greek cooking class, we had a lot of fun making the Baklava, but it didn’t turn out good.   The positive thing about this is we watched the instructor make the mistakes and realized what could go wrong by example.   (She also made it correctly the following weekend and sent us a sample so we’d know how it should taste, which was wonderful.) My husband and I tried our hand at the recipe for Thanksgiving.   It’s a fun thing to do but should be done by two people, because the Phyllo dough   (or filo dough – found in the freezer section, typically by the pizza crusts) is used in many thin layers. Ingredients: For the Simple syrup (MAKE THIS THE DAY BEFORE AND LEAVE IT ON THE COUNTER/REFRIG): 1 ¼ cups honey 1 ¼ cups water 1 ¼ cups sugar 1 (2-inch) piece fresh orange peel Combine the honey, water, sugar and orange peel in a 4-quart saucepan and set over high heat.   Stir occasionally until the sugar has dissolved. ...

Do you have any friends that you consider to be family?  I'm fortunate in this.  My good friend, Kristen… known her for 34 years now.  She's more like a sister.  Kim as well, we met in the 7th grade. And my cousin, Holly, well, she's more than a cousin, more than a friend and I think that ranks her as a "sister" too. You might think that's typical… high school buddies turning into family.  But what about a siblings friend turning into a brother?  I'm counting blessings with this too.  My brother met Rene when they both worked for the USDA, back in 1986.  They hit it off as friends and he became a good friend of the family, playing card games, going on vacations with us. My parents were out of town for Thanksgiving, visiting with my brother and his wife.  Rene came in town to spend time with two friends who were in the hospital.  (He's a good guy like that.)  My husband has become good friends with Rene and actually spends more t...