Shadow Puppet

Elliot sat so quietly and sweetly this morning playing with the shadow his hand made on the kitchen table. What do you think... does it look like Pinocchio with a long nose?

Sleeping Through the Commotion

This sweetest little peapod slept soundly through his morning nap, even as the Portland Fire Department worked hard right outside our front door.

The "meth house" (our speculation, not yet confirmed) two doors down was engulfed in flames this morning at 4am. Now, at almost 10:00, the crew is still working hard to clean up the mess. It's so cold outside that all of the water that ran onto the ground is frozen solid and our street is completely blocked off. Andrea's even stuck home from work because of all of the trucks and hoses blocking our driveway!

Things that we are grateful for:

1. The flames didn't jump houses and get us

2. It wasn't our direct next door neighbors, which means we were both safer and we don't now have to look at a burned down house next to us (yes--the neighbor's house could actually look worse than it already does)

3. We no longer have a meth house on our block

4. Living on "the tracks" meant our house was affordable, we get lots of excitement, and we still haven't really suffered any serious consequences from our location

C is for Cookie

Honey and Jam posted two delicious looking chocolate chip cookie recipes AND she's giving away a cookie scoop! Click on the link and take a look. Aren't her pictures beautiful?!?!

Worst Day of the Year Tradition

It has become an unplanned tradition that each year when I'm finally ready to put out the Christmas lights it happens to be one of the worst weather days of the year. This year it was a beautiful 32 degrees with 20 mile an hour winds whipping in from the gorge making it feel like the low 20s... just right for getting out on a ladder at 4:30 in the afternoon to hang lights! Ah well, I'm a sucker for tradition.

Cast Your Ballot

We all ate sweet potatoes and purple kale for dinner tonight. Whose do you think looks better: mine and Andrea's or Elliot's? My vote is for the adult version (although Elliot had no problem with how his looked and gobbled up every bite!).

Future Scientist

Today was Elliot's first trip to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, the children's science museum here in Portland.

In the "science playground," the area for the littlest scientists, Elliot was able to do lots of playing...

Looking at fish...

And drumming...

But, true to this little scientist's nature, his favorite activity was watching...

Elliot is still on the young side for most of the stuff at OMSI, but it was so much fun to show him everything. He is such a delight. We are so lucky to have this sweet little scientist in our life.

The Artist in the Family

My brother, Kaua, is an amazing photographer. He is an artist. And he loves his nephew SO much. We were lucky enough to have him come visit when Elliot was only eight weeks old and he took the most beautiful pictures. Right now we're putting together our first family Christmas photo card, so I asked Kaua to send me these two kissing ones for us to use. Aren't they beautiful? And look at tiny Elliot! So sweet!



Aloha, Uncle. We love you so much!

Look At Him Go

Reaching...
Stretching...

He got it! Yay!!!

Raise Your Hand If You Have Leftover Turkey

We just made the most delicious soup with our leftover Thanksgiving turkey and it only took 30 minutes to make. If you're reading this... put down your computer and go make this soup. Your mouth will be so happy you did!

White Bean and Turkey Chili

(leave out the turkey and use veggie broth for a vegan chili)

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 cups diced yellow onion (about 2 medium)

1 1/2 tablespoon chili powder

1 tablespoon minced garlic (we left this out)

1 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon dried oregano

3 cans Great Northern beans, drained

4 cups chicken broth

3 cups chopped cooked turkey

(we just used as much as we had left,

we also thought it would be just as good with chicken sausage wheels)

1 can diced tomatoes

1/3 cup diced fresh cilantro (we used more--almost the whole bunch)

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice (we used more of this, too--a whole lime's worth)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

Heat oil and saute the onion. Add chili powder, garlic, cumin, oregano and beans. Saute for 2 minutes. Add broth and tomatoes. Bring to a simmer and cook 20 minutes. Add turkey and cook 5 minutes until thoroughly heated. Remove from heat. Add cilantro, lime juice, salt and pepper. Yum!

Follow up: I forgot to say that we added a half a bag of frozen corn--a very tasty addition to the recipe. Also, as we continued eating the soup over the next few days, we wished we had kept the lime and cilantro out and added it fresh eat time. The flavor was not nearly as good when it was reheated. But the first night... so good!

Sleep, Glorious Sleep

Somehow, someway, for some unknown reason, Elliot woke up to nurse only ONCE last night! That meant I got a 5 hour chunk of sleep, followed by a 3.5 hour chunk. Elliot wakes up to nurse every two hours still, so you can imagine how great I feel today!

These sweet sleeper pictures are from the last hour of the morning when Andrea snuggled Elliot into bed with me. So sweet.

A Cure for the Sunday Blues

Everyone knows that dreaded feeling that comes around on Sunday afternoon... the groan that bubbles up from your tummy when you think about having to go back to work tomorrow. It's an especially loud groan that comes from our house after having such a nice long weekend home together.


How lucky we were to get a gorgeous sunny SUNday afternoon to help us push our blues away. Check out these beautiful sun worshipers!

Thanksgiving with The Turkeys

Our big, official Thanksgiving celebration was delicious, of course. Elliot, his two Mamas, and Annika, his SG (Spiritual Guardian, aka Monkey, or in this post, Turkey) all spent the day cooking, playing and eating. What more is there to be thankful for?!?!

I started the day early getting the pumpkins ready for baking. They made a delicious pumpkin pie, dinner for Elliot (not the pie, just the pumpkin!), and left over puree to be turned into pumpkin bread and muffins.

Once Annika arrived it was all turkey all day. We are very thankful for her premium turkey skills.

But we all know these are the real Turkeys...



After all of the turkeying-around, we sat down to a wonderful meal: turkey, mashed potatoes, rustic stuffing, gravy, green beans, cranberries, and homemade rolls.

And to really enjoy the celebration, we enjoyed a bottle of Uncle Mikey's Dashe 2007 Zinfandel. By far, some of the best wine I've ever had.

Elliot, too, enjoyed a thankful dinner of local, seasonal, homemade pumpkin. He loved it!

And, of course, the celebration wouldn't be complete without some yummy pies. Even Elliot's giraffe got in on some (shout out to Emily, who joined us for pie but never got any pictures taken of her).

So this officially ends Thanksgiving 2009. May all our holidays stretch out as long as this one has. And may all our days be as thankful as the last three have been.

Thanks for The Vegans

Thanksgiving dinner at The Vegans' house was wonderful. The food was delicious--seitan cutlets, chickpea gravy, roasted carrots, onions, garlic and cauliflower, mashed sweet potatoes, cranberries, and cornbread. Plus apple pie and pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. They outdid themselves, as usual.

One of the best parts of our monthly dinners with The Vegans is when HeVegan and I have a beer tasting. Whoever is not hosting brings a new beer for the two of us to try. We both like really hoppy IPAs, but there are no rules to the beer tasting. Since they were hosting I brought the local and seasonal Bridgeport Brewery Hop Harvest Ale, a very middle-of-the-road, classically solid Bridgeport IPA. Not a bad beer at all. I also brought a Deschutes Inversion IPA. This is one I'd never had before and, being a lover of the Deschutes Brewery, thought this was a perfect beer for me. But after not being able to finish even one of them at home, I brought one along to get HeVegan's opinion. Both of us agree--it's just a bad tasting beer. Luckily, we had his contribution to the evening to still try. The oh-so-delicious New Belgium Trippel Ale. Both He and SheVegan (who is NOT a beer drinker but loves this beer) were excited for me to try it, and it didn't disappoint. A great beer indeed!

Of course SheVegan and Elliot had a wonderful time together. They are great friends.

But the real surprise of the night was how much Elliot took to HeVegan. As if he was in love!

Thanksgiving seems like the perfect holiday to share with The Vegans, because we are truly thankful to have them in our lives. It was a wonderful evening, thank you both so much!

Giving Thanks

This year, more than ever, we have so much to give thanks for. We are thankful for Elliot's health, his sparkly eyes, and his gorgeous chubby dimpled cheeks. We are thankful for his singing and his giggling. We are thankful everyday that he is our baby.

He, too, has things to be thankful for today. Most especially that he has Mamas who give him new experiences. Yay, oatmeal and prunes!

We are also thankful that our holiday will stretch throughout the weekend. Today is just the three of us, cozied up at home together. Then we get a thankful dinner with The Vegans tomorrow and a full Thanksgiving celebration with Annika on Saturday. So much to be thankful for!

Sick Babies Make me Sad

First Andrea was sick. Then we found out our childcare-share friend's Dad was sick. Both sore throats, congested heads, super yuckiness. Then Elliot got it. And now I'm feeling it.

The saddest by far is this runny nose, congested nursing, coughing baby. There's just no fairness in that. Rest assured, as far as we can tell it's not swine flu. Nobody's had a fever yet. Phew.