A full weekend!

Isn't this warm weather nice? It's so refreshing to sleep with the windows open and let the still cool night air fill the bedrooms. 

We put the beautiful weather to good use this past weekend. Saturday morning we had my favorite breakfast, eggs over easy served with pesto, a sprinkle of romano cheese and a toasted croissant (what?!? You've never had pesto with your eggs.....you really ought to change that).

Then it was off to the library as a family. We have a wonderful, large library here and we make use of it regularly. We came home with scorpion books for the future arachnologist, bluebird books for the budding ornithologist, every led zeppelin album on cd for the husband, and I decided to take a break from reading my typical DIY/science/anthropology/homeschooling books and read a novel for pure pleasure. I chose Ruby Red Heart in a Cold Blue Sea by Morgan Callen Rogers because I liked the title and needed something New Englandy to read. It's pretty good so far :)

We happened upon the best rummage sale ever that afternoon and found some amazing treasures and people too! 

The buffet/hutch we have some really fun plans for! We are going to scrape off the peeling veneer and replace it with colorful mexican tiles, stain the wood darker, and replace the knobs with glass. This piece will be perfect for extra counter space in my small kitchen and will be great storage for all my cast iron which is currently camping on my stovetop.

The end tables we will leave as is, they are just beautiful, and for now the small vanity stand will stay as is until I decide exactly what I want to do with it. 

We also got some fantastic books and statues too!!!

Sunday was a quiet day at home as daddy went fishing on the big lake in the morning. I packed the boys up to head to the greenhouse to find some flowers to plant in the front beds. The hyacinth have passed and the tulips nearly have and nothing else had popped up. We had turned down the block when I spotted a "free day lillies" sign and the woman who had just pulled them out of her garden was kind enough to offer to drop them by the house for me (I'm still surprised sometimes just how nice people are in this part of the country). 

We spent our afternoon transplanting lillies into the front garden beds. She said they will match our shutters and door when they bloom! 

It was a very fulfilling weekend! I just love finding treasures and getting my hands in the dirt (and so did the boys). 

I hope your weekends are just as fun!!! What family activities do you enjoy in the warmer months?

Introducing Game Night......and a tire swing.

You may (or may not) know that we are a family of hockey fans. It started with my husband who grew up in a Midwest state that turns into a sub-zero frozen prarie several months out of the year. He spent his days shooting pucks for hours on end. The memories he has surrounding hockey are some if his favorites from childhood and the love of the game never left him.

In our early days together I decided to become a hockey "fan" too. I didn't understand much about the game itself, but figured it was the only major sport fast paced enough to hold my attention. Plus, I loved skating too (figure skating is a sport......don't listen to my husband)!

Now our two older boys play hockey and I have a feeling once the littlest is 3 he's gonna get padded up and sent out on the ice too. 

So what does this have to do with family game night? I'm getting there I promise. But first......

(That's his hockey face)

(He fell asleep in his Wild jersey during playoff game 7, they still won ;)

So when we first moved in to this house in September I VERY reluctantly agreed to getting cable. I'm not a tv person but my husband really wanted to be able to watch hockey season now that we live in the same region as his favorite team, Minnesota Wild. So I said okay, but we cancel it at the end of hockey season. It's round 2 of the playoffs (btw, I now understand a good deal of the game and have been known to yell while watching the game) and the season will be ending in the next few weeks. Which means family game night will be replacing hockey night (the boys finished hockey last week and have a 2 month break). 

We bought some new games since we didn't have too many that were fun for all of us. It's so fun having kids old enough to play games that parents find fun too ( I can only stand so many rounds of Candy Land). We bought Yahtzee, Family Trivial Pursuit, Clue, and Uno. I'm so excited to start doing this!!! Do you have a family game night in your home? What games do you enjoy?

Oh and we now have a tire swing!!! Though both boys will use it, it was an 8th birthday present from Oma to our middle son. He is loving it. 

Look at that big 8 year old of mine! He's such a sweet kid :)

He had a wonderful birthday, complete with a rice crispy treat scorpion (he wants to be an arachnologist) custom made by daddy.

Birthdays are always a little bittersweet for me. It's hard to know your babies are growing up, each year represents one less year of them being little, wanting to hold hands with me, or climbing in our bed when they have a bad dream....but it's also pretty incredible to watch them grow and see who they are becoming independent of us. I'm lucky, they still hold my hands, crawl in bed (sometimes) after a nightmare, and cuddle up on the sofa with me. They are good, loving kids. 

This middle boy of mine, he is so smart. He will work at any project till he has it just right. He's always happy and willing to help around the house. He loves to run around, ride his bike, and play outside for hours on end. I could go on with a very long list but I'll end with my favorite thing about him; he is an amazing brother! He is so caring and empathetic. I've never seen anyone who can get a baby laughing the way he does with his little brother. He loves spending time with his older brother too and is always trying to come up with things they can do together (this is not always appreciated by our oldest, but such is life with siblings).

Happy Birthday sweet boy! I love you to the moon and back again times infinity!

Spring has sprung!

Hello bloggy friends! I do apologize for my absence. I've still been hibernating as spring has been taking it's sweet time in arriving here on the western shores of Lake Michigan. But I dare say it's here now! 

This is our first spring in our little brick cape, and with spring comes the discovery of flowers! 

I have sweet little crocuses springing up alongside the house and hyacinth too! My mom was here visiting this past week and cut a few bouquets of hyacinth to put around my house. It is the best air freshener I've ever smelled. The scent is so sweet, I'm putting it right up there with lilacs as my favorite flower to smell. 

The baby has been picking me handfuls of flowers. He has the biggest sweetest smile handing them to me (that I haven't been able to catch on camera yet). 

We went kite flying when my mom was here. It was a perfect day! A picnic at the lighthouse followed by kite flying while the baby napped in the fresh, brisk wind. 

I have never seen blues and greens like the ones in this Great Lake of ours. 

The next couple weeks we are planning on taking some bird watching hikes at the nature center, building some garden boxes (that will hopefully be bunny-proof), setting up a tire swing for the boys, and I'm thinking some fresh paint in our bedroom and building some bookshelves in the living room will make the "to do" list too! 

A spring dessert (adapted to vegan)

Daylight savings makes such a difference! Even though we are still having sub-freezing temps on most days, just having the lightness stay later makes it feel as if spring is surely right around the bend.

We've been making some dietary changes in our house to deal with some health issues. We've eliminated all meat and dairy products (eggs too), except for fish and seafood. I have to say I feel much better and "lighter" and am looking forward to light, fresh meals especially as we head into the warmer months. 

I'm a huge fan of Daytona over at Outside Oslo. My husband is part Swedish and I love to add cultural dishes from our heritage into the weekly repertoire. Recently she posted a dessert recipe that made my mouth water, lemon riskrem with raspberries. Doesn't that just make you want to jump for joy with feelings of spring?!?

Her recipe is absolute perfection as is and I highly recommend it! Lemon-Scented Riskrem (Rice Cream) with Raspberry Sauce

I wanted to make it vegan though and came pretty close! So here is what I did....

Instead of using whole milk I used sweetened vanilla almond milk, which also meant I could skip the sugar and vanilla bean ( I was feeling a little lazy). 

For the whipped cream I used a can of full fat coconut milk and 2 Tablespoons of powdered sugar. It took a bit more whipping than dairy cream to form peaks but after several minutes in the kitchen aid it came together quite nicely. The coconut also adds a lovely flavor I think.

I used mixed berries instead of just raspberries because that's what I had.

At the end I ended up messing up and not letting the rice cool enough before adding in the cream which of course liquified my lovely coconut cream, stupid mistake but this is what happens when the baby is crying and there is chaos of boys and dog and cat etc. So my final dessert doesn't look as pretty as Daytona's but it tasted A-mazing!

I hope you'll try this whether you make the original version or my vegan adaptation. It's super lovely and kid/husband approved ;)

Enjoy that sunshine!!!

March is ugly.

March is ugly.

March is officially the ugliest month of the year, especially here in Chicago.  This has been an exceptionally brutal winter (the worst since I've been alive, they tell me) and we've had more snow in the past few months than I can remember over the past 5 years.

...and March is when it ALLLL MELTS.

Everything is still dead or hibernating.  

Exhaust fumes and debris have turned the beautiful winter wonderland into a cold, grey, melting lump of half-ice, half-soot sludge.  Your car has a layer of salt and mud covering it and puddles of melting snow camouflage pot holes big enough to take out a front axle.  

Our Marches are grey, cold, and depressing...

...but I've decided to fall in line with nature this March.

It's time to get muddy, to begin to plant new roots, and start to wake up.

Truth be told, I'm TERRIBLE at New Year's Resolutions.  I'm also terrible at starting anything new in the middle of summer, say around my birthday and such.

I'm AWESOME at transition seasons though.

Spring Ahead

Fall Back

Spring Cleaning

Running in the Fall

and new in 2014:  getting back into weight watchers.

I lost all my baby weight and then some back in 2006 on weight watchers.  Any plan where I can budget my day to include a vanilla ice cream cone is where it's at, for sure.  So in addition to my return to smart food choices, I'm also taking my vitamins, drinking my water and I've been using a fantastic skin care routine (another post for another day, pals).

Yes, it's cold and damp outside.

Yes, the pretty white snow has melted into soot-covered ice puddles.

and YES, my daily walk just ended with me ankle deep in mud.

but ya know what they say,

NO MUD

NO LOTUS

and I'm ready to bloom.

Around here this week....

We finally got a weather warm up here in Wisconsin for a couple days, and we definitely took advantage! 

Wednesday it was 40 degrees! 40!!!!! Before moving here I never would have said 40 was warm, but it totally felt like a heat wave, it was even sunny out :) We busted out some puffy vests and decided spontaneously to go to the zoo. 

This baby thought pheasants were the funniest thing ever!

Camels....not so funny. He was totally unimpressed.

These kiddos were sooooo happy to get out and be able to stay outside for several hours! 

So was this mama! ( I have no idea why my hand looks so awkward in this photo, it kind of creeps me out).

I love that our zoo is right on the shore of a Great Lake!

On Thursday we hooked up with a local homeschool group and went on a Sugar Bush field trip at a nearby nature center. I knew we'd learn about maple syrup but I had no idea just how amazing our experience would be! Unfortunately I only got one photo because my phone was acting up ( I've decided I'm over the camera phone thing, I miss having a real camera).

Back to our field trip......

Our trip started around the campfire where our naturalist engaged the children ( who ranged from toddler to teenager) with Native American legends and history of maple sugaring. We tasted maple sugar, sumac berries, sap, and syrup. The children learned how to make a spile out of a piece of branch and used a ream to dig out the middle ( a spile is what you tap the tree with). 

We learned how to identify a maple tree by looking for opposite branching, holes from yellow bellied sapsuckers, and mustaches ( yes, maple trees have mustaches)! 

The children used yokes and buckets to gather sap from a tree, and also gathered firewood to bring to the sap house. The sap and firewood were measured and weighed and the data recorded. We learned all about hydrometers and the scientific process of how sap becomes syrup. 

It was a fantastic experience! The children were engaged and really had fun. My boys agreed that it was lots of hard work to make syrup but was fun and they want to try to make our own someday when we have a maple tree :)

Lugging buckets of sap using a yoke. Do you see the spile necklace he made? They've been wearing them all day today :)

Oh and we learned a new word too! Migwetch, which is the Ojibwe word for Thank You. 

Migwetch for reading about our fun filled week!

And then she baked....

I've been feeling gloomy as of late, for no real reason, which just makes it more frustrating.

Maybe it's the season? Though I really, truly do love winter. The cold, the snow, needing to wear a sweater each day, the way frost forms it's icy art on the windows. The way I can't open the back door because it's frozen shut......

So maybe it's not the season after all. Maybe it's pure exhaustion. Whatever it is I've made up my mind to cure myself of this funk. 

Some steps I've taken are to reduce my screen time and focus on being more present with my children and husband. I deleted my Facebook app off my phone as it was becoming too much of a time suck for me. I'm much less likely to waste time online if it means using the actual computer. I'm feeling good about this decision and bonus! My eyes hurt less! I know, who'd a thunk it.

I decided to start a knitting project just for me! I rarely knit anything for myself and if I do it's something small and quick, it's time I made something awesome for myself. Enter the Angry Sheep Cardigan!

Yesterday, ugh, yesterday. Let's just say by the time 7pm rolled around the only thing that was going to salvage the day was chocolate. So what do you make when you NEED chocolate and have copious amounts of rye flour in your pantry? Rye chocolate cookies of course! Yes, it sounds odd and maybe even dry and crumbly, but I'm telling you these cookies were the tastiest (and easiest) cookies I have ever made. Honestly!

Other things I'm doing are; making a list of veggies I want in the garden this year, planning said garden, and adding hot cocoa to my coffee on a daily basis. It's the little things people :)

Are you feeling the winter blues or the un-winter blues? What are you doing to stay positive?