as August winds down

projects here and there

With Nicky in full-day kindergarten now I'm finding myself with more free moments while Silas naps. Also, the changing of the seasons always seems to give me fresh energy (or at least the idea in my mind that the seasons are changing). I had some serious fun with projects last week. It just feels so good to change little things sometimes. I really wish I came up with these ideas myself, but all credit goes to Pinterest. Have you tried it? It's like crack for crafty people. But look, it led to productivity!

The pantry before:

and after! Still messy, but I'll get to that. I think this is going to be quite useful.

Yay chalkboard paint! I'm resisting the urge to basically paint all my wall space with it.

Project # 2: frames for Nicky's art/treasures/masterpieces:

This was mostly from stuff I had lying around, but I did buy one cheap picture frame to hold bigger things. I just need to find some little clothespins or something like that to hold Nicky's handiwork.

right now Silas is....

crawling, crawling everywhere

pulling himself up, checking out new surfaces, pulling interesting things down

thrilled with his newfound independence

pulling Nicky's hair every chance he gets, also loving when he gets to play in Nicky's room

sleeping through the night about half the time, and waking up super early these days....

eating everything in sight

 (including dog food, plants and paper)

really wishing he could play with my camera

first day

the night before kindergarten

Tomorrow's a pretty big deal.

We had a celebratory dinner: macaroni and cheese (his request, with sneaky squash in the cheese sauce), a veggie tray, and chocolate cake. 

After-dinner activities included climbing on Papa, protecting the cake from Penny (she was determined) and one last name-writing practice.

Then, cake time! This year's emphasis: Pay Attention and Have Fun. A big goal. 

I think I'll work on that as well.

and finally, bath, brush teeth and climb into bed.

Always the game inventor, this boy. Points for me if I catch him on camera, points for him if I don't. These are my two points.

Good night.

good things

All week I've been taking pictures of food. It just strikes me as such a pretty thing lately, especially with summer in full bloom and all of it's vibrant offerings. For me, this is a way to remember to be grateful, and to make it special, like I wrote about before. It really is the little things that make the day.

Here are a few recipes we really enjoyed this week:

1. I Ain't Chicken Chicken with Watermelon, Feta, and Arugula Salad. Eaten outside, with cold iced tea, watching the clouds roll in, enjoying a little break from the heat wave. The chicken might make a little more sense for fall, since it had to be roasted in a very hot oven, and smelled like Thanksgiving. It was so, so good though.

Nicky's version. One of these days I will get this boy to eat salad.

2. Toasted nine grain bread with melted mozzarella, green peppers (from the garden, yay!), roasted red peppers, and dijon mustard, with this cranberry walnut coleslaw. One of those last minute dinners that came together well. Love when that happens.

3. the breakfast Ricky made for us on Saturday morning. I love Saturdays with him. We had such a nice day, starting with this lovely meal, then school supply shopping for Nicky, Hawaiian food for lunch, a trip to the theater to see Cars 2 (I spent the last half in the truck driving Silas around so he could go to sleep). It was our last Saturday all together before Nicky starts kindergarten.

Nicky and I made these cute Angry Birds pom-poms. I love that he has just as much fun throwing them at a stack of cups as he does when he plays the game on our phones.

3. Harvest from Saturday morning. The first real butternut squash. I'm thinking of ways to use these this week.

4. Carnitas and Mexican Coke. The crock pot is such a good friend to me. 

More and more I'm thanking God for the little things in life. Days with a lot of space in them are good. There needs to be room to spare in my life. I need to pause more, not less. Spending time preparing food really helps me with that. It's one of those everyday, sometimes mundane tasks that is so spiritual for me if I choose for it to be. I'm starting to see how domestic tasks really lend themselves to contemplation, meditation, prayer (all the same thing perhaps, at the end of the day)....I want more of that. More of the simple joys.

making dinner special

I love dinner. The ritual of it-planning, shopping, cooking, and finally eating. My routine goes something like this: on Sunday evenings I make a meal plan for the week, see what we already have in the fridge and pantry, and make a list. I shop on Monday morning with the boys. Then, we try to cook at home all week and reserve eating out for Sundays after church (because who wants to cook after working up a sweat chasing preschoolers around ? Not me.)

Sometime after we had Nicky, cooking became really important to me. Having a small grocery budget was what really started it. It was a fun challenge to see if I could make interesting meals with what we had to work with. I found out it's totally possible. We were also trying to lose weight and learning to love eating fresh, simple food. Now, our food budget is a little more flexible and I tend to be led more by what I feel like making, but I'm so grateful for that time, when I learned to love cooking. Here's the tricky thing with dinner these days-it's a rough time of day. We usually eat at about 6 pm. It's getting close to Silas' bedtime, Nicky is wired because Papa just got home, and Ricky and I need a second wind but it's not time to sit just yet. Sometimes this creates a perfect storm of grumpiness (mostly on my part, I have to admit).

I kind of see this as a personal testing time for me-because most of the time what I feel like doing (and often do, sadly) is to start barking orders and feeling sorry for myself. So I'm trying to work on enjoying the whole process. Music helps greatly. A cold drink. Laughter. Silliness. Eating outside and watching the clouds roll in (even if they are just teasing us, day after day....)

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to share some dinner ideas on here-mostly to inspire myself to enjoy the process and make food that I would want to take pictures of. If you're reading and want to share some ideas yourself, I'd love to hear them.

Here's one from last week:

Frittata with bacon, spinach, roasted red peppers, yellow pear tomatoes and cheddar, simple salad, Corona with lime (a summer staple I say)