hello.

has it really been 6 months since i was here last?!?

we have been busy with a newly remodeled house and new family member.  it has been a crazy half year but things are settling down a bit and hopefully i will be back here on a somewhat regular basis.  i miss it and i have lots of bloggy ideas popcorning around in my head (along with a million other non-related, but important ideas) that always seem to come to the forefront of my mind during a middle of the night nursing session.

happy 4th!

powerless

when hurricane irene left us powerless (and home-bound due to downed trees) we had lots of fun with flashlights. a fort was made and all the flashlights were squirreled away in there. the kids were really excited to 'read' books by flashlight. it was very cute but as you might be able to see at the tippy top of the picture, it was still light outside so no flashlight was really necessary, but to them the flashlights were essential for proper reading.

we also held a few shadow plays. very impromptu and they all somehow involved a hurricane, but (as a teacher and parent) i was especially excited to hear calvin's internal sense of story as he unfolded the dialogue of the play. he understood there had to be a problem and somehow that problem had to be solved. there were good guys and bad guys and everyone had a family that loved them.

as it got darker and darker we discovered that the shutter closed slower and slower. so when we clicked the picture button we had a few seconds to move the flashlight all around before the shutter closed. we experimented with this a lot. we tried to spell small words or our names but couldn't quite make it look right. the squiggles turned out the best.

we were lucky and got our power back later that night.  but we have played 'power's out' more than a few times since the day irene hit.  i need to keep this game in my back pocket for those cold winter home-bound days that seem to drag on and on and on.

i don't mind the power being out for a day. maybe even two.  it can be fun and we can play these fun flashlight games, but more than two days is rough.  i few people i work with still do not have power!  it's been over a week.  seriously.  it's time to take the power back.

*ps. thank you for your kind comments and emails about my father-in-law and my dad.  i am so happy and relieved to let you know that my dad's cancer was caught super early and the doctors are confident they can get all of the tumor out with surgery.  yay!  

last days of summer vacation

we have been making the most of the last week of summer vacation by tackling all of the unchecked items on our summer to-do list.  trips to all our favorite parks, the aquarium to see the dinosaur exhibit, the natural history museum (again to see the dinosaurs, and the whale), playschool, the beach, my husband's company picnic (see pic above), and now we are hunkering down for our first real hurricane.  

we were directed by the town to evacuate but i think evacuation is not necessary.  our apartment is on the second floor, it has new windows (none of which are large), we have plenty of water and food, and our landlord (who grew up in our apartment) seems to think it will be fine.  we did park one car at a nearby middle school that is up a hill, just in case we are super flooded and something happens to our car.  this morning we went to the library and got tons of books and even a movie.  i have lots of games to play, forts to make, and legos to build with to keep us occupied for the next 24+ hours.

as a last resort if it gets super scary, i got sparking apple cider so that we can have a storm party to ease some fears and we'll sing favorite things. :)

wish us luck!

afternoon snack

i made these lemon bars. i used to make them in college all the time and then recently we had some lemons that needed to be used and the recipe just popped back into my conscience brain from wherever it was hiding. such a delicious summertime treat. and it is a cooking light recipe so how bad of an indulgence can they be? :)

by the way, as i was linking to the recipe i noticed that mine look like they have a lot more powered sugar than the recipe shows.  hmmm...

sweet sewing

i made this little criss-cross pinifore for maeve the other night.  i made the pattern myself, based on a shirt that maeve already had.

it cuts out in just two pieces, the outside and the inside, which made it super easy...

and reversible!

she wore it a couple of times, but i decided it was a little bit small.  i have a slightly larger one cut out and will hopefully sew it tonight.  i gave the one pictured to a sweet little friend (her mom was my college roommate).

salads!

we have been eating salad every day and night around here. it is simply too hot to eat anything else. we mostly eat green salads but to mix it up a bit i have found a few great different salads that we are now making weekly around here.

the above photo is a raw asparagus salad. i found it via angrychicken.  i used  a whole onion but i pre-soaked it for about 15 minutes so the flavor wasn't too strong.  i also halved the amount of olive oil and vinegar after i made it the first time because it was super liquidy.  the kids love this one.  i am not a strong flavored cheese person, so i was hesitant to use pecorino but it was amazing!

we have also made this pasta salad (we have tons of cucumbers from the garden at the moment and i ran across this recipe that includes cucumber.  super refreshing!),  and the raw broccoli salad from wellgroundedlife's membership site.

*note all of these salads taste better when eaten outside, preferably at the shore :)

vacation!

we just got back from a little vacation to the pacific northwest. it was beautiful and filled with family and relaxation. we rented a beautiful house right on devil's lake in oregon. it had its own dock, which was perfect for fishing.

we were close to the beach also. it was rather windy and cold at the beach though, so we were happy to just visit and head back to our house on the slightly warmer, a lot less windy lake.

then we drove up to seattle to see more family. it was beautiful there too, with just one day of typical seattle rainy gray-ness.  we made s'mores, had amazing sausage and delicious frozen yogurt.  the kids fell in love with their dog roxy.  she is a boston terrier and super cute!  (i have a feeling a boston is in our (distant) future...)

this trip was a wonderful way to start the summer!