Le Cafe De Paris Part Deux

This past Saturday we decided to drive over to downtown Boise and spend some family time together. First we went to Powell's Sweet Shoppe This is Hannah's favorite place to go on a Saturday. She loves to go look at all of the candy and pick out whatever she wants (within a price range of course). Then we drove over the brand new Parkcenter Bridge. Exciting huh? We then took a fun little drive into the foothills near Tablerock and discovered a neighborhood with an amazing view of the entire Treasure Valley. The ride eventually led us to the downtown area near the State Capitol building. We decided to go get some ice cream. We were trying to go to a place called "Moon's Kitchen". Moon's has delicious milkshakes. We walked to where we knew it was and discovered that it had moved. So, we walked over to it's new location and discovered that it had already closed for the day. Well this helped to spur our decision to retry a place that Sam and I had been to once before. The place that I am speaking of is tLe Cafe De Paris. On Valentines Day, Sam and I had quite the experience when we ate at this restaurant. If you haven't already, you can read about that experience here. Well, the main reason that we went there for Valentines Day was because of their desserts. So we decided to try and just get dessert from their bakery.

When we were walking into the restaurant pushing our stroller with our kids in tow I had a strange feeling. The thought came into my head "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me" This made me a bit apprehensive about our choice but then I thought 'what could go wrong? We're just getting some dessert from the bakery." We even decided to eat it outside on the patio next to the restaurant since the restaurant kind of has a hoity toity feel to it. Well, our purchases went quite smoothly. The prices were next to the desserts so we knew what we were in for as far as that goes this time. I ordered a Napoleon, which is similar to baklava in that it has paper-thin layers of pastry and cream, but instead of being drizzled with honey and nuts it has raspberry cream and powdered sugar. Sam ordered a very decadent piece of creamy chocolate pie and we ordered a chocolate croissant for the girls. We also ordered a sprite and an apple juice. ( You may be thinking, Sara, why are you telling the reader every single little thing you ordered. Just be patient Padawon, you shall know all in time.) We went outside with our little dessert treasures. We sat at a table that was just big enough for the four of us to squeeze around. I parked Ava in her stroller with the brakes on next to our table. We were just pulling out straws for our drinks when we had an unexpected, visitor. A seemingly innocent hornet flew in to examine our sweets. We, however were not in a sharing mood. The bee hovered determinedly by Elise's ear. I swatted it away. It came right back. Sam swatted it away. It came RIGHT BACK. At this point, we decided to cede our position to the bee and move to a different table. However, we still had to get away from the bee without being stung and that bee really seemed to want our treats. Sam managed to get Hannah and Elise out of their seats, all the while Hannah was slurping down the apple juice she was supposed to be sharing with Elise and screaming about the bee. I was trying to shield my family from the bee and trying to move Ava's stroller that I had so studiously set the brakes on earlier. I could not get that stroller to move and the bee was now on the attack. As this battle with the bee was commencing we were scrambling in the doorway of the restaurant. There was a couple standing on the sidewalk watching us try to get away from the bee. They were just trying to get inside the restaurant. Anyway, back to the battle, since I couldn't get the stroller moving in a timely fashion, Sam grabbed Ava's blanket and stepped in to shield me from the bee. He started swatting and swinging at the hornet with a yellow blankie while I herded the children to another table. I glanced back and saw Sam's size 8 and half sneaker come smashing down on the bee. Westbrooks 1, Bee 0. We thought that was that. Sam got out of the way so that the other patrons could go into the Cafe and they looked at us like we were daft. We settled in at another table that was at the opposite end of the patio from where the bee had been. We got out our desserts. Hannah gave the apple juice, which now only had a couple of sips left, to Elise. Sam and I got out our drink and realized that our straw had been a casualty of the bee battle. We got out our napkins and were just determining the best way to get a bite of our desserts with our flimsy plastic forks when (sung dramatically, DUN, Dun, dun) what to our eyes should appear, but a BEE! Our bee battle was not over. The hornet's last act had been to send for reinforcements as he saw Sam's shoe barreling down. We rapidly decided that our dessert would taste best in the safety and security of our own home. We threw our desserts back into the box and hustled ourselves away from Le Cafe De Paris. Westbrooks 1, Bee 1. The bee did not win, for the war is not over. The bee did not defeat us, we have not been beaten! We will conquer the bee and the meek shall inherit the patio!

World Cup Qualifier

Do I look patriotic? I should. I was on my way to a World Cup Qualifier. The Real Salt Lake Stadium is in the back ground. Over Labor day weekend Sam and the Kids and I headed down to Salt Lake to see some family, friends, and to go to the game.

We had great seats. We were in a corner of the stadium near one of the goals. We were only about 12 rows up from the field. It was so cool to see the National team players so close up. It felt like I could just get out on the field and run too. Note that I did not say that I could get out on the field and kick the ball...that would not have happened. That ball moves way too fast!
Notice all of the lighter blue behind us. Those people were not U.S. fans they were El Salvador fans and there were a lot of them! It seemed like the crowd was about 50/50. There were some die hard fans out there. Especially these guys.
If you look closely you can see Michael Phelps, the Statue of Liberty, Uncle Sam, Captain America, Daniel Boone and even an Astronaut. This should give you a little perspective on what the atmousphere was like in the stadium. And these guys weren't even sitting with Sam's Army. For those of you who don't know, Sam's army always sits behind the goal and they dress super patriotically and sing songs and do chants for the entire game. I didn't get a picture of Sam's Army but they had a guy who played the trumpet and a guy who played the trombone to accompany there songs. It was so fun to hear and join in with the crowd chanting U-S-A while trying to drowned out "SALVADOR"!


Here are a couple more die hard soccer fans that I happened to be sitting with.

You might be wondering who won but all you have to do is take one look at Sam and his good friend Cory's faces and you will be able to tell who were the victors!
We also were lucky enough to be able to spend the afternoon with Cory, Carolyn and their cute kids. Their three children are almost the exact same ages as ours, which means that fun was had by all. It was so great to see the Hansens again. It was like old times only with a whole lot more kids!
We also went to temple square while we were in Salt Lake. This sculpture is near the Joseph Smith Memorial building.
A nice lady took our family photo at the reflector pool.

Sam took this photo. He loves taking pictures of the landscape and the buildings when he goes to temple square. Believe me, there are many more pictures from where this one came from.
A street performer, who was counting his dollar bills as we came walking by, offered to take this picture for us.
Here's my little Hannah, after riding in the car all day, looking on, with the Christus in the background.
And here's Elise, sitting comfortably in front of some beautiful flowers. This was right after she stepped off the path into the dirt. She really wanted to play in that dirt and pick all of the flowers.

After we went to Temple Square we walked over to the Gateway mall where we met my wonderful cousin Holly and her kind husband Blake and there cute kids for dinner. All in all we had a wonderful time. A special thanks to my mom for watching our kids for us while we were at the soccer game!

Ole!

Sometimes it's fun to take some pictures on a beautiful Sunday morning.
My girls absolutely love their "Mexico" dresses so it isn't to difficult to get them to pose.

Ava is still new to posing so I held her in this picture to help her out :o).

INTERUPTED BY KANYE...ARG!

"I know you just had a baby and all, an I'm gonna let yo finish but..."
http://sociala.e-subversive.net/kanyewest_fb/draw/w950/259/51.jpg

Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!

I've always thought that "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" was a very catchy campaign slogan and being the Political Science geek that I am I thought that I would share with you a bit of history today....just kidding! Well, I'm not kidding about being a Political Science geek but I am kidding about the history lesson. For some reason whenever I try to think of a title for my blog entry that slogan almost always pops into my head so I just decided to use that title for this post. Okay, enough rambling. If you are curious about this title give this link a try and you will learn something new or have your history class memories that you so successfully repressed renewed. :o)

Ava is almost 4....months that is!

This is for Amma and Grandma Polly. Enjoy!

A Way Cool Recipe Website and a Delicious Recipe

Have any of you heard of this website http://www.supercook.com/? It is definitely my new favorite. You can enter what ingredients you have and then the website will find you recipes to match your ingredients. The other great thing about this website is that a lot of the recipes have the Nutrition Facts (i.e. how many calories, vitamins etc). How cool is that? At first when I was searching the website yesterday I thought hmm it would be so good to make some chicken with a ritz cracker crust. I found some recipes but then when I saw that one serving of chicken had over 700 calories I became very thankful that this site has the nutritional information. Instead I tried a different recipe from the site yesterday and the food turned out delicious! Here is the recipe with some of my own modifications. I'll put my modification is parenthesis or italics. If you want to see a picture (I was too hungry to take one) then you can look up the recipe on supercook. It is listed under 123 Chicken. Without further ado, here is the recipe.

4 bonless skinless chicken breasts
2-3 medium potatoes
2-3 carrots
5 Fresh Beets
a dozen pearl onions
Italian Dressing (I used a Light Balsamic dressing that had WAY less calories then regular Italian Dressing)

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
2. Dry the chicken breasts and then lay them in the baking dish.
3. Cut the potatoes into cubes and the carrots at an angle for faster cooking. Cut the beets in half (depending on their size). Place vegetables around the chicken wherever there is space.
4. Pour the dressing over the entire pan of chicken and vegetables making sure the chicken gets well coated.
5. Add about an 1/8 of a cup of water around the edges of the pan; cover tightly with foil and bake 40-45 minutes.

This is great served with some tasty rolls.

Enjoy!

Hannah Threw a Party

Have your kids ever just decided that they are going to have a party? Hannah tries to do this quite frequently. She makes invitations and everything. In fact just last week she made invitations for Donald, Daisy, Goofy, Mickey, and Minnie. She wrote all of their names on their invitations and had an imaginary party. However, not all of her parties are imaginary. A few weeks ago Hannah decided she wanted to invite all of her friends over for a party. Unfortunately, for Hannah's party plans, I didn't feel like inviting all of her friends over and told her accordingly. Hannah was unabashed. She decided to have a party and invite our family instead. She got out a leftover party invitation from a party that she had been invited to and wrote all of our names on it. She then told all of us that the party was on Saturday. I didn't think much of it until Friday night. She had a hard time going to sleep because she was so excited about the party. I realized then that we really were going to have a party. So Saturday morning Hannah, Elise and I woke up and made Princess party crowns. Hannah cut them all out. She even made a crown for daddy and one for Ava. Then we colored our crowns. Then Hannah told me what we were going to have for our party food. We had crackers, cheese, and salmon spread along with cranberry juice. Hannah also had some party games planned. When daddy woke up we had a fun family party together. The girls were in party heaven! Sam, who is vastly outnumbered was a good sport and wore his blue "prince" crown like a real trooper. Here's to my little budding party planner! I love you Hannah!

Hannah's first day of Kindergarten

The day before school started our whole family went in to meet Hannah's teacher. This was also a good opportunity for Hannah to get more familiar with the school. She got to see where her seat was and see some of the other kids that were going to be in her class. She was extremely excited. Here she is just before she entered her classroom for the first time.

When it came time for Hannah's actual first day I don't know who was more excited her or Elise and I don't know who was more anxious me, or Sam. Hannah is in the afternoon and she thought the time would never come to leave. Here are Hannah and Elise posing to head out the door.

We all went and saw her to the outside door of her class room. Hannah was so pumped to just march into that classroom and start learning. Elise was pretty sure that she was going to school too so she was ready with her backpack and everything.
The minute we got there (which was early of course) Hannah tried to go right in. She was raring to go. Sam and I on the other hand, crowded in with all of the other parents to give one last hug and get one last photo.

When Mrs. Emory, Hannah's teacher, came and opened the door for the kids to come in you would have thought that Tom Cruise was arriving on the red carpet. The flashbulbs were popping and the kids were smiling as they all marched into there classroom and didn't look back. What an independent little class. Not one of the kids cried or even looked nervous.

The same could not be said for the parents. I kept thinking about how this is the end of such an important phase in Hannah's life and the beginning of another very important phase. I miss her so much every day when she's gone but I know that she is where she needs to be and that she will excel.

Want to win a free book?

Hey all of you fellow book lovers, want to win a great book? All you have to do is hurry over to this link and leave one of the first 25 comments. The book that you have the chance to get is an autographed copy of "Alvor". I have blogged about this book before but I will give you a little refresher. "Alvor" is a Young Adult Fantasy novel about a set of twins who happen on a strange and magical land. I highly recommend it and hope you hurry over to the site so that you can get a free copy. Good Luck!

Introducing...Ava Sara!

Our Sweet little Ava arrived on June 3rd at 9:38 a.m. She weighed in at 8 lbs. 6 oz. and was 20 1/2 inches long.
Here I am waiting for her to come. Thankfully, I didn't have to wait too long. I was induced. The doctor broke my water at 8 am and Ava was born just over an hour and a half later. I had just enough time for the epidural to kick in and then here she came! She was ready to enter the world. And we were ready to welcome her!



Here is Sam chatting with Ava for the first time.

Hannah is a very proud big sis as she holds Ava for the first time! Hannah and Elise just can't get enough of baby Ava! They want to hold her and touch her and lay by her constantly. Every day Elise says "oh, you're such a good baby. We have a cute baby!"
My mom was able to come to the hospital to see Ava. She was such a huge help! She watched the girls for us while I was in labor and then she came and sat and held Ava in my hospital room while I slept, and slept and slept the afternoon away!
Here are Ava and I getting ready for the journey home from the hospital.
This is Ava's favorite way to sleep...cuddled up with Daddy!
Can you see the love in Elise's eyes? She just adores little Ava!

Hannah is also thrilled to have little Ava as part of our family. She is a big help to me and even helps get Ava to sleep sometimes.
We are so excited to have you in our family, Ava! We love you so much! You are a very calm little soul. You seem to be very observant, taking everything in! Welcome to the Westbrooks, Ava Sara!