Right Now

Right now, I'm loving...

...suddenly noticing how much my babies are growing

...baby games...

...blended seamlessly with toddler games

 

...another chance to use the fireplace

With a sudden, chilly blast of winter weather, we are enjoying a more intense focus on the home, and a chance to give some neglected spaces and projects the attention they deserve. Stay warm on this Monday the Thirteenth!

Henny Spaghetti

Hoping everyone is having a great weekend... we are... a great, messy weekend!

Chocolate for Dinner

A growing tradition for me and the kiddos is to have breakfast for dinner when Daddy's not home to eat with us. More specifically, pancakes for dinner. If it were up to me, quite frankly, pancakes would have their own food group. They are one of my all-time favorite foods. I have a master recipe I follow most of the time, but tonight we went a little wild and made chocolate pancakes. I didn't use much of a recipe, so I wanted to jump on here and jot it all down before I forgot... we'll be wanting these again real soon!

Chocolate Pancakes

1/2 C rye flour

1/2 C whole wheat pastry flour

1/4 C buckwheat flour

1/4 C coconut flour*

~1/4 C cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 C fat-free milk

1 C light sour cream

2 generous TBS honey

2 large eggs

2 TBS melted coconut oil*

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat pan/griddle to 350 degrees (medium heat). Mix dry in large bowl, wet in smaller bowl, and add wet to dry, stirring just until combined (lumps are OK). Lightly spray hot griddle with non-stick spray, then *carefully* wipe it off with a clean, dry wash cloth. Pour batter in 1/4-C scoops onto griddle, cook until bubbles form, pop, and remain (they don't get filled in immediately), and flip. Cook about 60 more seconds, then remove to a plate and cover til all batter used. Serve warm with butter! (if I weren't serving these to my Littles, I would have added dark chocolate chips, too, because that would have been AWESOME)

These turn out very light, with a soft, cake-like center that is almost creamy, but not in a gross under-cooked sense of the word. They're amazing. I hope you try them... we will certainly be trying them again! This recipe made about 16 or 18 pancakes.

*Note: if you don't have coconut flour, or you're not interested in trying it, you can just leave it out and reduce the milk to 1 cup. Also, if you don't have coconut oil or want to avoid it because of it's strong flavor, you can sub any other oil- veg, canola, melted butter... just don't do olive oil!

So Far This Week...

 

So far this week, we have...

...made homemade chicken stock twice, once in a dish with tasty results, and the second time with a dish that will definitely need tweaking for next time.
...cooked and baked even more with coconut oil (easily my newest culinary obsession... seriously, this stuff is amazing).
...played outside, despite the chill (because we all know the chill in these parts is a fickle thing).
...schemed even more about the other, more neglected flower bed between the porch and the house (hello, fruit-bearing landscaping!).
...taken a trip to the thrift store with fruitful and frugal results, including a couple new books, some discarded hand-made wooden toys, and an adorable vintage pillowcase that has already become Audrey's latest- and best so far, I do declare- pillowcase dress (details coming!).
...given in to the spring cleaning urge, just a tiny little bit, and started reorganizing a few things here and there.
...cast off long-overdue projects, and cast on projects even more overdue (I really hope I can finish this hat before Henny outgrows it!).
...made a little more progress in shaping up the garden beds for a few more of the earliest seeds and bulbs.
...finally caught Baby Bubba on video jamming out to some Gillian Welch!

It has been a full week, and it's still just Thursday! We also find ourselves, amidst the simultaneous projects and play, looking forward to what the weekend holds. Hoping your days have been full and fulfilling so far this week, too.

Time Spent in the Garden Space

I am so thankful that Henry's naps still span a substantial amount of time.

Despite the return of quasi-normal weather for this time and these parts, I'm still feeling that getup and go when I look out on our garden beds... honestly, not all of them are sleeping like they should be, and because our seasons were so willy-nilly, I didn't winter any of the beds in the hopes that I could squeeze just one more carrot, bunch of chard, or head of lettuce out of 'em. Knowing that they were denied the attention they deserved brings up a little guilt with my longing glances out the kitchen windows, too.

SO, bright and early, we wrapped up in grubby layers and dug in!

 

Over the weekend, I had procured a half-yard of compost from our most lovely local nursery (our compost bin only produces about enough compost for 1/4 of the garden every six months or so, so we supplement). 

There's nothing better than looking out on the dull grayish-brown of a winter garden and seeing rich black piles of compost resting tantalizingly on top. Well, it might be second to the look of a garden that's actually full of growing things... but it's a close second. 

Now... what to do with all this good stuff? Why, mix it in and plant stuff in it, of course! In our area, we can start planting things like onion bulbs, beets, and carrots as early as February. I know it seems early, but we moved quickly last year, too, and didn't regret it for a second with how fiercely and intensely summer set upon us! 

Aaaaaand that's where the morning found us yesterday- before Henny's early nap was even half over, we were shoveling, hoeing, and poking "littletiny baby onions (as Audrey says)" and beet seeds into the ground. We were also-

- learning about the seasons

- learning about the life cycles of grub worms (sigh)

- listening to and identifying bird calls

- working on following directions and cooperation

- talking about the difference between morning, afternoon, and evening as we watched the sun come up over the hills around our house

Oh, how we love our garden space, and the time spent together in it!

Right Now

Right now, I'm loving...

...dinners with veggies from the backyard... still

 ...early morning Bubby-Sissy stories

...Henny's recent obsession with feeding himself at the highchair and with the bottle

...blurry diner time chases

This weekend went by in it's own blur, but it was precious, despite its speed of passing. As we launch into the week, we welcome a little more appropriate seasonal weather, and another chance to slow down and savor these sweet little moments- the perfect antidote to the swiftness of flying time. Happy Monday.

Welcome to the Sandbox!

This unusually warm winter has kept a pressing issue at the forefronts of our minds and the top of the to-do list: the upstairs air conditioner. In the late summer, it went kaput, and even through the stuffy early autumn we had to struggle to put sweaty babies to bed with stale air stagnant between their walls.

It was finally time to do something about it. Quite frankly, we have already replaced almost everything that could be replaced on the darned thing, but the big, heavy, hard-to-reach part actually inside- up in the attic- was what was left, and that's what was marked to go. The guys who came to do the swap were hard at work from about 9:30am to almost 5pm, but when they drove away, everything was fixed. Hallelujah!

The challenge for me throughout the day was to keep the babies both contained and entertained without the playroom (the center of the repair work), the use of anything in their rooms (including their beds, buh), or any baby gates. These restrictions led to some out-of-the-box thinking, which led to some in-the-box playtime... and Henny's first taste of sand!

 

The 45 minutes spent digging, squishing, and tasting- bleh- resulted in another 30 minutes in the bathtub for both kiddos, but that was fine for this Mama; thank you sand box and bathtub for keeping my babies entertained and contained! I'm sure we'll have to repeat this adventure many more times in the future, even if the playroom and baby gates can once again be used. Welcome to the sandbox, Henny!