creating & cooking

i forgot to mention that over the weekend tristan and i attended an awesome once a year event, family art day at 2nd street gallery. tristan had such a good time, painting and pasting and eating the snacks. the theme was animals, based on the exhibit of an impressive artist named laura ball. i loved her detailed watercolors of animals and women, many of the women pregnant or knitting or clearly maternal. check her out!

here are some pics from our day at the gallery:











and what's a day at the gallery without a caricature?



cooking has been big around here lately. these are the tasty muffins i've been making from left over oatmeal. the recipe is here, and i add about 1 tsp of vanilla and 1/4 cup of cranberries. they are simple but very satisfying and not overly sweet.



tonight i made thess delicious lentil meatballs, a recipe i found via pinterest. oh so good with the lemony basil pesto.



i have been finding so many good recipes and crafts and tutorials through pinterest. it's an excellent tool but yet another online destination where i find myself spending just a little bit too much time!

tristan and i made this hand print wreath today. i put together most of it, frankly. i thought he'd want to apply the glue but he was too busy dropping rocks into flower vase full of water (important stuff, you know). in the end he felt really involved in the craft as it was his hand that i traced afterall!

daffodil update

today is a dark wet day with lightning and thunder. it all seems rather unlikely for some reason.

yesterday was sunny and beautiful and full of daffodils!








what is blooming in your yard?

food for oscar

i think oscar sunday has turned into my super bowl. food is paramount to really making it an occasion.

we started off our day with cardamom oat waffles. they were terrific.



and dinner! i found this website with various film themed menus, complete with printable shopping lists. we decided on the artist fare, which was apt given that it won best film! i didn't make the spinach (but we had sauteed kale & beets instead) and we also didn't have the raspberrry dessert. it was all quite delightful. unfortunately the photos don't do justice.



and the hollywood star cookies! they were assembled rather in a hurry, as the red carpet preview was beginning and i wanted to get an eyeful of those dresses. i skipped the frosting but that is fine as it was totally unnecessary.



tashi and i nommed those cookies all evening while adding various films to the netflix queue.

cozy snowzy

on sunday we had our first (and most likely last) significant snowfall of the season, which made for a snuggly night and a playful morning.










i pulled out an old candle kit of tashi's. it has sheets of colored beeswax that you roll up or cut out. tristan and i had a very nice time making a few small candles. the wonders of crafting are upon my toddler.




this morning i made him this little marble maze. i found the link to a tutorial on the crafty crow.





i am trying to bring more rhythm and focus to our days, more crafts, and as spring approaches (with a small snowstorm in the mix), more of the great outdoors. it is hard not to steal a little time for myself here and there (to blog, for instance), but i think i am trying to secure a place of balance, and that we are getting there.

this thursday we are meeting with a waldorf based outdoor playgroup. we're so excited.

hearts aplenty

the crafty crow saves the day again with great ideas for holiday crafts.

i had so much fun making things with tristan and realized that we definitely don't do enough crafting together. he is almost three now and quite ready to work with glue and glitter. he does however have this particular way of claiming he doesn't like the finished product. i'll tell him from the start that we are making a sun catcher and once it's all said and done and hanging in the window he says, i don't like that sun catcher. take it down. what's up with that?


he had good fun pasting the tissue paper to the parchment on this sun catcher.


we made the sun catcher and transparency from a red and gold gift box. there were some strips left over so i made tristan a little heart bracelet and he made one for tashi. it was so sweet to see him giving her a valentine.


i ended up making some of these handprint cards of my own, as i had to demonstrate to tristan that laying one's palm in the paint was neither hot nor painful in any way. i really didn't think he was going to do it, when suddenly he just squished his hand in there and was ready to go. thus commences an era of finger painting.


i adore the idea behind these love rocks. i don't think mine turned out quite as nice as those in the tutorial, especially without any mod podge on hand. but the idea is so sweet and tristan really liked carrying his around (and dropping it on occasion). tashi has a very cool
magnetic word stamp kit, which i used to stamp some choice words on the backs. i didn't photograph the backs but they turned out pretty well.


we had a tasty valentine dinner of greek potatoes, youvetsi, salad and bread. surrounded by roses and flowers from dan and my dad.


followed by rich chocolate pudding with whip cream and a sprinkle of crushed candy canes.


and candle light.

i didn't manage to photograph tashi's valentines as there was no good light left, but she made a lovely book for all of us, and some sweet cards with messages hidden under layers of heart lobes. my favorite part was that tristan went to bed with his card from tashi in his hand. seeing the love between my children is the greatest valentine gift of all.

corners

today has been incredibly windy. i've been enjoying the sounds of it, and the light filling corners.

good fortune

recently tristan was marching around saying, "don't hide your feelings! be careful what you wish for!" i couldn't remember for the life of me where he picked up these phrases.

yesterday we were looking one of his newer books, fortune cookies, and my question was answered!





it's a cute book, with a good message about one thing leading to another, or when one door closes another opens. and the little one gets to pull the fortune out of the cookie, which is always fun.