Musings

gingerbread.....

2011-12-20T13:01:00.003-07:00

We love us some gingerbread around here, especially the decorated kind! We were so happy to be part of a long-standing family tradition of creating houses a couple of weeks ago.....This is what we came up with.

Natural History Museum

2011-12-04T09:40:00.001-07:00

We took a little trek last weekend intending to explore the pioneer village at the This Is The Place monument, but the buildings weren't open until later in the evening, and we were ready to explore something right then! So we took a detour up the road and ended up at the Natural History Museum, which was wonderful! We love us a good dose of science and dinosaurs!

gratitude...

2011-11-27T23:15:00.001-07:00

I'm grateful for.......

~the Beauty of the earth

~a testimony of my Savior

~two sweet, wonderful children

~a Husband who loves me for who I am

~extended Family and friends who are near and far

~full bellies, warm clothes, soft beds

~a weekend to rest and be together

I hope your weekend was filled with good food, family, and gratitude!

clay play.....

2011-11-09T22:11:00.001-07:00

My boy came to me the other and requested being allowed to make things with big sister's clay....."you know, the kind you put in the oven and then you can keep!" He's not usually allowed to create with that clay and I pull out playdough or something else for him, but I realized he's getting so grown up! We can bake with clay now!

I asked him what he wanted to make and he said "stuff for my guys, like food." So now his G.I. Joes have some oranges, ice cream cone, and a really cool blue birthday cake with a candle on top. They love them!

accidental gardening....

2011-11-07T09:00:00.000-07:00

I love to read books about gardening, it makes me feel like I'm doing a lot more than I'm actually doing. But I have to admit, I haven't learned nearly as much from these gardening books as I have actually growing things in real life! It's like the plants sort of explain themselves to me step by step so I understand a little more each year how to do things. This year it was a lucky accident that we were able to harvest seeds to grow more green beans next year. We loved eating our green beans, and we ate them daily for a few weeks in the middle of the summer. But then they slowed down and grew big and fat, and not as delicious, and at the same time the crook-neck squash starting taking over the bean patch and we weren't able to get at them anymore.

A few weeks ago when we cleared out the dead squash vines, we happened upon these lovely brown pods. It was our delicious green beans, ready for us to save their seeds and grow more next year. Luckily I planted heirlooms so hopefully our crop turns out similar in the second season.

The kids were as excited as me, if not more so. It was like a little miracle to us, that each of these black seeds will grow a new plant full of new beans which we'll be able to eat and then save again for the next year. The pods were so satisfying to break open, and the seeds inside so shiny and smooth.

It made for a great movie night activity.....everything's better with a little Harry Potter! And if you want to know how frugal this was.....I paid $1.50 for my little 18 gram envelope of heirloom seeds, we ate green beans for quite a few weeks in the summer (at least every other night), and we harvest 100 grams of dried seed for next year. I love the math behind it all, and the possibility of exponential growth over the years!

Halloween!

2011-11-03T11:55:00.002-06:00

We had absolutely gorgeous weather for Halloween, it's as if the month of October just wanted to hang onto warmth for us up to the very last hour of it. November moved in with a vengeance and so far this week we've had cold wind, snow, rain, and clouds. But Halloween was fabulous and the kids of the neighbourhood basked in the 60 degree glory of Trick-or-Treating!

I had a sweet little Spiderman and an adorable Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter books. Luna's costume is actually the same costume that she wore last year to be Hermione, but since Luna is in Ravenclaw and Hermione is in Griffindor, we had to search out the properly colored tie! So now she's wearing blue and yellow stripes instead of red and gold.....it's all about the details.

On Halloween morning I was suddenly insistent that my kiddos needed mama-made trick-or-treat bags (which I actually intended to make last year!) but I knew I wouldn't have the time to make the full bags. Luckily there were pre-made blank totes at the fabric store to save the day, and I just sewed the fabrics of their choice around the bags! I even had time to whip one up for cousin M, and we had a great time trick-or-treating through both of our neighbourhoods!

(I was waiting for her outside the school and she couldn't see me, but I thought she looked so cute!)

in my kitchen lately......

2011-10-20T20:49:00.000-06:00

When I uploaded my photos recently I noticed that I had a lot of food pictures.....so that's what you're getting! I've been sick for the last week, just a nasty cold, but it's been rather unpleasant. I made a new batch of elderberry syrup as soon as I felt my syptoms coming on.

E picked all of our tomatoes in anticipation of a frost a couple of weeks ago and then spent about an hour playing with them at the table......the big brandywines were the mothers of the little green cherries. :) The ripe ones made it into a yummy fresh tomato and basil soup.

We cleaned out the garden of the big squash, watermelon, and cantaloupe vines and hidden under the squash leaves were all these carrots growing! I had no idea so many had survived. Our squash were little transplants that a friend had given us and I planted them in our carrot bed because hardly any carrots had come up and I figured, why waste the space! So now we have a big bag of garden carrots in the fridge, and they're yummy!

And nettle infusion.....so nourishing! I've been drinking this lately to help me with a bit more energy after being sick all week. I'm ready to branch out into some other herbal infusions, I'm planning a few to try with my next order of elderberries since I just used up the last of what I bought last winter.

today's bountiful basket....

2011-09-10T21:38:00.003-06:00

Our selections this morning were delicious looking.....and my little Bountiful Basket helper set them all up with me for our photo. You're looking at two heads of lettuce, spinach, grapes, cauliflower, green beans, bananas, pears, plums, sweet potatoes, peaches, and a little carton of fresh figs! Yum! I could have practically ordered this particular basket and that's what I would have picked out! Well, except for maybe the figs, I'm not quite sure what to do with them.....any ideas. We tasted them right away and we're not sure if they're our favorite. I'm embarassed to say I don't remember ever eating a fresh fig. But they're definitely beautiful once you cut them open!

glasses....

2011-09-04T09:40:00.000-06:00

Our beautiful third-grader is sporting a new pair of gorgeous glasses and can finally see the board at school! :) We all had eye appointments the week before school started and low and behold, she sees worse than me, poor girl. Hopefully she doesn't have her dad's vision, he's nearly blind without his glasses! So now she looks adorable and studious in her new specs, and might I add, very grown up! It's hard to believe she'll soon be turning nine....

On a side note, she had a reading evaluation test this week at school and practically came running out of her classroom at the end of the day to tell me that her teacher had whispered to her that she did the best in the class and is now reading at a sixth grade level! I'd like to thank J.K. Rowling for helping with that, as E's read straight through the Harry Potter books this summer. She's just finishing up with number five, all 700 or so pages! I hope once she finishes 7 and 8 we can keep her reading momentum going with something else new and exciting to read!

(On another side note, do you like our watermelon? We have about 8 of them growing huge and fat and juicy in the crazy mess of vines that is our garden! They've taken over almost everything!)

Puffed Oven Pancakes.

2011-09-03T17:28:00.004-06:00

I might just call this our breakfast of the summer.....we ate it allllllll the time! It was delicious, easy, eggy, and versatile.....and my kids begged for it about every other day. My favorite thing about it was the 25 minutes of baking time, just perfect to take a quick shower and be ready for the day before breakfast. And mixing it up usually only took about 5 minutes.

Puffed Oven Pancakes (from Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook)

2 tablespoons butter

3 eggs

1/2 cup gluten-free flour blend

1/2 cup milk

1/4 t salt

First thing first....preheat your oven to 400 degrees, put the 2 T of butter in an ovenproof skillet, and during the last 3 or so minutes of preheating, slide your skillet in to heat up and melt the butter.

Blend the eggs, flour, milk and salt and pour into the hot buttery pan. (I actually increase the butter to 3 T and the eggs to 4 and I add just a touch more milk and flour. This makes it the perfect size for the kids and I.)

Bake for about 25 minutes, or until the pancake puffs up and turns golden brown. The edges will taste buttery and delicious, almost like a croissant (Or as close as us gluten-free girls get to one!) I like mine served with more butter and homemade plum blueberry jam! The kiddos like syrup. :) Enjoy!

the palace....

2011-08-28T09:37:00.002-06:00

Oreo and Fluffy have grown at what seems like an exponential rate since we got them this spring! They were living in a little tiny cage from the pet store that we thought would be big enough for at least their first year or so. Nope, they could barely walk across the cage without bumping into something, it was so teeny!

We built them this roomy palace right before the kids and I left for Alaska, but I just recently finished the top floor. We got the idea online....who knew there was such a huge community of guinea pig people out there! Derick insisted on it being two stories, which makes it a bit trickier to clean, but they really do love running up and down their ramp! (I think he was reverting back to his fort building days as a kid, he was totally into it!)

The kids still do the daily maintenance on their own, they alternate days. We bought a cheap shopvac that makes the poop scooping much easier. They just vacuum it all up and change the water and food and give them more hay. Then once a week we take out the fleece and the absorbent layers underneath throw them in the washing machine (which is right next to the cage). The fleece is all blankets from the thrift store and underneath are old towels and some super absorbent microfiber shop towels from Costco. All in all, we think the piggies are loving their new home. Scale-wise, I think they're home is probably 10 times bigger than our home! :)

end of summer.....

2011-08-27T10:13:00.003-06:00

It doesn't even feel quite right to title this post "end of summer" because the last few weeks have had daily temperatures in the mid-90's......it still feels HOT! But school started this week and the return of order to our schedule makes it feel like maybe summer is wrapping up.

We've been enjoying almost daily food from our garden.....squash, peppers, tomatoes, basil, carrots, cucumbers, and even a watermelon this week (which Derick and the kids picked while I was gone one night, it was definitely not ripe yet!). These tomatoes are my "Tigerellas," aren't they lovely? They're super juicey inside! But my favorite are definitely the big Brandywines. They're delicious!

more Alaska.....

2011-07-31T21:17:00.005-06:00

I've been procrastinating sharing more pictures of our fabulous trip to Alaska because I'm just not sure exactly which ones out of over 1000 to share, and what stories to tell....I could probably hum and haw over that forever because it was all wonderful and I want to share everything! So tonight I just randomly clicked through my files and chose fun memories.... Rock painting.....our wildlife cruise.......just gathering around the cabin.....s'mores on a sunny evening (with gluten free graham crackers even!)......playing in the water daily.....Grandma and Grandpa's 59th wedding anniversary dinner.......more cruising (we saw whales, sea lions, sea otters, and many others!).......My dear dear grandfather! Sooooooo good to see him!

We're home....

2011-07-13T22:10:00.002-06:00

.....but it's hard to leave such a beautiful sunset! (This was at 11:30 pm when I went out to brush my teeth and use the outhouse!) I have so many fun pictures to share, and I sat down tonight to sort through them but I couldn't make any decisions on what to post, so I went with simple & beautiful!

The kids are finally settling back into normal routine here, I guess life at home isn't quite as exciting as life in Alaska. But they're so happy to be home to see Daddy and play with their friends. And we've all been enjoying the garden....three weeks brought us quite a change there! We have tomato plants as tall as me, so many green beans ready for eating, currants we picked today, and tiny little crook-neck squash growing already.

summer practicing....

2011-06-15T18:00:00.002-06:00

We're settling into a pretty good rhythm with our summer violin practicing. E is thriving with a detailed practice chart, she loves not having to ask me about every little thing she's supposed to be doing. It helps her be more self-directed, which I enjoy as well. Sometimes I try to sit in on practice time just to listen, which then becomes knitting time for me......a win-win situation. :) About once a week we collaborate for a lesson and plan a new practice chart the upcoming week.

We don't have a specific time each day for practicing, but the kids know it's one of their jobs, so when other opportunities arise throughout the day, I just remind them that they'll still need to find time to do their jobs. (Their other job is cleaning out the guinea pig cage!)

Obviously mornings are the best time to get it done, that way the day is open and they're free to play and have friends over. But we seem to still be able to fit it in later in the day, especially on these afternoons that have been getting hot. Practice time is the perfect opportunity to sit inside with the air-conditioner on!

The Big 5!

2011-06-12T22:36:00.004-06:00

We celebrated this weekend with a super awesome pirate party for our favorite little five year old! He was thrilled, and had so much fun decorating and planning and helping with everything, and of course waiting with anticipation all day long for everyone to come!

Here he is giving his very best ARRRRGH!

We had lots of family and friends, a perfect evening, hotdogs and brats on the grill, and even a little hula hooping show! ;)

Lots of posing like pirates of course!

And of course I was a happy mama when he was so excited about the pillow case I sewed him! Who doesn't love it when a 5 year old gets soooo excited about a mama-made gift!

We even had scary sister-pirates!

Thanks to all who were here and had fun with us! And especially, thanks to my sweet baby boy (not so baby anymore) who loves life and adventure and imagination. I can't imagine my life without him, he's such a great kid, and so entertaining to talk to. I love his enthusiasm for everything he does!

garden update....

2011-05-30T12:54:00.002-06:00

This is almost my favorite thing growing in the garden right now......it's a volunteer lettuce that popped up early this spring, makes me wish I had planted all of my lettuce when the snow was still on the ground. I know it's probably read to eat, but it's so beautiful and bushy, I can't bear to eat it, yet. Maybe tomorrow! :)

Our neighbors' irises are blooming at the moment and they're gorgeous, the perfect border to our little garden bed.

Their currant bush is growing fruit too, last year they didn't use them at all....hopefuly this year they'll let me pick some!
Flowers are blooming!
And the tomatoes are tolerating our cold spring weather. Hopefully soon it will warm up so they can start to grow a little. But out of 10, none have died, so that's a good thing!
And here's the proud little gardener and his plot of land. He's especially proud of his huge collard greens! They're about ready to be made into a yummy green smoothie!

riding the dunes!

2011-05-23T21:39:00.005-06:00

We had a great trip to Idaho this weekend to ride bikes in the dunes. Who would've thought there were huge sand dunes in Idaho? :) It's like being in the middle of a desert, except louder with bike engines humming all around! Derick's been taking this trip with his family since he was a kid, and it was fun to go again this year and carry on the tradition with our kids (although they're both a little scared and each only took one ride!). It was especially fun to see the grandparents and cousins and play in the sand!

Of course, we have to spend a lot of time checking out the bikes and making sure they're running optimally. And of course improving them a bit so we can be faster than everyone else! (When I say "we," I mean Derick's dad, he's the pro!)

This is my super-cool bike riding man!

And this is his super-cool brother who could practically jump over our heads!

I'd like to say this is me, but no, still the super-cool brother! I really am out there too, just not driving, i got to ride along as a passenger. (And be the camera girl!)

Here we are being super-cool, exept my sis-in-law is cooler than me because she can drive her own bike!

This might be the kids' highlight of the weekend, swimming in the pool! We swam day and night, and day and night! Once again, it was a fabulous trip.....can't wait 'til next year!

gluten free luncheon...

2011-05-19T22:18:00.003-06:00

On Tuesday, a sweet friend from my ward organized a gluten free luncheon for five of us who don't eat gluten. It was so wonderful to sit down to a meal and feel completely comfortable eating everything! The gal who hosted it fixed us yummy breaded chicken with rice and salad, and on the side we brought cornbread, muffins, italian dipping bread, and a gorgeous chocolate layer cake for dessert! We shared recipes and chatted about our favorite gluten free options and what has worked for us over the last few years. We're going to make it a regular get-together....yay!

I wanted to try something new so I made Shauna's whole grain muffin recipe from glutenfreegirl. I've been intrigued by her blog lately because she is measuring all her baking ingredients by weight. It seems like such a fabulous idea for gluten free flours, because then you can mix and match and since they all have different densities, it should come out right in the end. I loved it! It made baking kind of like a science experiment! I put my blender right on the scale and measured out whole buckwheat, brown rice, and almonds, then whirred them all into a fine flour. This might be my new favorite muffin recipe, or rather favorite muffin formula. Baking like this gives so much room for creativity, which I love! I used coconut oil, flaked coconut, and dried cranberries in these muffins and they were delicious!

backyard picnic

2011-05-16T22:27:00.003-06:00

We have a backyard, and then a back-backyard. It's a little weird, someone living here previously put a fence halfway through the backyard so they only had to landscape half of the huge lot. But the un-manicured back-backyard makes a great magical forest for children! It's mostly shaded by huge, overgrown trees, and there's no lawn so digging and mud pit making and plant picking is a total free-for-all! I see a lot of buckets of water being carried from the driveway to the back.....G usually comes in covered in mud, at least up to his elbows, and there have been times I've stripped him down and made him sit in the laundry room sink to rinse off before I'll let him in the house!

Today I took the kids some cups of chocolate "ice cream." (It was supposed to be a frozen banana smoothie with cocoa powder, but it turned out thick, so voila.....ice cream!) Once I saw them sitting there in their forest, I had to run in the house for my camera, and they loved that I was spying on them from behind the lilac bush!

last minute shirt.

2011-05-15T12:47:00.010-06:00

So at about 11:30 Thursday night I had this great idea that I could just sew myself up a cute little black shirt for my orchestra concert yesterday. I always have these kinds of ideas late at night, and I almost never actually accomplish them! But my super inspiring sister Kate has been sewing up a storm lately, and I knew I could do it! So I went to the fabric store Friday morning, picked out my fabric, and came right home and cut it out so I couldn't back out of my plan. I finished sewing it about an hour before the concert, and it turned out pretty cute, and it was much cooler than wearing my black sweater, my only other option. Of course getting a picture of a black shirt is never very easy, especially as I'm walking out the door....(you can see the clock, I'm supposed to be there at 1:30!)

rainy day garden

2011-05-14T18:29:00.002-06:00

We've had a lot of rain here this week, and luckily I did lots of gardening last Saturday, so it got nice and soaked. I took all of my pictures from inside my door, didn't want to get too wet! This is the front garden bed, I gave it a new log border and planted pansies and petunias. I'll add more once the tulips are done.

It's hard to see my tomatoes behind the wall of irises, but this is the new garden spot my neighbor tilled up for me to use. I have nine tomatoes planted out there, I love to imagine how they'll look climbing up their stakes!

This is the rest of my new garden with watermelon, cantaloupe, green beans, and carrots.

(And through my screen door....) This is E's little garden, you can see the peas starting to climb, and her little cherry tomato.

And G's garden.....I love how it's starting to look like a patchwork quilt with each square growing a new kind of sprout!

Mother's Day...

2011-05-09T19:24:00.002-06:00

My sweet little ones were so excited to give me their gifts.....these beautiful portraits of me! They left them on my pillow Saturday night when they went to bed, along with a pretty tulip in a vase. I love love love handmade gifts from my kids!

It was a great weekend of sun, and lots of garden planting! More pictures of that to follow. (Although we were too busy in the sun to get pictures that day, and since then it's been POURING rain! So rainy pictures it will have to be.)

splat.

2011-05-06T15:37:00.002-06:00

Wednesday evening around 5 I was picking up the crockpot full of yummy, bubbling, golden chicken broth to strain into a pot in the sink, and SPLAT! The already slightly broken handle broke completely off and there went my beautiful liquid gold, all over the kitchen floor and my foot! I spent about 50 minutes cleaning it up, and finished up just as Derick and E came home for dinner, with nothing to show for it but a sparkly floor (and a slightly scalded foot!). So lesson learned......once the handle on your crockpot starts to break, buy a new one so you don't do what I did! I was so upset with the darn thing that it went right into the trash bin. I know that technically it still works, but without a handle it's difficult to clean and move around. (And it's got a few other problems as well, I won't bore you with the list.) But it's been well worth the 4$ I paid for it 5 years ago at a garage sale!

So I'm in the market for a new crockpot, let me know if you have any suggestions. I'm thinking maybe this one! :)

around the house...

2011-05-03T22:19:00.004-06:00

Today I took a quick trip around the house, outside and in, to see what I could see. Our yard is starting to wake up a bit, especially now that the sun has been shining this week. (Unfortunately our grass hasn't woken up! We overseeded a few bare patches 2 weeks ago and nothing's happening yet!) The tulips are out in all their glory, and these pretty little white flowers are right at my front door. Unfortunately I don't know what they are, maybe they're weeds, but I'd love plant them all over my lawn!

The peas are ambitiously looking for a place to climb so we wraped some twine around our sticks yesterday. Hopefully they find it.

We're babying our little sprouts with hopes of big bunches of spinach. They're showing their second leaves now.

The beets are coming up too. I love how when we thin them out, their little teeny roots are bright red!

I've been puting things out on the line in this nice weather, today was kitchen towels. I'm always amazed at how quickly they dry out in the breeze, it almost beats my dryer.

And when I came in after my walk around the house, I found these two, studiously doing their homework. What great kids! And speaking of great, check out my tomato forest growing on the table! Those babies are so excited to get out in the real dirt, I'm crossing my fingers for next week, then the real planting begins!

our pets.

2011-05-01T21:20:00.002-06:00

Who would've thought we'd become "guinea pig people," but here we are, snuggling our little pigs each day! After six weeks of living here, they've become welcome little friends. The kids are really good about cleaning out their cage each day. E checks them first thing in the morning, even when us parents sleep in, and makes sure their hay bowl is full and even sometimes gets them a fresh veggie from the fridge. They get so excited when they hear the fridge open, or when they can tell I'm chopping veggies for a salad. They know they get the odds and ends of the lettuce and carrots and whatever else we're eating. Actually, they're great little composters! And man are they getting big! Oreo used to be kind of delicate and thin, and now she's got some little rolls of chub around her, like a good guinea pig should. And Fluffy is all hair! Seriously, somedays I just want to rub some gel in there and style it all funky! (Don't worry, I won't!) We're thinking of getting her a brush one of these days. Did you know they have special brushes for guinea pigs? They do, seriously!

Easter Brunch....

2011-04-25T21:08:00.008-06:00

Okay, I'm back in business here with a brand-spankin'-new camera! And this one I'm quite sure I won't return! I just wasn't happy with the little Sony we bought a few months ago so the day before the last day I could return it, I did. We finally bit the bullet and bought a decent camera.....this one. I'm a total newbie here, so bear with me as I learn to use it. But I'm super duper excited!

We had the family all here for Easter brunch, and had a great time sitting around the kitchen stuffing ourselves with delicious waffles!

And thanks to Grandma Lynne the kiddos all had new Easter attire. The handmade dresses and sweaters were a hit with the girls! Even Felicity the doll got one, but I didn't get her picture yet.

Even my handsome husband paused for a moment for a picture with the new camera!

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T22:22:00.004-06:00

She just couldn't get enough of this beautiful statue when we visited Temple Square a few weekends ago. I'm so grateful for such sweet spirited children, and for my Savior.

http://mormon.org/

we've started...

2011-04-15T13:46:00.005-06:00

It seems fitting that I would post these pictures of us planting our little garden today because we just found our first sprouts out there this morning. These pictures are two weeks ago when we got our first seeds into the dirt. We did peas, spinach, kale, collards, and beets.....all known for surviving the low temperatures of spring. And it's a good thing too, because as soon as they were in the ground we've had nothing but cold and rain and snow! Today is actually the first day in 2 weeks that we've needed to water.

The kids each claimed their own little garden patch and we sectioned them off into squares as advised in the Square Foot Gardening book, which I highly recommend! It makes gardening seem so do-able! The squares are fun for kids because they can pick and choose what they want each square to be. When these cold weather crops are done we'll just plant something else in the squares. You should see the giant pile of flower seeds we have, I let the kids have free run of the 30 cent seed rack!

The sticks in the back row are "pea sticks!" I love this idea, I found it on this gardening blog. Mine probably won't work quite as well as hers, I didn't use quite as many sticks. But my plan is to wrap the sticks with twine as the peas need places to climb. (Don't you love the kids' little watering cans? :) They're from our sand/bath toys, but they really really wanted to water their gardens with them right away! It took them about 20 trips back and forth to the spigot!)

our new friends!

2011-04-03T09:00:00.003-06:00

Our children's dreams have come true with these two little fuzzballs we've adopted! They've hoped and wished and asked for a pet for awhile now, and the day we went to pick these two little ones out, they couldn't believe we were actually going to bring them home. We hadn't even intended to get guinea pigs but after a bit of research they seemed like a good fit for our family. They're very personable and friendly, and they love to run around and play, but they also can stay in their cage most of the day. They need a bit of free running time every day so we take them into our fairly large bathroom and close the door. They get so happy when they see us with their food or when they're running, they do this funny little hop called "popcorn!" And their little happy squeaks are pretty cute too, they mostly squeak when we come to feed them. Their favorite food is timothy hay, but they also eat little guinea pig pellets and fresh veggies. We give them a new piece of veggie twice a day. And the kids even like cleaning out their cage, their favorite part is scooping out little poops with plastic spoons! E says it's like a treasure hunt! Our pigs are babies so they'll be quite a bit bigger than they are now, almost twice as big by the end of the year. I've decided they're kind of like a cross between a mouse and a cat. Much more fun and cute and cuddly than a mouse, but they live in a cage and not all over my house!

This little golden fluff ball is G's and he named her Fluffy! Very fitting, don't you think? She's bigger than the other, and a bit fluffier! She likes to be held more but sometimes tries to nibble our fingers. It doesn't really hurt!

This little shy girl is E's and she named her Oreo. She tries to run and hide when we pick her up, but once she's being cuddled she makes a cute little purring sound. Doesn't she look like an oreo? :)

hope.

2011-03-27T12:57:00.002-06:00

There's nothing quite like the hope that goes into planting a seed. This is my first time trying to start seeds indoors and I'm so hopeful about what these teeny tiny little things might bring this summer. I've planted Brandywine, Tigerella, and Cherry tomatoes.....I just keep imagining how many delicious, ripe tomatoes might come from these little sprouts. I've also started a few basil plants because none of the basil I started outside grew last year. So stay tuned until the end of the summer to see if my little hopeful seedlings turn into yummy batches of salsa and pasta sauce. I just used little yogurt containers for most of the plants, and a few juice cans with holes nailed in the bottom. So yes, most of this project came from the trash!

To keep the seeds warm and encourage germination I covered them with plastic and put them on top of the fridge. The soil was moist enough when I planted them that I didn't need to water at all that first week. They popped up in 6 days!

Now they're enjoying the sun wherever we can find it around the house. They spend part of the day in the kids' room and part of the day in kitchen. So here's crossing our fingers for lots of tomatoes!

boy style

2011-03-16T12:58:00.002-06:00

I LOVE asking him to pose for a few pictures.....he puts so much personality into his photo shoot! My boy has been growing like a weed this winter (no, not quite a whole foot, he's standing on a little stool in these!) and we realized he had out-grown nearly all of his pants.

He and I went on a shopping trip just for him the other day. We headed to Target and decided to hit the thrift store across the street first just for fun....I always love a good thrift find. Well it was our lucky day in the boys department, we left there with practically a whole new wardrobe for about the same price as one outfit would have been elsewhere. Don't you just love a deal? We bypassed Target altogether!

spring....

2011-03-13T13:12:00.004-06:00

I love spring bulbs! We have tulips, irises, daffodils, crocuses, and little grape hyacinths coming up! I love it! It gives me garden fever so bad....I just want to go out and plant and dig and whatever else I can do, and it's still just a bit too early. But this year I'm going to be prepared and plant as early as I can, someone told me peas can be planted on St. Patrick's Day, so this week! And I've got all kinds of fun other ideas planned in my mind, so we'll see how many come to fruition! Really, the problem is I'm horribly lazy once the weather turns super hot, so then all of my spring garden ideas might frizzle away. We'll see!

And with the green coming up outside, I've been trying to get more green inside me with these yummy green smoothies. Almost daily I've been whipping them up, using kale or spinach and whatever other fruits sound good. And always a bit of plain yogurt or kefir to keep my belly happy!

a few favorites....

2011-03-05T12:31:00.002-07:00

Well, E got to share her latest favorite toy, the handmade dragon, so G wants to share his favorites as well. He's of the "more is better" opinion when it comes to choosing favorites. He usually has multiple scenarios of toys set up through out the house, but these particular toys do seem to get played with daily.

I love his poses! I usually have to take about 12 shots to get one without a blurry face or completely closed eyes. But at least these captured a bit of his energy!

a good week....

2011-02-28T15:10:00.003-07:00

Here's a little peak at last week's Bountiful Basket offerings.....it's mostly all gone by now, I did have one of those tiny pears in my smoothy this morning. Yum! The mangos were organic and divine and gone within 20 minutes of me bringing them home!

We've had a good, busy, fun week here. The days flew by so quickly, I didn't even realize I hadn't blogged all week. G's been a bit sick all week so missed preschool and speech class, but not really sick enough that he was in bed all day or anything. E and I have avoided this round of colds (knock on wood!), and we believe it's because of our new secret weapon.....Elderberry Syrup! This stuff is amazing! I know I don't have exact scientific evidence that it's working, but all I know is there have been quite a few days that I've woken up, feeling very sure that my body's finally catching the cold that's been floating around, only to realize later in the day that I'm just fine. And the next day I'm fine too! We bought our dried elderberries from Mountain Rose Herbs, and the one pound bag was so big. I've made two batches so far, and I probably have enough to make 6 more! E and I love the syrup and could drink it by the cup (we only take a few tablespoons a day), but G doesn't really like it. I have to give it to him in a cup of water. He ends up taking less than us because I have to coax it into him, and I seriously think that's contributed to his latest cold. So run out and buy some elderberries and you'll feel like an earthy herbalist, and you'll be healthier too!

Saphira is here! (guest blogger)

2011-02-20T12:33:00.005-07:00

I would like to introduce my special guest blogger today. My sweet little girl wanted to share her lastest project with you. She typed this up and took the pictures as well. We've had a lot of dragon play around here lately and this was something she dreamed up and just could not rest until she had created it. I only helped a teeny bit, mostly to show her how to do something, and then she ran with it! ~Megan

I have made a dragon since I believe in them. I made a dragon. I named her Saphira. I think she will come alive! But she hasn't yet. But I am not giving up.

I made her almost all by myself. I drew what I thought would be a nice body shape on paper and then I cut it out. Then I pinned it to the fabric and cut around the paper. Then I did the same thing for everything else on her. Then I sewed them together. I had to stuff lots too with bamboo. I stuffed it all down with a chopstick. It was hard, it took me a week I think. I was scared that I would not finish her in time for the 100 Day Pajama Party at school. But I finished her in time. I got to take her and a blanket too. It was fun! ~E

food.

2011-02-18T14:20:00.003-07:00

I was talking food with my sister Kate today and she said, "You should write a blog post about all of these food philosophies!" So here I am, sharing some of my latest food thoughts and ideas. Don't you sometimes feel like there are way too many food philosophies out there, and you're constantly searching for the right one as if you're trying to find religion? I know I know, it's not nearly the same thing as religion......but there definitely are a lot of eating ideologies out there trying to persuade us in one direction or another!

I love to learn about food and I feel like every way of eating brings with it some "truths" if you will. I've decided I need to take those ideas that resonate with me and just create my own personal style of eating. I don't need to be Vegetarian, Vegan, Primal, Paleo, or any other sort of "-tarian" out there. I think I just need to cook and eat with my own family in mind, and my own belly of course.

My problem is, I tend to get overly focused on grains intertwined with sweeteners. I don't exactly think that those foods are horrible and awful for our bodies, I just don't think we need to make them the centerpiece of every meal every day. We also don't need to make a batch of muffins (waffles, pancakes, cookies, scones....) and eat the whole thing! Just as grains don't need to be our focus, neither does meat. I love meat, don't get me wrong, but I'd love to find ways to eat without it too.

Do you notice one common truth for all food ideologies? Veggies! We can't go wrong in that department! So maybe that's where I need to focus at the moment, and let the rest of my personal eating philosphy settle into a comfortable and healthy routine. Thanks for letting me sort through some of these ideas, it really helps to type out my thoughts and read through them. It gives me more direction. Happy eating to you all!

Happy Heart Day

2011-02-14T13:34:00.004-07:00

Thank you all for coming to my blog! It makes me feel connected to so many of you that I love who are far away....sometime I wish the world was little bit smaller!

I hope your Valentine's Day is sweet, whether with children or chocolate or whatever else you love. Today it is gorgeous and warm and it totally feels like spring. I just finished reading Christopher McDougall's Born to Run and I've been just itching to get outside and run like the wind. So today when I dropped the kids off to school I drove up the hill a bit, parked the car, and just started running! No warm up, just took off and ran around a beautiful neighbourhood, with the sun in my eyes, heading for the mountains. Not that I made it to the mountains or anything, but it felt great to just be outside. Now I just need to get me a pair of barefoot running shoes, and I'll feel like I was born to run! :)

These little hearts are for my kiddos, and one for a sweet little neice. You can find the pattern here (as a free Ravelry download), they're so easy and fun to whip up, you could make a few tonight with a good movie and some dark chocolate to keep you company! Love ya!

Science Fair...

2011-02-13T10:25:00.006-07:00

So my girl was a super science girl this year! She's been wanting to dissect an owl pellet for years, ever since an owl visited her classroom in Kindergarten. We ordered her owl pellets from this website, they have a homeschooling pack with just a few little pellets, and it was only 4 dollars shipped. They arrived in about 2 days, which is great for an excited little second grader! Here she is posing with her pellets!

She just started tearing into them after that. I have to say, she totally did this part all by herself! She was so into it, and kept telling me, "This is so cool, and just a little bit gross!"

This was our scientific set up for more light late into the evening. She didn't want to stop that night to go to bed!

And of course we had to study each little bone with the magnifying glass.

She was constantly calling me into the kitchen to show me cool bones....the skulls were the most exciting! (Yes, I realize that at this point my kitchen table was covered in mouse hair and bones! The things we have to get past all in the name of science. We cleaned, don't worry!) (Oh, and the pellets are sanitized before they're shipped, that made me feel a bit better!)

After taking it them apart, she studied each individual bone and decided what type it was and organized them all on her bone chart. After she counted them out and determined she had about 8 full mouse skeletons, she glued the bones onto paper for a display.

Then the project took a turn toward the art department, and we had lots of fun puting the display together. Thanks to a super cool Aunt Kate who has a Cricut cutter, she made professional looking letters for her title. Sorry, no pictures of using the Cricut machine, but that is seriously a fun toy! Almost makes me wish I was a scrapbooker!

Then she put in many hours of typing and printing and coloring and sorting. She chose all of her favorite pictures and layed them out and enlisted my help in gluing and cutting background papers.

We are so proud of our science girl! Sadly, I didn't take one pictures of her at the actual science fair....what kind of a mother am I? But we have lots of fun memories! Even Aunt Kate came to see it with us, and it was the most beautiful display there! (Also, I heard a lot of "Ew, Gross!" comments coming from the passer-byers, mostly the moms!) I'm so glad she loved doing it though, and there's already been talk of next year's project ideas. And the 4H class she chose this semester is called "Mad Science," so I think I may have a little scientist on my hands!

Happy New Year.....

2011-02-09T09:03:00.004-07:00

Okay okay, I know it's not New Years anymore......but since this is my blog and I can post whenever and whatever I want, I decided it was time to share these fun pictures! These are the only complete group shots we got of our family get-together over the holidays. Our usual tradition is to make hats on New Year's Eve but we didn't have enough newpaper to go around, so paper plates came to the rescue and a new mask-making tradition was born. We had just watched The Owls of Ga'Hoole, so many are owl themed!

Mom loved hers so much she wore it for the rest of the night. Knitting was also a common theme of the week, just about everyone had a project going. How about if next we plan a whole get-together based solely on knitting.....sounds heavenly!

rearranging....

2011-01-30T09:51:00.006-07:00

This is also a little show-off of my sister Kate's fabulous handmade gift for the kids for Christmas! Aren't these playcloths amazing? She did a beautiful rolled edge around each and then dyed them, you can find more details here on her blog. I love how long they are, especially for my bigger kids, because they make them so versatile. So we decided to rearrange their bedroom to make a permanent play-place with the cloths. They love it!

We cleared the shelves as much as possible to allow for more play space. They like to have windows when they're inside! The cloths also make great props, such as this ocean being created below. Sometimes they're mountains and sometimes fields!

This is where most of the toys went, and it's the greatest system ever! Only Dad and Mom can reach them, so we have a bit more control over how many toys can be strewn around the house at a time. It's amazing how much mess a few sets of toys can make in a short afternoon of play, but at least this way we can request that one collection be cleaned up before we fetch another.

Here's the new tent in action! Last night it was filled with blankets and pillows and a camp-out was planned. At the last minute the real beds looked a bit more inviting than squishing together on the floor, but the planning and excitement about it was super fun!

Another action shot....Thanks for the wonderful cloths Kate! We love them! (This is what I was trying to duplicate for my kiddos, but since they're both getting taller, obviously we needed a bit more of a grown-up kid version. And of course without the $450 price tag! These are the play-cloths Kate was inspired by.)

kitchen scenes.

2011-01-23T10:55:00.003-07:00

I spend a lot of time in the kitchen so whether I have the ideal kitchen or not (I don't!), I try to make it a place I like to be. Of course it has food, that already endears it to me! This yummy muffin is a new recipe find, Lynne's Oatmeal Muffins from Laurel's Kitchen. Mmmmm, I made them for dinner two nights in a row because we all loved them so much. (They were altered to be gluten free.)

And of course my belly's favorite friend, Kefir! We've been making up a batch of this every night and enjoying it in smoothies and just straight. I always feel so much better when I'm getting my kefir fix each day.

I LOVE the afternoon/evening light in my kitchen! Admittedly, in the summer it makes it sooooo hot, but in the winter it's so warming and inviting. And the sunset view is fabulous! We've been having beautiful sunsets every evening for the past couple of weeks, always while I'm getting dinner ready.

Unfortunately I'm usually looking the other direction, at this sweet little corner. I spend MANY hours here, and I've made my peace with dishes! I used to dread them, and put them off as long as possible, but for the past couple of years I haven't minded them so much. And lately, I've even looked forward to them from time to time, my hands and feet are always cold in this old house, and I love standing there up to my elbows in warm, soapy water. Now if I cold only have a warm foot bath at the same time! (That's what sheepskin slippers are for!)

And my favorite part of the kitchen......the eaters! This one is always enthusiastic! I love it when he tells me, "Mommy, you're the best maker in the world!" And lately when I'm making him his favorite sandwich he always says, "Mommy, you're my girl!"

These are all shots I took to test out my new new camera (I took the other one back). Now I have this one, and it's better, but still not great. I don't know if I could just be happy and stop wishing I had the next step up, or just go the next step up and be happy. :) I bought this from Costco so I figure I can play around with it for a month or two and then take it back and move up a notch if I need to. If I do that all year, by the end of the year I'll have the one I really want! (Just kidding!)

Handmade Holiday: the doll!

2011-01-21T09:32:00.002-07:00

I'd like to introduce you all to Jon, G's new little friend! (He named him, and he loves me to spell it out for him on paper so he can see what letters it uses.) This was one of my absolute favorite gifts to make and give ever! And when he was opened on Christmas morning, G yelled out, "It's the doll I always wanted!" E had been wanting an American Girl doll for quite awhile so G kept asking me if he could have an "American Boy Doll." Gotta love it!

So here he is, decked out in his new cashmere sweater (Thanks to Grandma Lynne, what a lucky little doll!) and his backpack. The backpack was a specific request, because of course, every American Boy should have a backpack. He mostly carries magnet letters in it, he's learning his letters too. :)

He was made with instructions from this book, it's awesome! His hair is mohair and his skin cotton and he's stuffed with bamboo. His skin and hair are from this company, they have such nice quality supplies.

Here he is sporting his super cool dinosaur shirt (I cut up one of G's white tshirts to make this, saves so much time hemming!) and jeans. (The jeans are cut up-cycled as well.)

And here's his sweet face. I couldn't help but fall in love with him as he came to life! He was sooooo much fun to make. Kate and I worked together late into the night a few times, and on my own I stitched and stitched and stitched all that crazy hair on. (Here you can see some of his in-progress pictures.) I think he turned out to have such a great personality!

Yesterday we had a friend over for a bit, an older brother of one of E's friends, and I heard G in his room proudly showing off his cool toys. (GI Joes, trains, Ironman....) It made my heart soar to hear him pick up his doll and say, "This is my new doll, my mom made him for me for Christmas!" And about 4 times a day I get asked, "When are you going to knit my doll some socks?"......."Can you please knit my doll a hat?"......."Mom, today can you sew my doll some little underwear?" :) What more can a sewing mama ask for? Gotta love it!

good mornings.

2011-01-18T22:08:00.003-07:00

I've come to the conclusion that sugar is addicting! Yes, I know we all know it, but when my body is BEGGING for it each day and I'm trying not to give in, it's really obvious. I know it's just all the nasty bad bacteria in my gut that wants it, but sometimes they win, and at the end of a good day of eating, or a good week, I give in. (brownies!) I know this about myself, but it seems that I'm forgetful because every few months I have to completely remove sugar from my diet for a week or two to get those awful cravings to go away. And then I'm fine. I can go weeks without sugar if I quit cold-turkey, even months if I need to. So anyways, this week is a no-sugar week. I've got to get it out of my system, and out of my head!

So enter the green smoothie! I've been waking up to these for the past week, and yum! There's endless variations.....this one pictured above is baby spinach, half of a green apple, a peeled orange, half of an avocado, a banana, carrot juice, and cold water. Since it's winter and I'm not always in the mood for a smoothie, I tell myself it's green juice. The ingredients aren't frozen and I don't add ice, so then I can sip it down and it doesn't give me a chill for the rest of the morning. And straws are so fun! G's speech therapist recommended that he use straws to teach his mouth to form certain sounds, and I love them for my morning juice! (And also for my evening chocolate milkshakes......just not this week!)

And this is my new best friend, isn't she a beauty? She whips these smoothies up into a dream-like consistency! There's a program button on the front for a whole juice, and it purees the fruit so smoothly, even seeds! Yum......who needs brownies anymore? (me, just not this week!)

Ski New Years!

2011-01-16T10:12:00.010-07:00

I think spending New Years Day skiing is the best way possible to ensure a bright and positive year ahead! We had a fabulous day of family skiing up at the Canyons. We had waited all week for the perfect day, and I think we found it. Two days before it had been dumping snow, and the day we went up it was chilly, but clear and beautiful. The kiddos even skiied for the morning, and when I told E it was time to go in for lunch and be done for the day, she was so disappointed and so ready to keep going, we let her stay out and ski the whole day! One of us took turns staying with her on the small lift and the rest of us explored the mountain a bit. So fun! Thanks so much mom Mom and Dad for the great day!!!

new.......

2011-01-12T20:40:00.003-07:00

Well, we're a week and a bit into this new year, and there are lots of new things going on around here. Lots of the old and familiar though, and that's good too. Here's our Bountiful Basket from the weekend, to go along with our new resolutions of eating well.....not that that's a new resolution, I make it every year, and every month, and every Monday really! I think that's the way eating is, our body finds balance over time with super healthy eating sometimes and then the days and weeks of luxurious holiday feasting. It all balances out, right? (That's what my squishy post-holiday belly keeps telling me!)

I also have a new camera to replace the one that was lost/stolen over the Thanksgiving holiday, but unfortunately I'm not in love with it yet. It's a little pocket point and shoot, and I love how convenient and small it is, but I've been fighting with it to take nice, clean shots without flash. Hopefully we strike a balance soon. (Or, don't tell my camera, but I think I might be trading it for something better!)

I've taken on a new activity, one that's been missing from my life for about 8 years.....I finally joined the local Symphony! I auditioned last night and the conductor welcomed me right in and told me to stay for rehearsal. It was a wild sight-reading ride for my poor un-conditioned fingers and brain, (we're playing Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade) but it was soooooo fun! I've also been working practicing into each day for the past week or so, hopefully I can keep it up.

So those are a few of our "news." I really did try to post all of my New Years Day skiing pictures on Sunday, but blogger wouldn't take them. So I'll try to get them up again in a couple of days. I also have some fun handmade holiday posts to share, stay tuned!

A Special Day....

2011-01-05T20:43:00.003-07:00

In addition to Christmas, on the 26th we were also fortunate to celebrate the baptism of our sweet little 8 year old! I'm so grateful that she made this decision and that we were able to have so many family members and friends in attendance. She kept saying, I can't believe everyone came that I invited! (I can......she's such a sweetie, so many people love her!) Her dress was mine that my mama made for my when I was baptized, I love seeing my own little girl in it!

Grandpa Doug gave a talk about baptism and Aunt Kate gave a talk about the Holy Ghost and made E a beautiful flannel quilt to remind her that the Holy Ghost can be a comforter. (I don't know how pictures of the quilt escaped all of our cameras, but we'll catch it one of these days!)

And of course little brother was there, sporting his new Christmas sweater from Grandma Vi and Grandpa Gordon! (Grandma and Grandpa, do you remember the locket you gave me for my baptism years ago? I passed it on to E that night, she loves it, and your pictures are still inside!)

Thank you so much to everyone who came and participated and shared their love with E. (To all of you that we wish were with us, we missed you, but you're in our hearts!) It was such a special day and a great way to remember Christ and what he taught us, especially at this time of year.

scenes of joy.......

2011-01-03T20:28:00.005-07:00

There was so much fun to be had these past two weeks......I just can hardly believe they're over and we're back to school and work and laundry and dishes! Grandma and Grandpa arrived Christmas Eve and were eagerly welcomed by two very excited grand-children. Of course we put them right to work reading to us!

And since we were all so good, Santa arrived sometime during the night and left a magical morning wonderland! After all of the Christmas day cheer, and E's baptism the next day, we were off to Park City for a week of relaxing, snow, games, and skiing.......more pictures of that to share soon!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T08:30:00.004-07:00

I have a fabulous sister who takes beautiful photos (well, I have two other fabulous sisters as well, one's a super mom with a baby in the NICU and one is an amazing marathon runner!) and she took these of us back in November. I've been waiting for Christmas to share them with everyone.......Have a wonderful holiday week! (There's many more to share another day!)

around the house.....

2010-12-18T09:43:00.002-07:00

Here's a few funky iphone shots of Christmas around my house. We're having lots of fun being festive these days! This morning we had gingerbread waffles with freshly squeezed orange juice. (Bountiful baskets were very bountiful with their oranges this morning, and I already had a box in the pantry from the grocery store......yum!)

Making snowflakes was one of our advent days.....

This is my sweet little Rauchermann from my Grandma and Grandpa's. They lived in Germany years ago and I always loved their german Christmas decorations, especially their Weihnachtspyramide.......so pretty!

My nativity......I bought this at a Christmas market in Innsbruck years ago.

And of course you've seen my tree.....

And this is one of the things the elves in my sewing workshop have been making late at night! It's too bad I don't have a little troop of elves to work for me actually, it would save my poor fingers! (I've had a lot of needle mishaps lately.) Lately I've been feeling like I work in a little doll clothes sweatshop, I have assembly line piles of little clothes to make! But actually, I've been loving it. I'm especially in love with a certain little doll who has been coming to life in my hands this week......last night he got his final stitches of hair. I can't wait to share, but I think that will have to wait until after he's been revealed on Christmas morning!

our tree....

2010-12-14T08:19:00.004-07:00

We live in a sweet little old brick house that was built about 60 years ago, and this picture makes me feel like it could have come right out of this house's first Christmas! I'm having lots of fun with my phone camera, but since I don't feel like it takes the greatest, clearest pictures, I mostly use the fun apps. So get ready for lots of funky pictures!

Holiday preparations are in full swing around here. The advent calendar has been wonderful, the kids look forward to it every morning! So far we've had movie night with popcorn, a new book, cutting snowflakes, family game night, homemade hot chocolate for breakfast, sending letters to Santa, and making gingerbread men. Today is homemade playdough day! Today is also stay-home-from-school-sick-day......E has a bit of a cough and sore throat so we're having a quiet herbal tea and soup sipping day.

I can't believe Christmas is next week! I hope you all are finding quiet moments to enjoy the season. I've been loving my evenings of sewing......a little pile of gifts is growing bigger each night! I'm glad my shopping was mostly done by the end of November, this month has been very homey. Lots of homemade gifts and goodies to enjoy! (I'll have some funky camera pictures to share of those too!)

Advent.......

2010-12-03T09:11:00.003-07:00

:: Welcome to the world little babe O! Our 32 week nephew is doing AWESOME! He's breathing just fine and drinking mama milk like a champion.....Congrats Jes! ::

With December 1st being an exciting BIRTH day for the family, (happy birthday to you too, Mom!), we've jumped into the whirlwind month of December. I was pretty proud of myself, this advent calendar was up and functional, and only one day late! (We started it yesterday.) I started sewing these little stockings 2 years ago! Last Christmas I finished them but didn't actually get them stitched to anything and didn't have any way to hang them up for display. This year I'm on it! I still need to get a dowel to thread through the top, but the kids love it. Yesterday's stocking was decorate the tree, today is write and mail letters to Santa! So fun! I've planned out the whole month, hopefully I just remember to stick them in each night!

Happy Advent to you all!

(On a sad note.......I've lost my camera! We took it on our little Thanksgiving trip and it never made it home......we're thinking it was stolen out of the backseat of the car since those doors don't always get locked, or left at the hotel and never recovered. So there may be fewer holiday pictures than usual this year, but at least it gives me a good excuse to play with the fun camera apps on my phone! Hopefully if I'm a good girl I'll find one under the tree in a few weeks!)

A doll for a birthday girl........

2010-11-23T21:20:00.003-07:00

Since Kate is sharing her amazingly fabulous nightstand-turned-kitchen on her blog this week, I thought I'd share our gift for the little birthday girl! This sweet little doll was for my two year old neice, and she was well-recieved and has been well-loved since. She's called the "baggy doll" from Maricristin Sealey's book Making Waldorf Dolls. She made with a soft cotton velour I had floating around in my stash and stuffed with bamboo stuffing (sooooooo divinely soft!). E thought she needed a little blanket to wrap up in so we stitched that together at the last minute from soft tshirt knits. This is the only picture I took (on my phone) before we gifted her, but I had to share. I just love how little waldorf dolls come alive as you put them together. Yesterday Kate and I started our Christmas doll projects, so fun! I can't wait to share!

Bountiful Baskets......

2010-11-22T18:36:00.003-07:00

Maybe you're all tired of these posts, but I just think it's so fun to see all the fruits and veggies in one place! Maybe I'll start doing this with my grocery shopping each week, what fun! This week was a good selection.....green peppers, bananas, a red onion, celery, lettuce, radishes, honeydew, tomatoes, pears, parsnips, oranges, potatoes, asian pears, and apples. Perfect for a pre-Thanksgiving weekend! Tonight we had the celery, parsnips, and peppers in a stir-fry along with other veggies I had in the fridge.

Things have been busy around here this week, but I've been getting to a lot of those projects I mentioned in my last post. Hopefully I can get everything done in time! :) But if not, they'll be next year projects, right?

I thought I'd share a little picture of my favorite new shoes! I had to wait a bit of a long time in line to pick up my basket, so I had a little fun with my phone.........

projects.....

2010-11-15T09:03:00.003-07:00

As usual, with the upcoming holidays, there are about 50 projects floating around in my head! Kate and I were just talking about this last night, we can't help ourselves, this time of year creates some sort of creating compulsion! Realistically, I know that as Christmas gets closer and closer, some of these ideas will get put on the "maybe-next-year" list. But hey, a crafty girl can dream of getting it all done.....right?

The box of goodies you see arrived in the mail just the other day from Weir, can you guess what one of my big Christmas projects is going to be? Wish me luck!

Coconut Banana Puffs (aka Primal Doughnuts!)

2010-11-13T11:44:00.003-07:00

Okay, so who doesn’t love a crispy yet soft, gooey, sweet, fried-in-horrible-hydrogenated-oil doughnut? Actually, the thought of them makes me feel a little sick these days, but these little puffs…….way better! They’re just sweet enough, with a hint of cinnamon and vanilla and they have that crispy outer shell that’s to die for. Seriously, primal eating seems to call for doughnuts since we’re all about the healthy fats! Make these, you’ll thank me!

Coconut Banana Puffs (aka Primal Doughnuts!)
½ of a ripe banana
1 egg
1 Tablespoon honey
4 Tablespoons coconut flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon cloves
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon real vanilla
Dash of salt
Coconut Oil for frying

The star of this show is the coconut flour, which gives the doughnuts a soft muffin-like inside. Mmmm.

Mash the banana and beat with it the egg and coconut flour. Add the baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, vanilla, and salt. Form the dough into little balls about 1 ½ inch in diameter and slightly squish them, giving them two somewhat flat sides.

Heat about one inch of coconut oil on medium low until a drop of water splashed in sizzles. Drop the balls of dough in one at a time and watch for the bottoms to turn golden brown, gently flip them over.

They should puff up in the center, giving them a crispy outer shell with a soft, moist center. Wait for them to cool just long enough that you can pick them up with your fingers without burning yourself, and bite into a little piece of primal heaven! Enjoy!

a girl and her doll......

2010-11-08T08:47:00.003-07:00

We've had a good weekend of birthday bliss, stretched out over 3 days! On Saturday we took E to the store with some of her very special, much pondered over, birthday money. (Thanks Grandma W!) She is definitely a natural "saver!" She loves the idea of having a little bank full of possibilities, but at the same time she wanted something special to play with. She's been contemplating a more expensive purchase, but her thrifty nature couldn't bear to part with all her money at once. When she saw this girl at the store, it was love at first sight! She made up her mind instantly and quickly calculated that this doll would cost her much less and she would still have her little bank nearly full, and have more left over for accessories! (What girl doesn't love accessories!) She named her Susan, and later that night Auntie Kate gifted her with a beautiful handmade little dress to match the one we made this summer! It was designed for another doll, but fits Susan just fine (it's maybe a little short, but we think she'd like to wear some cute bloomers under it!). Now we have a happy birthday girl and her doll, and she even told me I could play with her while she's at school today......I might just go dress her up a few times!

bountiful baskets.......

2010-11-06T12:52:00.005-06:00

Here's our exciting Bountiful Baskets selection for the week.......Persimmons, apples, asian pears, anjou pears, green beans, black grapes, chard, bananas, potatoes, brussel sprouts, grape tomatoes, and cauliflower! Yum! I had a helper this morning, my newly 8 year old was out of bed early and eager to go and collect our basket. I don't know if it was as exciting as she had hoped, but the food looks great. Now we're off to research persimmons.....I don't even know how to tell when they're ripe! I've never bought them before!

Happy Birthday!!!

2010-11-05T09:55:00.006-06:00

Happy Birthday to our sweet little "E," who is definitely not so little anymore! I can't believe she's already 8 years old! I love this age! She's old enough to have intelligent conversations and do fun activities with me, but still young enough to play with playdough and make up imaginary scenarios with her little brother. I wish I could just pause time for a little bit right now......but since that's not an option, we're celebrating as much as we can! Today we have an afterschool party for 7 girls and then special dinner with just us and then tomorrow Pirate Island with all the fam! Could it get any better? :)

I think so, especially when she melts my heart by requesting all her favorite mama-made foods, and they're so delicious! Brown rice pudding for breakfast this morning. (Sorry no pics, we ate it all up and practically licked our bowls, it was so yummy! I had mine with bananas and cranberries.) Sushi for lunch today.....

I've had homemade chicken broth simmering all night for her favorite chicken veggie soup......

Cupcakes to decorate with her friends........

And pizza dough mixing away in anticipation of 8 little pairs of hands making their own pizzas. The party is a "Chef" theme......thanks to the inspiration of some great friends!

And of course, what would a chef party be without some new mama-made aprons? I've been sewing like crazy for the past 2 days making 8 little aprons......7 for girls and 1 super cool dinosaur apron for my boy! Wish me luck with all this merry-making!

Halloween Highlights.....

2010-11-03T09:28:00.003-06:00

As I said before, we had a great weekend of Halloween celebrating! The school had a carnival the weekend before, so we spread the festivities over the entire week. Here the kids are headed down to mainstreet to trick or treat at local businesses. This was Saturday afternoon and it was a huge event! The sidewalks were packed and we only made it down one block and back up again before we headed home. It was fun to see all the costumes, but wall to wall trick-or-treaters was a little much!

This Hermione costume was so much fun to put together. She has the cutest little pleated skirt and v-neck sweater on under her robe (which is a BYU graduation gown I found at the thrift store and hemmed). The Hogwarts crest I printed off the computer, colored in, and then laminated and pinned it to the gown. It held up really well and is going to be a great dress-up robe, the kids love playing Harry Potter!

The pumpkin we carved was huge! It weighed in at 45 lbs! Dad and the kids scraped it out and carved, I was in charge of sorting seeds. (It had a ton of seeds!)

He ended up with a great spooky/goofy face!

Bountiful Baskets......

2010-11-02T09:17:00.004-06:00

Once again, I have to share my bountiful basket pick up for this past weekend. It was so yummy! I love the surprise of not knowing what we're going to get, and this was a fun selection of fruits and veggies, for only $15. This time I weighed it when I got home and it was a total of 25 lbs. Pretty good price per pound! (The pumpkin wasn't part of it, he just likes to be in photos!) We got black grapes, lettuce, pineapple, green beans, yellow squash, sweet potatoes, pears, apples, bananas, tomatoes, blackberries, and cucumbers. Yum!

Happy Halloween!

2010-11-01T09:06:00.004-06:00

We had a fabulous Halloween weekend, lots of celebrating and treats! I have more pictures still on my camera, but I just had to share this one of my little Hermione Granger and her friend Dinosaur. Aren't they great?

"Big Guy Robot......"

2010-10-27T10:14:00.002-06:00

That is what G has named his super huge lego robot! Since we've talked about our latest bead shape obsession, I thought I should share our other equally important favorite activity. Lego robots! I don't know if you can see, but up there at the top of this giant robot is a little head and arms. At the bottom he has little feet too. G makes about 5 of these a day but they're usually about 1-2 feet tall. This one is his crowning glory and he built it ALLLLLL by himself! That's right, he gently split apart the "robot" in the center and lifted it a few inches to slide in a couple of lego blocks at a time, until it reached the ceiling! It took all day and he would come and show me every 6 inches or so how much it had grown. And now it seems to have a semi-permanent position in our living room, I don't know if he'll ever have the heart to break it apart!

knitting for my boy......

2010-10-23T13:32:00.005-06:00

Knitting these woolies for my favorite 4 year old was almost as much fun as photographing him wearing them! He's so happy about them, I love it! The mittens were my car project on the way up to Canada a couple weekends ago and when I finished them, I decided they needed a hat to match. The hat I had originally started in the car was way too small by the time I'd already knit about 5 inches. So G and I spent some time on Ravelry together when we got home and he picked out a fun pattern to use on a new hat. This time I estimated better and it fits him great! Thanks to Jes for all her help, the dinosaur was my first time with intarsia knitting........it was a bit tricky but lots of fun! (Here's the dinosaur chart I used.)

I'm so glad he loves them, now we just need some cooler weather!

Coconut Hot Chocolate (or Hot Coco-Choco)!

2010-10-20T09:17:00.004-06:00

Mark's Daily Apple had an Iron Chef recipe contest a few weeks back and the secret ingredient was coconut. Mmmmmmmm! I really wanted to win, the prize was a Vitamix!!! (My dream kitchen appliance at the moment!) I'm sure you can guess I didn't win (since I didn't come on here and rave about my new vitamix) but at least I got 4 new recipes out of it. They were so yummy and I had such a fun time creating and photographing and writing them (and of course taste-testing!). Here's the first.......

I'm Coco-crazy and Choco-crazy so I figured the best way to get my fix was mix them together in a creamy, steamy cup of yumminess! My kids and I have been making homemade hot chocolate for 3 years now and we'll never go back to those foiled lined bags of powdered blah. This year we're taking it up a notch with full-fat coconut milk and 85% dark chocolate. Blending those two together creates an ambrosia unlike any hot chocolate we've ever had.

Hot Coco-Choco (or Coconut Hot Chocolate)

1 cup coconut milk
50 grams (5 squares) 85% dark chocolate
½ teaspoon real vanilla

It’s really that simple……Heat one cup of coconut milk over medium low heat.

In the mean time, finely grate your chocolate.

Stir it into your warm coconut milk……

Keep stirring until it’s blended and creamy……

When it’s all mixed in, remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. Now pour it into your favourite mug, top with that yummy cream that comes on the top of the coconut milk, and sprinkle with a few dark chocolate shavings. Enjoy!

bead shape fun......

2010-10-18T08:00:00.001-06:00

I just had to share a couple of pictures of G's favorite new hobby. (Well, maybe not favorite anymore now that we brought Derick's old Legos home from Grandma's house.) But he just loves puting together these colorful little shapes. If anyone has any great ideas for what to do with hundreds of colorful little shapes, let us know!

Bountiful Baskets!

2010-10-17T09:00:00.003-06:00

I've made a new discovery......Bountiful Baskets! This is my first week joining the coop, and I was so excited to pick up my food yesterday morning. I had to be at the location at 7:15am, so of course I was up bright and early, but it was worth it for this "bountiful" spread of food for only $15! I love to cook and eat healthy foods, but over the last few months of keeping track of my eating, I've realized I really skimp out on veggies! This is my first step in trying to get more veggies in my diet, without having to spend too much. My favorite part of this coop is the surprise element, I love not knowing what will be in the next basket. This week we got pomegranates, a super exciting treat around here. We ate one right away for breakfast. I washed the grapes and lettuce right away and put them in the fridge so we're all set for a week of healthy eating!

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

2010-10-16T11:49:00.002-06:00

We're back from a fun-filled weekend trip to Alberta, with lots of adventures and stories to tell. Of course, the first story you'll all want to know is how our poor little girl broke her arm.......again! Thanksgiving dinner was on the table and I told the girls to come down to Grandma's house to eat, and running down the hill, she fell! She actually missed dinner, being so upset and crying, but at the time it was hard to tell it was broken. We figured it was sore, but didn't see swelling for awhile. By the next morning, the swelling was still there and she wasn't using it at all, just holding it against her side, so we took her into the small town hospital and had wonderful and quick service. Nothing like being the only patients in a small emergency room on a holiday weekend! We were in and out in 1 1/2 hours! It turns out she has a small break, more of a buckle really, right above her left wrist. She'll be in her cast for 6 weeks! But she's so good at adapting, she's having no problem doing everything she usually does. The only complaint so far is itchiness, unfortunately there's not much we can do for that!

Other than that, our weekend was fun and relaxing. Lots of food and family and good times! The drive was great, we stayed overnight in Butte, MT on the way up, and on the way back drove the whole 12 hours in one day. The kids were great in the car! (Thank goodness for movies on iphones!) We're so glad we went, even if we returned a bit broken! E especially enjoyed seeing Trixsey, Grandpa's little blue horse. She helped Grandpa name her last year, so she's a special horse......

And of course Dia the mule had to get her share of the attention as well!

Gotta love the Southern Alberta wind!

conference weekend.....

2010-10-03T19:36:00.003-06:00

We had a great General Conference weekend, full of lots of relaxing home time and wonderful messages from our church leaders. I thought I'd share a few glimpses of our time together. We had to have the globe out of course to look up the countries that different speakers mentioned or were from. Then the kids had fun looking up Alaska, Canada, and India and seeing how far away all of our family members are.

I was actually sick with a bit of a cold this weekend, which was really good timing. When else do I have a perfect excuse to lay on the couch in my comfy clothes all day and relax? I got a bit of knitting done....these are Halloween/fall socks for E, I've got to start turning heels if I'm going to get them done this month! And of course what would conference weekend be without bead shapes! That's what we call them around here, those ironable bead designs. My kids love them! I don't necessarily love the way they fall all over the floor and then stick to the bottoms of my feet while I walk through the kitchen, but I love that they love them!

Saturday night I got smart and made Sunday morning breakfast for the kids so my stuffy head, achy body could get some extra sleep in the morning and then just roll out of bed in time to watch the morning session. It worked like a charm and they were so excited to wake up to "I love you muffins!" (That's what G calls them.)

I just have to share what my angel girl drew during one of the Saturday sessions.....this is totally on her own, she just came to show me afterwards! Isn't she adorable! I asked her if I could share it with you, and she just wanted to clarify that she's thankful for so many more things than just what she wrote, she just didn't write them all. I love my sweet girl, I can't believe she'll be 8 in a month......time flies!

our favorite way to travel.......

2010-09-29T09:00:00.003-06:00

We have been loving the bike riding to and from school these days! Look at my two little school kiddos.....on Wednesdays they get out of school at the same time and I pick them both up together.

Unfortunately my bike has a flat tire at the moment, so we've missed riding this last week. Driving back and forth in the car is not nearly the same. Instead of being all about the journey up to the school, it's just a rushed herding of everyone into and out of the car. And of course it's rushed because we don't have to plan for the long ride, we can just head out at the last minute. I definitely appreciate having a car to get us places quickly and easily, but I realize that I need to be more mindful of our outings and make them meaningful with slower paced walks and bike rides. It's much more fun that way!

Almond Banana Pancakes (grain & sugar free!)

2010-09-27T18:49:00.006-06:00

This is my new favorite weekend breakfast treat! It's full of lots of healthy fats, a bit of protein, and some fruits to balance it out. Definitely a sensible splurge! (Check out the Mark'sDailyApple version of the recipe as well.)

Almond Banana Pancakes

2 T almond butter

1 egg

1 mashed banana

1/2 t cinnamon

1/2 t vanilla

dash of salt

coconut oil

-Whisk together the almond butter and egg. (Feel free to sub a nut butter of your choice.)

-Add mashed banana, cinnamon, vanilla, and salt.

-Heat coconut oil in your pan on medium low. (These pancakes brown easily so not too hot.)

-Drop about 1/4 cup onto hot pan and cook until top is bubbly.

-Flip to see the golden yumminess. These are tender little pancakes so flip gently!

I top mine with butter and a dollop of unsweetened applesauce.......mmmmmmm! Enjoy!

Happy Harvest Moon!

2010-09-20T09:14:00.005-06:00

Did you know the Harvest Moon is the full moon that falls closest to the Autumn Equinox? (I did not, I just looked it up!) So it's actually going to be on September 23rd, Thursday. But our little town had a festival this weekend about a block from our house called the Harvest Moon Hurrah.....so fun! The kids had fun at the craft tent and posing for crazy photos. We celebrated with some yummy milkshakes and ice cream cones, and the evening ended with a great outdoor concert.....my favorite performer being Cherie Call, she was awesome!

And speaking of harvest, I finally did a little canning Saturday morning. Kate's wonderful mother-in-law has a plum tree and we were given a whole box of perfectly ripe plums. I got right to work and made plum-blueberry jam and spiced plum butter. And to go along with my sugar-free September, one of the batches of plum-blueberry is sweetened with honey! It was delicious on spoonfuls coming out of the pot, hopefully it sets up well and tastes yummy all winter. And if you peek into the background of that photo, you'll see a little jar of butter! I'd finished all the jam and still had two little jars that were hot and ready, so I was looking around the the kitchen thinking, "what can I can?" I've seen this a few different places online and it seemed so easy, I thought I'd give it a try. It would be nice in an emergency to have butter on hand, at least then we could make some cookies! So we'll see how it tastes after awhile.

Peach Clafouti recipe.......

2010-09-17T09:30:00.005-06:00

This is soooooo yummy! I've been experimenting with some different healthy treats on the weekends to keep me sticking to my sugar free September. I usually use a bit of honey and/or stevia drops. This recipe is from The Primal Blueprint Cookbook, and I altered it a bit. I found these great local peaches at the farmer's market, and the dessert was so yummy, I had it for breakfast the next morning.

Peach Clafouti

4-5 fresh peaches

4 tablespoons honey

2 cups coconut milk (not light)

4 eggs

1/4 cup ground almonds

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla

Peel and slice the peaches and lay in a baking dish. Blend the rest of the ingredients together and pour over the peaches. Bake at 375 degrees for 40-45 minutes. Let cool slightly before eating, (if you can resist that long!). I had quite a bit of batter left over after I poured it over my peaches, so I did a pan of sliced pears and WOW! Almost even better! So you could probably half the batter recipe if you only want a fairly small amount. Enjoy!

First Day of Preschool....

2010-09-14T09:39:00.004-06:00

Here's our little man ready for school! He started Preschool last week and is loving being a big boy who goes to school like everyone else. He's going two days a week in the afternoon, and then one day a week he and I go together to a speech preschool. We're excited about the prospect of being able to understand him a bit better after this year.

So far he loves his teachers and is very confident about going into class by himself. Last night he led us all through a rendition of "We're going on a bear hunt!" It seems to be his favorite thing about school so far, he loves singing it over and over!

summer highlights :: The Wedding!

2010-09-11T10:30:00.003-06:00

That's my beautiful new sister Tamanna and her two sisters from India and her two best friends. Carter and Tamanna's wedding was so much fun and I've been meaning to share all these great pictures with you! It's always so fun to get together with everyone, I especially loved seeing Teresa, Dad's sister.......

My handsome little man got his very first tie for the wedding, he loves it soooooo much! (and it's so cool, it zips up!)

It was great to have Mom and Dad here for so long, and doesn't Carter looks wonderful?

The two little cousins had matching dresses! (E loved her Indian Princess dress more though!)

Of course it's always wonderful to be together with my sisters!

Congrats you two!!!

Hiking to the Grotto.......

2010-09-10T08:37:00.003-06:00

On the weekend we took a fun family day up to a beautiful, tucked-away grotto in the mountains. It was a perfect little hike for us, not too long or steep for the kids. We packed lunches and swimming suits and had a fun afternoon.

The kids especially loved these little plank bridges to cross.......

It was very picturesque up there, but what the pictures don't show you are the 4 or 5 other families with all their kids and dogs there at the same time! Too bad such a beautiful peaceful place is also quite the family destination!

We climbed around and enjoyed the falls, and then hiked back down and found a quieter little picnic spot for our lunch. It was a great adventure and now we're excited to discover more beautiful hide-aways to visit in the mountains around us.

Primal Challenge!

2010-09-07T11:02:00.004-06:00

To go along with my sugar-free September, I've decided to join in with the 30-day Primal Challenge over at Mark's Daily Apple! I've been following this site for about a year now, and even though I don't always eat according to his guidelines, when I do, I feel soooooo much better! I think it's intuitively the way my body likes to eat, at least at this point in my life.

To sum up what "primal" eating is.........
-Eat vegetables, fruits, nuts/seeds, meats, and good fats
-Avoid grains and sugar
-Dairy products (full-fat of course) are good in moderation (if you tolerate them)

There's of course lots more to it than that so if you're curious, check out the blog I linked to, there's tons of articles. When I first was learning about it I read through everything on this 101 page.

Back in June I started eating this way pretty regularly, but in July when Derick and I started P90X I changed my diet a bit to go along more with the P90X nutrition guide. Now that I'm two months into that, I really rethinking what I'm eating and I'm going to finish the rest of the program eating more primally. P90X advocates eating more carbs than my gut likes, and they're also all about low fat! I totally need my fats! I feel so much better cutting out the carbs and adding back in coconut oil, butter, and full-fat dairy. (I'll have to tell you more about P90X later, we're loving it! We workout every night after the kids go to bed and I have to admit, I look forward to it......even though sometimes I feel like I'm gonna die!)

summer highlights :: Traditional Indian gowns.......

2010-09-05T18:18:00.004-06:00

Well, the event of the summer for our family was my brother Carter marrying a beautiful girl we all love......Tamanna! He met her in India last summer and was of course happy to know she actually was going to school here at BYU, so the rest is history. Her whole family and quite a few extended family members travelled from India to be here for the wedding in SLC, and it was so fun to get to know them all. They generously brought us all the most beautiful clothes, all traditional silks and beading, they were sooooooo fun to wear! I can't wait for my next big dress-up affair, I know what I'll be wearing. I loved mine, the colour is one of my favorites, and it has tiny little pearls all over with gold stitching. We were all sad that we forgot our little forehead jewel stickers back at the hotel, so we'll have to have another event to wear those!

All of us siblings with our new sister.......

We only wore the Indian clothes for the big family dinner the night before the wedding, so we had to have as much fun with them as we could. The dinner was held at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in SLC, and it was delicious. A big, fun party!

Here I am with the celebrity of the evening, Tamanna! She's wearing a traditional bridal red for her dress, isn't she beautiful?

You can see E's sweet little pink dress, she loved it so much! She wore it to the reception the next night as well, and I think she'd wear it to school if I'd let her. It was the most beautiful dress she'd ever seen!

And of course our beautiful Grandma Vi, I wish we'd had you in Indian clothes too, Grandma, what fun that would have been. (I hope I look like you when I'm a grandma!)

summer highlights :: visits from family!

2010-09-02T18:44:00.006-06:00

One of the best things about having a family wedding is getting see so many people we love again! This was such a great summer for visiting. We got to have Jesie twice, lucky us! I miss her!

Dad and mom came twice as well, we did so many fun things together, and made a lot of memories!

Aunt Teresa came too, and I hadn't seen her for waaaaaay too long! She's one of the most fun and creative people I know!

Grandm Vi and Grandpa Gordon were there, and it had been way too long since I'd seen them as well! I love you guys, so goad you came!

Lots of fun and crazy memories for the kids with Grandma Lynne and Grandpa Doug! (Gotta love Krispy kreme doughnuts! We had no idea how fun their shop is to visit!)

And here we all are in our new Anthropologie aprons, courtesy of Teresa! I'm actually wearing mine right now, I just finished doing dishes and I love it so much I sometimes just leave it on!

Here we are cheering on the Children's Parade that E and G got to ride in, so fun to have Grandma and Grandpa there! Thanks for coming you guys, we love you all!

Sugar Free September!

2010-09-01T09:33:00.004-06:00

Okay, I've got to get this sugar monkey off my back! Seriously, I've had such a fun August, lots of family celebrating and good times, but my brain is getting hard-wired to expect sugar every hour of the day I think! I find myself thinking about what my next treat will be, and looking through the cupboards for anything sweet and yummy! So, I really have to just quit!

I feel like I do this every few months. It seems like I get off sugar and I eat really healthy, lots of good fats and proteins, but then I let it sneak in and before I know, it's taking over! My gut will be happiest with me if I also cut out grains for the most part, so that's the plan. I really like to eat along the lines of the Primal Blueprint, so we'll see how it goes. I'll try to post in here once in awhile to let you all know how it's going. Anyone want to join me? ;)

My New Bike!

2010-08-30T15:51:00.003-06:00

This is my fun new birthday present, and I'm loving it! I haven't owned a bike since my students days at BYU, so nigh on 13 years now. (Wow, I'm getting old!) The kids have been riding their bikes like crazy and mostly I walk along behind them and they have to wait for me at the corner of the block to cross the street. Sometimes when I'm ambitious I put on my running shoes and keep up, but that's only when it's not 90 degrees out, so that was only before summer hit. But now, I'm as free as a bird, I can finally keep up with my kids! :) (Of course, I have to stop a lot and help G push his bike up hills and lift it over big curbs, but I'm nearly as free as a bird!)

Anyways, I love my bike! It reminds me sooooooo much of my Grandma Vi's old pink Schwinn Hollywood that I grew up riding at the cabin, I feel like I've stepped back in time. Gotta love Schwinn!

summer highlights :: Swimming!

2010-08-28T14:45:00.008-06:00

I have two little fish on my hands this year! We started out the summer planning to buy one of those big inflatable pools for our back yard, just for playing in. When we realized how much these kids are loving learning to swim, we decided to just head for the city pool as often as possible, instead of a kiddie pool in our yard. Luckily the pool is on our street, only 5 blocks from our house!
E can now swim the length of the pool on her belly and her back, and she's an expert at back-float! She conquered her fears of jumping into the deep end and doing the water slide by herself, and she's now super confident and excited about swimming.

G can do assisted back and front floats and lots of great kicking and paddling. When he has his floaty noodle, he can go anywhere! He conquered his fear of dunking under the water and now does it so much that he swallows a ton of water. On the last day of swimming lessons the kids all jumped off the diving board. Unfortunately I missed E's class doing it, but G's pictures turned out hilarious!

I love how he's telling the lifeguard to get a little closer, but then he still doesn't want to do it!

The he's left with no choice really, as the helper lifeguard tosses him off into the deep end!!! Way to go! The kids were so proud of themselves afterwards, they told everyone they could jump off the diving board now!

summer highlights :: Puzzles!

2010-08-26T23:28:00.004-06:00

Since I haven't blogged all summer, I thought I'd share some of our pictures and summer highlights with you. And of course since our life isn't super wild and exciting all the time, some of our favorite times have been at home, doing every day things. One of these favorites has been puzzles. Apparently, G loves puzzles! And because of his enthusiasm for them, E's starting to love them even more than she used to.

She's always telling me....."Mom did you know puzzles make you smarter? I think I'm going to be really smart now!"

Yes sweetie, you're getting smarter every day. Pretty soon you'll be smarter than your mama! ;)

2 0 0 ! ! !

2010-08-26T09:14:00.003-06:00

I have no idea where to start to recap this fabulous summer, but after two months taking a blogging hiatus, I figured it was time to get back in here. And crazy enough, this is post number 200 for my blog! Ideally I would have some huge celebration, with prizes and give-aways, but hey, you're just lucky I'm posting anything! ;)

Summer vacation is over, school has started, and life is moving back into comfortable, predictable rhythms. I love the start of school! I was actually disappointed that E's teachers don't want her to supply her own school supplies, I love buying new pencils and crayons and erasers! That's okay, we bought some just for fun.

I've been back and forth on this whole blogging thing, I'm sure you've noticed. Sometimes I think I want to stop blogging all together, but I really love sharing a bit of our lives with all of you. I need to ease up on myself about my perfectionist tendencies, not every post needs to be earth shattering with scores of photos and everything beautifuly edited and inspiring! I want to write this blog for me, so that when I print it someday I'll have a record of our lives and be able to look back and remember. I guess I'm just putting all this out there to give myself permission to let this blog be what it will. Maybe I'll do posts once in awhile without pictures. Maybe just pictures. Maybe a theme will develop, maybe it will be random! I guess we'll see, the important thing is I'll try to come here regularly. Thanks to all of you who still check this blog, even when nothing shows up for months! I love ya'll!

That photo up above is a sneak peek at all the beautiful wedding snapshots we have! My brother Carter was married a couple of weeks ago and we've been celebrating like crazy! Fun times, lots to share........soon. :)

waffle morning........

2010-06-27T09:36:00.007-06:00

I love my kitchen in the morning. The windows actually face west, but in the morning the sun is reflecting off the neighbour's house making it bright and sunny in here. Also, it's nice and cool so we can open windows and doors, in the evening we close the blinds and avoid the sun at all costs in here, it gets quite warm! (But in the winter we'll be loving that!)

Today we're making waffles, it's our Saturday tradition. Here's our flour, ready to be turned into crisp, yummy, deliciousness. I've used so many different combos of flour and they really almost always turn out great. Today these jars are full of brown rice, millet, and buckwheat. We grind them in a k-tec grain grinder that we keep exclusively gluten free.

Here's of course, my biggest waffle fan! He gets so excited when it's waffle day and sits on the counter to help me each step of the way.

Here's my second biggest waffle fan!

And here's the final product, yum!

Our favorite is real maple syrup, but it's not always in the budget so we get by with a homemade syrup that's easy and yummy. (Not healthy or anything, but hey, it's syrup!)

1 3/4 cups white sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 T light corn syrup

1/8 tsp salt

1 cup water

1 tsp maple flavouring

In a small saucepan, combine the sugars, corn syrup, salt, and water. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Cook for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and add the maple flavouring. Cool to room temperature and pour into a serving bottle. Store in the fridge. :)

Here I am mixing them up in my new vintage pyrex, it makes them taste even yummier and sunnier!

And here's where our perfect waffle recipe comes from, you've got to try it, gluten free or not!

1 3/4 cup flour (I use about a 1/2 cup of each gf flour with a tsp of guar gum added)

1 T baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon (this is my addition, it makes them smell so good while they're cooking)

2 egg yolks

1 3/4 cup milk (for gf flours, I only use 1 1/2 cup milk. Or kefir, yogurt, sour cream, butter milk)

1/2 cup oil

2 egg whites

Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In another bowl beat egg yolks with oil and stir in milk. Add to flour mixture and stir slightly. In another bowl beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gently fold into flour and egg yolk mixture, do not overmix! Enjoy!

garden greens.......

2010-06-18T10:12:00.006-06:00

We've been enjoying fresh garden greens for a few weeks now! Yum! It's so satisfying to step outside my kitchen door and pick a salad (or grab a handful of romaine for a sandwich). These curly ones are kale. They're still babies, I'm just thinning them to make way for the big growth, but the thinnings are great to saute in a bit of butter or bacon grease, Yum! Tonight during dinner I decided my taco rice casserole would taste better with cilantro, so I took about 5 steps out the door and back to my plate with fresh herbs! Double yum!

birthday week........

2010-06-13T19:21:00.005-06:00

I feel like we've been celebrating birthdays all week. With G's last week, and Derick's this week, we're partying! Tonight we had homemade chocolate cake with candles (poor kid didn't actually get a cake on his birthday, I was going to make one and decided he'd rather have playdough, so I made that instead!).

Here's some pictures of present opening........

We celebrated Thursday night with a trip to Pirate Island........

It's hard to get pictures of a moving 4-year old!

Happy Birthday!!!!!

2010-06-10T21:48:00.004-06:00

Our little guy is 4 today! (It's crazy how four years can fly by!) We had a great day of celebrating, starting with pancakes and strawberries for breakfast and ending with an evening at Pirate Island! (He's been talking about going there ever since we went with Kate and Jordan for their birthdays back in March. I think it was as wonderful as he's imagined all this time!)

Happy Birthday!!! We're glad you bring so much energy and fun to our family! We love you!

Sand Dunes!

2010-06-07T20:54:00.003-06:00

Are we cool?!? We joined up with our fun Canadian family at the Sand Dunes a few weekends ago and had a fabulous time! There was lots of hotel swimming, building sand castles, riding bikes, and good food eating......our kids wanted to stay forever and live at the hotel.

Our little guy is a natural, he wanted on that bike whenever he could. Grandpa was so nice and bought him a cool helmet to wear!

E liked going on the bikes, but was a little more cautious about climbing those big dunes with Daddy and Grandpa. But she sure loved her sand toys!

Derick was awesome, and I kind of got a little crush on him all over again when he took me up and down the scary dunes and showed me how cool he is on a bike! (Maybe he'll ask me out!)

It was a bit windy and cold, but no match for Grandma's down blanket!

Grandpa's cool bike......

And of course, what are the sand dunes without sand? I think I still get a bit of sand coming out of every wash load, and it's been 3 weeks! But oh, was it worth it!

the kiddos.......

2010-05-03T11:59:00.003-06:00

Here's a little update on our cute, crazy kids.......E's loving first grade at her new school. Her teacher is about to have a baby girl so it's an exciting thing each day to see if she's still there. She got her haircut at a salon a couple of weeks ago and is quite proud of her grown-up girl look! The new bike is still her favorite companion and she's been riding to school almost every day. I think she feels very independent locking it up at the school with her new combination lock next to all the other bikes. Hers is probably the smallest on there, it's mostly older kids who ride. She's finally mastered the no training wheels and we haven't had a crash for over a week. And seriously, the best work out ever is getting your kids bikes! I put on my sweats and running shoes and pretty much run the whole way to the school and back twice a day now! I can hardly keep up!

We just finished reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and she loved it! Now we're reading a book called Dolphin Music, a novel about a girl who was raised by dolphins. E's looking forward to summer with lots of fun swimming and playing outside, but lately she only wants to be out on the rainy, windy, cold days because her fear of wasps is getting pretty near debilitating. I'm not sure what we're going to do with that problem, if you have any ideas let me know. Luckily we've had a week of rain and snow and cold, and she was thrilled to ride her bike on those days because the wasps wouldn't be around. I'm just hoping it subsides a bit as we're outside more in the sun. We'll see.

And of course, we have the boy!
G loves olives, and would happily eat a whole plate of them for dinner. Notice his plate? Just a plain tortilla that night, and fingers full of olives, I don't even think he ate the tortilla. He's been loving his bike as well, and he gives his mama quite the run on the way downhill from the school each morning! He's mastered the brakes on his bike so I don't have to hold him all the way down the steep hills anymore. He and I are best buds and have fun at home together, although he told me this morning, "Pretty soon I'm growing up to be a big boy mommy!" as he was watching all the "big boys" running around at the school. This Friday is his preschool screening and I'm pretty sure he's going to think he's in school now!

He still loves trains, dinosaurs, legos, marbles, and dirt. Lately he's also into playdough and will play for hours, burying his guys in caves. He also loves to say "I love you Mommy!" and he tells me about 10 times a day (especially when he wants a snack, but that's okay!). He's comfortable enough now in his new primary class that he goes all the way down the hall by himself with big sister, holding onto her hand. This week he even got a little "caught being reverent" sticker (who knows how that happened!) and he was very proud. I think he just likes to do what the big kids do and especially whatever his sister's doing. He'd follow her anywhere!

Happy Birthday Dad!!!

2010-04-26T22:24:00.004-06:00

Remember all those years ago when you taught me how to ride a bike? Well here's what I'm doing with those skills! I love you Dad!

gardening.......

2010-04-25T16:18:00.005-06:00

Hello! Here's the view from my front window, and a wave from me! I miss you all, wherever you are! I haven't been blogging much lately mostly because I haven't been taking very many pictures for some reason, and I like to blog with pictures. But yesterday I thought I'd share a bit of what we did all day. And hopefully I'll drag the camera out with me a bit more, there are a lot of fun things to share as we explore our new neighbourhood.

We were sick most of last week so this weekend we finally felt better and we attacked the yard. It's a fun little yard, not too big, but enough to give us something to do. The tulips are up right now and I'm loving them!

I've got my garden decor up, they're from a very special violin student from Lethbridge, years ago!

Here's a random shot of my shadow in the kitchen, I look like an alien! Just thought I'd share! (That green jar on the counter is my very first batch of homemade sauerkraut!)

more tulips........

aren't they fun!

sorry, more tulips! ;)

Here's the front little bed. I built the logs around it yesterday and I planted a border of kale around the outside with some clusters of cilantro and basil around the tulips. In a couple of weeks I'll add some tomatoes.

Here's the east side of our house. Where the beds of dirt are we planted peas, carrots, kale, 3 kinds of lettuce, cilantro, dill, basil, and parsley. We'll see if anything grows! :) It doesn't look like much area but using the square foot method we can fit quite a bit of plants in there. It's a lot more space than we had in Calgary, and we had a good crop of lettuce, carrots, and tomatoes there. Don't you just love looking at orderly beds of dirt? :) It makes me so hopeful for what will come! (Oh, and I made the little water trough at the bottom of the downspout out of an old roof tile I found in the backyard. The water was making a huge puddle there and wrecking the flower bed. I'm very proud of my solution!)

Thanks for taking my garden tour. It's not much, but hopefully we'll have some fresh yummies this summer!

feeling spring-y......

2010-04-11T11:39:00.003-06:00

We've been welcoming the warmer weather with some yummy green smoothies. Mostly they include whatever fruit and greens we have on hand with a bit of kefir and orange juice. This one features my first attempt at growing greens indoors, buckwheat lettuce. Yum! We had it in salads and smoothies all week! Next I think we'll try some wheatgrass. And then hopefully soon we'll enjoy some outdoor growing.

our new wheels.......

2010-03-28T10:19:00.005-06:00

I've offically declared this the summer of the bikes! We kicked it off with shiny new bikes for the kids, and they are over the moon! So far we've been on trips to Kate's house, the bank, the bakery, and I've lost count on the trips around the block. (In our latest trip around the block we discovered that directly behind us lives a little family of goats, and they have 3 new babys, only days old! How did we not know this before?)

The night we bought the bikes they slept in the house with the kids, in their bedroom, covered in their favorite blankets just in case they got cold!

This was our first trip around the block, at about 9am, the morning after we bought the bikes. Look at that boy go!

Have you ever seen a prouder little boy? He calls it his "motorbike!" And he keeps saying, "this is the best moterbike I ever saw!"

Yesterday we took the training wheels off of E's bike, she's so intent on riding that thing, she loves it so much! I'm sure you'll be seeing more posts about the beloved bikes........

Ski Canada!!!

2010-03-20T21:15:00.005-06:00

Right before we left Canada we had an amazing ski weekend with my parents in Banff! In fact, the day they came to visit us was the day we got the job offer in Utah, so this was sort a celebration/farewell weekend, much enjoyed by all!

The kids did amazingly well, coached by one of the greatest ski instructors of all time! (My dad, of course!)

The weather was spectacular, we couldn't have asked for anything better!

E is a natural, by the end of the day we could hardly get her off the hill. Good thing we moved to Utah, the land of great skiing.

Our condo in Canmore was perfect, especially the outside hot tub after a long day of skiing!

Here's Derick and I standing on the Alberta/BC border, we're each in a different province.

It's like being on top of the world.......

My ski hero, Dad!

What a perfect way to say good-bye to Canada. We miss you!

random shots from our adventure.........

2010-03-16T20:57:00.004-06:00

The kids are loving their new bunk bed! Here they are right after we put it together, of course enjoying some of the "road treats" still!

Here's our truck as we drove out of town that last night. Notice E's face? She was sad, and I admit, I was shedding a few tears as we drove away.
Here are the kids all settled in the truck, Dad got to drive with them for 4 hours straight in there! No stops and limited treats! (I had all the treats in the car with me!)

We have such wonderful friends!! Jenny and Gillian packed the kids each a bag of presents, along with a map circling each town where they got to open one. It was a life-saver!!! Thank you thank you! Here they are with a few of the goods, and believe me, there were serious goods!

Doing this post has made me realize I've hardly taken any pictures at all these last few weeks! I'll try to get some good ones now that this house is beginning to feel a bit like home. Oh, and for those of you who are wondering where we've mysteriously disappeared off to, we're in Spanish Fork. Hopefully I'll have more up soon!

Here we are!

2010-03-05T10:34:00.004-07:00

Well, maybe some of you have figured it out, but we've moved! Sorry about the lack of posts and updates, but life was a bit too crazy for me to sit down and blog about it. We've packed up our house way up north and moved it south, to a cute little house that feels we've stepped back in time about 60 years! So here we are in a quaint small town in Utah, and life is good. Derick's loving his job, E's loving her school, and G and I are just trying to unpack and organize all of our piles of STUFF! Isn't it amazing how much stuff we all have? Don't worry, more pictures and fun stuff to come.

living room facelift........

2010-01-23T12:42:00.003-07:00

We had the carpets cleaned over the holidays so we took almost all of our furniture down to the basement. Then we decided to mix things up a bit so we brought back up different furniture that we'd been using downstairs and rearranged everything. I love it, and I love starting the new year with a fresh look. And now our basement is very toy-playing and movie-watching friendly!

These are our fabulous new bookshelves thanks to Grandma and Grandpa and their generous Christmas gifting!!! (We love you guys!)

The cozy couch for snuggling under quilts......

A little reading/knitting/tete a tete corner.......

And the teaching/practicing corner......

LobsterFEST!

2010-01-16T12:12:00.004-07:00

Thanks to our great friend Mar, we had a caseload of lobster delivered fresh from the docks in Nova Scotia!! It was a new experience for us, having 11 live lobsters to cook and eat, but she showed us the ropes (even though she'd flown all day and was exhausted) and we steamed them and feasted in true Nova Scotian style.....Yum! Here they are chillin' in the snow so we can handle them enough to break them open.

Look at all that yummy lobster goodness! (there was sooooooo much fabulous lobster meat, we've had amazing dip, scrambled eggs, and still some tucked away in our freezer for a lucky day!)

And here's one eyeing us up before we steamed him. Does he look suspicious?

Thanks for the fabulous feast Mar!

Homemade Hot Chocolate!

2010-01-11T13:38:00.005-07:00

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa! The kids love their little Christmas mugs and it makes hot chocolate time so much more fun. And of course, thanks Kates for the hot chocolate maker, years ago! It still gets used ALL the time! And for anyone else out there wanting to make easy, fabulous hot chocolate at home, try this........

Hot Chocolate
4 cups milk (we use whole)
2 T cocoa powder
1/4 cup sugar
1 t vanilla

Whisk together and heat. Top with whipped cream and indulge! We vary this, sometimes adding a bit of cream (okay, more than a bit), melted chocolate chips, cinnamon, postum, chai herbal tea.....the options are endless!
Oh, and it's ten times better if you stir with a candy cane!