Fairy House

It all started with Sabrina ripping out a small clump of grass from our newly seeded lawn... the grass came out with the dirt attached and to all our eyes looked exactly like a fairy bed. So of course we had to make a fairy house to shelter the bed, and pluck a leaf of lamb's ear for a blanket, add a few rocks for fairies to sit on, and even make them a swing. They also have a straw floor, trees that are bare or nearly so since it's almost winter. Oh, and two giant pumpkins to decorate their front door and stone bird statues to protect them. I am so tempted to go out tonight and plant evidence of fairies having spent the night in there... maybe a tiny acorn hat left behind?

Halloween Playdate

I love organizing small parties for the girls. A party that is not a birthday party is always so much more relaxed. And Halloween is the perfect excuse to get some friends together. This was Sabrina's first party with kindergarten friends, so she was very excited to have them over to her house. We had gorgeous fall weather and spent most of the time outdoors. The biggest hit was bobbing for apple of course!

We have a formula for these little parties. It pretty much goes like this:

simple decorations
+
2 crafts
+
1 food decorating activity
+
1 game
+
some free play
+
3 snacks
+
lots of water bottles
+
small favors
=
2 hours of fun

In this case the formula translated into:

banner and pumpkins galore
+
ornament decorating and jewelry making
+
mini cupcake decorating with Halloween candy
+
bobbing for apples (it would have been toilet paper mummy wrapping had we been indoors)
+
cheese and crackers in caps, grapes in ghost tins and roasted pepitas
+
watter bottles
+
bubbles, stickers and Halloween pencils
=
2 hours of fun, lots of happy wet faces and some sweet sticky fingers

Raising Foodies Cooking Group 2--Belgian Steamed Mussels

Even though it technically does not qualify as a new recipe for us, I really wanted to make Belgian Steamed Mussels this weekend and share it with the group. I haven't made it in over a year, so I think it counts since I'm reintroducing it into our repertoire of recipes. Also, for the record, I've been very inspired by all the great recipes the group has made and have tried several new dishes in the past week so don't feel at all that I'm cheating!

This is an easy but impressive dish that we love even more because french fries dipped in a mayo and mustard sauce are the perfect side dish to it. Also, we love that you must have lots of bread with it to dip in the broth. A Stella Artois won't hurt either. Children can stick to soda water mixed with grenadine.

I know a lot of people might be gasping that my young children eat mussels. Not only do they eat them, they love them. I wanted to kick off the weekend with a festive meal, and to the four of us there are few things more festive than seafood. Put something in a shell on our plate and we're ready to party. And one of my cooking goals is not only to nourish my family well and expose them to new foods while having fun and being creative myself, but also to bring a sense of festivity to our meals that is sometimes painfully absent.

It's true. Too often we rush through the cooking, Patrick eats while loosening his tie, the girls bicker and immediately want to be excused, I shush them and pick up random bits of food from the floor and hope for someone to tell me what a great meal I've made. Patrick and I desperately try to have a conversation or at least get the girls to converse with us. The phone rings, the water spills, we say a quick blessing, encourage a few more bites, someone cries, we start picking up and then it's over. It's not always like this, but it is like this too often for my taste.

It's my theory that for this very reason we escape to restaurants so often, because we get to sit for an hour or two and enjoy each other while relaxing in a way we just don't at home. It's kind of sad.

But what if we could have that same experience at our table and make our own home the destination of choice? Of course it takes planning and a certain type of meal, but I've decided that on weekends I will make an extra effort to find those meals that just say "party" to us. It's different for every family. To this day, waking up to the smell of paella being prepared for Sunday lunch by my parents will make my sister, brother and I giddier than Mimosas for brunch.

I'm curious, what are your family's festive foods?

I photographed the recipe from the Everyone Eats Well in Belgium Cookbook, which I got the year we got married... which happened to be in Belgium. Come to think of it, the fact that we got married in Belgium is probably the reason we love this recipe so much.

Cute Little Yarn Apples

With apples on the brain how could I resist this adorable craft? So simple (even CC could do the winding part), so cute (even Patrick keeps saying so), and so addictive (I kept sneaking in another now and then but got caught by Sabrina--hey, are making an apple without me?). And it's the perfect excuse to buy a bunch of colorful yard for fun projects, though we may just use it all up on apples because Sabrina and I agreed we'd aim to fill a whole basket (the one in the corner there), just because. Then maybe we'll give some away. For now we've been playing toss the apples in the basket and jump over the apples and juggle the apples, all little games invented by the girls.

Go get your yarn... you know you want to!

Starting an Apple Orchard

A few hours spent at Gulf Branch nature center near our home learning about apples and planting apple trees seemed exactly what we needed to get us in an appropriately autumnal state of mind.

We tasted many different apples and decided on a few favorites to add to the Fuji, which we usually reach for first: Honeycrisp for me and Jonagold for Sabrina. We learned a lot of little facts about apples and got to make cider, which tasted glorious.

Best of all, we got to plant dwarf apple trees to help start an apple orchard. Sabrina was a really hard worker, digging in right there with the 12-year old boys and patting and stomping away to secure the trees in place. Soon, we'll go back to visit "our trees," as Sabrina put it. I don't know, after this experience I can see how some dwarf apple trees just outside our kitchen door would be a lovely thing.

I'm curious, do you have apple trees or any other fruit trees in your garden?

Raising Foodies Cooking Group 1--Shrimp Fried Rice

Shrimp Fried Rice was our first dinner for the Raising Foodies Cooking Group, and it was a winner. The girls love Chinese and Thai fried rice, so I was pretty sure that if I could get the recipe right they would enjoy this dish from Everyday Food. For some reason cooking ethnic foods intimidates me so this was a big step in expanding my repertoire.

I was also attracted to the all-in-one aspect of course. With lots of carrots, shrimp and egg, this dish has all the protein and veggies I look for in dinner. However, next time I may replace the basmati rice with brown basmati rice and perhaps add some peas to the carrots for more color and extra vegetables.

This was easy to make even with a number of different cooking steps, taking about 30 minutes as the magazine promised.

In my excitement over cooking something brand new I forgot to think about setting the table. Next time I'll plan ahead and make things a little more special with chopsticks and orange slices and fortune cookies for dessert, just like at the Chinese restaurant we love. Maybe even play some Chinese "fairy" music as the girls call it, to make dinner more festive. Festive is definitely what I'm going for when I think of ways to enhance our family's dinnertime.

Instead of typing in the whole recipe, I've taken a picture of it. You can click on the photo to see a larger version and read it.

Mama's Cooking

Back to school means getting back into a routine, which for me has meant, in great part, getting my cooking act together. All summer long we ate well but whimsically. Lots of travel meant lots of eating out. Lots of visiting with family meant lots less cooking for me. Grilling also took me off the hook because Patrick handles that. Once a week we dined at the pool, and weekends were an endless stream of restaurants. I had it pretty good there for a while.

But for the last few weeks I feel like everything has been about food. As in me being responsible for food. And the adjustment has not been easy. Planning, buying, cooking, cleaning. I wake to make lunches and follow that with breakfast. As soon as I clean up it's time to start thinking about dinner. Then, three weekdays out of five CC and I are both home, so we eat lunch. The afternoon brings requests for snacks, more cleaning up, dinner, and still more cleaning. This can all get pretty boring pretty fast, though it's nothing a little zen thinking and organization can't help. Now breakfasts, snacks and lunches are pretty fun and even varied.

Still, I needed to up it a notch and make dinners more fun for myself and for my family. We had fallen into a rut of making the same four things over and over again, and while everyone was eating the Pan fried Salmon, Pasta Bolognese, Lemony Chicken and London Broil with whatever vegetable I happened to have on hand, we were all getting bored of cooking and eating the same stuff.

Time to get inspired. I had several things going in my favor. I love fall and find the cooler weather totally inspires me to cook. I have adventurous eaters, so my efforts are usually rewarded. I totally believe that feeding my children well is my duty and privilege as well as an expression of my love, really a kind of replacement for breastfeeding, which I still sometimes miss. I have a little more free time now that CC's in preschool and Sabrina is in full day kindergarten. Finally, I dig the praise I get from Patrick for a good meal... let's face it, it's pretty much the only part of my homemaking efforts that really gets his attention!

Perfect timing then to join Joslyn's Raising Foodies Cooking Group, in which once a week for members will try new recipes and write about them. I've looked through several years' worth of Everyday Food and many cookbooks and selected about 50 recipes I want to try before the end of the year, including some baked goods and fun snacks. I like nothing more than a structured way to be creative and challenged, so this should be fun for all.

The Making of Villa Villekulla

One of the things we wanted to do this summer was make Villa Villekula, that magical, wonderful, whimsical house belonging to the equally wonderful Pippi Longstocking.

Finally the right materials came our way in the form of a stack of white boxes. We watched scenes from the movie to get a better idea of the color scheme, bought big bottles of paint and inexpensive brushes and got to work.

It took about a week to complete as we built the house, cut the doors and windows, worked on one color at a time, added little embellishments like the flower prints and swirls in the paint. Every step of the way was great fun. Truly, from puzzling together our boxes to drawing the windows, painting the walls and shutters, hiding inside (both girls fit), perching Pippi on the roof, and drawing a whole cast of characters to play with, the house has been one of the funnest projects of the season.

I love how this project was informed and inspired by so many other things we've enjoyed this year--the Pippi Longstocking book, the classic movie, the Astrid Lindgren house we visited in Stockholm, the action figures bought at a classic toystore in Sweden. And I also love that it was a collaboration between all of us, with Sabrina leading the way as she usually does when it comes to creative projects. Another cardboard box success.

Summer Reading

This is our third summer completing the local library reading program, and if someone had told me two years ago that Sabrina would be completing her list on her own this time around and actually reading, not just words, but entire books, I would not have believed it. Reading, after speaking, seems nothing short of a miracle when I watch my own children learn to do it. Between CC's increasingly articulate speech and Sabrina's reading skills I sometimes feel that half my work is done here.

We took advantage of the rainy morning to complete our forms and claim our prizes at the library--a gold harmonica for Sabrina and a blue one for CC.

Picking Berries

Few things get Sabrina more excited than the idea of collecting her own fruit. She's always picking and eating the crabapples from our garden, no matter how tart. So we went berry picking at Butler's Orchard in Maryland. And here we had juicy blackberries coming into their sweetness and end-of-the-season blueberries just scattered enough to make the picking a challenge. Sabrina harvested (the blueberries hitting her pail sounded just like the caplucks from Blueberries for Sal) and CC ate, so many berries I had to confess at checkout that we should probably be paying for an extra pound. But tasting is encouraged, I was told.

It was a hot morning and since I really had no plan for our berries other than enjoying them for breakfast and snacks, we took it easy and came home with just three pounds of berries. But I would love to go back on a cooler day to gather more for making jams and preserves.

The same orchard also grows raspberries and flowers, for which we'll have to return later in the summer. And in the fall, apples and pumpkins, oh yes. We're already getting excited.

Lake Anne

Here are the ingredients for a perfect summer morning. Keep Sabrina home from day camp. Make waffles from scratch and serve them with berries and bacon. Drive to Lake Anne, a spot just far away enough to feel special and close enough for me to go alone with the girls. Have lunch at a little lakeside cafe with a child-sized counter and stools. Get ice cream and dip our feet in the fountain. Look for treasures in the used bookstore. Drive back home in time for naps.

This was last week, and that day while the girls napped I canceled this week's camp so we can fill our mornings with more such adventures.

Pollock Art

One of the items on Sabrina's summer list was to make Pollock-inspired art. So here she is, abandoned in her work. The legs are the real art here, I think. She went straight into the bathtub after this.

The Summer List

We've been back from our trip for a while now... 10 days or so actually. I've been taking it easy and trying to stay in the nice quiet relaxed mood I adopted during the two weeks I was at beach with the girls. I did not once get on a computer or drive a car or make a list. And it was nice! I will surely go back and update the blog with pictures and reflections from the wonderful things we experienced, but for now... well, let's stay in the now.

The nice thing about taking our big trip early in the summer is that we still have a lot of summer left. I like to be organized about things, but this summer, rather than a routine or schedule, I really wanted to make a list of things we wanted to do and do them as the mood strikes. I wanted to make the list fun and tangible for the girls, not just my own boring computer list. So a few days after landing back home we worked on this little book of summer things to do.

First, I asked both girls to paint some summery watercolors on large sheets of paper. While their paintings dried we brainstormed about all the fun things we want to do this summer. After the paintings were dry I cut them into circles and then wrote each fun thing we want to do on one circle. Initially we thought we'd make a garland with the circles, but then I decided a little notebook would be so much handier and more fun since we can add to it as we come up with new ideas, and also, if we wish, take circles out as we do the activities.

Some of the items in the booklet: Pick berries, make fruit cakes, learn how to swim, make a treasure box covered in seashells, make Pollock art, have a picnic, complete the library reading program, make Pippi Longstocking's house (this of course inspired by our trip to Sweden and a Pippi doll we got there), read Alice in Wonderland, make sunprints, have a fireworks show (we missed 4th of July!), and go fishing.

Flying Away

We leave this evening for Europe and will be gone for nearly a month. As tends to happen, despite my best intentions of packing light and keeping cool I've been packing and repacking, shopping in excess, preparing for all eventualities and generally working myself into a frenzy this week. But with a wedding and visits to Madrid, the beach, Stockholm and the Swedish countryside, I had to be super careful about what I decided to bring.

Now, with just a few hours to spare, I'm definitely ready. Backpack full of diapers and snacks and doodads for the 8-hour flight. Suitcases filled with small gifts and well-edited outfits. Some room to spare for goodies I intend to bring back.

I'm excited to get away for a while, and frankly look forward to the break from our routine more than I ever did when I worked outside the home. I'm also looking forward to seeing Europe through different eyes. My children's eyes, my own more seasoned parent's eyes. Two years ago when we were there I was not as interested as I am now in the world of children. I was a relatively inexperienced mom, still eager to reclaim my days of long hours on the beach and late nights on the town. My view is so radically different now as I wander the world with my little clan, and my idea of a good time so much more pure in a way. I wonder how Europe will hold up.

I leave you with a collage of Sabrina's, something she whipped up while I packed. The child is beyond thrilled to be flying so far. This might be the first European trip she really remembers. May it be worthy.

Wishing you all a wonderful start to the summer. See you in a about a month!

Learning Together with Mandalas

I've noticed that the girls take a lot of interest in everything I do lately. Maybe it's because Sabrina is getting older and is more aware of being a girl, or maybe it's because we're together so much. But they both love my clothes, my books, my art materials, what I eat, the music I listen to, even my piles of paper hold mystery and wonders for them. Everything I do is fascinating.

So the other day when I returned from a workshop about creativity and meditation with my first mandala, they were all over it. Sabrina wanted to know what it was, how I had done it, what kinds of markers I had used. CC kept exclaiming that it was pretty. The following morning I found some mandalas online for us all to color, and next thing you know Sabrina drew her very first mandala too.

I love moving through this world together like this, sharing our interests and discoveries. It feels very natural and special to learn as a family. All through the school year we kind of followed Sabrina's preschool curriculum--when the class was learning about the rain forest, we got into it as a family. Castles and fairy tales took over our days for a while as Sabrina created costumes and prepared Medieval feasts at school.

Now with the summer days wide open and my children looking to me for inspiration, I realize I have an opportunity to select new things, guide us in the direction of my own interests and passions that often seem to be reserved for my me time. But why only focus on them during those times when I'm alone? It's a huge relief to just give in and realize that while alone time is rare and hard to come by, I can have me time all day long if I wish, it'll just be with my two most precious people around, which really is not a bad deal now is it?