more of autumn

Someone has been dreaming of jumping into leaf piles for weeks. He's been talking about it for week too. Yesterday we had our first snow that officially stuck. Today, minutes before I'm about to leave for work, I look out the window to see that yesterday's dusting has become several inches of heavenly ground covering. I won't be home to see it but I have a currently sweet dreaming young seven year old who will be waking this morning with joy and exuberance. Around 7:00am while I'm going about my normal duties at work I will be able know for certainty that this said seven year old will be throwing his snow clothes on and running outside to play.

Rewind a few days father back and his dream of jumping into leaf piles also came true. To the joy of many mommies and daddies the leaves were very stubborn this year and held on for quite a long time. Last week was the first time that we really had enough to fulfill little kid dreams.

It really has been a lovely fall!

Pumpkin Pie

Fall here has absolutely flown by and winter is peeking in at us today. Even so I think we managed to utilize the rapidly passing time rather well. Today's photos are brought to you after our having gone on a pumpkin patch field trip.

As our wagon full of parents and kids pulled up to a lovely patch of pumpkins littered with small orange balls I eagerly asked the wagon driver, "Is this a pie pumpkin patch?" He responded with a kind smile, "why yes it is!"

Of course the very next day found us cutting open, baking, and pureeing one of the three pumpkins. Only later to be topped with heaps of whipped cream and devoured. Fall yummmmm!

The seeds were also roasted and enjoyed, olive oil, salt, and Cayan pepper.

tomato thief

Today was the very first day I've been able to bring tomatoes into the house. Even though our garden is fenced in I have noticed some baby bunnies hanging out in it. They haven't been thieving the tomatoes though. It's Abe that's been going out everyday and eating all the ripe ones directly from the plants.

I'm glad to have brought a few lovely ripe tomatoes inside today but in reality I LOVE that Abe can go out back and eat fruit and vegetables from our garden. It must be a fun special summer childhood treat that hopefully he'll remember when he's grown.

zucchini

I've noticed that the zucchini blossoms only open up for a short while in the early morning and once it closes the same blossom doesn't open up again. Those leaves are enormous though. It's hard to tell from the photo but the blossoms are really large!

So far we've gotten four zucchini from our two plants. The fifth one will be picked today. One was used for the weird lemon zucchini bread. One was chopped and roasted. One was grated into the meatballs I made last night. One is currently sitting on the counter.

It's really only been the past few years that I've grown to LOVE the summer harvest. Even though I've only ever had a small little garden, I've completely fallen in love with the task. This year we planted zucchini and tomatoes in our garden. It hasn't warmed up until fairly recently so the tomatoes are slow going but been able to pick a few. The zucchini plants are getting huge. We went blueberry picking pretty much right when blueberry season opened up. And a friend of ours gave me a large bundle of rhubarb that ideally we'll make a big batch of strawberry rhubarb jam with today.

Fall has always been my favorite time of year, followed by spring. I really love sweatshirt weather when there's a crisp breeze in the air. Bonfires and fallen leaves... magical. But summer is really creeping up there as a fabulous time of year. I don't think I will be able to say I have a favorite season any longer. There's just too much joy that comes from fresh summer harvest and watching my kids play in the water during days of extreme heat.

summer is dragonflies in blueberry fields

Blueberry picking season has just begun here. We went picking on Wednesday with some friends and brought home a bucket full of beautiful berries. It was a lovely hot day and the bushes were covered with berries. They'd fall off the branches right into the buckets if you gently grabbed ahold of a bunch and slowly pull them off. The kids had fun chasing dragonflies and eating handful after handful of freshly picked berries. It was a fantastic outing!

My favorite childhood summertime dessert was blueberry crisp. Okay, lets not kid ourselves, here in Michigan we end up with freezers full of frozen berries from the summers harvest and we eat blueberry crisp in the winter too.

I couldn't resist letting today be blueberry crisp day. It's a simple dessert to whip up but SOOOO yummy. Abe and I enjoyed making this one together AND eating it together.

first harvest of the year and the most screwed up dessert bread ever

Yesterday we picked one gorgeous zucchini from our garden. Today we attempted to turn it into lemon zucchini bread. *Attempted*

My husband is manager over the produce department at his store. I called him at work and asked if he could please bring home one lemon so we could make the bread. I should have just taken the kids to the store before he even got home because, if you aren't already suspecting it he did not bring home a lemon. So, determined to stick to the plan we three ran to the store to get one lemon.

Get home. Start getting read to make bread... uh oh, no eggs. I was not going to run back to the store so Google search egg substitute and land on 1.5 tablespoons vegetable oil, 1.5 tablespoons water plus 1 tsp. baking soda per missing egg.

I debated but I'm the absolute queen of annoying my husband by altering recipes because either I am missing something or I think it sounds good a different way so I just went with the weird egg substitute thing. Abe had a great time zesting and juicing the lemon and he said it was a ton of fun grating the zucchini. At least that part was a win.

After the batter came together I realized it was going to be strange. I threw in a large handful of coconut (because I really like coconut and) to balance out some of the liquid. I had the thought in the back of my mind that it would have been wise to put the mixture in a sheet cake pan instead of a loaf pan. I should have stuck with my gut because the loaf came out WAY more like a lemon bar then a lemon bread or cake.

See all that sugar on top, WELL that's supposed to be a glaze. I had powdered sugar AND we kept back some of the lemon juice to mix with it and make the glaze. I made the glaze (totally according to the recipe) but I'm pretty sure my powdered sugar is way too old and has soaked up every flavor in the baking cupboard because the glaze tasted awful! Okay, lets be clear Abe loved it. He said it tastes... wait for it... just like Willow (the neighbor's dog). LOL

Me: WHAT?!?!?! It tastes like a dog?!?!?!
Him: Yeah, just like she smells but it's good, she smells good!

Me: Yeah, no it's official we are not putting dog frosting on the lemon zucchini weird.

So, I just topped it with plain sugar. The glaze had 1 cup of powdered sugar in it and I might have put a 1/4 cup of regular sugar on top instead so it's healthier now, right...

Wow. That poor zucchini, sacrificed it's short life for vegan lemon coconut olive oil zucchini weird bar bread cake. For the record, it does actually taste good but I think I need to hide it from my husband who has been napping during this entire ordeal. He will never let me live this one down.

Taking Inventory of 2019

2019 is half over, and some. I survived the long winter. We've had a really great family vacation to the Wisconsin Dells. My baby girl had her first birthday. Little Abe learned how to ride his bike without training wheels. Got the garden planted this year and it's doing pretty well. I'm back to my pre-baby girl pregnancy weight. I've seen my mom and sister almost weekly. I've kept in close touch with my best friend who lives an ocean and longer away. Somehow I've been staying on top of Abe's schooling which usually seems an impossible task. The kids and I have had a ton of fun outings. This year, as normal, has been flying by but if I stop to reflect it's been a good six months.

I think one thing that's lacking has been time with family. I haven't seen my dad but once, in March around Abe's birthday. I haven't seen my one remaining grandparent at all. I've hardly seen my brothers or their families. Life is always so crazy busy. I never get even half of my to-do list items done. Taking inventory on the first half of 2019 leaves me happy but realizing I need to make some more time for family. It's weird to think that my little feisty princess is already a year old and my own dad has only seen her three times that I can recall.

Life is exhausting, really, really, really exhausting but it is amazing too.

zucchinis are growing

The tomatoes are growing too.

Photo on the left is from one month ago.
Photo on the right is from today.

There's a zucchini plant that we grew from seed in the very front of the photo and another one back by Abe's foot. I squeezed three tomato plants in directly next to the fence. I sort of weave them into the fence and tie them to it with string so that I don't have to cage them. You can't see the tomato plants as well in the newer photo but they are doing good. They are the three little green spots in the first photo.

We haven't had any harvest yet but I'm really happy with how well the plants are doing.

Gardening has definitely become one of the major highlights of summertime for me.

Finally got the training wheels off of Abe's bike

We are so glad that summer finally showed up. June was really cold, following up cold January thru cold May. The heat that's finally arrived has been wonderful and we've been outside quite a bit.

Today was monumental as Abe is now riding a bicycle (no training wheels). Hooray!!!

We made a very short video highlighting the event, hehe

two new monarchs

On June five we brought two tiny white eggs in the house on two separate milkweed leaves.

On July three we let two gorgeous butterflies go into the wild (well, not so wild since we live in the city but it was so cool).

The new butterflies wings aren't able to fly when they first come out of the chrysalis.

This was the first butterfly to emerge.

This was the second butterfly and little sister was up from her nap when we let this one go.

Monarchs are so beautiful.

It jumped on his face when he was looking at it on his arm.

SOOOOOOOO fun!

butterfly day

Our caterpillar project now brings us to five chrysalises 

and just this morning two of them have become completely transparent. 

Today's the day!

Kid is cookin

I got this boy a kid's cook book a few days ago. He's gone through it a few times. Of course the first thing he wanted to make was a dessert. I told him he'd have to pick a dinner to go with. Overflowing with pride and joy here are his results.

Homemade tomato soup. 

Honestly from scratch.
With cupid croutons.

The soup was delicious! He actually LOVES tomatoes and he'll eat anything if you put oregano on it so the soup was a perfect pick for him. He chose the recipe specifically because of the croutons which he was a little let down by because they turned to mush as soon as they hit the soup but this was a total win none the less.

No bake snake cake.

It's rice krispie treats. How awesome did he do?!?! Now, I'm a big fan of sugar. I mean a huge fan. I love candy corn and Cadbury eggs and ain't much on the planet sweeter than those two candies BUT rice krispie treats don't need frosting. Even so, this thing is cute!

Throw in a ton of sun, lots of water, and just enough coffee for this mom and today was wonderful.

Our baby girl is one year old

We went on a family vacation for four days to the Wisconsin Dells, scheduled around our little one's birthday. Our celebration of her was so much different than our celebration of Abe. We had a huge party for him. We rented a room, invited tons of people; the whole shebang.

This birthday trip for our baby Wren was really great. My sister came along with us. We baked a cake for baby Wren while on vacation, spent four days together just our little family and my sister doing fun things and having neat adventures. And that was that. No party. No guests. Just us.

My baby girl loves going new places, seeing new faces, trying out new things; she adores life! I'm glad we had a big party for my boy when he was one year old but it turns out that I ended up liking my husband's crazy idea for a birthday vacation even better for our baby girl.

She thoroughly enjoyed her birthday cake.

Pizza!

Big brother made her a birthday card, 

packed it in his suit case, 

and gave it to her at the hotel.

First stop on the Dells boat tour

Baby's first cake

Monarch Update

Eighteen days ago we brought in two practically microscopic monarch eggs. This is the most exciting science project Abe and I have done to date. Three days after our start we added one newly hatched caterpillar to our collection and currently we have two chrysalis and one getting ready to enter a chrysalis.

Day 1

Day 5, the caterpillar is next to the hole in the leaf

Day 10, he just molted

Day 16

Day 17, Yesterday

Day 18, Today

We have a small patch of milkweed in our backyard so it makes it fairly easy to collect eggs. One of the things I've learned already, aside from the fact that monarch caterpillars grow extremely fast is that they don't survive in the wild very easily. While collecting milkweed leaves for our little guys (which is the only source of food for a monarch caterpillar) I have noticed a few eggs. I've found after looking rather hard two very small caterpillars. The chew spots outside on the plants where little caterpillars have been snacking are evident but none of the ones outside have survived. The larger caterpillars eat a lot of leaves and they can't leave the plant they're on or they will die (from lack of food). There hasn't ever been enough damage done to the plants for any of the outdoor caterpillars to have lived very long.

I have heard that monarch butterflies are becoming less and less but after having begun this project I can see with my own eyes the reality of this. You know how when you buy a new car suddenly you see that make and model virtually everywhere you go? Well, I can't help but spot milkweed plants all over, every time we go for a walk or for a hike and even while we were on vacation this past week in a different part of the country. Despite all the milkweed making itself known to me everywhere I go I never see any that has evidence of a full grown monarch caterpillar having snacked on it. Crazy!

None the less, our little guys seem to be doing very well and within the next ten days if nature takes it's course as it should we will be releasing a few full grown monarchs into the wild.

The other thing I'd like to say I learned but in reality its simply something I already knew but have had the ultimate pleasure of observing these past 18 days is that nature, life, and the world we live in is amazing! Watching these tiny white dots grow into large colorful caterpillars and hopefully soon become beautiful butterflies has been mind blowing.

____________________________________________

Needless statement but here goes anyhow: We kept the tiny caterpillars in mason jars with lids that we already had (they get plenty of air if you open the lid to clean out the jar and put fresh leaves in each day). And I purchased a small critter cage for just under $7 and a roll of paper towel for $1.

$8 is our total expense for this science project. So as long as we get three butterflies out of the ordeal I guess you could say we paid $2.66 per butterfly to watch them grow, learn a ton, be amazed, and release three butterflies into the wild.

this week in photos

We've had a very rainy cold spring.
This week the warmth and sunshine finally showed up.
We spent a ton of time out of doors and it was wonderful.

Baby girls first time at the water table

A hike through a dune trail

Loving the sunshine

Six days of raising Monarchs

Kids in our tiny garden;
The zucchini seeds sprouted this week

dog kisses

I can think of several little wins for yesterday:
1.) We didn't get ice cream after dinner. We live in a beach town and there are some very good ice cream places around. It can be very difficult to resist but last night we did resist. Hooray for us.
2.) We brought our dog over to the in laws to see how she'd interact with their dog, to see if it'd be okay for her to stay with them when we go on vacation in less than two weeks time. It went very well and we're feeling pretty excited that this will be the first time we've ever gone away and not had to have someone stay at our place or at least stop over several times a day. (before now the in laws always had several dogs and we'd had our two... it's different now)

3.) I've been battling a fierce cold and the darn thing has been winning. I forced myself to rest when I got home from work, as in I didn't go out and mow the lawn, continue the painting job I've been working on outside, and get started back at the cement patching I began a day or so ago. Nope. I just rested. This is a win for me and I do feel better this morning.

4.) We've finally (as in I've been meaning to for years and haven't ever committed) brought in two milk weed leaves with monarch eggs on them. It's a fantastic science project, a fun learning experience, and a good thing to do in general to raise up monarchs and release them once they've emerged from their chrysalis. So many little wins.

The FAIL for yesterday is an easy one to come up with. I sucked at my job. I went to work with a cold that's kicking my butt and I was incredibly unproductive. I wash my hands a lot and I didn't cough on anyone so I'm not too worried about infecting the masses but I was so lethargic and slow. I hardly did anything in the eight hours I was there. Not my finest hour.

Yesterday's SPICE was priceless. I wish I'd had a camera handy or been able to video it. My in laws have a young golden retriever. As I mentioned before we went over there yesterday with our little old lady to see how the pup and the misses would do together. The retriever is a SWEETHEART! But if you've ever met a young retriever I don't have to tell you how much energy they have. Up until now we've tried to keep the baby far away from her, so the baby didn't get pounced and trampled and so on and so forth. 

Well yesterday little miss Wren was standing on the ground next to her daddy when big, wild, happy, sweet Sugar came right up to her and licked her from chin up to the very tippy top of her little fuzzy head. I was sitting across the room so I was the truly fortunate one who got to see my baby's face. As that big wet dog nose came rushing towards her she squinted her little blue eyes tighter than anyone has probably every squinted their eyes before, her whole face squinted. Her shoulders scrunched up and as Sugar (that's the dog's name) licked her all over my little lady smiled and smiled and smiled with all her might. Granted the entire encounter lasted all of one second but it was adorable!!! Sugar left baby Wren with a mess of sticking up hair and a gleeful smile on her sticky wet face. First ever attack of dog kisses. That's a spice for certain.

win fail spice

In May I set a daily Win, Fail, Spice challenge for myself. It turned out to be exactly what I needed to get back into blogging/ writing again and it was very therapeutic. I firmly believe, and even though it's my firm belief I often times completely neglect this fact, that when we "stop to smell the roses" as they say life truly does become much more sweet. Simply taking a moment to reflect on what brought joy, or what there was to be thankful for, or a hard point in the day that could have been handled differently, for me it sort of solidifies these important specks in time. Maybe its a little like taking a photograph so you can remember a moment. Stopping to reflect helps make these moments more meaningful, less fleeting, more impressionable on myself.

Needless to say, I think I'm going to stick with my win, fail, spice format at least here and there. I like it!

we have a walker

WIN: Decluttered the dining room. Oh my goodness it feels so nice to have stuff cleared out of there. Hooray!

SPICE: (I like to end with the spice but I have to list it first because it's related to the fail) Baby girl started officially walking. She's been taking a few steps to us and she's been taking a few steps from one item to another but yesterday she started actually walking through the room. She's doing that adorable little penguin walk with her hands in the air but she is very officially walking. This is such a delightful spice. How many times in ones life does someone experience their child walking for the very first? Amazing!

FAIL: I didn't even think to call my husband at work when baby Wren started to really officially walk. I mean, she has sort of been walking for a bit now. When he got home she was in bed for the night. I told him that she started walking around the room and he was pretty annoyed with me for not having called him at work. Ooops

yard work blog

This is turning into the yard work blog. Yesterday's WIN was getting a ton of yard work done and cleaning inside the house a bunch while having fun with the kids. It was a gorgeous day, warm, sunny, and the entire world is in bloom and filled with wild life. Wonderful!

The FAIL for the day was eating almost no healthy food.

Yesterday's SPICE was the picnic Abe set up for us in the backyard. Baby Wren's pack and play was already outside because she was in it while I was mowing the lawn. We went inside. While I fed her Abe put a sheet out, set up two lawn chairs on it. A little one for him and a big one for me. He wheeled her pack and play over to it. He brought out six stuffed animals, two for each of us. And then he got some bowls and plates and brought out chips and granola bars for our snack. When he was all done he announced the picnic and it was wonderful.

SPRING!

Last year I didn't garden. I also hardly did any yard work: mowing the lawn, trimming the edges, weeding the beds... I was VERY large, tired, and uncomfortable with baby girl growing in my tummy and once she ran out of space and was done growing I was very sore, tired, and in new born baby mode for another two months. Our yard was a mess last year. Spring and summer were somewhat of a haze.

I LOVE my little garden each year though. Putting these tiny plants into the ground and then watching them get bigger each day, tending them, and the miracle of food growing as a result of these small plants being placed in the soil is nothing short of exhilarating for me. The thrill of it hasn't grown any less as the years have gone by either. I LOVE IT!

A co-worker bought something like 26 tomato plants a few weeks ago and he says to me, "I think I may have gotten carried away. Do you want any tomato plants if I don't end up using all of mine?" Of course I took him up on the offer. At least a week ago he gave me six gorgeous little tomato plants. They've been hanging out on our back walk ever since. Yesterday's WIN was getting our little garden in. Myself and the two kiddos spent about an hour in the back yard after dinner pulling weeds and grass out of the little neglected patch of land next to our fence that I call a garden. I broke up the soil once the weeding was done, added a bag of dirt and some compost (spent exactly $10 on the pair), got the little tomato plants in, and put up my small fencing to keep the rabbits out. Yay! We're gardening again!!!

FAIL: I don't know. Yesterday I said the dishes but I got those caught up. There are so many things that aren't up to par. Life is really hard, super exhausting, I'm not perfect at ANYTHING but I can't really think of a fail in particular for yesterday. Good enough.

Tuesday's SPICE for certain was having dirt all over my hands. Digging up earth worms. Pulling up weeds. Breaking up the soil. It was wonderful having dirt covered hands again! A plus was giggling about baby girl eating clovers while I dug and watching Abe do his crazy seven year old boy stuff while I was getting the garden in (climbing the fence over and over, squashing spiders, racing up and down the driveway, digging in the dirt with me, ect;).  

photos, dishes, and sprinkles

The past few days I've been working at backing up photos from the latter half of last year and the first few months of this year. I keep all of our photos stored on discs organized by month and year. I also compile an album on Shutterfly each year. Yesterday's WIN was finishing up last year's album and photo back up. As well as saving a ton of money on the book. Shutterfly occasionally does a "free pages" promo. I've learned to compile our albums and wait to order them until a free pages ad comes up. Free pages means that you pay the base price for whichever album you choose and no matter how many extra pages you add (generally priced at 95 cents for each page over, I think it's 25 pages) you don't pay the extra per page price. I LOVE the free pages promo! Our album for last year is around 85 pages, came to around $107 and I paid $34 with the free pages promo including shipping. Win! Win! Win!

As for the FAIL I'm going to say the dishes. I have an on going battle with our dishes. They hate me. Okay, not really. I had been keeping up on the darn little buggers quite well but in the past few days I let them get away from me. It doesn't matter though, right? The only problem is that it does matter. I hate it when the kitchen is full of dirty dishes. I hate it when I can't cook until I've washed the dishes that I need in order to start making dinner. That's yesterday's fail BUT today I recovered. Yay!

Mondays I get home from work at noon and my husband goes in to work a second shift. On Mondays I'm so tired. Me, Abe, baby girl, we were all grouchy and irritable yesterday in the evening. I'd asked Abe if he wanted to go for a walk, just to get out of the house, just to leave behind the grouchies. He was totally on board. He put his bike helmet on and brought his bike out. I put a little sweatshirt on baby sister. We all started out for our walk and then it started to sprinkle. Grr... nope. We went for a 40 minute walk/ bike ride in the rain and loved it. SPICE.

mid week misfire

Tuesday: wake up late for work. Work. Meet family at dentist for cleanings. Head home for a grouchy evening. Wow... Tuesday.

I don't work Wednesdays so today I'm home trying to accomplish as much at my other job (taking care of my family) as possible.

Yesterday's WIN: I'm not sure actually. Genuinely can't think of anything. Okay, Abe didn't have an cavities. I can totally call that the win for the day.

FAIL: The whole day was kind of a bust so I could just go with that. I think that the actual fail for the day is my default reaction to annoying situations. Attitude is everything. I had a bad attitude yesterday.

SPICE: I'm sitting here. Sitting here. Sitting here. Honestly every single day should have several wonderful spices, no matter how simple, how short lived... it's sad to have to sit and sit and sit and think and come up blank. The thing I LOVE about blog challenges like this one is how incredibly apparent it becomes that if you make an effort to notice, remember, and chose to be impacted by the little things in life that can just pass us by, but despite how small they are they do matter, they are what bring joy, they are what impact us and make life worth living, if you make an effort to notice these things they become SOOOOOO very much more impactful. (sorry that was a ridiculously long sentence). When I just go through life, trying to mark off the to-dos, trying to keep my sanity, trying to make it to appointments on time and get through the work day, when I don't make a very conscious effort to notice the little things it's almost as if they never actually happened. So much of life is missed even though it was there.

It's like driving past the most beautiful landscape in the world. You might see it for a few seconds out the side window. It's still beautiful. But if you stop and stroll through the landscape, sit and sip a cup of tea immersed by the beauty it changes you. 

fifty two seconds of silly abe

I have to start off with yesterday's SPICE: pictured above ^
I should have made blueberry pancakes again because that would have made the morning complete perfection. Our day started off with me making coffee, grabbing a few breakfast biscuits and then reading the Bible to the two littles. After a few verses in Genesis it was time for Abe to read to me. To keep little sis distracted we gave her a book of her own to play with. Thus, picture me sitting on the loveseat (where I snapped the photo from), sipping hot coffee and listening to my seven year old pride and joy read his Captain Underpants book in his silly voices (it can be annoying but it's funny) and watching this little peanut read through/ look through/ kiss/ nibble on/ get into some sort of wrestling match with her book. I'm not sure life could be much better, unless the window was open and bird songs were wafting in the background and blueberry pancakes were on a plate in front of me. This is one of those moments that I want to put in my back pocket and carry with me forever. This is the loveliest of spices!

The WIN for yesterday was simply not overdoing it. Yep. I win because I did less than normal. My back has been really sore and I told myself in the morning that I needed to chill. Mission accomplished. We didn't go anywhere (except for a walk around the neighborhood). I didn't do any yard work (I think the main culprit for why my back has been bothering me more than normal). I didn't do as much house work as I should have. Check ✓✓✓

Yesterday's FAIL was kind of, sort of, yelling at my mother in law on the phone. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I yelled. In the past two weeks I have already had a mother in law fail once before. This is my second offense in two weeks. I don't think my mini freak out was totally unjustified but again, I should have had more self control. Darn it!

I'll leave you with a fifty two second video of Abe that I took yesterday morning. As a part of our daily routine he reads to me for a bit. He likes to read in ridiculous voices. Generally I try and force myself not to stop him when he's reading in really annoying voices even though it drives me crazy. He enjoys it. Here's a sneak peek into my daily torture, LOL!

super sunny saturday stop by

Stopping by blogger quickly to post a win/fail/ spice for yesterday before we head out for a family walk.

WIN: I got a lot of cleaning/ to-dos done and we did a lot of school.
FAIL: While I was mowing the lawn and Abe was pushing baby sister up and down the sidewalk in her fancy shmancy pink car I stopped to tell him that he shouldn't blow dandelion fuzz in the neighbors yard (he was blowing it in his sisters face and it was actually really cute) especially while the neighbor is standing there watching because lets be honest people don't want help seeding dandelions in their yards. The neighbor didn't hear me correcting my kiddo but Abe got really embarrassed and bailed on his "helping out with baby sis while mom mows the lawn" duty. Ooops
SPICE: Homemade fresh blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Seriously perfect way to start the weekend!!!

stray spices

I genuinely can't remember anything about yesterday except that I was really tired all day long. You ever have days like that? They're so uneventful that you can't really recall what happened? For yesterday's missing post I'm going to just run through some spices that I've noticed over the past two weeks but hadn't posted because I chose others to highlight instead.

For sure there were two different mornings when I stepped outside to leave for work. The sun was just beginning to rise so the sky had that perfect dark blue with a glow on the horizon. The air was the best of spring morning temps. And the birds!!! Really that's the spice. Stepping outside in the morning on a perfect day to hear the serenade of the birds. Love, love, LOVE it! One of my favorite spices anytime.

Another moment that really stuck out to me was baby girl snuggles. My baby is wild! She is a ferocious bundle of joy, un-ending smiles, giggles, she has the funniest gruff laugh when she's about to be mischievous. Honestly I've never encountered a happier baby. But she never stops moving. Well, on the flip side she's slept a lot in her little baby lifetime. She started walking beside the furniture long before she began to sit. She can't walk more then three steps on her own yet but she's already climbing things. She stands up in the tub and I shower her instead of giving her baths because she can't sit still for more than thirty seconds (actually that's probably too long, maybe fifteen seconds). She enjoys every minute of it but she is a busy little lady. Always on the move.

Having said all that she is still a little cuddler until she tries to jump from your lap or out of your arms. One evening this past week Abe and his dad ran out to the playground to play frisbee. I very consciously decided I was going to take a break instead of doing some sort of chore that needed to be done. To be fair breaks usually mean some sort of chore that needs to be done is not going to get done. There's just not enough time but I'm often pretty sore and I don't often take many real relaxing breaks. There's honestly something really different about sitting down exhausted while going through the list of what needs to be done next in your head and feeling overwhelmed by the reality of the to-dos and genuinely allowing one's self a real break, relaxation. I'm horrible at the latter. Anyhow I took a moment out for me, to just rest. Wild baby Wren played gleefully close by until she walked over and started climbing on me. Then she wanted to snuggle.

Raising this little baby girl is so much different than raising my baby Abe. He isn't exactly jealous of her but at the same time he wants everything to be just as it always was. Totally understandable. Totally impossible. I spent all my time on him, all my energy, all of my all on him over the past seven years. I sang so many songs to my little baby Abe, read him countless, truly countless books. He went with me everywhere I went, to do yard work, to do laundry, to cook, ect; It's not the same for baby girl. It can't be. I don't feel guilty. I don't necessarily feel bad for her but the other night when they left and she wanted to cuddle, it was a rare mommy daughter time like I used to spend with my baby Abe that we never get. I picked out a few board books to read to her and snuggled her and, truly I adore my little lady and I'm SOOOOOO happy she has her big brother to take away my time and to make her laugh hysterically and to get frustrated with her when she needs to eat and he wants my attention but having alone time snuggles with just her was one of the best spices imaginable. Wow, that was a really long explanation for a really simple thing. Haha!

I had imagined I'd list several stray spices but I think I've been long winded enough to wrap this post up with just the two.

Mommy and baby girl

Mommy and baby Abe

airport, sunny beach, and memory lane

I began the day yesterday with a tremendous amount of aspirations. Truly I set myself up for failure. BUT the WIN for the day was that I accomplished just about everything I'd planned to do. Now that's rare. The littles and I started out the day by running to the store for some yard supplies. That was followed by a decent amount of yard work at my own house. After a quick shower we headed out for a field trip to a small local-ish airport. The field trip was followed by an outing to the beach. The kids and I were out for about five hours. Pretty much right when we arrived home I made a rather elaborate dinner. Then we ate. Bedtime was right around the corner and that is what I call an oddly successful day.

We didn't fly in the jet but Abe loved going inside it and exploring.

In the FAIL category I really have to rack my brain. I guess it would have to be that we didn't get as much school done as I'd have liked (as far as book reading and work pages go) but we went on a cool field trip so really I don't consider that much of a fail.

You know what? Yesterday was really SPICY. I love that we spent a lot of time outside. It was a beautiful day. I met new people at the field trip and enjoyed hanging out with them at the beach. My baby Wren went in a swing for the first time and she loved it. There were numerous gems throughout the day.

One aspect of the day that really stood out to me was pretty bittersweet. In order to get to the airport and then to the beach I had to take routes I haven't driven in years. Driving old familiar paths brought a tidal wave of memories. It was fun literally driving down memory lane. "oh, there's the gas station that Kristin and I paid for a few gallons of gas all in pennies." "wow, there's the drug store where I bought nickel candy every morning of fifth grade on my bike ride to school." "Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that one friend I hung out with a few times in... hmm, was it ninth grade? What was her name? I'm pretty sure that was her house." I drove miles and miles and miles of routes that used to be regular parts of my life but that I haven't much visited in over a decade.

The really bitter part of the adventure was that SOOOOOOO many places from my youth are gone. There are condominiums built where none had been, new stores and restaurants, roads have been rerouted. It's truly crazy how much is different and gone. I suppose it really is a fact of life but tons and tons of places from my childhood and adolescence are no longer in existence. Yesterday was a great day but this one particular fact did make my heart sad.

burnt toast

Yesterday's WIN meant heading to my sister's again. She has a pretty big yard, at least three times bigger than ours. On Sunday I mowed the lawn at her house. Yesterday we finished mulching her beds, trimmed the front boxwoods, and seeded the bare spots in the lawn. I think the biggest thing about yesterday's win was making myself get outside and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. I find it really difficult to be productive after work so it really is a nice win when I can get outside and enjoy life on work days.

I guarantee you there were several FAIL's yesterday I mean we're talking about real life here but I can't think of any so I'm going to give myself a lovely pass in the fail category.

Last night while I was feeding the baby my kiddo made a surprise for me in the kitchen. He was being secretive so when he was finished he say's, "Mom, I'm hungry. Can we go in the kitchen and look for some food?" I could tell he was up to something so I agreed. When we got in the kitchen I saw that he had hung a sign from the counter that said, "for mom." Directly above it was a plate with a slice of peanut butter toast and three crackers. Then he say's, "I tricked you. I'm not hungry but I made you a surprise." Now, did I really want to eat slightly burnt toast with peanut butter and three crackers on the side right before bed? Uh... It doesn't matter. It was the sweetest thing!!! And he's so stinkin cute! It was the best strange bedtime snack of a lifetime and one of the best SPICEs yet. Who'd a thought burnt toast with peanut butter and crackers could be such a sweet spice?

flop flip

Sunday's WIN was getting the yard work done at my sister's house. I'd planned to help out over there on Friday so this accomplishment only came two days late.

The FAIL for the day is genuinely odd. When evening rolled round I asked Abe if he would like to do a craft with me. We don't do nearly enough crafts and I figured it'd be a good way to close out the day. Boy was I wrong. We tore little bits of construction paper to glue into the shape of a flower. He likes destructive crafting so I figured torn paper was a good route. Glue is messy and he's a big fan of messy anything. Well, little sister was determined to complicate things, get into things, be extra needy while not getting into things... lets just say she made the event eventful in the wrong sort of way. On top of that Abe didn't understand my direction at a few points and I snapped at him. Here we are trying to have a good time, make a cute art piece, and do something different with the evening and it totally went to crap. What honestly should have been a delightful spice to top off the day turned into something more like spoiled milk.

Despite things not going to plan we did end up with a lovely SPICE to top off the day. I got baby Wren to bed early (she needed it!). And (this is a repeat) since hubby was at work and since our last game of Battleship ended up a fun flop I asked my kiddo if he wanted a rematch. We really don't get much mommy Abbe time. Battleship was just what the doctor ordered (to make up for the craft gone awry). And maybe a repeat spice but still a spice none the less. Abe won.

saturday humdrum

Yesterday's WIN, so boring: Chores. Lots of laundry, all the dishes, mowed the lawn, straightened up (this needs to be done numerous times a day). Ect;

FAIL: I was supposed to go to my sister/ mom's house to help with odds and ends. I never made it. I'll probably go today though so we can call this one a half fail too. Haha

SPICE: Trying a new Bubly flavor? Can that be my spice of life for the day? Our household is kind of in love with Bubly. My husband drinks an absurd amount of it but Abe and I do enjoy an ice cold refreshing can with dinner. Our family favorite flavors are grapefruit and apple. For the record we do not buy pop/ soda. I love a coca cola at a restaurant but we never bring pop home. Bubly is the exception but it's not exactly pop since it's just carbonated water, right? Anyway we tried the pineapple flavor a few days ago. Sooo good! And today I tried the new Watermelon one. Yep, I love that one too. Darn it I think we have an addiction. Can you be addicted to flavored water?

Well, that's it for Saturday.
Could it have been more eventful? Yes.
Am I happy with the day as it was? You bet.

Not an ad at all. 

We just sincerely love the stuff.

curtains and youtube

I've always been strange so I can't entirely blame my pension for using every last ounce of an item and having very little interest in aesthetics on Guatemala but I do. Years ago I went to Guatemala and helped out at feeding programs and built small homes for widows up in the mountains. I took four separate trips for such endeavors but after the first trip I came home changed. The second and third and fourth trip just helped to solidify my resolve. This is all said in preface of yesterday's win.

My husband and I purchased his grandparent's home years ago. I've mentioned before that we live in the house that my mother in law grew up in, the house her father had built for their family. Well it just so happens that we have the same curtains she grew up with as well. Now, in my defense they are very thick, well made, light blocking (you couldn't buy the same quality in a store these days for anything) and for the most part I do like them. Our curtains in the living room and bedrooms are genuinely antique. The front curtain however began falling apart a long time ago. A combination of age, time, and my very young son continually pulling at it when peeking out the front window a hundred times a day had begun to demolish it. I was reluctant to replace it because I didn't want to spend the money, because I don't like shopping, because I knew I'd have to replace not only the curtain but the hardware (since the pully system that the curtain rolled on was breaking as well).

In January I ended up getting some robins egg blue curtains on deep clearance. But I hung them up on the old rod that they didn't quite fit on and that was very broken (there may have been some duct tape involved with this procedure). In wrapping up a very long, rather uninteresting story, the first set of new curtain's I've ever purchased have been displayed in front of our large living room window for the past four months on an old broken rod (eh hem, with duct tape helping the rod to not fall down). Yesterday's WIN was purchasing a new rod (on sale, yay) AND putting it up. It's nothing fancy shmancy but it's a job much needed and well done. That's a very big win for me.

Oddly, the FAIL for the day is related to the spice so I think that makes it a half fail and not a complete fail. I spent way too much time at the computer. My baby girl took a very long second nap while my son and husband were gone and I didn't do anything productive, well, I think I was productive but not in a very responsible way. Onto the spice!

Abe has been begging me for months to let him do LEGO videos on youtube. He has a lot of Legos. He gets them as gifts. He spends his allowance on them. He spends gift money on them. There are a few channels on youtube that we let him watch so obviously he's been wanting to get in on the fun. Last week we posted his first video and he was thrilled. Only yesterday I started experimenting with video editing. I learned a lot and spent some VERY RARE mommy alone time in front of the computer having a ton of fun. I learned how to add an image over a video (and how to add background music or sound overlay even though I didn't add any to his video). I was able to edit his video from yesterday with four different images placed in the upper left hand corner throughout and I'm very proud of the newly learned skill. I think it's pretty safe to say that new knowledge and increased skill is a wonderful kind of SPICE.

an older picture of a happy us

our week in photos

One week of my May challenge complete!

I thought I'd taken more photos. Oops. Here's three anyhow from this week. 

The Dutch dancers from Monday evening

Baby Wren in the cold sprinkles

Our gloom day walk/ ride

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend.