go west

My favorite Christmas Musician

Merry Christmas!

Anticipation

'Tis the season to be filled with it...


and back two months ago...waiting for trick or treating partners.

Pantry Reorg

Before...



During...


After...



Can of tan paint found in basement: $0
Baskets found throughout the house: $0
2 bags of trash thrown away: $0
5 hours of cleaning, painting, purging: $0
Fresh, organized pantry: priceless

Candy Bar Challenge

We challenge you to a candy bar contest.

Last year we invited neighbors over for an apple tasting and had a great time comparing the wide variety of apples available during the fall.

The overall favorites were Golden Delicious and Fuji.

This year we invited friends over for the always in-season Candy Bar Challenge.


We passed around the plates one at a time. Contestants were asked to write down their guess for looking only on the left side of their answer sheet. Then they were able to taste the candy and write down any change to their guess in the right column. How many can YOU identify? Submit your answers as a comment. We'll post the correct guesses soon.















This version of the challenge is looking only, for the taste testing you'll need to host your own candy challenge :)

Fly By Night

A brief musical interlude from J-man during a practice session.

We traveled

by airplane


by foot




















by bike




















by boat

by trolley


and our main mode of transportation: by metro

Hippity, Hoppity

Easter's on its way...

Ahh, the beauty of a post-it note

This awaited me one day as I went to my closet to put away laundry.


Then I opened the door, and found this:


It's amazing what a little piece of paper can do to turn something around from a potentially frustrating moment to one of amusement.

Isn't she gorgeous?

This may have been the most pleasant meal our family has ever had. I think it started with the enjoyable trip to the grocery store with Joshua who supported my idea to attempt roasting a chicken for the first time in my life. I've never cooked with a whole chicken before. I attempted a turkey once when Jim and I were first together. It did not go well. I haven't attempted it alone since, and that was 14 years ago.

I am braver now. Rachel, Ina, my sisters, my friends, and my good friend Google have empowered me to try all sorts of new recipes over the last few years. So today I simply googled Ina Garten's recipe for roasted chicken, adapted it with what I had on hand, added potatoes, and came up with this. My entire family (not always as brave as I am at trying new recipes) went on and on about how much they loved this meal. Everyone had seconds. It was so easy. So good, and oh so pretty.

For my sake, I'm documenting what I actually did to make this.

Roasted Chicken Worth Blogging About Recipe

1 whole chicken
2 tbsp butter, melted
kosher salt
pepper
thyme (I only had dried)
fennel (dried)
1 clementine, cut in half
few squirts of lemon juice (I didn't have a fresh lemon)
1 head of garlic, cut in half
2 small onions, cut in quarters
1/2 bag of baby carrots
2 potatoes, cut in big bite-sized pieces
2 tbsp olive oil

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Remove the gross stuff from the inside of the chicken, then rinse her well and pat her dry. Salt and pepper the inside (I used a fair amount, around a hefty tablespoon of each). Stuff the cavity with thyme, clemetine, lemon juice and garlic. Brush the outside of the chicken with butter and sprinkle with more salt and pepper. Tie the legs together with twine (I found mine in my craft supplies) and tuck the wing tips under the body of the chicken. Place the potatoes, onions, and carrots in a roasting pan (I only had a 9x13 baking dish). Toss with salt, pepper, olive oil and a couple tablespoons each of thyme and fennel. Spread around, then place the chicken on top.

Roast the chicken for 1 1/2 hours, or until the juices run clear when you cut between a leg and thigh. Remove the chicken to a plate and cover with aluminum foil for about 20 minutes. (I put my veggies back in the oven to carmelize for most of this time--I covered them with foil after a few minutes). Slice the chicken onto a platter and serve it with the vegetables.

That's my boy.

Could I be prouder? Not at the moment. My sweet 10-year-old Lover of Words placed second in his school spelling bee on Wednesday. For almost two hours I sat in a state of intense anxiety wondering how the group of 26 finalists would dwindle down to two, and each time a student spelled a word incorrectly my heart broke for them. Then leapt for Joshua. I watched him sit so comfortably on stage, approach the microphone casually, put his hands in his pockets, then spell his word confidently. His composure blew me away...his humble exit off stage when he missed his word in the final round (financier), then his gracious reentery when the other finalist missed her champion word (palatable?). He misheard "larynx" and instead spelled "lyrics," which explained his confused face as he left the stage a second time. This time the other finalist nailed her champion word (vengeance) and won it. And Joshua couldn't have been sweeter to watch.

I need to gush a moment. My grandma would tell you he gets his spelling talent from her. I think she's partly right. I think it also comes from his lifelong love of letters, words, and books. Just tonight my husband caught him reading his book after bedtime with a finger light spy gadget. He's the same kid who once left recess to go take an Accelerated Reader quiz in second grade. In third grade one of the biggest challenges we had was that he kept reading in class. All the time. At conference night his teacher showed us the stack of books she'd collected from him just that day. I love that about him. (Not the getting in trouble part--that frustrates me to no end. But I love the love of reading part.)

Once when he was four and he was mad at me, he told me that I was an F-O-O-L. He spelled it to me just like that. Smart enough to spell that at four. Daring enough to try to get away with insulting me. I asked him if he knew what F-O-O-L meant. He said, yes, it was when someone was S-T-U-P-E-D.

He's come so far.

Feeling Organized...maybe?

This would be a snow day accomplishment. A bulletin board for each child to keep track of all those ongoing forms and projects that I tend to forget about. I'm going into this a bit skeptical that it may look more organized than it functions...but we'll see...

I've Got Your Cardio Workout Right Here

Who needs a treadmill, track, or triathlon when you have this? The wind chill right now is -6. As in 6 below zero. Clearly I didn't make it to the sculpting class I was planning on. No worries. Snow boots instead of running shoes, a shovel instead of weights, and 45 minutes in below freezing weather instead of sweating inside a gym, and I feel fine.

Some of my favorite Chrismtas moments

Black Friday Shopping with the boys...sharing the mid-morning treat tradition!

Men in Uniform

There is something very special about men in uniform...former and current, young and grown.


The boys were so excited to escort Dad at their school's Veteran's Day assembly. Ethan's favorite part was watching the videos they were involved in (so cool but too much personal information to post here), and Joshua's favorite part was listening to America the Beautiful. At dinner last night he said he just couldn't get that song out of his head.

And now a heartfelt shout-out to our current man in uniform...Uncle David. Thank you. Thank you.

Oh, the places we've been (all four of us, that is)

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

very cool app shared by a new friend from years ago :)

Aloha.

With great reluctance and wonderful memories we left the islands of Hawaii on Tuesday after spending 11 glorious days in O'ahu and the big island. Jim's mom generously took her whole family (13 of us total) back to Hawaii for one of the best vacations of our lives (and we've had some good ones--the Arizona mountain trip comes to mind quickly as one of the other best vacations of all times). Feeling a bit jet lagged, resentful of this midwest humidity that we did not miss, and very, very spoiled we slowly are entering back to our real life. I have to go wake up my husband from his nap.

May 25: Lazy, Rainy, Wonderful Day

A day for extra long reading sessions.

A day for outside grilling, just in time.

A day to clean out closets and put away clutter and slowly but surely cross things off my to do list, even if it is in my pajamas.

May 24: Guilty Pleasure

It's sad, we admit it, but we love watching reruns of "Two And A Half Men" at night.