Hair salon

The girls set up shop in the bathroom for a beauty parlor, but I'm not sure I would recommend their services...

unless you are comfortable with a metal wisk and a medical syringe being part of your treatment!  Ouch!

Budget-friendly daddy-dates

We've been able maintain one of our favorite activities on our newly tightened seminary budget by having daddy-dates at home instead of at the ice cream shop.  The girls LOVED going to the bulk section of our grocery store to pick out candy toppings.   

I realized my standard answer to their frequent question of "can we get candy today?" when we get groceries is "No, not this time," so to have a grocery store trip with daddy for the singular purpose of buying ice cream and candy was super exciting. 

I think we figured that for the price of one outing to the ice cream shop we got at least 4-5 home daddy-dates (plus some minimal snitching in between, which was minimal not because of my strong self-discipline but because Joel hid the candy from the rest of us in between "date nights").

Oliver's Tree

When we moved we took Oliver's memorial tree with us in a half-wine barrel planter.  I was thrilled to see it budding this spring and so thankful it survived the long freezes this winter and our move.  The timing was perfect and exactly what I had hoped for when I picked it out (it was a memorial gift from Joel's aunts and uncles, it is a dwarf weeping cherry tree, var. Snow Fountains).

It budded out at the very end of February,

and was covered in an abundance of little white flowers for almost the entire month of March:

We placed it right outside our living room window, just by the front door, and it was a beautiful way to remember our little one throughout the month of his birthday and memorial day.  I loved having its branches filling our window with such lovely, sweet blooms.   The picture below doesn't quite do it justice, but you get the idea.  

I planted some flowering summer bulbs around the base, so now that the tree is full of green leaves there is color filling the pot underneath.  The birds have discovered the tree's ornamental berries, and have been amusing the girls and the cats by flying up so close to the house to pick the fruit!

Portraits

Barnaby and Gideon rarely pose so well for a portrait together.  I have thank whatever it was that captivated their attention at just the right time of day for good natural light through the window.  Gideon had been recently shaved so that's why he's sporting an odd fur line around his neck and a poodle tail.  

They can cause plenty of trouble at times, but there's something so nice about a little furry friend who likes to be hugged while he rides on your shoulder.  (If he's not sleeping on the printer and you won't let him lay on the keyboard while you type, Barnaby often tries to climb on our shoulder as an alternative perch!) 

Sidewalk art

Our little duplex, though less than half the size of our old house, offers many exciting features that are perfect for aspiring young explorers - a fenced in back yard! - and artists - a plain sidewalk begging for chalk murals! 

Elsa's doll

Elsa loves crafts, especially real ones (e.g. real swing, not lacing toys) that she can do mostly by herself.  She has become quite good at stitching, and after being inspired by one of our school story books, decided she wanted to make herself a doll.  And so she did!

I helped with the hair and a bit of the measuring, but that's about it!

Allergen-free baking success!

According to a blood test I did three years ago I have "delayed-onset hypersensitivity" food allergies to gluten, dairy, eggs, beef, yeast, and sugar cane.  I had eaten these things all my life, but I found that when I stopped eating them (cold turkey, hard core, really did not eat any of it, no cheating), for the first time that I could remember I had consistent and plentiful energy, fewer and less extreme mood swings, and no digestive pains.  This is not an easy diet to maintain, and since I don't have an anaphylactic reaction to any of it, I "cheat" regularly, but try to stay pretty strict in terms of what I make for the family at home (I've noticed that the girls do better on my allergen-free diet as well, but they have not been tested).

Anyway, all that as an introduction to say that I have found allergen-free baking to be HARD.  Sure, there are plenty of straightforward recipes online and it is easy to learn about all the substitute ingredients you can use, but to get a gluten-, egg-, butter-, milk-, sugar cane-free muffin to taste like what my brain says a muffin should taste like is the hard part.  So that's why the photos below are worthy of a blog post on this blog that has nothing to do with baking - I have finally had not one, but TWO successes!  I have had small successes in the past, but these two baked goods have turned out good multiple times REALLY taste like the REAL things and still taste good the next day and the next week after being in the freezer.  So I am very happy about them.  

May I present Orange Scones:

And Banana Bread or Banana Muffins:

And the only thing normal in them is the fruit, and the olive oil in the muffins! 

(I wasn't going to bore you all with the recipes, but in anyone who wants them just let me know.)

(And, to be honest, since I took these photos back in February, I have been craving everything that is bad for me - sugar, gluten, dairy, any and all of it. And I have been eating all of it.  Lots of it.  And it is probably one reason I have been feeling so tired and yucky.  I'm going to claim that it is all the baby's fault.  It has nothing to do with my emotional state of mind or lack of self control.)