happy halloween!

hope it's delicious. :-)

hmm...

the odds aren't looking too good for Christmas cards this year.

my personal favorite...

oh dear. I'm getting quite the ab workout from laughter every time I look at these. Poor kids!

some free time

I have a couple of free hours today that I'd earmarked for work on finalizing a storyboard, but I still haven't gotten the needed materials back from the client, so I'm off the hook.

My house is strangely quiet. The girls are at a playdate and Isaac is napping. It's just me and my raisins & almonds sitting here at the computer with a big glass of water.

It's nice to have a few quiet hours. Today has been pretty calm (went for a run, read stories to Jules, picked up Abigail from preschool, came home and ate lunch, did some cleaning while the girls played with Play-Doh, did crafts with and read stories to Abigail while Juliet napped, etc.) After we dropped off the girls, Isaac and I went for a walk and I talked to him until he fell asleep, probably out of self-preservation. When we came home, I mixed up some bread and put some sweet potatoes in the oven for dinner (we'll add some peaches, edamame, and a big green salad to round things out). Then I spent half an hour looking up yoga sequences and putting together a routine that I can do in the mornings or evenings. After I get off the computer, I'm going to spend a few minutes reading through cookbooks looking for inspiration for next week's dinners. Let me just say this: I love not having anything to do and being able to do some of the "Gosh, wish I had time to..." things. Priceless.

Also, on a semi-related note, I really really really love yoga. A lot. Not as a workout that would replace running, but as a superb way to center myself and have some time of contemplation and connection with my body. As weird and New Age-y as that sounds, it's incredible (and after an hour and a half of yoga, corpse pose is like the best thing ever. Ever. Last night I was so relaxed I totally didn't know where I was when the instructor told us to start coming out of the pose). It's the perfect way to end crazy days and it always amazes me how something that can be fairly strenuous and taxing can be so soothing and relaxing at the same time.

what happens when the father says, "Sure, you can do your little sister's hair today..."

delightful little chore chart

today I found this: a free printable PDF that's a customizable chore chart. things like this warm my heart. so cute. and free. I love it when people are so generous and thoughtful like that. and this is going to make my house more sane.

out my front door yesterday morning

photo credit to Neil...I just pulled the covers over my head when he told me to come look at the sunrise.

food storage analyzer

Yesterday we had a lesson in Sunday School on spiritual and temporal preparedness, so I started rethinking our food storage again. With that in mind, I really like the food storage analyzer tool at Emergency Essentials. It's pretty simple: you input the number of people, gender, and ages into the calculator, which then tells you the daily caloric needs of your family. Then you go through the various pages and enter how much food storage you currently have and what you're planning to buy. At the end, you can view and analyze your results. One feature I really like: when you purchase items in your "planning to buy" list, you can have the program automatically update your totals, so you don't have to go back and change things over from "planning to buy" to "already have." And another cool thing: you can add grocery-store items as well. Pretty nifty.

The best part? Click on this button right here.

end of the season

It's the end of the harvest season; the garden is empty except for a few last lonely leeks and chives that are braving the colder days. On Saturday we bundled up in sweatshirts and gloves and ruthlessly stripped out the dying plants. It's always bittersweet doing this. On the one hand, it's somewhat of a relief to not have to worry about the weeding, the harvesting, the preserving. On the other, it's a long time until April and those first tangy bites of baby radishes, melt-in-your-mouth peas, and deliciously crisp lettuces.

Over the last few days, we've gathered all the remaining winter squash, onions, and peppers. I found one lonely little zucchini and picked it for dinner on Monday; the next day the plant had died in the night and the leaves were blackened.

This week we've been eating the last few fresh-from-the-garden meals (albeit with side salads heavily augmented by grocery store produce).

Tonight we had pizzas topped with juicy purple onions that were tangy and sweet and like nothing you can buy in the store. We added in some grilled eggplant, fresh green peppers, and a scattering of little white mushrooms with Parmesan and homemade basil pesto. It was divine.

On Thursday I chopped up one of our many butternut squashes and simmered it with some diced sweet potatoes, then caramelized onions in another pan and added some fresh pears and white grape juice. I combined the two pots and blended up the whole thing into a gorgeous deep-yellow puree, then added a bit of milk and a few grinds of pepper. The combination was delightful; the earthiness of the squash was a perfect compliment to the silky-sweet pears. It's definitely on our keeper list; Neil and I each had two bowls and the girls finished theirs without complaint!



And Monday's zucchini found itself simmered with sun-dried tomatoes, onions, red peppers, garlic, carrots, red pepper flakes, and chopped tomatoes, then tossed with whole-wheat rotini and feta. Blissful.

Of course, mournful as I feel about saying farewell to the garden, I think we'll be eating butternut squash for quite some time yet. They're stealthily taking over the kitchen. So as we eat our packaged sugar peas, our produce-aisle eggplant, and our pre-washed spinach, we'll revel in those squash and look forward to spring.

friday face

Juliet's been on a banana kick lately. This is what I see every hour or so.

choice and consequences

It's been an interesting morning. I hope we can look back at it as a turning point.

The end result is that Abigail is not allowed to be in any room by herself. She has to be in the same room with a parent for the next three days, unless she is asleep. We're talking a lot about how we all have free agency, but the choices we make have consequences (i.e. if you sneak outside while Mommy is nursing the baby she can't trust you, and if you climb up and get the markers on the 'fridge while Mommy is in the shower, color all over the furniture and walls (all. over. all over. everything). and then hand off the markers to your sister when you hear Mommy coming you lose even more trust. And when you lie about the whole thing, well, even worse).

We'll see how this goes. As I said before, I'm hoping that this is a turning point that teaches about consequences, about lying, and about not tempting other people towards misbehavior.

One thing I do have to say is that I think the best choice I made today was to call Neil and ask him to leave work for an hour, because I was not at a point where I was thinking rationally and for the first time I really didn't feel like it was the best option for me to be alone with the kids right then, especially since I'm sick and Isaac was up most of the night (the best part--right after I discovered the marker and all three kids were yelling at once and I was still in my bathrobe with wet hair, the Jehovah's Witnesses knocked on the door).

So while I felt really bad about asking him to come home from work, I think on the whole it was better for our family for me to just leave the house for an hour, cool down, and then be able to come back and deal with the situation more calmly. I don't think I would have been able to make that call a year ago.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that nobody's perfect, and nobody can be calm and patient and reasonable all the time, and I think it's good to acknowledge sometimes that you just have to step back. And take a break. Not a long break, but enough. And you're all the better for it.

nearly wordless wednesday

What the world needs: less stress, more tiny yoginis.

tuesday update

1. Isaac is growing so fast that I have to spend an hour every other week sorting out his clothes. I will be glad when this slows down a bit. Sometimes I am amazed at how much he is growing considering the vast quantities he manages to spit up (really, I've never had a baby so determined to clear the contents of his stomach).

2. We were supposed to have the missionaries over tonight, but Juliet has a very runny nose and I woke up with a sore throat and a headache--so the missionaries are getting a pizza instead so we don't make them sick.

3. Abigail had her first Primary program this past Sunday. She ran around at home yelling her part at the top of her lungs (as did Juliet), but categorically refused to ever say it in a practice. So we bribed her with fruit snacks to say her part and sing all the songs. She belted out that part and sang the songs robustly, giving me a thumbs-up after every song.

4. Abigail and Juliet are really into playing Go Fish these days. All the time.

5. It's finally cold enough that the garden has died in the last couple of days. Last night I cut the last 10 butternut squash and Neil picked a huge bowl full of peppers. And the girls ate so many unripe tomatillos that I'm surprised they weren't sick afterwards (note: the tomatillo was not a success, as we never had enough warm weather for the 400 little tomatillos to ripen).

6. Abigail has decided she wants to be the Queen of the Night (from Mozart's The Magic Flute) for Halloween. Juliet is either going to be a pirate or Pocohantas.

7. We've decided to give my working at home (as an instructional designer) a try a few hours a week. So here is my new work schedule: 6 to 8 am. We'll see how it goes, but this morning at least it was really nice to be done with work early and not worry about having to do it during naptime or after the kids were in bed.

8. Last night we had family home evening about Joseph Smith. Whenever we asked a question, Abigail recited the pertinent D&C scripture story verbatim, right down to the inflection. Then she asked a whole bunch of questions that stumped me and I realized I need to prepare lessons way above where I think she's at, because that kid has things memorized backwards and forwards and is ready to dive into the whys and wherefores.

9. Speaking of Abigail, this is her half-birthday. I think we will have to have a little celebration of sorts this afternoon (although I'm tired and slightly dizzy enough that I may end up taking a nap...)

10. My mom sent me a French cookbook yesterday that is bigger than any book I currently own. I am really excited and I've already learned all sorts of things (like did you know you can make jam out of milk?)

3 months +5 days

oh boy! I am getting sooooo big!!

so is my hair.

and my cheeks.

Mommy adores me, especially since I slept from 8:26 p.m. until 4:45 a.m. last night.

I am just such a happy happy happy baby.

After all, this being-a-baby business is a pretty good deal when you're as happy-go-lucky and chubby as me!

ASME conference

image

A quick post here updating on Neil's research, since his hard work at research is a major part of our lives but doesn't always get the blog coverage it deserves!!

A couple of weeks ago Neil presented at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) conference, which is awesome because it's one of the major conferences in his field. His paper was published in the conference proceedings, which is also awesome. And after he gave his presentation and was speaking with the audience afterwards, one of the professors who came up to talk with him was someone whose work he had cited several times in the paper Neil published last year, AND this professor wanted to collaborate with him in the future!!! How awesome is that?! And as luck would have it, as they got to talking they realized that this particular professor was just beginning a sabbatical from his own university (in Italy), and coming to the US to work with Neil's advisor. Pretty nifty turn of events (plus the panel host also introduced Neil as "Dr. Neil [last name]," which was kind of cool, if not entirely accurate--yet.)

Speaking of Neil's advisor, he was the host of the conference, so Neil also got to spend a lot of behind-the-scenes time giving lab tours and the like. So while we missed him and were all very excited when he was finally back home again, it was a really neat experience both onstage and off. Yay, Neil!

would love this for my kids

My sister posted a Youtube video about a Chinese language immersion class her husband taught this summer for teeny little kids. Wouldn't you LOVE this for your kids? They also have Spanish and French classes. Kind of makes me wish we lived in Utah!

Then again, I suppose we could do French and Tagalog immersion here at home. That would be an interesting mishmash, judging from the "Frenlog" that the kids already speak.

ps stay tuned for some "I am three months old" Isaac pics later.

better things

1. My house is finally clean again for the first time this week. I do love that husband of mine, who said, "Make a list of everything that is bothering you, and we'll clean it all" (this list also included clean children, btw).

2. Isaac has the most adorable laugh. When I was undressing him tonight, I put him up in front of the mirror and he was so entranced by that roly-poly baby staring back at him. He gurgled and laughed and chortled for a good ten minutes.

3. Neil has hot chocolate waiting for me. And I am wearing his pajamas, because they make me feel small and dainty, which is especially important on a day that I never had time to exercise.

4. Abigail folded all the "kid laundry" today and Juliet folded all the dishtowels and washcloths. And then they put it away without being asked. That was really nice.

5. I am teaching myself how to poach eggs. It's a lot harder than you'd think. My guess is that the tasting panel is going to rebel about all the eggs in the near future.

6. I am really grateful for my parents and sisters. I love them all so much. I am especially grateful for the fact that despite adolescent drama, my mom and my sisters are my best friends now.

7. Despite what I yelled into the bathroom wall after Juliet used up her sixth pair of pants today, I really do love my life.

I need a break from e.n.d.l.e.s.s. loads of potty-training laundry, scrubbing marker off walls, washing expensive foundation out of my white bedding, breaking up fights, waking up every hour and a half to reinsert a pacifier, and having so many unexpected messes and catastrophes that I haven't been able to do any housework other than laundry or time-with-children other than reading stories to them while nursing.

What do you do when you have days/weeks/months like this? I'm burning out, really and truly. I do have a yoga class once a week, which gives me a blissful hour and a half of just being me, but last night when I came back home the status quo was such that I felt all my shavasana-induced peace desert me and flee in terror.

Anything that works for you to re-center yourself and keep focus on the little joys?

feelin' a bit Irish

On Friday night, Neil and I stayed up until about 1 am sanding down and priming an old wooden table that someone had given us two years ago. We've been working on removing all the stain, but finally realized that there was no way we'd get it out of all the crevices of the elaborately turned legs, so since we really need a bigger table we decided to just paint it.

Bright green (as ever, made more garish by the camera).

And apparently, Juliet had the same thought about herself when she woke up nice and early the next morning and thoughtfully decided to make herself breakfast rather than wake up her very tired parents. Sprinkles are awfully nutritious, right?

I have a gazillion pictures from this weekend--in addition to the table, we canned 21 quarts of applesauce and I have a huge vat of apple butter bubbling on the stove right now (no better smell exists!!). And we ate lots of yummy food and took fun walks and played board games. But posting is going to have to take a backseat to real life right now.

Hope your weekend was lovely!!

are you reading this one yet?

image via Little Green Notebook

just discovered a fabulous blog that is right up my DIY-dreaming alley, Little Green Notebook, via Say Yes to Hoboken (also a great blog--one of my favorite things about it is all the great links).

Here's what I really really like about Little Green Notebook--it not only shows you the before and after photos of the project, but gives step-by-steps on how to do it. Like this.

So this afternoon, I'm heading to the home improvement store to pick up a few new shades of paint, since I was inspired by this post. And I am excited (and hopefully I'll have some photos to post in the next week or so).

Have you ever painted furniture before? Any tips you'd like to share? And I'd really love to hear about any sources for design inspiration you have--I'm just now starting to feel like I can tackle all the projects I've had on hold for the last 12 months. I've been working on the girls' room sloooowly over the last year while I've been agonizing over my own.

So. Share your tips, advice, and links, please! And happy Friday! We spent the morning driving through the rain to an orchard, which was just about perfect. Loved the graveled country roads, the rain sheeting against the windshield, and the glorious fall colors, plus the two little voices singing along happily to The Magic Flute and Christmas with the Chipmunks ("Mommy, you know those aren't really chipmunks singing, right? Because I don't think chipmunks can sing.")

Today I've been drowned by so many lemons that there's no space to make lemonade.

I hope tomorrow is better.

wordless wednesday: chubby cheeks

just try to resist this little guy. I dare you.

today

got up, nursed Isaac while reading personal scriptures, ate breakfast while reading scriptures to the rest of the family, started the dishwasher, changed over the laundry, took Abigail to preschool, went to aerobics, went to the grocery store, nursed Isaac in the parking lot of the grocery store, changed Juliet's messy underwear in the car in the parking lot of the grocery store, realized the battery was dead in the car (from leaving keys in ignition while nursing), jumped the car, picked up Abigail from preschool, put away the groceries, changed Isaac's diaper, made the girls lunch, returned phone calls, talked to the department to confirm no early-AM classes available for next semester (translation: won't be teaching unless I decide I'm okay teaching a night class or a distance-learning course, which are only possible options for Neil's schedule, neither of which options I really like), put Isaac down for a nap, fed the girls lunch while unloading the dishwasher and folding 2 loads of laundry, put Juliet down for a nap, put away laundry, sat down to eat lunch and got a phone call from a client, ate lunch very quietly while talking, ended the call and heard Isaac crying, nursed Isaac, put Isaac down on floor to play with Abigail, finished storyboard for client, Juliet woke up 45 minutes early, changed Isaac's diaper, Isaac down for another nap, took a shower and put on makeup (finally!!), gave the kids a snack, sat down to write this post.

still have to: make 3 more phone calls, make dinner, take the kids for post-dinner playdate (getting together with a friend since our husbands are semi-permanently absent for the ASME conference), write a voiceover script for a storyboard and prep for a conference call with a new client tomorrow, clean the kitchen, read stories to the kids, and have some sort of meaningful playtime with the girls.

thinking that in another few years with another couple of kids I'll be looking back at this day as a piece of cake.