Just a quick moment to say thank you. To God, my husband, my family and friends

This week I've been reminded of how short and fast life is. We all need this little reminder. Even if it only has me telling people that I love them more often.  I need that.

The other stabbing reminder from this week is how lonely the world can be.  I memorize very few quotes, but one from Mother Teresa sticks out.  "The United States is the poorest country in the world, because it's the loneliest."  She went on to talk about how the old, the homeless and the diseased live alone. They tend not to commune and families don't pay enough attention.  Don't get me wrong, life is busy and hard just as of is.  I just feel grateful and appreciate the inner push to reach out and give "warm puzzles" to more people, more often.

*ask my Dad about the "warm fuzzy" reference. It's a good one.

Daddy day

Chips, pizza and beer. Oh and football.

Sweet girl

Getting older is such fun!  We ran tons of errands and drove almost an hour to drop something off and she was perfect.

My sweet baby girl...so much fun to take her out!

9-month Doc Appt.

Height: 27.5 inches (50th %)
Weight: 17 lbs. (25th %)
Head Circumference: 45 cm (55th %)

And here's the sleeping viewpoint.

Oh, the joyful faces we get when we look into the backseat.

Food Club - without the Original

So Heather started this food club - Here's the post: Food Club from Poblete Post

And she gave me the nod that I would get an invite to the next club meeting...so when she mentioned it was Philly Restaurant Week and she had already made reservations, I was over the moon excited! Well, she had to cancel (for very good reason) and Laura (another original) had already bowed out, so it wound up being Meghan and my dearest friend, Ally (a fellow city foodie).  We showed up at Zahav in Old City for our 7:30 reservation.

I was so giddy for this treat out for girl's night that I could hardly contain myself!  Restaurant week has the set menu (for any out of towners) $35 for 5 courses here. Wahoo! Love it. OK, clearly I miss city dining! haha.

Here's the link to their Restaurant Week Menu: http://www.zahavrestaurant.com/

We dined on the following: An amazing spread of the 'house salads' I wish that I knew what came with these, I should have taken my restaurant critic flip notepad to jot them all down, but a 2 tiered stand of 3-4 dishes contained on each layer made up this course (also accompanied by an ever delicious large bowl of hummus and fresh made pita.)  Highlights from the cold salad course were: the seemingly roasted eggplant, (I personally liked the okra, although I think I sat alone on this fav.), beet and walnut, a julienned carrot with just the right sweet and tang, tabouleh with the whole parsley leaf.

The Salatim - Salad Course

For our next course, we enjoyed: the crispy haloumi (Israeli cheese) yum with a date glaze; the chilled corn soup, which was good, but must have hit us with a dose of cardamom, so not the most natural of flavors for the night; the fried cauliflower (wow!); fried lamb (kibbe) also yum; and my personal (isolated) favorite of crispy sweetbreads...ooh so good. Meghan was brave and tried them? I think? Ally admitted they weren't so bad. :)

The main dinner course (which came out as more of a small plate, much to our delight, because we were beginning to slow down!) was compiled of the hanger steak (too rare for Meghan - and I'll admit, it was far more rare than I prefer my cow.) The branzino, which was pretty tasty; and an Israeli traditional dish, the Merguez, a lamb sausage. This course was good, but nothing spectacular. 

Finally, dessert (we were nearly stuffed!) We chose one of each. So the waiter adorned our table with: cashew baklava - incredible!;  almond semifreddo (rivaled the baklava - imho); and hte halvah mousse with chickpea praline and berries - now that I think of it - I could down a bowl of the mousse right now! Delish.

We opted out of coffee and tea, but we did try the muddled mint lemonade.

Overall, a nice little Israeli feast - we sent Ally home with leftovers.  Ahhh...how beautiful it was to get dressed up and enjoy a night out with the girls.  We missed you, Heather!

*A special thanks to my amazing husband who, along with my mother-in-law, made it all possible.* xoxo!

Overdue

Wow - sorry for the overdue posting here - I'm going to have to make it short, since Ellie's on her way up from a nap. 

I realized it's been almost a month since I last posted!  Crazy. Quick synopsis of the big things that have come and gone:

• Trip to Germany and Austria (basically the reason I went missing on the blog for a month). Lots of funny stories from this trip that deserve their own post.
• Baby play dates that get so much better each week!  Because the 'play' date actually involves 'playing.'
• Dave has been shooting a LOT. So there's lots of post production that I need to get on - thus, my time normally spent blogging went toward my 'other job'. Which I enjoy just as much, albeit keeping me away from my fun social avenues. :(
• Switching rooms around in the house so that Ellie now has almost an entire room to be safe and play in.  I'm sure the commitment to the kid is much to Annie's chagrin, but it's nice that I can be in the kitchen and keep an eye on her destruction.
• David has been super Dad.  He took on watching Ellie all day yesterday from awakening to nearly  sleeping - he was exhausted when I got home and said, "I don't know how you do it every day." (HUGE GRIN HERE)
• She's started sleeping through the night!
• Nana visited and saved Mama on a few occasions.
• Oh yea, and we're pregnant!

All of these items deserve their own post, so I'll have to get on that!

Glad to be back!

xoxo