Oh for the miracle of more hours in my day...

Well. I had meant to write much sooner than now, and kept forming small "placeholder" posts in my mind, but I had three of my sisters here for a week (along with my 1-1/2 year-old nephew, Chazz):



(From left: Hannah, Grace, Joy, me)

It was a fun visit, and I now have a huge backlog of unblogged pictures loaded into my Flickr stream, but of course when there's a lot of stuff going on, there's not a lot of time to write about it.

I do still intend to do the drawing/contest thing, but I'm going to have to put that off just a little longer; it always takes me just a bit to catch my breath and re-configure myself and my days after a Big Visit. I have so much to share with you though! A secret project, a quick knitted item, some new interests, fun things arriving in the mail...I'd also like to start adding movie reviews to this blog on occasion; I've got a few burning at the top of the list that I'd like to get to as soon as possible! However, at the moment, I only have to energy to write about the past week.

On to the visit!!

We did a Spanish Themed dinner party, complete with Zarzuela (a seafood stew):


(Recipe from Cook's Illustrated "The Best International Recipe" -- you can also get the recipe online from Cook's Illustrated if you're a member on the site.)

Jamón, olives and cheese with a good Spanish wine:




And a porrón to share the wine in. It takes mad skilzz to drink out of it, so instead of a pic of my pathetic looking effort, here's my superhot husband drinking out of it like a pro:




One of my favorite results of the visit was watching my children get to know their cousin Chazz.




Chazz and Billy became friends; it was so cute to watch them interact and get to know each other.







(Yes, Billy has a black eye -- he fell and hit a tiny peg sticking out of his highchair leg. Talent.)

I also baked a pie for my sisters, which I'm almost hesitant to share the picture for, because then no one will leave me alone until I share the recipe.

*
*
*
*
*
*

Well, OK fine, I'll show it to you. But it's going to take me a little while to get the recipe up, because I'm a procrastinator. So my apologies in advance.



Coconut Custard Pie. And yes, it tastes even better than it looks.

That's all I have time to write about today -- I don't know if I've just gotten busier, of if I'm simply slower in accomplishing things, but I seriously need more hours in the day! Aghh!!

The girls and I went to a show in Austin; I'm going to save that for tomorrow's post.