Lisa's Birthday lunch

We celebrated Lisa's birthday this week. We met for lunch in Madison Park at Cactus. It's been a while since I had a Mexican lemonade and it did not disappoint. It's always fun to gather with friends, especially over some yummy Mexican food. And so fun to celebrate Lisa's birthday. She is a very dear friend. Everything she touches is beautiful...her home, her food, her parties, all of it. She is extremely generous, thoughtful, and gives so freely of her time to help others. So much to admire! My children just adore her, as do most other kids I know! And so do I. Happy Birthday, Lisa!


Lisa made us some incredibly yummy muffins when Evan was born. I devoured them. I made a batch today and I am trying so hard to exercise a bit of restraint so they will last at least one more day. It's not easy. Here is her recipe:

Ginger Rhubarb Muffins

1 1/4 Cup flour

1 Cup wheat flour

(If using pastry flour (above)cut back on soda and powder slightly)

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 (scant) fresh ginger grated

1/2 Cup white sugar

1/4 C brown sugar

1 Cup plain yogurt (I like greek)

1/2 Cup buttermilk

1/3 Cup oil

1 egg

1 1/2 Cups fresh rhubarb (diced) I chopped mine pretty well

1/2 Macadamia nuts, chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line muffin pan with paper liners.

In large bowl, mix together the flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt and grated ginger

In separate bowl, whisk together the sugar, yogurt, buttermilk, oil and egg. Stir in the rhubarb and then the flour mixture. Don't over mix.

Fill muffin cups 3/4 full. Top with chopped nuts. Bake about 12-15 minutes. Makes 12 muffins.

Adapted from the Woods House Bed & Breakfast

The Egg

This "egg" is further confirmation that we do not need so many toys. Or maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better about tossing so many this week. Rollin and Nina have played with their dinosaur egg all week long. I bought it to make some watermelon smoothies, but now that there is a dinosaur baby growing in there, I can't exactly hack into it. They've made it a bed of hay, they take turns trying to hatch it, they fight over it (lots of sibling rivalry lately between these two), they make up all kinds of stories about it, and they roll this egg all over the house.

Can you imagine how much fun they would have if I brought home TWO watermelons. I think I would be elevated to Superstar Mommy status. It wouldn't be hard to improve my job approval rating around here lately. The creative juices aren't flowing so well since the sleep deprivation is kicking in. But I think I could manage two watermelons. Stay tuned.

you are loved, sweet baby

Losing the hair, gaining the chub!

Spring Cleaning...Supersized!

There's nothing like having your entire garage emptied onto your lawn to help you realize you have way too much stuff. Zig had Juan, the wonderful guy who helps us with the yard, power wash the barn this week. The inside. But to clean the floor, everything must come out. I cringed as I saw Juan haul all the boxes and STUFF out . It was a disaster in there, a dumping ground for "I'll get to it later stuff" and on our list of weekend projects. The barn clean-up has been steadily moving to the top of the list as we are finally getting most of the projects around here completed. We've been working hard so we can mellow out a bit more on weekends now that the weather is nice, and our weekends are even more precious with Zig's travel schedule. The stuff sat out on the lawn for a few days until Zig got back from Mountain View. The barn looked so great empty and clean. The kids had a huge bike course going in there.

We were ruthless this weekend as we sorted and trashed tons of stuff. Eric left us a huge trailer to fill for the dump. We just pulled box after box up to the trailer and just tossed and tossed. College text books, Christmas decor, kids junk, toys, stuffed animals, CORDS and computer junk. And we filled that thing up! We gave Juan lots of stuff to give his daughter for her garage sale and more stuff to Ben and Eric.

Sela cleaned the upstairs loft and the girls made a school up there. We found tons of office supplies as we sorted boxes so they were in heaven! Well, until the huge "discussion" about who would be teacher.

And now there's space. Lots of space. Clean and organized. And boy does that feel good.

I didn't get any photos, but who really wants to see junk anyway. Here are a couple of things that made me smile this weekend.

My favorite rose bush is loaded this year....

And my little Nina bean...

Reporting on Early Settlements

I snuck away from little Evan for the first time last week to see Sela give her report on pioneer settlements in class. He didn't notice my absence and slept the whole time, thankfully.

It's always fun to visit the classroom and see the kids in action. Sela and Jasmine talked about life as a new settler and how things have changed over the years. Sela talked about modern times and all the comforts we enjoy compared to the first settlers. She said she was really nervous, but she did a great job and her jitters certainly didn't show. I enjoyed watching all of the kids present their reports....what a fun age group! Sela has been fortunate this year to have a terrific class and fabulous teacher. We are dying for summer break, but it's been a very good year. Mrs. Brown is a gem...calm and patient and kind. I know Sela will miss Mrs. Brown, but that girl is so ready for summer, I suspect there will be no looking back come next week! Bring on summer already. I think I already said that.

The lovely Mrs. Brown

Sela presenting
Sela and Mali

Sela and Jasmine

5 weeks. Can it be?!!

I returned to my cart at Trader Joe's last week to find Nina talking to an older couple in line. They were talking about the baby and discussing being a big sister. Nina was telling them all about her family and life with a new baby brother. She is a very proud big sister. They were so kind and just kept looking at the baby with smiles that so clearly conveyed they were remembering when their little ones were young. I asked them about their kids and they said they had three grown boys and were hoping(begging!) for grandchildren. Then the man said, "You blink, and they're grown. "

I hear that sentiment quite often, especially when I have a new baby. And of course it's so true. And wow, I am already feeling the panic with Evan. It's like I can't slow the time down no matter how hard I try to take it easy and stay home and scale back. It's quite unreal to me that he is almost five weeks old. I feel like I woke up on May 2nd and all of the sudden it's June. It's like a blur, or a dream, I'm not sure. But my baby is growing every day and is chubby and strong and very alert as of a few days ago. He is sleeping more at night. Each day gets better on the sleep front. I love, love, love having him right beside me at night. He purrs and makes all kinds of noises that let me know all is well. And he smells so yummy I just can't get enough.


We had a good week. One hard day....some tears were shed...and it wasn't just the kids this time. But we all need a good cry now and then. It's theraputic and it makes the kids feel really bad when they realize they pushed mom to the brink. Just kidding! Things always look up after a hard day and we had three really good days full of friends and sun. Ketsy and Rune visited us on Monday and we went to Farrel-McWhirter and the kids played in the little stream for a couple of hours while pretending to be pirates, fairies, and explorers. We pushed our luck a little too far by trying to take them to PCC for lunch. At least my little Rollin was spent by that time. The day flew by and we were sad to see them go. Ketsy left us with some gorgeous flowers, a wonderful salad and watermelon which we very much enjoyed.


Lilian and her little girls came by on Tuesday and the kids played outside for awhile. She brought the yummiest morrocan meal. Oh my!!! When I get the whole recipe, I will definitely post it. It was just soooo good, fresh, and healthy! And she taught me how to use a Moby wrap. How is it possible I had three children and never tried this wrap. It's heaven.


We also had a visit from Lisa and Wendy on Wednesday after their run. I'm always happy to see them!! And Evan crashed in both of their arms. We ate lunch and enjoyed some yummy apple cake courtesy of Wendy. I was motivated by these two pinnacles of fitness to hit the pavement again myself and I did my first run with Evan on Thursday while Nina and Rollin were at gymnastics. Let's just say it was humbling. In so many ways.


I'm having some difficulty with editing and moving the photos around. Zig put some extreme filters on my computer after Sela stumbled on an inappropriate photo (mild) while searching for photos of french bulldogs. We know that Zig is all or nothing, so as you can imagine, there are about two approved websites that will load right now and it has really slowed my computer down. We'll make some adjustments this weekend but for now I just dumped some pictures, mostly of Evan, to keep the grandmas happy. It is you two that keep me going on this blog!


Evan with a few of our bazillion stuffed toys. They multiply at night, I'm certain.

Sometimes Evan just can't stay awake no matter how uncomfortable he is.

I am mad!



This is one of my new tactics for waking up Sela in the morning.

Lisa and Evan
This is a happy boy!
Here's our slip and slide that turned out to be the biggest piece of junk and waste of money ever!

Ahhh, everything is right in the world when this little guy is snoring and purring like a little kitty.