Busy Summer Days

I was talking to a friend of mine online the other day and I mentioned we've been really busy lately. She laughed at me. You see, she works full time and has to be clever all day, then she goes home to her toddler and nurses her and plays with her. During the week she goes to preschool performances. She spends every minute she can with her baby, but she also has to go to work all day. She is a busy Mama.
My busy days are not quite the same... but are still busy. My friend says it's "the best kind of busy" and think she's very right.

Baby Girl and I wake up every day and go outside right away. Some days I can get Rosie to eat breakfast first, but other days I feed it to her on the porch. We walk out to the goat pen and hang out with the goats.

Rosie walks around and says hello to all the goats. We check and make sure everyone is healthy, make sure they have food and walk and we bottle feed one of the babies.

Rosie stays very busy climbing on the logs and rocks with the baby goats.




When Baby Girl doesn't want to go for a walk outside, she wants to be pushed in her stroller. She loves her stroller. She can climb up in it all by her self, and then she asks to be pushed around the house or out side. Some times we just go around in circles and  sometimes we even chase William around the kitchen with the stroller. Baby Girl always loves that and laughs and laughs.

We take walks at sunset and admire the wonderful sunlight, walk down to the mail box and chase each other up the hill.

Sometimes we chase the cats too.

At dusk I like to go out and watch the fireflies dance. They look like fairies sparkling up from the lawn. Actually I just call them fairies when I show them to Baby Girl.

In my ideal world I would never live in a place that didn't have fireflies. They are so magical.

Despite how it sounds we do spend some of our day in the house.  Especially if it gets really hot outside. Rosie doesn't like to be hot.  We come inside and count the rocks in her rock collection, read books, stack blocks and of course have dance time.

Rosie is so creative and sometimes I just like to sit and watch her imagination work.

Of course there are normal life things that have to be done, like laundry and cooking dinner. Sometimes I even manage to clean the house a little.

By the end of the day we are all exhausted. We watch some Doctor Who (Rosie loves SciFi) and Shawn the Sheep (Rosie calls them goats) to wind down and then we all fall into bed.

We do have to convince Rosie that she is indeed tired. She fights it so hard and we usually end up running circles in the house and playing chase in the evenings. I am definitely more tired than she is.

So at the end of the day I can't always tell you what we've done or how productive we've been. But we are busy. I agree with my friend Diana. It's the best kind of busy and I'm so thankful for it. I wouldn't give it up for anything.

It is the best kind of Busy.

Beware the Pies of March 64/365

Pi (or π) is a very important number. It represents the ratio of the distance around a circle to the distance across it. The value of Pi is always 3.14159265…. it goes on forever apparently and it’s usually shortened 3.14. Which of course makes March 14^th Pi day. And the best way to celebrate Pi day is with pie. So we made a Pumpkin Pi Pie.

March 15th is the Ides of March. The name "Ides of March" comes from the Roman calendar and probably refers to the full moon. It's also the day that Julius Caesar was assassinated by his friend Brutus and 40 other Roman Senators. He was stabbed 23 times. But most importantly the phrase "Beware the Ides of March" was immortalized by William Shakespeare in his play Julius Caesar.

Caesar was warned to "Beware the Ides of March" but he ignored the warning and was murdered. In the play his good friend Brutus stabs him last, at which point his utters "Et Tu Brute?". Which means "And you Brutus?" or "You too Brutus?". Heart broken he then utters "then fall, Caesar" and dies.

And since then the Ides of March has been remembered with a dark gloomy feeling. Which of course means that it should be celebrated in some way. And what better way to celebrate the death of someone we have no idea why we remember his death other than Shakespeare wrote a creepy phrase about than with Caesar Salad.

While we were eating our wonderful Chicken Caesar Salad and trying to figure out ways to work "Et Tu Brute" (which by the way in modern times has come to mean "you traitor") my Mom said, "I bet I have everything to make a chocolate pie."

OH my! I was so excited for her Chocolate Custard Pie with Merang on top.

"Et Tu Brute"

"Then fall, Caesar" oh so yummy.

Baby thought it was very yummy too!

So March 14th is Pi day
March 15th is the Ides of March
And March 17th is St Patrick's Day.
This is a very busy week! I'm glad we have the 16th to eat all this pie.

10 Days Till Valentine's Day 25/365

That's right folks.
There's just 10 short days till Valentine's Day.
I love Valentine's Day.  Ok, I love all holidays.
But seriously, what's not to love! Especially in this post Christmas winter, what else is there to bring color to our lives and to look forward to?
Plus you get to tell some one you care about that you love them.
How could that be bad?

So. What should you do for Valentine's Day?

Well first, get your self out to your local grocery store and buy some of that seasonal candy!
It's all packaged so nicely. So festive.
My favorite are Red Hots. I love their spicy goodness, but I really love that you can only buy them one time a year.

Then make sure you have something festive to wear. Pink or Red are usually the standard. Or something with hearts on it. I got Rosie a new pink shirt and matching bows for Valentines Day. I'm having her wear it early so we can get as much festive use out of it.

So now that you have your festive candy and your festive shirt it's time to spread the love to others.

This year Rosie and I are sending out cards to people because this is my first Valentine's Day back in the States and I'm planning to take full advantage of it. We got a package of 8 cards at Target for $1.99

If you have someone really special in your life, maybe you should think about getting them a gift. Especially if you are a guy with a special girl or guy in your life.

When talking to guys I usually suggest to just go with the marketing. It may be dumb. It may be over the top.  And it maybe over priced. But it will make your girl feel loved. My husband always says "Valentine's Day is for girls."  He knows that if he gets me ANYTHING with hearts on it that I'll be happy. It's just the fact that he makes an effort that makes me happy.
Flowers and Chocolate are the two best things that you can get a girl for Valentine's day. How can any one not feel loved with flowers and chocolate?

But let's not forget our men! Valentine's day is a little harder for us girls. Just buying something spattered with hearts isn't going to get him excited. So we have to put a little more thought into it.  If you want to keep it festive you can get an iTunes card or an Amazon Card that has hearts on it. Those are great gifts for guys. Pretty much any gift card is good. Or you can make him a gift bag of his favorite candy and snacks. ( I really hope my husband isn't reading this hehe)

Ok. So here's what I think you should all get that someone special in your life.

It's a Chocolate and Coffee gift box from Full Circle Exchange and the proceeds from this gift go to CARE.org to help fight poverty with a special focus on women. I know. this is a shameless plug. But this is the perfect gift for a guy or a girl AND you can put a free personal message one the box with your loved one's name on it.

Please think about helping out this organization this Valentine's Day and let your love go twice as far.

Oh yeah. You have to order by February 7th in order for it to arrive by the 14th.

And by the way, all their Chocolate is Gluten Free!! (I emailed them and asked them.)

Chocolate Palette ::Papua New Guinea:: 21/365

 For Christmas my grandparents gave us a gift card to Trader Joe's. We were very excited about this gift and had a lot of fun spending it. We love Trader Joe's.

 One of the things we got was a collection of eight chocolate bars from around the world called a Chocolate Palette. It came with a pairing card that gives recommendations on what to eat each bar with.

Tonight we had the bar from Papua New Guinea and it was supposed to be paired with Merlot. Since I hate Merlot we had it with a dark red mixed wine. It was a Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot mix wine from France.

And for those of you who just visit the blog to see pictures of Bonita Rose here are some pictures of Baby Girl from today...

Cuddling Mama's knee. She's such a happy, kissy girl.

And here's a picture of Rosie on her rocking horse. She's such a playful girl.