Busy Times

I keep waiting to feel like posting--I have a few posts in mind to cover the last month, but each day seems so full and then I'm tired and another day passes. Maybe I'll get back to them this week.

For now, the abbreviated summary: This week, we have

watched the fish feeding at the local Bass Pro Shop,
gone to the library,
hosted a lightly attended playgroup,
gone swimming 3 times,
gone to a birthday party,
gone to a playgroup family BBQ,
invited a neighbor over for homemade pizza,
bought supplies for our next home improvement project,
pulled a few weeds,
picked a few veggies,
run 13.5 miles (not in one day, and only one of us),
read lots of good books (I just finished Wicked and really enjoyed it),
gotten numerous mosquito bites,
watched the fireflies,
and spent many afternoons lounging under the fan in the sweltering heat.

First Fruits

Our garden has looked like this jungle for a few weeks now. And for the last couple weeks, we've been able to pick a few things every couple days, which has been immensely satisfying.

This was our first tomato. We have also gotten a couple handfuls of cherry tomatoes, in red, and to Bugaboo's delight, yellow. And they taste so good.

The cucumbers have been the most productive--we've picked 6 or 7 already, which combined with my mint growing in a pot on the deck, makes the weekly batch of tabbouleh much cheaper to make. Once I am getting enough tomatoes, and our green onions get a little bigger, it will be almost exclusively from our garden. Too bad quinoa won't grow here.

And our first yellow squash. Between the tomatos, squash, and peppers, Bugaboo is going to love the color of food this summer.

A Very Merry Un-Birthday To You!

Today was the big day. Bean has been counting down all week (and has been a little annoyed that its taken so long to get here--when she counts, she doesn't include the day it is or the day of the event, so in her mind, we should have had this party a couple days ago.) And luckily, the rain we had all week finally dried up--in fact, it cleared up enough to make today the hottest day of the year so far, and really muggy. But it didn't rain, so we tried not to complain too much about sweating.

So we set the table for some crazy tea, hung the paper lanterns, put the song from the Disneyland tea cup ride on repeat,

And invited some crazy guests.

I have no idea how people throw parties for 20 5 year-olds. I guess that's where renting the bounce house and a face-painting clown come in. But we kept it simple--there were only 6 kids, which included our 2. And I owe a big thanks to Sandra, who jumped right in to help with the crafting.

The kids got to make their own "Mad Hatter" hats. These were so fast, and then I had ribbons, jewels, pompoms, and pipe cleaners for them to decorate with.

Other than that, the games were all pretty simple--we put the bean bag toss out for them to play with, and a bucket of water and all our plastic tea cups and tea pot, and then I hid little paper rabbits (which our 10 year old neighbor had made for me--she's quite the little crafter!) around the yard so the kids could search for the white rabbit like Alice did.

And the we served lunch. I may have gotten a little carried away with the food, especially since little kids don't really seem to eat at parties. But we thought more of the adults would be sticking around as well, so I had more than enough food.

The kids may not have eaten much, but they loved their "tea" (yellow and pink lemonade). No wonder why both of our kids were running for the bathroom all afternoon--I think they all had about 6 refills.

And then the cake. . .

Bean and I found this cake awhile ago, and I was pretty excited about it--it looked fun, and not too difficult. And I was only up until midnight last night decorating it, so not too bad overall. It didn't turn out exactly like the original (when does it?), but I'm pretty happy with the results. I will admit, at one point last night when I asked for Daddy-o's opinion on some part of it and he told me it was fine, that 5 year-olds won't care, I said, "This isn't about the 5 year-olds! I have to take pictures of this!" I just feel like this is part of my crafting, and since this, unlike a scrapbook, is going to be eaten, the pictures really matter.

(Sorry for the bad lighting--this was taken last night and it was really hard to get good pictures of it today since we forgot until it was time for candles, and those 6 little kids were really good at making their presence known!)

Once we sent everyone home, nice and sugared-up, everyone but Bean took a nap and then we spent the rest of the muggy evening at the pool. I think Bean was pretty happy with the day. And she still has her actual birthday tomorrow, although she has to share that with Daddy-o.

Things I Never . . , Part 2

Thought I'd hear:


At 3 a.m., "My can't find my bell pepper!"


"You aren't listening to my words!"


"My show you my bum."

"You can make unicorn flavored cotton candy--just kill a unicorn, squeeze its meat and you'll get unicorn juice!"


"Can you just see a floating head?"


"Can't you regurgitate your food?" (That one came from the other adult in this home after a demonstration.)

There are quite a few more that I've heard recently that just don't seem appropriate to share on the world wide web, so I'll refrain, even though they are very possibly some of the craziest things I've heard out of these kids mouths. But since I plan on letting them read this someday, I want them to still like me.

Just Desserts

I went a little crazy on the dessert making last week. A few weeks ago, I'd even sworn off baking until Bean's birthday party, but then we invite people over (and why is it that I cannot serve a meal to someone without dessert? It just seems wrong), and I remember that I'm hosting book club (which also can't be done without dessert), and some friends come over for a cookie baking party. So, on Friday, the ladies I invited for lunch helped me try out this berry tart recipe. I've been in a very fruity mood, and figure it's a good way to test tea party recipes. This was from Simply Recipes with a few changes. I didn't feel like grinding almonds, so I just used regular flour with almond extract and then for the creamy filling, I added zest from one lemon, which I think is a must--it tasted incredible, and several of the reviews had said that the filling flavor was kind of bland otherwise. I also didn't use liquer in the glaze, but made up a glaze of marmalade and grape juice concentrate instead. I let the glaze cool a little too much and it was a lot thicker than I'd imagined when I tried to brush it on, so next time I will watch it a little closer as it's cooling, and glaze it sooner. This one is definitely a keeper--even Bean liked it, so I'll be making miniture versions of it for the birthday party.


Thursday night, the book club ladies gave this one two thumbs up--Berry Tiramisu Cake from allrecipes.com. (I'm really not sure why they even call it a tiramisu since it doesn't have espresso, or the lady-finger cookies, or mascarpone--its really just a layered berry cake). I didn't really make any changes, except using frozen berries for this, and then with the assembly of it. After the cake was cooled, I split it into the three layers, and then used a glass to cut circles out of each layer--I was able to get 7 circles from each layer, and because it is smaller, I could only stack them 2 high, instead of three, so this made 10 individual servings (plus all the peices which I used to make messy ones for my family). This was really good--the cake was a little dry, but it probably helped it hold up to all the juices from the berries. Bean didn't like this one, though, so we won't be using it for the tea party.

And on Tuesday night, we had people over for dinner and I made angel food cake with a berry compote and whip cream on top. I forgot to take a picture, but this is the second time in the last month that I've made this and we LOVE it. It's so light and fairly healthy (as far as desserts go) and really good. For the berries, I use a 1 pound bag of frozen mixed berries (we love the ones from Trader Joes--very sweet, and unlike the bags that have strawberries in them, this one is loaded with the more expensive types of berries, not just an occasional blueberry thrown in) with a little lemon juice and a pinch of salt and about 1/3 cup of sugar and just simmer it for 20-30 minutes until its pretty cooked down.

I think I'm done with desserts now until the birthday.

Just a Little Fun

Bugaboo thought he was pretty funny when he dressed up in my pj's.

And the other morning, I was busy getting ready for people to come over and fixing lunch when Bean decided she wanted to make the invitations for her birthday party. We're having a Mad Hatter Tea Party in a couple weeks and I had already picked out a few coordinating papers that I was going to make top hat shapes from for the invitations, but didn't have time to do them right then and decided to just let my image go and let my daughter have fun.

Its hard for me to let go of some of these crafty type things, but she's getting to where she wants to do more and more of it on her own. So I cut her paper to fit in the envelopes (and then later went in and printed the info) and I think her pictures turned out pretty cute!

Now we'll see how many of the rest of the plans I've made she's going to change :)

It's Been One Year

It's hard to believe that we've lived in Charlotte for just over a year now--this year has flown by! But we just went to the Taste of Charlotte for the second year now. It wasn't quite as kid-friendly as last year, when they had a whole kids are where all the inflateable slides and fun stuff were free and they were handing out different acitivites and small toys, but we did let the kids each use a token to go down this slide:

If you look closely at Bugaboo, you'll see that he was pretty terrified, poor kid.

And then they rode on these big tricycles, but other than that, it just a lot of food booths and free advertising type of stuff.

This morning, we headed the other direction to the mall in Concord for a Mini-Chef day sponsored by the malls kid's club. They decorated waist aprons, made trail mix and cereal bracelets, and learned how to shape a pretzel. The best part is, for a $5/year membership fee, they got a t-shirt, coupons for a free pretzel and a free train ride. And for the next 4 weeks, they run a "summer camp" with free activities Monday thru Thursday, like putt-putt golf, movies at the AMC, and music time. We'll be going to a few of those for sure.

(Notice, once again, that its all about the yellow.)

The Bell Pepper

This kid's obsession with yellow is at an all-time high. As in, this plastic yellow bell pepper was his souvenir from Wilmington because when we tried to leave the basket weaver's shop at the plantation, he just couldn't let it go and she, being a very kind woman, let him take it with him (it was just a prop for kids to play with when they came in the shop.)

I've never seen a kid so attached to a bell pepper. He tries to take it with him everywhere, and tells everyone about it. Luckily he's willing to have us babysit when he needs both hands.

Things I Never. . .

Thought I'd say:

Do not suck on the handrail.

Why are you standing on the counter naked?

You can have more broccoli after you eat a bite of chicken.

Why are you licking me?

Do not put that up your nose!

Do not wipe yourself--mommy or daddy has to do that!

You have to stay outside and play.

Please don't help me clean anything else right now.

An Idyllic Moment

Watching these:

(Love the water drops on his face:) (Check out those leg muscles! This girl is STRONG!)

While chopping these:

Seriously one of those great afternoons. And since I haven't posted a video for awhile, here's one for the grandparents (and anyone else who misses seeing these two little monkeys in action):

The Trial of Toilet Training

(How's that for some alliteration.)

Despite the days of 4+ accidents, the toilet training has actually gone more smoothly and quicker than I ever imagined. The last 2 weeks have been accident free, and he even wears underwear most days. At 2 years 7 months, I can say that Bugaboo is trained. He doesn't even need a diaper for naptime (which, as evidenced by the wet couch after her spotaneous nap today, can't be said of his sister.)

But this has come with a price. The kid wants to be done with nighttime diapers, too. I'd be all for that as well, but not when it means he now wakes up at 6:15 instead of 6:45 and comes running out of his room yelling, "My have to go pee!" It would be funny if it didn't send me bolting out of bed.

Guess I shouldn't complain. It will save us money, and someday we'll either get to sleep in a little, or get used to waking up early.

The Food

Last post on the weekend, I promise! I know sometimes I may include things that no one really cares about, but I care :) This is my record of my family and its just easier for me to put it all in one spot. Plus, the next time we go to Wilmington, I want to be able to remember where we got the awesome food. We'd gotten recommendations for a couple places to eat before we left and this is one of them. And the seafood was absolutely incredible. We ate a lot of crab--crab stuffed mushrooms and then Daddy-o had crab stuffed halibut and I had crab bisque.

It was amazing (even if I couldn't get a great picture because of the dim lighting.) So creamy and rich (and totally low calorie, hahaha.)

They also had really cool tables--glass top with a box of sea creatures under it. The kids loved that part. And the bisquits. They serve bisquits everywhere in the south.

Our other good meal--a modern southern restaurant called The Basics--was also really good. I had Hoppin' John (blackeyed peas with rice) which I have to say was better than the blackeyed peas I have made, even though those have always been fine. The kids had mac and cheese, which they didn't like because it wasn't the box kind, but Daddy-o and I both loved it!

Finally, on the way home, we had to stop for the homemade peach ice cream--I guess its a tradition coming back from the NC beaches and we weren't sorry that we went along with it.

And Bean, of course, found the dog of the establishment. She loves dogs. Girl after my own heart.