Long Absence!

Please excuse the long absence! We've been busy here at Patterson Place!

The first big thing that has been dominating our household is Daniel's Comprehensive Exams for his PhD program! Thankfully we have made it through and now will await his scores! Emma and I are so proud of Daniel! It was a happy sacrifice knowing that our man will be better equipped to serve the Kingdom by adding much to the sum of his knowledge!

Another gigantic thing that has kept me from posting Emma's 9 month update is that Daniel and I were both down this weekend with a terrible bout of food poisoning. I'm still a little weak in recovering, but our valiant Daniel was so manly all weekend taking care of us and is back at work today! He's giving me the courage I need to get out of bed and take care of our Emma and run our home today. We couldn't have made it without my sweet, generous Mom who came on her day off (after having been awakened early in the morning by my desperate phone call) to take care of Emma (and us) all day! And Dad who called his friend Dr. Love who called us in a prescription that Daddy picked up for us. We are one blessed family! And now, blessedly, we are back on our feet. We "entertained" Daniel's poor family who came to visit in the midst of our sickness. They were so gracious while we were so ill and probably poor company.

I'll reward everyone's patience with my blog absence with a few darling photos of Emma from a few weeks ago when we had a little snow accumulation.

{MSP}

8 months old!

Sweet baby Emma is 8 months old!!!

I recently posted about what all Emma is up to these days. Sweet petite lady is just starting to wear 6-9 month clothes and is still in a size 2 diaper. Emma does eat some solid foods. We've just begun blueberries and broccoli (but not together of course). Emma prefers veggies to fruits at this point. So, we're always more likely to get her to eat some sweet potatoes than apples. This mama is happy about that! 

Emma loves to chit chat with me all day long. She wakes up sing-song talking to herself and will let out a little "Ba" to get someone's attention with whom she wishes to "coverse". She is blowing raspberries and loves to try out new sounds and volumes. 

Emma loves to sit up and play with her playtime vanity set. I think she loves that it lights up and makes songs. Emma is just learning how to pull her bows off. Much to mommy's chagrin...but she's beautiful enough without the bows!

Please note Emma's Piggy Paint pedicure!

Still no teeth in this baby girl's smile, and no crawling yet. She can scoot around somehow though, because she can shimmy around, but no real crawling yet. I don't mind either of those things, and am so proud of our little Emma's growth, development, and accomplishments! We love our little Emma!

{MSP}

The Littlest Sous Chef

Baby Emma is the most darling Sous Chef that ever lived! My little under-chef is so helpful in the kitchen...and by that I mean she is so helpful to play with her toys at the doorway of the kitchen!

Lately we have baked a little bit of bread (sorry no photo, but you can imagine what a loaf of bread looks like). I left my loaf pans at Mom's house, so I had to use a piece of Corningware instead of two loaf pans. That's ok--who doesn't love gigantic bread? So we had chicken sandwiches with pesto and mozzarella. Yummy!

I also tried my hand at parisian macaroons! They were fabulous! This is the recipe I used. They turned out great. I put some red food coloring in half of the batter to turn it pink. For the filling in the pink macaroons I used strawberry jam. Very delicious and a big hit! For the other half of the batter I used a concoction of various food colors to yield a grayish brown and I used a chocolate ganache for the filling. Scrumptious!

Side note: for the macaroons in this photo I ground my own almonds. When I made them again I bough ground almond flour/meal from Whole Foods. Talk about a time saver! I highly recommend buying it already ground! But, if you choose not to, it's just as yummy ground in my food processor!

To be honest I wasn't sure I'd be up to the task of something like this kind of confectionary, but I was and they were delicious! Glad I had my baby sous chef for moral support!

Happy cooking!

{MSP}