homeofthebudds

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.

a little culture

We went to the symphony last night. It was another one of Dave's work events where he takes a client as a sort of "thanks for your business."

It was amazing. We had beautiful seats - I'm not sure there were better seats in the house. It was a cello concerto (I think?) and the music was just...spellbinding. (Did I just write a symphony was spell binding? I did. I didn't know I would think that.)

This is the kind of thing I can get into - in person. Just listening I tend to be distracted and even fall asleep, but when you're there and you're front and center and really there are no distractions because your seats are just that fabulous, it's pretty amazing.

 

Just before the symphony we stopped in at The Melting Pot - a fondue restaurant. I've never been to a fondue restaurant but I can say it's been on my list of places to visit. We just had enough time for the desert - (the important part) and, well, let's just say I'll be scouring the thrift stores for a fondue pot. Is there anything that's not better dipped in warm chocolate?

 

Such excitement!!!

If I don't have your email address - you might have missed this little announcement earlier  - I'm launching a photography business! And I have a new blog all about it up and running! I'll still keep this one going for family things and to keep the long distance relatives happy (Hi Mom!). The other blog will be very specifically about my photography business - things I'm learning, trying and doing. As well as sneak peaks for clients, product offerings and other announcements.

If you're interested leave a comment and I'll shoot you the link!

Oops

Finger - 0, Rotary Cutter - 1.

:P

The way it was

I was just going back and reading some of my blog archives. You guys do that too right? I'm not a loser right? 

It's amazing to look back at the kids growing up, to read all the funny things Ellen used to say, to see Isaiah painting from the highchair. Poor Brennan still doesn't get to paint.

And to see that I haven't changed much at all. I read posts about trying to lose weight, about liberia adoptions, about books that I was reading. Okay so maybe that has changed. I haven't really read a book in what feels like a good long while. At least not one that would be blog worthy. And we used to do yard work! Imagine that! Maybe some things have really changed.

And! I used to be downright clever sometimes. With interesting titles and picture captions. I wonder what happened to that?

One last birthday post. and then I'll move on. I promise

My dad recently uploaded our school pictures growing up. And now you all get to enjoy some of my cuteness in celebration of my birthday. :) You're welcome.

I remember truly loving that green dress. And being severely disappointed when I outgrew it and had to pass it on.

I was also a big fan of the barrettes in my hair this day. Which you can't actually see. But I remember them vividly. They had long ribbons attached to them that hung down past the end of my hair and I could feel the beads at the bottom of them against my back. I felt glamourous.

This was first grade. I don't remember anything about the outfit, but I do remember first grade. I rocked first grade.

2nd grade - not so much rocking.

3rd grade I was going with a western theme this day it seems. And I had those awesome barrettes in my hair again. Loved those things.

Aaannnd that's all I'm showing you. cause after that, it's not so cute. You're welcome for that too.

Ft. Stevens & Astoria

We drove up a little ways to Fort Stevens which we read had the oldest shipwreck on the Oregon Coast.

Ellen and I took off to go investigate.

The boys came out for a minute and felt the wind that had picked up and decided the car had a completely satisfactory view.

Ellen and I went down and got a few good shots and then headed back since my toes were getting cold. (there's no way I was putting wet shoes back on)

Ellen climbed the dunes on the way back to the car.

Next we drove on toward Astoria - Brennan got sick of the sun on his face.

In Astoria we took a little walk on a pier and were told by the kind folks at the Visitor center that there was no "Goonies" beach there - only the house. So we had some ice cream and headed home.

Ellen's become a full blown reader! I'm rather proud of her.

We finally came home had some delicious Papa Murphy's and some tasty and delicious Claim Jumper chocolate cake.

It was a pretty darn good birthday.

Random mumblings on a Sunday morning

Friday night my lovely MacBook suffered a small death. It fell from our (shoot what do you call that little shelf above the fireplace???) shelf thingy onto the tile floor below. I was making dinner in the kitchen and didn't see any of it, but my friend Megan made a valiant effort to save it and Brennan's head, who had apparently gotten his foot tangled in the cord. She saved Brennan. Yay!! thanks Megan. :)

 The computer is actually in remarkably good shape - except for the power cord which is no longer usable. We weren't able to go to the Mac store yesterday (we had other exciting plans) so I'm hoping to go this afternoon. In the meantime I've been trying to save the battery charge as much as possible and only use the computer for really quick things. Like uploading pictures and  updating my facebook status - the important things. 

Since I'm fairly certain I can get to the store today, I feel I have enough of a charge to type out a blog post. Yesterday we celebrated my birthday by going out to the coast. Which is roughly a two hour drive for us. It was a gorgeous, clear, sunny day and I have lots of beach pictures waiting to be uploaded to flickr. I really really like beach pictures. 

I haven't purchased my new camera yet - but I did discover a local camera shop that sells some used that I want to check out before I make a final decision. Unfortunately they're closed on Sundays. I hope they're open on holidays so I don't have to wait until Tuesday.

Right now I'm the only one awake and I think I'm going to take advantage of that fact on go on a walk all by myself.  

tactical error

I'm hoping hoping to buy myself a camera for my birthday. 

I went to a camera shop this morning to get a good look at a couple different camera models and decide if I like Canon's or Nikon's the best. I decided I'm a Nikon girl. 

I asked to look at the D40. It was pretty super cool. But then I rather stupidly asked the person to tell me what the D90 could do. Why did it cost so much more? 

Oh my holy moly. It is incredibly-credibly cool. And then she put a $630 micro lens on it.  I had to take several deep breaths. 

I'm wanty all over again.