TravelingMel

I was cruising Craig's List a couple weeks ago. I was hoping to find an old horse trough to use in the garden like this.

I couldn't find any horse troughs and no one answered the wanted ad I put up. What I did find was an ad for eggs.

We'd love to have chickens, but that's not in the cards right now. We'd love to buy local, free range eggs, but they are close to $6 a dozen in the store. When I saw the add for local, free range eggs for $2 a dozen, I jumped all over it. Now we get eggs delivered to our door every Wednesday.

Free range chickens lay eggs with thicker shells, deeper-colored yolks and better taste. Most importantly, these chickens have good lives. The eggs you normally get from the store come from chickens in really horrible, disgusting situations. I won't go on since you can easily find out about industrialized egg production yourself.

I am ecstatic to find good eggs at a good price. And they come to me.

Frying them up.

H is pretty psyched about the eggs, too.

H is building some new garden beds, so that's taken care of, too. If you come across an old horse trough, grab it for me! I'll still use it.

The other night we made sushi. Although H and I have eaten our fair share of sushi, neither of us have ever rolled it ourselves. No time like the present to try. We spent the afternoon preparing the ingredients and then rolled our little hearts out.

Turns out we all love sushi.

First we made the sticky rice. Rice + water, washed in a little vinegar and a bit of sugar.

Broccoli. That's Anders' favorite vegetable. And carrots.

Delicious portabello mushrooms marinated in a secret sauce. Finn loved these.

A little Japanese green tea.

Carrot slice to please Anders.

Plum sake to enhance the mood.

Asparagus to further increase Anders' (and ours) happiness.

A little cream cheese and wasabi.

All the ingredients ready to go.

Oops, forgot the avocado and smoked salmon.

H spreads the rice on the nori.

Getting ready to eat.

We love sushi!

It's not pretty, but it sure was yummy.

Normally I try to keep the processed sugar and the artificial colors restricted to special occasions. But then I saw this website. Unfortunately I saw it two days after Anders' birthday.

Anders' loves rainbows. We sing the rainbow song he learned in daycare all the time and he refers to all colors as "rainbow colors". (You can hear him sing the song here.) So, to find the perfect birthday cake recipe days after his birthday was a big bummer for me.

We made it anyway. The result wasn't quite as picturesque as this, but it was pretty cool.

Anders mixed the food coloring into the batter.

Rainbow cake in the oven.

Finn watches Anders take his first bite.

Anders digs in. He loves the rainbow cake.

If big brother is eating, then little brother better get on it!

Half the cake getting prepped for the freezer. I had to put it away before I ate the whole thing.

It's kind of weird, but it sure is a pretty cake.

One of our Advent Adventures was to make a gingerbread house (they aren't always this involved, sometimes we pick something we are already doing--Holiday Stroll--another time we went to the park after dinner and counted stars. Sometimes we read a holiday book or sing a song).

We invited our friends Katie and Julia, and their mom, Jessica, over to make the house with us.

When my brother and I were younger my mom and her friend made an incredible gingerbread house. Maybe there were two houses, I don't remember. But what I do remember (which may or may not be true) is that they spent all day baking the gingerbread and then built elaborate houses.

That's not what happened here. I bought a kit, quickly glued the pieces together with the provided frosting and let the kids decorate. After lunch we let them go nuts and eat it. I imagined them tearing it apart and gingerbread flying around the room.

That's not what happened here. They ate a little candy and then asked to be excused. It was not delicious in my opinion, so I'm not surprised they didn't love it. Fun to make, though.

Decorating the gingerbread dog house.

Katie loves decorating!

Jess and the kids.

Little sister Julia watches the fun.

Sitting patiently while I take a picture of the finished house.

Digging in!

When your kids don't eat much sugar and then you suddenly let them have it, well...

When Halloween was over I was ready to get rid of the pumpkins. They were sitting on my mantle after all and I feared dripping pumpkin slop.

I thought if I unceremoniously threw them in the rot pile in the backyard I might crush Anders and Finn's Halloween spirit forever. How would I answer Anders when he asked, "Mommy, where did my pumpkin go?"?

The end of holidays and other special occasions are something I have to deal with now. I'm a "it's over, get rid of it" kind of gal. Halloween is over, pumpkin is gone. Day after Christmas, decorations are down. Move on, people.

I am nothing if not sensitive to my kids' needs, though. So instead of having their pumpkins disappear in the middle of the night, I chopped them up while the kids watched.

(If you want to see the pre-gutted pumpkins, go here.)

Holy pumpkin, Batman. The pumpkins after they had been de-clowned and de-pirated.

Anders "smiles" while holding the raw seeds.

Freshly toasted and fragrantly delicious.

The boys enjoying their pumpkin innards.

Anders and Finn ate a few seeds, but they were more into the process than the end result. Lucky for me, because I got to eat the rest of them.

A few seeds does not a dinner make, so I whipped up some kiwi/banana/almond milk/spinach smoothies. And some real dinner, too.

Mmmmm...smoothie. My favorite travel mug is also in the picture, but you can't see it.

After we ate it was time to clean up. Why does it always seem like it is time to clean up? Oh, because it is.

The clean-up crew. Wonder why they push each other around to get under Finn's chair?

Rigby goes straight to the source.

At least I get some help once in awhile.