Autumn and Chad

My sweet friends Autumn and Chad Heseltine spent the weekend in Manhattan, showing Autumn's parents and their two sons around the city. They took the red-eye Wednesday night and arrived Thursday morning, then flew home this evening (Sunday) out of Newark. When Autumn made the flight plans, I offered to take her to the airport, since I knew it would be a pain for them to get 4 adults, 2 kids, and all their luggage to the airport inexpensively. John took his Range Rover and I drove his brother's mini van into the city this afternoon and we picked them up at their hotel (the Millenium Hilton, which overlooks Ground Zero downtown).

From the hotel, we went through the Holland Tunnell, over to Hoboken New Jersey to find somewhere to eat lunch. After driving around for a little while, we decided to go somewhere familiar and easy ... we went to Houlihan's in Weehawken and had a nice relaxing lunch!

Terri, Xander, and Ron (Autumn's parents and her 8 month old son)

Dallas - Autumn's 12 year old son who just started 7th grade

I told Reagan to say "cheese" and she did exactly as I instructed! She's getting good at posing for pictures, right? What a sweet picture of Reagan and her Papa :)

Dallas is such a good kid ... I've known him since the year 2000, so he was only about 4 years old. There have been many times that I've seen Autumn when I've come to visit (at an all-girls dinner), but not Dallas. Yet everytime I see him, he says sweet things like, "I've missed you Amanda ... I've been looking forward to seeing you!" He's such a sweetie!

Autumn and Chad got married 6 years ago (I was honored to be one of Autumn's bridesmaids!) and they are a perfect couple! They compliment each other so well and I believe they are both so lucky to have found each other. I was so excited that Autumn and I were pregnant at the same time ... I had Avery on November 2nd and she had Xander on December ... 29th? I'm pretty sure that was the date. Anyway, they are 8 weeks apart in age and they were so cute together.

Avery did the same thing she does to everyone she meets ... pulled his hair and tried to eat his face. I'm sure she meant well, but it scared Xan off a little and made him cry!

My little Avery has turned into the BEST eater! Reagan ordered Mac & Cheese, so I gave some to Avery ... this was the first time she'd ever tried it, but just like every other food I put in front of her, SHE LOVED IT! Doesn't she look like such a big girl in this pic?

Autumn, Avery, Chad and Xan
I just love this picture! Reagan was having fun playing around in the empty booths with Dallas ... we were in the corner of the restaurant that was completely empty, so we weren't disturbing anyone.

The ladies eating raspberry sorbet!

Everyone had a spoonful of sorbet

Autumn was sitting across the table from Reagan at this point and took my camera to snap this sweet picture. Thanks Autumn!

When we got in the car, Dallas put on Reagan's other pair of shades, which had Reagan laughing pretty hard.

We had some time to spare before their flight out of Newark, so we took them on a quick scenic detour along Boulevard East through West New York (slightly North of Hoboken). This area has such an incredible view of Manhattan.

Chad, Reagan and John

Dallas and his grandmother Terri

It was so wonderful to see them and catch up ... thanks for taking the time to hang out with us Autumn and Chad!!!

Gourmet Pizzas!

I don't remember the last time I ate such delicious homemade food ... my friend Nicole has always told me about the incredible pizzas her husband Chris makes. I've been telling Chris that he needs to make me a pizza for a while now. So about a week ago, as Nicole and I were discussing our Labor Day weekend plans, we decided we'd get together and cook gourmet pizzas!


The Heid family had us over for a BBQ in July, so it was our turn to have them over, even though Chris and Nicole would be doing most of the food preparation. All week long, we discussed the various types of specialty pizzas we could make and which ingredients we'd need. Since we couldn't decide on only a couple, we decided to make 6 different kinds! Here were the ingredients for each pizza:

1. Standard: tomato, basil, mozzarella, parmesan, ricotta, garlic, sausage


2. Asian: hoison sauce, bacon, pear, caramelized onion, panko breaded chicken breast, mozzarella


3. California: fig, prosciutto, goat cheese, scallions


4. BLT: gorgonzola, arugula, bacon, tomato, balsamic drizzle


5. Herb/Mushroom: mozzarella, parmesan, romano, asiago, fresh herbs, mushrooms


6. Tricolor: red/orange/yellow bell peppers, tomato sauce, mozzarella, onion, parmesan

Nicole made a detailed list of what items needed to be purchased, what we already had, and what needed to be prepared in advance. I did the shopping the day before and Chris did a lot of prep work earlier on in the day (prepared the caramelized onions, cooked the sausage, etc.).

They were all AMAZING, but I think my favorite was #3, the California (Nicole is taking a bite of it in the above picture) ... for anyone who likes specialty pizzas, I highly recommend this flavor combination. The prosciutto was sliced extremely thin, so it got really crispy in the oven ~ the fig gave it the perfect amount of sweetness, and the goat cheese, well, let's just say I couldn't possibly like any cheese more than goat cheese. Yum! Is your mouth watering yet?? It should be!Here is Chris slicing up some pizza ... I can't believe I didn't take more pictures of the pizzas; they were truly works of art!

Here's Nicole preparing the standard pizza, #1

Avery sat in her high chair munching on various foods while we adults cooked and ate ... okay, Nicole and Chris cooked, while John and I ate! Reagan, Mia and Bennett ran around playing, only causing trouble sporadically.

At one point, Reagan managed to swipe the canister of Gerber "Little Crunchies" that I had been letting Avery snack on (flavored corn puffs). She took them into the toy room and spilled half of the container (of course). When I came in to retrieve it, Reagan and Mia went nuts, picking up all the spilled puffs, shoving them into their mouths as fast as they could.


I love watching Bennett and Avery together. Bennett says her name in the sweetest little voice. Avery is obsessed with hair, no matter its length or to whom it belongs. She grabbed hold of Bennett's hair, and then tried to eat it. All babies put everything in their mouths, but Avery takes this to a whole new level ... she tries to eat people's cheeks, noses, ears, eyebrows, and basically anything she can get her mouth on. She cracks me up! Good thing Bennett was a good sport.

The specialty chefs

When it was time to feed the kids dinner, Mia was anxious to try our exotic pizzas ~ she's such a great little eater!
Even Bennett was a good sport, eating the bacon and panko-crusted chicken breasts from the pizza.

Then there's our picky little Reagan. If you could only understand how annoying and frustrating it was to prepare her chicken tenders from the freezer when we had an entire kitchen full of the most delicious food!!! Twenty years from now, I'll show her this post and tell her she passed up a California pizza for a chicken nugget and she'll be so ashamed of herself ... right? She better be!

After dinner, the girls went into the toy room to watch TV in their pajamas. I came inside with my camera and got these funny cheesy grins.

Nicole and I sat down on Reagan's Dora bed while Chris took this picture. It was nice to have our husbands hanging out with us, to help with the kids since Nicole and I often get together and feel very outnumbered (4 kids under the age of 2 with only 2 adults)!

It was such a fun night ... I commented that we'll have to do this once a month from now on. My only complaint was that I didn't really notice every step of the pizza making process, so I don't feel very confident that I could replicate these pizzas on my own. Oh well, it's now another reason to do this again next month!

Southern Living at Home Party

On Thursday night, I hosted a Southern Living at HOME party. My friend Robin Bilbija is a senior consultant for the company which originated from the magazine, Southern Living. They sell products for decorating the home and kitchen items to use when entertaining. I had never hosted a party like this before, but I think it turned out to be a success. I invited just about everyone I knew here in NJ and only 9 women were able to make it (my timing wasn't great, since a lot of people were leaving for the holiday weekend). It ended up being a nice mix of ladies from all my different social circles. Thanks to everyone who came!

Here is Robin, talking about the products, with some of them on display on the table

Christine (from River Vale First Friends), Julie and Sara (from my Mingling Mommies group) and Sara's 5 week old daughter Maggie

Amy (from my M&Ms group) with her friend Heather

Jen (whose son Harry went to preschool with Reagan last year) and Doreen (the wife of John's cousin Jose)
Nicole ~ we were commenting on how cute Maribel looked with pigtails, so I said I thought Nicole would look cute with pigtails too!

Maribel just got back from Spain on Monday, so their lives have been very hectic ... she really wanted to come, but her husband Marcelo had soccer that night and couldn't watch Joaquin. She decided to just bring him and he quickly fell asleep on Maribel's lap while Robin was showing us the products. She took him into the playroom and laid him down on Reagan's Dora bed, where he stayed the rest of the evening. He was so incredibly tired, since he's still trying to adjust to the big time change.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my dad's 60th birthday! I wish I could be in Salt Lake to help him celebrate such a big birthday. It's so hard to believe that my dad is no longer in his 50's ... he certainly doesn't look 60! I had a really nice conversation with him this morning ~ he said they were going to a Japanese restaurant for dinner and he already knew what he was ordering: the tempura shrimp. I hope it was wonderful, dad!

My mom is going to surprise him with a Wii, so I decided to send him Guitar Hero to go along with it. I can't wait to try it out next time we're in Salt Lake. Hopefully, one of my sisters will take a picture of my dad playing with his new toys and send it to me so I can post it to my blog :)

I love my dad so much. One of the best parts of being a mom is sharing my kids with my parents. I love watching my dad play with my girls ~ he is the BEST grandfather they could possibly have! Here are some pictures of him with Reagan and Avery:

Jumping with Reagan on Camille's trampoline ~ June 2008

Grandpa and Avery at Moon Lake ~ June 2008


Reagan and Grandpa at Moon Lake ~ June 2008

Isn't this the best picture? Reagan and Grandpa at Moon Lake ~ June 2008

Everyone who knows my dad knows that he has some sleep issues. He goes to bed extremely late every night, then wakes up very early. Due to his lack of any lengthy nighttime sleep, he falls asleep just about every time he sits down. Whether he's watching TV, playing a game, or sitting down watching the grandkids play, he can drift off rather quickly. We make fun of him a lot, so I have to say, he's been a pretty good sport about all the teasing over the years!

Not only is my dad a wonderful father to me, he's also the best Father-In-Law to John. John always enjoys spending time with my dad.

Happy Birthday Dad! I love and miss you very much!