MamaPie

Love is in the House

Even though it's a gray and rainy day here in Portland, Valentine's goodness abounds in the forms of handmade Valentines...drawn in pen, chalk and pancake batter, and in the form of the sweetest handmade photo book you've ever seen (with special thanks to Laura, the wonder-babysitter!).

  

 

 

Hope your Valentine's Day is filled with sweet & simple love.

Sick Week

Ezra and Reuben were sick all week. Today, Saturday, as I emerge from the house (with the sun shining, no less!), I feel like I an tentatively walking out of a hot, sticky parallel universe, where days and nights all run together, things move at a snail's pace (unless they flare up in a hot second) and, if you don't watch out, you're bound to get hit in the head with a flying quarter or to trip over a chain of eighteen scarves tied together.

My friend, Andrea, just walked in to the tea shop where I'm sitting: "What did you do all week?" she asked. Funny, I was just thinking about that. What did we do to fill all those hours? We read alot of books. I read alot of books as my boys pressed so tightly up against my sides that it was a logistical maneuver to turn the pages. We read some good ones--some old favorites and some new ones from the library and from my vintage children's book collection*. My favorites this week were: Tales of Mr. Pengachoosa, Recess at 20 Below and The Happy Birthday Present. We also started making Valentines--I got out pink, red and white construction paper, some scissors, glue and a heart punch and we sat around the kitchen table working. I kept the supplies out and we revisited this craft every day for awhile. I have this papercraft book and we learned about quilling, so we did alot of that for the Valentines. Reuben, who is almost 4, was really able to do the quilling by himself and liked it alot.

I sent them off to play or rest a few times a day, with varying success. When they did that, I hopped on the computer for a little bit and tried to keep up with cleaning, laundry and cooking.

They're finally fever-free and feeling better and I'm glad we're all stepping out of the house today, but it was sweet, too, and I'm sure I'll miss these kind of "lost weeks" when my boys are older.

 

*You can find some of my favorite vintage children's books in my etsy shop

Getting Ready for Back to School

It's that time: thinking of apples, a slight chill in the morning air, finding the first baby chestnuts and acorns on the ground, some new clothes folded in the boys drawers... Back to school! I love being able to re-experience the excitement of this time as we get things ready for Ezra to go to first grade and for Reuben to have his first school experience.

Some things that we have done, or that are on our to-do list to prepare for next week:

1. I ordered both boys TOMS for their "indoor shoes" at school. The cuteness was pretty phenomenal when they both tried them on.
2. Lots of thermoses purchased and school lunch ideas discussed.
3. Need to buy Ezra's lunch basket.
4. I'm going to make them each a "Kidlet" for their room. The plan is to put the outfit for the next day in before bedtime.
5. I made 12 curtains for Ezra's first grade classroom. A major cutting error resulted in a major amount of stress for me, but they ended up great and, in the process, I learned to use a serger, which is awesome. I want one.
6. I need to make 2 drawstring bags for each boys locker.
7. I need to match the hundreds of unmatched socks that have been languishing in the laundry room this whole (sockless) summer.

Are your kids going back to school? What do you need to do?

Fact Finding Mission

While Andrew as putting Reuben to sleep last night, Ezra and I took Baloo on a short walk to the mailbox: 2 blocks down our street. During our walk - summer night, Ezra shirtless, lots of neighbors out - Ezra found out lots of things. Such as:

1. Who our friend Dave was talking to: his wife's brother Noah
2. What they were talking about: "singing out loud, having fun, life."
3. What our friend Kathy was doing: bringing out her recycling.
4. Where Dawn's daughter Lola was: "inside, changing her clothes."
5. Why Lola was changing her clothes: "so she can help her dad wash the truck."
6. Why Linda parked on the street instead of her driveway: "because it's garbage day tomorrow."
7. What Peter was doing: "changing a flat tire."

He found out all these things from friends and neighbors of all ages (Kathy is 67, Linda is about 50, Dave is 35) in his characteristic friendly and direct way. That he is curious about, and observant of, the world around him is an enormous understatement. He's always been this way - our sweet green-eyed boy - and I only hope the world around him continues to be as friendly, receptive to and delighted by his questions as our kind neighbors are.

Bye Bye to Convenience...

Once again, I've learned to make something on my own and now the pre-packaged ones are ruined for me. Our easy dinner of (packaged) tortillas, (pre-made) beans and cheese burritos has will now be a little less easy. But alot more delicious.

Last night I made tortillas. yum. I used the recipe from the Rebar cookbook, which I am still loving alot. The only modifications I made were to use 5 tbs unsalted butter instead of vegetable shortening, to make the dough in the food processor and to cook them in my cast-iron skillet with no oil (recipe calls for oiling the frying pan). I also used all white flour, because I was out of whole wheat. We had some friends over to celebrate Andrew's 40th birthday, which is tomorrow. I made a platter of stuff to put in the tortillas: shredded chicken, steamed asparagus, carrots and red bell pepper and made an citrus-soy sauce dressing to top it all off. It was really good, although the tortillas definitely stole the show; everything else was just there because I couldn't really put out only tortillas for dinner and because we all need a little bit of protein.

Tortillas (slightly modified from Rebar Cookbook):

ingredients:

1 1/2 c. unbleached flour

1/2 c. whole wheat flour

1 tsp. white sugar

1 1/2 baking powder

1 tsp. salt

5 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into 10 pieces

3/4 c. hot water

1. Mix first five ingredients in bowl of food processor. Add butter and process until little pea-sized balls form.

2. Gradually add hot water through feed tube while processing.

3. Turn out dough onto floured surface and knead for a few minutes. Form into ball and place in clean bowl, cover and set aside for an hour.

4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and sprinkle with flour. Break off golf ball sized pieces of dough, roll into balls (I made 10) and place on baking sheet. Cover and set aside for another hour.

5. On a floured surface, press out each ball and roll out disk to form an approximate 8" round (mine were pretty irregularly "round"). Put each tortilla on a piece of parchment paper and stack them up.

6. Heat cast iron skillet to medium-high and cook tortillas one by one. Flip over when bubbles form. I cooked each one for about a minute per side. I wrapped them in foil and kept them in a 200 degree oven until it was time to eat.

This morning we went and bought Andrew a plug-in drill for his birthday, which is a perfect present that Ezra came up with by himself. One rainy day, a few months ago, he was sitting in the living room looking out the window for awhile. Then, he got up, came into the kitchen and told me that he'd just thought of what we should get Papa for his birthday. It's something only Ezra would know that Andrew needs, as they do woodwork and house repairs together, and Ezra said that Andrew is always frustrated by the rechargeable drill losing it's charge so quickly.

Birthday Preparations

This morning, Ezra and Reuben were having a serious conversation and when I walked over Ezra told me that he had just "taught Ruby how to make a wish." This is a very important thing to know if it is going to be your third birthday tomorrow.

Right now I am: baking cookies, hard-boiling eggs and cooking beans for birthday soup (if you don't know the Little Bear story "Birthday Soup" I recommend finding it). We are having two parties tomorrow. The first one will be mid-day for a few of Reuben's friends from his parent-child class at school. We will do an art project, play some games, eat some good food and have a lemon cake. The second one will be a family party in the evening with some close friends. At this one, we'll just let the boys (yep, there will be all boy children there) play and will eat soup, bread and Jacques Torres chocolate chip cookies with ice cream.

I'm off to prep the art project and the games, but wanted to share this that I found this morning. It looks like such a fun idea. We will definitely be trying it out this week.

Apples All the Time

We have lots of apples in our kitchen these days. Between the twenty pound box of Fujis on our counter and the gallon of apple cider in our fridge, we have no excuse for getting sick this Fall, as we're all eating much more than one measly apple each day.

I've been making Ezra and Reuben various kinds of cooked apples, which they absolutely love. I make them baked: with butter, cinnamon and salt in a 350 oven for about 30 minutes; sauteed: in a heavy frying pan, again with butter, cinnamon and salt and boiled: with a little water and cinnamon, which makes kind of a chunky applesauce. All of these versions taste great with some plain yogurt or on top of oatmeal.

On Sunday, we made these apple cider donuts. They were a really fun, multi-part project: first we needed to go to the store to buy a donut cutter, then we needed to reduce the cider, then make the dough, let it freeze, cut out the donuts, let them chill, fry them up and then, the crucial last step, roll them in cinammon sugar. Only the reducing the cider and the frying parts were "Mama only"; the rest were great for little hands. And the eating of the donuts was definitely good for little bellies and big bellies alike!

 

More Jam

This time with the little guy helping too.

Scooping out the honey/pectin mixture is a sticky job.

More evidence of my oft-repeated guideline for happy, fun cooking with kids: make peace with the mess.

But, hey, you can always follow the group cooking with some group cleaning (where the guideline is make peace with the inefficiency and make peace with the fact that you may have do some of it again, solo, at another time).

And then...proud:

Worse and worse

While cooking dinner last night, Ezra and Reuben were nakedly frolicking in the yard, playing in the pool and on the slip 'n slide. A neighbor just told me, "I saw your boys playing in the yard yesterday afternoon. It was so sweet." Sounds idyllic, doesn't it?

It was, until Ezra called to me: "Mama! Ruby has so much poo poo in his tushy. It got all over my hands when I boosted him up into the tree..." And then, "But that's okay, I just washed it off in the pool!"

As I headed out to deal with this doozy, I realized that the one part of this sentence that hadn't seemed troublesome (Ruby being up in the tree) was actually the most urgent part. There, up in the maple tree, was my little naked Ruby, looking more like a small forest creature than a boy, as he scrambled higher and higher and higher up the tree limbs. My calls for him to stop were useless. He only stopped once he was perched near the very top of the 10 foot tree and then, looking down, he said in a small voice, "No let me fall down."

Standing on a chair, I wasn't nearly tall enough to reach the little lemur looking at me with big brown eyes. Luckily, a friend had been over the day before to trim our trees and had left a ladder out. I quickly carried the ladder over - all the while telling Ruby not to move as he crouched clutching the branches - climbed up and could just barely reach him. It was very precarious trying to keep my balance on the top of the ladder, while trying to grab my hefty little boy. Ezra, who was perched a little lower down in the tree than Reuben, helped me greatly when he sort of pushed Ruby into my arms. I carried him down the ladder, hearts beating wildly (his and mine), cleaned up the poop and told Ezra to never ever boost Ruby up in the tree again.

And then, I went back to cooking dinner which, in a stroke of good luck, hadn't yet burned.

Out West

In spite of pretty poor sleep throughout and a slow start to the adventures, Road Trip 2010 was lots and lots of fun.Andrew and I also kept up to date with our wedding vows, which included promises to take road trips together and eat ice cream together. At the time we made those vows to each other, future children were just an abstract idea. So, to take the road trip and eat the ice cream with our two amazing boys was a pretty incredible manifestation of the alchemy of vows, hard work, and amazing good fortune.  pressed pennies at The Bonneville Dam 
pizza in Hood River. 
and ice cream in Hood River. 
Tour of the Pendleton Woolen Mill. 
Love. 
Ice cream after (incredible) burgers & fries from Nells 'n Out in La Grande. 
At the really great playground in Baker City. 
Fishing on the Powder RIver. 
Horse and Carriage Ride. 
More Love. 
Fish! 
Headed to the John Day Fossil Beds. 
Fossil Hunting.And then, home. The road trip was great, and home is pretty good, too.