Winter Fun with Grandma

We've been having lots of winter fun with Grandma Chris while she is up for the week. Since the weather hasn't been too inspiring, we put on Aiden's new Reggae Playground CD and had a dance party. Believe it or not, the photos below are Aiden's newest dance move. He bounces up and down on his knees, making shocked looks on his face while he pats his hands on his head and/ or cheeks. We can't think of a name for this dance yet. Splitting headache?

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We did get outside late one afternoon for a little sledding down the famous kiddie sledding hill at the Round Church in Richmond. We had the place to ourselves (has never happened before!) and Aiden got in some thrilling runs before it got dark.

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For Christmas, Andy and I got a new cookbook with traditional Lithuanian recipes. Andy has always told me that Lithuanian cooking involves a lot of lard, porkfat, and butter, and I would say this cookbook doesn't do much to disprove that theory. There is a lot of frying things "in hot fat," but also lots of healthier ingredients like potatoes, mushrooms, berries, and root veggies. Some of the recipes seem like they are borne of necessity (like "wheatberry soup" which conists of wheatberries, milk, water, and a little sugar) and very few of them have any spices in them, but still, we wanted to try something out of our new Lithuanian cookbook while Grandma Chris was here.

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So we decided on "Lamb Croquettes with Vegetables," which is a layered casserole of ground lamb patties, shredded carrots, and sliced potatoes. We added diced mushrooms to the lamb patties (which seemed in keeping with many of the other recipes), as well as (gasp!) rosemary and sage. We just couldn't do it entirely spiceless. And the result..... it was really delicious! And it made great lunch leftovers. So there you have it. Next we try "Hodgepodge" which features pork feet.

We also went to Shelburne Farms this past weekend to take Aiden on a horse-drawn sleigh ride. He has just reached the stage where he can point out different farm animals in his books, but I think he had the idea that a "horsey" was about 2 inches tall, not 6+ feet. He was a little stunned by the whole thing, but not as bad as the 22-month-old girl who sat behind us in the sleigh...she bawled the whole ride!