Noble Experiment

Thursday evening Jason and I met some friends for drinks at a new bar downtown called Noble Experiment.
To get to the bar you have to go into Neighborhood, push a wall of kegs by the restrooms and it opens into the bar. The bar is small, so you need to make a reservation at least a day in advance to get a spot. All of the drinks are made with fresh juice, good alcohol, clear ice, basically the way drinks were made before the invention of high fructose corn syrup. It was a very nice evening with good conversation, good ambiance and good drinks.

a hike

I kept Porter home from school today because he had a cough and runny nose. He wasn't sick enough to have to stay inside all day, so we went on a hike.

up and down

Yeast Experiment

The two hours between Porter getting home from school and Jason coming home from work is the hardest. The kids are usually hungry and I am trying to make dinner and get them a snack and it is a little crazy around here. I really want to start making dinner before I pick up Porter so I have more time to hang out with him before dinner, shower and bed time. Yesterday Liesl was sleeping and Porter was walking around complaining that he had nothing to do. So, I started to teach him how to knit and he really got it, but I don't have the right needles for him to do it without my help. He was frustrated with that after about 10 min, so we went downstairs and we did some experiments with yeast. Porter had a lot of fun putting different things in the bowls and seeing how they reacted with the yeast. I think he has the most fun with the soda water because all of the dishes got some in the end.

dish 1. orange juice, raw potato, and yeast
dish 2. water, raw potato and yeast
dish 3. soda water, raw potato and yeast
dish 3. milk, raw potato, banana, agave, yeast

Home Ec. and last week

Last Monday Liesl came down with Chicken Pox. I thought she was immune since she had a really mild case when she was previously exposed. I was wrong and she unintentional exposed a bunch of kids and an adult who has never had it. Liesl had a really bad case and two nights were really hard, but she made it through without any complications. Since Liesl was sick, I was not able to make everything that I wanted to for Home Ec., but I ended up having enough. Home Ec. was a lot of fun and we had a good turnout.




Photos courtesy of the talented and lovely Iris Santos Conrad

Home Ec.

I will be selling my crafty creations next Sunday.

A beautiful hike

Yesterday the kids and I along with some friends went on a hike by the beach.



the cockroach house they spent forever building.

Pox Update

number of days home from school = 4

number of oatmeal baths = 1

number of volcano baths = 1

number of times Tylenol was given = 3

number of doses of benadryl = 2

number of doses of a special herb mixture = 6

number of good days = 5

number of bad days = 1

Over all it was not bad and I enjoyed the time with Porter. It is really not this big bad scary virus that should be avoided at all cost. Porter was uncomfortable on the third day, other than that it was not a big deal.

On the 6th day his pox were all scabbed over, but I kept him home from school. We went on a hike and enjoyed the beautiful day.

the face of pox

Porter has chicken pox

kids

After school today we went to the Science Museum, but it was free day and super crowded, so we left. I told them I would take them again tomorrow. It was a beautiful day! We are so lucky we get to live in Southern California!

the sun

My nephew Henry spent the night at our house last night and Liesl stayed with her girl cousins at my parent's house. This morning was the first morning in a week that was sunny and not raining, so we walked down the street. The storm had blown over some trees, so we went to check them out.
We saw some insects mating.

Found a stream



sword fought with sticks

smelled the eucalyptus leaves

a dress for me

I finally got around to making a dress from the Schoolhouse Tunic pattern I bought months ago. I am not good with a pattern like this, well this is the first real pattern I have ever tried and whenever I looked at the directions I would get overwhelmed just reading them. All the reviews online said it was for a beginner and really easy to follow, but I guess I am pre-beginner. I got stuck at the hand sewing part in step 5 and unfortunately could not find any information on line about the pattern. I am such a visual learner and prefer an online tutorial like the ones Indietutes provides. I would love to see a step by step blog post with photos for this pattern. Oh well, I never did figure out all the steps in the pattern, but just kind of made it work. The one thing I hate is exposed seams and did a french seam on the skirt, but the rest is still exposed. I am going to try and make another one and see if I can hide all of them. Oh and I would love to have some pockets in the dress. I have never made pockets before, but will figure it out for the next one! Anyone have a good online tutorial on how to make them?

Here is the dress and I think it looks cute with tights or leggings.

it's about time...

I sat down and started writing in this blog again.

The longer I go with out blogging the more things I have to blog about and then I get overwhelmed with the amount of things I could blog about. Does that make any sense?

I could write a whole post about how wonderfully delicious the Pioneer Woman Cinnamon Rolls were or about the wonderful 4 weeks off I had with my kids or how I chipped my front tooth eating a rolled taco, but I won't. I will just leave you with an adorable picture of my son mowing the "lawn" that has sprung up in our yard this winter and a promise to start blogging again.

today

I am going to make some Pioneer Woman Cinnamon Rolls and pretend that I don't have a huge mess to deal with in the kids room. I have been ignoring it for weeks, so it won't be hard.

the shortest day and longest night

Happy Solstice everyone!

i am not a barber

Last week Porter told me and Jason that he wanted to have "hair like daddy". We talked about it for a while and I was stroking his hair and I said "i love your hair it is so pretty" and he told me that girls have pretty hair not boy. I respect Porter and decided that if he wanted to cut his hair then he could. I had an idea of how I wanted it too look, so I got out the clippers and started going to town. It would have been all good if I had had one of those smocks, but I didn't and the hair was in his shirt and itching him. After a while Porter had enough and I realized that I needed to take him to a professional to have it fixed. The final result is way shorter than I wanted, but I hope in a few weeks when it starts to grow out it will look better. Porter is happy about it and likes his new cut.
Here he is waiting to have his hair cut.

This is not the best photo, but you can get an idea of what it looks like.

silent blog, not so silent life

Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed with all of our activities I have no time to properly document and share them here with you. Life is busy busy busy.
two weeks ago we spent a night at The Pearl hotel for our 6year anniversary, last weekend I spent a night with friends at the Hard Rock Hotel, tonight we have Jason's work party, next weekend we are going to Utah to visit my grandma, the weekend after that we have a holiday party and I haven't bought one gift.

zoo trip

Porter's school let out early every day this week, so one day I took the kids to the zoo.
15 min into our visit.
Kid 1: I am tired of walking
Mom: then we can go home
Kid 1: I DON'T WANT TO GO HOME
Mom: stop whining and yelling or we will go home
Kid 2: I am hungry
Mom: you ate right before we came here but if you are still hungry let's go home and eat
Kid 2:I DON'T WANT TO GO HOME
Mom walks into gift shop and tells kids they can pick out a pencil, Kid 1 wants a candy, mom says "no" and Kid 1 starts whining again. Mom walks out of store and starts walking towards the exit with two screaming kids following her, every one looks and thinks "when I have kids my kids are not going to behave like that" and "can't that lady get control of those kids" Kids calm down and mom buys them a photo from the photo booth, leaves her wallet there and has to go back after hours with kids in tow to pick it up. I should have left after I took these photos.

Baby Tre is here

My little sister had her baby early this morning at home. He weighed 11 pounds and is 20 inches long.

Tutti Frutti

Porter's school was having a fund raiser at Tutti Frutti Frozen Yogurt so we stopped by on our way home from school yesterday. Liesl was at home sleeping, so it was nice to just hang out with Porter for a while and talk.
I love this photo of him chewing on the sour gummy worm.