:: l i f e i n s p i r e d ::

un-drafted: Halloween 2011

2011-11-13T02:07:00.005-07:00

(yet another post that's been sitting in drafted stages for nearly 2 weeks. There just aren't enough hours left in the day when you have sick kids (croup included), regular headaches (one coming in as I type, ugh), and a baby (still refuse to call her a toddler) who all of the sudden decided that going to bed at night is no fun, so it takes us nearly an hour to get her to sleep...)

I can hardly believe we are almost half-way through November. Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and Christmas might be coming even sooner than that, judging by how badly stores and businesses are wanting us to shop (was I the only one confused by that shiny gigantic snowman lawn figure at Costco in August?). I am still recovering from Halloween preparations, and now I'm supposed to decorate for Thanksgiving? Just so I can replace all the orange, yellow and brown stuff with red and green the day after that? I think we'll just stick to more versatile decor - shreds of paper from cutting out shapes or folding origami creatures. We never run out of that stuff, it's cheap, comes in variety of colors, takes no time to create and virtually impossible to get rid of. Might as well pretend like it's part of our interior design, right?

Speaking of Halloween, as much as we don't look forward to it, we always get a chuckle out of our ability to put together cute costumes for kids without hardly spending any time or money on them. This year was no exception. I know I'm probably the only person posting Halloween photos 2 weeks later, but why not? Just doing my best to record stories and events that I would want my children to be able to read about 15 years from now. (Children! Remember that unforgettable vacation in August 2011? Yes, I'm still planning to write about it some day, but the memory of it is still painfully fresh.)

Ok, on to the costumes... The only *thing* we bought just for the costumes was wire to hold hold Maya's braids. Everything else was 100% reused, borrowed (between siblings) or recycled.

is there such thing as Halloween miracle? Because I don't know how else I'd call the fact that I got a decent picture of all 4 kids looking cute and standing together for a few seconds. Elijah even tried to smile.

Pippi Longstocking:

old corduroy pants from 3 years ago with old knee patches
Mismatched knee high socks
old 4t dress over t-shirt
small-ish jacket with patches sewn on by Maya
Anya's rainbow gnome skirt (from 2 years ago) used as neckwarmer
vintage pillowcase for candy

Cowboy (I know, very original):

his every-day jeans and shirt
Maya's hat (bought before last year's Halloween for Maya)
Maya's boots
my head-kerchief
vintage pillowcase for candy

Rainbow fairy/princess/ladybug without a mask, anything really:

dress up dress - from consignment store (bought months ago)
flower crown - my mom sent them for the girls and they've been wearing them all summer)
rainbow cape - from her old rainbow gnome costume
re-used Christmas gift bag (so much easier that wrapping oddly shaped gifts in paper)

Lamb (which is so not her personality)

Hat - from Elijah's old clothes
Jacket - same

We tried to minimize the damage to their immune system from all the sugar, as they were still recovering from the first round of sickness. A couple of them managed to get sick again (and then pass it on to Mark and I). So I have to say, I'm glad Halloween is only once a year, and that we survived it, again.

Hiking

2011-10-18T12:02:00.006-06:00

I love autumn. Everything about it just seems right. And I love that it's a season of chance, just like spring, and unlike summer or winter, when the same weather can last for weeks and weeks, and you feel like it will never end. But autumn... you know it won't last forever and it will end, and the very last warm day might be right around the corner. So you savor it, and try to enjoy every day, breathing in that air that smells of wet leaves clinging one to another on the ground.

We love hiking at this time of year. September was still quite warm, much like summer. But after a week of really cold weather, the autumn is undeniably here, keeping us on our toes and calling us to spend more time enjoying these last warm days and beautiful rich colors outside. So we've been hiking, and still plan to squeeze in a few hikes before trails get completely covered with snow for a good 6 months...

White Pine Trail has always been one of our favorite hikes around here. We don't make it as far as we'd like to, having 4 little hikers with us (one of which refuses to stay on her papa's back and walks quite slowly on a rocky trail, or even better - in an opposite direction) means stopping and exploring rocks and leaves every few minutes. Still, just getting to the river is exhilarating and addicting enough to make us plan another hike before we even finish the one we are doing at the moment. Thanks to certain little(st) person, we got to our turning point at dusk, and our hike back to the car was pretty much in the dark. So worth it.

well, hello there!

2011-10-15T16:37:00.003-06:00

Oy, where did the last 2.5 months go? There's so much updating I need to do. Just wish kids would be asleep before 10:30 p.m. which hasn't happened in weeks. Tonight, I'll make it a goal to write a real blog post. Until then, cute baby face.

Little Valley Days

2011-07-29T14:03:00.000-06:00

having aunt Angie come for a visit was a special treat for all of us

I've been parenting my children long enough to know that no matter how long or short our visit with grandparents is going to be, I still need to bring at least one change of clothes for each child. We met up at a campsite for a lazy Saturday afternoon lunch, unloaded the kids out of the car and 10 minutes later they were covered in food and dirt from head to toe. Every single one of them dropped half of their noodles covered in pasta sauce (made lovingly by Mark at home) onto their lap, then rolled in the extra dark campground dirt and splashed in a nearby stream and mud puddles for a full effect. Luckily for us, a clean change of clothes was ready for each unrecognizable child. So when we showed up for the Little Valley Days celebration later that evening, nobody could tell that our kids had a food/dust/dirt bath just a few hours earlier (and taking a real bath at grandma's house helped too).

poor Ivy started running fever that night, so I wrapped her and she fell asleep before I was done tying the knot...

Reminder

2011-07-27T12:44:00.004-06:00

Sometimes I think that if a person could actually die out of sheer frustration, I'd need to be a Time Lord with at least a few dozen lives to still be alive after 7 years of parenting our spirited children (no mellow ones in our batch, at least not long-term). Last night, as I was encouraging them to get ready for bed (Mark was at a meeting), only to be screamed at in my face every time a bed-time related word came out of my mouth, I was trying really hard to remember what did I see so wonderful about motherhood and parenting in general that would make me enjoy it on most days and even want to have my children around me all day (homeschooling).

Thank goodness for photos, because looking at them I can see those moments that make it worth it. Parenting is not easy, and does not make you (or at least me) feel warm and fuzzy all the time. But those sweet simple moments, when they say 'I love you' out of the blue, draw their first *real* portrait, run up to you bursting with excitement to show you a new 'invention', or simply read quietly in the afternoon... those moments are the ones that outweigh all the frustration, doubts and overwhelmption (just made it up, don't Google it) I encounter daily as a parent. So I'll cling to those moments as much as I can, and keep taking photos of my children when they are sweet, and happy, and play nicely with each other. (they are in the backyard right now, spraying each other with the hose. Elijah says they are looking for rainbows...)

our floor is covered with Legos and Tinker Toys every single day. all that foot pain caused by stepping on them is always paid off by seeing how many creative ideas those guys can come up with while playing.

a daily occurrence - Ivy sitting on top of the kitchen table, very pleased with herself. this girl is a climber. we let her watch Ueli Steck's Eiger speed record too many times.

shoes on wrong feet never stop them.

Anya's hair never quits. "it's alive!"

always spirited. always full of love.

Backyarding

2011-07-26T13:29:00.005-06:00

We've been really loving it, this backyard of ours. We already have many fond memories created outside, birthday parties, gardening, hula hooping... Little ones often spend good part of their day out in the backyard, either watering plants, themselves or one another. Oftentimes Maya will grab a book, put a chair right in the middle of the grass and spend a good hour or two reading non-stop, like a diver who won't even poke her head out of the water for a breath of air. In those hours, reading IS her air...

I already mentioned how I was thrilled to discover a couple of currant bushes this spring. We weren't sure if they were going to be black or red ones. I was secretly hoping for black, but knew I'd still be delighted with either kind. They turned out to be beautiful shiny bright red currants. And the bushes are full of them.

So far we've eaten them plain, turned them into jam (kids loved our fluffy buttermilk pancakes with it), put them into lemonade and on ice cream.

Now we are waiting for the grapes. Oh yes, we also found a small patch of grape vines draped over our fence. This backyard is full of surprises, and we couldn't be happier with it (unless we could re-landscape it and add some chickens to it :)

Celebrating

2011-07-26T01:54:00.004-06:00

After living in our neighbourhood for 7 years, we finally did it - woke up on a July Saturday morning and took our whole family (I guess we just waited until we had 4 kids to bring along, more fun that way, you know) to the hike in honour of the Pioneer Day. We *almost* didn't make it. The hike was supposed to start at 7 a.m., and no matter how determined Mark and I were to get up no later than 6:30, it was 7:04 a.m. on my watch when Mark woke me up. We pulled kids out of bed (they were excited, for the most part), loaded them in the car, armed them with yogurt and spoons, and arrived to the starting point of the hike almost exactly an hour late. We figured if we went pretty fast we would get to the finish (First Encampment Park) not too far behind the early risers group. We ran as much as we could, Ivy on Mark's back, Elijah and Anya in the stroller, and Maya on her own two feet. And when we couldn't run, we walked fast. Maya was a trooper, running/walking most of the 5 mile hike (at about 12 mins/mile pace) with a scraped knee, only taking a short ride in the stroller when she was too tired, during which time Elijah took a turn walking. He did fine, but seemed to have misplaced his walking feet, so back in the stroller he went.

Half an hour later and half way through the hike, we finally called one of our friends who was hiking with the group (full of people who woke up early and left on time) to see where they were. Turns out, they were just a block or two away. We finally caught up with everyone, and joined the 200-ish crowd of people walking to the First Encampment Park. Free breakfast awaiting the hikers was a nice touch (and a nicer one would be scrambled eggs for those who don't eat pancakes). And as for me, I just enjoyed seeing so many people in one place, remembering and celebrating the historical event, or simply enjoying food in the company of friends and neighbours.

Speaking of food, we rewarded ourselves later, with personalized, home-baked (yes, in July), gluten-free pizza and freshly made red currant lemonade (those red currants deserve a post of their own).

Something to give

2011-07-13T14:42:00.010-06:00

This is exactly what we got for $26 at Farmer's Market on Saturday, minus the spinach bunch, which Maya bought with her own $2. She had $3 burning a whole in her pocket, so she get herself some spinach and gave her last dollar to a little boy playing violin at the market. Remember the piano playing at the market? We got a CD with those 2 guys playing the music. Six tracks, beautifully played on a coolest piano I've ever seen, how could we resist.

On our way home we were waiting at the traffic light to cross the street. Mark started talking to a man with a sign that said something like 'anything helps'. Having just spent every dollar and coin at the Farmer's market, all we could offer was some carrots and a bag of peas (they could be eaten right away), and both were gladly accepted. Mark kept chatting, I was watching kids making sure they wouldn't take off at a busy intersection (they have a history of doing just that). The green light came on and then off, but we were in no rush, enjoying this opportunity to talk to the homeless man (Mark probably asked for his name, but I wouldn't remember anyway, I'm really bad with names).

I wondered how many people went past him that morning, without noticing or trying not to notice. And what would it feel like to stand there and see people looking away in the opposite direction time and time again. I know we've done that in the past too. Not because we had anything against homeless people, but because we simply didn't put much thought and effort into noticing them, acknowledging their presence with either smile and a quick 'hello' or a brief conversation. Somehow, in this past year it started happening, we keep coming across articles, thought-provoking video clips, and just getting all these messages from unexpected places and experiences, telling us that it is not enough to simply *not* be mean or judgmental towards homeless people, that we can do more, we can do better, even if it's something as simple as showing kindness through words or smile.

I never got around to posting about one of my outings with Anya back in May. It was her turn to have one-on-one 'date' with me, so she picked going to the park and feeding the ducks as our activity. I was happily taking photos of Anya throwing corn at the ducks, when we got approached by an older gentleman. You could tell from his weathered skin, infected eye, and worn out clothes, that he's been living on the streets for quite some time. He smiled with a wide toothless smile, and offered Anya some crackers (sealed in a package and unexpired). We started talking but didn't get too far because Anya wanted to go around the pond.

We spent some time walking around, feeding the ducks and taking photos, until we completed the circle and came back to the point where we started, with our new friend sitting on the bench next to all his belongings, sharing his cereal with ducks and pigeons. So we started talking again. I found out a little about his life, where he was from, and also that he used to enjoy old-school photography back in the days. It was fun to discover that we had something in common and he did his best to remember and write down the names of his favorite cameras (spelling Mamiya and Hasselblad was not easy for him), which he probably didn't talk about to anyone in years...

When the time to say our good-byes came, I got brave and asked if I could take a photo of him, to which he graciously agreed and even asked if I was going to put it 'on the internet' (he didn't mind). Then he asked me if he could take a photo of Anya and I (yes, f course!), and I could tell by the expression on his face how excited he was to hold a camera in his old shaky hands again.

It was a memorable outing for both Anya and I (and for this kind old man too, I hope). I pray that as she and all our children keep growing, the message of being kind to people will stay imprinted in their hearts and memories.

yes, he blew us a kiss at the end :)

And lastly, hope you can find a couple of minutes to watch this short clip...

P.S. Speaking of kindness, Nicole just made me cry with her post today. Got another few minutes to spare? Go here and read it, and maybe you will be inspired to 'commit' a random act of kindness too :)

02/07/2011

2011-07-10T01:44:00.004-06:00

We had a lazy Sunday last week. With 3/4 of our kids being away from home, we simply went to church, relaxed, took a 4 hour nap (honest) and then decided it might be a good idea to hop into the car and go to the Temple Square. Our walk was so uneventful, it would simply sound like a boring story if I tried to describe it. The only way I could spice it up would be to write about all the things that didn't happen, but could've, if we brought the whole 'circus crew' with us.

02/07/2011

2011-07-06T02:45:00.008-06:00

Last week we went on a kids-free vacation. Well, almost. We did keep Ivy with us (she's still nursing, you know) and we only had the weekend to ourselves so we didn't drive very far. But it sure felt like a vacation, with only one little person to worry about (ok, I admit I still worry about the small ones that are not with me at the moment, but that's different). It's amazing how much time we spend every day on getting 4 kids out of the house, in and out of the car, negotiating, trying to keep them all moving in the same direction, etc. When you only have to do it with one baby, you all of the sudden end up with so much time on your hands, that you wonder if you somehow managed to stretch it and pack 30-ish hours into one day. I wish I knew this back when we only had 1 baby, and I felt like I could never ever possibly get any busier...

We spent all Saturday driving to places, hiking, doing some fun shopping. We decided to explore the Alpine Loop this time, and settled on hiking to Stewart Falls. All those websites with hiking trail reviews weren't kidding when saying it was a popular hike, especially on holidays and weekends. We still enjoyed it immensely, even though I prefer feeling less 'crowded' when hiking. The views were breathtaking, Mt. Timpanogos didn't disappoint, and the falls weren't so bad either. Ivy was a champ, and was quite content as long as we kept supplying her with chunks of Larabar...

there's an impressive amount of aspens in this canyon, definitely a must-see in the autumn

there was a lot of cold spraying from the falls, hence the lovely effect of the sunlight hitting the water droplets on the lens

and did I mention there was a LOT of snow on the ground down by the falls? I was not prepared for that, and was slipping all over the place in my 'shoes'. I think this is the dirtiest feet I've had since I was kid. Sunblock and dusty trail will do this to you

we did find a perfect spot on the rocks for a nursing break (don't let my pasty white knees distract you from the spectacular overlook)

can't complete this story without a cute baby photo, right? And yes, it's an Ikea towel on her head. Thank goodness we picked up a bunch of those on the way to the canyon. I'll also shamelessly say thank goodness for creative thinking on my behalf when we realized we didn't bring a hat for Ivy's fuzzy q-tip of a head. I am sure she appreciated it, even if she doesn't know it

By the end of the day, when we finally got home, we felt like we'd been gone for 3 days. And it was a good feeling, even if we still had piles of half-folded laundry all over the floor...

27/06/2011

2011-06-29T03:57:00.005-06:00

I'm officially 30. Does it mean that the countdown for 'the rest of my life' has begun? Somehow I didn't discover any magical transformations (butterfly wings, maybe?) on the morning of my birthday, when I got up at 11:30 a.m. (thanks to Mark staying home, taking care of kids and letting me sleep in). Just like Mark said in his post earlier (which was a huge surprise :), I'm simply one day older and I still don't feel all that *grown-up*. Just taking it one day at a time, finding my place, working on my goals, struggling, learning and enjoying this little life I have.

I had a beautiful day with my friends and family. Mark was home all day and only worked while Ivy was taking a nap. Then, in my typical spontaneous fashion, I decided to have some friends over for ice-cream. I'm all for other people planning ahead, making invitations and having well-organized parties. But when it comes to our own, low-key is my mantra. No gifts, no birthday cakes, just people we love and enjoy spending time with. And that's exactly how we spent our evening, chatting away, with babies crawling around, kids running and playing games, slapping mosquitoes and meeting new friends, long after the sun went down.

(huge thanks to Katrina, who picked up my abandoned camera and took most of the photos. I was too busy enjoying everyone's company :)

(this was taken when it was pretty dark outside, my poor old Nikon did the best it could at ISO 500)

Annie the Warrior (with running injury no less), being her usual gorgeous self, crutches and all. And her little boy with a pair of matching mini-crutches nearly made me fall over when I saw them walking into our backyard.

looks like Anya was showing off her new mosquito bites here...

yes, there's always a child or two swarming around my lap, looking for a sweet spot to land on. If that's not love, then I don't know what it is.

19/06/2011

2011-06-24T16:04:00.006-06:00

I've been loving the month of June here in UT for the past 3 years, rainy and cool (but not cold), just my kind of weather. We went to the farm for Father's Day, and the view was incredible. I stepped out of the car and didn't set my muddy feet into the house for half an hour, until I was done taking photos outside. It was good timing too. Just 3 days later, summer was in full swing, with 85 degrees inside the house (and no working swamp cooler yet).

Next time we go to the farm we'll see a different kind of beautiful, with sage brush and sunflowers taking charge of the land.

(I know my camera is in desperate need of cleaning...)

Life happens

2011-06-21T15:23:00.005-06:00

I'm trying a new thing to make sure I can document our life more consistently. Instead of trying to lump my photos into a themed post (which is ok when it's about something like a hike, visit or some other event), I am going to embrace the randomness of our daily life and not be afraid to be random here as well. Because in reality, our life consists of a myriad of random moments that happen throughout the day, every day. Trying to tie them together into one post with some deep meaningful title to go along with it is what often overwhelms me, takes too much time and causes me to not document those things after all. And since I'm a visual person, photos often are the reason I want to post about something, as opposed to writing a story with a few photos to support it.

I hope this will help me to not leave out those small snippets of our life that make it real for us. Because years from now, those small things will be essential in making our memories more vivid and real to us.

..................................

'Tis the season of Farmer's Market! We literally had been counting down the days, waiting for the opening Saturday. And then it happened. And the place was as crowded as ever, even with our 'early' appearance (by our standards, it's before 11 a.m.). It's not easy to take all 4 kids into a crowded place like our downtown Farmer's market, but with 2 of them on our backs and the other two being old enough to stay close, we usually manage to pull it off.

As a reward, we often get to hear local talent performing live music. Some guys are dedicated enough to haul an amazing old piano on a small trailer attached to their bike. They definitely know what they are doing, and it's pretty fascinating to see and hear them play.

..............................

Our herbs are still alive, well, most of them anyway. Not necessarily looking strong and healthy, but good enough to keep us watering them. And I do love the fact that I can just go out the back door and get some fresh rosemary while cooking some vegetables to go on top of polenta.

.............................

Ivy got into her head that she can't just sit on my lap when I'm trying to read something on the computer. Somehow she always ends up on top of the desk. She thinks it's a pretty neat trick and doesn't understand why on earth would I not want her to do it.

............................

We are losing our battle with laundry. I wash it, we fold as much as we can, then somehow everything gets unfolded and scattered all over the floor, or maybe the laundry multiplies with some help from house elves. No matter what we do, it always ends up looking like this, most of the days. Some day, when we live in a house with more than 2 bedrooms, I'll reserve a room just for the laundry, where it can go wild, roaming about, without living in fear of getting contaminated with oatmeal or smashed banana.

...........................

I am *this* close to turning 30, and it makes me think all kinds of deep thoughts, look at myself, ask myself question. And it's not scary at all, because it helps me see things that make me happy and things I need to work on. In the end, life is good.

More than words...

2011-06-19T14:34:00.004-06:00

Instead of writing a lengthy post about all the 174,387 amazing qualities that Mark possesses as a Dad (and husband), I'll post a tiny fraction of photos taken over the past 7 years, showing what kind of dad he is. I think it's pretty easy to tell, don't you?

Celebrating Life and Love

2011-06-13T14:37:00.003-06:00

She turned 1 and We turned 9.

We didn't throw a fancy birthday party (anyone who knows me, also knows that's I'm the last person to do it. I did manage to throw together a gluten-free rhubarb cobbler, if that counts). We just did our best to smile, laugh, and provide unlimited amounts of love for the little person who didn't even suspect she just turned one. I stayed up late enough to be awake during the exact time when Ivy entered this world, read her birth story and shed a few tears of joy. Joy is her middle name, and she's living up to it every single day, even when she spends a good deal of her time clinging to my leg and wiping her nose on my freshly laundered clothes.

from this:

to this:

Anya was sharing her imaginary cookie, Ivy enjoyed every single bite of it

Then, just 3 days later, Mark and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. NINE years. Really? We are one of THOSE couples who've been married, for like, forever and now has a house full of kids? I used to think families like ours looked so 'grown-up', and now we are one of those families, and I still don't feel like 'them'. It's been a fun ride so far, with it's ups and downs, but in the end, absolutely worth it. We've been growing together, laughing together, discovering who we are in our daily lives. It's hard work, and I am constantly filled with gratitude knowing that I get to do it all with Mark, my friend, love and eternal companion.

We've been enjoying hiking all these years, before we got married, after, and even while having little babies in our midst. So it was only natural that we decided to go on a hike/trail run for our anniversary date. It was raining. In other words, it was perfect.

simple things

2011-06-11T23:54:00.006-06:00

Last week I felt like celebrating. Nothing in particular, maybe just the fact that I was finally feeling better. So I put my makeup and running clothes on (yes, I felt like doing it), and asked Ivy if she would join me for a few fancy shots with our Mac's PhotoBooth. She said she had better things to do (not really), but she could probably find a few minutes to pose with me in front of the computer if I promised her a snack at the end. Deal. All the blurry shots aside (that girl won't sit still when there's some huge shiny screen in front of her. what's up with that?), we ended up with this one as a winner, just before she decided to go for my nose with her untrimmed claws.

Next day it was Sunday. At the beginning of Relief Society meeting at church, there was the usual question if anyone had anything exciting happen that week. I almost raised my hand. Almost. And I kept wanting to raise my hand for the next 5 minutes. Always stopping at *almost*. The thing is, I couldn't really pinpoint in my head what was so exciting that happened that week. Nobody in our family got married, or had a birthday party, or had a new baby. Yet, for some reason I felt like I could be that person with a raised hand.

I kept thinking about it, and realized that while nothing big happened to rock my world that week, it was full of small simple things that, when added up, could beat any 'big' event. Planting our tiny garden, how could I forget that. Maya learning to play new songs on the piano. Elijah and Anya expanding their singing repertoire. Feeling better and finally going for a run after a week of couch life (even if said run didn't go all that well. at least I came home with a bunch of vintage buttons. long story...) I am sure there were many other moments which I can't even remember now (should've written about it a week ago, right?). And even though it's easy to underestimate their power, I can't deny the amount of joy they bring into my daily life, leaving me overwhelmingly grateful for each day I get to spend with my loved ones.

Later that Sunday we went for a walk around the neighbourhood. I saw this house with all its colors, and it made me smile (and obviously, stop and take this picture).

We stopped to visit our friends, who are old enough to be our grandparents. What a blessing this friendship is for us. And it comes with free rhubarb.

We got plenty, more than we needed. So we shared some with a sweet lady who was kind enough to give us some irises and a peony (oh how I love peonies) from her garden.

On our way home, I was admiring this tree. It just seemed like this was perfect time and a perfect place for it.

Mark was sporting his new haircut from the night before, and it was no small feat. He only gets his hair cut once every three months. Partly because we can't find time to cut his hair more often (only in the evenings and only when all 4 kids are asleep at the same time for at least an hour), partly because I like it when his hair gets all shaggy.

And while we are on a subject of haircuts, Elijah finally got his fringe trimmed. That very morning, right at the kitchen table after he finished eating his oatmeal. I missed seeing his bright eyes.

Anya was being her usual self, walking with my hand in hers, only letting go to pet a kitty.

(yes, mosquitoes love her too)

And to make our evening walk complete, we found some beautiful poppies growing not far from our house.

Like I said, it's all about simple things...

Never too late

2011-06-01T15:37:00.004-06:00

I dared myself to look at the last date I posted anything. Over a month ago, oy. And it's not for the lack of things to write about. After all, in the last few weeks, we've had 2 funerals, a birthday and an anniversary... And then there are 3 April birthdays that I didn't get a chance to write about. So in my own fashion, I'll start with the most recent 'event' and hopefully will be able to do some flashback blogging in the next few days.

The 'event' I'm referring to may not seem that big to some, but it made for a pretty exciting night around here. We finally planted our 'garden'. On Monday. On May 30th. A bit late? Maybe. But to me it's better late than never, especially since we are mostly planting herbs this year. Our yard in this house is nice and spacious (at least compared to out previous one, and for the neighbourhood we live in), but it's all grass with small grass-less parts around the fence. And since we are renting, we can't really landscape it the way we'd like to. So we are trying to use the little space we've got, planting all kinds of herbs in clay pots that we found sitting around in our backyard. In my mind I'm hoping for something like this, but knowing that between Mark and I, we've got at least 2 brown thumbs (both of them are mine), I can only hope that some of our herbs will grow big enough to be used for a dish or two. My guess, it will be mint. After all, it's pretty indestructible, from what I hear. Or is it?

The prospect of our plants dying in the near future aside, I think it's still worth doing all this work, if not for harvest, then just for the sake of learning and discovering things. I, for example, spent 15 minutes squealing with joy outside once I realized that the bush hiding in the corner next to roses had delicious looking green currants on it. I can't even begin to describe my excitement over this. I LOVE currants, black ones especially. I grew up eating currants all summer, then collecting buckets full of them, hand-trimming the ends on each berry that needed it with my mom/aunt/grandma/great-aunt and then smashing the berries mixed with sugar to make the most amazing currant jam. Living in UT, I was only able to find currants at the Farmer's market and they are expensive enough that I only buy them in small batches, which get frozen and rationed over the winter time, being added in small handfulls to green smoothies on special occasions. I still don't know if our bush will surprise us with black, red or white currants, but having it in our possession, even if it's only while we are renting this place, makes it [for me] about the most valuable thing located on this property.

While digging for some dirt to mix with compost, kids were thrilled to find lots and lots of fat juicy worms. Sadly, to our kids they as close to pets as they can have in this house.

Speaking of kids, they are still a bit too excited about all the planting we did on Monday night. They simply don't know what to do with themselves in the backyard now, while there's a wheel barrel half-filled with soil mix waiting to be used. Which, of course, leads them to all kinds of trouble, like digging where they are not supposed to dig (and killing half of our Thai basil in the process) and stripping naked in our not-private-at-all backyard just to run around through the sprinkler. I have to admit, the sight of Elijah making laps in his birthday suit with the most gleeful expression on his cute mug made it impossible for me to go out with a straight face and tell him to come inside to get dressed. Luckily, Mark was home by then :)

Catching up

2011-04-27T14:33:00.004-06:00

It's been a while since I dedicated a post to just knitting and nothing else (or joined Ginny's Yarn Along, for that matter). Mostly because April has been such a busy month for us, I just didn't have enough hours in the day for either blogging or knitting. Instead of sharing current projects today, I'll dedicate this post to Baby Surprise Jacket (or BSJ, as it's often referred to in knitting world), since I finished it about a month ago, if you don't count the fact that it remained button-less for almost 4 weeks.

This project was so fun to work with for a couple of reasons. It was my first time knitting with EZ's (Elizabeth Zimmermann) ingenious patterns. The term 'pattern' is used very loosely here. No dry boring charts or row by row written directions. In fact, there's nothing boring about EZ' writing. And she's pretty entertaining to watch in "Knitting Workshop" even for someone like my husband, who has no interest in knitting unless it produces an object he can wear or admire (or when it works as a sedative on his wife).

And did I mention that EZ is somewhat of a knitting genius? Who else could come up with an idea to knit something like this:

that can transform into this:

Fun pattern aside, I also ended up underestimated how much yarn I would need, so I had to dig through my bins with yarn and look for leftovers from other Noro Kureyon colorways. There was a lot of alternating between the balls, cutting out certain color repeats in order to have colors that would go well with one another. But it was all worth it. Once the jacket was done, it became our go-to piece of clothing for Ivy whenever we took her outside, buttons missing and all.

I added a few finishing touches to this BSJ to make it a better fit for Ivy. Even the seaming, that I was so nervous about, turned out to be easy and neat looking (you can find more details and links to helpful tips, like seaming, on this project's page).

And here's the only photo I have of Ivy wearing it (so far). Notice, it has buttons!

Ivy with her great-grandma

Easter weekend

2011-04-26T02:47:00.008-06:00

Our birthday marathon is over, and there's a lot of photos I need to go through. For now I'll start with most recent happenings, Easter and the days surrounding it...

On Friday we spent our evening with friends, decorating eggs and just having good slow stress-free time. Amy is always full of creative ideas and knows how to utilize every scrap of paper or fabric around her house, unlike me, who often thinks that a 'fun' project involves shopping for supplies which may not even end up being used for the said project, but instead stashed away into my ever growing collection of yarn, fabric and miscellaneous 'cool' stuff. After all, you never know when I might need that Speedball linoleum carver, right?

why buy confetti when you have paint chips laying around?

On Saturday we went to celebrate Grandma Lemon's birthday, and ended up visiting Mark's parents for a 'quick' impromptu egg hunt. We planned to stay for just one hour, so we could get home with enough time to clean our house in preparation for Easter. But for some reason I can't resist taking a nap at the farm, there's just something about the house that, as soon I cross the doorstep, makes my whole being let go of rushing and stressing over small stuff, and my body refuses to cooperate with me unless I lie down and let it rest for a bit. This time both Mark and I fell asleep and ended up snoozing away for a good hour and a half. Luckily, kids got plenty of attention, not to mention a break from us.

bathed and dressed up, waiting to go see grandmas

Later that night, after we got home and kids were sound asleep, I got to work, trying to get some projects done before Easter Sunday. No, I wasn't trying to put up fancy decorations, or finish making coordinating clothes for all 4 kids (although I kept entertaining the idea of making linen pants for Elijah up until 3 a.m.). We didn't even get our house cleaned like we wanted to. But in the end I did get a few things done. Like dyeing more eggs with onion skins, blueberries and turmeric (because 1 dozen of dyed and decorated eggs is not enough?), felting some eggs (for no real reason other than giving it a try and seeing what happens), turning my old sweater into a cardigan (had to spice up my usual t-shirt and skirt outfit somehow), and dyeing a silk scarf that I found in one of my bins with sewing supplies while I was looking for linen fabric (for those pants that never got made). I used leftover 'dye' from the eggs and the color turned out perfect, bright and sunny, all thanks to wonderful turmeric.

In the end, our Easter day was not perfect by any means. Our house could've been cleaner, our children could've had newer and somewhat matching outfits, I could've been more rested, and our dinner could've been more festive. And maybe in someone else's eyes the lack of all those things meant that we didn't celebrate Christ's resurrection properly. But in my eyes, I see things differently. I see that we spent time with wonderful friends, enjoyed visiting with family members, went to Church full of kind and beautiful people. But the best way to help me feel the spirit of Easter was Ivy's clever idea to spill crayons all over the floor at the very end of the Sacrament meeting. After all, picking up those crayons was what got me caught on my knees while attempting to sign 'He Is Risen' with tears of joy streaming down my face.

Sunday afternoon

2011-03-23T15:01:00.003-06:00

I often admire those bloggers who can take photos, edit them and write a post all on the same day, often before noon. Or even better, before I even drag myself out of the bed and get to the computer in the morning. I've done that a few times myself (not in the morning though, unless it was 4 a.m. and I was just going to bed), often at the expense of ignoring sword fights and numerous mini-Armageddons happening while I was hard at work trying to finish just one paragraph, getting interrupted more times than the amount of comas and periods combined in my measly 'quick' post. So keeping that in mind, writing about our Sunday afternoon is perfectly normal for a Wednesday post in my book.

Windy weather and sickness aside (Maya's finally over her 10-day long ear infection - yay! but may be coming down with chickenpox - boo), March always makes me all giddy inside. Unlike my fellow U.S. citizens, who follow the 'slow' solar calendar when it comes to season changes, my spring comes on March 1st, just as it did my whole life. Whether it's still snowing or raining outside, I can smell spring in the air. And it fills me with joy. Going from cold dreary winter into awakening spring gets me in the mood for doing crazy things like cleaning out our mini-van that hadn't been cleaned in months. And I pretty much feel like bursting into a loud sound while walking down the street or stepping out into the backyard. I probably shouldn't do it though, our neighbour's dog likes to howl when he hears sirens outside.

But what about our Sunday afternoon? Well, not much really, just a lovely spring-y afternoon, warm sunshine outside, baby girl sleeping under a recently unpacked baby blanket made by a dear 100-year old friend who passed away a couple of years ago. Then some quiet nursing and snuggling time after Ivy's restful nap... Except that this time, the beauty of these simple moments was almost overwhelming. So I asked Mark to grab the camera and snap a few shots, while those moments lasted. Because those moments are the ones we want to remember years from now, even if our typical Sundays are filed with every day chaos...

today...

2011-03-16T17:07:00.002-06:00

Cooking (or rather, fermenting). 48-hour old batch of kimchi and pickled vegetables is starting to get nice 'kick' to it. I should probably stop checking on it every hour, but I can't help it. Haven't had kimchi in a while...

Friends. Katrina came over with her little ones, and I managed to sneak in a real grown-up lunch for both of us. Before kids' lunch. And BEFORE 5 p.m. Triple score!

Knitting. Almost done with a couple of projects that were put on hold due to the sickness in our house. Now that everyone is feeling better (except for Maya, who is still dealing with an ear infection), I can finish some things and make good progress on others. Also, found this gem at Costco, full of ideas for using quinoa, loads of gluten-free recipes too. Sweet!

a girl and her pickles

2011-03-15T02:28:00.004-06:00

Coming to live in the U.S. almost 9 years ago, I never thought it would be so hard to find good-tasting, non-squishy pickles. After trying out dozens of different varieties, and rejecting most of them (really, why can't we have Vlasic Kosher Baby Dills without 'yellow 5' added to it?), I decided that I could only bring myself to eat pickles from one certain brand. Even then, they are a distant second to the kind of home made pickles my mom used to make. Maya always loved pickles, and turns out Anya loves them too. But I didn't know that until we recently found new kind of baby pickles. They are tiny. I almost feel bad about eating these 'babies'. But Anya is in pickle heaven. One of these days I'll have to master my mom's pickle recipe (but for now I'll practice on making kimchi).

all done!

2011-03-09T15:40:00.007-07:00

It's been a while since posting knitting updates in time for Ginny's yarn along. But my Shalom cardigan is DONE. As in, it's even blocked. I love it. Could've used an extra 10 stitches for the cast on, but I think it looks perfect with one button done, which is how I'll be wearing it. And I'm still counting on losing a few pounds sometime this year, mostly from my face (ha ha). So it's all good :)

Another week.

2011-03-09T01:49:00.005-07:00

It's been a busy week. Wish I could say we've been up to all kinds of fun. But in reality, our busy-ness can mostly be blamed on sickness in our family. Ivy got sick first, then Anya followed her germ trail. Maya and Elijah picked up the crumbs just a few days ago. Unfortunately, those two don't slow down when they are sick (unlike Ivy, who for a couple of days just wanted to sleep and snuggle). If the peak of their sickness can be pinpointed by the amount of lacking judgment and rationality, then I'd say those two reached it on Monday. Good thing there was no cliff within walking distance to jump off. Luckily, Mark answered my distress call and came home early. So here I am, diligently documenting our happenings instead of catching up on sleep...

To sum it up in photos, our weeks consisted of:

the sick (and very cuddly) baby. I could use some of that cuddliness on regular days, without Ivy getting sick. Hear that, baby?

the yummy (gluten-free) food. still loving "Gluten-Free Baking Classics" by Annalise G. Roberts.

(just a quick mix of leftover polenta with sundried tomatoes and garlic, pan fired, served over spinach, with some feta cheese on top)

the latest favorite 'toy' (which they consider to be anything within their reach)

the artists. Anya's been perfecting her coloring skills by drawing sophisticated shapes and filling them in carefully.

the bottomless pit of knitting projects. Including first practice pair of socks and now completed Shalom cardigan.

the I-slept-with-humidifier-in-my-room hair

the meaning of motherhood.
{picture a pile of my clothes used for wiping noses. against my will, I must add}

A date with his mama

2011-03-02T03:15:00.000-07:00

Elijah's turn for an 'outing' with me finally came. He had his mind set on going to the Temple Square for weeks and he got his wish. First we stopped at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. Going all the way up to the 10th floor gave us a fantastic overlook of the Temple Square, not to mention a nice ride in the elevator, which is surprisingly important when you try to impress your almost-5-year-old date.

Then we headed back downstairs, checking out the lobby and stopping for a snack.

I'm sure he didn't realize it, but I didn't just sit across the table watching him munch on potato chips. I was soaking in those perfect moments of being one-on-one with my son.

Eating our snacks and talking to each other was so much fun, that we didn't have much time to to spend at the Visitors' centers. Still, a few things stood out to Elijah - being able to take a peek at what the inside of the Temple looks like, and going up and down the ramp to see the 11-foot tall Christus statue.

And this was it. Our perfect date went by fast, leaving us with many wonderful memories and a stronger connection to each other. I may not see this side of Elijah every day, but seeing him in this light just once in a while is so refreshing and in some ways even healing.

on my mind

2011-02-26T04:27:00.005-07:00

technically, there shouldn't be anything on my mind at 4 a.m. But with the way this night has been, I'm just barely starting to let myself feel tired enough to go to bed.

I've been listening to the wet slushy sounds of cars driving by on the road all night.
Just another batch of drizzling rain, I thought.
Then I happened to catch a glimpse of the backyard light coming through the windows.
Somebody forgot to turn off the light outside, I thought.
I felt around for the switch, tried to flip it down, and realized the light was already off. I finally looked outside. Real snow. Didn't think I'd see it again this winter, judging by how little snow we've had. But here it is, all glowing and almost magical, rushing to the ground, just to become part of the slush in the morning. But that's in the morning. For now it's sitting perfectly piled up on tree branches and cars, making everything glow quietly in the street lights...

this afternoon

2011-02-16T16:59:00.004-07:00

:: multi-tasking ::

I'm guessing this qualifies for yarn along :) Working on surprise baby jacket and enjoying EZ's Knitting Workshop. My collection of her books is slowly growing. And my admiration for her work is rapidly increasing.

:: trying to resist making some more of this goodness ::

onions, zucchini, basil and parmesan with eggs

Hits and misses

2011-02-15T12:22:00.001-07:00

:: after multiple attempts at baking gluten-free bread, we finally have a hit. even though it didn't rise as much as I expected, it turned out plenty wonderful. The bad news? One loaf was barely enough for 5 sandwiches. Never thought a day would come when I have to buy bakeware in doubles. And then triple most recipes (if I want a bit of leftovers for the next day). Ah, the joy of having a large family... ::

:: nothing escapes this girl's eye, she'll vacuum up every little speck and crumb off the kitchen floor. so if she's so intent at picking up random things and putting them in her mouth, she might as well do it with something digestible. and as a bonus, kids can pretend that they have a puppy that they've been begging for ::

:: hello kitty bandaids make everything better, both imaginary cuts, and really deep cracks in skin ::

:: a love note from Anya is always a hit. yes, the note says 'I love you', Anya told me so ::

:: no huge overpriced bouquets, or fancy jewelry, or dinner at an overcrowded noisy restaurant, but a lovely rose in a ladybug pot for Valentine's Day, carefully picked out by Elijah, Anya and Mark. A bull's eye hit (while it lasts... sadly, my brown thumb and house plants don't mix) ::

:: a most definite miss x 2. I miss my old boots that can't be cleaned after I spilled some shampoo on them (what? you didn't know that you can wash your hair in the kitchen sink on the way out the door?), and the new pair (which is nothing like the above mentioned boots, aside from being the same brand) is the least flattering pair of footwear I've tried on in a long time. Granted, my size 10 feet are not easy to hide, but having a pair of boots that makes them look even bigger? No, thank you. And I also can't bring myself to wear black boots or shoes. Too bad though, the deal on this pair was pretty amazing ::

Perfect date

2011-02-14T00:55:00.008-07:00

In spite of the lack of a lengthy and ambitious list of New Year's goals (I know, what a mouthful of "of's"), we do have a new 'thing' that Mark and I have been trying to stick to this year - having more one-on-one time with our children. We decided to take turns and go out on a 'date' with one of the 3 older kids (Ivy's getting plenty of attention by default), letting them take turns each week as well. This week it was Anya's and mine turns to go out. After hearing all about Elijah's fun time at the Church History Museum last week, we decided Anya would enjoy it too. We finally figured that Saturday would be the best day to go, and boy, did it we get that right...

The weather was perfect. In fact a bit too perfect for this time of year, but I won't complain. In addition, Katrina and her little ones joined us at the museum, which made our outing even more perfect for 2 reasons - I got to socialize with a real grown up (not just pretend ones, who get 'married' in our house every day), and I spared myself of a whole lot of 'butt kicking' that often comes as a result of not bringing your camera... or worse yet, bringing one, only to have the battery die after a few shots, which is exactly what happened. Luckily, Katrina and I have a lot in common, photography and Nikon cameras being two of those things (also, a slight addiction to 60% cocoa chocolate chips, out of all things). So I managed to end up with plenty of shots to overload this post, in spite of the fact that we kept swapping the battery between the two cameras.

Anya had heaps of fun at the museum, with the ship being her favorite, judging by how many times she went back there to lick the germs off the the plastic windows. It was such a joy to just watch her being *her*, without any influence from her siblings. She's pretty much a different child when no one steals her toys, pulls on her hair, or calls her 'Cinderella' instead of 'Buttercup'. Watching her fluttering around and enjoying the freedom that comes with me supervising only one child was priceless.

We ended up spending some time outside at the Temple Square, mostly sitting by the fountain or doing laps around it, letting Anya crawl or walk on the ledge (again, this is a one-child luxury). I remembered that last time Mark and I were at the Temple Square with one child was back when Maya was 2 months away from her second birthday and I was 2 months away from giving birth to Elijah. So yes, it's been a while.

I almost didn't want to show up at our rendezvous point where Mark was supposed to pick me and Anya up. I was secretly hoping that Anya would step out of her character and throw a tantrum when I told her it was time to go. But instead, she cheerfully took my hand and with her usual happy voice said "Let's go fast, mama!".

p.s. couldn't resist adding some of the photos that Katrina took, she captured Anya's spirit so beautifully...

Just another week

2011-02-09T14:41:00.005-07:00

Not much happening here, just your average middle of the winter (wait, last quarter of the winter) week. No exciting ups, no devastating downs. Even the passing of Mark's grandpa feels oddly peaceful. Maybe because we've been praying for him the night before to finally make that transition so he could be relieved of pain and sickness his body had been afflicted with for quite some time. Maybe it's the visit that we paid to Mark's now widowed grandmother, who chatted with us in a reassuring kind of way, trying to think of all the people her husband was shaking hands with on that beautiful Sunday morning.

I wish I could write a lengthy post about Mark's grandfather and what a good man he was. But I'm afraid my knowledge of him, or rather that fraction of what I know about him, won't do him justice. So without attempting to write something I don't feel I'm qualified to write about, I'll do what (I think) I do best, share a photo. It was taken this past June, when Ivy was just a mere week or two old. Grandpa Keith was feeling very sick at that time, with cancer spread throughout his body. We didn't think he would make it through June, so Mark and I decided to visit him to make sure he would get a chance to see his new great-granddaughter at least once.

and here's Ivy on Sunday morning, stopping at grandma's house after visiting her great-grandma.

edited: just as I hoped, Lisa (my sister-in-law, or just 'sister') wrote a beautiful post about grandpa Keith here. She did it. Told the story the way I couldn't...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As I already said, we had a good week. Not 'perfect' good, but more of a 'normal life' good. Perfection is just so out of reach these days, if I keep waiting for a perfect week to happen, I might set myself for a year full of disappointment. So instead, 'good' is my new 'perfect'.

I experimented yet again with red lentil soup which turned out GOOD (ok, nearly perfect). Such a quick and flexible recipe. I won't even write it in traditional recipe style, just share quick directions. You'll just have to mix and match :)

For the 4 people in our family that will eat this soup (Ivy included!), I use 3 cups of red lentils. Wash and rinse them well, several times, until water runs clear. Start with sauteing 1/2 an onion with some minced garlic and/or ginger in EV olive oil. Then add some turmeric (1-2 t) and any of the following spices - coriander, cumin or cinnamon. Peel 3-4 small yams, sweet potatoes or carrots, cube and add to onion and spice mixture. Add the washed lentils, 1 can of coconut milk and 5-7 cups of water and let it all cook together until lentils and vegetables are tender. Some sauteed onions added to individual bowls of soup are a fantastic touch for this dish :)

It doesn't happen very often that all 3 older kids can play together without fighting for more than 10 minutes (which is why I started this post in the morning, and I'm still working on it at 4 p.m.). But when it does happen, you can be sure they came up with something different. Yesterday they all came upstairs dressed in... well, dresses. I was secretly thrilled to see that Elijah hasn't succumbed to gender stereotypes yet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I know my post wouldn't be complete without a knitting-related blurb.

:: the skeins are being wound ::

:: future projects are waiting to be cast on ::

:: new projects are being started ::

:: and old projects are moving along nicely ::

life is good.

Buckwheat crepes

2011-02-03T13:47:00.005-07:00

Ever since we went on a gluten-free diet at the beginning of this year, I've been trying to figure out how recreate some of our favorite things to eat, but with gluten-free flours. Getting used to the variety of those flours and starches, and knowing what they contribute to each recipe is still a work in progress. I'm still working on finding our favorite bread recipe (something more similar to artisan style bread), but there are a couple of things that I think I've nailed down quite well, and it makes me so happy to know that I can bring some of our kids' (also known as bread addicts) all-time favorites back to the table.

This week I set on a mission to make gluten-free crepes. I was expecting at least half a dozen of semi-successful attempts before I'd come up with a satisfying recipe. Imagine my surprise when I mixed everything together, made the first crepe and all of the sudden found myself in a crepe heaven. They turned out PERFECT. Same smooth and soft texture, same crispiness around the edges, same silence at the table, which means kids are happily devouring their meal and don't want to waste a second on chatting or goofing at the table. Oh, and I finally got to use our home-ground (in VitaMix) buckwheat flour. My only mistake that night? I should've tripled that batch.

Perfect Buckwheat Crepes
makes about 12 10-inch crepes

1 cup buckwheat flour (finely ground, I don't know what store bought flour feels like, ours was very fine)
1 cup white rice flour (again, very fine. we bought ours at Asian market and it feels a lot like starch, but says 'flour' on the package)
1 T tapioca starch

2 eggs
4 T neutral flavored oil
2.5 c milk
1-2 T maple syrup

coconut oil or butter for frying
10" cast iron pan works best

Mix dry ingredients. Wisc together wet ingredients and slowly incorporate them into the flour mix (stand- or hand-mixer works best, even though I prefer to mix by hand most of the time). Let the batter rest for 5-10 minutes. Meanwhile, heat up your skillet on medium heat. Once it's hot, add about 1 tsp of oil, spread it around. Pour about 1/3 cup of batter in the pan and quickly spread it around by tilting the pan from side to side. Cook until the edges begin to look crispy (like in the photo above). Flip it over and cook for another 10-15 seconds, depending on how hot your stove is (ours is electric and I'm still not used to it). Make sure to add more butter for each new crepe. (no, real butter/coconut oil does not make you fat)

Serve warm. We love to eat crepes with sour cream, jam, honey or syrup.

Enjoy! And let me know how this recipe worked out for you :)

to sum it up...

2011-02-02T16:49:00.006-07:00

What? February already? Did we skip January this year? Because I don't remember having one. At least it didn't feel like January to me. It only really snowed here once. ONCE. Hello, this is Utah, where's our snow? For the first time in the last few years I feel like celebrating winter season, and the only sure sign of winter we've been steadily experiencing is inversion. Oh well, we still have February left. Although I think I know now where all our snow went. Sorry, NorthEast...

So we didn't really get to do much outside in January(inversion, remember?), but we've been having pretty good time inside, enjoying our new house, feeling closer to each other (4 kids in 2 bedroom house --> plenty of closeness) and finding ways to channel our energy into something creative or productive.

:: drawing more than ever. i think we'll need to move to a bigger house just to have more room for storing all the artwork ::

:: growing faster than ever ::

:: building cool stuff ::

:: playing with papa's mountain climber that he made back when he was 10 years old ::

:: and even taking almost extinct these days naps ::

:: reading, lots and lots of reading ::

:: gluten-free cooking, which we're still learning about ::

:: and of course knitting. it never ends ::

working on my first Shalom

just keep swimming...

2011-01-26T16:16:00.006-07:00

I still haven't found my blogging mojo, or maybe getting close to 30 is taking it's toll on me and I can't stay up late like used to just a couple of months ago. At least for now Ginny's yarn alongs are providing some motivation for me to blog, even if it's just once a week.

one hat down, one more to go (will be changing the pattern some)

I'm not much of a fiction reader. In fact, the only fiction books I had read in the past 5 years or so were the last 2 books of Harry Potter. And I only did it because I love spoilers and don't like waiting for the rest of the movies to come out. Other than Harry Potter, it's non-fiction all the way for me. We usually have at least 3 dozen of books checked out from the library, most of them are for kids. But lately I've been on a library book-reading binge, so this little stack in the photo is not all I'm leafing through these days, it's just a representation of categories that I've been exploring.

(sorry, no links or author names, searching for those would add another 20 minutes to this post, which I don't really have. I just want to make sure this post gets published, and not abandoned, before my kids hijack my hanging-by-the-thread attention again)

A Curious Collection of Cats - I love well illustrated books. in fact, it's one of the reasons why I enjoying looking through kids books so much. Recently I discovered a whole section of fun poetry books in the back of non-fiction room, and couldn't resist taking this one with me. The illustrations are outstanding, and the colors, well, they are truly a feast to my eyes.

just realized that these two pages match the colors in my quilt in the photo above pretty darn well

Glouriously Gluten-Free Cookbook - we're still figuring this gluten-free life out, which involves me checking out lots of gluten free cookbooks and googling lots of recipes online. Finding a perfect GF bread recipe is especially tricky.

150 Knitted Trims - thinking of up-cycling my wardrobe, which has been boring me to tears lately. And clothes shopping these days with 4 kids in tow is pretty much a recipe for disaster.

2-at-a-time Socks - ummm... wish me luck. Magic loop is scary. And I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that after knitting for over 2 years, I still haven't made a single pair of socks. I can't say I'm short on sick yarn either. It's just sitting in the basket and begging to be used.

Free and Easy Stitch Style - love this book. I've always wanted to try free-hand stitching/quilting, and this book is just perfect for getting me started. Especially now, when I have a sweet new addition to my sewing machine family (which I didn't realize I had, until Mark counted my sewing machines for me).

Alive and well (finally)

2011-01-19T12:25:00.005-07:00

Coming back after almost 2 months of no blogging is a bit overwhelming. But we're finally settled in (mostly, if you don't count that half of our stuff is still in boxes), and my camera and computer are bursting with untouched photos that I've taken over the past couple of months. So instead of waiting for the perfect night to write a lengthy post with 3 dozen of photos and a long list of happenings (which I've been trying to do for the past couple of weeks), I'll jump back into blogging *right now*, no more excuses to keep putting it off (fighting and whining kids don't count, right?).

I'll save more elaborate and detailed blogging for that time of night when everyone's asleep, so for now I'll be joining Ginny's 'Yarn Along'.

To say that my knitting has been scarce since we started moving would be a huge understatement. My sewing and knitting supplies got packed first, and after moving everything into our new house, I simply couldn't bring myself to pick up one of my projects when there were boxes of stuff everywhere. Besides, for some reason I've been more tired in the evenings than usual and going to bed earlier than I'd normally like to. Considering that evenings (up until 2 a.m.) is when most of knitting and creating used to happen, not much of it was happening after we moved. And knitting during the day is pretty much a joke. I can't make it through one row without being interrupted at least twice.

Then a couple of weeks ago we joined our friends for a Sunday dinner, and sometime during my conversation with Amy we decided it would be fun to start having a weekly knitting night with other friends and neighbours who would be interested in joining us. So for the past couple of weeks we've been getting together on Tuesday nights, and knitting away well into the midnight. I can't put it into words how much I've been enjoying these knitting nights. Talking to grown-ups, making friends, discussing and exploring all kinds of [crazy] ideas and staying up late are all the things that I've been wishing for in these past few months, and maybe even years. And hey, I'm finally getting some knitting done!

In the photo:
Groovy Cable Tuque in Shepherd's Wool
Woodland Shawl in Kauni Effektgarn (EQ colorway)

The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education
A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns
Drawing with Children

they were here

2010-12-01T02:15:00.003-07:00

My children do have mornings when they just read books and draw quietly. Like today. There must've been a myriad of planets x3 that aligned just right and not a millimeter off this morning to turn my children into quietly-sitting-and-drawing-or-reading type. Thank you, planets!

And we got to make this again. Didn't have time to finish it though... Any guesses what it could be? We've been enjoying this stuff for the past few days. Kids are hooked!

decluttering

2010-12-01T01:14:00.003-07:00

I've had about a dozen of links open in my browser for weeks, waiting for a perfect day to cook, sew and do some uninterrupted reading. I had to quit and restart my browser several times since then, always worrying about loosing my open pages. It's time to put an end to it, and have at least one area organized in our house, even if it's just a browser on the computer with a very cluttered desktop, both virtual and Ikea built. So here they are, my precious links that I've been holding onto all these weeks.

to watch:
The Dark Side of Chocolate

to make:
Paper Lanterns
Felt Hat

to cook:
Spicy Green Lentils and Yellow Split Peas
Mujadarah
Red Lentil Soup (Masoor dal)
Sprouted Chana Palak Curry

to read and share (again):
Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills
and a PDF brochure to go with it

Always special

2010-11-29T23:57:00.007-07:00

I was determined to get to bed before midnight tonight, but before doing so I automatically checked Google Reader. And then it happened. Sara made this post, sharing a video clip made by her friend Tiffani. She warned to have Kleenexes ready, but she didn't mention anything about needing a bath towel to wipe the puddle of tears off the floor. It's not hard for me to get slightly emotional over stories, clips or movies involving children. But this time it was different. It reached deep within me, stirring some emotions that I didn't have time or energy to face for a while. So here I am, doing my best putting those emotions into words...

****************************

There are no words that can describe the moment you meet that tiny human being that had been growing inside you for 9 long months. First you count the wrinkles, then watch them smooth out as your tiny newborn turns into a crawling infant, walking toddler, running pre-schooler, dancing 1st grader... You know it was love at first sight, and you want it to last forever, always just as overwhelming and unconditional as you felt it in those first few minutes, hours, days, and weeks of your baby's life...

She was always my spirited child.

x10.

Not a day goes by when we don't butt our heads together.

She's fire.
I'm fire.

She's impatient.
So am I.

She is competitive.
I am not. But only because I had to make myself quit being competitive years ago, knowing how personally I took it.

She dreams and lets her imagination run wild.
I still do it too.

She longs to have more friends. Real friends. Not just friends she gets to see once a week.
And I feel her pain.

Her personality has been more explosive than ever lately. I'm trying hard to find or create peace in our home. But it's sparse, inconsistent, unpredictable. I end up getting lost in the chaos that rules our home these days, caught in the middle of daily fights, meltdowns, mood swings. And I often forget what really matters. I forget to look for those priceless and unique sides of her personality that make her shine. She means the world to me. Unforgettable, spontaneous, fierce, inquisitive, brilliant, intense, radiant, goofy, sensitive 6.5 year old daughter of mine. The child that opened the door to motherhood for me...

When You Are Six... from freeplaylife on Vimeo.

She's all that. x10.

in denial

2010-11-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

then...

about an hour old, with cord still uncut (in the right corner of the photo)

and now...

same towel, no less

My Ivy Joy turned 6 months old last week. It's still hard for me to wrap my head around it. I always get asked by strangers how old she is. And all the way up until the day she turned 6 months, my answer was '5 months'. Not '5 and a half'. Not 'almost 6'. Because really, why would I want to admit to anyone that my baby is growing so fast.

Yes, it's denial. She is growing up, crawling, sitting, babbling, laughing, starting to grab our food (or just about anything else that's in front of her, so I'm not interpreting it as her readiness for solids/table foods yet). In other words, she's telling me that we are long past those days when I could still somewhat squeeze her into the newborn category. Oddly enough, this time I didn't ever feel like I 'just wanted her to be older so she could start _______ '(insert: rolling over, giggling, sitting up, grabbing toys, etc). I knew those milestones would happen eventually, but her freshness and newborn smell would never come back. Maybe she did too good of a job at being a 'normal' newborn, unlike her older siblings who screamed around the clock. And just when I got to see how blissful that newborn stage can really be, she went and grew 3 months older overnight. Not fair, Ivy, not fair...

Wait, who am I to complain? She is still living up to her middle name - Joy. Short naps and frequent night wakings aside (ok, also screaming in the car), she manages to put a smile on my face whenever I need it. And hey, she's got bushy eyebrows! Finally! My own flesh and blood, but better, with Mark's eyebrows!

And as much as her siblings fight and pick on each other, they still adore Ivy to pieces. Maya actually gets mad at me sometimes that I had the nerve to be Ivy's mom, not her. To give her a credit, she's pretty darn good at being Ivy's mini-mama when the opportunity presents itself.

forgot to mention...

2010-11-24T16:47:00.004-07:00

I guess it's time for an official 'we are moving!' post. Except there's no exclamation point in real live. More like, 'ugh, we have to pack up and move before December 18 and hopefully AFTER we find a new place to live'. Our plans (more like wishful thinking) to move sometime in January prompted our landlord to list the house for sale right away, which then turned into 'the house is sold and you have to vacate within 30 days' notice.

the not-so-lovely result of dry Utah air, endless cleaning and not enough time to run to the store for coconut oil

Between getting the house ready for sale, then having people come look at it for days in a row, inspections and packing, all in the last 10 days or so, we haven't even had much time to look for a new place for us. So here we are, with our home half packed away and three-ish weeks left to find a suitable home for our family. The fact that not everyone is crazy enough to move right before Christmas means that we don't have to spend that much time looking at online rental listings. I guess you could call it an 'upside'. Right? Right?..

she insisted on helping me pack

But life goes on, and Thanksgiving is tomorrow, so today, more than ever, I count my blessings and try to be more conscious of things I can be grateful for. Going through our belongings, trying to minimize the amount of boxes we have to pack, load and unload, made me realize how many things we've accumulated in our 8 years of marriage and 6.5 years of parenthood. And it's not boxes of stuff, it's those 8 years of marriage and 6.5 years of parenthood that I'm overwhelmingly grateful for right now.

I know somehow we'll get through this. Somehow we'll find just the right place for us. Maybe we'll be cramped for a while, maybe we will have to live out of the boxes for a few months, or won't have a shiny Christmas tree with home-sewn gifts for children neatly wrapped under it. But in the end, we're still together, as a family, taking our home with us wherever we go.

I know one day our memories will bring us back to this time and all of today's troubles will seem small and distant, the intensity of these days will fade away, and my memory might even trick me into thinking that our children were very cooperative and helpful when we were trying to pack and clean. But right now, it's all real, as it is, and we'll just keep pushing through it, one day at a time. Thinking about this time in our lives reminds me of last weeks of pregnancy, when you are uncomfortable, with all kinds of aches and pains invading your body, barely getting any rest and wishing for it all to be over. Then the big day comes, weeks and months go by after the birth of your new baby, and the intensity, the reality of that discomfort and pain fade away. You remember thinking about how miserable you were, but at the same time it doesn't seem so bad any more. That day will come...

Speaking of babies. This is the home where Anya and Ivy were born. The two ties I will never be able to break with this house...

****************************

And to end this post on a more cheerful note, I'm sharing my rainbow today. I was barely able to do any knitting lately, but between doing a couple of rows in the car and a few rows late at night after a long day of cleaning, my rainbow keeps growing. The colors make me smile every time I see them, blending into one another, transforming the project with every new color change. I don't know when it will be done, and I'll most likely have to give priority to other things in this coming month, but doing even a couple of rows a day is such a treat. Not to mention my kind of therapy...

simple remedy

2010-11-20T18:59:00.007-07:00

It's been a long couple of weeks for us. And just when we thought that things couldn't get more stressful, they did, today. On top of that, today we had to wave goodbye to the lovely autumn days that we had enjoyed so much. A winter storm is moving in, and we got a little taste of almost-snow tonight, when we were getting into the car after shopping for some moving boxes.

As soon as we got home, Mark said that it would be nice to have some kind of soup for dinner tonight. And just the idea of having warm meal made me forget about all the stress for a few moments. So I got out of the fridge a bowl of cut up butternut squash and started mixing spices together. I'll be honest here, I cubed it almost a week ago, intending to make a soup with it, but things got too crazy and I didn't get a chance to revisit the idea until tonight. When I finally poured the soup into our bowls and had the first taste of it, I knew this was the perfect dinner for a night like tonight. It was soup therapy at it's best.

I have to note, I normally don't like squash. The sweetness of it just doesn't sit right with me. So when I was making the soup, I didn't add any sugar (which I know is quite common when cooking squash), and tried to make sure the soup was salty with a hint of sweetness from the squash and coconut milk. If you like it more sweet, add some kind of sweetener to your taste :)

A Piece of Sunshine on a Stormy Night (a.k.a. curried coconut butternut squash soup)

EV olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2-4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tsp. minced ginger

3-4 medium bay leaves
2 tsp. curry powder
1/2 tsp. ground cumin (optional)
1 tsp. ground coriander (optional)
1/2 tsp. garam masala (optional)

1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded, cubed (about 2-3 lbs)
3/4 c water
1 can coconut milk
salt to taste

red pepper flakes and chopped parsley for garnish

Cook chopped onion in olive oil on until it starts getting some color. Add minced garlic and ginger and cook for another minute. Add curry, bay leaf and any other spices listed above, if you have them on hand. Cook, stirring frequently for about 30 seconds, add butternut squash, salt, water, and coconut milk, stir well, cover and let simmer for about 30 minutes or until squash is tender.

Once squash is cooked, pour everything into a blender and blend to desired consistency. You can also use immersion blender right in the pot, but I never tried it, so I don't know what consistency you can achieve with it. Pour the soup into a bowl and sprinkle with hot pepper flakes and freshly chopped parsley. Enjoy!

yarn along

2010-11-10T14:44:00.003-07:00

Because I've been knitting every spare moment I get lately, and because Ginny at Small Things came up with this lovely Yarn Along idea, I'm posting a photo of my current UFOs (unfinished objects). There's one veteran in there that's been on my needles from before Ivy was born. The rest are quite new and moving along nicely.

As for the books, technically I don't have time to read right now, but the Embroidery Companion is coming due at the library soon, so I'm trying to make sure I go through it once more before I return it. And with Christmas coming up, Children's Year is my go-to book for gift ideas and seasonal decorations. Looking at this photo(and other projects I managed to finish recently) makes me feel like inspite of the constant state of chaos during the day, I manage to accomplish something after all, even if the only time I can work on that 'accomplishing something' is between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.

Not too cool for a late Halloween post.

2010-11-09T01:11:00.005-07:00

wish i discovered this shirt before halloween. i'll make sure that next year it will be me posing in it for a post-halloween blog post

Halloween. We survived! Barely! It was almost a disaster! Maya even called it her worst Halloween ever! (granted, her disappointment lasted for only about 10 minutes, but she made it very clear to us with every fibre of her being, just to make sure we got the message).

First of all, Mark and I are NOT huge Halloween fans. Not even tiny ones. Well, I pretty much roll my eyes every time I hear that 'H' word. I know, I know, kids love it, adults get to pretend they are kids and eat an extra pound of candy, I get it. What I don't get is the whole scary aspect of the holiday (is it even a holiday?). But then again, I'm that strange abnormal person who doesn't like horror movies either. And I didn't grow up celebrating Halloween (we are not big on Halloween in Europe), so I don't have all those warm and fuzzy memories from my childhood about my parents and I going trick-or-treating in our 5-storey apartment building, or having our carefully carved pumpkins smashed on the street, or spending a small fortune on scary decorations and costumes.

Why am I saying all this? For posterity, in the first place. I write this blog with my children in mind. Some day I want to be able to put all my posts into a book so they can't blame me for not keeping some kind of journal. And also because there should always be a second opinion about everything, even Halloween. And since everyone else seems to love it, it's my duty to rain on all the excitement surrounding this day. And lastly, they need to understand one day, that aside from all the typical things that parents do or sacrifice for their children, we went an extra mile and made sure they had a normal Halloween.

Speaking of which, it rained here on Halloween (well, almost. we went trick-or-treating on Saturday night). At first we thought that it was going to be just the right kind of cherry to top our already disastrous day. But in the end it didn't stop us, and we actually had quite a nice time walking down the wet streets and collecting all the candy surplus, since not everyone was hardcore enough to be trick-or-treating out in the rain that night. And I just happened to have another one of my infamous headaches, which meant I took some Exce&rine before heading out (I'll translate it for you - 130 mg of caffeine), which conveniently kicked in at just the right moment, when Maya was being very adamant about letting us know that this was going to be her worst Halloween ever.

We got home about 1.5 hours later, kids with bags full of candy, me feeling energized after a refreshing walk (and from all the caffeine still running through my veins), Ivy barely being awake from the long nap she took on our walk. In the end, it all worked out. Yet somehow it felt like we had a 36 hour day, and it was hard to believe that Elijah's half-hour long screaming fit happened only a couple of hours ago...

I realize that no Halloween post is complete without costume photos, but I'll have to save them for another time. After all, it is almost 2 a.m. here, and I have this strange aversion to very lengthy posts. Besides, the battery in my camera only lasted for one shot that night (figures, after all our hard work we put into the costumes), so we only managed to take photos of everyone on Monday night, while visiting grandparents and celebrating a birthday in the family. But like I said, I have to save all that for another post.

As for that one shot that I managed to take before the battery died, it's petty much worth all the shots that we missed that night...

swamped.

2010-10-30T01:43:00.003-06:00

going to bed every night while trying to remember what I wanted to post about, but didn't get a chance to, is pretty much a torture, if you ask me. I'm quite sure my head might explode a little if I don't get to unload that pile of imaginary hand written notes to myself with ideas and events for blog posts.

One if these days

...when Ivy no longer wakes up 3-5 times in a 2 hour period at night

...when I'm not making (knitting, no less) Halloween costumes any more (ironically, for a holiday that I simply don't get)

...most importantly, when our hard drive has more than 2 GB left on it so I can finally upload 8 GB worth of photos to it

I'll release all those drafted posts into the wild, and might actually get caught up with current events. Before Christmas would be just fine with me.

Until then, a cute baby face can tie into pretty much any post, right? Like, here's the face of that baby that wakes up on average 4 times in a two hour period after she goes to bed. Maybe I should make her wear that hat, so she can look just as cute when she wakes up yet again.

(her hat is made out of the same yarn that you can see in my blog header. in fact, that's what i was knitting when i took the photo)

my favorite time of the year

2010-10-20T13:16:00.000-06:00

Is there such a thing as The Perfect Autumn? Because I'm pretty sure that's what we've been having in these past couple of months. Not too hot, not too cold, not too rainy, brilliant colors and just joy to breathe in whenever we go outside. If it was up to me, I'd have 5 months of autumn and 5 months of spring (with one month left for snowy winter and one month for summer), when I could wake up every day and see just a little bit of change in the trees, air, sunlight. That's why I love spring and autumn so much - everything changes, yet manages to stay beautiful and exciting.

Mark had to go to a conference mid-October for three days, and I barely made it through a 24 hour period of parenting 4 cranky (serious understatement) kids who just happened to all get colds right before Mark left. Luckily, his mom came to help us out for the remaining couple of days. Which was a good thing for many reasons, particularly because she got to witness what our car rides with Ivy are really like, how long she can scream in the car, how crazy my hormones make me when she screams and why we have to stop 2-4 times whenever we go to visit them at the farm.

maya picked out the one with the tail

But all that and other 'moments' aside, we had good time at the pumpkin patch. I'm pretty sure we did, because I didn't find any photos of kids crying or running away, although I seem to vaguely recall something like that happening half a dozen times. It's probably just me imagining things with my brain half asleep.

Week-ending

2010-10-04T16:19:00.007-06:00

(even now, after living in the States for 8 years, I refuse to start my week on Sunday. And the work WEEK-END is there to back me up on that. Week starts on Monday, people! :)

In spite of all the troubles and stress (traveling with our car-hating baby - our 4th car-hater, no less. what luck! - and 3 'angels' who just can't grasp the concept of using soft voices, resting or doing anything quiet during car rides, especially during those rare occasions when Ivy is sleeping), it was good to be able to escape the city once more, spend a few hours breathing fresh air, drinking non-chlorinated water from the tap and visiting loved ones that we don't get to see as often as we'd like to.

:: no, we didn't come across a field of wild flowers. I found lovely patch in Mark's Grandma's yard ::

:: another discovery during our visit... so much color and character. so many years of life written all over this 6x6ft corner ::

:: see those stairs? that's where Mark and I had our engagement pictures taken with a self timer (all 17,954 of them), 10 days before our wedding... 8 years ago ::

:: i didn't forget to bring my knitting along ::

:: and mark volunteered ivy to model a hat that she is outgrowing painfully fast. it is still a hit with everyone but ivy ::

:: we got back to the farm just in time to see this ::

yes, it was a good weekend...

Peaches!

2010-09-23T01:54:00.000-06:00

Every year we look forward to the first week of September, when we get to go all the way to Brigham City and pick our own peaches. We go to the same orchard year after year, the peaches are fantastic there and we love to support the old school trust-your-neighbour payment system - money jar with nobody around to keep an eye on it. We wonder if that money ever gets stolen, and it probably does from time to time. But we hope that the good karma of believing in honest people brings fair return and loyal customers (like us :)

This year peaches were a bit slow to come. We finally went 2 weeks later than usual, only to find the trees mostly empty. It looked like the peaches were picked that morning or maybe the day before. But we still were able to spot a few trees that made our trip worth while. After all, it would be no fun to drive an hour and a half each way with an unhappy baby, making several stops in between to nurse her or rock her in the car seat, just to come home empty handed...

Ivy has been rolling like a pro lately. She didn't like staying on her back for too long, so she rolled off the wrap and spent a good 5 minutes nibbling on the grass and digging her toes into the dirt.

Everyday wonders

2010-09-19T01:34:00.000-06:00

Sometimes

I forget how easy it is to be in the moment.

How to make the most out of every second.

All it takes is to stop,

look around

and find that one simple wonder

that makes you smile.

Feel the gratitude.

Then remember the feeling.

Such moments are perfect,

even when imperfection rules your life...

To sum it up...

2010-09-16T23:26:00.007-06:00

September has been good to us so far. Perfect weather, blissful and peaceful atmosphere at home, kids who help and listen, heartwarming meals every day... Well, scratch the last 3, but the weather is sure nice.

This past month and a half have been much harder than the first 2 months after Ivy was born, mostly because Anya stopped napping and the whole afternoon routine was shattered into pieces. To sum it up, now there's no 'quiet' or nap time. But there's plenty of loud, make-as-much-noise-as-possible-while-Ivy-is-sleeping time. Which translates into: me, frantically making lunch while Ivy is napping and the other kids throwing their requests at me (I think I grow 3 invisible arms during lunch time, just to keep up with the madness), then me trying to send kids downstairs to play so I can clean up after them and have a bite to eat (read: BREAKFAST), and ultimately, failing at the last task, because Ivy wakes up from all the noise in the kitchen. Afternoons are a blur after that...

Despite all the chaos, those 3 imps manage to melt my heart every day in one way or the other. And then they make me pay for it with another blur of a day...

So speaking of September...

What a perfect month for getting back into the bread baking groove. Kalach never tasted better (maybe because I never accidentally overdosed on butter until this last time)

Elijah got his first black (or green and yellow?) eye from close encounter of the third kind with a very aggressive door knob. Bad door knob, bad.

...and then he got his second ever haircut by grandpa. Both times without parent's (mine) consent. At least this time I can still recognize my son :)

Speaking of hair, Anya let me make her first pony tail ever. It was sloppy and all, and my hands were shaking from disbelief, but I did it, that's what matters (and I left it in for 2 days, not knowing if she'd ever let me put her hair into a pony tail again)

and here's her signature hair:

Ivy's been growing like a weed. Rolling over from time to time for the past 3 weeks, laughing and giggling for just as long (and Maya is a pro at making her laugh), sucking on her fists like it's the best tasting food in the world and just plain growing way faster than I can admit to myself. I think she'll get her driver's license sooner than I will.

(this one would look cute as a driver's license photo)

And Maya... This girls amazes me with her creativity and curiosity as much as she amazes me with her talent to test my patience to the limit. She's a true gem - Maya with a Y. And here's the peaceful side of her, reading Charlotte's Web from start to finish in just a couple of hours (priceless, peaceful hours).

As for me, I'm trying to keep my sanity by consuming insane amounts of chocolate (hey, if I'm gaining weight while nursing anyway, I might as well make it fun, right?) and producing impressive amounts of knitwear. Can my life get any better?

Breastfeeding at church: now and then

2010-09-07T14:16:00.002-06:00

I recently read Rixa's blog post about an illustration at the LDS Church History Museum where you can spot two women nursing their babies during Sacrament meeting. The illustration brought back that immediate excitement and relief that I got to experience about 3 years ago, when for the first time since becoming a mom I saw a sister nursing her child during the Sacrament meeting. Since Rixa asked her blog readers for a couple more photos, I figured it would be a perfect opportunity to enjoy a trip to the Museum and seeing the illustration with my own eyes (as well as taking some photos of it).

After failing to breastfeed my first 2 babies for more than 3 months, I didn't have much experience with nursing in public, at church especially. Maybe I didn't pay much attention until then, but I just assumed that all mothers used 'mother's lounge' for nursing, which in our particular church building is nothing more than a small room equipped with 2 rocking chairs and a changing table, attached to the restroom. Everyone who goes to the restroom passes the 'nursing area' and you can clearly hear everything that's going on in the restroom, while you're nursing or changing your child.

The room is ok most of the time, but there have been times when I just couldn't stand nursing my baby in there. That is why I was immediately overcome with joy when for the first time ever I saw that particular sister nursing her child right in the middle of the Sacrament meeting, back when I was pregnant with Anya 3 years ago. What a relief it was, knowing that I didn't have to hustle out of the chapel if my baby was hungry. I could simply nurse my little one right there and enjoy fairly uninterrupted meeting (aside from the usual crisises caused by my two other little ones).

That experience, combined with other experiences of seeing moms nursing in public places, greatly influenced my success in breastfeeding our 3rd baby (she self-weaned at 18 months when I was pregnant with Ivy). So naturally, seeing a 139 year old illustration of LDS women breastfeeding their babies during Sacrament meeting, with men sitting right next to them, uncovered (back in the days when accidental 'flashing' of ankles was not acceptable), reassured me just how normal it actually is to tend to your baby's basic need of nourishment and comfort, anywhere and anytime.

taken during our Lake Mary hike

Riding the FrontRunner

2010-09-03T01:47:00.000-06:00

Some time in mid-August Mark and I decided to make a list of things that we wanted to do before the end of the month. Riding the FrontRunner was one of them. We've done it before and of course kids loved it. With autumn being just around the corner we felt the urge to pack in as many activities as possible before cold rainy weather takes over.

We almost didn't make it in time to catch the right train. We had to sprint out of the car, cross the street, in the middle of which I had to stop and pick up the 'essentials' that Maya not-so-carefully packed into her backpack, while carrying Ivy and trying to keep Elijah from running in the wrong direction. Then we ran onto the platform and realized we had no time to buy the tickets. We crossed our fingers and got on the train. Lucky for us, the guy who we assumed would be asking for tickets, didn't say anything so we saved a good amount of money and rode for free. Just kidding. After trying to guess in our mind how many hundreds of $$ we'd need to pay as a fine for a family of 6, we asked him if it was still possible to pay for the tickets somehow, and promptly let out a sigh of relief when he said that we could just buy the tickets when we got to Ogden, which we happily did.

Mark's parents were able to meet us in Ogden, and we ended up spending part of the afternoon together, eating out and exploring old trains. No major incidents or meltdowns happened (probably due to magic dust that grandparents carry with them). A sure key to a successful outing!

(oops, did I just post a picture of Anya picking her nose? I'll pretend it was an accident and I don't know how to delete it)

Hiking again

2010-08-13T16:53:00.003-06:00

Ahhh, it's good to be hiking again. Granted, we haven't done anything strenuous yet, mostly because we can't seem to get to the trails early enough to have a 2-3 hour hike. We're still getting a hang of handling 4 kids who all seem to like experimenting with how long it's going to take us to pack and get everything ready while they are doing exactly the opposite, with fighting and whining thrown into the pot, just to add to the fun.

I told Mark, as stressful as it is right now to have those outings, and as much as we get punished for trying to do exciting things with kids, it's all worth it, even if we lose our minds in the process. Because weeks, months and years later we will look at the photos and won't remember any of the crazy stuff that had to happen in order to have those bits of fun captured in our memories and photos...

:: Ensign Peak trail ::

the place where we got eaten alive by the mosquitos

2010-08-11T17:21:00.000-06:00

As beautiful as it looks in the photos, going through the meadows in the evening after rain was NOT a good idea. Anya had just recovered from her reaction to a mosquito bite a week ago, when half of her face got swollen, and there we were again, in mosquito land, being followed by hordes of hungry little pests.

We never made it to Lake Mary, partly because we started too late, partly because we just couldn't take any more mosquito bites. Nevertheless, the view was breathtaking, the after rain freshness of air was energizing and the photos of 3 of our kids together taken at our rest point were priceless.

P.S. As I was going through the photos today, I noticed that the 'offender' was caught on 'tape', the very mosquito that gave Anya another swollen eye.

sisters

2010-07-11T02:31:00.004-06:00

I'm still not quite used to the idea that I have 3 girls (Ivy was 'supposed' to be a boy, remember?), but when I see them together, I can't help but smile. I'm not trying to leave Elijah out, his connection with Ivy is quite special on it's own. But this post is about sisters, and the love they share together (now, if only Maya would stop using Anya as a 'squeal button').

first photo of 3 of them together

changing the strategy

2010-07-11T02:06:00.003-06:00

Seems like I've been hoarding gigabytes of cute baby pictures for too long, telling myself that I need to find time to write meaningful posts to go with them. But I need to be more realistic and make peace with the idea that maybe at this time in my life posting pictures with a few words (or no words at all) is the best I can do. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words, right?

Oh yes, there's more to come!

loved by many...

2010-07-11T01:48:00.004-06:00

... she is. every day. and her older sisters and brother are not too shy to express their love for Ivy both in actions and in words.

Sure, they don't exactly try to stay quiet when she's sleeping (couch in the living room is her favorite place for now. or wrapped on mama. in the middle of noise anyway), but that doesn't count. Because they do love her, and each one of them tells her that at least once a day, and smother her with hugs and kisses throughout the day. I heard some parents get annoyed at older children being all over the new baby. But I think nothing could bring me more joy these days than seeing our children expressing their love so freely and willingly. And yes, I do hold my breath for a few seconds when they are trying to kiss Ivy while she's sleeping. But annoyed? no.

taken by Maya

What she's been up to...

2010-07-11T01:23:00.004-06:00

snuggling, of course. What else would you expect from a tiny baby in a big world...

The birth story of Ivy Joy

2010-06-25T03:35:00.019-06:00

Ivy's birth story (well, more like a novel) is finally finished. And I am sure it still needs a lot of work (typing at 3 a.m. when I should be sleeping is not the best idea, but that's when the chances of being interrupted are minimal), and some changes will be made as I remember more details later... I did my best to recollect the sequence of events, but for some reason my memory has been quite fuzzy after birth this time... Still, it's time to publish it, Ivy just turned 1 month old a few minutes ago and it's a good way to celebrate this bittersweet milestone...

:: Gearing up ::

Our journey to becoming a family of 6 turned out to be full of surprises. First of all, we were so certain she was going to be a boy, that I didn't even bother to get out of the storage Anya's newborn clothes, not to mention buy anything girly. Maya even picked out a name for our 'baby boy' - LeVar Burton (Reading Rainbow fans out there?) - long before Ivy was conceived.

To my surprise, Ivy wasn't born on May 23rd, like I thought she would be after having a vivid dream about that day being her birth day. Instead she made her appearance on May 25th, about a week before her 'due' date.

Ivy's birth was full of surprises as well. I got to experience several 'firsts' this time, in spite of the fact that I was giving birth for the 4th time. My other labors always started early morning. I would wake up at around 3-4 a.m. with the distinct feeling that I just experienced my first real active labor surge. After that it was active labor all the way up until the baby's birth.

Things went differently this time. I was starting to experience some 'transitional' surges (as I'm going to call them) a few days before Ivy was born. They were stronger than my regular Braxton Hicks, but not the active labor surges that I knew so well. On Monday (May 24th) I woke up in the morning feeling the same type of transitional surges, coming more often than in the past few days, but still not strong enough to convince me that I was going to be in active labor soon. I called my midwife (Chris) that morning just to give her an update and let her know that things were picking up, yet I still was unsure of what was going on. I did ask Mark not to go to work that day, just in case. It was wonderful to have him at home with me that day, helping take care of the little ones and waiting together for our birth journey to begin.

taken on Monday, May 24th

I went about my day, experiencing the same surges, somewhat stronger and slightly more frequent. I felt tired in the afternoon and decided that my body needed some rest, so I went to take a nap around 2 p.m. I managed to stay in bed for an hour or so, waking up several times with each new surge. I could feel they were getting stronger. That little bit of rest was probably enough to get my labor truly started. I decided to try checking for dilation using external method, and at that point I was at about 8 cm, which to me sounded about right, since I tend to dilate early and go into labor when I'm between 6-8 cm.

After 4 p.m. my surges became quite regular, coming at about 15 minutes apart. They were also strong enough to make me want to breathe through them and NOT enjoy our quick trip to Costco on the bumpy road to pick up my 'labor' watermelon. After we got home, Mark called his mom and asked her to come over in the evening to help with kids' bedtime and possibly watch them if the baby was going to be born during their awake time. I also called Chris and told her that I was in labor, then sent an email to my friend Annie, inviting her to my 'birth day party'. At that point we had no doubts that the active labor had begun. And from my birth experience with Anya, I knew that those 15 minutes apart surges were indeed *real*.

:: Getting the 'party' started ::

the only picture of Annie I managed to take, while I was testing camera settings

Everyone showed up at our house between 8 and 9 p.m. Kids were put to bed and I finally felt like I could concentrate on birthing my baby. I started with sitting on the yoga ball and listening to relaxing music while Mark was rubbing my back. With surges being so far apart I got to take quite a few mini-naps. The pool was being set up and Elijah, who was still awake, couldn't resist checking it out. I was nervous that he would put up a fight before going back to bed, but at the same time was happy to see his sweet face, thinking that this was going to be his last night of being my only 'baby boy'.

At 11:15 p.m. I finally got into the pool, welcoming the familiar comfort of warm water. I felt peaceful...

Shortly after getting into the pool, I started feeling hot. That's when Annie became my new favorite person by offering some frozen wet washcloths (and I have to mention that she was also in charge of photo and video recording... seriously, every mom needs an Annie to help during birth :) Mark permanently parked himself right next to me for the duration of my labor, applying cold washcloths to my face, neck and shoulders and blowing at my face when I needed him to. He became quite a pro at supporting me during my births and I really couldn't imagine doing it without him...

apparently, Annie and I were on the same brain wave and ended up wearing matching Lucky Brand jackets :)

Chris, *the* midwife

I have to say, when I'm in labor, I don't really like to move around much, not even to change positions, even though I know it can be quite important for many reasons. I like to have all the weight off my feet as well. So considering those 2 reasons, and also my birth experience with Anya, I decided to stay semi-sitting in the pool. I had one slightly 'pushy' surge shortly after I got into the pool and that was it. Just before midnight I decided to change my position and to turn to my right side. And then it happened... All of the sudden my body was pushing with the very next surge, which was so strong, fierce and powerful that it actually brought my baby's head all the way down to my perineum and I could feel the top of it when I reached down.

To be honest, this unexpected experience completely caught me off guard and was overwhelming enough that I decided to go back to semi-sitting, hoping it would slow things down just a little bit, yet still allow everything to move in the right direction. I think if I stayed on my side at that time, Ivy would've been born very quickly, quite possibly before midnight.

We figured this would be a good time to go get Maya up, since we promised to her that she would get to see her new brother or sister being born. She was sleeping deeply, so Mark just laid her on the couch next to his mom. Meanwhile, my next surge came. I expected that I'd start feeling my body bringing the baby down gently, but instead I went back to feeling regular labor surges. I was ok with that though and thought to myself that I probably needed more rest. So I relaxed and breathed and had several more mini-naps while laboring in the pool.

Time went by and my surges didn't change, even when I tried to change positions (squatting and kneeling/leaning forward). I got tired of listening to the music and decided that my mind needed a break from being so preoccupied with the labor. I asked Mark to put on M*A*S*H and we went through a couple of episodes while I continued to rest and labor.

:: Just do it! ::

It was past 2 a.m. and things didn't change much at all. Chris kept listening to baby's heart tones, which were good, and at some point suggested that it would probably be a good idea to check me soon (for the first time) if there were no changes in the labor pattern. I was determined not to get out of the pool until after birth, so I decided it was time to get serious and let my body bring that baby out. I reluctantly went back to my right side, and wouldn't you know... another powerful and overwhelming surge came, complete with several strong pushes. I could feel Ivy's head again. I surprised myself by feeling the need to vocalize with ahhh's, which turned out to be good and productive, and somehow helped to balance out that overwhelming power of pushing. (I was doing HypnoBirthing this time too, so no, I didn't vocalize because of pain, which I really didn't feel. Thanks to HypnoBirthing, my whole labor felt just as peaceful and relaxing as my labor with Anya, and the one distinct difference was how much stronger and more overwhelming those 'pushing' surges were. Controlled relaxed vocalizing was definitely the right tool at that time. I think the best way to describe the need for it would be to think about lifting something really really reeeaaally heavy. Or maybe doing many many push-ups. It takes a lot of strength, concentration, energy. We may grunt or vocalize at that moment, without being in pain...)

With the next surge Ivy's head crowned enough to stay that way and not go back in. With Chris' and Mark's help, I made my last attempt to go back to semi-sitting as I really truly didn't like pushing on my side. But who was I kidding... Ivy's head went back inside. For some reason my body just didn't feel like pushing in that position (which could've possibly been caused by Ivy's head being tilted slightly to one side - asynclytic presentation). Back onto my side I rolled. I waited for another surge, and Ivy's head came out, with her shoulders and the rest of the body sliding into the water at 2:43 a.m. Chris guided Ivy's tiny slippery body into my arms and I placed her on my chest. She cried a little and calmed down pretty quickly.

I had to get out of the pool right away, so we moved onto the couch. Ivy just laid on my chest quietly looking around. I noticed that she had no vernix left on her, so she was plenty cooked at 39 weeks. I felt immersed into the state of quiet bliss, resting on the couch, in the comfort of our own home and intimacy of dim lights in the room, with our new baby snuggled on my chest. No longer she was inside me, this time I was enjoying feeling her moving on the outside, with her skin right against mine, her wet head resting on my chest, close enough to allow me to feel that intoxicating sweet scent of a newborn...

Maya did wake up in time to see her sister being born. She came over to me, smiling and still sleepy. I asked her to check and see if the baby was a girl or a boy. She went to take a look and I sensed her hesitation for a moment. Finally she announced that it was a baby sister :) I was surprised, to say the least, probably just as much as Maya was. We kept snuggling while Chris worked to stop the bleeding. Ivy's placenta was born 15-20(?) minutes after her arrival. Mark finally got his turn to hold our new little girl, and about an hour later the cord was cut. Ivy was 7 lbs 10 oz and 20.5" long, 10 toes and 10 fingers and perfect in every single way (except that she's got my nose, I'm afraid :)

cord was still attached to the placenta (cord is visible on the right)

It took us several days to settle on a name for our new girl (we didn't spend much time on girl names before she was born :). Nothing seemed to fit her better than the name we ended up picking - Ivy Joy. She has truly been a joy to us in these past few weeks. She is sweet, cute and *gasp* pretty mellow. Considering how hard out first 3 babies were as newborns (reflux, colic, high needs, you name it), it's amazing to us that she's not screaming for most of the day, can be awake AND quiet at the same time, loves being worn in baby carriers and tolerates car rides better. She also loves to nurse and doesn't scream or fight at the breast.

I can safely say that we finally know why so many parents actually enjoy the newborn stage :) Ivy's brother and sisters are all smitten by her, give her hugs and kisses pretty much non-stop and confess their love to her every day. We all love her so...

:: Lessons learned ::

I loved Ivy's birth, I truly did. I think sometimes that maybe my labor could've been shorter and Ivy could've been born sooner if I did some things differently. The truth is, it doesn't really matter to me and it definitely doesn't take away from the beauty of the whole experience. In fact, this birth has taught me some important and valuable lessons. So here are a few of my observations and things I learned:

* I love HypnoBirthing. This is not really news to me, but I can't say enough times how much it changed my life. I went from being scared to give birth again (after Maya's experience) to being, well, a birth 'junkie'. I'm in awe of how beautifully our bodies are designed, and how they can create, carry and bring a new life into this world.

* Practice. HypnoBirthing is a wonderful tool if you learn to use it and practice. This was my 3rd Hypno birth and my first time when I did hardly any exercises to prepare my mind. I had plenty of practice with relaxing my body in order not to get trapped in the fear-tension-pain cycle, and it worked beautifully. However, I slacked at using positive affirmations and some other exercises that could help my *mind* to be relaxed and prepared for birth. I think the fact that I was so stubborn and wanted to birth in a certain way, even when knowing that it wasn't productive, is a perfect prove of that. I also was too hung up on Anya's birth and kept waiting for things to happen the same way, instead of embracing the uniqueness of Ivy's birth.

* Be mentally prepared to meet your baby. I know this sounds strange, but for quite some time I just didn't feel ready to meet Ivy. I felt like I had too many things on my 'to do' list, and until they all got crossed off, having a baby was not an option. House needed to be cleaned, clothes needed to be washed and organized, baby things needed to be pulled out of storage... you get the idea. So once I hit 37 weeks, I went into a panic mode, even experience a few mild anxiety attacks at night. I actually kept praying not to have my baby until after 38.5 weeks. Once things got crossed off the list, I thought I finally felt ready to welcome a new baby into our family. But my guess is that some of that anxiety stuck around in the back of my mind, which is probably another reason why I was in no rush to start pushing.

* I love my midwife. I really couldn't ask for a better one. Chris was amazing. On one hand I wish I saw more of her in the photos that were taken during birth. On the other hand, to me it's a reminder of how she let me and Mark birth our baby, trusting that we could do it without constant interference. I really can't even begin to describe all the reasons why we loved having Chris with us for these last 2 births...

* I'm truly blessed to have Mark by my side during my births. He did almost pass out when my OB asked him several times if he wanted to cut Maya's cord, but that was long time ago, and since then his skills as a birth partner have grown immensely (even though he still refuses to cut the cord :). I don't know how I could've done it without Mark's support...

new life

2010-05-30T00:54:00.004-06:00

Monday was chilly and it even snowed here. The snow didn't stick. But it was enough to make me want finish a warmer baby blanket, since I only stocked up on summer muslin swaddling wraps.

Monday came and went. And on Tuesday, May 25, Ivy Joy was born at home @ 2:43 a.m. She's perfect and we are all in love.

Nesting still

2010-05-19T03:21:00.000-06:00

The baby is waiting

for the perfect day to come

when he or she will feel ready

to be born into this world...

Meanwhile, I'm trying to take advantage of every single day and do things that I know I won't be able to do with a tiny little newborn around. Fun things, you know, like cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning. And sewing of course, with some knitting in between. And then there are some 'now or never' things that I was excited to cross of my list lately. Like having some non-mirror photos taken of me by Mark in the middle of our drive down the canyon. 38 weeks, spontaneously picked spot and me feeling very awkward being in front of the camera. But it was all good, I needed something like this after 4 pregnancies...

And I managed to paint my belly with henna too. Something that I was always fascinated with, and now I finally got around to actually doing it. In the true DIY spirit, I painted my belly myself (although I wish it was someone else with a more steady hand and a better view of the paining area), freehand too, because I'm not patient enough to fiddle with transferring the design first. All 3 kids stare with fascination at the flower (or star, depending on who you ask) on my belly every time they lift my shirt to 'kiss the baby'...

in the spirit of procrastinating

2010-05-15T01:07:00.004-06:00

Really, there's no better time to resurrect a blog than when you have 2 dozen of things on your list of things to do (and to make) before the new baby comes. Which technically could happen any day now. Considering that I never made it to the magic 40 weeks before. So right now I'm in the middle of making some cloth wipes and yet somehow it doesn't seem right to be so focused on such an important task. A little procrastinating is just what I need at this time.

And just to make an impression that I've been quite productive lately, here are a few things that I managed to finish(!!) before(!!!) the baby is born.

she just couldn't figure out why all those cute woolies don't fit her

and obligatory belly shot, albeit outdated a bit (35 weeks, almost 3 weeks ago)

Now if I could just finish those wipes tonight...

Happy today

2010-01-25T16:34:00.005-07:00

I'm slowly getting back into the cooking groove... After months of very little cooking and not trying anything new, food is making me happy again! So today I decided to re-create quinoa salad that we tried at Whole Foods last week during their sampling night. Thank you, Whole Foods, for carefully documenting all the ingredients (while using only recognizable ones), and having plenty of samples on hand, 5 or 6 of them were enough to fill me up and count as dinner :) The salad truly rocked and was exactly what I needed today, so I lovingly came up with very original title for it...

...Rockin' Quinoa Salad! (I know, very impressive)

1.5 c uncooked quinoa

3-5 T red wine vinegar (to taste)
2-4 T extra virgin olive oil (to taste)
1 c corn (whatever kind you have on hand)
1 c black beans
2-3 chopped roma tomatoes
2-4 T finely chopped red onions
fresh parsley, chopped
salt to taste
fresh chopped cucumbers would be nice, but I didn't have any

Cook quinoa. Add everything else. Chill. Eat. Or eat, then chill leftovers. Then go make another batch :)

I know I've been MIA lately...

2009-10-28T12:52:00.003-06:00

...but I have no intentions on abandoning my blog for the duration of winter, just being distracted by life lately. I have a few posts almost finished that never got published so I might go back to them first. Until then, Anya and Elijah are saying 'HI!'

yes, Elijah is wearing a shirt instead of pants and he has socks on his hands. A boy with very unique sense of style, as you can tell :)

too tired to think of post title...

2009-09-30T03:40:00.005-06:00

It's late, very late. I won't even say how late it is right now, because considering how little sleep I got last night, it's a crime to stay up this late, not to mention, sit down just to make a blog post when I was all ready to head to bed. Granted, this is a much needed and very much overdue post, but still... Did I mention that it is VERY late? I might as well just say "Good Morning!"...

I was heading to bed, 3rd time tonight, but just can't commit myself to sleeping because I'm afraid this night will fail me again, just like it did yesterday, whenever I tried to close my eyes.

But something is giving me hope. It's raining outside, and I can barley hear soft rolling thunder in the distance. There's no better lullaby for me than rain. And thunder is like my ultimate cue to GO TO BED. It also prompted me to sit down and finally update my blog. Unpredictable thing, that thunder is...

Ahhhhhh, more thunder... Sleep... Write...

And in the spirit of me declaring my love for thunder and rain, here are some recent photos from our last drive in the mountains, chasing yet another thunderstorm.

driving out of the storm and towards the setting sun

That evening we were all giddy about going on a hike. The storm was one step ahead of us, but we didn't mind. In return we got one of the most incredible sunsets, with a fantastic rainbow on top. The light from the sunset made everything glow with pink and orange, how often do you get to see that?

and now, good night...

Just a couple of 'Maya' moments

2009-09-03T15:11:00.004-06:00

That girl never ceases to amaze me. Recently I got her an embroidery hoop and a blunt needle, just for the sake of letting her learn something new. Saying she was thrilled with this new activity would be a criminal understatement. She could.not.put.it.down.

And here's a new gem that came out of her mouth today:

me: Maya, what are you going to wear today?
Maya: You. I'm going to wear you out.

I guess that's what comes after all that practice with 'knock, knock' jokes.

Allow me to indulge myself

2009-08-27T12:56:00.002-06:00

Anya doesn't like wearing hats, but her big sister's bike helmet is different. She asked me to put it on her today and I just couldn't resist the cuteness of it all. I went through the dozen of photos I took of Anya in the helmet and could only bear not posting ONE of them, the rest are impossible to leave out of this post!

August days are for...

2009-08-22T14:40:00.005-06:00

:: playing in the backyard dirt (digging tunnels never gets old) ::

:: getting cleaned up afterwards ::

:: play dough making ::

:: finishing projects ::

:: celebrating Annie's Birthday ::

We're loving August here!

You got a friend in me...

2009-08-18T21:34:00.005-06:00

The subject of friendship is always a tough one for me. I don't make friends easily, and yet I can't live without them. I grew up having friends(mine and my parents') drop by without 'scheduling' a visit, calling all the time just to ask how things were going, taking long walks with us until midnight, and doing everything else that a family member would do. So yes, friends have always been like family members to us. Since I have no blood relatives here in the US, having a good friend is almost vital for me. Yet it's still tricky to make friends when I don't get out much and have borderline anxiety when it comes to talking to people I don't know. As a result, when I do have a friend, you bet I cherish that friendship as much as I would cherish a relationship with a dear immediate family member.

Somehow I often end up having long-distance friendships (a trend started by Mark, perhaps), which is sometimes hard, but I wouldn't trade that for the world. Luckily I have a friend or two I can rely on who lives nearby (ok, one, but I didn't want to scare Annie away with such revelation :). And I enjoy every single moment spent with my friend(s), no matter how many kids are trying to interrupt our attempts of having an adult conversation. And when I get really really lonely (like I did last summer), I don't mind crossing a few states with 2 kids in tow to visit another wonderful friend of mine...

Last week was one of those happy summer days when I got to spend some time with my friends. I don't know Rachel that much, but I bet we'd have lots of fun times if she lived closer (they were visiting from AZ). And Annie was with us too, so yes, we all had a blast :)

radiant Rachel

amazing Annie (and a head of hair)

:: and a couple of photos of my kids, which to me never get old. here's a classic one of Elijah holding a stick next to Anya's face ::

And while on the subject of friends, Stephenie, my friend who I enjoyed visiting last September in Chicago, just gave birth to her 3rd baby at home on Monday. Words cannot describe how happy I am for them! Just wish I could be there, do some cooking, cleaning, listening, talking and of course, newborn-holding :)

:: perfectly snuggly baby Finn (I may replace it with a different photo once Stephenie makes her other photos public :) ::

Family vacation ::part four::

2009-08-17T15:18:00.003-06:00

Another full day in Seattle, WA. This time we went to the Pacific Science Center and took a mono-rail ride through downtown of Seattle. Well, we were completely exhausted at the end of that trip. We thought we'd be able to explore the whole Science Center in just one trip, but ended up spending a few hours at the Tropical Butterfly House, Insect Village and looking at a few more indoors and outdoors exhibits, without even leaving that one part of the huge building. You could definitely spend a whole week in Seattle area going to the Science Center alone and not get bored at all :)

:: I'll spare you of photos from the Insect Village (and all their giant cockroaches), but butterfly house was pretty amazing and HUMID ::

Elijah was asking butterflies to come and rest on his hand. if only they listened...

:: this was the room where we had to make sure that there weren't any butterflies on us after leaving the butterfly house ::

:: and then we had some more fun at the exhibits floor ::

:: back to the monorail ::

Things that make me smile

2009-08-12T00:40:00.004-06:00

in the midst of our daily chaos, adventures and struggles, there are always moments that interrupt my mind's racing and remind me how much joy simple things can bring...

:: getting a small package from grandma and grandpa who live overseas. so much excitement over a few of lollipops, animal crackers and small souvenirs. so much love in such a small package ::

:: making a quick, simple and delicious meal on the day when I'm in no mood for cooking. good old spaghetti gone fancy, thanks to tomatoes from a kind old couple at church and fresh corn from the farmer's market ::

:: getting back into the knitting groove. autumn must be in the air... ::

Annie, I never got a chance to thank you again for the lovely stitch markers you made for me... Love ya, girl!

color me happy

2009-08-07T14:33:00.003-06:00

I love happy colors, LOVE'em. They can turn an ordinary item into a drool-worthy want-to-frame-it piece of art. At least that's what I think :) I never considered myself a type of person who'd enjoy crocheting, probably because I never considered it challenging enough and I didn't think it had that 'refined' look and feel that I get from knitted items. But after reading this blog for a while, I simply realized (yet again) that the above statement regarding colors applies to crochet pieces as well (duh!). Don't you agree?

these are my first ever crochet hot pads and while I still need to work on more seamless joining, I just adore the texture and fun cheerful colors! And the unexpected bonus of crocheting is that it's one of the few headache-friendly things I can do on a day like today :)

Recharging

2009-08-05T14:32:00.004-06:00

Last Sunday afternoon, as we were walking home from church and I was so not looking forward to spending the rest of the day in the house, I completely surprised myself by hearing me saying to Mark that maybe we should go visit his parents that evening. And I was even more surprised by the fact that such an idea made perfect sense. Really, kids were begging for a nap (I could just feel their brain waves getting all scrambled up from being tired, yet I knew they would refuse to nap at home) and an hour long drive would've been perfect for that.
In addition, I was also starting to feel tense from the stale city air, heat and the lack of open space. Yes, I got spoiled during our vacation. Or maybe it just gave me a taste of how much I'd really love to live in a place where I can't stick my hand out of the my kids' bedroom and reach neighbour's camper that's parked in their drive way. (Incidentally, that camper gets randomly turned on almost every day and heavens forbid our windows are a crack open. The fumes give me an instant headache and sometimes send our carbon monoxide detector into a seizure) It would also be nice to have, for a change, a backyard that's bigger than our living room...

Yet, here we are, living in the city, which I used to enjoy much more before the amount of seats in my stroller got outnumbered by the amount of kids. Sure, Maya can walk, and Anya can stay on my back, but what if they get tired, or refuse to follow my perfectly planned out 'seating arrangement'? Then I'm stuck with cranky kids, wherever we are, trying to keep my cool and hopelessly failing. That doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it's nerve wracking enough to scare me away from any future attempts to go on another walk with all 3 imps by myself.

So yes, as much as I love many aspects of living in a city, it just doesn't make much sense to me any more, and I do feel bad for Maya and Elijah who are so painfully familiar with every weed, stick, rock and snail shell in the back yard, that they don't jump with excitement any more when I offer them to go play outside...

So what was this post about? Oh yes, us going to visit Mark's parents. I failed to mention(or remind) that they now live on a farm and if you stand close enough to their new house, all you can see is hills and hills of wild plants, sagebrushes and grass. And the air... oh, you just have to be there, so fresh and incredibly recharging...

Yes, the drive was well worth it and we even scored extra points for having everyone take a nap (even Mark, but not while driving :)

Family vacation :: part three ::

2009-08-03T16:00:00.004-06:00

Snoqualmie Falls, WA

Did I ever mention how much I loved Seattle weather? I honestly couldn't get enough of it. Turns out we got lucky with timing because now they are suffering from extremely hot temperatures, which would be normal for us in UT, except they are not prepared for this kind of heat, no spriklers, no air conditioning in most places. Can't imagine... You have to read Lisa's post to get a better idea of the situation (how's the weather, Lisa?)

But my post is about our vacation in July, when it was cool at night, wonderful 80s during the day, with a few rainy days in between.

:: Snoqulamie Falls was a beatiful place for a hike (if you don't count the power plant that we had to pass on the way). Those tall mossy trees reminded me of the time when Mark and I went hiking in Grand Tetons, back in the days when we only had one child that could be easily left with grandparents for a few days ::

:: later that day we went to the Ballard Locks ::

one of my personal favorites from vacation. yes, she was frowning because we wouldn't let her go past the gate.

work in progrees. or not.

2009-07-31T17:33:00.004-06:00

Since I can't really think straight right now, being as tired as I am, here's what I'm up to this week...

:: making this bag that inspired me to pick up my crochet hook (which up until now I've only used for biding off my knitted pieces and making random flower accent for knitted items) ::

:: trying to unbury my neglected craft room. I wish I could hire someone just for the sole purpose of folding all the fabric that I unfold and dig through while looking for a perfect project piece ::

believe me, the actual mess is much much worse. I just don't want you to break down in tears feeling bad for all that wrinkled fabric, while petting your nicely folded color coordinated stashes.

sewing desk is buried too. with stuff unrelated to sewing. how unfair.

Family Vacation :: part two ::

2009-07-27T16:07:00.003-06:00

This was day 3 of our vacation (first two days were spent on the road), which consisted of a trip to the Farmer's Market (previous post) and taking the Clinton-Mukilteo ferry back across Puget Sound, after which we stopped to spend some time at the beach.

Elijah, being his usual self, was having the ride of his life on the ferry, after which he declared that when he grows up he wants to be a ferry driver and transport Grandma's car on it. Ironically, I didn't get any photos of Elijah having the ride of his life and dreaming about being a ferry driver because Lisa took him on the upper deck while I stayed with Mark and the girls. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to do it again some day...

:: and then we all enjoyed cool breezy beach ::

:: and even managed to get a semi-decent family photo at the end, the only one of all 5 of us ::

We had a long full day, and unfortunately for us, Elijah decided to take a nap on the way back which translated into him not wanting to go to bed at the normal hour. He stayed up with grown ups in the living room for a bit, trying to find a comfortable spot and at some point he finally got quiet. We peeked out of the kitchen and saw this:

doesn't he look cozy sleeping on top of the power strip, covered with yoga mat? :)

Family vacation :: part one ::

2009-07-27T12:51:00.008-06:00

I've been working on the photos from our trip whenever I get a break and I'm still only half-way done. Which can mean two things - I'm either too slow/don't have enough time or I took too many photos. In my case, it's both.

Stepping over our usual piles of unfolded, refolded and misplaced laundry everywhere, the thought of us having just returned from our family vacation seems almost surreal. Maybe it was just a very realistic 3D movie I watched? Thank goodness for the photos, one look at a snapshot and my brain gets overloaded with all the imprints it got from that particular moment, the sounds, the emotions, the smell, everything.

So here I am, feeling overwhelmed with the achievement of traveling and HAVING FUN with 3 little ones and at the same time yearning for a change, the kind of change that moving to one of those two states would bring. Yes, my worst fear was confirmed, I LOVED Oregon and to my surprise, I enjoyed Washington just as much, if not a teeeeeny bit more.

somewhere in Idaho

:: final stretch before arriving to Edmonds, WA ::

:: first order of business in Edmonds - Farmer's Market in the morning ::

eating fresh crepes while sitting by the curb, a vacation must right there

probably a good place to stop, since I'm getting attacked by naked goblins. Ferry ride and our first trip to the beach coming up next...

we made it...

2009-07-22T11:45:00.002-06:00

home alive. we had fun, maybe too much fun, because I feel like our vacation wasn't long enough. right now we're just trying to get back to normal life, and I am doing my best (and succeeding) to ignore my endless list of chores and edit photos instead. some time this week I'll have to face my responsibilities again...

The "Quilt" post

2009-07-08T15:25:00.002-06:00

Before I sign off for a week and a half (no blogging while on vacation for me), I have to dedicate a quick post to my quilt. Almost a year in making, after lots of avoiding and feeling intimidated, this baby is complete, down to the very last stitch... And, amazingly, I want to make MORE. Yes, I always feel burned out after completing a time consuming project and feel like I don't want to work on another similar project for a long time. But somehow, it's different with quilt making. Once I got on the roll, there was no stopping me, the more I worked, the more fun it was, until it got to the point that I could hardly keep myself from squealing with joy while hand stitching the binding. Oh, and what a wonderful therapy it was...

Now this baby is resting on the couch, and it's making the whole room more cheerful and happy, despite of all the mess that's not going anywhere :)

yes, very orange. and so very me.

seeing its' first 'action' after the fireworks

July 4th :: part two ::

2009-07-08T15:02:00.003-06:00

Our packing for the trip is not going anywhere right now, so instead of running around in circles, without actually getting anything done, I'm taking a break and trying to finish my second post about our 4th of July weekend...

Did I mention we made some pretty awesome strawberry jam while visiting Mark's parents? I'll shamefully admit that the thought of making jam myself was quite overwhelming, up until we discovered the genius of freezer jam. Thirty minutes, no boiling, three (!!!) ingredients and 12 jars of jam. ADDICTING. I'm itching to make more, but must resist, or it would be a bit too obvious how much I try to avoid the packing.

note the Maya's 'layered' fringe. she did it herself. more than once. too many pairs of scissors in the house.

And of course, we went to watch fireworks that night. The new quilt walked with us as well.

July 4th ::part one::

2009-07-05T11:37:00.012-06:00

Yesterday we went to pick up Maya and Elijah after their week of stay at Grandparents' house. We wanted to finish a few things before settling back into our usual chaos.

:: so we tried to fold some laundry ::

:: and then I tried to finish the binding on my quilt (after staying up till 4 a.m. the night before, working on this time consuming, yet extremely fun project) ::

our tray usually stays folded down, but as it turns out, it's perfect for storing my notions. and that iPod and phone are sitting in what I now call my yarn ball holder :)

my new scarf. after almost spending $20 on a summer scarf several times (which I couldn't bring myself to do after all), I came across some pretty amazing gauze fabric during an emergency run to *cough* walmart. my $2 and 2 minute scarf (second half of yardage is waiting to be overdyed)

Mark, with his blue and skinny arm. well, bluer and skinnier than it normally is

We spent some good relaxing time at Mark's parents. Our kids seemed to have grown at least 5 inches in just one week. We tried to enjoy our honeymoon/reunion day as much as we could, knowing that all the sweetness and pleasantness would wear out quickly (they are back to 'normal' today). Maya had another dozen of love notes waiting for me and she even picked out a candy bar for her mama during one of the trips to the grocery store with Grandma. Our time flew by quickly, either due to the fact that I kept working on hand sewing quilt binding all afternoon (which is a surprisingly relaxing activity) or because I had a headache. I don't regret having that headache as much as I regret not having enough time to roam around those farm hills like Mark and I wanted to. I guess we will have to wait till our next visit...

the land of freedom for wild flowers, they are weeds no more

My 'freedom day'

2009-07-03T00:17:00.009-06:00

Ah, what a good day it was, so many highlights and happy moments. My friend Annie called it 'freedom day'. So true, so true...

:: did some quilting on my quilt, I think it will be done by the time Maya and Elijah get back from visiting grandparents ::

:: spent my afternoon with some cool and adorable people, Annie and her 'crew' ::

:: little Miles has the most incredible hair, and a chin to match ::

and somewhere in between all that we managed to try a delicious recipe from one of Annie's magazines (remind me the name of it?). It was so good that I made it again once I came home. I'll try to post recipe to the best of my abilities, but I didn't look at the measurements in the magazine, just eyeballed everything, as usual :)

Garam Masala Potatoes

rice (2 c, uncooked)

gold yukon or white potatoes (5 medium sized, cubed into 1" pieces)
oil (canola or extra virgin coconut, just enough for frying)
onion (1 medium or large, chopped)
garlic (3-5 medium or large cloves)
freshly grated ginger (1"-2" piece)
ground coriander (2-3t)
ground cumin (1t)
ground turmeric (1t)
garam masala (2-3t)
baby spinach (lots)
coconut milk (1 can)
water (1/4c)
salt (to taste)

limes
cilantro

Cook rice the way you usually do it.

Boil cubed potatoes for 7-10 minutes. Meanwhile, cook onions until golden brown, add garlic (chopped or minced), ginger and spices. Cook for 1-2 minutes. Add coconut milk, water, salt and drained potatoes. Toss well, cook covered for 5-7 minutes. Add spinach, cover for 2 minutes, then stir and add more spinach if needed (cook covered for another minute or so).

Serve with rice, garnish with chopped cilantro and sprinkle fresh lime juice on top. Feel free to have seconds.

back pain or not...

2009-06-30T14:50:00.003-06:00

Right now I really feel like I'm in need of some therapeutic sewing (not for my back, obviously, that's a whole other story). So yes, I got out THAT quilt that was never finished in spite of my whole two attempts to work on it over the last year. I've made more progress than ever before. The quilt top is almost done, batting drying outside. Could it be real? A quilt done by the end of the week?

And I truly don't care if those blocks don't match. Here are my reasons:

* yes, I'm sewing with back pain
* it's my first quilt, which will most likely end up being a picnic blanket, or something in that nature.
* who's going to look closely? I mean, how often do we get visitors or people to have a picnic with?
* I'm not patient enough for re-doing it, I just want it DONE.
* I care about colors and prints more and I care about intricate pattern or perfect stitching.
* as long as it's DONE and usable, I'll be happy as a clam.

Summer Solstice Festival

2009-06-25T15:44:00.004-06:00

Yesterday we got to attend out first ever Summer Solstice Festival. It was an interesting and unique (for us) experience, and it felt great to be surrounded by people and many many children (not an every day occurrence for me, not counting Mark and kids here). I truly enjoyed feeling such positive atmosphere and only wished Maya and Elijah had a bit more fun. They are really not used to such events, especially when there's nobody familiar to them. As a result, Elijah felt more comfortable watching the events from distance and Maya... well, no surprises there. She fell apart sometime between the moment when I didn't let her have someone else's birthday cake for dinner (she thought it was mine, because she knows my birthday will be in a few days)and the time when Mark gently reminded her, while she was playing with hula-hoops, that her untouched dinner was sitting on the plate. Everything after that was a blur. Mark took screaming Maya away from the crowd and spend a good 20-minutes trying to get her to calm down, while I was packing our stuff with Anya on my back, watching Elijah with one eye to make sure he didn't burn anyone with the stick he kept putting in the fire.

(the rest of the photos here)

All in all, the amount of stress was within normal limits (by our standards) and as Mark and I concluded later, there were lessons we both learned and things we both enjoyed. Still, hoping to do better next time...

***********
and before I forget, a recipe for my summer 'must-have' salad (the yellow and orange one)

carrots (about 4)
beets (2 medium sized)
walnuts (about 1 cup)
salt
pepper
agave nectar (or honey)
apple cider vinegar
extra virgin olive oil (optional)

Peel and grade carrots and beets. I used yellow beets this time which I never tried before. I think I prefer stronger flavor of red beets. Crumble walnuts into the salad and add the rest of the ingredients to taste. Simple, eh?

(no recipe for quinoa salad this time, I just frantically mixed it together as Mark was putting kids into the car. I may try to recreate it soon :)

weekend summary

2009-06-22T15:34:00.004-06:00

First I finally made a serged cloth diaper. Turned out fantastic (yes, I spent enough time on it to deserve a bit of a shameless praise) and so soft, perfect for cuddling if you don't have a little bunny or kitty. But unfortunately too big for little A. Lesson learned: FattyCakes pattern runs big (at least for size L which is supposed to fit 22-30lbs range).

Also managed to have our first successful yard sale trip on Saturday(or second yard sale trip this season, not often enough, if you ask me. that's one of my biggest reasons for wanting to learn driving this summer. just kidding. partially.) We managed to score this lovey Danish retro chair for a whole $1. It's in amazing condition, but I still want to try re-upholstering it. Also Anya got some sweet girly clothes for this fall (and cooler summer days, if we keep having those *crossing my fingers*).

Mark got several awesome gifts from us on Sunday - a nice little shoulder bag for carrying his books and papers that he takes to church or to work all the time, breakfast consisting of a whole bowl of chocolate chip cookies baked the night before when he was sleeping, cards from Maya and Elijah (Anya wasn't in the mood), and uninterrupted sleep for most of the night up until 11:15 a.m.

The beginning of the day was promising, although kids managed to turn it into a 'normal' day, complete with fighting, whining, and some intense yelling from Maya. (Ahhhh, sweet Maya with a 'Y', always a mystery... Don't know what bit that girl, she's been wearing her grumpy face and yelling at everyone all week. Today she accused Elijah of 'munching' on his cereal too much, and got quite upset that he dared to look at her during breakfast. And she called him 'sensitive' while shouting all her complains into my face. Go figure.)

We ended our day with a warm bowl of soup, which kids didn't even touch (completely expected that and had spaghetti ready for them). I wasn't planning to cook that night, but things didn't go as we planned, so I tried to figure out what was going to be for dinner. I don't deal with unexpected changes in plans very well. My cooking mojo was definitely missing that night. The soup turned out quite good, but not the kind of flavor that usually makes me want to sit down and share the recipe through my blog. So no recipe yet, although I absolutely plan on tweaking this soup to make it more exciting for my palate. I did enjoy barley and kale together, they make a good couple.

Saying goodbye...

2009-06-22T14:08:00.005-06:00

Barbie and Josiah, summer 2007

It's not easy to say goodbye... especially when you have to say it to a friend whom you know you won't see very often... especially when you don't have that many friends to begin with. As sad as it was for us to say goodbye to our dear friends last week, I'm truly excited for them to move back to CA, which I know they always wanted to do, and hope their new friends will treat them well. If not, they'll have to answer to me.

last Friday, before parting our ways

And of course, it makes my heart ache that I won't be able to see this little girl more often. She just had to turn out so cute that you can't get that sweet face out of your mind. Not fair!

We shared many happy moments together, laughed together, and cried together too. I won't forget our dinners, trips to the bakery and just visits for no other reason but to spend some time together. There's no way to explain how much all this means to someone who doesn't make friends easily, who chooses friends that become her soulmates, not just casual acquaintances...

Rain. Love.

2009-06-15T01:17:00.007-06:00

Unsurprisingly, today was raining again. Not "agaaain", but "AGAIN!". Yes, rain makes me happy. And this whole month of June it's been making me happy pretty much every day. Love listening to the rain, better yet, to a good quality thunderstorm. Walking in the summer rain with all 3 kids is surprisingly relaxing as well. I'll be sad when this unexpected (for Utah) season of rain will end (my guess is, this week), and the dry endless heat will take over.

I knew it was going to rain, so I warned Mark that right after church we'd go for a drive... In the rain... And we did... We entered the canyon with sky being partly cloudy and when we turned around after 15 minutes of driving, we saw the familiar stormy sky waiting for us ahead. "FUN!", I said, as we headed towards the storm.

Poor Elijah, he slept right through it and missed all the fun...