sweets and treats.

I usually pride myself on making, baking and serving healthy foods to my family. Nutrition is really important to me and I love finding alternative ways to create delicious desserts and snacks that are kid friendly and extra nutritious. But, sometimes life calls for dessert. It's called balance, right?!

I had 2 eye appointments in Seattle in the past 2 weeks which meant Simon tagged along for the ride. He's just the best during these appointments. He happily wears his little monkey backpack into the office, greets the staff and patiently waits for me to finish, usually snacking on a cheese stick or quietly playing a game on the iPad. We always celebrate afterwards with a walk across the street to Top Pot Donuts. Chocolate sprinkle cake donuts are Simon's love language. Always.

 Spring is trying to make an appearance around here so we are taking full advantage of any sunny day we can get outside. It makes us all happier and running off that excess sugar from donuts helps too!
Lucy and I had some girl time with manicures at home the other day too. I just love my girl time with her!

 To add to the treats I whipped up this homemade lemon meringue pie last week too! Matt's co-worker was having her last day and she requested a pie as her going away present. I think it turned out pretty well and she loved it.

 Simon and I have so many funny moments throughout the day when its just him and I while the big kids are at school. Even eating a simple bowl of Cheerios had us both laughing hysterically. Silly boy!

 The kids have an ongoing love/hate relationship with each other, as all siblings do while growing up. I try to capture these sweet moments when they are all happily crafting together to remind myself they really do love each other when they end up arguing the other moments during the day.

 Another eye appointment and another donut! I was shocked he chose a pink sprinkled donut but don't worry, it was gone in the blink of an eye.

No sweets but a special treat was seeing my 2 best friends last week. We try to get together every month but with the holidays and a busy winter it had been WAY too long! I love these girls like sisters and we've known each other for over 20 years. It's the best chatting and laughing so hard together every time we see each other. Love, love, love them.

 I came home (late!) from my girls night to a sick Lucy. She came down with a fever and had to miss her first day of school for the year. Poor girl. We made the best of it by cuddling up together on the couch, reading lots of books, having a movie day and working on her science experiment for the upcoming science fair. She chose to study ice cream (go figure!) and wanted to know which flavor would melt the fastest. So, we bought 4 different flavors and watched them melt, then recorded the results at 10, 15 and 20 minutes. Our hypothesis was wrong but the reward at the end (sampling the flavors!) was pretty great and put a big smile on our sick girls face.

Even being sick she still knows how to make me feel like the best mom ever. She worked so hard on this sweet picture and I simply adore it.

Even though Lucy wasn't feeling 100% (the fever stuck around most of this weekend) we still planned to host my family for an early Easter brunch. My parents were in town and my brother and sister in law came up for a simple brunch and a family day. I made a loaded vegetable and chicken sausage egg bake, roasted potatoes, cranberry orange white chocolate chip scones, pumpkin bread, fresh fruit and yogurt with homemade granola. Simple but delicious and just right for an Easter brunch.

Then the kids got to open their Easter presents from Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle Matt and Aunt Joy. Simon wasted no time opening up ALL the chocolate and stuffing it in his mouth.

Luckily we ended the afternoon with a family walk to help burn off all that sugar!

And today it was so sunny we headed back out for another family walk to play at the park. Somehow the kids ignored the large playground and huge grassy field so they could roll around in the sand pile. For 30 minutes. Ha! 

To balance out all those treats I made some zuppa toscana soup for dinner, loaded with extra kale. Best way to end a weekend with a delicious Sunday dinner!

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kindness and pie.

This past week I went in to volunteer as the monthly cooking docent for Carter's class and was honored to also participate in their school pride day. I've said it before but their teachers this year are incredible. All teachers are. But this year the relationships and connections and challenge they provide have helped both kids thrive and grow in so many ways. I'm so sad to think that in 3 short months this school year will already be over!

School pride was a way of honoring those lives lost in FL by creating a culture of kindness and acceptance while encouraging kids to meet new faces and make new friends. The hope was to show we are more alike than different, celebrate those differences and improve school safety by being more aware of our surroundings. It was age appropriate and felt like we could actually do something when more often than not we feel stuck. 

The kids were incredible. I went into the cafeteria with over 600 kids and watched them start conversations with each other, give high fives, sign names on papers to remember them later and laugh all along the way. It was emotional for every adult to witness. Little Ezra bravely walked up to me and asked about ice cream. Grace and Avery were excited to tell me they loved pink. And Sebi really doesn't like soccer. Ha - who knew!? 

To top it off the cooking lesson was so fun and the kids had a great time. Win win!

 Later that afternoon I picked the kids up from school and surprised them with a trip to Country Village. It was, after all, pi day so we had to celebrate! We played on the playgrounds, followed the ducks and chickens around and then went to the local bakery for a mini pie. I've never seen them eat pie SO fast before. Literally, 2 minutes. Gone.

 Simon chose a chocolate pretzel stick instead which was probably a good choice because I'm pretty sure Carter and Lucy weren't the least bit interested in sharing that pie.

So, kindess and pie. 2 great things that made for a really great day.

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summer vibes.

What a weekend! We had a rare, incredibly sunny and warm, 65 degree weekend in the middle of March! It put us all in good moods and gave us a great excuse to spend as  much time outside as possible.

Since all the kids were healthy again we tried to get outside after school each day too. I especially love Wednesdays since it's early release. We get an extra 1.5 hours in the afternoon to go play so we explored a new park that was just remodeled near our house. So fun!

 And then the weekend. Matt scrubbed the deck on Saturday so we could relax, eat outside and play most of the day. The kids literally thought it was summer and were begging to run through the sprinkler.

 So...I did what any normal PNW mom would do. I busted out the sprinkler! Ha! Who cares if it was only 65 degrees? They loved it and the squeals, giggles and screams were so fun to hear from the kitchen.

 We had our first outdoor dinner on the back deck - a little surf and turf salmon and steak salad!

 Dessert was chocolate chip sweet potato muffins and Simon ate 3!

 And the day ended with 3 happy kids, covered with dirty feet and ready to head to bed. Such a great weekend in the sun!

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our week was nuts.

Yep, last week was crazy. Coming home from vacation, getting back into our usual school and work routines, sports practices and games. And then sickness. From 3 out of 5 of us. It was insane. 

It started with me finally getting treated for a massive sinus infection I was dealing with while we were on vacation. I felt miserable all week but walk in clinics were just too busy in NYC so I waited until we got home. I've never been so happy to have antibiotics!

We tried to finish ALL the laundry, vacuum and load up on groceries. Add in some school volunteering and day 1 was off to a good start!

And then....Simon got a rash. We couldn't really figure out why or what it was from but after 24 hours of intense hives we took him to urgent care where they confirmed an allergic reaction to the amoxicillin he had been taking the previous week for his sinus infection. About an hour after coming home from urgent care his legs and knees were so swollen he couldn't walk which meant a trip to the ER! Poor guy was handling it well (hence the smiles in all the pictures) but was exhausted and took a few days to recover. Thank goodness it wasn't much more serious but the rash sure looked awful. Matt and I took turns staying home from work, cancelling plans and arranging carpools with friends for big kid sports practices. Now we get a fun visit to the allergist for more testing in a few weeks!

 The sun did come out for part of the week so we made the best of a scary rash and tried to get outside. He was tired and didn't last long but the sunshine put us all in a good mood.

 Towards the end of the week Carter started complaining of a stomachache....at 1am. Why does this always have to happen at night?!? Sure enough he started vomiting for most of the night, which meant a day home from school, me sanitizing the ENTIRE house, washing 8 loads of laundry and keeping him quarantined in his room all day. Practically half of his school has had this awful virus so I wasn't shocked but was determined to keep it from spreading through our entire family.

Thank goodness after about 24 hours he was back to normal and the rest of us stayed healthy! That meant a busy Saturday of basketball games for both kids, a grandparent visit, a basketball team party (aka - lots of sugar at a local froyo place) and then a daddy/daughter dance for Lucy and Matt! Could we cram more things into 1 day?

 Lucy was thrilled for a date night with Matt and they looked adorable together. She met up with another friend for a double date. So fun!

 Sunday included teaching Sunday School at church, a wonderful brunch with girlfriends for me, more grocery shopping and a family movie night. Despite all the sickness it ended up being a great weekend. Here's to another week!!

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