City Mouse Big Cheese

We has a little tug of war this year with costumes. T was set out from the get go to be a ghost but Mommy had other plans. I had 1/2 started this mouse costume a while back and had planned to give it as a birthday present but never got it completed. The week before and the week of Halloween I was not feeling well (just found out I have bronchitis) and so I decided to revisit this little mouse and use stuff I had around the house to put together something simple for Theo. I whipped this up in two hazy congested miserable nights, but it was so worth it.

The mouse costume consisted of a tail and ears made from stretch velour and a grey tulle tutu. Theo's cheese head was a piece of latex foam that I cut with scissors and sprayed with yellow spray paint. We used an on hand onsie that I dyed and printed out an iron on decal that said aged one year (yes he just turned one the week before). We got to use the costume several times once for a party and then again at Halloween and my guess is that she will want to wear this a dozen or so times before we re purpose the parts for something else. Halloween was so magical this year. T had such a great time, we created a bunch of creepy crafts and she became completely obsessed with all things slightly spooky. Theo, well he wasn't so sure about it all and even though he looks miserable in the photo he warmed up to his costume and was our perfect stinky lil cheese. Oh and I went as a black cat...with a few grey whiskers.

Birthday Boy

Hard to believe that my little guy just turned one. Brings tears to my eyes just thinking about how quickly this past year has flown by. I'm reminiscing now about all the precious moments and sweet infant glances that I wish I could have bottled up to relive again and again. I'm always in such quandary about whether I should be capturing (i.e with a camera) or be mindfully living the moment. I go back and forth and most of the times I think I choose to just let the experience be what is it and then just lament later that I didn't get the shots. I guess I am sorting venting here because I really didn't get the best pictures of the big guys birthday. Lighting was bad, he had a big poop in his diaper that I didn't know about and it was the end of a very very busy day so I guess I should be glad I got what I did. It really was a special day. Dad played hookie, Theo's buddies at little gym all sang to him, we had lunch out after an outing at the toy store (where he scored big time) and finished it day off with a cake I made in the nick of time the night before. I have a funny story about this cake that I won't go into but Dad and I were in tears laughing at 1:30am and will never forget this ONE.

Macro Greenhouse

After 3 years the terrarium that Tess and I constructed in our earlier post had to be put to rest. The plants had gotten leggy and it was no longer the small sweet green world on my dinner table it was more like the big green monster. I transplanted all the plants outdoors into a bigger pot and since the container has just been sitting in the garage waiting for me to make another. I've been either too busy or lazy to clean it so I decided to use another vessel and make a smaller slightly less planty version of a terrarium. I had a some left over moss from an orchid repot and a great glass globe I had purchased at West Elm that had been calling out to be used. I went scouring my junk box for some cool things that might work together thinking I wanted to make something greeny and easy enough for Tess to help with. I chose some quartz crystals, miniature model figurines and a piece of pyrite that was collecting dust on Matt's shelf. The project took us about 15 minutes to put together but a good hour and a half to talk about all the items. Tess was completely fascinated by the figurines and played with them forever asking all kinds of bizzaro questions. She was also enamored by the pyrite and crystal shapes, we had a mini lesson in rock formations and even took a trip to the back yard to get additional rocks to examine. I love this age, even the smallest simplest little projects turn into opportunities for learning something new.

Vegetable Basics

Ha so much for more frequent postings. I actually had such good intentions, Tess and I have been working on a lot of great projects and I've even managed to capture some of them with the camera but... I had some computer problems. I guess you could call it user error. My computer just stopped recognizing my camera and download images. Immediately I went online lurking around tech sites to see if I could figure out what the problem. I tried like every thing. Nothing worked. Finally after a week I had to admit defeat and call Matt in to fix my buggy camera but moments before I was about give up I noticed that the camera wasn't even connected to the port. It was only half way plugged in but looked like it was connected. I felt like such a dunce...arghh and the time wasted troubleshooting. So again I am committing to more frequent posts... wonder what shenanigans will come up this time.

In the mean time I wanted to post some images from a cookbook I've been using all week. It's called Vegetable Basics - 84 Recipes Illustrated by Jody Vassalo. The recipes indeed are pretty basic but what I love is the design and layout of the pages. This is by far the easiest to follow visual cookbook that I have ever used. You barely need read the instructions to be able to follow along...exact what I need since most of my cooking is done darting into the other room checking on a toddler or trying to juggle dinner with a baby in arms or clinging to my left leg. If you are in the need of a basic veg cookbook that will inspire you to make great simple tasty food this is a good one to check out.

Super Natural Millet Muffins

Okay this is officially the first of my attempts at more frequent posts. I'm hoping to get at least a few posts a week up and capturing more of the everyday. Just quick little snippets of the simple things that keep me busy, thinking and constantly on the move. I've been working on clearing out most of the processed foods from our families pantry and getting rid of boxed anything. I recently purchased the cookbook Super Natural Everyday and love the recipes, they are high on flavor yet easy, healthy and uncomplicated. We have an almost impossibly small kitchen so keeping anything but the essentials for cooking on hand just isn't practical and Heidi Swanson's recipes make the most out of ingredients that I usually have on hand. Here is my go at her Millet Muffins the recipe can be found on her amazing site. Here is the link to the muffins and five others from her beautiful cookbook.

I switched it up a bit and used 1/2 unbleached flour and 1/2 whole wheat pastry flour because that's what I had on hand. I ended up having to put the batter in the refrigerator and run and pick T up from school so they set up some before I spooned them into the muffin tins. They came out having a very scone like texture which look very different from the photos of Heidis in the book but the flavor was amazing. And I loved the denseness of the muffins. She compares the muffins to cornbread muffins but they are so much better.

Sanibel

Things have been hectic to say the least since we got back from vacation. Every year we can justify taking the extended time away from work because we bring the company laptop along and do a bit of work between walks on the beach and playing in the pool. This year the laptop decided it was in need some vacation time as well and stopped working the first day there - not so good for the 4 big projects Dad was juggling but left us without excuses to just enjoy our time together. This year like every year we were looking forward to recharging and reconnecting with family. Matt and his family have been coming to the island for more than 35 years and for me to be apart of that legacy with our family is truly special. This was T' third year coming and T-o's first and the third year that my cousin brought her sweet family of 4 - it was a magical week of friends, family and good times. The best moment of the trip was this late day walk with Matt & the kiddos. The beach there is always pretty deserted this time of year so it felt like we had the ocean all to ourselves. Knee deep in shells the lowtide beach was covered in stuff to explore and the seagulls were chasing sandpipers for small crabs and little coquina. We walked up the beach watching for the sunset and trying to stretch out the last day. I got a few good pictures of Dad with TnT that really capture our slow sweet simple time of Sanibel.

Three

Posting a bit late but wanted to make sure I captured Tess' 3rd birthday. We celebrated her special day in Sanibel with her extended family while at our yearly family reunion. We we under the gun this year with several big book projects and a whole bunch of small client stuff so getting everyone packed and party ready was a bit of a challenge. Next year we plan to do a "best buddy" party at home so she can celebrate with her friends but I think she enjoyed her family birthday just fine. We picked up the ingredients for a simple ice cream cake the night before at the local island grocer and to make it easy on everyone we opted to order in pizza. We lucked out and got a great island breeze and enjoyed the day reuniting with family and meeting a Great Aunt & Uncle for the first time. It was a Happy Day…my girls growing up - said with a big frog in my throat.