Party In My Kitchen

For those of you who have been to our house, you've got to admit, our kitchen isn't fancy, nor very spacious. It especially does not have good storage or counter space. What it does have are a decent gas stove, a good dishwasher, a brand new fancy refrigerator, and me. While I'm no star chef, or gourmet chef, or even a chef at all, I do cook a lot in my kitchen.

This afternoon, I had my work cut out for me. 

We host a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) drop site on our front porch each week. We've been doing this for about 3 years now. It's a pretty sweet deal for me. We've been getting our CSA box from Oxbow Farm for about 7 years now. A few years back, the farmers invited CSA members the opportunity to host drop site at their house. I jumped at this because it means I don't have to drag my kids out (sometimes in the rain) to a farmers market or other drop site, find parking, etc., etc. My box, along with several others (I think we're up to 14 this year!), come right to my door. 

Sometimes members forget to pick up their boxes. When this happens, I try to contact them, if possible, and find out what's up. Sometimes they are out of town, and forgot to get someone else to pick it up for them. Sometimes they are running late. And, sometimes, I can't get a hold of the member(s). This happens about once a week or so. I usually give them a day or two to come pick up, even though the farm tells them it's on a specific day of the week, at a specific time. This is the advantage of picking up a someone's house. Especially a do-gooder like me. *smile* When I finally decide that the box(es) are not going to be claimed this week, I try to find homes for the vegetables, and sometimes fruits.

Today, their home is my home. 

Although this is part of the sweetness of being the host, it does make for challenges. 1) Where to store all these veggies. 2) Now I have 3 bunches of parsley to use up, or something the like. 3) It takes some work to use up all this organic produce. 

That's how the party in my kitchen happened to day. I went through the box and picked out the stuff that I know I'll use for sure. I set aside the rest. Then, I set out to make things fit in my fridge. To do this, I have to take the parts off the veggies that I know won't get used, such as carrot tops and put them to compost. I also have to take some of the older stuff out from previous weeks and do something with them. Today, I cleaned baby carrots, parsnips, and baby beets. The beets went into the oven an hour ago, and will get pureed later. The carrots and parsnips will get roasted for dinner tonight. I also peeled, cut and cored 4 over-ripe pears, and I'm in the process of making pureed pear for Crosby and pear butter. In addition, I prepared chicken wings for tonight's dinner: Chinese-style salt and pepper fried chicken. Mmm-mmm.

Thank goodness the kids are happily playing together upstairs, Crosby is napping, David is doing some work stuff, and it's raining outside. It's the perfect afternoon to party in my kitchen.

8 Years

I can't believe David and I have already been married 8 years, and we have 3 children! Not to mention 2 cats. And, in these 8 years, we have moved 3 times, owned 2 houses, and sold 1 house. We've had a few bumps along the way, but it's mostly been fantastic. I feel like the luckiest gal in the world.

I also feel pretty darn lucky that David and I can take all three boys out to dinner at Lark, have a good time, and not lose our tempers. We ate tons of delicious food to boot!

Some of my favorite photos from our wedding day.

 Me with our awesome photographer, and my only glass of wine the whole evening, which someone bumped me and spilled a little on my dress.

 My parents are so cute.

Edge of Insanity

We have been juggling activities for the kids for some time now. Recently, we added soccer to the mix. Practices are on the same days as karate lessons, and games on the same day as Chinese school. We have one car. I have childcare help 2 afternoons a week...on the days we don't have either of those activities. 

I thought I had it somewhat figured out, until I made the mistake of watching Vincent during his karate class last week. He looked bored, and seemed a bit lost. I spoke to his teacher, and he convinced me that Vincent needs to go back to going 2 days a week. 

Let me back track. In order to make all this work, we have made a compromise. Soccer and karate are both 2 days a week. We could do karate on two other days, but the times are much later, and I didn't want to cut into dinnertime. The compromise is that Vincent only goes to karate one of those days, and soccer the other day. Tyler gets to stay with karate two days a week. 

This is what my Monday afternoons look like:

2:50pm - pick up Vincent from school

3pm-3:30pm - snacks 

3:30pm - dress for karate, head out the door

4pm-4:30pm - Tyler's karate class

5pm-6pm - Vincent's soccer practice

Today, I tried to add Vincent's second day of karate into the mix from 4:30pm-5pm. Bad, bad idea. I figured I was already at karate so what would be the big deal staying an extra half hour and then, rush to soccer. The problem is all the changing of clothing! I missed that little detail. And, the rushing around was pretty bad. 

So, when we got into the car for soccer and Vincent asked where his water bottle was, and I realized I didn't pack it, I gave him the choice: go to soccer, but be thirsty, or go home and have water. He chose to go home. Funny thing is, I'm not entirely sure he actually drank any water when he got home. I didn't pay attention, as I was trying to sort out what was going on with kid #3, as he was acting tired, but not wanting to fall asleep for a nap, and kept wiggling around while I tried to rock him.

David walked in the house, and I did one of those things to him that I absolutely hate, and always try not to do. I broke down. "This is too much for me"..."It's not fair to any of us"..."I don't like being so stressed out"..."Something's gotta give, and it seems like, so far, it's my sanity!"...Oh, poor, poor husband.

We've come up with a new plan. It will go into effect next week. Vincent will take a break from karate until soccer is over. It'll just be about a month. Tyler can't get punished for it, so we will move karate and soccer to different days of the week. This allows Vincent to do 2 days of soccer practice now, and we should still be able to have dinner as a family everyday of the week. I'll keep you posted.

Ooh, but how about soccer pictures?!!

 First game of the season.

Hello, Tooth Fairy!!

Yup, 1st tooth to fall out from one of our boys! Vincent, of course. Although, I wouldn't have been surprised if Tyler actually lost his first, as Vincent's are taking f-o-r-e-v-e-r. 

The story goes like this:

Apparently, he was standing outside the lunch room, and someone came by and knocked his tooth out, and he has no idea where it went. I asked if he thought he may have swallowed it, but he scoffed, and said, "What?! No!" We looked around on the ground for it a little, but it was nowhere to be seen. 

Tyler was cute. He kept picking up little tiny pebbles and saying, "is this it?

At bedtime, David had to answer a bunch of questions about Tooth Fairy to Vincent. Like, what do fairies look like? How do you know their magical? He finally came down and asked me to go talk to him.

We talked about how Tooth Fairy only comes when you are sleeping, so you can't see her. She, as well as Easter Bunny, and Santa live forever, and they only way they can do that is if we believe in them in our hearts. Like having Christmas spirit, or the way we believe in God. He said we've seen Santa a lot, like at the mall. I told him those are his ambassadors, since they all look kind of different (he pointed that out last year). BUT, we can't go up to them and say they aren't the real Santa because sometimes the real Santa does show up, but we don't know which one he is. So, we treat each of the Santas as if they are the real one, because maybe that IS the real one. 

He loved it. And, it was so wonderful to sit and tell him about these magical people/creatures. And, he reminded me that there is the Halloween Fairy, too. Oh yes! That's right! She is the one that comes a week after Halloween, takes the candy from their loot, and gives it to needy children. In return, she leaves a little gift.

Karate Photos

The boys had their photos taken for karate on Monday. I wasn't going to buy pictures, but I remember last year wishing I did. They took individual ones, and then Vincent wanted to get one with Tyler, too. I was going to pick 3 images to purchase and have emailed to me. Images only. Emailed. The guy wanted $70. WTF?! is what I almost said to him. Instead, I tried to politely tell him I needed to think it over, and sheepishly came back asking for just one image on a CD. That cut the price in half. YES! Your math is correct, that is still $35 for one image on a CD. No prints. I'm talking grey backdrop photo, kind of like you would take for school, only you get to hold a weapon and make a cool pose. 

Ugh. I was disgusted by this guy.

But, I did irritate him, too, as I took these photos of him taking pictures of the boys, to which he asked me not to do anymore. Oops! I seriously was just trying to email them to David. I mean, look at them, I'm not going to be putting prints of these up around my house.

1st Day of School 2013

Big day for both of our older boys! Vincent started 1st grade, and Tyler started Pre-K.

Vincent wore his new lace up shoes that I got him after he learned to tie his shoes at Nordstrom's shoe-tying clinic a few weeks ago. He said they felt a little tight at first, but by the end of the day, he said he loves them. And, when I saw that his laces were still tied and asked if they ever came undone, he said, "Yeah, one did, and I tied it back myself." Cool beans, kiddo!!

Tyler is wearing the lace up shoes I got Vincent for his first day of school last year. He outgrew them pretty quickly, or rather, disliked them pretty quickly. He couldn't tie them last year! Then, they got too small. For Tyler, I cut the laces at the top and tied a knot so they just slip on now.

Though I thought I was ready for today, it ended up being decently stressful for me. I guess the morning was nice, but the afternoon was rough. Big breath in...hold...now release.

Vincent

The last post got me thinking about pictures of Vincent taken in front of our house. Check it out...

 4.5 years old

 

 5.5 years old

 

 6.5 years

Feet and Popcorn

Someone learned to grab his feet this week.

Some people tell me my boys don't each much. I agree. But, some days they do. For instance, like this morning, when they polished off this whole bowl of popcorn I made for snack. Photo one was was taken after they had already been eating for 5 minutes, so there was more when they started.

 One happy popcorn eater.