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! 

Shop News from Annaliese's Emporium and Life Stuff from Annaliese!

Hey there!

I have a bunch of fun stuff going on with my shop right now! I have been adding new items, one of which are bow tie pasta hair bows, which are buy three get the fourth one free. You pick the color and I'll make 'em for you!

These are great for party favors! I'm actually going to be making some for Miss G's birthday party, which is coming up in the next couple of weeks!

How are my kids getting so old?? Eek! 

Here is a sneak peek at the new dolls that will be in my shop soon! If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen these:

I love their cute little faces!

They will be in the shop very sooooonnnn!!!

I've been making a few fun Etsy treasuries you might check out, too.

And our family has been really working hard on our yards and garden, and spending as much time outside as possible in this nice spring weather. We have lots of little green sprouts coming up in our starter trays and containers inside and they should be ready to plant outside soon! We're also building a hugelkultur garden and we planted two apple trees! I'm hoping for a mini food forest at our house someday. ^_^

Not a burial mound. A hugel!

Even though we are in the middle of a city, I'm trying to make our backyard a bit of a lush oasis. The privacy fence helps. :) We should soon have some exciting news about our outdoor adventures! 

Lots of fun stuff going on around here. I hope everyone is getting some warmer weather, 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!!!

Our Leprechaun Trap Cake

The kids and I had a great time making this Leprechaun Trap Cake from Not Martha!

Our cake! <3

Our measured quantities of colored dough in sandwich baggies for easy piping into the pan.

When we cut off the top of the cake (which ends up being the bottom), we saw that the purple and white didn't "make the cut" (heh...little joke there), as well as some of the blue. At this point I was sort of wondering how the inside would look and if we had totally messed up the rainbow.

Mmmmm rainbows...

I made my mom's easy icing for the crumb coat and an almost-as-easy cream cheese frosting with stuff we had on hand (cream cheese, butter, vanilla extract, and powdered sugar...and lots of green food coloring of course).

I used Wilton tip 233 to make the "grass". Boy were my hands tired.

Adding the grass over the crumb coat.

Our trap door over the hole.

Sign by Miss S.

The finished product, complete with pretzel ladder and gold coin bait.

While their dad and I were making dinner and they were playing in their room, a leprechaun apparently snuck into the kitchen, stole the gold coin, and narrowly escaped before we saw him; his little golden shoe was stuck between two of the sticks on the trap door! We also found footprints in the frosting!

The girls had a good time searching all over the kitchen for evidence of the leprechaun, and Miss S said she was going to take the little shoe to her crime lab.

One of the best parts for me was when we cut the cake and WOOHOO the rainbow was there!! We were all very excited. 

Not a great photo, but yayayay do you see that rainbow??

What a fun cake to make! Thanks to Not Martha for a super awesome idea. Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone!

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.

First Day of Spring (Break) + How to Make Bird Feeders Out of Magnolia Pods

Wow, yesterday was so busy and fun! I'm really enjoying being with the kids, as this is the first spring break I can remember that I have been able to stay home with them! So exciting and wonderful. ^_^

Yesterday was in the 70's outside, so we played and worked outside almost the entire day. We planted some plants, did some raking, picked up sticks, and cleaned up our yard a bit. But as for Miss G's very favorite of the things we did yesterday, we made gazillions and gazillions (or it seemed like it) of bird feeders and also created a "Birdland" in our backyard (and a mini one in our front yard).  We had soooo much fun. 

We found a "wormy" while planting our new blueberry plant!

Colorful yarn we put out for the birds to make nests

Getting ready to start seeds to grow food!

Our new Himalayan plant for our outdoor table

Fancy bird food - hangers and a cake to welcome spring

For the first batch of bird feeders, we used two cookie cutters, a fancy schmancy jello mold, and this recipe: Darling Little Birdseed Cakes. The recipe uses unflavored gelatin, boiling water (thanks, electric kettle), and bird food, mixed until it is a good consistency. We filled the cookie cutters up half way, tied a piece of twine together, and placed the twine loop inside of the bird food with the knot inside. Then, while one of us held the twine in place, we filled it up the rest of the way. These sat out on the counter for the rest of the day and had set by the evening. We are going to put these out today!

For the hanging bird feeders that we made a bunch of, I improvised. I know a lot of people cover pine cones in peanut butter and then roll them in bird seed. Well we don't have any pine cones, but we do have a ton of magnolia pods all over the ground under our big magnolia tree. They are pine cone-ish, so why not. We tied twine and yarn to one, covered it in peanut butter, and then rolled it in bird seed. It worked! So we made, as I mentioned, "a gazillion" of them. 

Magnolia pods lined up to get string, peanut butter, and bird seed.

"Birds like bright colors, Mom, so mine are going to have this yarn." - Miss G

Rolling in the birdseed

Voila!

Then Miss G, who was extremely, EXTREMELY excited about feeding the birds, had the idea that we make a bird sanctuary in our backyard. By this time we had already hung a bunch of these feeders in the trees in our front yard and on our porch, but the backyard was really going to be the big spot for birds. So we strung a line in a corner of our yard and hung a bunch of the feeders on it. Let me tell you; the squirrels love it. ;)

Yes, we need to continue raking our yard.

"Birdland" with makeshift birdbath

Our bird home decorating basket

The girls made signs telling the birds that there is bird food for eating and water for their baths and drinking, and placed them in Birdland. We are going to check everything we did and see if anything has been eaten.

We ended the day with this amazing recipe for dinner (Tex Mex Spaghetti Squash with Black Bean Guacamole), which Eryn recommended, and I can't thank her enough! Sooooo good.

Later on, Husband and I were sitting on the porch swing enjoying a beer and the nice weather, and a crazed rabbit came bounding through our yard, stopped in front of us and snorted loudly (sneezed?), and took off down the way. Unreal!

All in all, a wonderful day! ^_^

Signs of spring!