Mother's Day Weekend at Lido Beach

These pictures were taken by Beth Wild during our Mother's Day weekend trip to Sarasota and Lido Key. It was a beautiful, breezy, balmy evening. After our photo session, we watched the sun set and walked over to Kilwin's, where we met up with my childhood friend E (whose family is in the process of adopting a baby girl from South Korea) for ice cream and a stroll around St. Armand's.

Our Violinist

Our 5 year old Miss M loves music and is fascinated by musical instruments--especially the piano and anything with strings. We enrolled her in a Suzuki violin program a little over a year ago. She has a fantastic instructor who really knows how to connect with children and keep them interested. She has one group class and one private lesson every week, which we attend as a family, and she practices for 10-30 minutes most evenings with her daddy. We often play the Suzuki CDs as background music while riding in the car or preparing dinner. We take a pretty casual approach, and try to make it a fun activity, not a chore. It seems to be working--she looks forward to lessons and when it comes to practicing, she enjoys it so much that we're usually trying to convince her that it's time to put away the violin and get in the bathtub. Here are some pictures and video from her spring recital. (Please scroll down and pause (II) the background music before playing the video)

Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti

I received this biscotti recipe at a holiday party and have been wanting to try it. Decided to make it on a recent drizzly day with Miss M's assistance. Perfect for afternoon tea with neighbors, a late night snack with decaf cappuccino, or in my case, to accompany a cup of Ethiopian coffee while curled up in my favorite chair with the latest issues of Southern Living and Veranda. Bliss!

Ingredients:

1/4 cup light olive oil

3/4 cup sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

2 eggs

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt (omit if you use salted pistachios)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup Craisins

1 1/2 cups pistachios

Step-By-Step:

1. Preheat oven to 300.

2. In a large bowl, mix together oil and sugar until blended. Blend in eggs, vanilla and almond extracts. In separate bowl, combine flour, salt and baking powder. By hand, stir flour mixture into egg mixture. (About now, it starts getting really sticky and tougher to stir, so little hands may need some assistance). Stir in cranberries and nuts. 3. Atop a parchment paper lined cookie sheet or stone, divide dough in half and form two logs (about 12" by 2") (ours flattened out into about 12" by 3-4"). 4. Bake for 35 minutes or until logs are lightly browned. Remove from oven and set aside to cool for 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 275. 5. Cut logs on diagonal into 3/4 inch thick slices. Lay on sides on parchment, being careful not to break (we moved them to a separate parchment lined cooking stone). Bake 10 more minutes.

6. Cool and enjoy!

The Lion King

Several years ago, our girls' love of Disney's The Lion King prompted us to start collecting and watching documentaries on African wildlife with our girls, which in turn inspired us to travel to Kenya for the first time to witness the great migration. It was during that trip that we got our first taste of Africa. Our love of and feeling of connection with East Africa and the Horn of Africa is growing so much deeper and more meaningful with our adoption from Ethiopia. The song Circle of Life speaks to our hearts on many different levels now. At about the same time we decided to move forward with the adoption, our local children's theatre announced that its spring production would be The Lion King. Of course Miss M wanted to participate. At 5 years old, she is the youngest member of the theatre. She was the only one not able to read the script but the first one to have the entire thing memorized. They created the role of Shenai, another lion cub friend of Simba's in addition to Nala--who tags along and mimics everything Simba does--especially for her. All year, I've been so impressed with the dedication of the older kids and the way they took our Miss M under their wings, looked after her and made her feel special and like a real part of "the group". It really boosted her confidence and made it all such a wonderful experience for her. Months and months of practice culminated in two performances the weekend before last. Our girl sang and danced her little heart out. All of the children did great but there couldn't have been any parents there that were prouder than us. My heart swelled and tears rolled down my cheeks as I watched my firstborn shine in the spotlight. Broadway watch out!

It was so hard to choose a portion of the performance to post, but I finally narrowed it down to some excerpts from the songs. I just love the music in this play.

(Please scroll down and pause (II) the background music before playing the video)

P.S.--Since I'm now feeling nostalgic about it, I'm going to share some pictures from our 2007 Kenya trip. The beauty of the East African landscape and wildlife truly is a source of pride for its people and is definitely something to be appreciated, treasured, protected and not taken for granted. If you're interested, click HERE. Be patient--it takes a minute or so to load. Comments are in white at the bottom of the pictures (move your cursor over the captions and arrow to read the ones where I was a little too wordy for the space provided).

The Wonder Pets. . . Save the Birthday!

THE sweetest, spunkiest little sugar baby that ever was turned THREE over the weekend! Here are a few pictures from her fun Wonder Pets-themed birthday party:

(look closely and you can see the stitches Miss A got on her chin this week!)