Spring Break

I always look forward to Spring Break. I love spending every waking moment with Mike. That must mean I really like him, huh? The Lowe family Spring Break could never be complete without a little family time. Dirk and Marissa planned the blessing of their sweet baby, Jane Elizabeth Black, the first weekend in March so we drove down to Birmingham, Alabama to share in the festivities.

Jane is the sweetest baby. She seriously slept 98% of the time I saw her. I guess that's what newborns do best. Although, from my foggy memories of Jonah as a newborn I seem to recall believing he never slept and I would never sleep an entire night through again.


Jonah had a great time seeing Grandma and Grandpa and playing with Dirk. He was very sweet to baby Jane the majority of the time. I think he might have taken a swing at her once or twice, but for the most part he was a good cousin.

Grandpa and Grandma took us to the Birmingham Zoo. It was the perfect little zoo for Jonah. I think he walked everywhere we went.

He absolutely loved seeing the animals, but I think the highlight of the trip for him was riding the little train. Jonah loves his wooden trains at home and I think he just couldn't believe his eyes when he saw a big train he could ride on. He was very serious during the train ride; I think he was just trying to soak in all of the glory of the train. Towards the end he pointed to the front engine (my mind is blanking at the moment as to what the correct train terminology is) and said, very seriously, "Choo Choo."
After we got off he wanted to inspect the train.

Here are some more zoo pictures:



We took him to the petting zoo, but he was more interested in the rakes than the sheep and the goats.

After we left Alabama, we came right back to Bloomington so Mike could interview for IU's Ph.D. program and he got in! We are in the midst of making a final decision, so stay tuned.
Instead of taking off for another far-away destination, we took day trips to see some of the sights in Indiana we had been meaning to explore.
We went to the Indianapolis Children's Museum:



We also went to an organic dairy farm near Indianapolis:




We had fun eating ice cream, being chased by chickens, and learning a little bit more about the organic food process.
I also just have to post some pictures of my sweet baby boy. He is seriously so much fun. He makes me laugh everyday.

Here he is "helping mom with the dishes." Notice how he's picked out all of the knives and shoved them through the rack all in a nice, neat row?

And, here he is watching Bob the Builder with his very own little plumbers crack.
Until next time!

Our Little Italy

Our family has been spending a lot of time in the kitchen lately. Here are some of our latest exploits:
Jonah loves making smoothies with Mike. Let's be honest, it's probably the drinking part that he enjoys the most. He still hasn't quite figured out how to drink out of a big boy cup, but the mess it part of the fun too:


My friend Allison and I are both huge fans of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. This sounds completely lame, but it changed my life. We decided to make mozzarella cheese just like her. So, we bought kits online and made mozzarella together.


There were a few scary moments when we thought we had ruined the whole thing, but all in all, I'd consider our first try a success. Here's our final product:

Fresh balls of Mozzarella!! Next time, we'll use our cheese cloths so we can end up with a little more cheese. Oops. I'm excited to try the recipe with nonfat dry milk powder from my food storage. That night we got together to make pizza with our mozzarella. It was yummy.
Tonight for dinner, Mike and I were craving calzones. Having never made them before, we kind of winged it. Mike was so impressed with how HUGE they turned out that he wanted to take a picture and have me post them here.



The kitchen aside, we are doing great. Mike got accepted to Texas A&M's Ph.D. program and we are still waiting to hear from IU.

The more we hear about College Station and the Aggies the more excited we get. But, it makes us sad to think about leaving Bloomington so IU is definitely still in the running. We'll let you know about our final decision.

Take a Walk with Me...

down memory lane that is. My little sister posted these pictures on facebook for the whole world to see and I thought I'd share them with you here. Yes, please feel free to LAUGH (at my clothes, my hair, my teeth), CRY (at my once natural platinum blonde hair) or SMILE (as you remember just how silly you looked when you were 6 years old).

Me, Dirk, and Kelli at Yellowstone. I am donning my favorite cabbage patch doll shirt with REAL yarn hair.

Me in all my Easter morning glory. I am gnawing on a giant piece of candy. According to my little sister Kelli, this is the "best picture" of me ever. I sure hope not.

Halloween: I am a sorceress. I think this is the closest I ever came to being anything slightly scary for Halloween. I was such a girly girl when I was little.

Another Easter picture. How much more frilly could my dress possibly get?

Kelli and me on her birthday. I loved Aladdin just about as much as she did, so you can only imagine how excited I was for her to get that doll. I remember telling my mom, "I will never get sick of watching Aladdin." I watched it every day for a year.

I had to save the best picture for last. When I say the best, I really mean the best "ugly" picture of all. You can't beat leather boots with scrunchy socks, glasses with ONE bifocal lens (to keep my lazy eye from being so darn lazy), a hideous primary colors bag, and baggy shorts with my shirt tucked in.
And, there ladies and gentleman, you have me in all my glory...well, almost. Heaven forbid Kelli Jo ever get a hold of my even uglier junior high years.

Christmas Time and Beyond

It's about time we updated everyone on our Christmas season, and what we've been up to since coming home. We did actually get a Christmas tree this year, even though I knew our time to enjoy it would be short lived, I just couldn't pass it up. We went to Hunter's Honey Farm in Martinsville to cut our own. Unfortunately, all of the trees were pretty much dead, but we decided to cut one down anyway since we'd driven all that way. In the midst of our trying to find the most perfectly dead Christmas tree of all, Jonah kept pointing and blabbing.


I thought, "This kid really has an opinion on what Christmas tree we should get."
Come to find out, Jonah had spotted a tractor and was trying to get our attention.

Daddy let Jonah ride on the tractor and our little boy could not have been happier about finally getting his way.


Our Christmas break started on December 15 when we flew out to Utah. We spent a few days there with my family before coming to California to celebrate Christmas. Now, we've gotten snow in Indiana...

Here's a picture of Jonah with his very first snowball in Indiana. He learned to say "snow" but it comes out more like "mow" (so cute).
And, here is Jonah playing with Daddy and Uncle Nathan in Utah in "real" snow.



After spending time in Utah, we flew to California for Christmas. It was so fun to see all of Mike's family and to see Jonah experiencing some time with his cousins.
Here's Jonah on Christmas Day.


While in California, we also made a trip down to Monterey to go to the aquarium. Jonah loved all of the cool sea creatures that he got to touch. He also discovered how to make a "fishy face" while watching the fish swim.


After two weeks with the Lowes, we headed back to Utah for another week with the Blacks. We played in the snow some more. Michael built two pretty awesome snow caves/igloos.

We had our annual "Bake Your Buns Off Bake Off" in which my mom starred as the honored judge. Here's a picture of all of the delicious desserts and almost all those that participated.

After a stiff competition, Marissa won with her absolutely amazing chocolate raspberry cake.
We had such an incredible time over Christmas break and seriously could never get enough of our family. It's always sad to come home.
Mike and I had another trip ahead of us to look forward to in January. For my birthday/Christmas present, Mike bought me tickets to Wicked in Chicago. These weren't just ANY tickets though. These were front and center, Elphaba singing, "defying gravity" in your face tickets. We saw the show this past Thursday at the Ford Oriental Theatre.

It is a beautifully ornate theatre.

The show was MAGICAL. SUPERB. FABULOUS. Pretty much every superlative you can think of. Thanks to my good friend Katie Quinn Anderson and her family for letting us stay with them and for watching our cranky baby. :)

It was fun to catch up and see Katie's new baby boy Mark. What a cutie!!
Oh, I also ordered a pair of rain boots from Target for my birthday and I just can't pass up posting this picture of Jonah. When I told him to "Smile" this was the goofy face he made.

Whew! And, I think that's it. Our blog is officially caught up, and I'm blog-guilt free.

I Love Thai Chicken Pizza!!

I realize that I have yet to post an update about our amazing month-long Christmas break (Hip-Hip-Hooray for being an MBA student), but I just have to post my new favorite recipe. I got this Thai Chicken Pizza recipe from my friend Megan Whiting about a month ago, and tonight was our second time making it.

Mike's friend from school, Dian, came over with her daughter Kaylia,and I taught them how to make pizza. She is going to teach me how to make the Indonesian version of chicken noodle soup sometime soon, so we're sort of doing a hands-on recipe swap. We made a pesto pizza with tomato, goat cheese, and chicken (which is also fabulous) and this pizza.
Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Thai Chicken Pizza
Peanut Sauce:
1/4 c. creamy peanut butter
2 T. Hoisin sauce (I did not include this when we made it because I haven't been able to find it)
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 T. granulated sugar
2 T. brown sugar
2 T. water
2 tsp. sesame oil (or canola oil)
2 T. soy sauce
1 1/2 tsp. minced onion
1 tsp. minced ginger-root

Mix above ingredients in microwave safe bowl. Pour this mixture into blender and blend for 15 seconds or until mostly smooth. Pour back into bowl and microwave for 1 minute. The peanut sauce should be darker now. At this point, you can add more sesame oil to achieve desired consistency.

Toppings:
1 cup cooked, chopped chicken
1 1/2 c. grated mozzarella
1-2 green onions, sliced (you could also try using thinly sliced red onion instead)
1/4 c. grated carrot
2 tsp. minced cilantro
1 T. chopped peanuts

Spread peanut sauce onto prepared pizza crust. Sprinkle 1 c. mozzarella, onion, chicken, carrots, cilantro, nut, and then the rest of the mozzarella. Bake pizza for 10-15 minutes at 425 degrees, or until edges of crust turn golden brown.

Here's the pizza crust recipe I use (thanks to Mike's mom) just in case you don't have one you like:

Pizza Crust
1 1/2 c. warm water
1 pkg. yeast (2 1/4 tsp.)
2 tsp. salt
3 T. Oil
31/2 - 4 C. flour, enough to make a stiff dough

Dissolve yeast in water. Add other ingredients and knead for 8 minutes. I actually don't let the dough rise at all, so pizza night is actually pretty time friendly. I just plop the dough on a cookie sheet on which I've drizzled olive oil and sprinkled corn meal and use my hands to roll it out. Then put your toppings on and bake it up.