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Last minute teacher gifts and the last day of school

My girls have so many teachers, doing something special for them all of them is challenging. I’ve found a simple card does the trick best. But for the younger girls, they still want the proud moment of carrying something in to their teacher on the last day of school.

In addition to the girls’ hand written cards, I made jars of our Double Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. Because I was feeling crafty. And I had a late evening cup of coffee.

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I feel like we barely made it across the finish line to the last day of school today. The girls trudged into school wearing flip-flops (which are not suitable for the mulch playground) and my toddler wore her swimsuit. I’m SO glad it is finally here – to have a break in schedule, packing lunches, and the general freedom of not having to accomplish anything. Ahhh yes, I love summertime with my kids. And all the sweet times that come with it.

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Brownies visit “Farmer Megan”

One of my mom missions is to have my kids know where their food comes from, eat good food, know the importance of organic food, and well, make overall good food choices in life. It’s not always easy. My oldest daughter will still tell you Cheese-its are her favorite food. Sigh…...  But we do our best. One way of educating the girls is being a member of a CSA and visiting Farmer Megan’s farm.

For the last Brownie meeting, we took the troop to Farmer Megan’s. They loved it. Girls nibbled on fresh broccoli off the stalk from the ground, bit into radish heads like an apple, awed over the chickens and swooned over the baby goats. Here’s a few pictures from our HOT May visit.

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As you might be able to see, Farmer Megan is pregnant. She is raising these goats to one day feed her toddler fresh goats milk instead of cows milk. How cool is that? Straight from the farm, in her backyard. 

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Arugula Pesto

I love pesto. It spruces up a sandwich, quiche, a quesadilla, pasta and and even a salad. BUT it’s not basil season yet. And I’m up to my EARS in Arugula. So what the heck – we made Arugula pesto. I use it just like pesto and I love it almost as much. IMG_0728

Arugula Pesto

Fill a food processor with fresh Arugula

1 cup of nuts, such as pine nuts, walnuts or slivered almonds – I used a mix pine nuts and almonds. Nuts can be expensive, so use what you can find reasonably priced. You can’t go wrong with pesto.

Generous amounts of parmesan cheese, feta cheese, or grated mozzarella cheese. Again, use what you have. You can’t go wrong with basic cheese on hand – except cheddar. 

2 garlic cloves, chopped

Fresh grated salt and pepper

Pour in olive oil until texture is smooth to a spoonable mixture

Freeze extra jars and use for up to 1 year.

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Best Basic Vinaigrette recipe

Springtime means LOTS of greens and LOTS of salads here. This basic vinaigerette recipe makes every salad, and ever green – from arugula, spinach, field greens to chinese cabbage – taste great. And it’s versatile for a changing palate. I change up what kinds of vinegar I use, from something heavy like balsamic, or a lighter white wine vinegar or an apple cider for something more savory.

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Best Basic Vinaigrette

1 cup vinegar (you can use balsamic, white or apple cider vinegar) to 2 cups olive oil.

1 garlic clove minced

1 half fresh squeezed lemon (or and orange works too)

1 tsp of Dijon mustard (dried mustard works too)

1 tsp of honey

fresh ground salt and pepper.

I make batches in mason jars and store it in the fridge. The oil will separate and solidify when refrigerated. I place it on the stove while making dinner to warm it enough to break it back up, shake and serve.

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Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

This summer I’m striving to not rely on store bought snacks around the house. There’s always plenty of apples, bananas, smoothies and cheese. But instead of crackers and store bought sweets, I’m getting our favorite recipes ready for a basic, constant rotation of baking and the filling the HUGE task of keeping three mouths fed 24/7 – and I don’t even have boys!

Here’s a favorite. It’s such a favorite that my oldest girl took snack bags full it to school for lunch, to share it with her friends after she noticed what a hit it at her lunch table. You know it’s good then!DSC_0228

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of sugar

1 cup oil

4 egg, beat

2 cups cooked pumpkin or 16 oz can of pumpkin

3 1/2 cups of flour ( I always do half wheat and half white, with 1 tbsp of yeast to make up for the fresh ground wheat flour)

1 tsp allspice

1 tsp baking powder

2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cloves

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

2/3 cup water

Instructions:

Combine sugar, oil, eggs and beat till light. Stir in pumpkin. Combine dry ingredients and stir into pumpkin mix. Add water and chocolate chips.

Grease two loaf pans. (I always use glass pans.) Bake at 350 degrees for 65-75 minutes.

For some fun tips on baking with kids, visit this old post where my kids look SOOOOOO little. 

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Double Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

While this may not constitute as a healthy snack, when there is a craving for something a little sweet, this is my new go to cookie – Double Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.

The recipe is my own version, adapted from the recipe provided on the bag of Sun Spire brand peanut butter chips. I have a vegetarian child who won’t eat peanut butter, but likes these cookies. So to make them more like a snack, I add more peanut butter, less sugar, use wheat flour and organic cocoa chips. They are a crowd pleaser.

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Double Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

1 cup fresh ground peanut butter

1 stick of unsalted butter, softened

1 egg

1/2 tsp of vanilla

1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup white sugar, combined

3/4 cup whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup white all purposes flour, combined

1/tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup peanut butter chips and 1 cup chocolate chips, combined

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. (I use convection bake at 350.) Sift together flour, salt and baking soda. In separate mixing bowl cream together butters and sugar, adding vanilla extract and egg. Then slowly add in flour mixture and fold in peanut butter and chocolate chips.

Roll into balls and place on cookie sheet. If time allows – roll dough into log and refrigerate before slicing them into nice flat cookies. Either way works fine. Bake for 8-10 minutes, cool and eat.

Note: if you make small enough cookies, the recipe makes enough plenty dough to freeze half of it for later. 🙂

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Keepsake box for First Haircut, and sweet twirly skirt

Recently my middle daughter did something hugely sneaky! She gave a two-and-a-half-year-old her first haircut. It happened in our doll area, with little miss Julia sitting in the doll hair styling chair. My middle girl asked her if she could cut her hair and Julia said yes. They were having fun in the moment.

Shortly after, her long hair and bangs that her mother had been growing out for months, became a bob with short pixie bangs! Yes it was a BIG cut.

The new hairstyle was discovered simutaniously as my dog ran through the kitchen having just been sprayed by a skunk in the backyard – wearing fresh yellow skunk oil over her face and sneezing all over the floor! At the time were preparing dinner for five little girls. My friend’s house is on the market and I was trying to do something nice for them, as they had to once again flee their house at dinnertime due to another realitor showing. I provided anything BUT a peaceful evening.

I felt terrible. The dog stunk. My house stunk. A toddler needed professional hair help. So we did what any parents would do, we drank all the wine in the house that evening. Thankfully, she is a long-time friend and we were able to laugh about it all – adding it to the list of shaving cream covered heads, cool aid hair dye and girls pulling each other’s teeth out in the bathroom.

In return for the most recent hair experience, I wanted to do something special for her. Something sweet for her baby girl who now has a bob and short pixie bangs.

The keepsake hair box and sweet twirly skirt was the perfect solution.

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I left the frame on the box open for her mom to choose a photo of her, after her professional haircut. The box is wooden from the craft store. I whitewashed it with watered down acrylic paint and glued fabric strips on the box that matched the skirt. The name and date details were sewn on, using the letter stitching mode on my sewing machine. The skirt pattern was adapted from the same pattern as the dresses I made for the girls on the first day of school, and paired with a store bought shirt and sweet toddler ruffle socks with bows.

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And it was all packaged up, for my mom friend who thankfully forgave and laughed with me about the little mishap.

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Lastly, I couldn’t resist making a matching skirt for the girl who cut the hair.

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Our no-schedule summer

I’ve been eavesdropping a bit on folks about their summer plans. I hear a lot about camps, vacations and relief by moms who have their whole summers scheduled, week-by-week.

When I hear this I feel liberated. We have no plans. Zero! No camps, no trips, and not even a single piano lesson.

Today I finally flipped the calendar to May and started filling it in for this month. When I got to June, this is it and this is how it will stay. And I love that!

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I can’t wait for lazy mornings with nowhere to go, when every day can be a fly by the seat of our pants day. We’ll pick up some from last summer, playing in the backyard with our Fairyland, Mud Pie Cafe and tending to our Berry Patch and Backdoor garden. And I have some new ideas for some new spaces I’ll be setting up, preparing for the hours and hours we’ll spend together at home. And once again, we’ll have a TV Free Summer. Because the nagging of when to watch it and the crying when it gets turned off drives me insane.

You know how I feel about  to-do lists. However I am going to start a summer to-do check list as we come up with fun things we like to do – so we don’t forget.

So far we are talking about things like this:

1) Baking day with the Easy Bake Oven.

2) Rainy Day at the Arcade.

3) Take all the stuff animals to the vet (in our basement).

4)Let them play with my old Southern Belle dresses and prom dresses – finally! They beg to do this all the time.  

5)Go to the zoo (lame I know but I HATE the zoo and my 3-year-old has never been).

6)Be a tourist in our own town by visiting places like the Tic Tac Toe Ice Cream Parlor in Loudon – about 30 minutes away.

7)A girls only bike ride from our house to Ijams Nature Center for a picnic lunch. My middle girl has been REALLY working at getting confident with her biking skills. This will be a special reward treat!

8)Pool days! This will be the first year I think I can realistically take the girls to the pool by myself. Swimming skills have reached a safe level for me to feel okay about the deep end, the diving board and leaving one kid in the water while I take the little one to the bathroom. And the lifeguard director at our pool lives down the street and babysits the girls. BONUS!

And the list will keep going…and the girls will keep adding… and we’ll do it all when there comes a day when that’s what we felling like doing. Because in my book, that’s what summertime is for.

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Why we love Hand-Me-Down sister dresses

It’s a chore this time of year to pack up the winter and bring out the spring. The warm weather clothes bins were overflowing in the basement while the girls kept fishing for something spring to wear  (even swim suits). Meanwhile the winter coats are still piled up next to the backpacks that never got unpacked from our Norway trip. I always dread this HUGE chore of packing and unpacking seasonal clothes.

Until I started pulling out all the sweet dresses for my youngest girl. They are all so familiar, from her sisters wearing them, and full of memories. This is a treat having three girls. We get to relive moments through dresses. And no one seems to mind wearing a hand-me-down.

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This morning I went upstairs to discover my oldest girl had helped my little girl get dressed in one of her favorite old dresses. One that she wore to the beach when our middle girls was in a baby in a sling on my chest. The dress one she wore to get her first hair cut. And did countless twirls in the living room, and everywhere that she went.

This morning was a repeat of those events. The sweetest of times by growing girls, while I savor every little girl moment I can squeeze out of her these days. IMG_0625 IMG_0626 IMG_0627 IMG_0628 IMG_0629 IMG_0630

And the look back, from 2007…man we looked young! My oldest was two-and-a-half then. The middle girl was six months old. DSC_0411DSC_0415

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I don’t recall my middle girl choosing this dress much. She doesn’t have this serious side to her personality. Her favorite dress at this age was green with big cows on it, and a t-shirt with silly sunglasses. So different….the personalities of my girls. Yet so fun to watch.

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Little Girl Day

Last week my two youngest girls stayed home from school on Thursday just because I needed a little extra snuggles and love with my little girls. A little extra time to watch them, hang out with them, giggle and have a day to move at their pace, where the process of deciding on the proper gardening hat took precedence over their five minutes of gardening.

I realized on that day that I am SO ready for summer. I love the days filled with sleeping in late, no agendas, lots of bare feet in the grass, impromptu play dates, bike rides, walks to the park, fun filled pool days, and the basic freedom that we have no where to go at any particular time. Our little girl day was a mini slice of summer.

We stood outside the back door saying good bye to our neighbor and toddler friend and I thought, now what should we do?  So far I had not been ready to embrace spring. But with my little energy balls by my side, staring at prepping our Backdoor Garden I was inspired to take a stab at it.

“How about some gardening?” I asked. The response was the perfect little squeals of “Okaaaaaayy!”

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Many tools were gathered, little hands tried to work big tools, someone had to go potty, someone tried to go in the grass but peed on their shorts, then we went inside to find new shorts and she also found a beach hat that was for 12-24 months heads which she insisted on wearing. Girl number two liked that idea ant went into fetch a beach hat from the summer bin waiting to be sorted through in the basement.

Someone was working hard (for a short time) and the other just wanted to have her picture taken. About five minutes later they got tired and decided to rest under a tree. Then they pretending to sleep, wrestling around together giggling.

“Mom, it was a good idea for Lydia to stay home with me today,” said my middle girl. At first she wanted her own day. I wanted them both. That was nice to hear.

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Next they wanted to have a picnic under the Magnolia tree in the front yard.

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And requested a walk to the park, which resulted in wading in the muddy Tennessee water. I wouldn’t put my feet in it. But then again maybe I should. They made it look like fun. Carefree. We should all be a little more carefree sometimes.

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