Summer Time

In other summery updates: 

Movie Night: This photo is awful, but with a little decorating, popcorn in bags and other junk food - we let the kids stay up late one night to watch Ramona and Beezus. It was an awesome movie and fun silly times. The decorating made up for the lack of movie projector (which L was expecting for some reason).

We've done a little painting this summer. You can tell J's a lefty because all her pictures end up in the bottom left hand corner. I was proud of her first representational painting: Snakes.

L is on a rainbow kick. You might also find a dog in a tornado, and a nest full of rainbow eggs.

And how have I not updated you on the house before now? Here's the foundation going in.

The framing went up a few weeks ago. 

And the other details coming in, bit by bit. 

I'm excited. Oh, yes.

Braided

I saw this lovely Braided Spinach Feta Bread over at Artisan Bread in Five (did you buy the book yet?) and wanted to make something so pretty. Mine didn't turn out quite as lovely as his, which is funny because he says his isn't as pretty as Zoe's. Nevertheless, they're all pretty.  :)

I think I've made it three times now, each time stuffed with different things. Once for dinner with friends to be kinda fancy. Later, when we were out for the day, it made an easy cold picnic lunch. And a third time to use up leftovers. It's easier than it looks, and basically any meat/veggie/cheese/sauce/herb combination would work as a filler. 

I used the Challah dough for the first two, and maybe the basic dough for the third. I forget. Quick, tasty, and pretty every time! 

Father's Day

If you haven't made a Father's Day card yet, Brooke at Inchmark has a lovely idea and template for dad. Help kids draw a picture and write some of their thoughts about dad.

CSA and Greens

This is our first year to participate in a CSA with Rose Creek Village. I love buying local, and even more I love buying food from a family who grew food with their own hands. It's been a really exciting experience so far. They send us an email each week, telling us what we'll be getting and with some recipe ideas, and keeping us up to date on how the crops are doing.

My biggest worry was whether we'd be able to eat all the produce each week - especially with all the greens. We like salad, but John and I both tend to be wary of cooked greens. I have to admit, despite all the kale love floating around in recent years, I still hadn't tried it. I eat spinach - isn't that enough? Nevertheless, we found some recipes, and I'm totally digging both kale and swiss chard.

Swiss Chard with Garbanzo beans and fresh tomatoes

I'm loving comparing tomatoes and trying new things. In our third week, we've already tried about 6 new recipes. It would be a safe guess that I'll have lots of veggie recipes this summer. 

Non-photographers, such as myself, should really avoid taking pictures of certain types of foods - it's not doing anyone any good. So use your imagination for this one: this White Bean Soup with Kale (and bratwurst from our CSA) has been my favorite new recipe thus far.

Celebrating Five

I love my kids' birthdays.  I try really hard to make it a whole day of celebration. I don't want the day to be lost in the presents you got, the ones you didn't get, or the struggle to share new toys. I don't want birthdays to be about the stuff they're going to get, but to be a celebration of who they are, what they mean to our family. As a parent, it is an opportunity to find deeper ways of showing them how loved they are. Here are some ways we emphasize celebration over gifts:

Decorations! We hang streamers or bunting, pick flowers, and use table cloths and set up games, so when the girls first wake up, they know today is special. I don't necessarily buy decorations, we mostly use our special occasion linens and buntings, but we do like to pick up a few fun party favors. I usually lay out special clothes for the kids, too, because they still love dress up.

Memories. We talk a bit in the morning about growing up and all of our old memories. This year I was glad to be able to pull out our family albums and show them pictures from each of their past birthdays, and we talked about the ways they have changed - getting taller, longer hair, learning new words, writing, etc.

Food! Of course there's the birthday cake, made in a silly shape. But, I also try to make a whole meal (or two meals) of special foods the girls like, or things we don't have often. This year, Lou requested sausage balls like we have at Christmas.

A meal. We had a little tea party this year, so the entire meal felt like a special event. We ate finger foods, and had chocolate milk in our teapot and tea cups. John and I drank our coffee in little child size tea cups, too - which added another layer of fun. We also used our best (silliest) polite voices and everyone helped everyone get their food (rather than me fixing their plates). We eat together most days, so it is important to make this meal feel different than our usual family dinner.

Games! Kids love to play games, but more importantly, they love to play with us! So we spent the day playing together. I made a hopscotch game on the floor using painter's tape. John and I had to google the rules, and we had an awesome time learning and teaching it to the kids. This has become one of my favorite parts of birthdays - a whole day that I give them my attention and play with them without being distracted by all of the other things I need to do.

Presents. Of course, there still are a few presents. Not very many, but we spent much of the day playing with the presents with the kids. The joy wasn't so much about the thrill of opening too many packages but enjoying learning new games, playing pretend, and reading new books together. (Here the girls and I played with eeboo's awesome Tell Me a Story card game.)

L's one birthday present request was that mommy make her another dog.

Family. Our family lives far away, so its special to get to speak to so many of them on birthdays, to know that this is a day when people remember you and love you.

How do you celebrate little birthdays? How do you de-emphasize stuff and emphasize love?