Reading

I am getting better about reading. It remains one of those activities I *wish* I did more of, but have a hard time activating on a regular basis. Many of the books on my "to read" list from last year remain there now, but I have read a few others in the past few months and it has been extremely beneficial to my psychological well-being. I'm drawn to non-fiction almost exclusively, and it's thrilling to me to devour a book that delves into a topic I'm passionate about learning more about.

In December I read "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" and it was a life-changing one for me. I was already there mentally, but many parts of that book cinched some lifestyle changes for me. I found the Iowa Food Cooperative and have started really putting a serious amount of effort into spending money on local goods more than non-local. My favorite item I've found locally is flour. I LOVE buying local flour. The producer I have started buying from also has eggs and aqua-ponic greenhouses, which is fascinating stuff. I can get whole wheat bread and pastry flours from them, which I can't even find at Hy-Vee or Trader Joe's. I can't wait to schedule a visit when the weather warms up to get a feel for the farm and the grain mill. It'll be fun to introduce the kids to some of the processes that go into "where our food comes from."


One of the most memorable quotes from "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" for me was the following:

“If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. That’s not gallons, but barrels. Small changes in buying habits can make big differences. Becoming a less energy-dependent nation may just need to start with a good breakfast.”

Melting snow and sidewalk chalk

The boys were happy it snowed, and then got warm enough afterward to actually build a snowman. Which we did. But I was happy things started melting so quickly we take advantage of one of my favorite outdoor late winter activities: sidewalk chalk.

Jack Time

It's rare that Jack gets time alone with me or Mike, as he's in school full-time now and shares his days off with his little brothers. So it was especially fun to have him alone for the morning last week when Waukee schools took a day off of school, and his brothers still went to preschool. He chose to explore the Science Center after a "second breakfast" at our favorite French bakery.

seeking a little inner craftiness

Anyone who knows me will attest to the fact that I am not a crafty person, but I greatly appreciate and am fond of craftiness in others. But after reading "The Rhythm of Family: Discovering a Sense of Wonder through the Seasons" by Amanda Blake Soule and Stephen Soule, I decided to try out a craft with the kids that seemed doable, even for me. A winter wreath, filled with "bits of nature" we collected and then frozen inside a bundt pan. The idea is that it will slowly melt in the sun outside and reveal the natural internal stuffing as it drips away.



I also received free tickets to a craft show at the fairgrounds from a woman I have purchased items from at the Omaha farmer's market near my brother's place. So my mom went with me, along with my friend Colleen and her mother. I had NO IDEA one could spend 3 hours at a craft show. I didn't think it would really be my thing. However, guess who left having spent $0? My mother. Guess who left having spent.... several handfuls of $$s? That would be me. In addition to some local jam (which I consider a grocery item, so negligible when counting costs :) I picked up the following beauties:

Change is Good

Mike decided to make a change today.

Yep, that's it.

Sometimes when you are dealing with something in your life, and it encompasses your thoughts to the point of obsession and exhaustion, it's really awesome when you find someone else who says it out loud and puts it in a little perspective. This blog post was that perspective for me today:

"How Self-Care Hurts Mothers"

(bad title, really, doesn't explain the article fully....but the content is spot on)

My little superhero

dressed himself in this

Fun with Friends

This week we had some fun times with friends, both near and not so near. We decorated Valentine's Day cookies at my friend Ann Marie's home in our old neighborhood. It's always fun getting my three boys together with her four boys. It was even nice enough outside that they got to play on the playset in the backyard. Spring Fever!


Today we were happy to host a visit from friends Samantha and Ernie who traveled from beloved Iowa City with their two kiddos. Aside from a Nerf bullet to the eye and a couple comments about how our boys are "crazy," the girls didn't seem too put off by the chaos at our house. And no visit is complete without a trip to Scratch Cupcakery.

My Best Valentine's Memories

Valentine's Day has never been a holiday that has had much meaning for me. I'd much rather get flowers or chocolate or something meaningful as a surprise on any other day throughout the year :) But having kids who are so excited about making valentines for their friends and family is definitely a catchy fever, and I find myself checking out numerous books from the library about Valentine's Day and enjoying our time at the table cutting and gluing hearts. It has caused me to think back about the history of Valentine's Day in my life and look from some warm memories. Romantically, there aren't many. I do remember having a deep crush on some guy named Mike my first year at Drake, and asking him if he had Valentine's Day plans. He was pretty stoked to tell me about his extensively-planned evening for his biology professor's daughter. I was less than enthused (although later he described her as having the personality of a "dish cloth," and I hear he ended up with a very nice girl who birthed him three rambunctious monsters.)

Anyway, it turns out I do have some very cheery Valentine's Day memories thanks to a good friend of mine who made my early graduate school years so much more enjoyable than they might have been without him around. Jon was one of the first people to welcome me as I moved to Iowa City alone and tried to stake out my future with a fair amount of anxiety in tow. My earliest memory of being a new graduate student in the anthropology department was of a party he and his roommate hosted where I got to meet many people who later became friends and mentors to me along my loooong doctoral journey. I spent two Valentine's Days with Jon; one swing dancing at the IMU (seriously one of the most fun nights of my life), and another at his apartment with another mutual friend of ours and he made us a fabulous Italian dinner. Living apart from my fiancé those first two years of grad school got lonely at times, but Jon was such a dear friend who was there for many nights of inspiration, mentoring, conversation, and tons of fun. I'm so glad to have him living nearby again, just an hour away. A couple weeks ago he was kind enough to host our entire family in his cozy apartment for cookies, cocoa, and some good old-fashioned 1984 episodes of Transformers (that might have been for the boys, to keep them occupied so the adults could chat).

So on this Valentine's Day, I have to smile at the way my good friend Jon helped make Valentine's Day so much more meaningful than it had ever been before. I have some truly heart-warming memories of this holiday thanks to him.

All I want for Valentine's Day are My Two Front Teeth...

3rd tooth

Jack lost his third tooth and has a window in the top of his mouth now. The one next to it appears to be close behind...

it wouldn't be a complete sunday without another photo of the cutest kitty ever

it appears another male in this house is obsessed with super mario

a trip to our prehistoric past

It's been awhile since we've utilized our Science Center membership. Mostly, I think, because they now open at 10am instead of 9am so it's not a sufficient outing for the mornings during preschool. But I knew that on our "no preschool" day last week we had to make the trip because Sue, the cast of the largest and best preserved T-rex skeleton, was making its visit. I took two of our future paleontologists.

a long awaited project

Over a year ago I received a home laminator for my birthday after having wanted one for some time. Sadly, it sat in the box this whole time as I mentally noted it as "a project for when I have a chunk of time." Ha, I should know by now that there is never such a chunk. So when I received a second laminator from my mother-in-law for Christmas this year, I figured I'd better get cracking. I opened it last weekend and found out that it was as simple as plugging it in, turning it on, and sticking paper by paper through the feed to be laminated. Oh, if I only I had started this a year ago.

So now I have a pile of laminated pages that are now awaiting phase #2 of said project: the three-hole punch to be put in the appropriate boy's binders. This is my very, very minimalist version of scrapbooking: laminated those art projects that stick out as truly memorable and sticking them in binders for each child. Once the baby books ended, I started to feel a little sad that I didn't have anything to keep memorable papers around. Those who know me understand that I have not a crafty bone in my body, so this is about as good as it gets for me :)

Jack is finally at that stage where he chooses to sound words out himself instead of asking me to spell everything before he writes it. I thought this valentine was a smashing success and so sweet, so it got laminated :)

I'm also using this opportunity to laminate the construction paper leaves we used to write out and recycle after making our pre-Thanksgiving "tree of Gratitude." Now we can use dry erase markers and re-use the leaves. Oh, happy day, for less cutting in front of the t.v. in the weeks before Thanksgiving.

We celebrated a very belated Christmas with my parents on Groundhog's Day, and the boys are loving the Drake Bulldogs shirts they got.