Post #4 of Personal Project 52 weeks.

This past week flew by. I can barely remember what I did each day.

* Hydrangeas. I love them. They started flowering this week. One of my gardening goals is to have fresh cut flowers inside my home from spring into fall. But especially spring and early spring. I’d still like to find a forsythia plant (notice my inspiration is the branches inside a cool vase) and maybe another cherry blossom. Do you have any favorites?

* It appears that most photos of Mattias are of him crawling away from me. Except when he is contained, i.e. in his high chair. He is the sweetest, giggly baby ever. Sometimes just looking at him makes him explode into laughter.

* California: you got nothing on my strawberry patch.

* Made this dough. Recipe discovered and recommended by my SIL, Alicia. I’ve made it a number of times and love it. This time, I used the dough for calzones. I cheated and used the kitchenaid to knead.

* Ate lunch at Costco on Saturday. Meaning lots of samples. Costco and Superstore are my favorite stores to visit with the kids. They have the double buggies and the whole experience is really quite fun. Noah is quite extroverted and will chat with anyone and everyone at every opportunity he has. His favorite question at the moment “what’re you doing?”. When satisfied with the answer, he will change the subject to trucks and cars and cranes, often inquiring about what kind of car the person drives and then launching into listing all the important cars in his collection.

* Noah treats me like the paparazzi. “STOP Mom. No pictures.” he growls at me, while hiding behind his hands.

~ K

Post #3 of Personal Project 52 weeks.

We yurted last week. Our first time in yurts. I am a big fan of the yurt. Cleaner, drier, proper mattresses, less crouching means less back issues and yet the whole experience still feels like camping. Trust me it’s not anything luxurious.

Overall the trip was a smashing success and was relaxing (probably because we were so lazy).

* That stump is an anthill.

* The kids played NON-stop with the wagon and the ride-on toy. Noah ripped around on that thing for 4 days straight. It was surprising how well he could navigate something with such limited steering.

* Ellison is such a beautiful park / campground and even has a beach – not that the weather was optimal for the beach. We did a couple of small walks but for the most part stuck around our campsites. We yurted with another family and spent our days watching our kids run around, napping the younger ones, eating, reading, sitting around the fire and chatting.

* Poor Mattias didn’t love the crawling on gravel, pavement and dirt so much. When we got home, he was so happy to motor around on a less-painful floor. He did manage a face-plant outside of the yurt and was bruised for the rest of the trip.

* Came home to a surprise. Three weeks earlier I had sent in my camera for servicing and I wasn’t expecting it back until the following week. At least. After Canon called to inform me it was completed. Or so I was told. So don’t worry right? Wrong. Sitting on my front porch in all it’s glory is a huge box. The kind that looks really interesting to a passerby. Did I mention we live en route to a high school? Not tucked behind a pillar. Right in the middle of the porch. And inside my camera and 2 expensive lenses. I’m not even going to tell you replacement value. I figure it had been sitting there for about 3 days while we were away. Seriously, my heart still skips a beat when I think about it. { But I’m so glad to have it back and so thankful that it wasn’t stolen!!! }

~ K

Post #2 of Personal Project 52 weeks.

If all goes as planned, we are well on our way on our first camping trip of the year. Depending on how it goes, it also may be our last. A friend of mine calls it “making memories”. How true. Camping trips are not relaxing when you’re running after babies and toddlers. Again. Making memories.

As for posting this to my blog. The computer did it for me in my absence. Technology: mostly my friend.

* I am always thrilled to get any kind of half decent photo with my kids. I love this one Art captured.

* The week started out so promising. Sunday was beautiful and warm. Actually the whole weekend was really nice. But by Monday the rain started and it rained all week.

* We spent a lot of time inside.

* So we baked cookies to make ourselves feel better. I made a batch of these big, fat chewies. Except I quadrupled it. I expected to get 6 dozen cookies. Yeah. Try 10 dozen. Not complaining because they are delicious cookies. I substituted half of the chocolate chips for craisins and they were still plenty chocolaty. Surprisingly, the recipe called for melted butter. I always thought that the rule for good cookies was creaming the butter. Apparently the melting of butter is critical to the chewy texture.

* Another one of our Saturday morning rituals is garage-saling. Actually it’s an Art & Noah thing. Almost every Saturday, they find something. This week a tub of dinky cars. About 150 of them. For $5. We spent the afternoon having a ‘car wash’ and lining up the cars in rows.

* A favorite part of the nighttime routine is story time. He always asks for Dad to read the story.

* While Art and the kids were garage-saling this week, I was at a photo shoot. This cow in the field next to us was very interested in what we were doing and agreed to model for me.