HennyBee

pickles!

2009-08-20T20:22:00.006-04:00

ever since cucumbers came into season here we have not been without a jar of pickles in the fridge. they are the perfect snack and perfect compliment to a summer meal. the kids love them and they are just beautiful to me, the jar all packed with summer goodness.

when i was growing up, we always had dill pickles throughout the summer too. my dad made (and still makes) counter pickles. after 3 days or so on the counter they were ready. D and i always tried to replicate them with spotty results. they were always too something... too salty, too vinagary, too plain.

but this year i found this amazing pickle recipe that is so reliable and so delicious, i think i have found MY recipe. the one my kids will (hopefully!) ask for when they are older.

the recipe is from our csa's website and it it a MUST DO if you don't already have a trusty dill pickle recipe. i think the recipe assumes that you will use a very large jar, but i just kind of tailor it to whatever size jar i'm using. it's pretty flexible.

here is the recipe:

Ingredients

3 lb med. pickling cukes
5 c water
1 1⁄4 c white or cider vinegar
1 c sugar
1⁄4 c salt
2 dill flower heads
3 garlic cloves

Instructions

Bring to a boil water, vinegar, sugar, salt. Let cool. Place the rest of the ingredients in a sterilized jar and pour cooled liquid over them. Put in refrigerator and eat within 1-2 days or 1-2 weeks.

vacation & birthday week

2009-08-17T19:29:00.004-04:00

i want to have a blog. i want to update this thing regularly. but time is just ticking and life is so full this summer. it is lovely, but it is leaving me with little time or energy to record the events. i vow to be better!

the last few weeks have been busy with getting ready for henny's birthday and our week long family vacation on martha's vineyard, then with living our actual vacation and henny's big day and finally with adjusting back to our life on the mainland. it was all so good.

we headed for the vineyard at the ungodly hour of 3:30 am. the only ferry that we could book was so early. everyone was in good spirits, though. it's hard to not be when you are driving toward such excitement.

we arrived on the island and drove off of the ferry at 7am. after a nice breakfast out, we headed straight to the beach. the beach that would become our beach, where we would visit at least once each day.
our vacation was one long week of a lot of simple pleasures.

there was a lot of this:
and this:
and this:
bee's greatest memory of the week, the thing that she tells everyone when they ask about her trip, was that we saw jellyfish. we went to a big beach with scary waves, and a jellyfish warning! it made quite an impression on bee to see the beautiful and dangerous jellyfish bobbing in the water, and to see the lifeguards treating people who had been stung!

we ate good food, and were bad vegetarians. this was my favorite meal. clams on the half shell, steamers, garlic bread with local tomatoes & cheese and tossed salad.

we rode our bikes almost everywhere. i think we only drove the car 3 times, only out of necessity. it was so nice and just a change of pace from our usual country commutes. the kids loved it too. henny would beg to "ride-a-bike!"

during the week, henny turned 2! he sang every note of "happy birthday" to himself, along with us. and then he sang and sang to himself all day long. he enjoyed the cake that we made him, the exact cake that he asked for. henny wanted a "cindy gail cake". cindy and gail are the lovely women that watch hen while i exercise at the y. they were born for their job, and henny just loves them. when we asked him (again and again!) what kind of cake he would like, he always said, "cindy gail cake". it was pretty hilarious and who could deny such a cute wish!

this trip was definitely one that we will all always remember. it may even be the first family vacation that henny remembers.

good memories. good food. good weather. good company. i love it.

angel food: a success

2009-07-15T05:56:00.003-04:00

with pick-your-own season in full swing here, it has been berries, berries, berries for weeks! we have frozen strawberries, made strawberry jam and had plenty of strawberry shortcake. and now we are at the tail end of strawberries with blueberries, raspberries and cherries all available too. what a great time to eat around here!

last weekend, with what will probably be the last flat of strawberries on the counter, i made my first angel food cake. this was something that i had been dreaming of for months. my dream started to become a reality when i found an angel food pan at a tag sale for $1 a month ago.

as i was researching recipes i was a little worried about the fact that all the recipes called for "very fine" sugar and cake flour. i don't like to buy highly processed sugar and i wasn't sure that our natural sugar would be fine enough. one quick email to fabulously accessible celebrity alexis stewart, who assured me that whole foods sugar would be fine, and i was off.

the next minor stumbling block was the cake flour. i found that they don't sell it at whole foods. i was told that is probably because it is processed with some kind of chemical. the woman at the bakery told me that all-purpose would be fine.

making the cake was like a cool science experiment and ended up being so delicious. and now that we are getting egg delivery and always seem to have eggs to spare, this cake should be making a reappearance soon.

and now, what to do with the 6.5 lbs. of cherries that we picked yesterday??!

...... and the livin's easy.....

2009-07-09T20:30:00.005-04:00

oh, do i have a blog? am i supposed to be preserving my family's history here? oops....

life is just rolling by these days. there is so much good going on. my life feels so very full. we are starting to adjust to our new summer schedule. it's a switch to have to do so much of the planning and creating to make our days special. but it's going pretty well and getting more comfortable every day.

bee wrapped up her school year last week. her school had a lovely awards ceremony for the graduates and the kids who will return for another year (like bee). bee has been feeling emotional about school ending and especially the fact that some of her friends will be moving on. it's been a bit of work to sort out these feelings and to try to help make it feel a little better.

i took this picture of bee on the morning of the last day of school:

and coincadentally, bee wore the same exact outfit to school as she did on the first day of the year. so here, just for comparison, is bee on the first day of school, last fall:

the dress sure got a lot shorter! bee wore shorts under it last week, a little too much booty peeking!

as the summer has been blossoming before our eyes, bee's drawing skills have also bloomed.

annie, daddy warbucks, sandy and grace:

almost overnight she just draws and draws and draws. she has always leaned more toward the arts and crafts, but lately she is almost obsessive about drawing. morning, noon and into the night (well after we tuck her in tuck her in and kiss her good night), she draws. i gave her a set of these ed emberley drawing books that i had as a kid. she is off and running with them, following every step. she also seems to be just teaching herself along the way.

annie, daddy warbucks and grace again:

i even found a drawing laying around here showing bee's other latest skill:

this past weekend bee tried out riding her bike with no training wheels. she is doing wonderfully. she still needs some more practice, but she is doing it! she is only up to short bursts, with us (usually D) trailing right behind. but, soon enough, she will be off!

also exciting........our garden, the farm and our fertile valley in general, have all been so lush with produce. much more of my time has been spent cooking, preparing, canning, freezing and tending our food. it is such a good feeling.

it's dinners like this that make me love summer:
dinner for one: fresh (all local!) salsa & lettuce mix with strawberries, goat cheese and balsamic (all local too!).

all this and i didn't even mention homemade yogurt, our upcoming island getaway (with the obama's!), fresh pickles, our construction project (!!), bee's new art table and strawberry jam!

and although this post doesn't reflect it, henny has been flourishing just as much as bee lately. he is a wild yet tender, full-sentence speaking little boy who seems to be in love with life (on his terms!).

more to come.....

WIP: sweater blanket

2009-06-05T09:42:00.004-04:00

inspired by the book sewing green, which i got from the library (i love you, inter-library loan!), i started a new project this week. i started by buying a bunch of wool and cashmere sweaters at salvation army. i felted them in a hot wash and dry and started cutting them up.

bee helped me with laying out the pieces so we could get a sense of what it would be like and if i had enough sweaters.
next i started squaring them off and assembling them like a frustrating little puzzle.

then i put the whole thing away by rolling it up, in an attempt to pace myself so that i do a careful job and actually enjoy it. i can't wait to roll it out this weekend and start to sew the pieces together. i'm using an old sheet for the back and it should be a nice size for a lap blanket or and extra blanket for bee or henny's beds.

consolation

2009-06-02T19:12:00.002-04:00

tonight bee came up to me and started peeking under my shirt as she rattled on about one thing or another. this new habit of her looking under my shirt is something that i am trying to be cool with, despite my natural awkwardness. i still have a lot of issues about my body and how it is changed now forever, after having two babies. i feel ok about it in my own head but when i think of how i look to the general population, i am horrified. i can look at the changes and see them as beautiful in their own way, i am just not convinced that anyone else will. and that is where my issues are, i guess.

anyhow, back to tonight.

bee was chatting away and looking at my side, where the worst of the worst of my stretch marks reside. suddenly she stopped talking and announced, "this mark looks like an 'm', see."

yes, an "m". bee's first initial. of course that is the connection that bee made. she knows that she made the mark and of course it only makes sense that her initial is there.

i know that in bee's eyes that is just the kind of magic that is so believable to a kid. i want to believe in that magic. it helps to make this body more livable, more lovable. i want to save this thought to share with bee someday. to thank her for helping me through my issues.

super-mega recap

2009-05-27T19:27:00.004-04:00

life has been pretty good around here. so good that i guess i haven't felt like documenting it. we are fully living in the season, this time of late spring with a hint of summer. there has been so much good. so much good eating, planting and living. it's just the way i like it.

during these lovely weeks i have thought of many posts, but just never felt the drive at the end of the day to follow through. here is an abbreviated version of some of the goodness.

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i have reunited with my love of the asian food market. i have always loved these sort of markets, ever since college when i lived near an amazing japanese market. i love getting all of those weird things that you could never find anywhere else. and the things that you can find at the grocery store are about a third of the price at the asian market. i had stopped finding time to get there after henny was born, it was just too much to add that extra errand to the list.

how happy i am to have returned and to have my kitchen filled with nori, miso, pocky, soba, kim chi and seaweed snacks!

two great meals since the return of the asian market....

make your own sushi night.

this was a hit for the whole family. i made up some sushi rice earlier in the day and then just put all the fixings out on the table. we all enjoyed making our own rolls, either nice cut rolls of just sloppy handrolls. it all tasted great and was so much fun. this will definitely become a go-to meal for the summer.

secondly, is spring rolls....
i made these spring rolls for dinner one night. we loved them so much that we made the above platter for a party. the spring rolls are totally easy, if a little time consuming. you can put whatever in them. the first time i made some with fresh raw veggies and some with rice and tofu. the rice and tofu ones were a little too plain and mushy. raw veggies are the way to go.

the wrappers (seen in the next picture down, for reference) need to be softened in water for about 3 minutes. you then wrap them like a burrito. for these i used shredded carrot, julienned cucumber, bean sprouts, chopped peanuts, shreds of green garlic, shreds of nori, slices of avocado and a handful of fresh (local!) greens.

we made a dipping sauce with miso, peanut butter and soy sauce. it's kind of a trial and error type sauce. keep tasting until it's right.

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one thing that has become clear in the last few week is that the kids are thriving in this weather and the new lifestyle that comes with it. they seem happier, with all of the outside play, playground visits daily and less clothes. henny seems so much older with all of the new things that he can do. bee does too. she has been testing out a bit of freedom with going outside by herself to check on the garden, so a little chore or even to swing for a minute alone. it's all so nice. even the inside time seems nicer somehow, knowing that it isn't our only option.

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and finally, the garden is growing and full of so much promise and hope. i don't have too many pictures of the garden as it looks today because it's been rainy, but it's all the way planted and just left to grow. we lost a few cucumbers and maybe a few basil plants in a late frost last week. but other than that, things are looking good. we have spinach (one planting almost ready and one just a bit behind), green onions, tons of edamame, peas, zucchini, carrots, romanesco, brussel sprouts and a bunch of kinds of tomatoes. we even sprung for the good cages this year! i figure that they will be a family heirloom.

more pictures of the garden to come. and more early summer goodness to come!

phew.....

full circle

2009-05-13T16:33:00.002-04:00

in the last few weeks two wonderful things came full circle. one for me and one for D.

first off, i turned this piece of embroidery into a cool wall hanging. i had been debating about what to do with this drawing-turned-embroidery. a pillow? frame it? then i saw this little tutorial which featured a wonderful idea to print on cloth using freezer paper. now that i think of it, it's not really related to what i made, but it got the wheels turning.

i started by ironing a stabilizer on the back of the embroidery. then i cut it to size, layered a piece of batting inside and a cute fabric on the back. i sewed along the edges and then trimmed close to the stitch line. i finished it off with some yellow bias tape around the outside. what i really want to do it learn to quilt and make my own cute binding, but right now i'm working with my limited skills. i added a few pieces of ribbon and hung it by a stick that i found in the yard. i really love it. now to figure out where to hang it.

D's full circle moment is more of a visual.
morels, in the mushroom bag, made with love my bee. unfortunately, the morel season seems to be coming to an end. the good news is that our spinach is almost ready to eat, the farm is about to begin and the farmer's market is our new grocery store. eating with the seasons is so good right now!

mother's day loveliness

2009-05-11T19:48:00.004-04:00

yesterday, my mother's day was just wonderful. my three lovelies gave me such a well rounded, relaxing treat of a day.

i don't ever want anything fancy for mother's day. no jewelry or pajama-grams necessary. all i really want is to have a break from domestic duties, sleep in and have a nice breakfast. i was not disappointed.

while i had full opportunity to sleep in, i couldn't really do it. i felt pressure to fall asleep and my body is just not used to it. it was just as well though because i just enjoyed listening to podcasts in bed until 8.

when i awoke or arose, i was greeted by the most wonderful surprises and treats. bee made a beautiful trivet for me at school, with a drawing of me, with the sun above my head and flowers at my feet. D gave me the most amazing gift, a handmade bag that i had been coveting at a craft fair the weekend before. this bag is unreal. i LOVE it so. the kids also made me some nice cards.

i was served a breakfast that included the following: oven roasted potatoes with fennel, caramelized onions, scrambled eggs, cinnamon sugar toast and a bloody mary. all=delicious.

look at that bag one more time.

we spent the rest of the day just hanging around. we went to a tag sale and a vintage furniture store. i took a short nap before lunch and then we spent the rest of the day preparing to have my parents over for a nice dinner.

we made homemade pizzas: asparagus blue cheese, asiago with arugala salad on top, morel (!!) onion and cheese for the kids.

i wanted to share the dessert we made because it was so simple, easy, quick and delicious. we made popovers and filled them with vanilla ice cream, cooked strawberry sauce and topped with whipped cream.
we made the popovers in our mugs that are oven-safe because we don't have a popover pan (yet), but it looked really pretty. it was so good and really so easy. i can't wait to eat this in a month or so with REAL local strawberries.

all and all it was an amazing day and i am truly lucky. i have the sweetest little kids. and they are taught how to be so generous and kind by the best husband and father that a family could ask for.

in conversation

2009-05-07T19:36:00.002-04:00

both bee and henny have been amazing me with their individually outstanding conversational skills. henny is a big copycat and is thrilled to have so many new words to share. and bee, she is just so amazing. sometimes i really forget that i'm talking to a four year old. she has so much language and wisdom.

each of them has wowed me in their own way recently, with two very different little conversations.

from bee:

while walking up to the library...

"mommy, what is this all about with crossing your fingers?"

"oh, some people think that they will get their wish or have good luck if they cross their fingers."

"well, i don't know about that. i mean, how do fingers know what you want. you can't talk to fingers. they don't even have brains!"

and from henny:

after D had a very exhausting day, i got henny up from his crib in the morning to let D sleep a bit.

"see daddy. see daddy" (said insistently)

"henny, daddy is going to sleep a little more because he worked so hard yesterday."

"yeah. daddy. workin'. fun. tools."

D's big day

2009-04-30T19:38:00.002-04:00

this past week we celebrated D's birthday. there was a lot of secret preparation and it turned out to be a very sweet day.

of course we had our traditional fruit "cake", a platter of delicious fruit with candles. i started this tradition for D a long time ago when it seemed that he was getting so many birthday treats, cake at work and sweets from family. D loves fruit and this was a nice thing that i could do that balanced out the sweets. now bee loves it and helps me every step of the way.

this year bee did most of the arranging and we added a bowl of fruit dip. the dip is just cream cheese and this yummy natural marshmallow cream (like fluff) mixed together equally.

bee and i worked on a few gifts for D together. i decided to make a freezer paper stenciled t-shirt and bee was pretty psyched on the idea. she copied me every step of the way and made her own stencil. i cut it for her, but she did the painting.
bee used her stenciled fabric to make a mushroom bag for D. morel season is upon us! bee even tried the sewing machine for the first time.

for my t-shirt, i printed out a picture of a morel that i found online and traced it. i highlighted the details that i wanted to use for the stencil and then cut them out of the freezer paper. i followed the instructions in the creative family. basically the instructions walk you through the tracing, cutting and ironing on a fabric. the box of freezer paper also has some very simple instructions on it. i first used an orange paint, but it looked too faint, so i did a few coats in white. you can still see a bit of orange peeking through, which is ok, i guess.

D seems to like it. i think he feels cool in it.

bee is also very cool and tough, she would like you to know.and yes, that is marshmallow on bee's face, she did a lot of sampling!

27 days later.

2009-04-29T20:05:00.002-04:00

we started planting our seeds on april 2nd. we planted the first round and a few days later planted a few more things.

and today, 27 days later, the seeds have sprouted and started furiously reaching for the sun. they are busting out with strong roots and begging to be put in the ground. this weekend they will find their new home, along side the spinach sprouts and climbing peas that are already doing their thing.
i just love this time of year.

duke of cuke, a knock-off, a recipe

2009-04-28T11:00:00.006-04:00

it's summer here! we are on our fourth day of a little heat wave. it's summer in april! and i love it. this past weekend we worked on the yard, got the sprinkler out, ate on the deck and just generally felt happier. after the kids go to bed D and i have been just milling around outside, picking up toys and doing little chores. it just feels good.

over the weekend D and i went out to celebrate D's birthday. we had a nice long and relaxing dinner and then went bowling, D's favorite. at dinner i adventurously ordered a drink called "the duke of cuke". it went along well with my skirt and no tights on the first day of the heat wave. the drink was fantastic and we tried to duplicate it at home with good results.

the recipe:

1 c. cucumber juice

4 shots of gin, we used sapphire

2 T sugar syrup (sugar dissolved into water, about 2 T: 1/4 c. water)

if you have a juicer, great! if you don't, like us, you can improvise. we put 2 of those long cucumbers in the blender until it was pulverized and then put it through a cheesecloth bag. it worked beautifully.

add all of the ingredients to a cocktail shaker with some ice and shake it.

pour over ice and garnish with a slice of cuke

makes about 3-4 drinks.

april vacation: part one

2009-04-22T19:10:00.004-04:00

it's april vacation this week for bee. we didn't have any big plans for the week. i figured that we would just have a relaxing week, enjoy not having to get dressed by eight and do some special things. i decided that i wouldn't make exercising a priority for the week, and just have a break, have some fun.

monday started off beautifully. bee and i had a swimming date with one of her friends who we don't get to see enough of because of schedules. we had a lovely swim and then spent the rest of the morning playing.

right at the end of the morning, just moments before i was about to give the five minute warning, henny took the littlest tumble from maybe two feet up. i scooped him up and hugged him for a bit. it was totally your typical fall, but henny's reaction wasn't. he was just crying and crying. i assumed that he was just tired out so we started gearing up to go. when i put him down to put his shoes on, i noticed that his left arm seemed to be kind of hanging there. i thought for sure that i was dreaming it up, but then another mother said that she noticed it too. i imeadiately started freaking out inside and bee and i ran with henny to the car. i sat him down in the car and called the pediatrician. they said to bring him right in to the office.

as i sped to the doctor's i was anticipating the worst. i felt like i knew that his shoulder was dislocated. i just hoped that they could fix it quickly.

when we finally saw the doctor she determined that it wasn't his shoulder, but that something was going on with his elbow. it was either nursemaid's elbow, or it was broken. she tried to pop the ligament back in, which is the remedy for nursemaid's, twice. it was horrible to watch the doctor twist henny's little arm, which was already in pain. both attempts didn't seem to work, so we were sent to the hospital for x-rays.

poor, sweet henny was so patient through the whole thing. sure, he cried on and off, but he mostly was just a quieter, sadder version of himself. he also fell asleep in our arms so many times throughout the whole ordeal.

of course once we got to the hospital is was a waiting game. waiting for the thorough check in at radiology, the x-ray, the call from the doctor for the results. and then the results of the x-ray were inconclusive! we ended up having to have the hospital pull henny's x-ray so that we could take him somewhere else to be seen. of course they were not happy to have us leave and they did not make it easy.

finally, we went to an urgent care office and had excellent treatment. i was a little nervous at first. by now we were about 4 hours into the whole thing and had NO answers. i felt like we were grasping at straws. but the final doctor we saw felt convinced that it was nursemaid's elbow and tried the relocation again. and it worked! almost as soon as she twisted his arm and tried to pop that ligament back in, he moved his arm. i'm not much of a hugger, especially of strangers, but i wanted to snuggle with that woman! she was our hero!

so, that was the first day of vacation and i feel like i am still recovering form it a little bit. i'm still on edge with henny, who is still feeling a little pain. through it all bee has been just amazing. she was with me for half of our hospital adventures, until D came and brought her to a friend's house. she made me so proud with the way that she totally put her own needs second. she didn't whine, she just sat coloring and chatting with me. she tried to comfort henny and told him he was brave.

when we got home, around dinnertime, we all enjoyed some well deserved ice cream. and later that night, when i was overcome with love for bee for her compassion and maturity, i told her that i was going to spoil her all week and that i planned on giving her ice cream every day of vacation.

so, that is the focus of april vacation. a lot of relaxing, some good family fun, plenty of loving and ice cream every day! and today we found the cutest way to treat ourselves, mini ben and jerry's, perfect for the kid's to split. as henny would say, "yummy yummy"!

pinata '09: a tutorial

2009-04-18T20:24:00.010-04:00

this year, we once again made a pinata for easter. i felt like i sleep-walked through the process, exciting as it was. it was so fun, especially to watch bee, who did almost 50% of the work. but i think this was probably the 20th pinata that i have made in my life, plus that time when i taught a class on pinata making. so, my hands simply went through the steps, just like they had so many times before.

the steps are as follows...

give yourself a good week for the whole project.

gather up your supplies: a balloon, about a weeks worth of newspaper- half ripped into 1" strips, half for lining your work surface time and time again, elmer's glue, flour, water, masking tape, a metal clothes hanger, paint and whatever else you can dream up to decorate the thing.

begin your pinata by paper-mache-ing over a balloon. blow your balloon up nice and big.

make your paste by combining about a 1/4 cup of elmer's glue, 1/2 cup of flour and about 3/4 cup of water. the paste should be thick, but not too thick. think tomato soup.

dip strips of paper into the paste and layer over the balloon. keep going until the whole thing is covered. you can leave the balloon knot out if you want. i would recommend it.

let the pinata dry for a day or so. leave it by a heater or in the sun to dry quicker.

add another layer on to add strength.

give it another day to dry.

add any "parts" to make your pinata look like what you want. you can just use newspaper to make the basic shape of your parts. use masking tape to secure the parts. use as much masking tape as you need. go wild with it.
add another layer of paper-mache, including a good layer over your new parts.

let it dry.

now you can fill it up! if you left the balloon knot open, you can slice into it in the shape of an x. then you can pry it open a bit and fill it. put anything you want in there. i put eggs with little prizes in this one. but, the eggs broke, so i wouldn't do that again.
now you can also fashion your hanging device. i used the balloon knot as the top, which i recommend to simplify the hanging. if you have a hole already at the top, insert a bent hanger into the slot and tape it like crazy.

next paper mache over the holes and any tape with several layers.
next up is painting and decorating. you can use paint for sure but also feathers, sand, glitter, fabric, yarn or anything else you can dream up.

bee painted ours like a blue bunny.

grab some rope, a tree and a whiffle bat and you're off! oh and don't forget a group of spunky kids to whack the thing!

and if you're wondering, the whacking part looks something like this:

notice the smile. it's fun!

my buddy

2009-04-10T18:27:00.003-04:00

i know that bee isn't going to be small forever. i think that being at home with the kids and being immersed in their every move has allowed me to understand more completely how to savor it all. maybe i'm wrong, maybe i would feel the same no matter what. but i feel like i have a deeper understanding and value of the rapid pace in which our kids are growing up. maybe that is why i choose to spend so much time with them. i know i am not going to get it back. i know that i am lucky to have this opportunity. i am thankful every day.

as bee inches closer to five years old, things are changing. her friendships are more important to her. she is way more independent. i am mindful of this and try to give her space, while still smothering her with love every chance i get.

sometimes when i pick bee up from school and i am a bit early i can catch her and her classmates playing on the playground. henny loves it, the more playground the better. as i approach the playground, i smile at bee, but i don't want to disturb her play or god forbid, embarrass her.

one day this week i walked up to the playground and bee just came running to me. it was like we hadn't seen each other in years. bee gave me the biggest hug and then went back to playing with her friends. when it was time to go in, she walked in with me and grabbed my hand.

as we held hands walking down the hall, another kid asked bee to be her partner, holding out her hand to bee. bee responded to her, "my mommy is my partner."

my heart was so full at that moment. i wanted to go in each classroom we passed to announce what an amazing kid i have.

i am so grateful for this time. i am so grateful to be able to enjoy each moment at a slow pace and to have the mindfulness to know how big these small moments are and how quickly they will pass.

spring bag!

2009-04-07T10:22:00.002-04:00

on sunday i grabbed a few hours at the sewing machine and whipped up a new bag for myself. i had been dreaming about this bag. i wanted something big enough, probably messenger style and with some simple touches to make it unique.

i found this tutorial and followed the measurements for the most part, and then assembled the bag my own way. the tutorial says to make the straps and the middle piece in two pieces. that would be good if you didn't have a long enough piece of fabric, but i did and i think it looks more finished.

i sewed the flap piece with a few fun fabrics patched together. the outside is brown linen, lined with interfacing and the inside is yellow duck cloth. i put a few pockets on the inside.

here is a full body shot of the bag. pardon my serious look and strange posture, i don't know what is wrong with me. nice bag, though!

it's good to live in my house today

2009-04-01T19:31:00.005-04:00

today i defied all odds. i exceeded all of my own expectations. with D away for a few days, and me holding down the fort, i managed to maintain a high quality of life. this came as a great surprise to me. when D goes away my plan is always to pace myself, stay busy and aim low. but somehow this afternoon i got a burst of culinary energy and created quite a delicious homecoming for D, who arrived home at dinnertime.

first bee and i made a french yogurt cake. i found the recipe in a homemade life . the book is lovely and very quick to skim through. the recipe is on the orangette blog, it's a tiny bit different, but not much. we used orange juice and zest, instead of lemon because it's what i had. the cake is great. not too sweet, nice and crispy on the outside. wonderful.

while we were baking the cake, i had a pot of black beans going on the stove. when it got closer to dinner time i whipped up a tortilla pie. this is so easy, so so so easy. i think it will become a go-to quick dinner. i found the recipe in the everyday food cookbook, which rules. i made the pie without many of the tasty ingredients, to satisfy the little taste buds in our house. D and i spiced it up with some green onions and salsa.

it's good to be us today. and lost is on tonight! be better!

friendship blossoms

2009-03-30T20:13:00.002-04:00

as henny is becoming more and more of a little person, it has been amazing to watch the relationship strengthening between he and bee. henny can now say countless words and he is putting two and sometimes three words together. he is also really into doing stuff that bee does: playing with play dough, drawing, cooking, playing on the playground and general "rumpusing". the other day, when we were enjoying some of the sneak peeks of good weather, henny and bee chased each other around, totally involved in a game that they had made up.

the game consisted of henny chasing bee with the hula-hoop, shouting "ho ho ho ho". bee would giggle, let henny "catch" her by touching her with the hula-hoop. then she would run off to do it all again, giggling all the while. "do 'ho ho ho' again, henny!" bee would shout.
i also notice bee using henny as a security object a lot. when she arrives at school and is feeling shy until she gets settled, she holds henny's hand or keeps her arm around him. she likes to tell people about henny, she is somehow much less shy and more outgoing when talking about her brother.

it is so amazing to see this friendship form. there are diverse ways that they need each other and appreciate each other, but the amount of love that they share is very equal. they adore each other above all else. of course henny yells at bee when she is sitting where he wants to sit, or if she grabs the toy he wants. and of course bee gets frustrated with her baby brother and all of his baby ways. but i feel like the seeds have been planted and we may be watching the growth of a lifelong friendship. we can only hope.

forcing spring

2009-03-25T21:10:00.002-04:00

yes, it's spring. the sun is strong. the days are longer. i have even opened the windows a few times. and still we have a long way to go. there is mud still, nothing is green yet and the wind at the top of our hill is fierce.

about a week ago, D brought in a bunch of clipping from our dogwood tree. today they started bursting open their buds, like popcorn. fast. this vase of sticks with green tips is my constant reminder that spring is here. spring is not going anywhere and it's only going to keep getting better.

just half.

2009-03-21T16:56:00.002-04:00

this past week has been a bit of an emotional roller coaster. i have found myself throughout every day feeling the highs and lows, trying to find the silver lining in some not so shiny things.

yes it's true that D's work has cut his hours, of course amounting to less money in our pockets. this is sickening, could there be an upside? the times right now are so tough for so many, it's hard to not be gloomy about this. the positive? D will be home a bit more, which will be fun, D has a million plans hatched to hustle cash, we can see how charming really frugal living can be and at least he has a job!

little things have been getting me down. the canceled playdate that was meant to provide me with a nice diversion on a day when D was out of town. canceled at the last minute! i tried my hardest to make the best of the morning. so, henny and i made a cake! but guess what, the cake didn't want to come out of it's pan and it was in about 5 pieces. i pressed on and we ate every bite of that damn ugly cake. being positive!

yesterday my grandmother was admitted to a nursing home, where she will live for the rest of her life. she is ok with the decision, which is good, but it's just so sad. imagine you work all of your life, just to end up with shitty health, a roommate, cafeteria food and bingo, if you're lucky. to look on the bright side? she will have good care, which she needs and my parents will be able to finally breathe knowing that they are not responsible for every bite of food, pill and decision. still, it's kind of a wash.

that's the thing with this week. it's like all of the positives and the bright sides are just as pale and depressing as the actual downers. it's like the glass that is either half full or half empty, depending of your view, is really just half. nothing more.

fuzzy clips, an obsession

2009-03-15T17:36:00.004-04:00

a few weeks ago i bought a sweater at salvation army. it ended up not fitting well, so i felted it. since then i have spent all of my crafting time cutting up that sweater to make endless projects. i have two softies that are nearly done and ready to be set aside for bee and henny for easter but the real fun has been making barrettes.

i have been learning to love hand sewing simply for it's ability to be done on the couch, maybe even watching old episodes of 90210 on the computer. one weekend i whipped up five barrettes, using basically this technique, a blanket stitch around the outside and sewing old buttons on to decorate and hold everything in place.

but then i couldn't stop.

now i have about two halves of sleeves left and i'm pretty sure that i'll keep making these until they're gone. i have no idea what to do with all of them! bee has already claimed a couple, but i guess i may just save them for the holidays. won't that be some amazing forethought.

breaking the rules

2009-03-12T19:51:00.002-04:00

bee has fallen for board games pretty hard, lately. she has actually gotten the hang of all of the learned aspects of game playing: rules, taking turns, staying on task. she is mostly a good sport. it is really quite fun and we usually play a game as a treat while henny is napping, a big kid activity.

bee has enjoyed most of the usual favorites: uno, checkers, candyland, chutes and ladders and chinese checkers. it is particularly fun to play uno with her because she has no idea about strategy. she uses her wild cards randomly, lays her cards in front of her and changes the game to a color that she doesn't even have. it's all part of the fun.

this week bee and i were enjoying a game of chinese checkers while henny slept. i think that this particular game summed up everything i love about playing games with bee. she was determined to get her "guys" to the opposite side, but not in too big of a hurry. she narrated for the guys as they went around corners, determined that they were heading from hawaii to aruba, hopped over each other and took the scenic route. when both of our guys were getting pretty close to their new homes, bee whispered "let's break a rule!"

bee suggested that we each leave a guy in the old home, so that there would be someone to greet the new guys moving in. in the end, our completed game board looked silly, with one yellow surrounded by reds and one red surrounded by yellows, but our board told a story.

another great idea

2009-03-10T19:01:00.003-04:00

another great idea, one that is not mine, but i am sharing here.

lately bee has been coloring and drawing like crazy. she has on several occasions asked to color in books that have simple illustrations. thankfully she asked first, because the answer is no. i'm not that cool.

then bee had the bright idea that we photocopy the books to make coloring sheets. yes! i did a few copies at home with my printer, but it's pretty tough on the ink supply, so we decided to make more at the library.

this past weekend bee and i went through all of our books and found the best ones for coloring. we chose pages from harold and the purple crayon, make way for ducklings, blueberries for sal, ballerina and the giving tree.

i made 2 copies of each. one for now and one to save to make more copies with later. we were very lucky because the nice librarian loved the idea and offered to bind the pages for bee, to make it more special. special it is, indeed. another great idea that i can't really take credit for.

vegan meaty meatballs

2009-03-05T19:26:00.004-05:00

we had a snow day earlier this week. i was thrilled about the snow day, not the snow. i love having bee home for the day. i like having the schedule of school and the way that it shapes our week, but i really truly love having her around. actually, i have been thinking a lot about this recently, as i seem to be encountering more and more parents who complain about having their kids home for vacation, holidays and snow days. but that is a subject for another day.

meatballs!

i did a bunch of cooking for the week, during the snow day. i made a pot of mixed beans, rice and these meatballs that i had been dreaming up. i made this recipe up from what i scrounged in the cabinet and based on many other fake meat recipes that i have read. they came out pretty awesome. the texture was right on, not too tough (which gluten can be) but held together nicely. the flavor was good too and could be altered with different spices. i will definitely make these again.

vegan meatballs recipe

1 c. vital wheat gluten

1/4 c. nutritional yeast

1/2 c. textured vegetable protein (tvp)

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. poultry spice

1 c. cold water

2 T oil

1/4 c. soy sauce

1 T liquid smoke

1 T minced fresh herbs (i used oregano, thyme, rosemary and sage)

get a steamer ready, but don't start it.

mix wet and dry ingredients together in separate bowls. combine wet into dry and mix. when it comes together as a dough, knead for a minute or so. too much kneading can make the tvp start to fall out of the dough. form dough into 1" balls and place them on a piece of foil in the steamer. start up the pot and steam the balls for about an hour.

you can fry them up now, or save them in the fridge until you're ready to eat them. you could probably throw them into a sauce, without frying, and that would be fine. but it's much better to crisp them up a bit first.

makes a dozen (more or less)

project box: great gift

2009-03-02T13:34:00.002-05:00

this idea is a total rip-off of a gift the bee received from our good friends at christmas. bee's box was lovingly decorated and full of all sorts of four year old style inspiration.

when it came time to plan a gift for a classmate's birthday party bee was adamant, the only gift that would do was a project box.

this gift was really fun to put together and could be tailored to the tastes of any kid. i bought a few things and used a bunch of things that i found around the house. the total cost was around $10, but a few things i opened and broke up, so we got a few bonus supplies out of the deal.

in the box is 3 rolls of colored masking tape ($1 for all at the junk store!), 3 jars of treasures (beads & string, buttons and sequins), elmer's glue, tacky glue, a bunch of ribbons, a bunch of fabric scraps, 4 paper books (zipped out on the sewing machine with white copy paper inside and a piece of fun paper for a cover), a big piece of contact paper, some foam stickers, some feathers, a bunch of muffin foils and a stack of pink blank index cards.

bee decorated the cover and the inside of the cover. i didn't accompany bee to the party but D and bee both reported that everyone loved the box. who wouldn't! i want one for a kid my age!

stocking up

2009-02-28T07:58:00.003-05:00

i have been trying to make small steps toward a simpler, healthier and more organized life. this is, of course, an ongoing process. one that often takes one step forward and two steps back in the course of life as it is. one area that i have been brainstorming about is our kitchen cabinet. that's right, cabinet, as in one. we have the pleasure of having only one cabinet for our food. this, i have to tell myself, is the tradeoff for being able to stay at home with our kids. yes, we could have a fancy kitchen, but then i would have to work. but, that is another topic all together.

in our one cabinet, we have all the staples for baking, snacks, pasta, grains, rice, cereal and a few other random things. i have been feeling like overhauling this situation for some time for two reasons. the first is that we buy too many things in boxes and bags, things that we could get in bulk at the grocery store or make for ourselves. the second reason for a clean out is that the whole situation gets to crowded up with almost empty things that we just push to the back to make room for more, and then nobody knows if it's old or not and then it's wasted!

so, i set out one morning, with henny watching from the tower. from my perch on the counter i had three options for the items in the cabinet... trash, birds or save. when i was done, it was beautiful, empty!

next i gathered up all the jars and canisters that i could find. on my next trip to the grocery store i did a thorough sweep of the bulk section. instead of just getting a few snacks for the kids and some nuts, i bought everything that we would eat in an average week. when i got home i filled the cans and jars.

it's not perfect, but so much better. now i can see what i have and know when to buy more. it looks much better than a bunch of half bags and boxes, and i'm saving the environment! i would love to have a few more cans, but i'm going to wait for tag sale season.

for now, what we have in our stock is: oats, nuts (sliced almonds now, but i plan on rotating this as we need to), barley, black beans, bean mix, dry soup mix (actually quite good, i made a pot this week!), rice, lentils, textured vegetable protein and a can that is just seeds and fruit and nuts (the kids LOVE this, i have been getting different things each week and just mixing it around).

this is such a great step for me. now i just can't wait for the summer to fill our shelves with jars of fruits and veggies!

sewing mini-marathon

2009-02-25T19:58:00.002-05:00

this past sunday i had the pleasure to go to our area's BIG fabric store. it's a total destination, full of fabrics that i have no idea what to do with, as well as much inspiration. i didn't really need anything, i was mostly there to help a friend find some fabric. i mainly hunted the remnants, my favorite!

i got some great linen, a few pieces with fun patterns and of course, some silky, girly things for bee. one of the best finds was this mesh net stuff that seemed just perfect for produce bags. i had been thinking about making produce bags for ages but never really saw the right fabric. i saw online that you can knit or crochet them, but that is too much for me. usually the fabrics that i find are more tulle-ish and therefor rip easily. this net is nice and tough. i should have bought about 5 yards! the piece i got was just a remnant that i found, about a yard. i was able to make 9 good sized bags.

they are about a one foot square, sewn up the sides and with a channel at the top. i put a ribbon through because it's what i had, but a string would be nice too.

here is bee helping me photograph them....

while i was at the machine, i felt like i just couldn't stop. i had been wanting to make this little boxy pouch. what a great little pattern. so simple and cute! a sturdier fabric would be better, but it won my heart nonetheless.

also during my sewing marathon, i made a fabric storage box. this was my first use of interfacing. it went well although i'm not sure how strong of a hold the iron-on is supposed to be. it felt less stuck that i hoped, but it worked out fine in the end. i made my box 5" bigger each way than the pattern. it may be a little bit too big, it's a tiny bit floppy, but not bad. the outside is an upholstery fabric remnant and the inside is linen. i LOVE this idea and technique and i can't wait to make more.
all and all i spent almost 6 hours sewing sunday afternoon and evening. i only stopped to put the kids to bed. what a treat it was! and how lovely to have the combination of time, inspiration and materials on the ready! i love when all those stars align.

mud stomping

2009-02-20T08:43:00.001-05:00

henny got his first pair of rain boots, and promptly muddied them.

it's going to be a great spring!

love is in the air

2009-02-15T11:00:00.007-05:00

there has been a valentine buzz here in the last few weeks. we started gearing up for the big day with making valentine cards for bee's classmates. she had big, big plans. bee envisioned making her cards with a picture of each child on their card. she started off by taking her camera to school and rounding up each teacher and kid for a picture.

at home i printed all of the (mostly blurry) pictures out to about wallet size. then bee cut each picture out, around the persons body as close as she could get.

i found some cheap heart doily things and bee glued each one on a folded piece of paper.

next bee glued the faces on, along with a printed message on the inside. she wrote, "dear valentine, i hope you have a wonderful valentine's day. i hope you get a lot of valentine treats. i hope you like valentine that i made you and i love you."
the final step was to glitter, stamp and sign each card. i can't stress how amazing it was to watch and help guide this process. and although i certainly helped with the printing, suggesting and materials, i really did none of the hard work. bee did all of the gluing, the cutting, the glittering and the writing. all of it.
on the morning of valentine's day D and i set up a beautiful breakfast, while henny and bee watched the charlie brown special that i downloaded from amazon (i had never done this before, and i have to say, it's pretty awesome!).

for breakfast we had heart-shaped pancakes (with tiny heart sprinkles for the kids!) and a few summer peaches that i am now rationing out only on special occasions.
the table was full of cards for each person, a special box of chocolates and a felt cookie for each kid.

the cards were so sweet and special. everyone worked on them amid whispers in the days leading up. bee tried out melting crayon shreds in wax paper for a card for D, D got out the glitter for bee's card (of course!) but my card from bee took the cake. inside she wrote, "happy valentine's day. you are the best mom in the world. i love you mom. i hope you like this valentine's day." beautiful!

full moon

2009-02-10T15:24:00.003-05:00

this picture was taken last night when D and i were doing some adults-only sledding.....

it is by far the best picture i have ever taken (that doesn't include cute kids!). i have no idea how this miracle happened!

and yes, that is the moon!

drawing and stitching

2009-02-09T16:58:00.005-05:00

lately bee has been drawing like crazy. she has always seemed talented in this department, but often didn't have the patience to follow through. other times she wold get too caught up in the process and she would end up just going wild with the colors and scribbling and just enjoying the medium. that is fine, but it is so satisfying to see a nice final product, something that really showcases her full potential.

it's usually during bee's rest time that she comes up with her best work. something about all that uninterrupted time, she seems to really focus.

the other day i found this when rest time was over.....

it's an egg:
on the next page, a few cracks appear:
then a few more cracks:
finally in the last picture, the chick appears:

then there was the series about bee's fish who died a few weeks ago, ursela. the first picture shows ursela when she was alive and kicking, and it says "ursela died":
the other picture shows rose, bee's new fish. it's complete with rose's plant and pink rocks. this picture says, "this is my new fish rose":

another one of my rest time favorites is this guy. look at those teeth:

after watching all of these beautiful drawings being produced, i was dying to embroider one. i had tried this once before but wasn't too thrilled with the results. i read a little more about embroidery and talked to some friends. in the end i tried out a few stitches and practiced using different amounts of thread, as well as different kinds of floss. i got better and better at it as i went. the first few stitches in each area are a little funky.

i love how it came out, in the end. i can't decide what to do with it. i may just hang it up in a wooden hoop.

here it is, a ballerina mouse:

see bee-ole!

2009-02-01T20:41:00.002-05:00

a few weeks ago my sister's snowmobile found a temporary home at our house. i never imagined that we would have one, although snowmobiling is pretty big time in our country town. the groomed trails go through our back yard and there are miles and miles of scenic trails to get from here to there all around our valley.

needless to say, D is pretty psyched. he had never really been on a snowmobile much but is learning to love going out for an hour at night and of course tinkering away at it. bee also loves to go on slow rides around the yard.

but the member of our family who is really interested in the whole world of snowmobiles is henny. if you said he is obsessed, you wouldn't be far off. he spends a good portion of his days lately just looking out the window. he is either waiting for snowmobiles to go by out in the field or just looking at our snowmobile parked out back .

henny reports back to us with what he sees. it's either "no bee-oles!" or it's "see bee-oles!"

when it's not really bee-ole time, henny has been loving snuggling up with D to watch some little videos of snowmobile races on youtube. he just puts his little fingers in his mouth to relax, settles in for the show and bursts out with the occasional enthusiastic "bee-ole!"

winter

2009-01-25T11:50:00.000-05:00

this is how henny feels about the winter....

right now i'd have to agree.

baby words

2009-01-19T19:47:00.003-05:00

this post is just for me.

when henny was 15 months old he wasn't really talking much. he said a few things, but not consistently. this was a sharp contrast to the way bee was. she was speaking in short sentences by that age. at henny's 15 month check up i mentioned that he wasn't talking much. i half expected the pediatrician to say it was no big deal, but she said it could be normal but that we could talk about some early intervention at 18 months. i was a bit crushed. it would be fine if henny needed extra help, and i would do anything to give him anything he needed, but i didn't want to think about it. i wanted someone to tell me it was normal. that is what my friends are for. all of my friends with boys told the same tale. no words until 18 months, grunting more than speaking until 2, and on and on. this made me feel much better, but i still wondered when the words would come.

i am so happy to say that the words are here! henny is entering that parrot stage and he is saying so much. he is telling us what he needs, through words and signs, about 75% of the time. he tells these little stories that are three words long, but tell it all.

so, this is the part that is strictly of interest to me. i just don't want to forget. these are the words that henny says now, at about 17.5 months:

mama

dada

mya

bubba (grampa)

kitty

all animal sounds: meow, moo, baa, oink, honk, quack, woof

ball

snow

shoe

socks

night night ("nie nie")

snowmobile ("bee-ole")

tree

light

please ("peas")

thank you ("tu tu")

bye bye

sauce

fishy

sasha

harriet ("hee-ot")

yes ("yeeaaah")

bus

hat

hot

stop

help

cookie ("coo-coo")

cracker ("ca-ca")

cheese

lala

ut oh

sue

cindy ("ss-ss-dee")

boo-boo

eat

teeth

he also signs:

water

help

please

music

bye bye

orange

apple

book

thank you

light

eat

i am so proud!

snowed in and makin' stuff

2009-01-11T20:42:00.004-05:00

this past week found us trying to get back into our routine. we were supposed to get back on track with school and real meals and schedules. but mother nature had a different plan. instead, we had 2 snow days which allowed us to ease back into real life. it was actually really nice, the slower pace. we did many things around the house and kind of prolonged that holiday attitude for a few more days.

one day we made and canned five jars of marmalade. i found myself with an abundance of oranges and then saw this post, which was so timely. i used instructions right from the box of pectin. it worked wonderfully and everyone loves the marmalade.

henny is no fool, he eats it marmalade side down....

and what goes better with marmalade than english muffins. D and i whipped these up in the middle of the week. it was our first time making them and i was so surprised to see that you cook them on a griddle. in the end we wished that we rolled them out a bit thicker, but everyone loves them and they do the trick. now i am bound and determined to make english muffins every month or so and keep them on hand in the fridge and freezer. it really wasn't much effort and is so affordable.
my favorite dinner of the week and possible the past few months was noodles with pesto sauce.

never mind that the noodles were two-day-old leftovers. the pesto sauce was made from a cup of chopped basil from the summer. further strengthening my resolve to "put up" more food was thawing this tiny piece of summer. i made the sauce with the basil, a half block of cream cheese, a clove of purred garlic and salt. heaven. there was about twice as much pesto as necessary but not a single person in our family complained. we all licked our plates, in fact.

finally, on saturday i was blessed with about two and a half hours alone. in that time i managed to make this...
i had set out to make a wrap dress but quit when the math was getting too hard. converting a 2T dress to size 5 was just too much. so i made this up, right out of my own head. it is a copy of a dress that is sold at a cafe near here. i just learned as i went, and it was my first time with button holes. all in all i think it came out great. and bee loves it! she said it's her new annie dress, which is basically the highest compliment she can give.

bad baby!

2009-01-06T21:41:00.000-05:00

thirty seconds alone in the bathroom. the result.......

oh 2008, how much did you rule?

2009-01-02T20:35:00.002-05:00

wow, what a year! i haven't even put up a new calendar because i am sort of sad to see this year end. it was a really amazing year for us. i have written this post in my head many times, but i'm afraid it will still lack direction. i guess it's part year end highlights, part performance evaluation for me and part tooting my own horn.

what i want remember about 2008, a list:

1. this year we were seriously healthy. i prepared whole food meals, for three meals a day, every day of the work week. i learned a lot, especially about homemade fake meat, and the whole family benefitted. it was especially awesome to see the kids eating all of these things that i know i had not even heard of until my adult life. they are so lucky.

2. this year we began using cloth diapers and have had amazing success. we have bought maybe 3 packages of disposables for vacation and emergencies since early spring. i wish we had done it sooner. it's not hard but does take effort and i am proud that we have been up for the challenge.

3. bee learned how to swim this year.

4. i lost what probably amounts to about 40 pounds this year. it's crazy to even think about it as a number. i know a lot was just baby weight, but a lot was all me (and cookies). more importantly though, i am so strong now. i have never been in this kind of shape. even though i feel like i have a long way to go before i look the way i want to, i FEEL so amazing. i can run (for up to 8 minutes at a time!!!) and i am STRONG.

5. we traveled as a family, out of the country, to aruba. this was one for the books. our trip couldn't have been better or more relaxing. the relaxing part came as a big surprise to me with our almost-crawling baby and three year old in tow, but relaxing it was. and the memories!

6. we grew a beautiful garden and reaped the benefits of an amazing farm share. all this amounted to much good cooking as well as some success with "putting up".

7. bee switched schools and with the move we found an amazing fit for her and for us, what a good feeling.

8. we have watched henny grow from a tiny smiling, dozing, sling-goer to a running, laughing, mild attitude-having little boy! he is such a joy and watching him grow this year has been such a gift for us all. he is more than we could have imagined.

9. this year D and i officially settled on the fact that what we have here will be our family, period. i sometimes feel sadness about never being pregnant again, but mostly i feel a sigh of comfort. our family feels so good, and so complete with henny and bee. it just feels right.

10. finally, i managed to record the things that i felt were important for our family to remember, here. sometimes is was a joy and the words flowed, sometimes it was a chore. i am so happy now to have such a great record for us all. now if we could just find a site that makes a nice book of your blog.

and on tap for 2009 or dare i say, resolutions:

1. "put up" much more food this summer.

2. try to look people in the eye more.

3. create some sort of daily thanks ritual for the family. after the success of our thanks/giving trees i was inspired.

thank you 2008, you were one hell of a year!

tiny food

2008-12-30T22:04:00.002-05:00

for christmas, bee got a ton of new dollhouse stuff. i am so happy about it because she has had this beautiful dollhouse, but never really had any good furniture to fill it. she made due with old too-small furniture and homemade stuff (boxes and cloths). but it was never very inspiring looking, when it comes to just roll playing and pretending.

now that she has all of this great stuff, her "guys" have been on all sorts of adventures. we get to tuck them in most nights and listen to all of their new scenarios.

the other day, during our long relaxing days at home following christmas, we all hatched a plan to make some food for the "guys". bee suggested that we use fimo. i could only find white, although i KNOW that there are other colors around here somewhere. that was fine with bee because she was psyched to paint the food.

so, now the guys have tons of good food to fill their refrigerator, table and cabinets. i, for one, just LOVE it. i have always loved miniatures. now D and i are brainstorming more dollhouse food, using different color fimo, so we don't have to mess around with painting.

it is just SO cute in the dollhouse. look at that turkey baking in the oven. the oven of a vegetarian child's dollhouse!

the cabinets are stocked......

and, this feast, fit for a king......

handmade holiday

2008-12-29T20:35:00.002-05:00

in the months before christmas, i had done a lot of thinking about trying to go mostly handmade for our gifts. i had plenty of ideas for the kids in our life because there is so much more to make and they won't notice my beginner skills and are an easier audience. i struggled with handmade things for adults, even though i was pretty unenthusiastic about giving store-bought gifts to adults. i feel like everyone has everything they need and it all seems so frivolous sometimes, to me.

in the end i made things for almost every kid in our life and i was pretty psyched about it.

for the little cousins on D's side, i made a twirling skirt, a snack bag and some dyed silks:

i also made a set of silks for henny:

for bee i made a velvet curtain for her "stage". she always uses this one area of the living room as her stage and calls the doorway her "backstage". i sewed a silky back on it, added some sequined stars and hung it on a tension rod. here it is in the background (bad picture).......

for all of the little girls in our life, i made more skirts. i am loving this pattern and the girls all seem to love the skirts......
really early on, and before i thought to be taking pictures, i also made some matching stenciled and hand-dyed shirts and a scrap wreath.

for next year, i have a few goals. i want to keep a running list of ideas that are good for kids as well as adults. i also want to make things throughout the year, as the inspiration strikes. i hope i will have more success this way, and maybe even be able to take the handmade pledge, for once and for all.

one thing that struck me throughout the christmas holiday was the amount of people in our life who gave handmade gifts to the kids. these were all things made by moms in our life, who have kids near our kid's ages. i observed the most amazing thing each time we exchanged gifts with one of these people. after one of the kids opened a homemade gift, the child of the woman who made the gift would proudly declare "my mom made that!" every time. i feel my eyes fill with tears as i type that because it is so pure, that pride in the homemade. i heard bee tell her friends and cousins, i heard her cousins tell me, i heard bee's friend tell us all. each time they said the same exact thing, with the same boastful tone. i just love that. i love that we are surrounded by that sort of love and effort. i love that bee asks first "who made this?" instead of "what store did we get this from?" that's what it's all about.

building holiday cheer

2008-12-22T21:32:00.004-05:00

these past few weeks have been so full. full of parties, making things, making lists, celebrating life inside the walls of our house and building the excitement of the season. preparing for christmas has been a big part of our days, but so has pure celebrating through our advent tree's daily gifts.

one day our fortune was to finger paint. this is something that bee craves every time the paint is out, and sadly, i discourage it. it's just usually a bad time... we're off to school soon, i am in the middle of cleaning, etc. so, i figured that it would be a welcome treat. what i didn't figure was that henny could do it too! he was sweetly tentative, but still loved it. what a sight for me to see my two kids painting next to each other.

another day the advent calendar told us to bake cookies for the neighbors. this coincided with the first big storm of the season. bee and i trudged up and down the street, dodging ice patches, and spreading good cheer.
this activity was another that really exceeded my expectations. all of the neighbors who we encountered were so amazingly grateful. they invited us in, showed bee the christmas decorations, thanked us profusely and complimented our good deed. it was such a positive experience for me and for bee. i got so much out if it, as a pure act of giving. i am so grateful that bee probably got the same things out of it.
we have also had super fun fortunes, that just create opportunities for family fun. things like, painting each other's nails.....
or building a block tower (or block city) with all of the blocks in the house (A LOT!).....
much of our time has also been filled with coordinating a big adopt-a-family effort. we have participated in this program for about 5 years now. we share the responsibility with a bunch of family members, but we do all of the organizing and delivering. it's quite the effort in the end, but so rewarding. seeing all of those boxes packed up, and imaging those gifts being opened on christmas, well, it's really more than i can take. i just feel happy that we are so blessed to be able to help, even in this small way.

and then there is the christmas card. we sent our card to over 60 families this year (a record). the act of writing out the cards and mailing them out is small compared to trying to get a good picture to use.

some of the out takes.....

and finally, a winner.....

fun kid craft, pretty pictures.

2008-12-19T20:58:00.003-05:00

the other day bee and i made a cute paper chain for the christmas tree. we used some instructions for a no tape or staple version. it's so pretty and was so easy for bee to help. just loop them, and loop them some more!

in related news, i am officially in love with the christmas tree. it glows so brightly and it's so full of all these ornaments that we love and cherish. it is so sparse and thin and simple, yet so lovely when all of the decorations are on it. i feel like i breathe deeper each time i pass by it.

hunting for, cutting & trimming the tree... with the help of a wild bird

2008-12-16T07:54:00.005-05:00

this past weekend we headed out to get ourselves a christmas tree. a few years ago we discovered this sweet old tree patch behind a man's house in a nearby town. he must have planted the trees 25 years ago and just let them grow. he charges $10 and you just go out and get whatever you can find. we usually cut off one of the tops. we aren't fussy, it looks just as beautiful to us as any $50 tree would, once our ornaments and lights are sparkling.

so, this year was the most exciting ever because we had a pheasant accompanying us. when we arrived, we noticed it at the edge of the trees. it didn't seem to be scared of us and when we went to walk around through the trees, it followed us the whole time.

i'm serious when i say that it followed us the whole time. through all the trees, up the hill and back down again. it was scared off by the chain saw, but then found us again soon after the tree was down.
you can see it below, if you look carefully, right at D's heels.
this funny bird followed us all the way back to the car and then just sat there watching us put the tree on the roof. we decided to spoil her with some of our abundant crumbs in the car. so, as we left, she was munching on crackers, popcorn and an apple slice. she's lucky that our kids are so messy!
at home we trimmed the tree with some fantastic retro lights and all of our beautiful ornaments. bee loved helping and henny just loved everything. when i placed the skirt under the tree, henny climbed under and laid down on it, looking up at the lights. meanwhile bee curled up on the top of the couch and did the same. our two cat-like kids, enjoying the tree.

thankful for....

2008-12-14T19:57:00.004-05:00

... a partner who quietly brought the kids out to play in the living room this morning so i could drift off for an extra hour. i'm even more grateful to wake up and come out to find a new cardboard box "cat house" being built and played with. lots of meowing and laughing followed.

... a daughter who passed me two notes, both spelling out "i love you", at the restaurant this morning.

... a son who is able to tell us so many things now, through words and signs. my frustrations from a month ago about his communication are melting away. i fell so grateful every time he pats his chest to ask for help which is a world away from his previous exclusively fussing for help.

tiny village

2008-12-10T16:28:00.003-05:00

bee and i just wrapped up a fun crafting session. we made a tiny snow village with these sweet little houses. it is so simple and addicting once you start.

we set it all up at the bottom of a plant. the pot is huge, so there was plenty of room for snow (white felt), roads (brown felt), the houses and trees. of course the houses needed residents, so bee moved the horsies into the neighborhood. unfortunately for the aesthetics of it all, it just looks like a bunch of horses died in a sweet little village.

fruity silks

2008-12-07T20:09:00.002-05:00

i have a list a mile long, i my head and on paper. it's of all of these cool and inspiring ideas for handmade kids gifts. i have been psyched for months to make things for christmas. now that it is closer i am finding that the balance of time, motivation and organization is a bit tricky. but nevertheless, one night last week i got down to business and made some sweet play silks, dyed with kool aid!

i dyed 12 silks, ordered from dharma trading. i found the kool aid at a few different stores. i used cherry (red), grape (purple), lemonade (yellow), orange (orange, hello!) and pink lemonade (pink!). i also had some sweet blueberry kind and like a dummy i added a bit of this other weird kind that i though might be blue too. turns out it was red and it totally turned that whole batch purple. so, i ended up with extra purple. i wish i had more of the pink lemonade because it's the bomb. and oh wow, that stuff sure smells good. but now that i see what it can do to cloth, i am hesitant to ever drink it again for fear of what it will do to my insides!

i used directions from a few different places. most had similar instructions. in short, what i did was about this:

soak silks in water (1gal.) & vinegar (1/2 cup) for about a half hour.
using 2 large, microwavable bowls, made up kool aid dye (3 packages of kool aid, 2 cups water, 1/2 cup vinegar, per silk. use gloves, or be VERY careful!
i usually did 2 silks per bowl, so i just doubled the recipe in each bowl.
rotate bowls in the microwave: 3 minutes "cooking", 3 minutes "resting", with a little stir in there too.
do the cook/ rest routine 3 times each.
rinse in the sink, although not too much dye was leaving them after three rounds in the microwave.
air dry
iron when dry.

i'm so excited about how these came out. i plan to give henny a set, and give the others to some of our other special little ones. i love the idea of open ended toys like this and i can't wait to see what henny and bee come up with to use them for. bee is on board to give them to henny, but i think that she is just super anxious to get her hands on them. i can't wait to see her clipping one on henny for a cape, or the two of them sitting down to a felt food picnic on one. the possibilities are endless!

advent tree

2008-12-01T11:53:00.004-05:00

ever since bee was 2 we have had some sort of advent calendar. we are not religious but find this tradition to be a nice addition to the simple christmas that we want to provide, as well as a good way to promote the type of holiday traditions we like. we want it to be amazing and magical for the kids, but also without the materialism that is all around us.

last year i hatched a plan to do an advent calendar that is more about family fun than candy or prizes. we made a calendar out of toilet paper tubes, and put a "fortune" in each tube, each day. the fortunes were anything from "paint mom or dad's nails" to "go looking for christmas lights tonight" or a real material prize. bee loved it and we loved the way that it encouraged us to make special moments happen throughout the season.

this year we did the same sort of thing with the fortunes. we tried to make them inclusive of the whole family, including henny.

the toilet paper tube set up didn't hold up too well, so i made a new system that seems like it may be a keeper for years to come. i made muslin pouches and cinched them up with ribbon. we hung them on a branch that bee and D found around the yard.

i printed out a nice font and traced the numbers with fabric markers. we put the fortunes in the baggies, and coordinated them with the calendar. we won't be "baking cookies for the neighbors", for example, unless it's a weekend or one of D's days off. any time that the kids get a material prize, they will find a fortune that tells them where to look for it.

i'm pretty psyched about this new advent calendar. we have already been dreaming of future holiday seasons.... finding the branch, filling and emptying it and finally burning it in the fire on christmas morning.

thanks and giving

2008-11-30T20:14:00.004-05:00

we are wrapping up a very long and very relaxing thanksgiving weekend here. it has been so nice to have so much wide-open time as a family. sometimes it may have seemed a bit boring, but having all this time to just do whatever has made me actually feel so accomplished. the house is clean, through no significant effort, the kids are having fun and we have been eating very well and enjoying fires in the fireplace. it is so good.

in the weeks that led up to thanksgiving we tried out a new family activity. i wanted to help bee to realize the meaning of thanksgiving and create a sort of family bonding. i printed out these thanksgiving trees and leaves. it is such a beautiful design and worked perfectly.

each day, at dinner, we each had 2 leaves. one leaf was to write something we are thankful for and one for something that we gave. it was sometimes interesting to see what bee would say and most often very touching. sometimes we were thankful for a greater thing, like a healthy family. other times it was relatively small, like me being able to have some time to myself in a day. it was always fun to try to "help" henny come up with his. he was most often thankful for books and gave us great laughs.

the most wonderful thing about this activity is that is has given me hope and inspiration to make a daily thanks part of our routine. i have to brainstorm more with D about it, but i think i'm ready to start something. maybe we will keep a family journal of our gratitude and gifts. i don't have it fleshed out yet, but i am ready and motivated. we have so much to be thankful for and i hope we can continue to acknowledge it all year.

book worm

2008-11-23T20:07:00.003-05:00

up until a week ago henny has never had an interest in books. and when i say he didn't have an interest, i mean that he would slap any book away and/or scream until i gave up. this frustrated and depressed me to no end. when bee was a baby we read to her all the time. throughout the day and at night, i'd even recite favorite books to her in the car or during diaper changes. but henny just wouldn't have anything to do with it.

until a week ago.

suddenly and all at once, he began taking books of the shelf and bringing them to us. if we are sitting on the couch, he will hand us the book and then stomp his feet until we pick him up. once he is settled in his spot and the book is open, he plugs his fingers in, and fully relaxes.
i am so excited because in the past week we have read books about a hundred times. henny now has favorite books and looks around for them when the mood strikes him. what is most exciting though is the way that henny's vocabulary has exploded along with this new love of books. the importance of the timing is not lost on me. suddenly, as he is taking in all of these great books, he is finding words and sounds that he never had before. he is telling us what different animals say and what he wants to eat. i realize how books can help us teach our kids more than anything else. how else could you expose your kid to the moon, a macaroni penguin, a farmer and easter eggs all in one day?
the very best part of this new literary love is watching bee read to henny. she knows many of the board books by heart and she can read them as well as us. the two of them snuggled up reading warms my heart to no end. and bee is so proud, it is so good for a girl who is really struggling to find her importance in our family so much of the time.

another great thing is i know just what we should ask santa to put in henny's stocking in a few weeks!

pure sweetness

2008-11-21T20:55:00.002-05:00

it's my birthday tomorrow and there has been much whispering going on here regarding it. D and bee have been sharing secrets all week. it is very cute. bee seems to have gotten the concept of secrets. not like when it was D's birthday in april and she flat out said, "D, we got you some crocs!". this was after a LONG conversation about secrets.

but the other night at dinner we were all talking and suddenly bee said, "ok mommy, calm down. be quiet. listen, on your birthday, i will do everything. if there is something to clean, we will clean it. if there are dirty dishes, i'll wash them. you don't have to do anything!"

i guess that i can look forward to a day of relaxation tomorrow. i am so lucky. really.

apple (with no apples!) muffins and our endless snack consumption

2008-11-17T21:48:00.002-05:00

lately it has been feeling less and less like we have a kid and a baby and more like we have 2 kids. this has a lot to do with the fact that henny climbs up on the dining room table if given the chance and grabs his shoes and coat when he feels like going outside. it also has a lot to do with the amount of food that our former baby consumes. like bee, he wants to eat constantly. we have been going through so much snack food lately. it is almost sickening too see the food come in, be devoured and then see the trash pile up. i have been thinking about how sad this kind of waste is (so articulately put here) and what to do about it. i would like to start making my own granola bars and crackers but tonight i put in an effort to stretch our snack supply by baking some muffins.

i used this recipe from this most amazing blog that i just found. there is so much there that it makes my head spin! it turned out that when i went to make the muffins that the bag of apples was empty, so i broke out some of the summer supply, strawberries and peaches! the muffins turned out great and i'm sort of psyched to start a trend of less wasteful snack food. i making my own fake meat now, so i guess that anything is possible!

highlights of a week full of deep breaths.

2008-11-12T20:45:00.002-05:00

life has been busy, as usual. thrown in like a giant wrench has been some outrageous behavior from bee. she has been having these daily tantrums that are like nothing we have ever seen. there is screaming and crying, there is sometimes scratching and pinching and there is endless bargaining that can almost not be deciphered through all the screaming. i guess this is what a four year old tantrum looks like. it's not pretty.

i am pretty much at my wits end. monday's public tantrum in a parking lot pretty much pushed me over the edge. this new behavior has had me on eggshells and colored my world in a very ugly way for a few weeks now.

that said, today was better. there was only one almost-tantrum. she managed to calm down and "use words" and it really felt like a gift. i'm hoping that we are on the other side of this.

but it's not all bad. there has been much joy.

for starters, i made bee a winter hat:

it's a simple knit hat with a 1" ribbed band on the bottom. i knit the flower to fancy it up. the flower turned out big because of the needles or yarn or whatever, but i love it. bee is like carrie bradshaw when she walks into preschool!

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in the "cute baby department" we have henny, painted up by bee:
she discovered her love for painting henny on halloween and he loves being the canvas. he just sits there, so still, as she paints away.

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my latest cooking triumph was vegetarian golumpki. i can't even deal with writing out the recipe, but here's the basics... i followed the usual recipe but filled them with TVP (brought back with vegetable broth), smashed veggie meatballs and brown rice. they were the bomb.

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finally is a picture that i uploaded and just can't believe. i just can't believe that this is my baby. the baby who i didn't put in pink until she was probably 2, who i tried so hard to help maintain her gender neutrality and just enjoy everything as a child, not necessarily a girl child. there she is, with the gown, crown, necklace and wrist tutu, just sipping her tea.

goo!!

2008-11-06T14:00:00.000-05:00

last week bee and i made a big batch of goo, to be divided among her classmates as a halloween surprise. this is a MUST DO activity if you have a kid, especially a kid who loves recipes and messes, like mine.

i used a recipe on this site. it's called "amy's flubber recipe". i have made the "gak" recipe too, which is just as good. this stuff comes together like magic and is so fun to play around with. it's not really messy once it comes together, mostly like silly putty. seriously, MUST DO.

yes we did!

2008-11-05T20:03:00.005-05:00

i am finally sitting here, taking in all that has happened in the past 24 hours. i am so proud of the results and so proud of our country. i know my experience with this election is similar to many many americans. i have never really felt passionately about a candidate. i have always voted and been angered by people who don't, but i was never too thrilled at the choices on my ballot.

this year, barack obama has ignited this fire in me and so many people in our country. i know he is going to do his best for us. it won't be easy for him and he may not be able to make much of a dent in this mess that has grown in the past 8 years. but i know he will try. he will care.

when barack obama is on tv, i will proudly tell my kids, "the president is talking to us, let's watch." imagine that.

there is something so powerful about all of these energized, positive and motivated people throughout our country. that can only be a good thing. this energy, harnessed, will carry us far.

bee was also very excited about voting day. they even voted at her school. here are the results:

i guess some people must not be talking politics at every meal in their house. but, at least the outcome was good!

at night D and i were so lucky to get to go out to celebrate with the many people in our community who came out. we live in the most liberal, blue area and the vibes were amazing. the bars were all packed. many restaurants were filled to capacity. we watched as all the polls closed and the results were announced.

the final call came so quick, it was almost surreal.

we reluctantly left the bar, headed for home soon after the call. we even passed up the free round that some guy announced from atop his bar stool. we listened to mccain's speech on the way home and got all snuggled up in bed just in time to watch our next president take the stage. i fell asleep easily and slept soundly with the spirit of hope and change in the air.

halloween

2008-11-03T20:34:00.003-05:00

last week halloween sucked all of my time. that and the fact that i joined facebook recently. so addictive, that facebook is.

i hardly know where to begin in recording our halloween. it was long and seems somewhat tedious to run through it all. but then again, this journal is supposed to be a way for me to remember all these little things, boring as it may seem.

other than my behind the scenes sewing and crafting, our halloween celebrations started last wednesday, with carving pumpkins. i hardly want to mention it here because i regret that i didn't ever get a picture of them all lit. i don't know what happened, i just spaced out.

it was a really fun family time. bee liked poking around at the pumpkins, "carving" them. next year she might be ready for real carving. henny played with all of the "guts" and helped us get the scraps into the bowl.

bee dressed as a tooth fairy. she has been planning this costume for months. bee has never lost a tooth, but she is interested in the idea. for her costume she wore a first communion gown that i found a long time ago at a tag sale, her wings, a tooth necklace that D made with fimo, a wire crown with a big fimo tooth on it and she carried a wand with a big tooth on the end. it was very cute and she felt proud, which made it all worth it. i should also note that fairies are a big hit with the preschool set. at bee's school ALL of the girls were fairies, except one who was a princess.

henny was a skunk. there was no significance to this costume and i really had no clue what henny would be until earlier in the week. i just went to the fabric store, hoping for inspiration. i found this great white "skunk fur" and decided to pair it with a black one piece suit that we already had, and an old baby hat that has ears. the hat was from last winter, and was way small, but i just cinched it on and it worked. i sewed the skunk stripe on the hat and down the back of the suit. i put a circle of fur on the chest, which was convenient to cover the little picture that was already on the suit. to top it all off, bee painted henny's nose.

the kids were really cute and we all enjoyed trick-or-treating around our neighborhood. bee ran from house to house with her neighbor buddy and henny even enjoyed knocking on the doors and smiling for the neighbors. the parents enjoyed the beers that we had in our pockets!

after halloween we instituted a new family rule. you are allowed to keep the number of pieces of candy that you are years old. the rest we baked into a batch of cookies. the best cookies i have ever had! it was fun because bee could try nibbles of each kind, so she didn't feel like she was missing out.

i guess now it's time to start crafting for christmas! i am going back and forth on whether or not i can handle taking the handmade pledge.

hope

2008-10-25T17:21:00.004-04:00

lately our house is full of election talk. at the breakfast table while we read the paper, all throughout the day as we relate new things we heard on the radio and with pretty much anyone who enters our home. bee is soaking it all up and we have to be careful about how we talk about things. she knows where we stand but we are also trying (as hard as it sometimes is) to let her know that we have our choice, but others have theirs, and that is ok.

she is full of questions ranging from why presidents wear ties to what a president does. earlier this week bee was quizzing me about the latter. i gave her a nice, age appropriate speech about how the president helps people and makes sure that things are nice in our country. she then asked why we want barack obama to be president. i told her that he would make sure that everyone would have a nice home to live in, a good school to go to, a good job and that he would make sure to take care of the environment. bee thought about it for a minute and then said, "well, i wish that my ceiling could be lower so that i could touch it." i laughed and said, "well, when barack obama is president, anything will be possible!"

but seriously, i am bursting with joy to be a parent during this historic time. things are going to be good, i can feel it!

twirly girl

2008-10-22T17:42:00.003-04:00

monday night i made bee two new skirts. our kids have no halloween costumes completed, but i was busy making skirts! makes sense.

i was just so excited to try this pattern, which is so amazing and easy and cute. and so much potential for fabric/ ribbon combinations! i first saw the pattern on soule mama, of course.

bee loves the skirts so much. she wore one yesterday and the other today. she said that every kid in her class complimented her, but she is also going through a big lying phase, so.....

i never got a picture of the one she wore yesterday, but here's the one she wore today:

horray for having a girl!

"beef" stew

2008-10-20T21:26:00.006-04:00

last winter i was dreaming of beef stew. this wasn't something that i had too often as a kid, when i still ate meat. but when i did have it, i loved it! those soft carrots, the gravy, even the beef! so, when i started thinking of stew, i checked out some vegetarian stew recipes. they all were a bit complicated and/or used tofu, which i think would just ruin the whole idea. i wanted it to be as authentic as possible, not some watered down version. so, i made up my own recipe and although it has slightly evolved, it was a winner from day one.

the "meat" source is what has changed most over time and now i think i am set on using seitan, especially since i am the master seitan maker now. bee even says that it's one of the things that she likes best about me. i have used some "beef" fake meat stuff that they have in the freezer at the grocery store. that is actually the tastiest and most authentic product, but it's pretty expensive. the homemade seitan is about a dollar a pound, so you can't beat that.

the basic recipe is this:

"beef" stew

one onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

4 large carrots, chopped pretty big

6 celery stalks, chopped

3 small potatoes, cubed

olive oil

butter (or vegan butter to make it vegan)

half a package of mushrooms, chopped

2 tablespons soy sauce

3-4 tablespoons flour

salt to taste

about 2 cups of chopped seitan

3 bay leaves

one box of vegetable broth

in a large pot, start sauteing the onion, garlic, carrots, celery and potatoes in oil, covered. add a bit of broth if it starts sticking or needs a little more steam.

in a separate frying pan, melt butter and fry mushrooms with a little salt. when the mushrooms are cooked pretty well, add about a cup of broth. let it reduce down for a minute and then strain out the mushrooms and put them in with the other vegetables.

add the soy sauce to the mushroom broth and then the flour. wisk the flour to make a gravy.

once the vegetables are soft, add the gravy, bay leaves, remaining broth and seitan to the big pot.

let the whole thing simmer for about 20 minutes to reduce down a bit.

the stew is best after it sits for a bit. i like to make it in the afternoon and then have it for dinner, but it is even better the next day.

i should note that this is also a meal that the whole family enjoys and that is really a huge thing for me right now. i am proud when my kids eat things like this, but it is also just so cute to see that tiny bowl and spoon filled with real people food!

apples: from the branch to the oven in hours.

2008-10-15T07:53:00.004-04:00

we are so lucky to live across the street from an orchard. it is small but throughout the late summer and fall, we really never buy apples or peaches anywhere but in our neighborhood. it is one of my favorite things about where we live. i love that apple picking is not a once-a-year outing for our family. when we need apples, we walk across the street and in as little as ten minutes we can be home with a half peck.

this past monday we picked apples all together for what may be the last time this year. we got some of every kind with the intention of making a pie when we got home.

at home, we got everything out on the kitchen table and worked together on the pie. bee cut up the cold butter, sampling the "butter juice" until we put an end to that. D peeled, sliced and spiced the apples (cinnamon, sugar, a little flour and some pumpkin pie spice). i ran around doing everything else.
once the crust dough was made, bee and i rolled it out. she got tired and started on some "scrap soup".
we made a crumb top so that we could make two pies and because we like it better. for the topping i just mixed together a half of a stick of melted butter, about a cup and a half of oats, a few tablespoons of sugar, a few tablespoons of maple syrup and cinnamon.

with the little bit of extra dough, i made cinnamon sticks, which are just basically just sticks of dough rolled in cinnamon and sugar.
the pies came out beautiful and were even better last night when we ate one with good friends, good beer and some delicious sage cheddar. i had never heard of cheddar with apple pie until i met D's family. now i am of the opinion that it is THE BEST way to eat apple pie.

fall festival

2008-10-13T21:04:00.002-04:00

this past weekend was LONG and eventful. it really is worthy of several posts, so to keep my sanity i'm going to cover only one topic tonight. i hope i'll have time tomorrow to add a bit more. and there was a lot, for sure! the most exciting being the overnight that D and i spent with no kids, and an open bar at my cousin's wedding!

but first was saturday's morning at our favorite fall festival. we had to really squeeze it in because of the wedding we had to head out to in the afternoon, but there was never a question. we had to go! we have never missed it. now as bee gets older, and even this year for henny, it is really so much fun to experience everything with them. before we had kids, it was all about the food and the crafts and maybe seeing friends. now it's all about the games, petting zoo and dancing to the music.

this year bee played three games and earned herself a handful of candy. everyone is a winner!

first there was the golf game where bee got to drop 10 marbles down the board and see which hole they land in. bee had no idea about the rules or points or whatever. she just loved watching them bounce around and sometimes land in a hole.

next we played a game where we got to toss dimes to try to get them to land on a circle. bee actually did manage to get one on and that was a huge thrill.
the last game we played was our favorite and by far the most inventive. i don't know what you would call it but what you had to do was roll this ball up a slight hill, by balancing it on these 2 poles and kind of pumping it uphill. D helped bee and i think he liked it better than she did!
henny enjoyed it all from D's back and then let loose when we sat down to eat lunch and listen to some music. henny danced and ate and then danced some more.

coming tomorrow (hopefully), wedding and apple pie!

hey lady, what year is it?

2008-10-10T13:40:00.002-04:00

yesterday while i was picking bee up at school, she was playing around with another little girl. they were acting all cute, hugging and trying to pick each other up a little off the ground. the mix of hugging and feeling proud about how strong their four year old bodies are was so sweet. until, this other girl's grandmother, who was there to get her, broke up the fun. the reason,"that's enough girls. that's not how young ladies behave. that's how men behave."

wow.

a bunch of things to be happy about

2008-10-09T21:29:00.003-04:00

as promised, more joy comes today!

first off is bee's much loved vintage paper doll. meet ann-charlotte:

we got her at a flea market last weekend, for 25 cents and then promptly left her at a cafe ten minutes later. i rescued her later in the week and she has become much loved. i love her too. look at those clothes, and accessories! i only wish i got a picture before we started cutting.

***************

next up is henny's nap. i know, i just wrote about how much it's ruining my life, but who couldn't love a guy who knows when he's tired and just goes to sleep. here is hen during his still much needed morning nap:

and here is hen, after, just minutes after waking up:
how sweet and bright-eyed is he? just cuddling with his baby, who he grabbed after he woke up. at least i know, no matter how hard it all is right now, i'm doing right by henny by respecting his sleep schedule.

*****************

i finally remembered to bring the camera to the farm today (as part of my striving toward positivity) and i got a few great shots.

bee basking in the indian summer:

henny feeding the goat and shrieking with laughter at the thrill of it all:
and finally, and most ridiculous of all, bee's new "scary face". she has been entertaining us with this face all day for weeks. here is just one of the pictures that i have of this beauty:
life is good, no matter how tough it sometimes is. i know that i signed up for this and that it is a job, and no job is ever perfect. but when i force myself to focus on the positive, i find that there is so much that i'm literally swimming in blog content!

celebrity done right

2008-10-09T14:34:00.004-04:00

i've always thought that angelina was pretty awesome, what with her tattoos, six kids, hot husband, amazing work to help people all around the world. but this new magazine cover just put her over the top on my list. there she is, breast feeding on the cover of w magazine. lovely.

feeling negative.

2008-10-08T19:29:00.002-04:00

i have been putting of writing here because i feel like everything i have to say is not very nice. today i decided that i'm just going to put it down, and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. maybe i'll keep the camera by me more and take a picture of something that is wonderful, because there is much that is wonderful around me. i just haven't been able to shake a bit of a funk for the past week or so. i think it's a combination of things.

mainly, the new school schedule is bumming me out. i feel like i do nothing, get close to nothing accomplished and have very little fun. it's school, hen's nap, back to school, lunch, another nap, maybe one hour before dinner and then bed. day after day. no visiting friends, no outings, no freedom.

that all combined with henny coming into a new phase in his life. he is no longer a baby who would pretty much go along with whatever. he wants to walk, climb and get into trouble. he wants to do everything but he has so sense about getting hurt. he falls and hurts himself all day. no matter how much i stay on top of him, it's inevitable. even when i try to catch him from falling i feel like he gets hurt from slamming down on my hand or something. i think i remember when bee was this age feeling similarly frustrated. henny is caught between being a baby and a toddler. it's an adjustment for us all and just so sad to be there for.

i am also feeling negative about my weight loss. i have lost a lot of weight in the last few months but it seems to be done coming off. that might not be so bad if i didn't feel like eating EVERYTHING. i am doing well controlling myself, but it's so hard. i feel like i want to eat all day, and not good things.

finally D and i are leaving the kids overnight for this first time (since henny was born) coming up and i am so stressed about it. i know everything will be fine and even is it's not, it's not that long of a time and we can make it all better when we get home. i just can't stop thinking the worst (obviously not THE WORST, but all the things that would make it bad): henny cries because of a new separation anxiety he has, bee has bad/sassy behavior, kids won't sleep, babysitters don't follow "the rules"....

phew.

ok, now that i got that off my chest, the next thing i will post will be cute or yummy or inspiring. promise.

window kisses

2008-10-01T22:37:00.003-04:00

i have so much more to say, but not much time. right now i have consignment sale that is sucking the life out of me.

but, it will be over after tomorrow, and then the debate is on! and we can watch sarah palin scare the living daylights out of us! and drinks will be drunk! not that they weren't tonight. ha!

whose answer does she want? sarah palin's or mine?

2008-09-29T19:17:00.003-04:00

bedtime questions as reported by D:

"how was the first day of the world? i mean, like, the first day of the planet? how was it made? but, how did they make the sky? it's so big. maybe they have really long ladders."

dinner:delicious

2008-09-25T21:20:00.001-04:00

clockwise: grape-brie, apple-cinnamon-brie, pesto-tomato-feta, hen of the woods-tomato-gran queso

today's sources of pride

2008-09-24T19:28:00.003-04:00

it's three things that made me happy today, starting with tonight's dinner.

i made this delicious and inventive creamy barley salad from real simple, plus 2 fall squash. i halved an acorn and a delicata, filled them with onion and garlic slices, salt and olive oil, then steamed/roasted them in our tangine. delicious.

and cooking in our kitchen will make me happy for the next few months, now that i have this to look at on the front lawn.

and finally, i have my little boy, who is growing all sorts of opinions and attitudes. it's lucky though that what he really wants to do is drag me around the playground and play fire truck. who wouldn't enjoy that? i'm so glad i brought my camera today.

2 cooking successes

2008-09-23T20:08:00.004-04:00

fall mushrooming is in full swing around here. this is the time where the greatest amount of wild mushrooms can be found. we have found many kinds through the years, but our family's favorite is by far the hen of the woods. this is just the best tasting mushroom, it grows in the same spots every year and grows so big that you feel tired carrying it! now that mushroom season is here we have been busy "checking our spots." over the weekend we found a few beauties and decided to whip up some mushroom barley soup.

we sauteed up the mushrooms, chopped roughly, with an onion, a few cloves of garlic, a couple of carrots, a few stalks of celery and some sage and thyme.

once it was all nice and soft i added a box of broth and a cup or so of barley. after it simmered for a bit, we let it hang out for a while.

i have to say that this was a fantastic way to use the hen and earned our family's gold medal of being deemed "restaurant quality". up next hen of the woods pate!

and then sunday night i made vegan dad's fake lunch meat recipe. i had been meaning to make this for weeks. we go through a ton of fake meat here and it has been bothering me a bit lately. it is not only processed, but also expensive. i love what vegan dad is doing with all of his fake meat recipes, he's my hero.

the recipe was a huge success. here is the loaf before being cooked.
and here it is after it was cooked and cooled and about to be sampled.
this fake meat is awesome, if a bit plain. i know that i could doctor it up more next time. what matters most is that it made like 2 pounds and it is now officially gone after only 2 days. bee even asked for it for a snack today, and ate it all up! now if i could just find someone outside of my house who cares about making your own fake meat!

on nursing

2008-09-21T19:56:00.002-04:00

somehow in the last few weeks henny has drastically cut back on his nursing. it has really surprised me and left me feeling occasionally sad. my experience as a nursing mom has been full of so many emotions and good memories that it is really overwhelming to see the end of my nursing days closer than i thought.

when i had bee i was more nervous about nursing than even labor and birth. the idea just made me squeamish. i think it had a lot to do with feeling this societal ideal of breasts-for-sex and that didn't mesh at all with thinking of someone sucking on my boob day and night. i knew i wanted to nurse and that it was best. i took the class, bought the books, but still was nervous. i told myself that i would try for 3 or maybe 6 months. in the end we made it to 15 months, very happily and healthfully.

once everything clicked and bee and i were deep in a strong nursing relationship, it was amazing. she was a furious nurser. 45 minute sessions, nursing for comfort and wanting to eat 20 minutes after finishing a meal, it was all part of my life. i identified strongly as a nursing mother and really considered it part of my identity at the time. i would bravely nurse in situations where i knew it would raise eyebrows, partly out of necessity and partly as a "fuck you" to anyone who would dare care.

bee never had a drop of formula. while i would never judge someone for feeding their baby formula, i was so internally proud that my body could provide all my baby needed. the whole process was so natural and so powerful for me.

when bee turned one we started giving her some cow's milk. she took to it ok, but also started to expand her diet. she was eating more and more during the day and around 13 or 14 months i started to think about weaning. i knew that we wanted to try to have another baby at some point and i thought it would feel good to have a bit of time to have my body to myself. i started by cutting out a few seemingly unnecessary feedings, like the 30 seconds after a nap. soon i cut out before nap and before i knew it bee was only nursing a few times a day. she really didn't seem to notice and was asking for snacks more than booby milk. it just felt right. so, at 15 months D took her out to the dining room for breakfast instead of to me for milk and that was that.

now that henny is almost that age i cannot believe that i stopped nursing then. henny seems so young and knowing that he will be my last baby, i just want to keep him a baby. but the fact is that henny has never really been a boob man. even as a newborn he nursed wonderfully but not with the same passion that bee had. he would nurse for 5 minutes or so, just long enough to fill his belly, and then move on. he didn't linger at the boob like bee did and he never nursed for comfort. from a very early age henny sucked his middle fingers for comfort. that combined with his chill attitude and he really didn't ever need any extra forms of comfort.

after henny's tiny baby days were past, he settled into a strong schedule of nursing. morning, before nap, after nap, before 2nd nap, after 2nd nap and night, that was it. there were of course extras here and there but he usually didn't seem to want or need more. he never asked for milk even though he knew where it was and would pull at my shirt when i would ask, "where's you're milk?"

so a few weeks ago i tried to nurse henny before a nap and he refused. i thought he was just really tired so i laid him down. but it happened again and again. he pretty much refused to nurse during the day. at some point i stopped trying.

and so now henny nurses when he wakes up and at night. that's it. i nursed him at the y the other day when he was particularly fussy but that was really rare with our new schedule.

i feel so different about weaning this time around. maybe it's because it doesn't seem to be on my terms. i always half-thought that when people said that their kids "weaned themselves" that they were stretching the truth. but now i see that it is possible. sad but true. i feel like i want to hang on to these last weeks or maybe months of nursing. i know that the end will come but i'm not ready yet. i still want henny to need me in a way that nobody else can provide, especially now that he doesn't seem to need it so much. nursing will always be a hugely special time for me and some truly deep and strong memories. i'm just not ready for it to be a memory, at least not just yet.

2 small firsts

2008-09-15T20:11:00.004-04:00

within minutes and in close proximity to my camera, henny did two things for the first time.

first, he played with play dough. much giggling ensued. it was one of those moments as a stay-at-home-mom where i feel like the effort really pays off. taking that dough off the stove and seeing the kids light up as they dig into it... priceless.

as after henny got tired of sitting in his seat he started doing his newly perfected pointing routine to tell me when he wanted next. i deduced that he wanted to stand with bee in her tower. so, although he has been in the tower briefly, this is the first time with bee and really just an excuse to post a cute picture.
and how about the hair on this kid! it's pretty much time for another haircut. it's not quite as bad as it was a while ago, but it's pretty much covering his eyes again. still cute, though!

new bag

2008-09-14T22:09:00.002-04:00

real quick while D feeds the cats, and with a crappy photobooth shot...

my new bag!

2 hours this morning and BAM, new bag!

i used some fabric from that church lady sale and this tutorial, which is awesome.

ok, off to bed....

zzzzz.

obsessing over...

2008-09-14T13:54:00.000-04:00

tina fey for president!

catch up

2008-09-13T21:30:00.007-04:00

after bee's birthday i decided to "trim the fat" for the remainder of the week. in doing so i managed to read a few magazine articles, exercise and in turn did things like update this site less. what follows is a basic outline of the highlights of these post-birthday days.

this week i amazed myself and my family by making my own vegan fake meat sausages. (no picture!) and they were the bomb. i used this recipe, with a few substitutions. i didn't have all the spices on hand that he uses, so i just used a bunch of what i had from the farm (rosemary, oregano, thyme & sage). it was a bit crumbly, but after being fried in a little oil they were nice and firm and crispy. up next: fake sandwich meat.

also this week i had THE WORST experience at the registry of motor vehicles that one can have, i'm certain. my experience included: a trip first to the insurance company, a partially skinned knee in the parking lot, long wait at the rmv, a four year old who forgot what "no running around" means for every minute of said long wait, the realization that they rmv doesn't take credit cards followed by the realization that my checkbook was devoid of checks, a sprint down a VERY busy street with no sidewalk to an atm, sprint back to the rmv (5 minutes before closing!) only to realize as i dig through my bag that somewhere along my sprint route i dropped the VERY IMPORTANT paper from the insurance company.

BLAH. i'm sweating now just from writing that. needless to say we ended up eating cookies all the way home.

thursday was brighter and saw the ups truck delivering me this goodness....

it's mostly sweet bento stuff from this very cool store. there are all kinds of soy sauce bottles and cute molds for rice or hard boiled eggs. i can't wait to blow bee's mind with those! there is also a few bento boxes and that flowery thing on the left is the cutest shopping bag. all this stuff set me back like $12. and look what it says on the top of one of the boxes. so great....
happy fruits is very delicious. i will eat this and will become fortunate all together!

in other retail news. i scored all this for $5 at a sweet church crafter sale. now i need to get craftin'!!
finally, i feel like the weekend has helped me breathe a sign of relief not only because we aren't planning or executing a party but because we have done some great family things, with just us. the highlight was tonight, when we went to a hot air balloon festival!

we are major hot air balloon enthusiasts here. we see them all summer and fall flying through our backyard and have had the chance to go to a few hot air balloon fests. this one was the most laid back and really so fun. the best part was that they had an old hot air balloon set up for everyone to go in and walk around. the kids went crazy, running all around, it was such amazing fun. what a good looking family, don't you think?

happy birthday bee, or the day that almost killed me

2008-09-08T21:30:00.005-04:00

today was bee's fourth birthday.

it was also her first day at a new school.

i'll begin with the obligatory first-day-of-school picture and also note that the day went fantastically. no crying, lots of sharing of fun activities and experiences and the promise that they "will do much more fun stuff tomorrow."

bee went to school two mornings a week last year, so we are not new at this. but somehow i don't think it will ever get easy. especially when we are so blessed to be able to spend a long three summer months together doing whatever the hell we please. walking out of the classroom i felt like i had forgotten something. so empty. i know it will get better and i will relish the school time because i will be free to do more and be appreciative of the time we have together. but for now, i'm adjusting.

however, i didn't have too long to dwell on the new-school feelings because i had a birthday to make special! i had a cake to decorate! a house to clean! a salad to make! last minutes errands to do!

right now i feel grouchy about the whole birthday. it was great, but i am exhausted. it has been a long stretch of birthday planning and execution for us. it has all gone great but it's enough by now. that's how i'm feeling. i think part of it is also that my heart just can't take it all. dropping my little girl off at school after this long glorious summer, knowing that this is it, it's over? quietly meditating on where i was four years ago, bringing this sweet girl into the world? trying to make this a special day and watching the joy in bee's eyes at what we created for her? it's all too much!

putting my bad attitude aside, i have to say that i am so happy to have a four year old. i feel like bee seemed older to me today. when she woke up she didn't yell for me like she has for 4 years, she just got up and browsed some books. imagine that! and as we strolled down the street this afternoon with our respective babies in our strollers, she chatted with me on and on like a little person. she has so much to say and i want to hear it all. she could tell me about how her toenail polish is chipping off and i'd be rapt. her imagination is deep and i love when i can dive in and try to see what she sees.

i look at bee's almost 7 year old cousin and i know that this time is fleeting. soon she will be checking out what the other girls are wearing and worrying about homework. i love this time with all my heart. i know four is going to be great.

happy birthday bee!

fairy ball

2008-09-07T21:06:00.008-04:00

this past friday we hosted our first official fairy ball, in honor of bee's 4th birthday. the fairies converged on friday evening and spent 2 hours frolicking, eating, creating and playing.
we started planning about a month ago. i've mentioned before that bee has this idea about what fairies are. it's sort of a cross between a fairy, a ballerina and a princess. that is good because it gave me plenty to work with.

the first thing we did was to create these cute flowers with toilet paper tubes. i used these instructions. bee did most of the work and it was really pretty fun. these served as the centerpieces.

we set up three craft activities around the party.

first, crown making. it was super simple. i bought some classroom bulletin board borders and cut them to crown size. i punched holes on each end tied a ribbon on to fasten the crown on. then we just gathered up a bunch of stuff to glue on to decorate.
second, we had wand making. this was my favorite and the kid's favorite too.

we were going to use sticks, which would have been fine but D thought of using these dogwood shoots that we had to trim off our dogwood tree anyway. they were just the right width and nice and sturdy.

we attached about 10 inches of craft wire to the ends and just put a pan of beads on the blanket. the kids strung the beads on and then the parents secured the open end to be in the shape of a circle (or heart or butterfly or star). you can see some in action in the first picture of the post.

the third activity was about as simple as it gets. a basket full of fairy house supplies. this was the least popular at the party but i think that just had to do with the high energy of our fairies.
we set up a tent as a sort of fairy ballroom. the kids all ate under the tent, surrounded by christmas lights, flowers and tulle.
i made these flowers following these instructions. it was so easy and so satisfying.
bee designed the menu for the fairies. fairy eggs and fairy pancakes. if you don't know, that is eggs and pancakes with sprinkles on top. i'll let you in on a little secret....if you want to make fairy food, put sprinkles on otherwise ordinary food. this is also a good way to get your kid to eat stuff you want them to eat.

bee made little gift bags for her buddies. the main thing in them was these super cool treasure balls.

we made a batch of salt clay. then bee hid these fancy rocks inside a ball of clay. we then rolled the balls in glitter and baked the balls for about an hour or so.
bee bagged them up and we put a sticker on them with instructions. the idea is to smash them open to find your treasure. we tried one and they work awesome.
for dessert we had cupcakes, or cup-a-cakes as bee still calls them. i used my favorite recipe, amy sedaris'. this makes me feel cooler every time i use it. it's a good, simple recipe.

we topped them with these jelly candies from trader joe's so they would be more fun.
it was so worth all the effort for this party. it was just right for bee and i know she loved every minute of it. this is one part of parenting that makes me feel so happy to be a mom.

stepping through the muck

2008-09-02T09:15:00.003-04:00

for the past week and a half or so i have felt so stuck. there is so much to do and i just don't even know where to begin. usually i have plans devised in my head. during the duller times of my day, walking with the kids or driving somewhere, i'll be busy planning in my head. then when the time comes to get down to business, off i go. last week i found myself wandering around the kitchen when it was time to make dinner. back and forth from the cabinet to the fridge, doing nothing. i couldn't even figure out what to do first.

i think it might be a bit of burn out. henny is now so wildly on the move that i can't leave him for a minute. he is climbing and falling all. day. long. we are also in the middle of the birthday season. right in between henny's birthday extravaganza and bee's upcoming celebration. i know maybe i'm going too all out, but i just can't help it. things seem to also be moving real fast here. as soon as i clean something up, oops there goes a peach smashing on the floor!

i'm hoping that after this past restful, long weekend i can get my head straight. i want to enjoy this time while i also do all these things that are important to me. last night i broke through and made bee's birthday crown. it felt good to do something, start to finish, all in one night. it also felt good to just make something.

more birthday things to come later in the week, including a full fairy ball round-up.

*btw, through all my haze i still found plenty of time to google all different things about sarah palin. i am obsessed, it's official!*

belatedly, friday's culinary successes

2008-08-31T13:52:00.004-04:00

a snack and a wonderful excuse for a meal......

bee found this ear of popcorn that we got at the farm last fall. we got maybe three ears, who knows where the others are. we never popped them last year. we were supposed to let it dry for a few months, so by the time those months had gone by, it was long forgotten. but leave it to an almost four year old to find it and demand to pop it NOW.

i thought i remembered something about popping corn in the microwave, right on the cob. i'm scared of popping corn on the stove (that's D's department), and taking all the kernels off, forget it!

so, we cut a paper bag and popped it in. and pop it did! i got nervous and stopped it before it was done. i didn't want it to burn but there was still about one third of the kernels left on. still and success.

a little melted butter and salt. bee ate almost every bite.

and friday's dinner....

cheese plate.
brie, mozzarella balls, some weird/delicious round cheese with two kinds in it, pecan crackers, cornichons, kalamata olives and tiny grapes.

does it get better than that?

baby erectus

2008-08-26T20:00:00.001-04:00

he stands! he walks (briefly, and drunkenly)!

*ignore the dust bunnies on the carpet. they are only there because we were cleaning out under the couch. i keep an impeccable house, really i do!*

big brother & little brother

2008-08-25T21:46:00.002-04:00

dear friends of our just welcomed a new baby boy to their family. another future tractor-loving farm boy to join his big brother.

i whipped up these matching t-shirts for the brothers. i bought the big t-shirt and dyed the onesie yellow. i made the tractors with a fabric ink pad, my fingerprint and a fabric pen. super easy!

letting go

2008-08-25T21:14:00.002-04:00

at the start of the summer i felt like i was looking down a long dark tunnel. i had gotten into a nice rhythm with the kids, mostly revolving around bee's school schedule. two mornings at school, one morning play date, grocery shopping another day and ballet on friday. the week was shaped by all these things that would be ending or at least losing their structure. i wondered how i would make it through three months with no real plan. i like a plan.

but we joined the y, and there were those weeks of swimming lessons. we saw friends, we went to maine and planned henny's birthday. the time actually flew and many, many days i felt like there wasn't enough time in the day. it was a good feeling.

somewhere along the way i lost the feeling of wishing that i had bee's school as part of our week. in fact, i started dreading the start of school. i know, i'm crazy. we were having so much fun and having so many quality experiences. learning to swim, berry picking, bike riding, lazy walks through the neighborhood, gardening and cooking up all the local goodness. time flew.

i thought that bee's school started on the 3rd and i have been quietly dreading next week. then today i got a bunch of stuff in the mail from the school and it turns out that the whole school starts on the 3rd, but the preschool doesn't start until the next week. i can't tell you how relieved and excited i was to have that extra week. i wouldn't mind if they sent a letter saying it would be another month.

i am loving spending time with my almost 4 year old. she is so fun. i hardly ever feel like i need a break from her, beside my 30 minutes to make dinner. i would be happy to spend every day with her. sometimes i even fantasize about sleeping with her at night. i feel like i'm really in love with her right now. this age, it's magical.

but it's not just that that has me wishing school would be delayed. it's the same feeling that i had last year when bee started nursery school. i thought it would go away, but i'm starting to realize that this feeling with morph and change, but always be there, as long as i'm a mother. forever. it's that separation. knowing that bee will have experiences that i won't be part of. she will have successes that i won't know the gravity of. she will experience pain that i won't be able to soothe. that's the thing that kills me.

today at the grocery store there was this little boy, maybe 5, who was being mean to bee. i don't know what his problem was but every time we passed him he would make a really mean face right at bee and say something mean like "go home!" or "get out!" she looked flat-out stunned by this random mean boy. i could tell that it bothered her so i asked he what was up with that kid. we briefly chatted about how he must be grumpy but that that wasn't nice at all. after the second time bee seemed sort of hurt. i tried to brush it off by saying that he was bring mean. bee suddenly puffed up with bravery and said, "i'm going to go throw him in the garbage!" now, i know this is not nice, but come on! this kid was being so mean! i was proud that she wasn't just taking it.

the thing that got me thinking was that if this sort of thing happens at school, who will she turn to. these sort of mild acts of meanness would probably go unnoticed by a teacher and it may not be memorable enough to bring up at the dinner table. i just hate to think that i wouldn't be there to quickly process it and help her move on.

i know bee will be fine. she is so capable and so much bigger that the almost 3 year old that i kissed good-bye at nursery school last year. maybe it's just me who has some more developing to do.

saucy!

2008-08-24T20:14:00.002-04:00

the tomatoes have been piling up here. between the farm's beautiful heirlooms and our 100% seconds crop, the window sill has runneth over. all week i hoped that we would have a chance to make sauce this weekend. all the stars lined up and my dream came true. there is a lesson here, aim low, and dreams come true!

we busted out the squeeze-o, which is an old-as-dirt machine used for seperating the "poop" from the good stuff. it belonged to D's parents and was used to make many batches of sauce back in the day. it is a treasure. the squeeze-o attaches to the counter and as you crank whole (or crudely chopped) tomatoes through, it shoots the skins, seeds and random crap through one end, and the sweet stuff through the other end.

our recipe for sauce was roughly this:

about 20 tomatoes of all shapes, colors and sizes- seeded, skinned and crushed

one onion diced

6 cloves of garlic, crushed

3 cups of basil, purred

3 sprigs of rosemary, chopped

8 sprigs of thyme leaves

1 cup of parsley, chopped

1 cup of celery, chopped

1 leek, chopped

a lot of olive oil

a few pinches of sugar

a bunch of shakes of salt

we basically sauteed everything but the tomatoes, then added the tomatoes, plus the salt and sugar. we let the whole thing cook for a long time.
a very long time. maybe 4 hours. this is what it looked like at the end:

it reduced by so much, about 2 inches down the pan. we added a bit of paste at the end, just whatever we had left in the fridge. even without the paste it was thick as hell. so satisfying! the sauce tastes awesome and i am so excited to do it again, maybe with a different variation. we froze this batch, but i would like to can the next.

just another one of those "darndest things"

2008-08-23T12:27:00.002-04:00

me: mindlessly singing "the farmer in the dell", mostly to quiet a nap-ready henny. at the end (the best part according to me), singing, "the cheese stands alone...."

bee: "i feel bad for the cheese."

love. her.

sandbox planting

2008-08-19T20:39:00.002-04:00

months ago bee planted some birdseed in her sandbox. miraculously, it sprouted!

she carefully played out of the way of the seedlings, watered them with sandbox toys and water from the hose or clouds and kept us up to date on their progress.

a few weeks ago they grew huge buds and we watched them closely, several times a day until they finally bloomed. the first of them bloomed last weekend, and now they are all shining bright.

bee has her own garden this year but this little bouquet is almost better than her carrots, cabbages, melons and broccoli. i guess it's the organic nature of the project. it was completely planned and executed by bee and the results are just fantastic.

princess skirt

2008-08-19T13:35:00.002-04:00

for bee's upcoming birthday i promised to make her a new skirt, a "princess skirt" as she calls it. she is planning a fairy ball for her and her friends, in honor of her birthday, and she just really needed a new outfit. although the party is a fairy ball, bee has one general category of princess-ballerina-fairy which encompasses anything glittery, girly, shiny and silky.

yesterday we went to the fabric store. after much debate about what colors and levels of glitter were "princessy", bee settled on this white silky fabric, with tiny rhinestones in it. i convinced her to get some tulle too, it wasn't a hard sell. as a bonus i suggested some silk flowers from the summer clearance, which was again met with little resistance.

this morning we worked together to make the skirt. it has the silk flowers "swimming" in the bottom of two layers of the silky sparkly, plus a few layers of tulle to make it more "poofy". i used the beloved FOE for the waist.

i wish it was a bit more ruffled, but i still love it. bee loves it too.

can you tell?

i feel like taking a minute to say how surprising all this girly stuff is to me. from the moment bee was born we made a huge effort to keep everything very gender neutral for her. i wanted her to have the chance to explore the world without any preconceived ideas about what she should or shouldn't play with or like, just because she was a girl. she hardly wore pink. we only chose toys that were very neutral, mostly just art supplies and pretend things. she has always had more trucks than dolls. but somehow, maybe around 2, she just gravitated toward the "girly" side. she still loves digging in the dirt, playing trains for hours and building with blocks. but what she really loves is dancing while dressing up like a ballerina, wearing dresses and skirts every day and shoe shopping. i guess it is more about what she want to wear, the way she wants to look. she still loves to play all sorts of things, but the fashion, it is very specific, specifically girly.

i feel like i sound like what i was rebelling against, classifying things as girly, or not. the point is that despite any sort of neutrality on our part, or ignoring the cultural ideas of gender, bee has managed to pick it up on her own. she knows what our society thinks is for girls, even though we continue to remind her that there is really no such thing. no matter what we say, bee knows what she likes and it is pink, glitter, toe shoes, crowns, make up and fancy dresses. she is who she is, completely on her own. i guess that is what we were hoping for from day one. i just didn't think that this is where she would find herself. now that we are here it doesn't bother me one bit. that fact would surprise the me of 4 years ago.

more yearbook fun

2008-08-18T20:33:00.003-04:00

now everyone is getting in on the fun. the endless fun. turns out that the website has these cool controls so you can straighten out your face and not have that weird double-chin thing that i had on all of my pictures. i don't know how i missed it, but it's so cool and the pictures come out so much better.

D through time:

bee if she were born in a different era:
and for the sheer hilarity of it, henny:

how about that mullet??!

and an afro!!

me, strangely, throughout time

2008-08-16T06:25:00.002-04:00

now this is just plain silly. i tried out this site, where you can upload a picture of yourself and see what you would have looked like in your yearbook though five decades.

way fun.

unfortunately, sometimes your face doesn't quite match up to theirs and the result is strange.

or freakishly strange.
and how about an afro? never thought of that style. i guess this would have been me in 1977!
and the me of 1996 actually looks the way i did then, which is a tad scary. also here i look like becky from roseanne, with a double chin.
and btw, although i did once look similar to the above, i never owner a denim shirt. i did have overall shorts though. the shame.

just like the whistle stop cafe

2008-08-14T19:35:00.005-04:00

tonight's dinner was the bomb, and i'm not afraid to admit it.

we had just returned from the farm with the largest share in the history of time. i was feeling very grateful and very overwhelmed at once. i mean, what are you supposed to do with all this food. i'll spare anyone who actually reads this the details, but let's just say it took 2 people to carry it all in from the car. and even then it was a semi-struggle.

on to dinner....

as i was picking our herbs in the field i brainstormed dinner and decided it would have to revolve around fried green tomatoes. we got 6 beautiful heirloom tomatoes today and one we chose just happened to be green. big and green.

so for dinner tonight we had:

fried green tomatoes

grilled tofu steaks

sliced cucumbers on top

corn on the side

i hate how the corn totally ruins the look of this dinner, but we got corn at the farm and everyone knows that corn is no good after day 1.

(bonus: this meal was enjoyed by the whole family. bee ate what she likes, which was mostly all of it and henny ate what he is allowed to eat, and loved it. horray for families all eating the same thing!)

did i mention that we ate the biggest cantaloupe ever, before dinner?

well, we did.

so, why am i dreaming of soft serve right now?

harvest of the day

2008-08-12T21:23:00.002-04:00

partially based on neglect and partially based on the hight of the season, today was a bountiful harvest in the garden. i felt like we were picking up our farm share when bee and i headed down to the gardens this morning.

as far as i can remember we picked:

a bunch of basil

a bunch of mint

6 tomatoes

4 summer squash

3 zucchini

2 cucumbers

a bunch of ready and not-so-ready carrots

how could anyone not think this is the best time of the year?

what crazy people do when their kid turns 1.

2008-08-11T20:02:00.004-04:00

when bee turned one, we had a BIG party. we were thrilled and we wanted to celebrate with everyone we knew. we both have large families and we didn't make any cuts. it was a wonderful party, many loved ones, great weather and much parental pride. as soon as henny was born i started to have anxiety about his birthday party. i thought that in hindsight bee's party was maybe (probably) over the top. i know that not everyone is psyched to come to a one-year-old's party and i dreaded doing it again. i thought we would just do something different, but then the nagging guilt that i live with every day wouldn't quit. it said, "if you do it for one...." and "what will he think someday when he knows what bee's party was like?"

so we went for it. we invited everyone we know. and now that we have bee and she has opened our lives up to so many new people, we know a lot more people. since bee was born we have made so many new and dear friends and gotten to know our neighbors so much more. after all the family, friends and neighbors were added up we were inviting 122 people. yikes!

we said "to hell with it" and just went for it. it really was just a good excuse for a party. we requested that people not bring gifts, which was both based on our wishes and to create a better atmosphere at the party. luckily everyone respected our wishes. we thought we would just have a really great party, where we also sing "happy birthday" to henny.

for food we had a picnic theme. we had some deli platters from a local farm market, egg salad, fruit salad, tossed salad, pasta salad and an assortment of desserts. we served the food one ice, in our canoe. it was a huge "wow" factor, looked awesome and helped keep the food fresh for a very long time.

of course henny was as sweet as ever to the 80 people who ended up coming. he cuddled with friends and family who he doesn't normally see and showed off some of his skills. he loved getting sung to and enjoying his cake. he even shared with his mama.

i feel like i am still on a post-party high. it was such a great time. the kids were the best part. there were about a dozen kids all under 7 and they played fantastically. many of the kids had never met each other, but it didn't matter. they were chasing away wolves, digging worms, dressing up, chasing hot air balloons and rolling down the hill.

i know it sounds a bit over-thought but i really felt like this party personified what i think our life is like. for people who didn't know us that well, or hadn't been to our home before, the party gave them a clear picture of what we strive to create for our family. it was beautiful, fun, full of loving people and beautiful children. this is exactly where we want to be right now and it felt so good to share it with everyone.

happy birthday henny!

now it's on to planning bee's fourth which is coming up in a few weeks!

it's official!

2008-08-07T14:22:00.004-04:00

henny is now one! he already seems bigger! we celebrated last night with the grandparents and on saturday we will celebrate with every person that we know!

speaking of, off to make lists!

one year.

2008-08-05T21:32:00.003-04:00

this was me a year ago........

i look serious, but wouldn't you? i was seriously huge. but i felt great. i really did. i felt like napping every day (and did) but still had plenty of energy. i remember that i was in high nesting mode. i was 9 days overdue and i knew that it could be any minute. any minute i would be ripped out of my everyday life, and nothing would ever be the same. it was all so much different the second time around. instead of getting the room set up and walking away to nap for weeks, i was busy. busy with entertaining an almost 3 year old, doing laundry and cleaning. i couldn't stand the thought of bee not having all her laundry clean, or coming home from the hospital to a messy house. i long for those days, just for the efficiency.

as the days passed on and on i was concentrating on my body. every little gas bubble, tickle and twinge was met with great attention. but it wouldn't be until the night on august 5th, one year ago today, that anything worth note happened. and that wasn't even the real deal.

D and i were relaxing, probably eating an ice cream from down the street, and watching rock of love. as bret michaels looked for love, i felt my first contractions. i was giddy. i was timing them, although there wasn't much to them. i so wanted it to be the real deal. eventually i realized that these contractions weren't really going anywhere (they certainly weren't like when bee was born in a fast fury of mind -blowing contractions and involuntary pushes) and i went to bed. throughout the night i woke up a couple of times, thinking maybe i was having a contraction but nothing serious.

at about 5am i woke up with a contraction and this is when they got serious. within an hour or so i knew that this was real. they were steady and painful, just right. after a bit i woke D up and told him what millions women have told their partners throughout time, "honey, i think it's time".

soon enough bee was awake and i gave her the sweetest speech i have since and maybe ever will. the words came out of me perfectly and her excitement matched ours. "sweetie, my belly is giving me that special feeling that tells me the baby is ready to be born."

D headed off to bring bee to my parent's house and i was alone. this was a strange feeling but i just went about my business. i was afraid of the contractions dying off so i stayed on my feet the whole time, often squatting. i did the dishes, straightened up and packed up.

when i called the doctor's office and they told me to come in right then i was disappointed. with bee i had labored at home until the last minute and i hoped to do the same this time. sitting in a doctor's office wasn't in my plan. but off we went and there we sat. i could see all the other pregnant ladies looking at me, with my deep breathing, and seeing their future, maybe not so happily.

when i was finally checked out by the doctor she said i was 6 or 7 centimeters. great news! she said to head over to the hospital. still the contractions weren't so bad. i could talk in between. we even parked in the lot and walked in to the hospital, we even took the stairs! i was desperate to move things along, being so past due and all.

little did i know.....

when we got into the birthing center they hooked me up to some machines, which i was not pleased about. the only thing i was semi-excited about was that i looked at the clock and saw that the view would be on in a few minutes, at 11. that is a guilty pleasure of mine, so i figured i'd make the best of it. but before i could even figure out how to watch the tv, my water broke.

from there it was zero to 60, fast. my contractions were INTENSE and one on top of the next. i waddled into the tub to get some supposed relief. after literally one minute in the tub, i said, "that's it. i have to push!" i would have given birth in the tub, but the nurses, and D, pulled me out and somehow i made it to the bed.

the pushing was amazing, just like with bee. my body just took over and did it's thing. i became this amazing, strong and powerful woman. the one difference between the two was that with bee i was able to guide the process, pushing on my schedule. with henny, the doctor just kept yelling at me to keep pushing, even between contractions. later i learned that there was some question about the cord's location and i think the doctor wanted to get him out as soon as possible. luckily, i was up for the challenge.

at 11:49am on august 6th, 2007, our second little angel arrived. he was long and strong, healthy and cute as can be.
it's so hard to believe a year has gone by. it is the greatest and truest cliche that the time flies with the second child. i don't even feel like we blinked.
and now we have this silly, sweet and smiley boy. he loves his family, especially his sister, with unwavering strength. he also loves to blow on whistles and harmonicas!
he is funny! he loves to do something silly and then look at all of us for a reaction. this is especially the case at meal times, when he has our undivided attention.

henny is more than we could have asked for. i am so proud of him and so joyful about his future. i can't believe that we are already here, at one year, but i also can't wait for what's to come.

not about children, cooking or crafting. aaahhhh.

2008-08-04T20:33:00.002-04:00

today i snuck in the few minutes needed to finish the current david sedaris book. heaven.

i have been loving him for years and years, have devoured every book and even had the chance to see him read live a few years ago. so, when the new book came out i jumped onto the library catalog and requested it. weeks went by and as the book held steady on the best seller list, i waited. until a few weeks ago when i got the email. it was in! i haven't been able to read as much as i had hoped to lately, but every time i found the time, what a treat! this book was hilarious. i would laugh so hard that i couldn't see the pages any more and i had to literally take deep breaths to calm down and be able to continue. i don't think bee had ever seen me laugh so hard in all her life.

so now that my reading is done i have moved on to searching for anything i can find that is sedaris-related. (amy included! love her.) this is what i do when i finish a book. i simply can't accept that it is over. i try to prolong the experience.

here are some goodies that i have enjoyed.

craft round-up

2008-08-03T21:40:00.002-04:00

things have been busy here. it's almost henny's big day and we are in high-prep mode. there is painting of the house, mowing, list-making and of course birthday crafting! earlier this week i spent the night with my good friend learning how to and actually making a doll for henny. it will be his birthday gift.

we're calling him "star boy". nobody ever discussed the name, it seemed like every one just knew that that would be this doll's name. when bee was small the same friend who helped me make henny's doll made one for bee. it has become a well loved treasure. she is, and has almost always been, named "star baby". bee thought that the little flowers on the fabric looked like stars, so there you go. when we went shopping for the fabric for henny's doll, bee insisted that we find some with stars.

i love how it came out. the head has what you could call character, but it's cute. i just hope it becomes as well loved as star baby.

here is a shot of the two babies having a snuggle. yes, this is what i do when the kids go to bed.

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today i finally got around to trying out dyeing some clothes. i had bought all this stuff in a fit of creative energy a while back, but finding the time is always the hard part. this was my first time using something other than RIT and it went ok. it was really hard to mix colors and there were a few fluky things, like a few drips of red making their way into the blue (hello purple!). bee and i tried a couple tie-dyes but we totally didn't leave the dye on long enough. all and all it was good and now we have some jazzed up onesies and a lot of old stains covered up, plus some new things for future gifts.

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finally tonight i finished up our celebration banner. the project started off with a snag (literally!). luckily my on-site mechanic came to the rescue. how lucky am i?

but, guess what?! it was all my fault for just setting something funky on one of the dials. i have so much to learn!
so, i finished the banner and now we are one step closer to celebrating henny's big day.

pants! and F to the O to the E!

2008-07-31T21:08:00.003-04:00

i have all these visions and dreams about henny's birthday. i am so sad that this first year has gone by, but i am also so excited to celebrate where we are. one of my ideas is to make a whole birthday outfit for hen. i have been dreaming of a hand-dyed and stenciled t-shirt and handmade linen pants (to go with henny's crown). as the date approaches, it seems a little far fetched to think about getting all this done, but somehow i did manage to make the pants!

i ordered some fold-over-elastic (FOE) and was thrilled when the person who brought the idea to me came out with this tutorial.

so, first i made a pair of t-shirt pants, with a super-soft old long sleeve t-shirt. i just wanted to practice with the FOE. all went reasonable well and then i started on the linen pants.

i love the linen pants so much! i had a little trouble with the FOE not catching a few times, but i just zipped it up the next day. it looks pretty home sewn, but not in a very bad way.
they are so cute on. i made them short on purpose, i wanted them to be summery and cropped. these pants are what i wish i could put henny in everyday. the are so soft and sweet and natural. he will look like such a sweet little boy on his big day. which is, if you're keeping track, next week!

brilliant mommy idea of the day

2008-07-28T22:06:00.002-04:00

it's an ice cream cone, loaded with banana and topped with cinnamon.

now this may not be an everyday thing, but to spice up a meal it's not bad. the cone has about 4 grams of sugar which isn't much more than a piece of bread and the "wow factor" is significant. i topped it with cinnamon, but i couldn't have used anything: actual sprinkles, wheat germ (which bee calls "brown sprinkles", score 1 for us!), peanut butter or granola. you could even fill the cone with all different things: mashed berries, pureed frozen fruit (sorbet-ish), but i think banana is easiest.

whatever the creation, i think it's a winner!

retail love

2008-07-27T21:21:00.002-04:00

did a little shopping this weekend. i was cheap as usual, but that played nicely at our annual sidewalk sales. i got a few things here and there, but these were my favorites.

first is the "suck a bug". it resembles a bong, which provides much humor for the adults. but beyond the pot humor is the hilarity of sucking a bug into the little jar (equipped with magnifier). bee loves checking out bugs and this is just perfect. you can see in the picture the moth that i sucked, just to check it out.

my other favorite is this dessert server. i love it. love, love, love it. it is so cute and it folds up to be so small and compact. i would never buy it for myself because i never buy anything for myself really. but D insisted and for that i love him more. i mean really, look at it! did i mention it was only $20?!

snip snip.

2008-07-26T21:46:00.002-04:00

we did it! hen got his first haircut. after a ridiculous amount of discussion (mine) and a ridiculous amount of hair growth (his), we finally did it. i don't know what my problem is with cutting his hair. partly i can't stand the thought of cutting that hair that was in my belly and that we has grown to be so long this (almost) past year. partly i don't like to be showing bee that there are clear gender ideals that we are going to conform to. but the fact is that henny doesn't have the type of hair that can just be free. it is so straight and just ended up in his eyes, and nose, all day long. i always said that i would cut his hair for his birthday, and tick tock, here we are. his hair was cute to a point, but really started to look problematic.

enter haircut.

we were so lucky to have my cousin do the cutting. D and i both feel comfortable cutting hair, but just not for the first time. it was such a luxury to have a pro handle the job, in our own dining room!
henny loved all the attention. he just smiled and checked everything out. the camera was snapping away and we were ooohing and aaahhhhing, and that is basically the whole story.

hen looks mega-cute now. the cut is not so much a haircut, but just cleaned up. it's perfect.
i think henny agrees.

literally squealing!

2008-07-23T08:21:00.002-04:00

just returned from the composter, took a cruise past the garden and spotted this little beauty!!!

it may not be 100% ripe, but it is red and is just a little sign of what is to come.

i love summer!

riding the wave

2008-07-22T21:29:00.005-04:00

as i sit here looking back, today has been an unusually creative and productive day. that is not to say that i am not creative or productive on an average day, but today seems to go above and beyond. i just love when the stars align and ideas, time and energy are high.

the first creation of the day was parsley soup for lunch from my cookbook of the week.

the idea of parsley soup seemed weird, but i have been having so much fun in the kitchen and it seemed like a bit of a taste adventure. plus we have endless parsley at our csa and it is always nice to make use of more things there. the soup was good. there were some comments of it being "very parsley-y". it was also very salty. the recipe is basically parsley, butter, garlic, broth and cottage cheese. i guess the cottage cheese and broth combined to make it very salty. it was definitely pushing the palate envelope, but good nonetheless.

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while i was making the soup bee was busy with her own creation. hot air balloon! it is modeled after some that she saw at the y. i think the summer camp had made them. hers is extra special because she made and cut out some little guys to ride on it.

after rest bee and i combined efforts to make the first jar of pickles of the summer. it's the most simple recipe, a staple of my childhood.

cukes any way you like 'em, 4 or so dill flowers, a couple of sliced up garlic cloves (or more if you like), a sprinkle of kosher salt, white vinegar 2/3 of the way up and then water the rest of the way. leave them on the counter for a few days. pull one out once in a while to check and when they taste just right, pop them in the fridge.

and finally tonight, after everyone was asleep (including D on the couch!), i made some felt food!

i was inspired by the fact that all henny does is play in the little kitchen. added to the fact that all the stuff spilled out on the floor is not pleasing to my tastes. it's all wooden food and some other things that bee has collected to pretend to be food, but it just looks ugly. to me.

i want to be great at felt food. i want to make a banana with removable peel, a cupcake, a bagel, oranges and apples. but tonight i started with a cheese and lettuce sandwich on a bun, accompanied by a strawberry and a cookie. it's cute. i can't wait to make more.

i just love when days like this happen. sometimes my life inside these walls can feel small, but today it feels large and full. i love that.