boys and their toys

going green

Right Now I'm

:: obsessed with green smoothies and anything I can make in my new BlendTec blender. We've been having green smoothies for breakfast daily, raw soups and even banana chocolate freezer pie made in the BlendTec (although you could use a regular blender) without sugar or anything else to sweeten the filling other than the bananas themselves made from this amazing recipe. If you like healthy desserts this is a must-try.

:: amazed that the first time I tried a green smoothie in early January I thought I'd never finish the glass because of the very "green" taste of kale and now my morning isn't complete without it. It has entirely replaced my morning bowl of oatmeal and it keeps me full until lunch even after my hour long morning workout or spinning class at the gym. I've figured out that I've had at least 120 green smoothies in the last 4 months and they are a big reason for why I feel so full of energy all day and they helped me lose the 35 pounds of baby weight. This is the recipe I use for mine although I often use a combo of baby kale and spinach for the spinach part of the recipe. For the kids their favorite is 2 cups water, 2 cups spinach, 1 cup kale, 1 mango, and 2 bananas. I usually give them a pint glass full each mid-morning and then pour the extra into popsicle molds for a cold treat later in the day. Also, I buy the romaine hearts, baby kale, spinach, celery (all organic) and frozen (non-organic) strawberries at Costco weekly. I usually pick and freeze local strawberries every June but we just ran out last month and strawberry picking season is still a month away. I've figured out that it costs me about $25 per week at Costco for everything for me to make 2 huge (16 once) smoothies for Shane and I every single day of the week and green smoothies for the kids 4 times a week. And that's using mostly organic produce! Hopefully soon more of it will come from our own garden but until then this isn't a bad price and more than worth it. Plus we've buying less of other foods so it all works out.

:: so excited about the new garden beds going into our yard. Yesterday Shane rented a sodcutter and took out 1/3 of our lawn and we're in the process of putting in five new beds and pea gravel. Not only will it be so functional and a fun family project, but it's going to be so pretty too. We've got peas, kale, lettuce, Swiss chard, beets, carrots, radishes, spinach, leeks and potatoes already up and growing fast in the garden and next we're planting tomatoes, beans, herbs, onions and more lettuce and carrots.

:: celebrating that next week is graduation at the university where Shane works which means the slow season for him and a couple months off of work completely. We got out our camping trailer last week to get ready for camping season and last night he and the girls slept in it in the driveway. They loved it but I was thankful to be inside with the boys.

:: sewing more than I'm knitting these days and I made the above "chicken" skirts for the girls with some cute chicken themed fabric from the Fabric Dept in Portland. I used this favorite free pattern from Oliver + S. I did totally misread the pattern on Mira's skirt and I need to fix the hem this week. I've made at least ten of these skirts over the last few years and this isn't the first time I've misread the pattern - ugh! I made the skirts for the pet parade in a couple weeks because the girls plan to take our chickens in the parade. Of course they had to have chicken skirts to go with their chicken wagon!

:: thankful that I didn't have to participate in yesterday's butchering of 26 chickens. Shane and our friend Nate loaded up the chickens and took them to a local butcher. They watched, paid them less than $100 and came home with coolers full of chicken. Tomorrow I'm making tomatillo soup. :)

:: wondering how big our baby Silas is going to get. He's one big boy; eating three solid meals a day and growing so, so fast. Almost 7 months old now, he's full of smiles for anyone who stops to talk to him.

:: making lots of summer plans including the first of a new summer tradition of white water rafting with the girls this year on the Deschutes River and an outdoor Norah Jones concert in Bend for our anniversary in August (thank you Dennis and Tammy!!) Of course we'll be doing lots of camping trips to the coast and around the Willamette Valley as well as renting a house with friends for the Balloons Over Bend festival in July.

:: riding my new Schwinn cruiser (thank you dad!) every single day that it isn't raining. With West on the back of my bike and the girls following behind on their own bikes we're riding to the library, grocery store, park or just around the neighborhood most sunny afternoons.

:: trying to stay home more often than not and find ways to make do with what we have rather than rush out to the store. I like the challenge of making ends meet every month although it isn't so fun when they don't. This month my challenge is to see if I can avoid going to Target or any other store like it for the month. Sure I could use some makeup, socks for Silas' huge feet and new tights for the girls but I'm going to see if we can just manage with what we've got for now.

annah of sunnybrook farm

The girls have watched the Shirley Temple version of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm a half dozen times at least. Here is a cute little video of Annah, our constant performer, singing one of the songs.

weekend in the sun

celebrating lissa

Happy birthday to our dear auntie and sister, Lissa! We celebrated with a 20's tea party, shopping with the girls, a bike ride around town, playing in the garden and a delicious curry dinner. Since she lives next door the party continued all day.

granny

We are so blessed to have Granny, almost 95 years old, living right next door. Four generations living side by side means ice cold lime aid in the afternoons on the back porch, sing-a-longs in front of the fire on rainy days and swinging on the front porch swing on sunny evenings.

a sweet week

Some notes from this week:

On Monday West poured out a bottle of expensive liquid cod liver oil on our dinning table. Not thinking clearly and trying to stop it from running onto the floor I grabbed a kitchen towel to mop it up. I then threw the towel in the washing machine and forgot about it. The next day I did a load of laundry which included both of Shane's good work pants. When that load finished in the dryer our house smelled reeked of cod liver oil. Poor Shane had to wear those pants to work and I think the towels and other things in that load of laundry are ruined forever.

Last week our local one screen movie theater had a fire in the concession area. There is a fancy chocolate shop next door to the theater and because of the fire and the smoke that could have damaged the taste of the chocolates, the Chocolate Box made a quiet announcement that on Friday beginning at noon they would be giving away the chocolates. My two girls were there at 10 minutes till noon (with their aunt Sasa) and brought home a bag of dark chocolate covered Twinkies, salted caramels, milk chocolate truffles, chocolate covered marshmallows and chocolate coconut bars. Needless to say I did not stick to my no sugar diet that day. It was pure heaven and worth every calorie!

Shane has been working very hard in the yard putting in deer fencing all the way around and building new beds. Our lettuce is going crazy and we have leeks, beats and lots of flowers coming up. We had sun on Sunday and since then it has been nothing but rain all week.

The girls and I are really enjoying reading The Burgess Bird Book for Children each afternoon, a fictional story told from the perspective of Peter Rabbit that introduces kids to birds and their patterns, as part of our nature study. They also love The Nature Connection, a nature workbook.

We've been visiting a new church and are really enjoying the people there. We're praying about where the Lord wants us and for wisdom and direction about church.

Last week we ran out of paper towels and oatmeal - not such a big deal, but because I've pretty much used up our grocery budget we were going to have to wait until next month to buy more. I was a little bummed because the kids eat oatmeal 3 or 4 times a week and with a busy toddler and a baby that constantly spits up, paper towels are a must. Then on Friday, some friends rang the doorbell and when I opened the door they were standing on our porch with three or four big boxes of groceries including a huge Costco size bag of oatmeal and a box of paper towels! These friends had no idea that we needed these items, yet here they were with them. Apparently some older people had gone to Costco and brought a load of groceries to church and asked them to share them with people from the church. My friend said she'd prayed the night before about what to give to what people and the fact that she brought us two items that we really needed was such a God thing. He cares about even the smallest things in our lives. What a powerful message that gave to our girls that day.

We've been potty training West and so far I must say it's been much, much easier than the girls were. They were both almost 3 1/2  before they were potty trained and West just turned two. I never would have even begun potty training him so early based on my previous experience with the girls, but I recently read something about how you have a small window of time right when they understand and recognize that they are going to the bathroom. If you can potty train them during this window you'll have better chances of success. If you wait you'll be more likely to cause potty fear and other issues. Since in the last month West has stopped and told me several times when he was wetting his diaper I figured this was the window and I should at least get out the potty and try. The first day he wet his underwear most of the time, second day he was peeing in the potty, third day he was going in the potty every time and by the end of the first week he was even peeing in public toilets when we went out. He's also been dry every night and during naps. I'm not totally getting my hopes up yet because you never know, but the fact that we haven't used a diaper with him in a week makes me so happy!

Those are my journal notes from this week. More coming soon about a new bike, goals met and raw foods.