Snow Day!

Today was a very exciting day for me and the girls. We went to Julian with some friends to see the snow, which was a first for Lola and Elise. Lola is positively in love with snow, even before actually seeing it. She talks endlessly about making snow angels and building snowmen. The first thing she and her friends did when they got into Julian was pelt each other with snowballs!

The drive up was a bit rough at the end, say the last 20 miles or so, because Elise cried a bunch. The roads were winding and a bit slushy so I was trying to concentrate a lot, but it's tough when your little one is in pieces in the back seat.

But all was good once we got up there. For Lola, it was pure JOY. Unfortunately, most of my photos were ruined because I dropped my camera in the snow! Oh well, thankfully veganmomma got lots of great shots!

Elise didn't care for the snow too much, but she had a good time in the restaurant for lunch. She loved eating her beans and mashed sweet potato with tortilla chips, next to her little buddy R.

On the way home, both girls finally fell asleep and stayed asleep for the rest of the afternoon. Even after we got home, I brought them inside from their car seats to the bed and they slept for at least another 1.5 hours after that.

I heart you

Happy Valentine's Day everyone. Hope you had a nice day.
We had a nice evening, a little champagne and great salmon and salad for dinner.

Mwwaaaaa!

My husband may be a sucker, but I'm so grateful right now!

There were these young salesmen that used to wander in and out of the offices in the building where my husband used to work. They were always peddling toys, books, whatever. Most of it was for children. Lola was a baby back then and Dan could never resist buying whatever the guys were selling. They saw the word "sucker" on his forehead, but really it was because the whole baby thing was still so new, he just couldn't get enough of her smiles so he bought every damn thing on the planet to show her.

This piano mat is one of the trinkets that he brought home, courtesy of the salesguys. It's obnoxious and loud so I had put it away in Lola's closet "until she's older", but totally forgot about it. I found it today and the girls had a blast with it. Occupied them for a whole 15-20 min!

I'm a lucky girl...

This was totally delicious.

I tossed broccoli, cherry tomatoes and slices of garlic with some olive oil and salt. I roasted them for about 15 minutes at 375 degrees. Meanwhile, I sauteed some chard in a skillet and added the Christmas Lima beans that I bought from the Hillcrest farmers market last Sunday. I had already soaked them last night and cooked them this morning so they were ready to go, but I wanted to heat them up so I added them to the chard after it was mostly done.
I tossed all of the above together and added a mustard vinaigrette (olive oil, mustard, white wine vinegar & lemon juice).

Anyway, I'm a lucky girl because my kids eat vegetables. This was a huge hit tonight. I served Dan's with a chicken apple sausage, but the rest of us just ate it like this.

I have drastically cut back on meat/poultry comsumption but it's probably big enough for a whole other post. Suffice to say that it stands to reason that the beef I'm privvy to is probably not what is healthiest for me or the planet, for that matter. Don't even get me started on poultry.
So I have a self-imposed moratorium until I figure stuff out in this area. Until then, I'm having fun with legumes.

More on this whole subject later, this is just the skinny.

ta ta

The Chonie Dance

Lola wearing her chonies on her head and then decided my chonies would make a most excellent "backpack"....

oh my!

AH-HA! This explains a lot....

Why has my normally good-natured little bundle of joy turn into a clingy, crying little monkey? Spotted last night were 2 of the most gigantuan molars I've ever seen grace the inside of a baby's mouth. They are on the top, one on each side. Both have already cut the surface, but then I noticed 2 equally ginormous bulges on either side of the bottom...two more....yay...

Bye Bye to Earthbound Naturals...

I disabled my website recently. Earthbound Naturals has closed it's doors, maybe temporarily, maybe not. I couldn't justify the expense of the fancy shmancy paypal account, the website hosting, etc...If I reopen the doors, I will likely set up an Etsy shop.
I'm going to keep making soap, though.