Still trying....

to get a good, frame-able candid of all my boys

At least act like you love each other.

That's a little better, but not very candid.


Daddy suggests laying down. Hmmm.


Mommy yells to "keep your eyes on Daddy!" Maybe if she stood behind Daddy the yelling would have been a good idea.


Well, we'll keep trying.

Playing peekaboo

The more children I have, the more I forget to look for baby milestones, like 'recognizes mommy' or 'able to grasp objects with thumb and forefinger.' etc.
'Able to play peekaboo' is usually on that list of milestones somewhere, so lest poor Sebastien be relegated to the role of unnoticed third child, I thought I would document this great achievement.

Peekaboo! from nicole lewin on Vimeo.

Birthday Pudding

So I am not a big cake fan. Well, really, I am not a big dessert fan- sweets just aren't my temptation (give me a big greasy cheeseburger any day). If I have to eat dessert, I prefer dark chocolate to anything else. I think I get that from my mother. I have memories of her coming up to tuck us in bed with the smell of chocolate chips on her breath. I think that must have been her end of the day splurge- a handful of dark chocolate.
At any rate, for my birthday dessert I opted for this super yummy, super easy dark chocolate pudding that I found in a magazine once. I have given this recipe to some friends already, but I thought I would share it again here.

Dark Chocolate Pudding

whisk together in a medium saucepan-
1/3 cup of sugar
1/3 cup of Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder (If you haven't tried the Special Dark powder, you haven't lived)
pinch of salt
2 Tablespoons of corn starch.

gradually whisk in 1/3 cup of whole milk (or less fatty version if you are on a diet. Obviously, the more fat, the better) until a thick paste forms.
Over medium heat, slowly whisk in 1 1/3 cups more of milk and 1/3 cup of whipping cream if so desired. Either way, the total dairy should equal 2 cups.
Let this thicken until bubbly, about five minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in four ounces of dark chocolate (chocolate chips or fancy candy bar, your choice) and 1 tsp vanilla.

Now here comes the fun part. You can eat it as is, or kick it up a notch. We added a generous splash of Kahlua, but Bailey's is fantastic too, or Grand Marnier or any other liquor of choice. If liquor isn't your thing, mint extract is excellent, or any other flavor that goes with chocolate.

to chill it, just cover it with plastic wrap right on the surface, to avoid that yucky pudding skin. We prefer to eat it warm, right out of the pan. This also makes a great pie filling. I must warn you though- kids make a mess of it.



When I asked James why he was deliberately smearing it all over his face, he said he just wanted to look like daddy. (Steve's current facial motif is a rather unkempt goatee)



Oh, and this last picture is my birthday present from my mom.
It is a smocking pleater. I tried my hand at smocking a dress for my latest niece, but it took forever to do by hand. So, since I have no daughters to smock for, send your orders in. I need to make some cute dresses for somebody.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Well, almost. My birthday is actually Sunday, but this morning was the best time to do our traditional out-to-breakfast birthday date. (if you can call a meal out with three kids a date) The problem was that our favorite breakfast cafe is no longer serving breakfast, which we didn't find out until we had all the hungry kids unloaded and ready to eat. Bummer!
Part of the reason we love that cafe is the location- lots of fun views of the river and beautiful walks. So we walked a bit and tried to figure out where else we could go.




We decided to go to a little hole in the wall restaurant we had heard of many times but never actually been to. It really was a tiny place, and very quaint.


But the food was great. It took a while to get our food, and we were really hungry by this point, so we held the kids off with Sebastien's cheerios (which Etienne ate painstakingly with a fork and knife)


until our giant pancakes arrived.


Then we had fun making Sebastien smile. This kid has the biggest mouth. Sometimes I think his face is going to split in two.




All in all, a lovely morning out and a nice way to start the last year of my twenties.

Funder

We have had a lot of rain storms lately, with plenty of 'funder' and lightning. This is the first time Etienne has noticed thunder, and the first couple of storms scared him quite a bit. Now we have this dialogue just about every night before bed, whether there is a storm or not. This video also goes to show how much he is talking now- a month ago all he did was grunt.

Funder from nicole lewin on Vimeo.

Kites and Slides

The weather has been so lovely this week- around eighty with a nice breeze and best of all- no humidity yet. We have been spending as much time out of doors as possible before the damp, stifling, suffocating, giant bug nurturing, lock your doors and bar your windows weather sets in (can you tell I don't like humidity? I may have mentioned it before)

We took a walk to our great little park the other evening to fly James's first kite- a 1$ buzz light year trinket that lasted one evening. It did fly for a while though.


Can you see Seb's little tooth poking out?


It was hard to get any good pictures of James running like mad with the kite high above him- he got pretty tired of it after a while, so we moved on to the play ground-


This playground was built by the community. They asked for volunteers and about two hundred people showed up. They built almost the entire thing in one Saturday. I was pretty impressed. Anyways, the whole play ground is fun, but the obvious main attraction is the giant slide. The boys (all four of them) had a blast.








Here's to hoping this weather will last!

Happy Ooster (Can I have more candy?)

James somehow got it into his head that Easter was pronounced Ooster. He also quickly figured out that Ooster and candy go together, and the beach.... that's right, we spent Easter weekend in Florida with Joe and Darcee. It was exhausting, but well worth the ten hour drive, at least on the way down. On the way back up, I was starting to think flying wasn't such a bad idea.
We left Steve behind, but I had help from my sister Callie and her roommate Julia who were both a huge help entertaining and feeding three whining kids strapped into their chairs. In reality it seemed a very short trip compared to the sixty hours we spent in the car in January (at least to me).
We had a great time overall- saw a ton of stuff during three short days, and got plenty of warm sun to help us through this unusually cold and cloudy Chattanooga spring. And Easter day really was a celebration with more than just candy.

Friday Callie and Julia spent at Disney World- I wasn't in the mood for that undertaking with my kids just yet. So Joe and Darce showed us around Orlando a bit. We went to a wonderful park in a very upscale part of Orlando. The kids had a blast chasing squirrels and climbing trees. I enjoyed looking at the huge variety of exotic flowers and trees on display.


This was a palm tree growing out of some kind of cedar I think.






This was one tree the kids did not try to climb.


James is going through a stage right now.....

That night we were decorating eggs and we had an egg blowing contest. This, we discovered, is kind of a disgusting process made much harder if laughing hysterically.



Saturday was beach day. It was windy and warm and very very sandy, but also very fun. We built castles and after some tentative toe dipping, James loved splashing in the surf. Etienne allowed the waves to wash over his feet a bit but that was all.






Easter morning we woke up to this beautifully decorated table, our egg blowing efforts well worth the trouble.


I realized today that I hadn't really gotten a photo of the kids all dressed up, but when there aren't any fluffy Easter dresses involved, it doesn't seem as fun. Church was wonderful, as well as the long feast afterwards. Then we cleaned up, napped a little bit and drove uptown for a walk on the water.


Looking at the "big bugs", otherwise known as turtles-







At the end of the day I found James in bed, like this-



I guess we wore him out.
Thanks Joe and Darcee!