Sock Me

A couple of weeks ago the kids and I needed something to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon. So we did what any normal people would do. We made SOCK PUPPETS!
I bought this random kits on discount weeks before so we broke it out and made four animals: A pink horse, a yellow kitty, a snake and a butterfly. It was so insanely funny to watch them all talk in distorted voices and mostly hearing the infectious laughter and giggles. Elliet quickly requested we build a theater to do a "show", but we did not have any big boxes. So the leel puppets waited.
Scott ordered a new bike and it of course, was enclosed in a nice big box! It was perfect. So this last weekend I brought it inside and cut out a hole, found some fabric in my trash pile and stapled ghetto curtains across the top, complete with fancy pipe cleaner ties. Voila! Curtains in no time. I asked Elliet to make a sign which she taped up and we were off.
At first the kids didn't quite know what to do... they just sat back there attempting to tell stories but mostly just laughing at each other, so I got behind and did a quick sketch of the snake trying to eat the butterfly. What a fun moment that was- I don't think I've personally made Luke laugh that hard ever. Oh boy- I wanted to get that on camera but alas, my hands were in socks.
But we had a lot of fun and even got Dad involved. I have learned that no matter how fun I try to make something, he can come in and bring it up about 10 notches on the humor scale. Yes, that is his FOOT in the picture being the yellow kitty. We all got some good laughs.
Now I can't fold laundry without looking at some of the socks with dark thoughts of mutilations- yarn hair, three googly-eyed martians!
So I say, if you need a good laugh in your life, it's time to make a sock puppet.

Come To Me Summer!

Wow. This month has blown by so quickly.
I took this picture about a week or more ago and what you see here no longer exists. New, lime-green leaves are blossoming everywhere now and it's truly feeling like Spring. We've had a few days of annoying wind so I think it took the fun away of having all these blossoms drift around like snow everywhere. I love it when that happens. Oh well. But we DID have a few days of wonderfully warm temps and... I may or may not have sunbathed a wee.....
So I don't have pictures of much lately, but some fun things have gone on. A good friend of mine from San Francisco was visiting on business so she came by and we caught up for a bit. Very fun to see her. Then last weekend there was a big scooter rally and some of our old friends came into town for that. We cruised down during one of the afternoons and talked with them while gawking at some of the beautiful restored scooters. The people watching is always fun, too- and smelling the two stroke brought back some good riding memories. :) I also finished my latest book club book in record time. 2 days! Wow- major issues in this thing. It will be a saucy little discussion and I'm supposed to bring a food dish to match our theme of "Passionate". I'm open to ideas if you got'em... teehee.....
Other good things are being accomplished. I've been on a mission to clear out our garage and get organized and guess what!? There are NO more bikes on the floor, they are all stored beautifully on the wall like artwork when we drive in, we have sold our weight set and bench, also sold one of our scooters and the other was picked up by a friend to restore. Oh wow- a huge vacant space is sitting there now... I love it! Now I just need to move a bunch of food storage boxes inside, rearrange some shelving and I can get going on some wood projects using my new tools.
I've also been concocting in the kitchen with more wheat experiments and yummy meals.... the garden is still alive by some miracle and I went to another class hosted by an experienced gardner in my ward last night, so let me tell you---- the knowledge is there... let's just see if I can not screw it up!
We are headed out of town this weekend and I will have some FUN projects to show for my time away, so await ye mates....oh... and I'm thinking about going blonde again. Oui ou non?

And PS- I finally updated some music links. I've been lazy and not suggested some Helio Sequence, Faunts and The Go (all worth checking out). But now it's time for some new! So go have a gander.

Time To Move

Ah Music! Finally I am finding some bands to feed my searching. I will be posting some links here soon but to satisfy the common 'It's-Saturday-and-I-sure-feel-like-dancing" desire, check out the latest video from Friendly Fires. This version is not on their album but a recently released EP. It's a little more electro and I love it. And if you haven't bought this album yet it's worth having, I say.
Clever video and it will make you shimmy (And he's a good dancer so it's fun to watch). Enjoy!

Grooves and Good Times

This weekend my brother Richard and his girlfriend, Randi came to Vegas for a visit. Why, do you ask? We had tickets for ANOTHER concert! One of our faves, Cut Copy, announced they were coming to Vegas so we planned this months ago. Rich is a crack up and Randi is great so we were stoked to have them visit and had lots of fun hanging out.
The show was on Friday night so we grabbed some tasty burgers at Create and headed downtown (local pals, if you haven't eaten there, go- it's healthy and uber yums). Matt & Kim were the opening band. I have heard only a little of their stuff but they were so fun live! Such a positive energy. I think you could do a psychological study on the effect that they have on a crowd. All the smiles and happy-ness made everyone so giddy and welcoming, we were all ready to bounce with joy for CC. They finished their set and Cut Copy came on right at 9pm. It was such a fun show. They always sound so good and the crowd was hopping and happy as always. Who needs a jumprope when you can jump to that for an hour and a half? It ended around 10:30 so we went and grabbed a drink before heading home. And guess what? Of all places an old high school friend was visiting from AZ and we bumped into each other at the show. Fun to see you, Kim!
The rest of the weekend was filled with yummy food, shopping, soccer, bike rides and a movie with friends. I wish they lived closer. I love it when my family visits! Thanks for coming, R&R! It was off the hizz-ook.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

So I did it.
I planted my little attempt of a garden. I started small so my failure won't be so devastating. :)
I went to the Nursery and I stood there looking at all the young, promising plants content in the trellis shade. I did feel a little bad for the tiny guys that ended up on my cart. I could feel their groaning soil. Poor fellas. But it was fun work. I got the soil, a shovel and was on my way.
My friend put in this raised area last fall next to our house which the kids have played in for months. After excavating toy tractors, barbies and rusty hot wheels, I needed to till it will the shovel to soften it all up, then I mixed in the new fertilized dirt so it was ready. Man! What did I get myself into!? These things better live or I'm going to kill them. Sadie and Luke were out there "helping" me (i.e. watching me or throwing rocks back into the garden) so they enjoyed the fun part of placing the plants.
We dug the hole, placed them in and got them all planted before I rushed them off to preschool. Tada! It is complete. I realized that a garden must be like having a pet since it's something I have to feed, water and take care of. But unlike a pet, I will put it in a salad. So by darn, Grow!
We have been observing it through the kitchen window and the kids are helping me water it. Doesn't it look so happy? Maybe the plants aren't so frightened after all. I wonder what they are thinking?

Eat Your Wheatcakes

You know all this talk-y-talk about food storage and eating what you store... I have to be honest. I want to have food storage but I think I need to really modify the suggested system. We don't eat a lot of the stuff that you store. I don't use a lot of canned food or dry, boxed brands that everyone is stocking up with using coupons. And sure- the argument is always there: If your family was starving, you'd eat it. And you bet I would BUT that doesn't utilize the principal of eating what you store, ah? I've been trying to think of meals we eat frequently that contain ingredients we could rotate from FS and also avoid boredom or sacrifice taste (AND health). So here goes my trek to share (& invite!) some yummy, gourmet and sensible menu items gathered for a tasty tragedy. Who's with me! I mean, it might be horrific outside, but it won't be in your mouth!
Lately my focus has been wheat. I have baked with wheat flour for years but recently purchased a wheat grinder to begin making and using up those cans/bags of FS. Plus it tastes better and is better for you anyway. Woot woot. I've been experimenting with both the hard white and hard red wheat. I make this recipe at least one morning a week but just tried it using the hard white. It was SO good- like sour, fluffy buttermilk pancakes. But even if you buy the bagged flour, this is still the best whole wheat pancake recipe I have used. They aren't flat or dense. Try this out on your fam and see if you like. Enjoy!

WHOLE WHEAT BUTTERMILK PANCAKES

1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup wheat germ
2 T. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. Baking powder
1 tsp. Salt
1/2 tsp. Baking soda
1 1/2 cups Buttermilk
1/4 cup oil
2 eggs

Mix all dry ingredients together in a bowl. Add wet ingredients and wisk until combined. The recipe suggests letting the mix sit for 10 minutes (but I never do that). Pour onto griddle and cook as usual.
Options: I love to add chopped pecans or blueberries to the uncooked side before flipping.

Daylight Boo Hoo

It's a Christmas Miracle! My brother has actually posted on his blog!
But that's not really all the focus here. He did a great post today on Daylight Savings and I had to share it. Very funny and very him.
Rich- can't wait to see you, bruthah- we are going to parTAY this weekend!

Things[ Going[ On.

I knew it. I knew that March would come and it would feel like an ocean swell rising and rising to chaos. It's happening. I am swelling. Is it daylight savings? Can I blame my lack of efficiency on that one lost hour?
I was cleaning out the twins backpacks and found these robot drawings from school last week when learning about the letter "R". Luke already talks in robot anyway. So[ now[ he[ can[ draw[ them. Thought they were cute- it's fun now to have them draw identifiable things. They also each have a loose tooth! They were very excited (and I mentally committed to getting some $1 bills on hand).
We've needed to get our pool drained because after a few years the PH in the pool can get all funky-funk. I don't know what really happens... maybe it's like swimming in clear gelatin or something....but that's needed to be set up so I finally scheduled it and it's draining as I type this. I've also done some research/attended classes on starting my garden. I already feel bad for the plants that will occupy it. They are doomed. I wonder if they will sense that when I pick them up at the nursery, their little plant communicative methods will shriek with terrific sobs....."Game over, man! Game over!" But this is the last suggested week to get my plants in for good harvesting so now I've got to get that done. I am looking forward to getting all dirty and doing some hard work but have that uneasy feeling that accompanies a new project, hoping it won't flop. Turns out that gardening is an 'art' (said the lecturer), so I may fail after all that time and effort. So if I give you some super green tomatoes in May, just lie and make a yummy sound.
Other than many to-do's, things are going fairly tick-tock. The weather has been pretty nice so we've been visiting parks and playing outside. There are about 20 things floating in my head so I'll try to write a more clear update next time. Sorry if this is a bit here-to-there. Hope you all have a great week. I know I will! (tease-tease)

Spring Sigh

Just a sampling of things I want from the latest JCrack.
Yellow suede heels?!
The ribbon necklaces?
Do they sell occasions? Long legs?

Sun Sun Sun Here It Comes

The final week of February was a complex one (some deets I'll spare you). Things are starting to fill up. Almost every night we had something going on. Scott has been going to Soccer practice a few nights a week and with Luke's soccer starting up in addition to current after-school dance classes, I'm beginning to feel the scheduling skeevies. But we all managed to have some fun in there as well. My friend had a little Birthday gathering on Monday so we went to see that Shopaholic movie and, um... wasn't a fan of the film but girls nights are fun anyway. Then Wednesday was one of the funnest Book Club meetings yet. And then a Stake RS meeting on Thursday which was wonderful (and is especially wonderful with tasty food before and yummy dessert after! I know, shame on me. Summer is coming and I MUST STOP. Though, they did discuss food storage so... I'm kind of doing that in my thighs....).
Friday I took the twins to play group and it was so fun. My neighbor and friend Pam was hosting this time and I could not believe the set up she had going at her house. A jumpy house was inflated in her courtyard, she had toys and blocks out for the little kids, snacks neatly spread out in the kitchen (in labeled glass containers at that) and her side yard already complete with fun things like a swing set/slide, those metal-bar, spiderman dome things and a big trampoline. She had kids running all through her house and it was fun to catch up with all the fun women in our ward. But here was the best part, the magical part that makes something as trivial as a play group very blog worthy: Pam had all this stuff ready on a neat little tray to take outside. Stuff to make individual bags of ice cream for the kids. Wha?! I had never heard of such a thing. Have you!? (OTHER than you Girls Camp Queens) It was SO cool. I think I am one of three people who probably haven't heard of this. You take some half & half, vanilla and sugar and put it in a pint size ziploc bag and seal with as little air as possible. Then place that bag in a gallon ziploc with ice and rock salt. Wrap the whole thing in a kitchen towel (so you're hands don't freeze) and knead, mush, squish that back for a about 5 minutes and ta-da! You have a little baggie of fresh, vanilla ice cream. You just open that little bag, toss in some sprinkles, give the kids a spoon and let them eat it up. I pulled a caveman-joe and bit off the corner of my ice cream bag and then squoze that into my cup (of course, scissors would have been more sensible and civilized). But think of the fun! Fresh fruit, caramel, etc.... so so fun. We are adding this to our summer repetoire fer shure.
By the time Friday came I was ready to just sit and snuggle with Scott on the couch and not move with a good movie. So we did. We watched Vitus. We read subtitles. We ate popcorn and Junior mints. We made jokes. We got tummy aches. We liked it. :-)
The warming temperatures have been WONDERFUL and birds are starting to sing. No, srsly. I know that reads like something from Enchantment, but they really are and I suppose it does make me feel a bit like Sleeping Beauty as they chirp when I run by....
So now we March into March! I will have some fun adventures and follies to share, so stay tuned. (Oh- and good music links when I finally get that updated)
Enjoy the sun this week! Daylight savings is 7 days away!