Fainting, A Taco Truck, and Lots of Fried Chicken

The weekend in review:

• Friday morning, Wonder Daddy called me: "I passed out on the bus.  Could you come pick me up at work?"  Oh YES I can- sheesh!  He scared the fellow passengers to death- one woman offered to walk him from the bus stop to work, just to make sure he didn't hit the ground again.  We're voting overheating- he rode his bike to the bus stop on this end.  Good news is he was still wearing his helmet on the bus...but that's probably why he overheated, along with his gloves, jacket, etc....all on a muggy bus, on a rainy morning.  Ugh.
• Friday evening, Wonder Daddy and I hit the road for our date night.  BEST DATE NIGHT EVER.  Seriously.  We hit the largest Goodwill store I've ever seen in my life.  I found a kitschy hanging fruit basket- you know those three-tiered mesh ones?  It was on my wishlist, and BOOM there it was.  We found a smaller bike for our bike-phobic daughter (who now is a bike riding fiend.)  And.  And.  There was a taco truck in the parking lot, and I had the best torta ever.  So good.  So, so, soo good.  (I promised my brothers, and I'll promise you: I am not pregnant.  The sandwich was just that good!)  
• Saturday, the girls spent 11 hours outside.  WOAH.  I got a bunch of weeding done, and some seedling transplanting done.  (Local folks, let me know if you want to get on the e-mail list for these- I'm selling seedlings fifty cents each this year, to cover costs, so I can share them with MORE folks!)  
• My brother came to town for the weekend- I swear he grew about half a foot since I last saw him.  We brought buckets of fried chicken, biscuits, and all the trimmings (thank you KFC) to the local park and watched the kids run themselves ragged.  I played frisbee with my little sister.  It was a good, good night!
• Sunday was normal church.  We all attended (a rarity in the cold and flu seasons, I don't like taking sniffly kids to the Primary).  My folks, and a sister and brother came over for dinner- we bought so much chicken on Saturday, we're still eating leftovers.  Yum!  

Will you just LOOK at Mimi in that picture?  She was just not going to smile.  Nothing doing.  Each progressive photo got a bigger and bigger glower.

 Top row is Ernie, my mom, me, and my little sister (Aunt Bert) and Mimi.
Bottom row is Wonder Daddy, my dad, Cocoa, and my brother Uncle Rich.
(We're just missing Lolo's family and my little brother (Uncle Bear)

(Very good if you noticed we have a Bert AND an Ernie.  Ba dum DUM!)

Return of the Smoothie

At one point, one of my children developed a neuroses about my smoothies so strong, she bald faced lied to me for months, out of fear i'd make her drink one.

Strawberry milkshakes though, are back on the radar! Yogurt, frozen strawberries, and some milk (cow or soy.) Isn't that what I was making before? Yes, but then I added chunky things like nuts and oats. I added produce, like beets and spinach and apples and carrots. Not this time!!! Welcome back, you totally smooth, pink, drink.

April 19th

Some things that are making me happy-

We had a bit of sunshine yesterday, and I found enough seedlings big enough to fill a small army of cups.  A little militia, if you will.  One particular kind of tomato is really shining so far- the Stupice, a slicing-type.  I potted up a fair number of tomatillo, and a few other random tomatoes.  Slow starts this year, but we still have time!

It's Spring, which means a few of my favorite pieces come out of storage!



Bobbi's darling garland.  First time it's lived on the chandelier- it makes me happy!



 I love this little vignette that happened on top of the piano.  The silk lilacs were a gift from a neighbor, the doily was my grandmothers, and the little Willow Tree girl was a gift when I ended my time as president of the women's organization (Relief Society) in a ward, and the picture of the temple was a graduation gift from my youth leaders.  My parents, my sister, and myself were all sealed in that temple.




My husband is a saint.  Cocoa has been so incredibly fussy at night (he has a monster cold coming on.)  Last night Cocoa was up about every hour and a half between 9:30 and 5:00.  The night before, between the 3 kids I was awake...12 to 4?  I forget.  Cocoa also needs to figure out how to eat more- he woke up this morning and had an enormous breakfast, I think he was just hungry last night.  To say that he eats mostly me is not an exaggeration- he just started putting food in his mouth a few months ago.  After 14 months of his life, my body is finally leaving the survival mode of having a newborn.  My goodness.  You know it's been since....April 2010?  I can't HANDLE the hormones!  (And he needs to learn to handle my rapidly decreasing milk supply.)

Someone was asking what Ernie is studying in school right now, so here's a run down of what our first grader is studying this week:

• Spelling: words ending in -y (why, my, fly, multiply) and -ed (snacked)
• Handwriting- we've finished block printing, and gotten through almost all the cursive letters now and are joining them into words and sentences.  This is hands down her least favorite subject!
• Writing: She writes something in her school journal every day, either a note to a "friend" or something relating to what we're learning.
• Computer Skills- Her last lesson was on mousing over, windows, desktop, etc.  
• Social Studies- civil liberties like segregation and suffrage.  Historical figures that go along with those, like Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King Jr.  We've worked from the revolution up to the civil rights movement, and major players along the way.
• Science- we're studying matter.  We've looked at solids, liquids, and gases, and their properties.  We're working on changing matter right now- a salad can be taken apart, but Kool-Aid can't.  You can't fix burnt bread (but she says you can make another batch :)
• Reading- I kind of ignore the phonics reading, but she's burning her way through the American Girls series.  6 of those books take her about 2 days.  We started with Addy, when we studied the underground railroad.
• Math- she's learning how to add money.
• Grammar- how to use "is" and "are."  

Getting Ready For the Garage Sale

I'm halfway through a whole-house purge. Man, it feels good. Man, I have a lot of glass vases! These are waiting to go downstairs to join the others in our holding pen/spare room. If it's not beautiful or useful, it's gone!

(I don't know if i've ever photographed from this angle. Look at all the colors! Now add the sky blue school room, and you have the main section of our house. Love :). How lucky am I that my husband agreed with the vision of a home so full of color? And he picked the final hues?)

Embossed Garden Marker

I'm supposed to be cleaning, but I got sidetracked when I found the metal duct tape my husband picked up for me last year. A little metal tape, a plastic knife, and some fancy script work ( I wrote radish, backwards, on the opposite side) and I have a little garden marker. Sweet. Maybe if I finish this room, I can make more!! Maybe I'll use chopsticks for the rest?

(If I can find the original source for this project, I'll post it. I might have seen it on The Kitchn last year?? Anyone know?)

Check out http://doityourselfmama.wordpress.comto see why I'm cleaning today.

Happy Easter

Ernie, Wonder Daddy, Cocoa, Mimi, and Myrnie



Mimi and Ernie



Cocoa, flanked by his sisters (his dad has *just* ducked down behind the couch while I clicked the shot!)  He is SO done with this photo shoot!


What a weekend!!!  You should know the conclusion: 30 chocolate eggs, a dozen peeps, 1/2 pound of See's chocolate, 1 lb. of jelly beans, 4 packages of cookies, and two cakes are sitting in my kitchen.  Right now.  Plus a few handfuls of assorted candies.  Something is going to have to happen soon, because turns out that Wonder Daddy and I have the willpower of jellyfish, and "Mom can I have a _____" is just about every other sentence out of my kids' mouths.  Wonder Daddy is all for letting the kids have a free-for-all on the goodies, so they burn out in a day or two, and we can quietly get rid of it.

Friday, my sister and I took our younger kids to an easter egg hunt- seems like a common rule around here is that you can collect 12 eggs, and you're done.  I like that no babies get trampled, and everyone gets something.



Saturday, we surprised my dad with some birthday goodies in the morning.  He's a business genius.  Seriously, it's just this innate talent he has to pick and run successful businesses.  He also has a very strong personality.  He used to work for a company whose company logo looks suspiciously like the Death Star (from Star Wars fame).  (Go look at AT&T's big blue ball of a logo, and tell me it's not the Death Star!!)  So, obviously, the man needed one of these.



Meet Darth Tater.  Dad's newest desk toy.  I'm sure he was thrilled ;)  (Photo from here)

Wonder Daddy took Ernie out for an adventure around town, while the young kids and I chilled at home.  That evening was the big Easter concert we've been rehearsing for the last two months.  Man, was that fun!  Full orchestra, nice big 'ol choir, and I got to play piano for it all.  Lucky duck!  I hope they invite me back again some time, just too much fun!  My beautiful sister and her husband had a wonderful duet bit together, and my husband was in the choir.  A HUGE HUGE HUGE thanks to my parents for watching the kids all those rehearsal nights, and to my siblings and parents for tending to the kids during the show!!!



Easter Sunday, the kids found a new balance bike and a light bright waiting for them (and a photo album ready to be filled).  They found all the chocolate eggs the bunny hid around the house, and we got ready for church.  The sacrament meeting was beautiful- lots of music!  Wonder Daddy took the two little (who are snotsy right now) home so as to not infect more of the Primary kids, I taught my little 7-and-8-year-olds.  I spent the afternoon tidying and cooking, and the whole family came for dinner- 21 folks for dinner is no laughing matter, but I love that we always do potlucks!  I also love that I cooked 3 grocery sacks of kale from the garden, with a few cloves of elephant garlic harvested last summer.  They were funny to harvest- they'd grown into TREES.  Seriously, the trunks were almost 2 inches across.  Crazy.

Aroma Therapy Dough

Just what we needed- squishy, still-warm play dough, in cinnamon, ginger, and lavender scents.