Let’s Eat: Current Favorite Recipes

What happens in our house is we tend to make the same things over & over until we’re in a rut & “nothing sounds good.” Then we’ll pour over pinterest, find a few recipes to make, fall in love with some & then make those over & over & the cycle repeats itself again.

First up on our current list of favorites is this Cabbage Soup from The Mostly Vegan. For me, this is comfort food. I remember by Mom making cabbage soup when I was younger. Hers involved ground beef & while I stick strictly to the recipe, Im sure it would be an easy addition for those who dig that.

I’ve been on the search for a good enchilada sauce & 99.9% of the time, the recipe falls far far far below expectations. I had given up hope on finding a recipe I liked until I gave the search one more whirl & found this recipe. Aside from adding 1 drop each of Basil & oregano essential oils, I pretty much follow the recipe. To cut down on cheese, I also started filling the corn tortillas with black beans as well.

I could have swore that I didn’t like spring rolls, until I ordered some a couple years ago when I was determined to have lunch from a food truck (my first time eating from a food truck) & I wasn’t 100% sure what they were. ha ha. Well, surprise surprise! I loved them, so obviously, I needed to try & make them. Mine are not anywhere near this pretty, even after many attempts at making them, but they taste delicious, are refreshing, & are good for like 5 days in the fridge so that’s basically lunch all week long.

Finally, we’ve really been into this delicious coconut curry from Minimalist Baker. It’s another super delicious meal on a gray winter day. If I don’t have quinoa on hand, I use Jasmine rice instead. I also tend to use this recipe as a clean out the veggies type of recipe cause seriously, any veggies would be good.

So what are your current go to recipes? I’d love to hear them… we’ll be on the hunt for new ones soon.

Family Camping Trip: Long Beach

For quite some time Tate has been asking us to go to a beach with sand so we planned a little family vacation to the ocean & just to make it make that much more memorable (& affordable), we decided to camp.

We split up the drive to the coast, driving half way there the first day & spent our first night at Ainsworth State Park, which happens to be just 3 miles from Multnomah Falls. We made it a priority to get all packed up early the next morning so we could stop & see the falls. I was shocked at how busy it was so early in the morning & also by the lack of safety measures, especially considering how many people visit each day. To say it was anxiety inducing would be an under statement, but it did make for some pretty pictures.

After the falls (& stopping for directions 3 different times cause both our phones had died) we eventually made it to Long Beach. The campground we had booked with does a first come, first pick of camp sites & since we were there in the middle of the week we had our pick of any site. We picked one that was in a semi secluded area, but most importantly was close to the bathrooms & the trail to the beach. Just 1 load of stuff unloaded from the car & Juniper fell in the fire pit busting her lip on a cinder block. Poor Juni. She spent the rest of the trip with a fat lip. Once we got our camp set up we headed down the trail to the beach. AH! It was beautiful! It stretched for miles! The kids started squealing & running through the water, laughing. It was pure joy! Even when they went face first into the water & sand after hitting a dip in the same bar. Of course, they were wearing the only sweaters & long pants I had brought for them… oops. Luckily there was laundry facilities on site at the camp ground.

& that’s basically how we spent our entire time there. Hanging out at the beach & then come back to camp for meals & sleeping. As it got closer to the weekend, the campground filled up. Our last full day there 3 families with young children set up in sites close to ours. That evening all the kids were playing together, going from site to site, getting glow sticks at one, making s’mores at another. It was like the absolute perfect last night & brought back so many childhood memories for both Ran & I.

Family Date Night: Monster Truck Rally

 Saturday night we enjoyed a evening together watching some monster trucks do their thing- race around, do jumps over big mounds of dirt, rev their engines really loud, etc. & some not so monster-y trucks do their thing: race around, do big jumps over big mounds of dirt, rev their engines semi loud, etc. We’d never been to this type of event & while it was definitely not as exciting as the commercials made it look… it was even a little slow moving, the kids loved it & Ran & myself even enjoyed it. The kids loved the loud big trucks, obviously, & us adults really liked when the regular sized trucks came out to race. Since they were old beaters anyway, the drivers would really push them over the jumps & got some crazy air. One of the jeep in particular just nailed the gas on his way out & as he landed coming off the first jump a bunch of stuff flew off from under his car. He made it one more jump until his car was done. Some how in the middle of all the crazy loud engine revving, Juniper even managed to fall asleep.

When we had heard the monster trucks were coming to town, we originally planned just a mama, Papa, & Tate date, but when Tate heard me talking about taking Juniper to Grandma’s house he was pretty sad she wasn’t going to be going with us, so after talking with him, we decided to make it a family date night. As we were getting ready Tate kept asking Juniper if she was excited to see really big & really loud trucks, to which she would respond with a very enthusiatic, “Uh-huh.” He got them toy trucks to play with while they waited for us, & at one point in the middle of all the action, he came over & gave us all a big hug. That right there validated everything- why we carve out time to do intentional activities together, why we try to listen to our children’s request even when it wasn’t what we were planning or imagining, why it really has nothing to do with what we are doing, but that we are doing something, together. It’s family self care.

Day in the life: February.

(8:30 am : Running around the living room playing “bad guys.” A pink jump rope & ball are the choice tools of this “bad guy.”) 

(9:30 am: the easiest way to do her hair is to set her up with some nursery rhymes & a snack) 

(10:30 am: the best part of paying the utility bill is running up & down the ramps) 

(11:30 am: snow days mean all the errands get put off until nicer weather. Yay for having groceries in the house again!) 

(1:00 pm: pigtails & drawing. This girl is obsessed & spends hours a day at her desk drawing)

(2:30 pm: coffee before work. I started a job a couple weeks ago & while it is unlike any place Ive ever worked & slightly bizarre, I kinda love it) 

(6:30: break time!)

Summer

(originally posted on October 3, 2016)

“And the sun took a step back,

the leaves lulled themselves to sleep

and Autumn was awakened.”

— Raquel Franco

This summer season was one filled with lots of playing outside, getting messy with dirt, getting messy with paint, having lots of fun, & having lots of firsts. We started the season with a major first- Mama’s first night away & Papa’s first slumber party with just him & the kiddos. I came home to a camera full of photos from their fun 36 hours together. Photos of all their meals mostly eaten  outside, photos of silly faces, of all the mattresses pulled out into the living room along with every pillow & blanket we own. It was seriously, such a sweet bookend to this milestone & my heart was filled with so happiness as I browed through all 200 & some odd photos.

Another first, the day before his third birthday, Tate requested a haircut. I had him browse through pinterest for a style he wanted & while I still had doubts that he would actually go through with it he went & got the buzzers from the bathroom himself & told me he wanted it “small small like Papa’s.” I pulled it back into a ponytail at the base of his neck & chopped it off. He reached his hand back to feel, squealed with delight, & ran off to the bathroom to check it out. Still not “small” enough. I got the buzzers out & tried to match the style he had picked, but cutting an excited & ticklish little kids hair is kind of hard. 

Ran & Tate’s birthdays are just a couple days apart so the tradition has been that we kind of celebrate all week long, hence the long hair in these birthday photos- they were taken a few days before his actual birthday. This year was the first year he knew what a birthday party was & really excited to celebrate his own birthday. Him turning three was the first time I was so caught off guard by all the emotions that turned up, perhaps because of other big milestones happening, he also had his first sleep away from home just a couple weeks earlier. 

The end of summer brings the county fair & the county fair brings animals to look at, tractors to admire, & elephant ears to eat. Tate’s favorite part of the fair was playing in the corn box (like a sandbox, but filled with corn kernels instead) & Juniper’s favorite part was a big community coloring poster that told the story of how eggs get from the chickens to the stores. She loves to color, but has a hard time staying on the allowed materials & often escapes to add her mark to a wall (or two or three), a door (or two or three), or the couch, so she she was really pleased to be able to have all these crayons in her possession at once. This was the first year that Tate entered a few projects in the fair- a couple paintings, a ceramic project, a self portrait spoon puppet, & a felted wall hanging. We were really excited to see he won a big superintendent’s ribbon for one of his paintings!

We used summer to it’s fullest spending as much time as we could outside & taking advantage of Ran’s slower summer schedule by spending as much time together as possible. Now here we are with fall settling in, school in full swing for Randy, a new “job” adventure of my own, & craft show season just a few weeks away. 

10 on 10: March

11:30: I forgot to remember it was the 10th. Our morning was a perfect mellow morning & things went down hill. Why? who knows. That’s just life when a 19 month old & a 31 week pregnant mama spend their whole days together.

12:30: Busing himself to keep the nap away.

1:30: Success!  After an hour of playing with pearls & wrapping his legs in the ring sling, I gave up on him taking a nap. He looks proud of himself.

2:30: Broccoli & rice for lunch on the living room floor.

3:30: Color learning peg people. Making a set for Tate & a few more for craft show next weekend.

4:30: Everybody is soooo happy that Papa Bear is home!

6:30: Art History homework. Chapter 9: Islamic Art. Incredibly fascinating.

7:30: Time to watch Jeopardy… & Tate is out for the count.

8:30: I’ve entered the heartburn & slightly swollen feet in the evening stage of pregnancy.

9:30: Just to ensure I wake up to pee a sufficient amount times during the night.

February in Pictures.