It Was A Spa-tacular Time!

This past weekend I had the privilege of celebrating Rachel's 40th birthday with her and her closest friends. Her thoughtful and generous hubby provided us with a fabulous spa weekend in Calistoga that included massages and a facial or body polish for everyone.
We stayed in the cutest cottage and had a great time. When we weren't having spa time, we were either in the hot tub,


eating out, or hanging out playing board games and having fun girl time. It was really generous! almost felt like it was my 40th birthday (ha!) Mine is just around the corner and now I feel like the bar has been set really high on how I'm going to celebrate it. The other amazing thing about this weekend was that it was my first time away from the twins, yes I know they're 3 now and it was long overdue. I missed them and felt a bit anxious about being away, but there was something also very freeing about it....a sense that yes I do exist beyond my children. Thanks Rachel for a fabulous weekend hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

ps. yes Max we tailgated in your car lol! We stopped in St.Helena and did a little shopping..decided to have lunch.

Blogging Hiatus

Well it's been an unplanned blogging hiatus and I'm surprised to how much time has gone by. Wish I could say we I haven't been blogging because we've been having just a very busy fabulous time with all kinds of great activities but the truth of it all is that we've been sick. First was a stomach flu that plowed through 4 family members in 48 hours leaving us wiped out, and now boys are sick again with bad colds, lots of yucky congestion, coughing spasms leading to vomitting and just overall low energy. I guess this is what happens when you start a new school, lots of new germs to be had too! MIles in Liam started preschool this past week and instantly became ill, bummer. The one highlight during this blogging hiatus, was a mommy trip to the spa to celebrate a friend's 40th birthday....stay tuned, blog entry about this grand ol time to come soon!

And They Turned 3

So hard to believe Miles and Liam turned 3 today. Although sadly we had to cancel their birthday party this weekend due to illness, we were able to have a small family celebration today with grandma and grandpa. Since the boys love Japanese food we thought it appropriate to take them to Sushi House. They got to enjoy their favorites, tonkatsu and tamago nigiri.


Following dinner we came home and enjoyed 2 birthday cakes, a chocolate eruption for Liam and a Chantilly for Miles, perfectly paired to their likes.



They were both so excited to blow out their candles. After cake of course came presents...a bulldozer and wheel loader from grandma and grandpa and jammies from mom and dad.

The Trick's On Us

It's been really busy around here with lots of activity leading up to Halloween. Most recently we had some friends over for pumpkin carving and butternut squash lasagna dinner, mmm one of my favorite meals of the Fall season.

We had an early Halloween celebration at Miles and Liam's day care which included their last day at daycare celebration.


We had dinner with friends, supporting Aidan's school fundraiser, Red Boy pizza with %15 of the proceeds going back to the school.

I did lots of prep work for Aidan's kindergarten Halloween party, made these fun treat bags,


baked these yummy cupcakes

using this yummy recipe from Everyday Food. Was so excited to go to Aidan's Halloween parade and class party but....this is when things took a turn for the worse. Night before the party, Liam is suddenly overcome by a stomach flu. It's been two nights of no sleep, one late afternoon visit to the doctor and multiple clothing and bedding changes. I've lost count of how many loads of laundry we've had to do. And yet worse, we've had to cancel Miles and Liam's birthday party which was scheduled for Nov 1st. Thankfully I was able to cancel the cake order with no cancellation fees. Now we're on the road to recovery. Hoping you all have a Happy Halloween with lots of yummy treats!

Update: just as a I thought we were on the mend, Miles is now vomitting :(

Gluttony Games Not For Me

I really have a hard time with food related games. You know the kind, who can eat the most hot dogs, dumplings, pies etc. in a period of time. Or the kind they had today at our school event, eating a donut dangling from a string. I just find this to be completely wasteful and shameful behavior. With people starving all over the world and some in our own country, how can we think taking part in such activity is OK? I'm also disturbed about the message it sends our kids. That food here is in such abundance we can waste it engaging in repulsive games of just pure gluttony.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of parent that makes their kids clean their plates and forces them to eat food they don't like so it's not wasted. I let them make food choices, but I do request that they try things, if they don't like it they don't have to eat it. I also encourage them not to waste food, in doing so, that also means not participating in food games.

My thoughts are this, especially now with food banks struggling to keep up with the current demands of people in need of a meal, we as a society should think twice about engaging in this kind of activity. But yet, we still seem to see it on reality TV shows, at county fairs and school events just to name a few. These are all public events that send the wrong message to our kids. How about teaching our kids to be thankful for the food we have and the access to so many choices, teaching them to share with those in need...not how many hot dogs can I possibly gorge myself with.

Mmmm Baking, Yummy or Not??

We're having a Harvest Festival as a fundraiser event tomorrow at Aidan's school. It should be fun for the kids, there will be games, food and haunted house fun. Of course, I volunteered to provide a baked good for the fundraiser. Simple request, right? Shouldn't be a problem, I bake often. I decided this was something Aidan and I could do together. I found this recipe for Halloween blondies.


Aidan and I had fun together, putting the M&Ms on and eating them too (insert grin). But, something went horribly wrong, they came out salty and greasy. Not sure what happened. I'm pretty sure I used the right amount of butter, I'm certain it was unsalted. I felt terrible when I had to tell Aidan they were bad. The look of disappointment on his face just pulls at me. If that weren't bad enough I now had to whip something else up to deliver to the bake sale coordinator house tonight at a decent hour (this gave me approximately an hour). So I went into "think quick, what do I have mode" oatmeal and some Halloween M&Ms...whaalaaa.



I quickly made 2 dozen oatmeal M&M cookies, let them cool just a bit, stacked them with wax paper in between so they wouldn't stick, called over the neighbor to watch the boys for 10 minutes (hubby was out) while I ran them over. Phew!! Got them to her house at 8:52, half an hour later than I would have liked but all in all not absurdly late.

Urban Farming: Our Neighbors The Chickens

Our neighbors across the street have become of great interest to the boys. They really enjoy going over there and visiting, especially when it comes time to looking for that special treat. I'm talking about the chickens the rooster and the baby chicks soon to be chickens too, they grow up so fast. Their owner Robin is just lovely too, and he's been so kind with the boys to share the whole urban farming experience with them. The biggest treat is when they get to check the coop for eggs. This last visit produced an extra large light blue egg that they were all fascinated with. Actually it created a whole scrimmage between them over who got to hold the egg, you would have thought it was golden.

Along with the chickens, he has a fabulous garden that has also sparked interest in the boys. Aidan was trying to guess what was growing on some of the plants which was a bit unfair to him I should add since he doesn't even know what some of them are. For instance, he was never going to guess tomatillo, not even part of his vocabulary. So truly it's made for a fun learning experience!

Yes, Miles has been there too but he's managed to escape the camera.