Silence

My oldest J is now in 1st grade. My daughter M is in afternoon preschool 3 days a week. My baby K is taking a nap. I have about 15 more minutes of silence to enjoy. The only noise I can hear is our dog snoring.
I could have been productive, but I decided not to be. I just sat in front of my laptop and did absolutely nothing productive. It was my 2 hour vacation.
I like it.

Eating good

Summer is over, school has started, and I have a little bit of breathing time on Monday afternoon. So I decided to post something....then I realized how many photos of food I have taken this past month or so....Well, I love food. What can I say?

My dear husband found a treasure over this summer. We call it "Natalie's place". She sells beautiful fruits and vegetables from her garden or nearby Amish farm. No pesticides. She is not "certified" organic farmer, but she grows them pretty much organically. And they taste like, well, what fruits and vegetable should taste, that you know they grew up with sunshine, not some fertilizer. You know they are picked by her hands with much care, not by...okay, I won't say anything more than that.

Anyway, we have been eating good, I mean GOOD, local food.

Here is very meaty "Stripe Roma Tomatoes" waiting to be canned.
Yes, they are from Natalie's place. Just gorgeous. And they are yummy!

Here is our dinner one night.
Menu:
- Japanese style hamburger steak (made with grass fed beef from my co-worker's farm) with Teriyaki sauce,
- Sauteed zucchini with bacon
- Steamed corn
- Steamed potatoes (blue, red, and white!) with home grown parsley and chives

Locally famous "Buttermilk Pie" with melons from Natalie's place as dessert.

Okay, this was random. But they are cute, aren't they?
This, nothing local. Just yellow cake cupcake (though I did made it from scratch only because I didn't have boxed cake mix) with baby face on top. They are just vanilla wafers decorated with royal icing. Specially made for my friend.

Army of canned peaches ready for winter,

and they remind me of this poster.
{Photo source here}

I really think I can eat this kid.

Mmmm!

Blueberry picking with cousins

Growing up in rural Japan, I had not heard of such thing as blueberries. Then one day, I saw some "made with blueberry" stuff at a supermarket in a rather big city when I was in high school. They grew only in Hokkaido, the northern island in Japan, and were very much exotic fruit to me.

Then, I moved to Michigan over a decade ago. Here we are living in berry heaven. Blueberry picking became one of our summer ritual. Pick them, eat them, freeze them, and even dream about them.

This year, we went with my sisters-in-law and their kids to a berry patch that was new to me. Kids in boots and with little buckets, off we went. Weather was perfect. I came home with 23 lb. of blueberries. The amount in kids' tummies will be a forever mystery. They really should weigh kids before and after. M, as a picky eater as she can be, did not eat them at all, but she did pick. She enjoyed picking so much that she by herself picked a half pound in very short period time (as she finally decided to start picking when I was ready to leave).

J's wish list with these blueberries - smoothie, jam, pie, blueberry muffins, etc.
We did make smoothie after we came home. The rest, well, I need to get some rest first, then I'll think about it.

Sleepover

I'm a scout-camp widow again. My husband is up in camping with boy scouts for a few nights. Because of that and my kidney stone situation, my sister-in-law felt sorry for me and offered me to take a couple of kids from me. Well, J was the only one took the proposal. M wanted to be with Mommy. And there was almost no hope for K to go.

So, off he went to cousins' last night. It was his first real sleepover all by himself, no Mom and Dad or even his siblings. Just J. He was excited about this special occasion, according to my sister-in-law, which is good and made me feel better.

Now the top bunk being empty, M didn't want to sleep in her bed last night. Oh, great. I sighed.
Then, I came up with an idea!

Why not having our version of sleepover!? Just us girls. (Sorry, K, you need to sleep in your crib.)

I made a bed for M next my bed (to maintain quality of my sleep, I proposed her to have "a special bed just for M"). We stayed up and read books and talked. She told me that now her pink bunny has a name and that is Joey, but this little bear here doesn't have a name yet and she would tell me in the morning. And she did. The little bear's name is Boo-Boo.

After she fell sleep tonight, I quietly snuck out of the room for a little bed-time snack. Now my tummy is happy, I think I can sleep good tonight.

Summer check list

Just a few of items here....

Going to a family camping trip to a lake - check

Fishing at a lake (well, pretend fishing for kids to be exact) - check

Chilling by camp fire - check

Taking a nap at a beach - check

Going to a ball game - check

Bonus: M got to give a hug to the team mascot and J caught a ball!

Loving every bit of summer here - check

Daily dose of summer goodness

We've been harvesting raspberries from our garden. The picture above is today's crop. As our raspberry bush has grown so much this year, I was hoping that, maybe, possibly, I could make some jam out of our own raspberries, but the chances are very slim. Every time I come in with bowl full of raspberries, they disappear. Our super picky eater M loves them. Yup. That good.

My little artists

My house is getting filled with kids' drawings, a lot of it. I love to see their progress - evolution of scribbles to circles, then the faces...eventually legs start coming out of head...

But, I didn't want those nice drawings to be just taped up on my newly painted wall. So, here is the solution: frames and fabric covered cork board. I tried to keep both kids happy with fairness. Showcase! I really like M's family portraits. Well, actually, I really like all of them.

M's latest favorite princess movie "Tangled" inspired drawing. She was very clear, although she also has really really long hair (never had haircut in her life of almost 5 years), that Rapunzel has "yellow hair" and M has "black hair", and Rapunzel's hair is really really long and M's hair is just long.