Thankful Thursday (Cooking Class/Eva's Birthday Party)

This week I am thankful for...

1. A super fun evening out. Our realtors, Greg & Liz, who are also some of Dave's most long-standing clients (over 11 years... since before the Kimber Images days), hosted a loyalty event for a few couples who have helped them out along their journey. We were invited and I accepted the invitation immediately. We were told we'd be going to a cooking demonstration where we'd have wine, eat delicious food, and enjoy each other's company. We were in for a surprise when we arrived and learned we'd actually be learning and doing the cooking of the entree! Beef Wellington! I have never had it before, but wow. It was so fancy and so yummy! We were very proud of our creations haha. 

This would be a super fun family gathering or date night or something. It was at Well Seasoned Gourmet Foods in Langley where they have a kitchen in the back. They do host date nights and theme nights and what not. I ate wayyy too much though and had the meat sweats half the night haha. TMI sorry.

Chef demonstrated a few steps while we ate our prepared appetizer and then we were off to our stations!

Everyone had their mise en place (minus chopping), induction top and stainless pan ready to go.

Tomato tartare appetizer. Yum I could have eaten 3 of these.

Making the mushroom duxelle for the wellington. I was complimented on my fine chopping.

Dave and I had to cook as a team! It's only a thousand times funner and easier and more relaxing without kids around and the rush of dinner hour.

Sear, baby sear!

Next step, prepare the pastry! 
Puff pastry sheet, proscuitto, mushroom duxxelle, dijon mustard on the steak and then wrap the proscuitto around that.

Cover with another piece of puff pastry sheet and make your design if you wish.

I could not have been happier with how this turned out. 
Even Dave was saying he was impressed how much easier it all seemed when it was broken down into steps. Cooking really isn't that hard, but it can definitely seem overwhelming and timing everything can be tricky. This night reminded me how much I love cooking. 
Some day I won't have to worry about costs of ingredients, timing of meals, who will eat what, etc. and I can just cook fancy things when/how I want!

Just... just... as if filet mignon could get any better. It did. It definitely did. Soooo tender and flavorful and juicy. The pastry didn't get soggy and was super fluffy and light and crispy. Just yum.

While we ate our... peach strawberry lemon cake(?), Chef demonstrated for us how to make it as well. 

2. Eva's birthday party! Eva turned 2 on Sunday, so we invited the family over for a birthday party. Our place isn't huge, and it was a little cramped and loud in there, but we all had fun I think! Eva was a rockstar. She handled the attention, noise, overwhelm very very well. We started off the morning with balloons and Happy Birthday in bed, waffles for breakfast, church, and then party-prepped in the afternoon! Everything went remarkably smoothly all things considered. 

She nailed the candle blowing-out

Box cupcakes, premade icing, food coloring and sprinkles. I selfishly didn't have the energy to make these with the kids, so I did it all on my own while they watched a movie haha. Seems like the kind of thing you're "supposed" to involve them in, but I took a mental health break instead as I scrambled to get everything ready for the people to arrive!

At the 11th hour I remembered we had Frozen decorations in the cupboard from Emilia's 3rd birthday. Perfect!

Eva & Opa's ridiculous balloon game

Pause to look at the cycling Eva pictures on the TV <3

Pure joy. Absolute pure joy

I took care of cupcakes, hot dogs for the kids and veggies. mom brought italian sausages, focaccia bread and potato salad. Was a great split in responsibility I think and the food went over very well!

Now for some out of order photos as I gathered them from others. Eva got a little pretend-play camping set with a tent, and this lawn chair. Caught Dom roasting some marshmallows while watching Eva open more gifts.

Showing Grandpa her new Elsa doll (I got for free from the $1 sale. SCORE!)

We can't wait until Myles is back with us!!

There is some intense forced perspective going on here and I love it haha

She handled the singing of Happy Birthday very well. Once she saw the cupcake coming, she smiled and started mouthing the words to herself haha.

Eva received so many amazing gifts! Thank you everyone!

BFFs

Eva got a little tea set and has been playing with it every day. When she dumped it out of the little purse it came in she GASPED. It was very cute.

Wow. was such a fun day!!

When she saw me getting the kids ready for school Monday morning, she grabbed her new backpack and shoved a bunch of toys in it, put it on, and marched down to the car to go to school <3

Heard a giggle fest while I was working and peeked in on a tent tea party with Eva and Emilia

Gramma and Grandpa gifted a frame with pictures of them with Eva (the other kids have one too). Such a great idea and she loved it!

3. Dom's NHL Playoff Bracket. Katrina & the boys have done these playoff brackets the last couple years and this year I wanted to do one with Dom. He is ALL in. He helped me write the teams for round 1, hang it up, and now every day we update the scores for each of the series'. it is very serious business. 

Fits perfectly under his bed :) We just need a title on it!

4. Swimming with the girls. We planned to take the kids swimming with Oma on Tuesday. In the end, Dom was more in need of quiet time with Dad than swimming, so it was just Mom, me and the girls. Oh my gosh we had so much fun. We went to Grandview Heights and I cannot explain how much joy Eva gets out of being in the water. We NEED to get her some swimming lessons. Desperately. She is too confident with zero skill. We had Emilia floating around the lazy river on a pool noodle, and Eva wanted the same independence so she kept trying to pry my hand off of her. The hand that is keeping her from drowning. She and Emilia both did great though and we all had lots of fun. 

5. Emilia's budding confidence. This girl makes new art for me every single day. I love the ones she brings home from preschool so I can get a little glimpse into her day. The other day I picked up a sleeping back for a retreat I'm going to this weekend from my parents' crawl space and saw a bike we got for free for Emilia way back when she was a baby. It's a size up from her Frozen bike, but I figured she could probably ride it so I grabbed it. I honestly figured it would sit in our garage and she'd be too nervous to try it because it is quite a bit bigger. The moment she saw it, she hopped on and TOOK OFF. It was wild. She is very confident riding a bike - moreso than Dom was at this point. Actually when Dom was her age he wasn't even on his bike yet haha. Maybe with training wheels. 

Her class has some snails and caterpillars right now so she drew me a picture of the snails, caterpillars, and our family. I love that we have shoulders <3

Just ripping!

And a few more happy moments :)

We got some more perler beads from IKEA last week and Emilia has been going WILD with them. This is not even all of her creations. Can you tell she likes rainbows? haha Rainbows everywhere. All over my house!

Took advantage of the one nice day in April and did some work outside haha.

Had spaghetti dinner with J&K and Wren plopped herself down in my lap for a cuddle. It was very sweet. She's going to be a big sister in a few days! 

I went to Scott & Ash's to watch the Love is Blind reunion. Of course it wasn't working, so we just hung out instead. Ashleigh pulled out this little toy Phoebe has from one of her little dog training sets. She insists it IS Uncle Dave haha.

Him trying so hard to look at me instead of my toast sitting right beside me.