Recent happenings

Charlie LOVES gnocchi and so I decided to make some.  Trader Joes actually has some dehydrated ones but I thought "It can't be that difficult, can it?"

Well, Bobby suggested the whole "fork technique" to make those lines on the gnocchi.  Well, it didn't work very well:

In the end, I just rolled it up into like a long snake and cut them up into 1" slices.  If anything, it was much quicker!

We normally pan-fry the store bought gnocchi with butter.  So, we did the same with these... boil first then pan-fry.  But you know what, funny enough just the boiled ones actually tasted better!

I was looking for some Chinese New Year candy at the local Korean supermarket.  I guess I should have known that a Korean market will not have any Chinese stuff. Ha ha! But they do have Japanese dumpling wrappers - so technically, you just never know, do you??! :-P
For lunch, I decided to order this claypot dish at the restaurant inside the supermarket.  Yummy! It did take me a while to eat as the claypot kept everything super hot for a really long time:

At another recent food outing, I met up with a friend for lunch at a Vegan restaurant.  I had a pita with "meatless" ground beef and as you can see, LOTS of veggies!

 

And my friend had a selection of 4 items/veggies.  I don't know how she ate those collard greens, but she did!

I've been taking some art training to teach Charlie's class.  What do you think of my seahorse? The technique is called Repousse, although with an accent on the last e.  I can't seem to figure out how to do it on my keyboard!  Help anyone??!  Anyway, you sort of "stretch" the metal foil to make bumps and valleys.  The adults had a tough time during the training so think about how I am going to explain this to a whole bunch of 7 and 8 year olds! Ha ha!!!

And as if there isn't enough stuff to do around the house, my fancy glass door knob broke off!  Somehow Bobby managed to break it off when he was using the boys' bathroom:

I taped it up with blue tape because there was a really sharp edge on the back part where it had broken off.  Well, too late! Bobby cut himself!  We were pretty close to calling 911 since it was sort of an emergency... but after putting on the bandaid, everything was just fine:

Ha ha, who is my big baby!  I don't think he was anywhere close to the time when I actually stabbed myself with a screwdriver :-P

Still trying to sort out the backyard.  I bought a metal shelf recently.  This is what happens when you drop off some things to donate and end up walking into the donation store after:

I think it will clear up some of the mess.  Okay, still yet to put all that stuff on top of the counter away.  If anything, at least now Bobby and Graham knows where the battery and charger is for the weed-whacker!

So, here's our next project - planting corn and edamame!

In the meantime, I am trying to reclaim our living space.  Boys have put their sleeping bag down and made a cave with the couch pillows:

I recently found this photo that was posted by a school photographer.  And I am just imagining Charlie doing this exact pose when I tell him I want my living space back.  And he is going to reply... "Awww... and you're going to cry if I don't give it back???"

Ahhh... joys with my boys!