C'est Moi

Last night I was talking on the phone to one of my best friends, Dr. Murphy. He is part father, part mentor and part friend to Andy and I. In college he taught us Intellectual Heritage, and we have been close ever since. He was there when Andy and I got married, and he was the first person I called when each of our girls were born. Through thick and thin, he has been there. I love him so much.

Andy and his sister got to see Dr. Murphy on their drive to Colorado two and a half years ago, but I haven't seen him in even longer. Last night he asked if I had any pictures of myself online, and I realized that I always post photos of the girls, not me. So today I asked Zoe to take a picture of me, and here it is :-)

In other news, I am busy working on my next cookbook, even on weekends. It seems when you love what you do, it's very hard to stop "working." ;-) This is a photo of a cake and glaze for the next Spunky cookbook. I took it to a baby blessing a week ago, and it got rave reviews, even from half of the crowd who are not on any type of restricted diet. Yay!

Now to have a glass of wine and watch some 30Rock with my love.

XOXO, Kelly

snacks on the porch & two new haircuts

I don't know what the weather was like while we were sick all last week, but the past few days since we've been better have been phenomenal. We have been eating lunch and dinner out on the porch.

Also, I gave the girls new haircuts, that I think look pretty good considering I'm not a professional =)
I know this last one isn't a great picture, I just included it so I could show you how I stacked Ashley's hair in the back. It gets really knotted back there, so this is perfect for her.
Well, it may snow tomorrow—that's Colorado for you—short sleeves & flip-flops one day, snowing the next. I absolutely love it =)

40's records & 40's inspired dresses

Andy and I love going to thrift stores and looking for records.

This is our record player (that I bought Andy when we were engaged 8 years ago) from Restoration Hardware. Andy likes to say that the great thing about it is, "It's so low-tech, when the girls break it, I can just open it up and fix it with a pair of pliers." haha

Our 10 year old neighbor came over one day, and when he saw the record player he exclaimed, "What is this thing? You can see it
moving?"

Check out the great box sets we got last weekend! Half off that day too!

The Swing Years, 1936 - 1946

and The Unforgettable Glenn Miller, 72 of his greatest
Original Recordings

Then I was fortunate enough to find these two 40's inspired dresses on Amazon, and use my Amazon credit to buy them for the girls.

How much do I wish they were my size?!

By the way, the pearls were all Zoe's doing. They look so cute with this dress too.

Here are a few close-ups because I am so crazy about them =)

Really, really wish they were my size... Kind of April Cornell,
but retro ;-)

sand and a mask

It's been too cold yet for the water table, so...

I bought a bag of play sand (for less than $4!),
and tried on the mask my mom sent...

I love how wild and colorful it is =)

an unexpected discovery

As I mentioned on our food blog, the girls and I took a nice walk this morning. We used to walk or bike this paved path across the street from us (that goes for miles in two directions) before it began snowing last fall. Then I just figured the trail was buried under snow and ice, and I would have to wait for spring. Come to find out—It's completely snow free and dry. I think the city plows it with a little tractor, like the ones they use on the sidewalk in our neighborhood.

I ran this by Andy (the city clearing the trail), and he thought, no way they plow it. But then I told him we got off the trail and onto a sidewalk for a while, and the sidewalk was covered in snow and ice! So, I think they do remove it. How cool is that? If only I had known... Oh, well.

On top of the excitement of the dry paved path, was the animal tracks everywhere in the snow on either side in the open space. So neat. Tiny tracks and big tracks—Mice, bird, prairie dog, rabbit, and coyote tracks. And, we saw this really interesting bird, which Zoe found in the bird book when we got home. It's called a belted kingfisher. Since I was completely unprepared, without binoculars or a camera, I found a photo of it online:

photo from firefly forest

This bird had a mohawk of feathers that it flaunted wildly when it sang it's monkey-like call. I've never seen such a cool bird, except maybe the heron—I love heron. But heron are very shy and quiet while this bird was loud and boisterous.

As if the mile we walked each way this morning wasn't enough, the girls and I were back outside hanging out just before dinner, when it was getting cold. That's when I took the top two photos. Believe it or not, Zoe wore nothing but jeans, a t-shirt and a short-sleeved princess dress over top on our walk this morning. Crazy how the temperature changes so quickly here.

Love, Kelly

Click and press the play button to hear this bird.

playing in the snow fort

playing in the snow