Portrait of a 3 Year Old

What more can i say?! This is his new favorite accessory. He even wore it to the hardware store this morning.

Crafty Reads

I just got these books this weekend. I love getting stuff in the mail, but i think i have mentioned that before! I have been looking at all of these for a long time now, but never indulging and buying them for myself. I could wait no longer, so i went ahead and ordered them. I have my first sewing project planned, it is even all cut out and waiting to go. I hope it turns out. I should have pictures of it soon. Until that is made i think i am just going to keep pouring over these and dreaming of more projects to make.

Yummy Market Dinner

I am always shocked by how pretty swiss chard is. The colors...pinks and oranges and red...i just love them. Last night that swiss chard was on the menu. It was one of the items in this weeks CSA box.

The chard leaves were boiled and then pat dry...I added pasta to the same water. While the pasta was cooking i sauteed the chard leaves(chopped), garlic and leeks in olive oil. The swiss chard stalks went into the pasta water, and when it was done it all got drained together. In the meantime i toasted some italian breadcrumbs in olive oil to toss with the pasta when it was done along with some fresh parmesan.

As a side dish i made the fennel salad featured in this weeks CSA newsletter. I really enjoy fennel, and the licorice flavor that it has. Everyone ate it but i think i was the only one that enjoyed it. The kids and Chris did really love the pasta. I am really pleased with the way everyone has been willing to at least try the new things we are getting each week.

Matchy Matchy

We did not forget this past weeks Field Trip...it just was not much to speak about. It was a really hot and humid day so we went to the movies. Avery has been waiting and waiting to see the new Kit movie. While we were there Mitchie and Chris went to see Walle. Avery and Kit both got dressed up for the show. Avery loves the matching clothes. I even made Kit a skirt to match the black floral one i made Avery a week or so ago, and a matching pair of jammie pants.

So, reading is something we are continuing to encourage with Avery. She is doing great but she is the only one that needs to be convinced of that. She has been reading books like this Kit book and many other chapter books, yet she still thinks that it is too hard and she can't do it. Funny since she is the one reading to us and to Mitchie all of the time, and because this is how i find her very often these days.

I did it!

This week i gave these soft toy blocks a try. The tutorial is over on Chasing Bluebirds Blog. She also has a great little Etsy shop where you can buy a set of these blocks for yourself or for any little person in your life that you love. Check it out here. Thanks for the great instructions! They were fun and fast to make and really really cute. And a great way to use up some of my larger fabric scraps.

It took me until the third one to really figure out the corners but i got them!!! These are awesome . You can make them in any size you want. I love them!!

Dare Taken

My mom double dog dared me to make the beet ice cream when she saw me mention it. So, Mom, i took the dare. I did it! Now, i will continue by saying it was purely experimental. I did not know what else to do with my beets and I was pretty sure that it was not going to be kid ice cream.

What were the positives...well, obviously the color. The color was just ridiculous. These pictures can not even come close to doing it justice.I will be honest and say that to me the flavor is not the greatest...but that is because i am not a big beet fan. I have never quite gotten over the canned beets that my mom tried to feed us. BUT, for those of you that think beets taste like little gems this is for you! When you first taste it it was lemony(you add lemon juice at the end) and sweet, then you tasted the beet flavor and then the super creaminess of the creme fraiche came through. Wow..was that "foody" speak or what?!?

However in our house this picture speaks volumes. Mitchie was so there...ready to give it a try. I am proud of him for that. He tasted and then said no thanks because he said "it did not taste very well" . I asked him to please take another bite for the blog and this is what he did.

So there were no beets in this weeks box... there was zucchini(destined for the grill), cucumbers(with hummus and just for a snack), sugar snap peas(gone), fennel(maybe roasted or in salad), scallions, lettuce, swiss chard(perhaps with pasta) and turnips(mashed or au gratin?)

*** I am pleased to say that today i had some real taste testers...adults...and they seemed to enjoy it! They also are all fans of beets. A major requirement to eating beet ice cream. Thanks for being so nice Justine, Rebeca and all the other girls at the market***

Big Loud Fun

what can i say...this night i was out voted. A Monster Truck show would not have been my choice for the evening but the rest of the family decided that it would be way fun!! I did not want to stay home alone so i went.

There was a lot of noise...and a lot of people all waiting for that moment when those trucks revved their really, i mean really, noisy engines for the first time to signal the start of the show. Mitchie was prepared with his headphones...a blankie to wear over his head(the same one we took to fireworks)..and his lion in case all else failed!

I think this one was the favorite of Avery and Mitchell. They liked that it had horns. Although i don't think Avery was that into it all. She mostly sat with me and did not make much effort to see through the crowd of screaming people. Maybe she just did not know what to make of all those screaming people.

Mitchie also really liked this one. The Batman car! I think he was most taken by the fact that there were no doors on the trucks so they had to climb through the window. At the end of the night Chris asked...did i have fun. To this i would have to say, other than the rude people, the man in front of me that kept trying to sit in my lap, and that my bum hurt from sitting on a wood bleacher for 4 hours, i had fun spending the evening with my family. At the risk of offending anyone i refrained from using my original titles.

And the Veggie of the Day is.....

...drum roll please! KALE!!! Man it feels like this week has taken forever to get through all our veggies from the CSA box, but i am close to finishing it off with this. For my lunch this afternoon i made a Kale smoothie. You can check out the recipe I used here. I had high hopes and honestly i was not disappointed. I am not sure if this would go over as well as the Popeye's did with the kids, but i enjoyed it and it was very filling too.

...and this is our dinner. Where is the Kale you might ask? Well, it is on the inside. I made Kale/Corn/Black Bean Enchilada's. We have not eaten it yet, it is in the oven so i will be back to let you know how it turned out. Chris was my taste tester while i was cooking and he said it was good. I just cooked down the kale with onions and garlic in a little olive oil...added in frozen corn and a can of black beans. That was set aside while i made a basic cheese sauce. For seasoning in the cheese sauce I added a dash each of cumin and chili powder. When the sauce was done i used half in the kale/corn/black bean mix, stirred to coat. The other half i combined with about a 1/4 to 1/2 cup salsa (now a lovely queso)and a few corn and black beans that were avoiding me in the pan. I filled my wheat tortillas with the kale mixture and topped it with a little cheese, rolled it and put it in the pan...then i poured the queso over the top and i am going to bake it for 30-40 on 350.

**let me add in here that when we sat down to eat...Chris loved it, i thought it was fine, Mitchell ate with no problem and Avery cried. :o)**

My Bag of Tricks

I love a surprise....I love a surprise visit, a surprise package in the mail, and i really love a surprise sale! But I don't like a sewing surprise. Because that can never be good! But this time i was thrilled with a sewing surprise. It made me smile. It was so unexpected!

I was making this bag in fact with a surprise sale on that brown linen...and the circles are re-purposed dinner napkins that i got at goodwill(calling them reused makes it sound like they were dirty, but no they were brand new). How cool is that? I was not using a pattern. I just started cutting and got all my pieces sewn together when i got my surprise....it is reversible!! It was a total accident. I love it when stuff like that happens.When you reverse it you have this very substantial pocket now on the inside. Yeah!! So, Colleen, is about this size good?

Now i must give props to my third bag model of the week. I had to put this last picture in because he was now modeling only the way a three year old does. He was tired of standing so nice, and taking pretty pictures....here he was about to pitch it right into the grass!

Just for Aunt Colleen

This is Mitchie under the water....he wanted me to go get my camera and take pictures just for you Aunt Colleen. You were the one he wanted to show what he could do. He wanted you to know that he could "swim" and that he was very brave.

Last night was the first time he wore the goggles, went under the water and held his breath. He was very proud of himself.

And here Avery got into the pictures. She is a fish and can really swim well. She gets that from Chris not me!

Veggie Cake?

Say it isn't so? If you could have seen Avery's face when i told her i made a chocolate zucchini cake...it was funny. She was so sure that this was not going to be good at all. But she was converted once she tried it and then i suddenly became the best cooker ever! A little chocolate and some icing and a veggie is converted to something fantastic.

This was the first thing i made with this weeks veggie box from the CSA. We got the zucchini(cake), sugar snap peas(gone already), potatoes(ate 'em), spinach(more popeye's), beets(ice cream?), kale(still waiting for inspiration), cucumbers(almost gone). This recipe was also from the CSA. Very yummy!!! And I got to take my new food processor for her first spin to shred the zuke's for the cake. I love small kitchen appliances! She might need a name....any suggestions?

Repeat

It is Field Trip Thursday people....and...ugh...i think i might be starting to run out of ideas. Anybody have some fun ideas for us??...please comment and let me know!! I can use the help. Today we had planned on taking the kids to the movies. Avery was dying to see Kit, however Hoffman's Playland won. They love to go and it was a great day for it. So we have come full circle, this was our first field trip this summer. It may have been a repeat but the kids had a super duper fun time.