We are Lebanese if you please...

...And by "we" I mean Mark. Can't you tell? Anyway, Mark got some birthday money and we decided to go to a Mediterranean Restaurant which really turned out to be a Lebanese Restaurant--which was purely coincidental to Mark's "ethnicity" (ok so he's only an 1/8). It was very tasty and if you ever come out to visit, I think we'll have to take you there. At the end of our meal we decided to get the whole experience and have baklava for dessert. This, perhaps, was an unwise choice for our waistlines--it was so yummy that we decided to go home and make some for ourselves.
Just to give you an idea of how sinful these little treats are, I'll give you the rundown--
a whole package of phyllo dough contains about 40 thin pastry sheets, which means the baklava has 20 layers--each one brush with butter (I used margarine), and a 1/3 of the layers have nuts in them. Than after you bake this you pour on the sauce--1 1/2 cup water, 1 1/2 cup sugar, 3/4 cup honey, and some vanilla. Just one has at least 400 calories and you can't just stop at one in our family! What's worse is they are so much easier to make than you would think! Our solution: we can only make this devilish dessert once a year at the very most. So sorry friends, if you want to try some you'll have to wait til next year :)

On another note, Noah is really getting around these days--he can make it across our apartment in a matter of seconds. He is also starting to pull himself up onto things--his bouncer chair (see below), the couch, the entertainment center, and even into his toy basket. Noah's realizing how much he can do; and Mark and I are realizing that we can't keep our eyes on him enough!


Mark babysat our friends' baby, Anders, last week. I think it was a really good experience for him ;) And Noah had fun as you can see--Anders is 2 1/2 months younger than Noah, although you can't really tell by looking at them.