Smoothie recipes

I'm discovering that when cooking, some items require me to use a recipe. Take smoothies for instance. I can make the standard yogurt-strawberry- banana-orange juice smoothie without fail but as I venture into different fruit combinations it's not as easy as it seems.

Today I tried doing a peach blueberry smoothie using plain yogurt as the base. I added a dash of oj, some honey to sweeten and some ground flax seeds for extra nutritional oomph. Clive drank it down excitedly but Chloe was less than enthusiastic about my impromptu concoction and only drank 1/3 of her glass.

I'm convinced now that I must stick to a recipe when it comes to smoothie blending. Some fruits go nicely together while others aren't sweet enough or don't compliment each other well. I made a yucky pineapple kiwi coconut smoothie once that was awful!

The key might be in the ratios . . . I tend to overdo it on the plain yogurt and then I end up dumping in way too much honey to offset the yogurty taste.

I love the ease and accessibility of summer fruits for smoothie making. Help! Any smoothie tips or winning recipes for me?

Sunday night traditions

The quietness of a Sunday afternoon is waning. The clock reminds me that naptime is ending and soon clamoring hungry children will be underfoot.

Thankfully, our little family has continued my in-laws' Sunday night meal tradition of eggs and potatoes. Delicious and easy to prepare.

We don't regularly attend our church's Sunday evening service so there's no rush. Still it's stress-relieving to realize I've got a simple supper prep ahead. Ah.

Do you and your family practice any regular Sunday night traditions?

Picking up a Mexican accent

My dear mother-in-law is a native of Mexico. She's fluent in both Spanish and English. And she makes the absolute tastiest and roundest tortillas I've ever seen! By contrast, my tortillas usually end up looking like amoebas or the outlines of third-world countries.

Since I know Spanish (I should say I knew Spanish -- I've not used it much in the last 5 years and my knowledge is quickly vanishing), the more I'm around my mother-in-law, the more I find myself easily picking up her accent and expressions.

Last night while competing in our annual tourney of Eurorails I heard myself using my mom-in-law's signature phrases and even copying her exact tone of voice!

I'm certain the explanation for my parroting is due to our proximity this last week. My mom-in-law has been my companion in the car, on walks, and in the kitchen as we prepare meals.

Have you ever fallen prey to this speech-copying phenomenon?

Enjoying my in-laws

Matt's folks arrived Saturday afternoon and we are having a ball! I'm not saying that tongue in cheek either. We all look forward to their annual visit each summer. It's especially fun for them to see the immense developmental, physical, and verbal changes in our kids since the previous summer.

Chloe bounces around the house excitedly and snuggles up to Buelita (my mom-in-law's nickname) any chance she can. And my little Clive has taken an immediate liking to Gramps, his namesake.

We usually fill our time with games, walks, puzzles, trips to the park, thrift store shopping, house projects, and short movies in the evening.

My in-laws are incredibly sweet, gracious, and helpful people. I hope the days go by slowly so we can soak their presence up fully!

How often do you get to see your parents and in-laws?

Chloe's first ballet lesson

Today as I sat on the sidelines and watched Chloe plie, point her toes, and attempt an arabesque in her first ballet lesson, I was slapped in the face with how quickly her little life is progressing. Something about observing her out there by herself, functioning independently, and thriving in the midst of the class made me see her in a new light.

How could the baby that I held in my arms so recently now be this darling girl prancing around in pink ballet slippers?

I am unspeakably proud of her. I was radiating joy as I watched, a perpetual smile spread on my happy face.

Aside from my inherent mommy bias, Chloe truly did a fabulous job. She listened well and followed the teacher's instructions carefully. The other moms even asked me if Chloe had been in dance class before. Nope! She's just an obedient and respectful little girl (most of the time). And we've worked (and continue working) VERY hard at cultivating those traits in her.



The trite saying is true. These babies really do grow up too fast.

In need of physical "white space"

Recently I spent an evening in a friend's home. Her home was peaceful, calm and inviting. The house was clean, thoughtfully decorated, and uncluttered.

In stark contrast my home is filled to the hilt with stuff. Because we have a small home with little built in storage (i.e. no first floor closets) we often use that as an excuse to put things everywhere and anywhere. In reality, we have lots of space; it's just poorly used.

In seeing my friend's living area, I've finally pinpointed what our home needs - white space. You know what I mean, like the border of white margin around a typed sheet of paper. As white space is easy on the eyes, so I think strategic empty spaces in a home are soothing and calm-inducing.

Granted I have not forgotten that we have two small children who are experts at creating messes. I'm not referring to their playspace here. Obviously many areas of our home will be unavoidably messy throughout the day as the kids use their creative energies in play.

This afternoon I'm attempting to look at my home with a new reorganizing perspective in mind. Trying to rethink our current systems and come up with some better more efficient ones.

My initial thought is that we own way too much stuff! Several items we keep in drawers or cupboards have gone unused for months or even years. Why am I holding on to this stuff? So that I can have an actual gravy boat for the theoretical Thanksgiving I might host 5 years from now? (Sorry gravy boat, your days are numbered.)

Picture frames are also getting the axe. While I love being surrounded by photos of family and loved ones, we just do not have the shelf space to house them.

I'm sure this is the beginning of a lengthy process. How do you fight the clutter in your home? Any unique ideas you can give me would be much appreciated!

Sharing a room experiment

Tonight our family embarks upon a big transition. Tonight Chloe and Clive are sharing a room for the first time.

Though our small home does indeed have three bedrooms making it possible for Chloe and Clive to have separate rooms, things get shuffled around when overnight guests arrive. And guests will be arriving shortly! My in-laws are coming this Saturday for their annual 2-3 week stay.

Usually Clive gets moved to our room or vice versa but that does NOT go well for anyone. Clive's old enough now to know we're present in the room and that disrupts both his sleep and ours. And this mama needs her sleep!

So, the siblings are in the same room tonight. The new roomies talked, laughed, and sang until 10 p.m. tonight (WAY past their bedtimes). Other than that all has gone smoothly.

Any tips for us as we continue on this new room-sharing venture?

The lengths I will go to for free food

Oh yes, I will most definitely dress myself and my children up like cows in order to get free food.

To show appreciation to their loyal customers, on Friday Chick Fil-A offered free meals to patrons dressed like their cow mascot. I hastily cut up an old white sheet Thursday night, glued on black fabric spots, affixed makeshift cowtails with safety pins, cut out construction paper cow ears and voila! The kids looked adorable and had an absolute ball dressing up like bovines.

Did I mention we got free food? Score!

We dragged some friends into this year's festivities. They were great sports and jumped right into the craziness. :) Chloe and her friend Grace kept saying, "Happy chicken nugget day!" My darling calf Clive mooed cutely for the onlookers.

Did any of you participate in Chick Fil-A's annual dress-like-a-cow event on Friday? Or am I the only crazy one?

Boys and toys

My husband Matt is a treasure. He's dear to me for lots of reasons but especially because of his lovable quirks.

Matt is a genius in several ways (thinking, writing, inventing, and creative problem solving to name a few) but he's also a fun-spirited little boy at heart. It's been incredibly rich to watch Matt so fully enjoying the kids and our family life together. He is a perfect blend of silliness, sweetness, and seriousness. (And no, I did not plan to alliterate that last sentence.)

Now, I grew up in a female-only home so as Clive grows into boyness it's a completely foreign world for me. Trucks, balls, and dirt were not high on my play list growing up. That said, I don't get the fascination with motor vehicles. Matt obviously does though . . .

Matt's latest much-needed distraction from writing his dissertation has been the electric race track. It all began a few weekends ago when we happened upon a humongous yard sale during an after-supper walk. It was as though Matt was magnetically drawn to the box of miscellaneous track pieces and wiring. Matt snatched up the track pieces for $2 with ambition and schemes for the race course already speeding in his mind.

Long story short the yard sale race track was not ideal. Even after Matt's expert tinkering it didn't work properly. So, he scraped it and bought a $10 race track set from the drug store.

The look of happiness on Clive's face when he got to race was priceless! In all the pictures I snapped Clive has his mouth completely agape with joy as the cars whiz by on the race track.

That's $10 very well spent.

What toys are your boys infatuated with right now?

The mom bob

For ages I've had the same long mangy hair style. My hair USED to be shiny, healthy, and thick. Thanks to hormone changes from two pregnancies and thyroiditis my once lovely hair is frizzy and tangled looking.

Adding to the problem is the fact that I never take the time to actually style my hair. Sundays I aim to blow-dry and curl my hair. But even then it doesn't often happen.

My usual look is to throw up my hair in a ponytail or twist it around and put in a 90's style claw clip thingy. I'm afraid my hair style screams "harried-barely-holding-it-together-enough-to-shower mom".

While I LOVE the look of neatly styled long hair, my hair did not fit that description. Desperate for a drastic change, I got six inches chopped off at a local beauty school. I liked it for all of one day and then it was back to sloppy ponytails. The beauty school student merely chopped -- she offered no style or suggestions. Even after getting that much length cut off my hair shape looked the same! Arrggh. Even my friends didn't notice that I'd gotten my hair cut. That's bad. When my perceptive detail-oriented mom pals didn't see a difference then I knew my hair cut had gone wrong.

Tonight I impulsively jumped into the car after supper and stopped at Great Clips. And voila! Dawn, the fabulous Great Clips stylist, cut off four more inches of hair and gave me a subtly angled bob. That Dawn did a fantastic job!

So, I've joined ranks of American moms everywhere and succumbed to the mom bob. I don't care if I'm a conformist, I love this hair cut! Already the cut is proving to be easy, healthy-looking, and fun. I feel younger already. :)

What mommy hair style do you prefer?
















(Chloe insisted on tagging along and taking photos of the hair cut. Not bad for an almost-4 year old. Of course Chloe took about 10 pictures of the floor and the hairspray bottles before she snapped these keepers.)

How do you bring a little one to the fireworks?

Last year we took both kiddos to see a local fireworks display. Of course Chloe was buoyed through the lateness of the night by the promised excitement of seeing fireworks. Clive was only 6 months old last summer and was a veritable wreck by the time the fireworks began. And the loud banging and popping of the display didn't help his mood!

This year, Clive is 18 mos. old and would probably be able to handle the super late bedtime. BUT he's also sick and has been struggling through a runny nose and cough. Plus he's been extra snuggly.

Hence, we decided that this year Clive needs to stay home and forgo the fourth of July light-show. And Matt gladly volunteered to stay home too. (Matt can't stand the crowds and traffic jams that accompany big community events.)

This whole process got me wondering . . . how do you survive special late-night activities with little bambinos? Do you schedule naps differently or just go with the flow and recover the next day?

Whatever you and your family end up doing, hope you enjoy a super spectacular fourth of July weekend!

Summer Reading Program

I have fond memories of participating in and volunteering for my library's annual summer reading program. What a blast! As a kid I loved reading and it was especially thrilling for me to chart my progress and earn prizes. Since I never succeeded at sports, it was neat for me to excel in my own area.

Now both Chloe and Clive are enrolled in our library's reading programs even though neither of them can actually read. :) Funny, eh? They should title it a "Summer Listening Program" for preschool aged kiddos.

It's been especially fun to see Clive's interest in books grow. He's always been more into busy active playing but now that I've gotten books that pique his interest (i.e. trucks, machines, baby faces, farm animals, touch and feel books) he's constantly bringing me books and signing "please" for me to read to him.

And Chloe's filling in her reading chart fast! Since we were away on vacation we had to do some extra reading this week to catch up. We read for an hour and a half the other day! Not all in one sitting thankfully. I think I deserve a prize for all that reading out loud.

My only complaint with the summer program is regarding the prizes. I know our library works hard to get local businesses to donate free stuff and coupons but I'm slightly disappointed. I had hoped the prizes would be focused on books and reading. Instead Chloe's netted coupons for several free ice cream cones and McD's happy meals. Yuck. While I'm all for an occassional ice cream cone I don't like the message sent about rewards and motivation. How hard would it be to give away books, kids' magazines, school supplies, learning-related toys or activity books?

Do you and your kiddos participate in any summer reading programs? What are your library's prizes like?

Chloe's Violin and Vocal Stylings

Last night after supper Chloe held a concert for us. She "played" her toy violin and sang for our listening pleasure. :) Clive obviously enjoyed the music too as evidenced by his head-bopping and applause.

Ah, these are the days, my friend. Too soon these sweet memories will seem distant.

Hello out there!

Well, we are finally back from our lengthy visit to Wisconsin. Whew! We had an extremely fun time but we're glad to be home.

We've been home now almost a week and we're finally unpacked and back to mostly normal routines and sleep habits.

Check out pictures of part of our trip here. I'm ashamed to admit that 5 days into the trip I stopped taking photos. It was too hard to remember to snap pictures amidst the whirlwind of activity!

How about you? Any summer trips or special activities lined up?

On the road again

Later this evening we'll be transferring two sleeping children to the fire-engine-red Chevy HHR we rented for our big road trip to Wisconsin.

We're all packed and ready to go! Just have some peripheral stuff to throw into bags and load into the car.

We decided a while ago that driving through the night was our only option to maintain sanity while traveling with two kids. Chloe would be fine but it's the over-active Clive that would cause problems for a daytime journey. Goodness, he can't even last for a 45 minutes home from church much less for the 9-10 hour drive from Ohio to Wisconsin.

So, if you're up to read this -- pray for our safe travels as we drive through the night. I'll do my best to blog a bit while we're away. Later, alligators!

A teaser for the grammas

Grammas (and Shauna), this video clip is for you. This happy smiley boy is coming out to see you VERY soon!

In frantic preparation mode

Our little family is about to embark on a 9 hour road trip. Eek!

We're headed to my homeland, Wisconsin, to visit my mom, grandma and old pals in the Milwaukee area. I'm unspeakably excited!!!!

Needless to say, I'm in crazy preparation mode. I have several to-do lists and I keep jotting down more thoughts as they pop into my head. I wish I could be more systematic in my prepping and packing. Instead I'm running frenetically from one task to another and talking to myself lest I forget what I'm doing.

I know I don't have to remember every possible thing; it's not like we'll be stranded in a desert wasteland. I can always run out and purchase something we need. But I ABHOR wasting money in that fashion. When I am forced to purchase an item on the spot I get stuck with a horribly high price for said necessity. I cringe just thinking about the pain of overpaying!

Help me out. What items are usually overlooked and forgotten in your vacation planning?

Unlikely car blasting music

On our way home from a fabulous Target shopping trip tonight, Chloe and I waited at a crowded intersection for the light to turn green.

As is usually the case during the warm summer months, we often hear neighboring car radios blaring their chosen music. Typically I ignore the noise but tonight I erupted in smiles as I started singing along to the very loud music coming from the black sedan next to us in the roadway.

The driver of the car was singing along happily as he blasted the surrounding airwaves with "Do a Deer" from the beloved musical, The Sound of Music.

How refreshing, fun-spirited and joy-inducing! Here's hoping others follow in his musical-blaring footsteps. :)

Our car radio doesn't even work but if it did my number one blasting music of choice is the oldie, "Buttercup". Can't you just hear the lyrics, "Why do you build me up? Buttercup baby just to let me down? And mess me around . . . "

What music do you choose when the car windows are rolled down on a summer evening?

A stand-off with a 17 mos. old?

For awhile now we've noticed that Clive is a much fiestier toddler than Chloe ever was. Fiestier meaning he's super stubborn and vocal about it. He's done his share of whining and has already earned himself heinie-discipline.

Last night Clive made his stand at the dinner table. I usually serve a main dish along with some kind of bread, fruit and veggies. Clive is most assuredly a fruit and bread man. Last night he saw the muffins and the fruit on the table and he REFUSED to eat his main dish (a yummy bowl of turkey tetrazzini).

We tried spoonful after spoonful and he obstinately kept his mouth shut and vehemently shook his head "no". We explained that he couldn't have a muffin until he ate some of his food. He cried and cried and cried and still would not open his mouth for a spoonful of tetrazzini.

For what seemed like ages, Matt and I repeated our instructions to Clive that he needed to eat one spoonful before getting to partake in muffin bliss. The rest of us finished our dinner while Clive cried intermittently before finally calming down.

We regathered at the table to read a devotional story and Clive decided to try a bite of the turkey tetrazzini. We applauded him loudly and praised him profusely for eating his dinner. By the time the story was over, he had cleaned his bowl.

Matt stood firm and was not about to lose the dinner-fight with Clive. I was so surprised that such a young kiddo would exhibit such a strong will over a spoonful of food! And I'm so glad we won round one. Parents 1, Clive 0.

Have you all experienced this same kind of dinner-table-stubbornness? How do you handle it? Any tips are welcome! Is it just my imagination, or is this rather young for a kiddo to show such overt stubbornness?

Catching up

We've had a series of busy days in our little family! Here's a quick catch-up as to our doings the past few weeks . . .

Clive received yet another hair cut
Matt is an officer of the hair-cut police apparently. Clive's hair was getting squirrelly around the ears so Matt whipped out the clippers. He did a great job on the cut but Clive is looking too much like a big boy and not enough like a baby these days.























Yard sale success!
Though we didn't rake in mountains of profits, we DID succeed in getting rid of loads of stuff. Even after selling our unwanted possessions, our car was full of discarded items to donate to our local thrift store. Feels so good to have fewer stuff-filled-bins in our basement.

Chloe made about $10 in lemonade and cookie sales. She was SO ADORABLE that not many yard sale patrons could resist her. She even had a little friend over on Friday and they BOTH sold lemonade in their princess garb!!! Too cute!

And big thanks to all of you for the great yard sale tips!

My general observation is that I'm way too cheap a person to hold a yard sale. It was a nice way to purge our household of stuff but I am a horribly low-pricer. I firmly believe that yard sales should be cheap and hence most of our items were priced under $1. (Check out the cool display contraption Matt built!)

That being said, we still think it was a very positive experience. It was a beautiful weekend weather-wise and I got to chat with several neighbors both days. That in itself was a huge bonus! I don't know about your schedule, but ours seems rather hectic during the school year. We seem to flit here and there without spending much time invested in the lives of our neighbors and community.

Also interesting to see the various characters that attended our small sale. The funniest was a lady who haggled with me over every single item she bought. C'mon, as if my stuff wasn't cheap enough already! Of course I gave in. I'm no tough salesperson.














Pittsburgh zoo trip
In a word, the Pittsburgh zoo is AWESOME! I highly recommend it as a family and kid-friendly zoo. We did the zoo in two days and saw it all. They have your traditional zoo-ey animals including all the cool African ones but they also boast some unique zoo sights. The onsite aquarium was a definite highlight for us all. It's small enough to hold the attention of little ones and yet big enough to showcase a variety of sea creatures. Faves were the stingray pool with tunnel, the 2 story high fish tank with sharks, and the rockfish (ok, that was mainly just my fave).

The kids kingdom was fantastic! Well-planned with unique playground stops throughout it was like a mini-zoo in itself. Wide variety of animals too. We saw sea lions swimming, deer, owls, an alligator, kangaroos, a skunk, sheep, and a camel.

By far the best element of the zoo trip was the fact that we were all together and AWAY from home. Without the distractions of computer and work we were all fully engaged in the time together. We're already planning our next mini-family-getaway!

Check out all the pictures of our trip here.

























Website project completion
Not much to report here but after hours upon hours upon hours of work I finally completed and successfully published a website for a small church in Wisconsin. Whew! It was a frustrating and rewarding journey. I love the design process of website production but I'm such a hacker that it's always a long series of trial-and-error before I have a finished product.

With that disclaimer firmly in mind, check out the website for tree of life ministries here. I'd love your feedback and helpful comments!

Flowers and garden in bloom
No photos of the garden yet as it's really just unexciting seedlings right now. My ingenious hubby built me a unique raised garden bed that's perfecto for planting shallow-rooted veggies. So, we're doing cabbage, romaine and two other types of leaf lettuce. Also tomatoes, basil and mint in pots. All thanks to my wonderful master gardener friend! She provided me with the seeds and seedlings and is constantly available to answer my lame-o questions. :)

This year we have irises for the first time ever. What gorgeous blooms! The first batch is a deep purple; I can't get over how symmetrical and intricate the flower head is! As Chloe gets older we'll definitely do some informal study on flower anatomy and pollination as the iris is such a large visual for such things.

And our peonies are blooming! I can't tell you how much we love the ease of perennial flowers. It's especially exciting to anticipate how many more flowers we get each summer. This year we got 10-12!



What flowers are you growing this year?