Happy Birthday Hunk

Err… I mean “Scott”.

We had a great day yesterday, celebrating both Easter and Scott’s birthday. He woke up to a nice pile of presents on the table with a special Big Boggle Birthday Game created by yours truly. I “boggled” words to describe Scott with the first letters spelling out H-A-P-P-Y B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y S-C-O-T-T and he had to find them (and other words) to rack up points before being allowed to open his presents.

In case you don’t know Scott, let me reassure you that this was fun for him. A word game first thing in the morning is a treat, not torture. Just thought I’d clear that up.

We also had a fun easter dinner with friends. We ate Hawaiian haystacks plus the homemade roasted garlic hummus and whole wheat pita (pitas? pitae?) Scott and I brought. The pita were easy to make and I was thrilled with the results. They were only 3/4 whole wheat this time so I’ll doctor the recipe and post it when I can pull off 100% whole wheat. But, I digress… back to Scott’s birthday.

In honor of this special day, I hereby present: Five Facts about Scott Bean!

1) He gives me French pedicures (including on the night before we got married!):

2) He and I share a love for chemistry, and spent many wonderful romantic moments hours years studying chemistry together at BYU:

(Photo from when we were in Dover, England. They call pharmacists “chemists” there.)

3) He is the most fun person to be around. Ever. This is the time I got beached on a fountain in London, and we were both laughing so hard it took him a good long while before he hauled me up to sit next to him:

4) He is very driven. My first indication of this was the fact that he had to ask me out on three separate occasions before I finally said yes. My second indication was that on our first date, he wooed me with abandon. He showed up in a tux and took me to the nicest restaurant in Provo (and ate whole wheat tortillas and salsa as his only means of sustenance for like a month in order to afford it):

5) He owns a particular outfit that he knows I love on him, and he also knows I love it when he gels his hair. So when he showed up for class one morning when we were at BYU wearing this outfit, with his hair gelled and a huge grin on his face… I *knew* that he was going to propose that day. I dropped over $50 worth of glassware in my Organic chemistry lab because I kept looking over at him and getting all jittery.

When I was in labor with Mackenzie, he had to run home for a bit and he came back with his hair gelled, wearing my favorite outfit. Just to give me a boost. How thoughtful is that?

So if you see him wearing that outfit one day, you can be sure he’s making me smile. Actually, that’s a pretty safe bet any day of the year. Scott is always concerned about my happiness, and I love that he’s also a great father, son, brother, friend, etc. Happy Birthday Babe!

New things

Alternate title for this post: “Lots of photos of Mackenzie. Because she’s pretty stinkin’ cute. And because I haven’t posted enough photos of late, according to some doting relatives.”

That would be a very long title. So, “New Things” it is.

Bumbo! A fun baby seat given to us by my co-worker (in “Smuggy green” of course). Mackenzie loves to watch me work, fold clothes, cook dinner, etc. So this little seat will be perfect.

Look closely and you will see a laptop cord and a Qtip for Kenzie. So you might say this photo represents my life: juggling work and a baby. Yeah. I could probably end the post right there, but there are more photos new things, so moving right along…

Mackenzie’s first luau. She is fond of new faces and fortunately I have lots of friends who are fond of babies!

Her first bath. Ok, no not really… but it *was* the first time we’d taken photos of her after a bath. So that’s a new thing, right? Right?

Giving our awesome double (long story) jogging stroller a spin.

Our walk was not without its mishaps.

Notice how there is no front wheel in that photo? Before going on our second walk in the stroller, I keenly observed that all three wheels were flat.

I know what you’re thinking, but the answer is no. The gas station air pump won’t work. Even though it very nearly works, that doesn’t count. (Apparently).

No worries, though… Daddy to the rescue.

And finally, yet another “new thing” made blogworthy because of the cute baby featured in the photo. A hat from Great Aunt Robin!

Because I know you are wondering: Although people DO steal stuff from the Speedway down the block and on occasion are hunted down by searchlight in the middle of the night…. fortunately, people do NOT steal your double (long story) jog stroller if you are a complete space-case and leave it outside on your front walkway all night until kind neighbors point it out the next morning store the stroller outside.

Scott’s House of Latke

Latkes are traditionally made of shredded potato. But Scott Bean likes to take things up a notch.

He made us latkes from beets, sweet potatoes and carrots and he topped them with a horseradish and dill “cream” made from silken tofu. (Recipes from Veganomicon.)

They were delish!

Now, Scott used to hate beets with a passion. So the real story here is that we have slain another hated vegetable. Granted, these little latkes are fried so it probably wasn’t the healthiest way to go about it. But the beet has now gone the way of kale (made tasty in enchiladas), cooked spinach (an essential component of my potato curry), cooked broccoli (yummy in stir fry), and brussel sprouts (a perfect pair with pine nuts over pasta).

Guess what’s on the menu this week at the Bean house? Avocado*, turnip greens, beet greens, chard, and radish greens. Wish us luck!

*Scott cut one up just now and commented, “I don’t know why I was so scared of cutting into an avocado. It’s like being scared of walking”. Hehe.

Verdict: Latkes were a tasty way to tackle beets, but too fried for normal consumption. The horseradish dill “cream” was fabulous and also tasted great on the buckwheat blinis we made for dinner the night after the latkes. The blinis called for garbanzo bean flour, which gave me a reason to use my grinder for something other than wheat(!), but were pretty much glorified yeasty pancakes and weren’t quite as yummy as my normal pancakes.

We’re having a good time playing in the kitchen. (Can you tell? ) It gives me and Scott a chance to relax and talk and Mackenzie is usually highly entertained by dinner preparations. I often let her smell and visually inspect ingredients. After all, she’ll get them for breakfast (sorta).

Baby, it’s cold outside!

Wooo-eee.

It’s a blizzard.

Our backyard:

Our front yard: (Please note the door handle, especially)

Yeah, we aren’t going anywhere.

We were actually scheduled to speak in our church meeting tomorrow (on faith), and give a special “fireside” presentation to the youth tomorrow night (on nutrition)… but it’s all canceled due to the weather. Can’t say I’m too crushed about having another week to prepare!

So what did we do to warm up today?

Well, Mackenzie sat there looking darling and cooing at us, I made whole-grain (vegan, yummy, fluffy) pancakes with no added oil or sugar, and Scott ate said pancakes. It’s a tough life for the Beans, let me tell ya.

Here’s photo proof of Mackenzie’s cuteness, and the recipe for the pancakes. No photo proof of the pancakes, because we ate ALL of them before it occurred to me to take a photo. But I’m including the “recipe” for my favorite berry syrup to make up for the lack of photos. Try it. You’ll never ever want store-bought again. Promise.