So, I must share!

Curried Chicken Salad:

• 3 medium chicken breasts
• 1 1/2 tsp of curry powder
• 2-3 tsp of orange juice
• 1/2 tsp of ginger (ground)
• 1/4 cup of dried apricots
• 2 green onions
• 6 tbs of mayonnaise
• salt and pepper as desired

Ah life is well and we are blessed.

Now that fall is well under way, and I have nine weeks under my belt as a mother of two…I feel as though I may have a minute of down time to breathe and perhaps blog. With that said, I hope to start sharing some fun recipes  and other random tidbits that may or may not be that important! I’m also looking forward to reading and catching up with the blogs that I have enjoyed following over the past years!

We have spent time prepping for our new arrival which could be any day between now and the beginning of September. We have also been doing our best to balance work around the house, as it seems when it rains it pours with maintenance problems, while saving time to have fun going to the lake, playing in the sprinkler, visiting the zoo, or walking around town.

I am READY. Pregnancy is such an exciting time in life, watching your body grow and morph to enormous sizes, feeling wee little flutters to humongous kicks, all kinds of hormonal ebbs and flows, and an insatiable desire for sweets…oh wait, maybe that’s not a pregnancy thing for me.

I have enjoyed all that comes with pregnancy, but I am ready to have my body back. I am ready to be able to bend over without the aches, ready to be able to sleep flat on my back, ready to jog and exercise, ready to be more mobile again, and ready to be able to flounder around on the floor with Little Miss A and Handy J.  But I’m also ready to hold that tiniest little bundle in my arms, see the similarities and differences between babe #1 and babe #2, ready to smell that fresh baby smell, ready for the all-nighters, ready to relive all of the new baby firsts,  and ready to show #2 the world!

It is a marvelous blessing to have a child, a wonderful family, and a life full of love.

Not I…

I’d rather be waking up by sunrise to welcome the glory of each new day in it’s splendor with my cup of coffee in hand as I take a quick walk around the gardens. It is such an alive feeling to wake with the sunrise.

I’d rather be grilling up something tasty in our backyard for dinner and eating outside listening in on all the chirps and tweets of our neighbor birdies who are working so vigorously to keep their own little ones satisfied.I’d rather be taking Little Miss A to the park and helping her to discover that she can master the small slide all on her own. And then try in my best power to step away, even though I desperately want to jump in and scoop her up as soon as she tumbles.

I”d rather be digging in the dirt and planting our heirloom tomatoes with Handy J and taking in all of his instructions on how to plant them properly (even though secretly, I kind of already know most of what he is telling me).

I’d rather be watching the little creatures that have inhabited our yard frolicking and mingling about, preparing nests and moving to new ones. Man the stamina and focus of a squirrel, bird, bee, or rabbit is like no other!

I’d rather try and walk to the library with Little Miss A only to realize about half way there that this pregnant momma is not going to make it that far; therefore turning around and heading back home to grab the car instead. But still feeling positive that at least I gave it a try!

I’d rather be soaking up as much of these beautiful days as I can because the one nice thing about hard winters is that it truly makes me appreciate the sun, the warmth, and the growth that spring and summer bring.

Hope everyone else is enjoying the weather and this spring season!

The weekend was full with lots of tiny projects in and around the house getting completed during the day.  Then in the evening, I hunkered down with a couple of movies and/or a good chick lit book and a cup of chamomile tea which was a perfect way to end each day. That always feel like a good combination of productivity and relaxing to me.

It wasn’t all work over the weekend, we managed to squeeze in some fun with a Mother’s Day brunch served at our table in the backyard. It was a beautiful morning with the sunshine warming us all up and our bumble bee friends swirling around us in the nearby gardens.   Another fun thing we did over the weekend, thanks to an idea I copied off of my cousin, was pudding painting!  Little Miss A got to do some major artwork with pudding paints!  She loved it. We don’t generally eat a lot of pudding or keep it in the house, but luckily enough I had some stored away.  We added a little food coloring, some sprinkles to top it off, and she became quite the little artist full of focus and concentration (of which you can see with her tiny little mouth).It’s hard to believe I’m a mother to this awesome little girl and soon to be boy/girl, but what an amazing blessing it is to love someone so unconditionally and completely. I hope you all had a Mother’s Day FULL of hugs, kisses, and COMPLETE with a little “you” time.

To top off our Saturday night meal, I whipped up a Lemon Pound Cake w/ homemade blueberry sauce from a recipe in Cooking Light. Don’t let the magazine title “Cooking Light” fool you, the only thing light about the recipe was the low fat buttermilk that it called for.

We have been on a lemon eating frenzy that last two weeks making lemon/strawberry shake ups, fresh lemonade, lemon poppy seed muffins (which totally bombed, imagine inverted cupcakes…yep that bad), and the oh so delicious pound cake.  It was truly a hit! Now top it with the blueberry sauce and it just put this dessert on the top of the list for a warm weather favorite.Lemon Pound Cake Recipe:

• 3 C. of all purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 C. sugar
• 3/4 C. butter, softened
• 2 large eggs
• 1 C. of low fat buttermilk
• 1 tbs of lemon rind
• 3 tbs of lemon juice
• 1 tsp of chopped mint
• powdered sugar for topping

Preheat oven to 350, combine flour, powder, soda, and salt in a bowl, in a separate bowl use a mixer for the sugar, butter, and eggs until light and fluffy, add eggs one at a time mixing well between each egg, add flour mixture to sugar mix alternating with buttermilk ending with the flour, add rind, lemon juice, and mint, beat until just blended. Bake for 45-50  minutes or until toothpick comes clean in the middle.

Blueberry Sauce Recipe:

• 1 C. water
• 1 C. sugar
• 1 C. berries
• 1 tsp. butter
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Boil water and sugar until sugar dissolves, then add in berries and remaining ingredients, stir often until sauce thickens a bit. Pour over cake and enjoy!

We do not learn for the school, but for life.

My husband, Handy J, is an elementary school teacher in a great public school district where the parents take an active role and most teachers are invested and continue their professional development.

My husband is a great teacher, not just by my account, but by tons of kids, their parents, and his coworkers. He’s passionate about teaching and kids, tries to instill the importance of lifelong learning and to learn not for school but for themselves. He challenges them to think critically, explore their creativity, and that it is okay to be or do something different. But even with the best of teachers, those students are still stuck inside the box. The box of their classroom, school, and of the school district/ government that determines what is important for them to learn and how to learn it. And even with the best teachers, there is no getting around the fact that it is generally a 30 plus to 1 ratio. And even with the best of teachers, I think you catch my drift…

John Taylor Gatto from his book Dumbing Us Down on national curriculum: “such curriculum produces physical, moral, and intellectual paralysis, and no curriculum content will be sufficient to reverse its hideous effects.”  These are just a few reasons why we have decided that homeschooling would be a wiser option for our family, at least up until Jr. High, or until Little Miss A expresses an interest in trying compulsory schooling.

Another striking quote from Gatto talks about the overall mental structure of schools: “school, as it was built, is an essential support system for a model of social engineering that condemns most people to be subordinate stones in a pyramid that narrows as it ascends to a terminal of control.”

I’m excited for the opportunity to help our little ones learn in an open and nurturing environment where curiosity will be cultivated and not bound to the walls of a classroom nor confined to the performance of a standardized test. It will be a place of reflection, introspection, and most of all learning in an individualistic democratic way where subjects will have no boundaries and connections can be made in real and enriching ways.

So here is my shout out to any and all those that homeschool or will be…what resources would you recommend: books, materials, etc., etc.  Our research phase has now started!

We all love fruit smoothies, and I try to make them often especially when the weather is nice and warm.  A while back a friend suggested adding spinach to our fruit smoothies as that is one way she gets her little guy to eat some veggies. Brilliance at its best I say!  And so, I added a little spinach to the smoothie and voila…blended secretly amongst the sweet fruit smoothie my little one is now getting at least one veggie.  Oh the tricks of motherhood .

Strawberry/Pineapple Smoothie w/out spinach!

Our Fruit Smoothies:

• 1-1/2 C. of fresh or frozen fruit (strawberries, blueberries, and pineapple make a great combo)
• 1 C. of milk
• 2 tsp of sugar
• 1/4 C. of spinach