Seedy

As you may remember, we have a new birdfeeder. It all started with one little finch-like bird that used to come and visit us every morning as we ate our breakfast. He is grey and yellow. You also may remember that the birdfeeder that we bought went unused for several days.

Now the birdfeeder is quite the hotspot for birds to hang out. Grey and yellow finch-like bird does not ever use the birdfeeder. He just sits on the window box and eats... I don't know what he eats, but he pecks at something. Maybe bugs. We have several finches and a few doves that love our birdfeeder and the seed that gets scattered about on our balcony, thereby making it a huge mess. The birds love the birdseed so much that it all gets eaten in about 4 days.

As you may know, I am a frugal-type person, (stop laughing!) and in an effort to conserve resources (birdseed, time, money, energy refilling the birdfeeder) I have made it a rule only to refill the birdfeeder once a week. My rationale behind this is to keep the birds from being too dependent on us. It makes sense, right?

We came home a few weeks ago and found a dead bird on the ground at the bottom of the stairs leading up to our apartment. Besides the trauma and uncertainty of explaining this to the girls (Me: "the bird died." Them: "Birdie died- get up birdie!" Me: "the birdie can't get up any more- mommy will help the birdie get in a better place (the trashcan)" Them- all the next week: "birdie die, mommy help go in better place.") imagine the trauma and uncertainty that I experienced as I contemplated the bird's possible cause of death: starvation.

Fortunately, the bird was not the same type of bird that we usually see 'round our birdfeeder, so...

PS. Photographic proof of the ravenous birds to follow sometime soon.

Flying Purple People Eater

K-
This is how you wear that purple fluffy monstrosity.

Or like this:
Sorry it's sideways- I don't know how to rotate it. I also don't know how to make this stop underlining. Let's just pretend that I am making a very important point.

PS. Notice that I am wearing your brown sweater. Thanks.

Happy Valentine's Day

Did you have a good Valentine's Day? Ours was pretty good. Paul watched the girls while I got ready. He told them that there was a Valentine's surprise downstairs waiting for them (it was a little box of chocolates). Grace said, "Mommy downstairs? Mommy valentine?" Cute, right? We got to eat breakfast together with a bunch of Trader Joe's treats that Paul gave me for Valentine's Day. Camille and Grace even got to eat two chocolates!


Then Paul went to work and we went to story time at the library. Then we had a picnic with Paul at the playground. Then Paul went back to work and we had naptime.

Then the girls had chicken quesadillas for dinner and watched Thomas the Tank Engine. Then they went to bed and Paul and I had bleu cheese stuffed bacon-wrapped filet mignon and chicken prosciutto tortellini with asparagus and portabello mushrooms and some sick frites. And chocolate lava cakes with homemade caramel ice-cream and homemade dulce de leche.

Can you tell that I express my love through food? My hips are proof of that!

What did you do?

In other news- can you believe how much Camille and our friend Ms. Cutie Pie look alike when they smile? Perhaps they were triplets separated at birth (the pre-existence?) Does that somehow make Cutie Pie's mom the same as me? I think having the same name is further proof that we are the same person. If I only I had her organizational skills and caring nature.

No Rickets for Us!

Hummus has saved our lives. Well, not mine, really. I'm a relatively healthy, vegetable eating adult. But, the lives of one Grace and one Camille have been saved by hummus. On the first day, they sat there eating carrots and sugar snap peas dipped in hummus for 1 hour straight, until we way overshot naptime and I actually took the vegetables away from them and made them take their nap. The second day, the same thing happened.





I almost feel like doing some sort of reverse psychology thing on them- pretending that hummus is like a cookie or something, just so the vegetables stay exciting. But I won't really do that. I'm just happy that this fad is happening for however long. Now if I could only get them to feel the same way about the whole wheat fig newtons that I made.

Hummus
1 15 oz. can drained chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
1 small clove of garlic- peeled and smashed
salt
1/4 C tahini
1/8 C water
1/8 C lemon juice (juice of 1 lemon)

1 Tb. olive oil
chopped parsley
paprika

Put garlic first into the bowl of your food processor, followed by drained chickpeas, tahini, water, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt (canned chickpeas are pretty salty, so you might not need to add salt. Or if you have some salt-free ones from whole foods, add a little more). Process for a few minutes- longer for creamier hummus. This may be determined by the decibel level of your food processor. Ours is worse than all of the supersonic dogwhistley jackhammerey nails on the chalkboard food processors combined, but if we plug our ears for about 2 minutes and the girls chant "loud, mommy, loud" for a few minutes, it usually turns out pretty good.

If you're not worn out by then, scoop your hummus into a bowl, drizzle with olive oil, a little chopped parsley, and paprika to give it some pizazz.