Catching Up

Yes, I realize that it's August and I have a lot of catching up to do. We've had some fun, crazy months, so here goes!

Gram and Grandpa Larsen came up to visit us for Maggie's birthday. We also introduced Bella to Scotty and Kenzie, Gram's West Highland Terriers. It was a big doggie party all weekend! Too bad though they didn't get to join us for dinner at Olive Garden and swimming at Gram's hotel!
We took them on one of our favorite outings - Lower and Upper Mesa falls in Island Park.

I made my first souffle ever, and it turned out gorgeous. Most of the ingredients came out of my garden, which made it taste even better don't you know! I had to take a pic, although I'm no great shakes at food photography. It was a great new way to eat our spinach, which currently is growing out of our noses we have so much of it. Great super food though.

Below is our Bella Bear, growing up fast. (Too fast. Stay small, Bella, stay small!) But still unable to scare our new baby kitties away from her food bowl. Or she's just proving how magnanimous she can be. Either way, she could be a poster puppy when she lets the little kitties come curl up between her paws and licks them. Then though she usually gets playful and tries to nibble their heads and they have to run away. Puppies gotta chew!

Maggie's Puppy Party at Leo's Place

Ever since Bella came along, (well, and before that, actually) everything in Maggie's world has been either puppies or ponies. And since I was tired and didn't want to throw a huge party this year, we took advantage of Leo's Place (like Chuck E Cheese only with better food and a huge play place) for the entertainment and food provisions. She got to take her five best friends, and we all had a wonderful pizza-eating, present-oogling, cake devouring, arcade-invading good time!
Thank you again to Gary for decorating the cake - he's awesome, as always!

Yes, we are a ski-ball family. Spence can really hurl those balls! He even beat me once! I was actually trying, too!

Mother's Day

So I know Mother's Day was a month ago, but I forgot to put these pictures up. Mother's Day 2010 began inauspiciously as I spent the first 40 minutes of it cleaning up dog pooh from the bathroom (the dog sleeps through the night now but those first few nights, we didn't really realize that she'd need to go out at 4 AM so we let her pooh on the newspapers in her room. M.E.S.S.Y. She's almost potty trained now, thank heavens!).It got better though - I made crepes; went on a nice walk with the dog and kids; had nice, relaxing church meetings in the afternoon; then the whole extended family came from the surrounding area to have a family dinner honoring mothers in general and Nanny (my paternal grandmother) in particular. Nana and Papa (my parents) were up here too, and nothing makes my kids' day like having their grandparents in town! (sorry, ignore the ugly decorations - I haven't collected nice, matching tablecloths for four big tables yet but I'm going to as soon as I can afford it!) Dinner was easy and yummy as everyone brought their favorite potluck item, with Aunts Diana and Mary Kay providing tasty pulled pork sandwiches.

What's a dinner out in the party barn without disco lights and dance music? All the cousins totally jammed out to Thriller and Hoedown Throwdown and the Cha Cha slide - it was awesome! Another huge highlight: watching second cousin Brooklyn (who had a stroke in utero and was not supposed to see, hear, or walk - ever) taking some of her first unassisted steps. Holy. Wonderful. Freaking. Cow! She is such a miracle!

I love so much that I got to spend this day with my Nanny. She is a true treasure. She calls frequently, just to see how I am doing and if she can do anything for me - it never fails to brighten my day! She is a whiz on the piano and the sewing machine, and her skills are frequently called upon to make curtains, pillows, dolls, bedspreads... and all is done with consummate skill and taste. She is elegant, lovely, accomplished, kind, thoughtful and always performing service -we just adore her!

My New Favorite Smoothie

Ah, the secret of the Green Smoothie. Why did no-one ever tell me that if you blend spinach and other greens with water in a blender, then add regular smoothie ingredients (bananas, berries, ice, plain yogurt or silken tofu, etc) you can't taste the spinach??? Seriously, what a great trick, especially as I have a couple of picky eaters! And, because before, I didn't know how to use kale or chard. (who does?) Anyway, it's been a fascinating and delicious couple of weeks.

Here's my most recent fav. It's definitely a green Green Smoothie, which I guess I can tolerate well because I worked in a juice store one summer during college and acclimated my taste buds to really healthy tasting things. But the health benefits are astronomical, and after a body-destroying day of gardening, hiking or, um, reading Jane Austen novels, I feel like this smoothie really helps my body heal.

Mindy's Green Smoothie
Ingredients (all of these are approximate or to taste):

small handful washed spinach leaves
other green leafies, like kale, cabbage or chard
1/4 lemon, rind included
1/2 inch peeled fresh ginger
fresh parsely (optional - adds to the freshness)

Blend well. Then add:
ice
1 banana
1 pear or apple, seeded
agave nectar to taste
any additives like bee pollen, ground flax, wheat germ, etc.

Blend well and give yourself a gold star for good health today! It makes a lot, so if you can only eat some of it, put the remainder in the fridge, then blend it up tomorrow with ice and it will still be great.

I've got a new baby...

Her name is Bella and she's a 2-month old black lab/border collie mix. When we saw her at the pound (we were just going to go look, we weren't going to come home with a dog! yeah right...) we knew she was the one. Much smaller than the other two month old labs they had, she was adorable, cuddly, and all alone... we were goners from the getgo.

So why pick a bigger/shedding breed for an indoor dog, might you ask? Well, I blame it on my husband -Gary's childhood best bud had been a small black lab named Spook. Slept with him and everything. He's been fixated on a lab since then, biding his time until my willpower was low! Friday he emailed me dog pages on the web all day. I admit, they looked pretty cute. Then he came home from work and said, "let's go look at dogs from the pound!" And sucker that I am, I went along with it.

Little did I know that getting an indoor puppy is like having a newborn. In order to properly housetrain her, I have to know when she eats, how much she eats, how often she poops, where she poops, how long her naps are... seriously, a newborn! Luckily, having done the newborn thing three times now, it's a very familiar routine and I'm going with it. We've got chew toys and baby gates all over the house (this dog is staying on the tile!) and are working out strategies to get her to sleep through the night and not chew the furniture to bits. I could never do this if Spencer wasn't potty trained, but as he is, and as Maggie and Sophie are old enough to help with her we should be okay.

My only real complaint is that we have to take Bella out in the middle of the night to pee! At least with my babies I could nurse them in the comfort of my own bed at night. Luckily, Gary and Maggie both are whooped over the pup and Maggie is the one who takes her out at night and first thing in the morning. Bless her. The dog sleeps in a crate in her and Sophie's room - we're "crate training" and so far so good. This may turn out to be a great thing, it may be a fiasco and my furniture all may be ruined (over my dead body)... we'll keep you posted!

Maggie Dances!

This has been a banner year for Maggie's dancing. Not only has she developed a propensity for picking up hard new clogging steps (and doing them just like her dad, nice and big!) but as a performer she SHINES! It's so fun to watch her come alive on stage - I even get a kick out of how when she's done she always tries to act kind of bored like it was not big deal. She's a dynamite dancer and we hope she continues to develop this shared family talent!

Green Smoothies!

...have changed my life! Well, in my mind they have. By secretly blending spinach, kale, and any other green in my fridge with some water, then adding regular smoothie ingredients (berries, banana, oj, plain yogurt, wheat germ, flax), you CANNOT TASTE THE GREENS. If the smoothie is dark enough, you can't even SEE them. Ta da! Miracle. I can get major amounts of phytonutrients down Maggie's picky little throat, and she has no idea that her conniving mother has just fed her a major helping of vegetables. We all have one smoothie daily, and already my nails are growing better, I feel healthier (again, maybe just in my head, but still), and I crave less sugar (minus the baguette with Nutella I had for breakfast and lunch today). And I just know that my family is eating better, which gives me a considerable amount of warm fuzzies.

Warning: if you actually read the Green Smoothie book, you will be enlighted, inspired and also completely terrified because of the crap you and your family have eaten all your lives. I lost a good 2-3 nights' sleep dreading the future cancers/obesity/lack of chewing capability my family was all going to suffer for our former bad habits. But in the light of day, (and once I got an actual night of good sleep), I realized that you take what you want from stuff like this, make the changes you're ready to make, and go from there. Baby steps. Or in our case, green baby steps. Otherwise you just go crazy, burn out, or go right back to the old bad habits. And eat a whole container of Nutella in one go. Oh wait, I already tried that today... time to put myself back on the wagon!

I'm so excited to grow this smoothie stuff in my garden! Spinach, beet greens, butterleaf, carrot tops... I have so many plans for you! If only it weren't blizzarding out there today, I'd go plant them right now... patience, precious, patience. I live in Idaho, after all. Living in Idaho does have its perks though- a kindly neighbor brough over a tractor load full of old elk poo last week which I joyfully tilled right into my garden. Seriously, who gets excited over elk poo? Me, that's who! Especially as it's a fabulous natural fertilizer and now I don't have to buy any from Walmart. I love my country life!