Baking

Yesterday we were baking.
Eleanor got a new apron from Grammie and decided to try it out while wearing her glasses.

Holiday Hilarity

Last Thursday while Carrie was at yoga, I captured the following hilarious antics. There is lots of subtle hilarity (near falls, speedy run-bys, etc...) so keep your eyes peeled.

The characters are from our nativity set.

Thanks (giving)

eleanor reads

just within the past few days, eleanor has been very into reading books aloud by herself for more extended periods of time. her favorites are more or less memorized, but we haven't read this raggedy ann book (which was mine when i was a little girl) very much since the stories are fairly long. she's not familiar with the actual plot lines, but in my opinion, her version is better.

for henry

at the beginning of the summer, henry brought us two small cosmos plants from his day camp at the chicago botanical gardens. we planted them together in the flower bed on the side of the garage and they have thrived.

henry, look at how big they are! they are even much taller than eleanor! did you plant any cosmos in your yard? if so, do they have any flowers right now? are they the same color as ours? we are enjoying the pretty pink flowers and there are still more buds that haven't bloomed yet, so we will have lovely flowers to look at for at least a few more weeks. thank you for sharing these beautiful plants with us! XO

apple pickin'

this morning we went out to wilson's orchard. despite strong summer sun and temperatures in the 80s, apple picking always makes me feel like fall is here.
my mom came with us and generously shared her delicious apple turnover ("what a hostess pie would taste like if it was good," as rob said) with eleanor. if you live in/around IC, it's worth the trip out there just for a turnover. the crust is so flaky, there must be lard involved, and the filling is sweet and a little cinnamon-y and has just the right amount of gooeyness.
honeycrisps are in season right now and we found lots of trees that were heavy with perfect apples. easy pickings.
E dug right in. we took home a big basketful. let the perfect apple recipe(s) hunt begin!

Hertzlichen Gluckwunch zum Geburtstag!

This weekend (which isn't yet over thankfully) we were lucky enough to have Will, Sandy and Anders in town to celebrate Anders' first birthday and bring in the 2009 Hawkeye Football Season. The weather was sunny and perfect, the Hawks won (barely) and Anders is already a super-awesome 1-year-old!!


Anders and Eleanor love playing together - they especially enjoyed using these new window-stickies of Eleanor's and standing on opposite sides of our TV room window. It was funny to watch them paw at the stickies regardless of what side they were on.


More window-play.


On Saturday, after the game, we had a great birthday party at City Park where Sandy set up a great afternoon. Mom made this chocolate train birthday cake which was a big hit, especially with the kids.


Look at this little Dude sporting his new Hawkeye outfit. What good taste!


He literally got "wrapped up" playing with his balloon. It was quite hilarious.


Here's a picture of the goings-on in the shelter.


This picture of Anders and his Mom is awesome. He was enjoying frosting-scrapings off of his Angelfood cake.


City Park amusement park rides were next. The train (which is pretty much the same as from my childhood - except it used to be orange and black) was a big hit. Even the adults had to be strapped in.


Eleanor and I had to take a ride on the Merry-Go-Round. She requested the Zebra. It was really topped off by the fact that Rush was blaring from the Carnie-radio.


Eleanor was a daredevil and went on the fish ride with her newest friend Zack. They got along famously. She did lots of waving and Zack did some roller-coaster-tastic both hands in the air action.


She also took a trip on the Ferris Wheel with her cousin Sam and Zack.


To finish up the afternoon, Aunt Jan pitched a couple of heaters which Eleanor promptly took deep out of the park. She especially liked how the bat went "whack" when hitting the ball.

Happy Birthday Anders!! We love you. Thanks for a great weekend and party Sandy and Will. And Grammie, thanks for the cakes and all of the good child care.

on the needles

the latest knitting projects--a version of tasia's cardigan for a friend's baby-on-the-way using baby twist alpaca.
my first felted project, up close because it's a christmas gift, made with noro kureyon.
paton's SWS (soy silk and wool blend) that i found in the sale cart at ben franklin--$2.99 per skein! i think this is destined to become a sweater for eleanor. i'm pretty reliant on two sweater patterns--the cardigan above and knitting pure and simple's baby pull-over--and am on the look-out for something new. it needs to be sized for toddlers and preferably top-down/no sew. ideas? KPS's poncho and neck-down bolero at the link above might prove irresistible.
my palette for a few other baby sweaters that need to be made this fall. the pink, red and green (cascade 128) are leftovers from E's christmas stocking. i added the blue and brown heather (prettier in person than this photo) to make some striped pull-overs.

herb quiz

can you identify the four herbs that went into the chimichurri marinade i concocted this afternoon?

(vacation, knitting and garden catch-up post/s coming soon...okay, maybe soon-ish)

what's on the table

this is my first contribution to the august domestic arts challenge recently posted here. what better way to start than with some lovely sunflowers from the farmer's market? actually, i wish i could say that these were from our yard, but no dice. next year, i think i'm going to plant one of the crazy, giant sunflower varieties next to our fence and see what comes up.
this pint of sun gold cherry tomatoes went into the checca sauce for this "veggie meatloaf" recipe from "everyday italian" which we're eating for dinner tonight. here you can also see the ladybug-covered clear table covering i'm using to protect the linens from a certain unpredictable two-year old eater. hobby lobby was having a sale on "home decorating fabrics" and i guess vinyl qualifies as a fabric. all i had to do was cut it down to size a bit.
drawing more inspiration from ms. de laurentiis, i made this italian style chili (with fennel seeds alongside the cumin, topped with parsley and parmesan cheese) for dinner the other night with sweet corn and swiss chard from the farmer's market. giada called for ground chicken, but there was none to be had at the store, so i went with ground turkey instead. pretty tasty and lighter than the typical ground beef and tomato-based chili, which made it a good summer supper.
i baked up some cornbread with thyme from a recipe in this month's cooking light, but might have gone a little overboard with the thyme, which is growing in a pot on the deck. the bread had a really strong herbal flavor and i think it tasted a little like soap. maybe aveda soap, but soap nonetheless.
a proper post about our new rain garden is long overdue, but i'll leave that to rob, who was the mastermind behind the project. on monday evening, we found this hawkeye caterpillar (black, gold and white! does anyone know the proper name?) eating dinner in our garden--devouring whole leaves and flowers in seconds. it seemed appropriate that this little guy was plowing through butterfly weed in order to fatten up and become...well...you know. so we left him alone. twenty-four hours later, the same caterpillar was in the very same spot and he was still eating. most of the flower buds were gone by this point and that made me a little sad for our fledgling garden. i apologetically remover the hungry little (big) caterpillar to a big weed forest under the deck. we'll see if he finds his way back to the garden...

a new challenge for august

though most of the blogs i keep tabs on belong to friends and family members, i have also fallen in love with some that are created by people i don't know who write about cooking, baking, gardening, crafting--the domestic arts. i know that most of the regular/semi-regular readers of this blog are resourceful, creative and talented in some or all of these areas and i, for one, would like to read about it. so, in the spirit of samantha's post-a-day challenge for the month of june, i have a new challenge to propose. it won't require daily blogging attention, but you'll probably find fodder for posts on a daily basis.

here it is: once a week during the month of august, create a post about your own forays (successful or not so) into home-based arts and/or crafts. how's the garden looking? what did you make for dinner? how did you keep your kid/s entertained at home on that rainy day? what's on the needles/crochet hook/table saw/lathe/embroidery hoop/sewing machine? how are those home-improvement projects coming along?

please announce your participation in the domestic arts challenge in your first post so i/we can keep up with your at-home adventures!

animals!

last weekend, we took E on her first trip to the brookfield zoo with my parents. here's the obligatory sign-plus-stone-lion shot.
the brookfield's giraffe exhibit is pretty awesome. does it look like we just pushed aside these plants to check out these giraffes at an african grasslands water hole? well, we didn't. but doesn't it look like it?
eleanor contemplates a mbuti hut in the african forest section.
this hingeback tortoise is older than you!
at first, i thought it was a little strange that rob wanted to take photos of this guy spray-painting rocks onto a wall using, maybe, a car mat, but it was pretty interesting.
watching the grey wolves chew on some bones. eleanor said, "just like oscar!"
E and her grandpa check out some penguins and other sea birds.
i love how this polar bear is sitting with his legs out in front like that.

it was a lovely, sunny morning at the zoo!