homeofthebudds

Pots are fun

A newly discovered toy. He's crawling around the kitchen, rolling and scraping the pot. He's been at it for a good 15 minutes already. And that, in the land of baby, is a loong time.

In other news we're all sick. Like stay home from everything all week, get out the humidifier and stock up on medicine and oranges kind of sick. And probiotic. I should get some probiotic.

Aaaand the computer is malfunctioning. Yet again. It might be time to buy a new one. I'm thinking desktop this time. It might get dropped less. Does anyone know if you can hook up a Wii to a Mac monitor?

Fake birthdays

The Cubbies program that Brennan goes to celebrates the kids birthdays. His birthday is in the summer so he got to celebrate his fake birthday last night. He chose a snack to bring to share (coco rice krispie treats and mandarin oranges - two things he loves.)

He loves this place and has been coming out of his shell a bit. He even told me he was gonna be brave and I could leave. That, my friends, is *huge* for this little guy.

Joel meets the chickens.

(ignore the dirty window. Thank you. )

Build-a-bear painting

Sometimes keeping trash can be fun.

In which I took no pictures and you get to imagine the goodness.

It's my birthday.

34, baby.

Woot.

We celebrated on Monday 'cause it was Mr. Martin Luther King Jr's birthday and therefore a holiday. It's nice to celebrate when everyone is home from work and school. So I moved my birthday.

I was thinking about taking the family on a trip to the coast, or the snow, but decided to hibernate at home instead. We did venture out to the art store for a mini shopping spree for about an hour the night before, but otherwise - we didn't leave the lovely warm house.

I spent the day making things. Food to be exact. My family rather enjoyed this sort of birthday celebration I think.

We started off the morning with two different types of pancakes. I thought it was one when I was first reading recipes last week, but turns out I was flipping two pages instead of one. Since I had all the ingredients, I figured I might as well make them both. I used Mark Bittman's How to Make Everything Vegetarian (thanks, Jill!) and made the Light & Fluffy - Lemon Poppyseed variation pancakes (topped with powdered sugar) and then the Sour Cream and Cottage Cheese Pancakes. Both were pretty darn good. Good enough that they didn't last on the plate long enough to let the idea of taking a picture cross my mind. I know it doesn't sound as appealing, but the Sour Cream ones were pretty tasty. They'd be a perfect carb in a hearty eggs & ham sort of breakfast. Both were super light cause you beat the nonsense right out of the egg whites.

And then, perhaps because it's cold and wintery and I'm ready for some sun and lemon, I continued the citrus (along with the beating the nonsense out of the egg whites) theme with a Lemon Chiffon Cake. Except I forgot to add the lemon parts. So it was a normal (vanilla/almond) flavored chiffon cake. And then when making the icing, I figured shoot, "Let's get that lemon involved here" and made the lemon icing.

Yeah. I don't recommend mixing those two flavors.

The icing was great. And the cake was great. I recommend eating them seperately.

In centimeter slices if it makes you feel better.

That was my first every chiffon cake and I gotta say, I'm definitely making more. Yum.

And then I tried a roasted vegetables combo that was new to me (sweet potatoes, butternut squash and carrots) that didn't turn out so well. Unfortunately.

Sorta. 

Dave is a Maximizer and by this time in the day was going a little crazy with my haphazard cooking ways and wanted to analyze exactly what went wrong and how to fix it for next time, but I drove him nuts and said it was more fun my way.

Finally, we tried Pan-Searing some Filet Mignon. That was tasty. We also learned we like steak in tidbit form. We really just want a couple bites and we're all set. A whole steak is almost overwhelming. Lesson learned. Our budget likes it better that way too. :)

Ellen made me a fabulous coupon book full of choices like drawings and poems and hugs and high fives. I cashed quite a few of those in. Both of the boys made me bead bracelets with my name spelled out. Now I have one for each wrist so I'll never get confused who I am. :) Love it.

Dave finished the night off with an awesomely silly poem that was all about, well, I won't share here. :)

It was a pretty fabulous day full of making and trying things. My favorite way to spend my time.

Lunch

 

Yesterday I made a "Taco Soup" I found on a blog somewhere that I have lost now. But it was one of those we-have-ten-million-kids-and-homeschool-and-sew-our-own-clothes-from-the-flax-we-grow-in-our-yard type blogs. This was one of their go-to lunches.

 

I wasn't too sure about it when adding things to the crock pot, but it's actually pretty tasty. I'm taking this as another sign that I'm just about a grown up.

 

I thought I'd share:

1 lb browned beef

1 onion chopped (I'm gonna use 1/2 next time. We're not big onion people around here.)

2 cloves garlic, minced (I used 2 teaspoons from my jar of pre-minced garlic)

1 qt. corn

1 qt black beans

1 qt red kidney beans

1 qt home canned tomatoe sauce (who are we kidding. store bought tomato sauce) (next year, it might be home canned.) (maybe.)

1 teaspoon chili powder (I used 1/2. We're not big chili powder people either)

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon thyme

1/2 teaspoon oregano

Mix in crockpot. Cook on high about 3ish hours. Maybe 4.

Serve with sour cream, shredded cheese, tortilla chips, fresh cilantro. (or skip the cilantro in favor of avacado. Whatev's)

Oh and in the corner there? My green smoothie left over from breakfast. It's chock full of spinach, 1 banana, a little ice, some whey protein powder, some Aloe Vera juice (flavored like grape for some reason) and a bit of avocado. Oh and pineapple. Pretty good.

"Fire" ~ Judy Brown

This poem was featured in the last Letter From The Principal that came home from Ellen's School. I like it.

 

What makes a fire burn

is space between the logs,

a breathing space.

Too much of a good thing,

too many logs

packed in too tight

can douse the flames

almost as surely

as a pail of water would. So building fires

requires attention

to the spaces in between,

as much as to the wood. When we are able to build

open spaces

in the same way

we have learned

to pile the logs,

then we can come to see how

it is fuel, and absence of the fuel

together, that make fire possible.

Striking a balance

For every problem done, another Lego piece goes on.

In which we enjoy Christmas morning

This one's for the grandparents and aunts and uncles who sent my children all kinds of goodness to enjoy this Christmas. I don't have pictures of everything, but they loved every bit of it. Thank you!!!

P.S. There's no commentary. Cause I like to think of Christmas morning as being a quiet, peaceful, snuggle up with a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate kind of time.

P.P.S. HA! Like that would ever happen. But we can all pretend we like quiet during this post.

One night in our house..

Dave has been pretty into chess lately.

Which means the boys have been pretty into chess lately.

Sometimes he plays games with them,

Sometimes they do drills, practicing with certain pieces.

Isaiah loooves learning this stuff.

Lightbulb!

Ellen would rather read.

And, honestly?

I'm with her.