celebrating the first day of spring with a hike and, later, rolling down the hill in the backyard

Our dear friends JLD and HFD recently welcomed a baby boy into the world. So, of course, some knitting was in order.

Hat

Legwarmers!

No, HFD did not give birth to a Sesame Street character. (Although he does totally have hair like Ernie - jet black and spiky.) Grover is just modeling the ensemble because he's the only baby-sized thing I have. But he clearly lacks the fat baby thighs to do those legwarmers justice.

This weekend we made pasta from scratch. This is what married people without kids do. We make pasta. From scratch. Because we can, and also because there's nothing else to do. Someday if we have kids we'll barely have enough time, between helping with homework and keeping the peace, to throw some boxed spaghetti into a pot of boiling water. And we'll look at each other and say, "Remember when we used to make pasta? From SCRATCH?!" And while we may be a tad nostalgic, I'm sure we won't feel resentful because raising a family is incredibly fulfilling, even if little Robbie just dumped the jar of tomato sauce on the kitchen floor.

But this was pretty fun, too.

To make the noodles, we used a KitchenAid attachment that I borrowed from a co-worker. It was SO COOL - like Playdoh! To make flat noodles, you could also just roll out the dough and slice it with a pizza cutter.

I used the dough recipe that came with the attachment. Just flour, eggs, and water. And it can be varied in so many ways. Next time I think I'll make whole wheat pasta, and I'd also like to try spinach or tomato.

The recipe made oodles of noodles, so we dried a bunch to use later.

The difference between fresh homemade pasta and the boxed stuff we usually buy really was significant. It was much lighter and softer. We also made homemade tomato sauce, which we'd never done before.

All in all, a delicious date night!