scoot

He can't walk yet, but he can ride:

at the creek

How to enjoy Mother's Day on a hot afternoon when everyone is feeling cranky:

Walk down to the creek.

Watch the boys wade in the shallows.

Find rocks to kerplunk.

And jump from the big rocks.

And jump again and again.

Watch them play while wearing my new Toms for Moms.

And then take them all home for a nap.

tiramisu: a review

A friend of a friend contacted me last week about sampling some goodies from the Sharis Berries website in exchange for a review. While browsing through all of the various strawberries covered in chocolate, a different dessert caught my eye and decided to come home with me: a 6" tiramisu cake.

I know. This is a cake made in New York and shipped overnight to Arkansas. But, it's tiramisu. Need I say more?

UPS was supposed to deliver the package on Saturday. See the big orange Saturday sticker?

Saturday came and went. No Tiramisu. Disappointed Dorothy. Disappointed Gabriel.

On Monday, UPS delivered the package. The freezer packs were completely melted, and the cake looked like it had waited through a long layover. It wasn't pretty. But the high temperature over the weekend and through Monday was chilly at best, practically a refrigerator. So, we ate it anyway. It tasted much much much better than it looked.

When I contacted Sharis Berries, they discovered that UPS does not deliver to rural areas on Saturdays. Apparently, our little town is rural. They promptly sent me a replacement cake, and assured me that if I were a paying customer, I would have been given a replacement cake or a full refund.

Cake #2 arrived yesterday afternoon, still frozen, but with a huge hole in the packaging.

When I contacted the company again, they assured me that their products are 100% guaranteed, and if I were a paying customer, I would have received a full refund.

But on the bright side, this cake came with the ingredients listing unlike cake # 1. I was glad to see that there weren't too many crazy preservatives or additives, and we decided the cake was probably still safe to eat despite the broken packaging.

Like the first one, the tiramisu tasted delicious.

I have sampled may versions of tiramisu. While this one is hardly traditional, the layers of cream and mascarpone cheese with just enough booze and coffee to pull it all together was more than edible. Gabriel liked it more than traditional tiramisu.

The only part I didn't care for was the sponge cake layer on the bottom. It was tough and chewy, not at all delicate like the usual espress-soaked ladyfingers. But did I eat it anyway? Every last bite.

I am not the type to mail-order desserts. If I want a treat, I usually make it from scratch myself, and occasionally I'll get something from a local shop. All of that said, there have been times that I have wanted to send something special and edible to loved ones who don't live nearby, and in that case, this could be just the thing.

If you feel inclined to do the same, Sharis Berries is offering my readers a 15% discount off any product on their site with the coupon code: BERRYGOOD.

I probably wouldn't order the tiramisu again, not because it wasn't tasty (it really was delicious), but because this seems like a problematic cake to ship. But they have lots of great options on the Berries and More page.

Thanks, Sharis Berries.

it's official

We are trying to get out of here. Again.

This is old news to some, maybe a shock to others, and probably is causing a few of you to roll your eyes and think those Halls are always talking about moving. Well, this time it's for real.

Before Christmas, we caught the moving bug again, and spent a lot of time perusing job postings in California, Oregon, and Washington. Our search field was pretty simple: anywhere on the West Coast.

There weren't many options for someone with Gabriel's skill set: his degree is in Construction Management and work experience is with architecture. The more he looked at job descriptions, the more he realized that what he really wants to be is an architect. And for that, he needs to go back to school.

There are a number of schools that offer a Masters of Architecture program for those coming from a related field, and the University of Colorado at Denver seems to be the best fit for his background and his career goals. And since we have already missed the application deadline for this coming fall, the soonest he could enroll is fall 2012.

We are hoping that our house sells by the end of the summer so we can go ahead and move to Denver in order to establish residency and save a lot on tuition.

That's the plan.

The planning is the easy part. Now we are at the mercy of the market.

But if the details all line up perfectly, we may be saying Hello, Colorado very, very soon.

kazoo

chicken salad, a visitor, and a little earth muffin

I love it when it rains. Wait: I loved it when it rained and I had nothing better to do than to curl up with a good book and a cup of tea. Now that I have little ones who want to be outside, I like rain in smaller doses.

We are in the middle of another string of rainy days, and the temperature has dropped back down into the 40's. It's almost hard to remember that just a few days ago it was like this:

Liam and I spent some time digging up weeds in the garden and passing them along to the chickens. Liam made bucket after bucket of his special chicken salad, sometimes with a bit of worm thrown in for added protein.

We had a surprise visitor in our mulberry tree. Liam liked the possum a bit more than Dahlia, who saw it as her duty to bark him out of the tree. We all went inside to give the critter a chance to make his exit in peace, and he did.

And because the day was so warm and River's rash is still raw, some more naked time was just the thing.

.................................................................................................................................

I saw my doctor this morning and came home with a prescription for a muscle relaxant and some pain medication. I also picked up a package of Tiger Balm adhesive pads. They are amazing and I feel a bit better already... It also helps that both boys are napping. May they sleep long and wake happy. Amen.

celebrating

You wouldn't know it by this blog, but we did celebrate River's birthday last week.

I threw my back out at the beginning of the week, and I am still in a lot of pain. I am planning to go to the doctor on Monday if I am not significantly better in the morning, but in the meantime I am moving slow. Add to that the stack of 60 bibs that I sewed for Baby Vardo in the past few days, some major home cleaning, organizing, and decluttering, and a three year old who poops his pants twice in the same morning and tells me that he did it on purpose... It's been a hard week.

We celebrated River's birthday with my family the day before Easter. I made a cake (Maple Carrot with cream cheese frosting from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes), hanged up the birthday banner, and finished his birthday crown that he refused to wear. He just wanted his cake asap...

Much better.

Notice the groovy amber teething necklace from Tia Molly and Tio Andres. You can read about baltic amber's benefits here.

On Thursday, his actual birthday, two packages came in the mail from Grandma and Grandpa in California. One was full of books (thanks!), and the other was full of presents.

 Liam helped River open the gifts, an arrangement that surprisingly worked for both of them.

 And because Grandparents know better, there was also a special gift for Liam. He was thrilled.

Crystal, Simone, and Everett came over for a visit in the morning, and we shared blueberry muffins with more of that yummy cream cheese frosting.

It's still crazy to think that he is a one-year old.

On Friday, a package came from Jim and Janelle on the farm in Iowa. Janelle, this video is for you: