March came in like a lion...

He's so dapper.

Not really! I just thought "March update" sounded boring! Haha.

I'm not sure it came in like a lamb, either, but looking back at these photos we were obviously outside a bit more this month than had

Love these tulips 

from my favorite flower shop. 

become usual. The month was still overwhelmingly cool and cloudy, but at least we did not have the freezing cold temperatures of January and February. And there were a few nicer days sprinkled in.

Tulips were out in all the stores and flower shops, pansies began appearing at garden centers, it's beginning to feel like Spring finally! Snowdrops appeared in our yard, as did crocuses. The crocus festival took place in the Jasne Błonia the third weekend in March, though we did not attend (Emmy was sick on Saturday and then it rained on Sunday so we stayed home). Anyways, by the time we returned from our Easter break travels (more about that to come in future posts), it felt like Spring had actually arrived!

Saturday morning fun. Giddy-up! 

Charles was out of town again for the middle two weeks of the month.  We plugged along here at home. Tuesday the 8th was International Women's Day.  Here in Poland, women receive flowers from, well, lots of people! Emmy's classmates brought flowers for the girls, and for the children to bring home to their mothers. I saw people

Daddy makes a fun horse.

handing them out to ladies at the mall. My landlords brought a bouquet of tulips to me. What a lovely tradition! Some of my friends and I were discussing how this is something we should get behind in the U.S. and really play up this day, celebrating all women, rather than Mother's Day. Not that you shouldn't celebrate Mother's Day with your mom, but it seems to have become such hugely commercialized day with so much attention given to it, and yet it is a day that can be hard for a lot of people  who have lost their moms or children or who long to be a mother but cannot. (Speaking from experience).

 On Wednesday the 9th, I was able to attend a cooking class at culinary school. One of our friends set it up, and it was a lot of fun! The chef appeared on the Polish version of Top Chef or Master Chef, I'm not sure which, but after that he said there was a lot of interest so he opened this school. The cusine for the evening was "modern Polish fusion" and the food was delicious! I'm pretty sure we each ate 200 grams of butter a piece though, there was so much that went into the dishes!  The first course was a beet salad with goat cheese, the second course was a Jerusalem artichoke soup with  parsley pesto and bacon, the main course was cod with a pea puree, and the final course was a flour-less chocolate cake. Wow. I'm hungry thinking about it again! 

Walking to dinner in Old Town on the weekend when Daddy was home in between his trips. Such handsome dudes.

Look, Mama!

Strolling through the garden.

The next week the weather was a bit warmer a few days so Matthew and I enjoyed more time in the garden. He loves to pick up these tiny pine cones in the yard, and he found he has pockets. Time to check pockets when I wash clothes now!  

Snowdrops and Rags

St. Patrick's Day was a BEAUTIFUL day, and the kids enjoyed playing on the playground after school with some of their friends. 

Emmy, Freja, and Claire

Mark, Freja and Emmy

Sweet friends

Some days just call for fancy.

Trying on his new hat, again in the garden...

...picking up pine cones. This was over the weekend, you can see Daddy's hand so he was back home! 

Sunday morning breakfast. Eating European style, breads, cheese, meats, fruit, some pastry, yum! 

We missed the crocus festival since Emmy was sick, but I drove by one afternoon the following week to take a peak and snapped a couple of photos. Beautiful!

Crocuses in the Jasne Błonia. 

The end of March involves our Easter Break travels, so that's up next! 

Weekly Update and Charles' birthday

Happy Birthday, Charles! We celebrated the day before with our Danish-American Friends.  I feel like I was in the kitchen all day (and I just about was) but he's worth it.

We had grilled chicken and steaks with blue cheese and shallot butter, twice baked potatoes, creamed cabbage, roasted broccoli, and peanut butter pie and Sarah's delicious Danish birthday cake for dessert.

One thing about living in a new place is that you cannot always find certain ingredients. In Colorado I had the hardest time finding frozen coconut for our favorite cake we make at Easter. Here in Poland, we are missing certain items that I have to make from scratch, or find a substitute. you may have to make an ingredient from scratch first that you might otherwise have purchased. For example, before I made the pie I had to make a cool whip substitute using gelatin and cream of tarter. Simple things like that take more time, so cooking sometimes just takes longer. I find that in my kitchen here, cooking always takes longer! It is just a strange layout and after six months in it, I still haven't totally found my groove.

Anyways, I think the birthday boy had a good day! Since his birthday fell on Monday, he of course to work. My Polish lesson was canceled, so Matthew and I went to the barracks to have lunch with Daddy. Then that evening we went out to supper at one of our favorite places. Yum!

Giving Daddy good-bye hugs after lunch.

After supper hot chocolate, it's so yummy! 

On Wednesday, I finally tried my hand at making pierogis. Back in the fall, some of the ladies invited me over for a pierogi making session. Our friend, Tanya, taught us how she makes the Russian, or ruskie, kind. They are my favorite, and they have potatoes and a kind of cheese called tworóg in them, which is like cottage cheese that has been drained.

Pierogis are best served with sautéd 
onions on top. Yum!

I need to practice my technique, but
I was pretty pleased with my first attempt! 

A friend asked me why in the world I decided to make them while we still live here and can easily get fabulous ones from a pierogarnia. I figured it is better to try them while the process was still a fresh in my mind, and then if they didn't turn out well, I could ask Tanya for help. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, but maybe we'll have another session with Tanya just because hers are amazing.

So here is a story about how well Sarah and I "planned". Thursday was "Fat Thursday", in Poland people celebrate the Thursday before Ash Wednesday by eating lots of jelly donuts. They are filled with a marmalade and topped with candied orange peel. You can buy them at other times, but on this day every year, you see them everywhere, so we'd been told. So, around 13:00 Sarah and I decided to walk to the market, about a 15 minute walk from my house. We load up the three kids (it took us like 45 minutes to get them all out the door) and we mosey over, buy some veggies, honey, meat, some good local stuff. Then we decided to get in line at the best donut place in the market (or anywhere so far as I've tried here) so we can also partake in this cultural deliciousness. When in Rome, right? After about 15 minutes or more of waiting, I glance at my watch and realize it is almost time to leave to get the girls from school. Yikes! Sarah had one sleeping in the stroller and one sleeping on her, so I asked if she wanted to stay in line and get us both donuts for our families, and I'd run home and go get the girls and meet her back at my house. Then she could let Claire sleep in the stroller longer, nurse Hannah in the comfort of my house while I was gone, etc. And, I still got donuts. Good plan, right? So I booked it home with Matthew in the stroller. I knew I was going to be fine, but I like to leave so I have plenty of time to park because it gets dicey at pick up sometimes and I didn't want to rush. But I was going to be home by 3, perfect. Until I walked up and saw that Sarah's car was blocking my driveway. BRILLIANT. So I called another friend, who offered to grab both our girls and let them play on the playground, Sarah hoofed it home to move her car, and I drove over to pick up the big girls while she stayed home with the 3 littles. I think the universe was telling us we didn't need jelly donuts. Oh well, next year! Or next week, I mean the donut place is open all the time...

Friday was the last day of first school term, and so the kids had a Carnival party at school Friday afternoon and wore costumes for the day. Lots of fun! Next year I should see if I can figure out how to make a king cake for her to take for her shared snack! Apparently the peanut butter chocolate oatmeal cookies I sent no one wanted to try. :\

Here are a few photos from Friday and Saturday.

The end of the week and start of the weekend has been spent getting ready for our trip to Prague, which is were we are headed next! I'll post photos of that trip soon!

Friday is pizza night and this Friday was also
movie night! He looks so grown up to me
here. 

Such a treat to eat in the living room! 

Reading to her brother. I love this, just had a
hard time getting a good photo through
 the crib slats! 

He may kill me for this one, but too funny,
dressing up Daddy! 

Emmy turns Five

Emmy turned five on Thursday! More pictures are in the Picasa album. 

She was up at 6:30 ready to open presents.  She got a new bike with pedals (she has had a balance bike for a couple of years) with a basket and a bell for it, and a new game.

 After school we met Keaton, Adelaide, Lorelei and Miss Beth for lunch at Chick-Fil-A (her choice) and shared mini cupcakes from a local cupcake bakery with them. She requested their lemonade flavor and Mommy and Pickled Peaches requested the chocolate with peanut butter frosting.  She had a busy day of phone calls, Skype/FaceTime calls and trying out her new bike. She requested her favorite shepherd's pie potatoes for supper, topped off with of course another cupcake and the annual birthday sign photos.

And today (which is also Grandma's birthday, Happy Birthday Grandma!) we had her Cooking Birthday Party. This Mama is tired but it was a success, so far as I can tell. There were in the end, I think, 22 children here today and it was chaos, but not terribly so. Everyone seemed to have fun, the kids enjoyed making pizzas and decorating cupcakes and their fruit and veggies with ranch and strawberry lemonade, especially requested by the birthday girl. The adults seemed enjoyed their food (antipasto platter, Ms. Barbara Lee's sun dried tomato dip with veggies and crackers, caramelized onion and goat cheese bread, pizzas, mimosas, beer and tea) and a some even enjoyed making their own pizzas, too.

I did a terrible job of remembering to take photos, it was too crazy. Fortunately my friend Lindsay snapped a few after I set my camera down.   Here are some photos and more details about the party.

 I feel like I got a lot of questions this year about how we came up with the idea, so for anyone interested, here is a more details on the plan, if you really want to know. 

Emmy loves Curious George and one of her favorite stories is Curious George and the Pizza Party. So that is where the basic idea came from.  I knew with so many kids invited/coming that actually measuring, mixing, and cooking would be hard, so I saved time and sanity and we made biscuit pizzas, a'la 7th grade Home Economics.   We prepped all the toppings earlier in the week: marinara, mozzarella, parm, hamburger, onions, peppers, mushrooms (fresh, but sauteed before hand), Canadian bacon, and of course pepperoni, the mini kind were fun for the small pizzas. I put some of the toppings in muffin tins and cheese and sauce in big bowls and gave each child a parchment (intended to line cake pans) and wrote their name on it so they could go right on the baking sheets and we would know which pizza belonged to whom. It worked perfectly! I had them come in to make them in shifts since my kitchen is not that big! More counter space would have made the whole day a lot less hectic, but it worked fine and my awesome husband some of the other mom friends of mine helped out a ton (thank you!!).

The cake idea came from another blog.  Sarah designed the fabulous invitations again this year, as well as the recipe card for the favors. I found red aprons at Hobby Lobby for each child (thanks Mom, Mrs. Raney, and Mary Ann for sending them from SC and GA when HL ran out online and I couldn't get enough at our local stores!). I ordered paper chef hats, as well as a set of small rolling pins so several kids could roll their dough at the same time.   For the favor bags, Emmy and I stamped the bags with cooking stamps and a thank you stamp. I wrote the note on the bags and she stamped, it was a fun project. This way each child had a bag to take their apron, hat and favor home in. The favors were cookie cutters with a recipe for play dough attached. I managed to get the bags on sale, as well as the thank you stamp and I already had ink pads, so it was really all a fairly inexpensive project.

For the apron cake, I made the Pioneer Woman's chocolate sheet cake and baked it in a 13X9 (delish) and used my usual butter cream.  My friend Sara recommended a yellow cake recipe to me, and I'm so glad she did! I have been looking for a good yellow cake and it was delish, and so was her chocolate butter cream. I didn't take any pictures of the cupcake decorating, sadly, but here are the last few rejects that I slapped the leftover frosting on. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting is one of my favorites. Thanks Sara!

One of my favorite budget friendly finds were the drink cups, small red solo cups with lids. Score! They came with straws, but I used the red and white and blue and white striped straws I'd already purchased.  It worked perfectly and I was able to write names on the cups in advance.  Juice boxes, in my opinion, always make a mess because the kids squeeze them and they spill, plus they suck one down so you need to count on two per child, which gets expensive.  This was a great, cheaper, spill friendly alternative.  And they are recyclable, so after the party I just rinsed them and tossed them in the recycling bin.

So there you go, far more than you wanted to know about Emmy's 5th birthday party!

Happy Valentine's Day

(pre-haircut)

 Emmy says "won't you bee mine?"

Happy Valentine's Day! We hope everyone had a great day!

Frosting our strawberry cupcakes (post-haircut)

She is such a great helper in the kitchen!