I'm not usually one to go around posting silly pictures of myself, but I'm freakin' excited.

Just a small piece of news: in a few days emmarie Web Design will be undergoing an ultra-huge change. I will be moving the site to Adobe Business Catalyst. I've been die-hard Pappashop for a long time, but it's time to grow up a little bit and take that next step. So if things go a little wonky around this site in days to come, just stay tuned.

As a new Adobe BC partner (yay!) I will be able to offer all of my wonderful clients some really great things! An actual release of my new offerings and other goodies will come next week.

Eek!

Last week, on our way home from our mini-vacation in the mountains (well, a different part of the mountains, as we do live in the mountains) David, Bug and I made a very important pit stop. After spending 4 days with 5 children under 5 years old, really the only thing that will make you feel better is wine. That's just how it is. Lucky for me, I'm privy to this bit of medical science and added a winery stop to our trip home.

Not too far out of our way between our mini-vacay and home we had our choice of wineries. We had to play a bit of eenie-meenie-miney-moe and picked Lake James Cellars in Glen Alpine, NC. We pulled into town and stopped at a nice little dive for lunch (I had a burger named after some lady named Mary, and it was flippin' amazing) and then scooted on to the winery.

In all honesty, I cared little for the small wineries cozy interior, the polished wooden bar's recessed lighting (I'm a slobbery fool when it comes to recessed lighting), or attached store of mish-moshed antiques, because I just needed some wine. Though I suppose it says something about it that I even recalled these details.

The wines were good. Quite reminiscent of my other NC wine experiences. Almost all of their grapes are purchased from North Carolina vineyards, one of which was just down the road. We left the winery much happier and with our usual four bottles of wine (I pick two and David picks two, Lily has to wait about 19 more years before she can pick 2). David chose the Syrah and Riesling, and I got the Cabernet Franc (which smelled and tasted fabulously) and a blush Pinot Noir.

It was a fabulous trip, and another winery happily marked off the list. And definitely,definitely a perfect ending to your mini-vacation.

This weekend my little family and I spent some time on vacation with a larger portion of our family Gatlinburg. We spent several days in a cabin with lots of grandkids and had a really nice time. My personal favorite was a visit to the aquarium. I loveaquariums. They even sparked a short-lived desire once to become a marine biologist.

Though marine biology probably would have been great fun, boy am I glad I found geography. I probably wouldn't enjoy aquariums half as much if I had followed that little dream, and that is something I simply could not bare.

We did some other fun things while on our mini vacation. The drive down to Gatlinburg was spent mostly on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which can be accessed just miles from our house. I hadn't been on the Parkway in years and had definitely forgotten how stunning the views were.

We spent a day at Dollywood, where Lily enjoyed (though not the first time or two) some baby roller coasters. Lily and I also snuck off one day and had an ice cream date. Then on the way home we ticked off another winery from the list. I'll post about that later.

It was a good break and we really had a great time. Lily was absolutely worn out and has slept more in the past 3 days than she has in the past 6 months. Spending time with 5 grandkids under 5 years old can really tire you out. Just ask Lily.

See all of this vacations photos in it's Flickr set.

Yesterday evening David, Bug and I walked downtown for the first of this season's Gallery Crawls downtown. It was fabulous. We scooted through almost all of our downtown's overwhelming number of art galleries, packed with stunning artwork, people and free wine. We spent the whole evening downtown, having had supper in a great little restaurant before starting our "crawl". We picked up a few things, though nothing large (though I've added several pieces to my list).

And then, of course, on the way home we walk past our nearby coffee house and spot a lamb grazing in the grassy area beside the shop. Nothing like a lamb to remind you that you're in the mountains. Only here could you go from the sophisticated setting of an art gallery to a lamb within a block. We got a shot of Bug trying to pet the lamb before it decided her dress looked tasty.

I love this town.

I am a bookworm. A complete and utter bookworm. As of late I have been downloading every book I've read to my Kindle on my iPod Touch.

It's been a bit of a war with myself on a couple of levels. On one hand I can look at it from a "green" perspective and I realize that I'm saving trees by not buying the gazillion books I read in paper. They're also so handy on my Kindle because I can take a whole library everywhere I go. On the other hand, it's not a book. I'm not curling up in bed with a good ole paperback. I feel like I'm neglecting a bookworm tradition. So I'm torn, but the Kindle has been winning out.

Until I spotted these babies. Briones & Co is another of those shops that I discovered ages ago. About a year or so ago I purchased one of their mini meal planners (though mine is not awesomely felted). One day I was randomly checking out some of my old "hearts" on Etsy, saw their shop, found out that they have a separate website (I love Etsy, but sometimes I feel I need to boycott them a bit if a seller has a non-Etsy shop - their fees will kill the profit for a seller) and bought crazy-awesome bookmarks!

When we moved here this was the first thing that got mailed to our new home. So they hold a weirdly special place in my heart. They're really just so cool. They have places for you to write about your book so that you can keep track of what you're reading. There are the usual places for title and author, but also a place to write down words you want to look up and favorite quotes. You can also rate your books right there on the bookmark and then save these babies for later reference. So neat.

So the arrival of these brought me to purchase my first physical book in a while, and I'm so excited that I get to use this handy dandy bookmark. Ingenious idea. You should probably go buy some for yourself.

This pumpkin french toast has become our new Saturday morning favorite. It is simply spectacular.

The recipe came from a super fabulous cookbook called Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. I bought the cookbook about 2 years ago after my mother told me about it. She had heard a review on the radio or something and new it sounded like something I would love. The focus of the book is sneaking healthful things like fruits and vegetables into foods that your kids like, such as mashed potatoes or chicken nuggets. A novel idea.

Truthfully, I have little problem getting Lily to eat her veggies. We've just always given her fruits and veggies first and foremost. The kid stinkin' loves broccoli. However, sometimes I need to trick myself into eating more of those colorful things, and it's really fun to me to see how good things are when I know that beets or spinach is hidden inside. Not to mention unsuspecting dinner guests.

Yes, I've snuck these recipes into get-togethers. David and I always sit back and chuckle at folks as they rave over yummies with veggies hidden inside. For example, for Lily's first birthday I made some cupcakes from a recipe in this cookbook. Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing. With beets. The cupcakes came out with a very distinctive red color - as I'm sure you would imagine - and I just told everyone I was trying out a choco-red velvet recipe. My family fell for it and dug right in. They were almost all eaten - as they were seriously delicious and oh-so-moist - when I told everyone what they were. It was too funny, and I felt accomplished, as I got my kid cousins who probably haven't eaten a vegetable since it was pureed and in a baby jar to eat a veggie, and a beet at that.

Another such example was at a Geography Club meeting right after I got the cookbook when I made a dessert bar recipe from the book that called for pureed spinach to be mixed in with the blackberry jam. Like everything else you put in front of a bunch of college-age males, they were gone within seconds, all while David and I nibbled on the really yummy treats and giggled to ourselves. I never told anyone about those. Haha!

So, if you're having problems getting your kid to eat veggies, or just want to have some fun with food, you have to check out this cookbook. It's definitely one of the most used on my shelf, and for darn good reason!

*After looking around amazon.com I found that Jessica Seinfeld is releasing another cookbook in October. Totally just put it on my calendar.