smoothie lovin' and the paddle pool

It's been HOT! Little guy got his first paddle in Gram's baby pool this weekend, which was adorable.

There are a few more flowers blooming in my yard, so I wanted to share those, too.

Mountain Laurel

Yarrow - not native, but a magnet for pollinators. Plus has herbal uses.

Cute bee on the yarrow!

I had peonies in my wedding bouquet so I have a soft spot for these.

And finally, my little guy got his smoothie on this afternoon - he didn't leave a drop for me! (Well, there may have been if there weren't that spill into the dishwasher...) If you've never made your own smoothie, you've got to do it! So healthy and yummy and easy! I use:

-about 2 cups of organic yogurt (I like the non-fat vanilla yogurt but plain whole milk yogurt is great, too)
-one banana
-2 cups strawberries (frozen ones are great because then they are like ice cubes)
- 1/2 cup milk

Blend in a food processor and voila! I swap out different fruits and experiment with the texture to keep things interesting, but here's today's strawberry-banana smoothie recipe. (Blueberries, peaches, raspberries, mango, and pineapple are all yummy fruits to try.) At my fave smoothie bar they also use almonds, grapes, chocolate chips, and agave or honey for sweetener.

care for some bubbly? (with video, too!)

"Wanna go to the river?!" He looked at me and blinked.

Now that we're getting sun kissed and breaking a sweat outside, heading to the river was just the right bubbly we needed. Cromwell Valley is a great park that is quickly becoming a second backyard to us. The woods are beautiful and the trails well maintained. But my favorite part is Mine Run. It's not quite big enough to be a river but too large for me to consider it a stream. (I guess that's why it's called a 'run'.) Either way, it's a babbling waterway with shallow stretches, perfect for the little guy to test his footing.

Can you see the wonder in his eyes?

Here's our other bubbly: bubbles. As you can see, E is very skeptical...

Seriously mom. What are those things?

fettucine failure

Usually, when I put my mind to it, I'm a good cook. I've got lots of favorite cookbooks and AllRecipes.com so that's generally all I need to set me in the right direction.

But last night instead of making my "go-to" white sauce and adding parm to make fettuccine Alfredo, I thought I'd shake things up. Hold onto your hats, this is riveting... I found a couple of 4 star rated sauces online but I didn't have some of the ingredients. So, I kinda combined two of the recipes swapping out what was in my cupboard. Needless to say, things went south pretty quickly.

The Parmesan was clumped up in the middle of soupy milk, chunky cream cheese, and butter floating on the peripheral like the Horizon oil spill in my sauce pan. The fresh lemon juice and lemon basil from my yard were wasted on this pitiful attempt. For the first time in a LONG time, I actually threw out the batch and started from scratch. (And by this point my husband was hovering in the kitchen trying to pet my ego.) Flustered, attempt number two wasn't any better.

At least the bread was warm and the wine was cold.

Tonight will be a fresh start...but we are definitely NOT having pasta.

first blooms

After three summers, this is the first year the lilacs are in bloom.

This is E's first sniff of sweet lilacs.

This little beauty appeared under our beech tree. The soil is covered in moss and a few sparse grasses. I'm going to look it up in my trusty Newcomb's Wildflower Field Guide.

My gardens are chock full of native wildflowers like this Wild Blue Indigo.

Bleeding Heart (Dicentra spectabilis) is another favorite of mine.

I like the color combination of the Golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea) and the Wild Blue Indigo (Baptisa austalis).

The mountain laurel is going to bloom any minute now!

I wish I could remember the name of this shrub. I planted it right next to my spice bush and nannyberry viburnum. For the life of me, I can't remember what it's called. Do you know?

Spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana) is intensely magenta - it practically looks like it's glowing at dusk.

Wild geraniums, sometimes called cranesbill, are so sweet! (Geranium maculatum)

I believe this one is Beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis) - all I know is that it is an absolute MAGNET for goldfinches in the fall. They love to eat the seeds!

I love gardening. It gets me out in the fresh air, invites me to make our surroundings pretty, and most of all, provides habitat for wildlife. Because the latter is so important to me, native wildflowers are the way to go.

Since native wildflowers would naturally occur in our region, they are already acclimated to our climate and soil type. This means they are extremely low maintenance (no ammending the soil or extra watering necessary!). Native plants also provide valuable food to birds and pollinators.

No, I'm not afraid of bees in the garden. No, I'm not worried about allergies to goldenrods or grass.  No, I do NOT use herbcides, insecticides, or any other "cides" in the garden or on the lawn. I'm not saying that some people don't have valid concerns. But I refuse to live that way. It's just not natural.

I don't want my child to be afraid of bugs or dirt. And plenty of research shows that children who are "sanitized" and NOT exposed to all manners of dirt are actually far more likely to have allergies. So I say let them play and get dirty! If only people could stop worrying so much about anti-bacterial this and hypo-allergenic that. It's gotten WAY out of control.

It's good for our bodies and our souls to be connected to the earth we walk upon. We shouldn't need science to prove that. So here's to sunny, filthy play days in the garden.

coffee and rain boots

His first morning chore: feed the cat. Look how he does it with such panache - him and "ank" (blankie).

It's one of those rare mornings where my eyes popped open before E's. Even though I should have rolled back over for some more shut eye, I opted for solitude with my coffee. Granted, my cat is trying to hump my arm even as I type this, but that's just status quo around here.

We've been swimming in a deluge of rain the last several days. I'm always grateful for it when my plants are thirsty, but it starts to get depressing after a while. Last night E was begging "at! at!" which means "out! out!". Now that he knows how to ask to go outside, it's a constant. No complaints, he's my little nature boy so it's to be expected. But I feel terrible when the rain just won't let up!

The good news? I just got him his first pair of rain boots. Now there's no stopping us!

a day in the life

Yes, he's doing what you think he's doing. He likes to kiss trees.

Hallelujah, spring is here! And I know how to drink from a sippy cup!



For some perspective, here is E last spring 2010.





Can we go for another swing mom? (E at 18 months in May 2011.)

  

Reading all about tails...

 

He's so big! But I'm enjoying every minute of it. He's really got the life... 

what keeps childhood alive?

For today's post, I am piggy-backing on a wonderful post I just read from the blog Intentional Life. She paints a scene from Mother's Day, one overflowing with gratitude for her family and the simple joys her children know. She poses a great question: what keeps childhood alive?

I'm sure we all wish we had the answer to this one. It's something I think about often in my experience as an educator. I am a big believer that it's positive experiences and the emotions born from those positive experiences that we hearken back to as adults. To me, the best way to keep childhood alive is to share it with young children and help create new feel-good experiences for them.

Especially in environmental education, I'd be foolish to think that scientific nomenclature is what a young child remembers best about time spent in the garden or in the woods. No, it's the feeling she gets from discovering the place that resurfaces throughout her life.

This is a topic that is deeply personal to me as an educator. But now as a parent, it is particularly troubling to me when other parents seem to nonchalantly brush this idea off. I am adamantly passionate about how important it is for us to spend real, quality time with our children. Quality time is about creating a bond of love and respect with our kids, of course. But it's also tied in to setting examples, creating positive experiences, and showing them IN ACTION (not words) that they matter.

Raising "good" people is serious challenge for anyone.

And guess what? This takes effort. LOTS of effort. And sometimes planning. It's not easy to let go of our own personal needs, especially after a long day or when we are under stress, to focus on our kids. Some days it may not seem humanly possible, and believe me, I've been there. But devoting UNPLUGGED, UNDIVIDED attention to our kids is crucial if we want to fan that beautiful spark that is blissful childhood.

How can we expect to keep childhood alive if we miss out on it in the first place?