Whirlwind Las Vegas

This past week Robert and I paid a whirlwind visit to Sin City. We left our kids behind in Houston with some great friends (thanks again, guys!) and off we flew to meet my parents. My dad's birthday is this month and we thought a trip to Vegas would be a great way to celebrate. It was too bad that more of the family couldn't come, but we still had a great time. We were only there for 44 hours, but we packed in as much as possible. When we landed at 7:35 in the morning, Mom and Dad whisked us off to their resort and we had a great buffet breakfast. I might as well warn you now, if you don't already know, that my life revolves around good food so this trip was a ton of fun for me. After breakfast we went and visited some friends, checked into our room at Mandalay Bay, and got ready for our night. First up, we went to Hubert Keller's Burger Bar in Mandalay Bay. It was pretty good. It was a fun atmosphere, but I think I didn't let loose enough and really order something fun so it was just another burger. After that we drove over to the Venetian and saw Phantom of the Opera.
A small confession: we forgot our camera that night so this is us the next day getting some photographic proof we were there. Anyway, this was my second time and Robert's first time seeing Phantom. It was so good! I was amazed at the costumes and the stage effects. We were on the sixth row so we saw everything up close. It's amazing how much detail goes into those productions. The stage wasn't very big and I was so skeptical when we were seated. I wondered how they were going to pull off some of the big scenes in such a small space. I was so wrong! It amazed me. Robert and I would look at each other and ask, "How did they do that?" One part in particular baffled me. In the musical there is a part where the Phantom hangs a man. You could see the two actors struggling the the background as the Phantom wrapped the noose around his neck. Then the Phantom pushes the man over some stage scaffolding. It was so convincing I had to look away. I don't know how they switched the man to the dummy so quickly. There wasn't any smoke or screening at all. Speaking of smoke and screening, Vegas doesn't do anything small. There was a lot of smoke, fire and fireworks. It was really fun.

Of course the main focus of the show for us was the music. I get goose bumps listening to it. I am so grateful for people with amazing talent. We loved the Phantom, Carlotta and Raoul. The night we saw it the understudy for Christine performed. She did a good job but she was hard to hear at first. She had to get warmed up a bit. Overall, worth every cent. It was fun to see it with my parents and be there with Robert his first time.

After the show mom and dad dropped us back at our hotel and they went back to theirs. We thought the night was young and went and walked around a bit. Sadly, when you don't drink, gamble, club or want to spend a ton of money, there's not a lot to do in Vegas at night. We were still stuffed from dinner and we've been to Vegas many times before so we've seen pretty much all of the strip. We were back in our hotel room by 11. Kinda lame.

We slept in the next morning and mom and dad picked us up at 11. We ate some wonderful pastries from mom and dad's resort and decided to walk around Caesar's Palace and The Forum Shops until our lunch reservation at Mesa Grill.
Two years ago for my sister's dental school graduation we went to have dinner at Mesa Grill. Robert couldn't come that time due to work and school so he has never eaten there. I came home raving. He was really bummed he missed it so he bought me the Mesa Grill cookbook and I've recreated many of the recipes. It's still not the same as eating there. Robert will even admit that he has a bit of a man-crush on Bobby Flay because his food is so amazing. For those reasons, this was one of the major parts of our vacation.
We decided we would go for broke. We may never be able to dine there again so we were going to get as much out of it as possible. Let me tell you, we did. Our reservation was at one and we didn't eat again until the next morning at 8 am.

Robert's appetizer was the chicken and black bean quesadilla with guacamole and fried garlic chips. Amazing.
Dad's was a spicy tuna tartar. It was served with blue corn chips. Honestly, the best tuna tartar I've ever had. It was spicy and refreshing. I had a bit of order envy.
Mom got the tiger prawn and sweet corn tamale. It was really good, but our least favorite appetizer. When I say least favorite I mean it was the least spectacular of spectacular. Nothing was not worth eating again and again.
I ordered the blue corn pancake was roasted duck in an anise sauce. I am not a fan of anise, but this was really understated and sweet. I'm really glad I tried it. I love duck so I was willing to see if I'd like the anise flavor anyway. It just goes to show that things you think you don't really like, if done well, can be delicious.
My mom's entree was a honey glazed salmon with black bean puree and sauteed spinach. I actually made this at home for Valentine's Day. It is sooo good.
My entree was a Mesa Burger. I've been craving a good, juicy, meaty burger for a long time and this just hit that spot. It was served with a horseradish mustard which just took it over the top. I will think of that burger as the standard for all good, juicy, meaty burgers. It may well have been the best I've ever had. I shared with everyone, of course and Robert got this pouty look after his taste. He apparently had some major order envy.
Not a pretty picture, but it was just so good!
Robert ordered a spice rubbed pork tenderloin sandwich with a chipotle mayo. These sandwiches were huge, but delicious.
I hate this picture, but you've gotta capture the food coma.
Dad's entree was a swordfish club. Need I say more???
As mentioned previously, we completely went for it at this meal. Of course that means dessert! Mom and dad shared a banana cream pie and I got a pear buttermilk upside down cake with spice ice cream. Equally scrumptious.
Unfortunately, Robert's dessert was the best and we didn't get a photo of it. I know, you can't live without another photo of a plate of food. His dessert was a lemon panna cotta with blackberries on top. It was light and perfect as a small, warm weather dessert. It was so good that panna cotta is on my list of "Next Recipe to Master." Needless to say, our meal was fantastic and will rank up there with one of the best in our lifetimes thus far.
Of course you have to have a little fun in Vegas so we all gave Robert a one dollar bill to go crazy with. He is always given just a few bucks and manages to make it substantially more. During his last trip he turned $5 into $40. I know this is really not that big of a deal, but he ALWAYS wins. I've never seen him loose money playing the slots. Anyway, with his second $1 he won $6.50. It isn't a huge win, but how am I supposed to convince him that gambling isn't good when he keeps getting such positive reinforcement??

Our trip ended that evening at 6 pm. Mom and dad dropped us at the airport and as we made it to the gate we saw our flight was delayed for three hours. We sat in the airport for five hours waiting for the next plane to land. We drove into our house at 4:30 am. It was a rough morning when we had to get up at six for a Scout garage sale that Robert was heading up in the ward, but I wouldn't have traded our trip. Spontaneity seems to be something we don't embrace too much. We let rationality lead our lives most of the time so it was really exciting to plan a trip in two weeks time, go and not care about money or kids and just go crazy. I recommend it!

Scarlett's One!

My baby turned one on March 31st. I know everyone says it, but I really don't know where this past year went. She's been such a joy and has brought a sweetness to our home and we've loved every second we've had with her. To celebrate we decided we'd invite a very small group of friends over to have some cake and ice cream. I wanted to make Scarlett a cake decorated with fondant so I called a friend who is so talented with it and she gave me a couple of lessons. The cake took four days to make. The first was making the fondant. The second was coloring the fondant and cutting out the stars and flowers to dry. The third was baking the red velvet cakes and crumb coating them. The fourth was 5 hours of fondant and piping. My friend came over on the fourth day to help me through all the fondant decorating. She was so much help and pointed out things I wouldn't have even thought about. I owe her such a big thank you!

So this is me doing some of the coloring.

We got some pre-party pictures of Scarlett playing in the play tent. She loves crawling through the tube.
I wanted to throw this picture in just for reference. This is the day we brought Scarlett home from the hospital. Incidentally, my favorite pictures of both my kids when they are coming home from the hospital are the ones with their dad holding them. Robert has the same smile in both. He's such a good daddy.
So this is our daughter now, one year later. I can't believe how much she's grown! I think she's just a tiny bit adorable, too.
She had no idea what was going on, but she was really happy. She loved her dollar store party hat so much she loved it to death. I think she actually loved two or three of them to death!
Right before the party started I decided that the cake needed to be a little more girly. I was going for a western/cowgirl sort of look. After all, she's a Texas baby. I didn't think it looked girly enough so I piped on some more butter-cream blossoms. I still don't know if I made it too busy or not.
This is the finished cake. I feel like it's time for confessions here. I still don't know how I feel about it. I worked a ton on it so I am proud of what I did, but I don't know if I love it. I love how creative you can be with cakes, but I really don't know if I hit the nail on the head with this one. Also, as I mentioned above, it's red velvet. I got the recipe online and it was highly rated. Unfortunately, it wasn't very good. I followed the recipe perfectly and tasted it and thought it lacked something but trusted it would bake up to taste better. Nope, it didn't. It was edible, but definitely not a true red velvet cake. None of the kids who came to the party finished their slices. Ouch!
Scarlett blowing out the candle. Actually, here comes another confession, the candle wouldn't light. So we propped a match upright and sang "Happy Birthday!" really quickly. Scarlett loved every second of it and had no idea how lame her parents were.
She ate a fair amount of her birthday cake. I think it's because she'd never had cake and didn't know there could be better!
Does she look like she's had fun???

She got a couple of sweet presents from our friends. A shapes puzzle and a couple of board books. They were so perfect for her and she's still playing with them every day.

So at one Scarlett is 20 pounds and 30 inches long. She crawls so fast it's almost scary. She can walk the length of our living room, but she doesn't have enough confidence to do it without walking toward me. She stands up all on her own and walks all around the house using furniture and walls to help her. She has three teeth all on the bottom and I think they make for an adorable smile. She is almost always happy. She reaches for loves whenever I walk by, loves to play with my lips and eyelashes and has the sweetest laugh that you can hear through the whole house. She is, however, a bit of a diva. She's figured out that whining gets attention (because I want it to stop, not because I'm concerned for her.) She'll be giggling one second and then the next she's face-down spread eagle on the floor throwing a tantrum. If I ignore this, which I usually do, I just watch to make sure she doesn't hurt herself, she works herself into such a tizzy that she'll start crawling in tight circles crying. It looks like a dog chasing it's tail. It gets me every time and I start laughing. She stops immediately and looks at me as if I've wounded her. She'll then start grinning and giggling with me and forget why she was mad in the first place.

One of my favorite things that Scarlett does is the way she smiles for her daddy. If Robert's home when the kids get up I take Scarlett to him to see before he has to go. If she doesn't see him and hears him leave she'll stay by the door he left from and just cry. It's so sad and cute. Her bottom lip juts out and her little nose turns red. I have to hold her and whisper to her that he'll be home for her to calm down. Anyway, when she sees her dad in the morning her whole face lights up. Robert says, "Hey, Honey!" and she just kicks and reaches for him. I love that she's crazy for her dad.

Scarlett loves to be outside and play in the grass. I can't keep the girl clean for the life of me. She sort of reminds me of myself when I was a kid. The dirtier the play, the better. Anyway, she loves to roll balls back and forth with Nate or any other buddy. She's a social little thing and loves to be in groups of people. I think the person she loves most in the world though, is her brother. He can get her smiling and happy faster than anyone else. He can also aggravate her faster than anyone else, but that's just being siblings. They play so well together. Nate wants her to start walking so badly that he holds her hands and walks slowly around the house with her. It makes me so nervous! She has several push toys and Nate will play with her and run around the house with her as she pushes. Their favorite thing is to race. Nate will throw something and they'll both chase after it. Nate always wins unless I tell him to give her a chance, but she couldn't care less. She just wants to play with her brother.

She babbles like crazy. She loves to talk and is always talking. When it's time for bed or naps it's not Nate keeping them up, it's Scarlett. The other night Robert and I stood at the door laughing because she was standing in her crib giving Nate some serious speech. Nate was trying to go to sleep and was asking her to please be quiet. I feel like this was a glimpse into my future. I do love her talking, though. She says "Da da" the most.

This is turning into quite the post, but I want to get everything down because I forget things so fast. Life takes away your memory when you get busy. It just seems like the older I get, the busier I get and I don't think it will ever slow down. I have to remind myself to stop and enjoy the moments of everyday and that is what I'm trying to do now with Scarlett. She's been so good to me from the moment I got pregnant with her. She did make me sick but I was active my whole pregnancy. Some say I played better volleyball when I was pregnant! I didn't gain a ton of weight with her so I felt better during the pregnancy. She was one day late and I was induced and she was born less than 5 hours later. She was out in half a push and I was feeling fantastic. I could have gone home that night. The first night she got home from the hospital she only woke up once during the night to eat. By five weeks she was sleeping through the night completely. In fact, the first night she did that we were on vacation with Robert's parents in San Antonio. We shared a hotel room and I was awake all night worrying that she would wake everyone up when she had to eat. The joke was on me! After that it was like I hadn't even just had a baby. She was so sweet. She smiled and giggled early. She didn't have any acid reflux problems like Nate. She switched from nursing to formula like a dream. This girl has never missed a beat even with every curve ball I throw her. We switched to cow's milk on her birthday and she loves it! Nate took some convincing but she's almost downed an entire gallon by herself in less than a week. I really believe that she was a missing link in our family. We are so happy to have her. She reminds us everyday that life is fun and simple if we let it be. She doesn't sweat the small stuff. I don't know if that will always be her disposition, but it is now and I'm trying to learn from her. We love having her around. What life would be like without her now that we have her I can't imagine. I know Heavenly Father knew what kind of baby I needed when he sent her to me. I thank him every day for her. So here's to a lifetime of more birthdays with Scarlett. We love you baby!

Always a party at our house

I noticed there are a lot of photos of us and the kids that have been recently taken that we haven't done anything with so I thought I would do a post on our small everyday happenings.
Nate is getting really good at t-ball in the backyard. We can't wait to sign him up for baseball this summer if he decides he wants to learn more.
One night for family night we sort of messed around in the office and played guitar and Guitar Hero drums and sang silly songs.
Nate loves music so much. I am so excited that he got into the music magnet at his elementary school. It will be perfect for him!

Scarlett in her Cyndi Lauper outfit. Her Aunt Bec made it for her. I love the zebra skirt with the polka dot leggings. Girls just wanna have fun!
I made Robert's favorite, homemade gnocchi, and I'm getting much better at it. It's a lot of fun to get a little closer to mastering something so yummy.

I know I've posted pics like this before, but I love it when Nate dresses himself. So stylish to wear his church socks with his plaid short and shoes. It's going to be next season's big trend!

One thing that's been a lot of fun for me lately is Nate being so willing to do more around the house. He waters the flowers, empties the silverware, vacuums and, as pictured here, sweeps. I love all the extra help and his really great attitude.

So now you know how the Ross' are keeping it real. We are hard core.