4/29 - Weekend fun: Pickle edition

This weekend, we enjoyed the warm, sunny weather.  The kids came with me to derby practice, where guest coach Shadow Soldier whipped us into shape, and gave us scrimmaging pointers.

On Saturday, we went to the farmer's market and I went a little veggie crazy.  Turns out the kids are nuts for snow peas!  Between lunch and dinner, they ate them all!  I learned that orange cauliflower is orange all the way through -- stems and all.

Today, despite the racket from the neighbor's roofing project, we soaked up the sun in the backyard.  My favorite moments were reading with the kids on a blanket under the plum tree and chasing them on their bikes in my roller skates.  (Note to self:  Lil' Guy can run faster than I can skate.)

In keeping with our game where we pretended to be a bird family, I made the twins a "worm lunch," with worms of many colors and some grubs (brown rice).  They loved it!

Also, we made @RecipeGirl's bread and butter pickles with cucumbers from the farmer's market.  They are soooo good!

3/24 - Weekend Fun: Dough Day

Saturday was a cold and rainy day.  We started it out with pancakes.  We played a new game from Linda.

Then we made cloud dough.  This was just as much fun as I thought it would be.  I had some moments where I despaired of the mess, but it swept up very nicely and washed up easily.  Next time, I'll put the kids (and me!) in play clothes that go right into the wash, but everything else tidied up better than expected.

We finished up our rainy day by making a loaf of "Mommy Bread" to have with our favorite family dinner of spaghetti and meatballs.

On Sunday, we got Lil' Gal a much-needed haircut!

7/04 - Happy 4th of July!

My cold is still raging, and I've had to cancel or scale back on all the plans I had for my much-anticipated 5-day weekend.  I'd like to say I'm being all Zen about it, but I'm really not.  Mommy is cranky.

Sick or not, I was not going to keep the kids from enjoying the holiday.  First, I put the kids to work prepping mint from our garden for the mint juleps.  (Is that wrong?)  They took their job very seriously and it was awesome (as were the juleps!).

We sniffled our way through the always nice Alameda 4th of July Parade, and enjoyed seeing Suzanne and hanging out with Linda, who we later kidnapped and brought home to our BBQ.  We were joined by Kathleen and Chuck.

I made Amish Cole Slaw, my mom's potato salad, and my famous portobello mushrooms.  Mama grilled them up, along with zucchini, burgers and chicken breasts.  The twins and Chuck had virgin juleps, made with the mint-infused simple syrup and sparkling water.  We also enjoyed the slightly melted cupcakes from the other day.  What a feast!