perfectly gluttonous peanut butter cake

rotini with pesto and tomatoes...

peanut butter cake smile...

making a wish...


3 lovely blondes...

E was  3 yesterday. He wanted a peanut butter cake. I am not sure where he got the idea from... For reasons I don't completely understand I did not feel like baking. Laziness? only slightly waning and embarrassing obsession with Y.A vampire- love fiction?, small kitchen? I don't know.

I did find a promising cake recipe online. Ezra wanted peanut butter cake and peanut butter frosting. This cake is an improved box cake recipe.  Sigh. Now I can't even pretend I am one of those moms who makes everything from absolute scratch. 

Go to allrecipes.com and look for peanut butter cake II.

vampire love

How come nobody told me that Ritter comes with cornflakes????

So, eventually I will get it together and actually write something substantial but I am feeling overwhelmed, and not in a bad way,  but overwhelmed with the fullness of life right now. Both boys have started school successfully, which means different things for both of them. For H., it means that on his second day of school he got on the bus without hyperventilating, while clutching in his sweaty hand his room number (written on  scotch tape,  just in case he let go). For E. it means that he goes every morning to Walnut Grove and usually doesn't want to come home when Matty picks him up. Every morning after I kiss him I remind him to use the toilet, listen to his teachers and please share with his friends. He informs me that he will listen to his teachers and he will share the trucks but NOT the tractor. Oh well.  I don't feel quite ready to start teaching next week. I am really enjoying my mornings sans children. All of the domestic stuff seems under control, despite the fact that I am obsessed with Vampire -love right now. I have just finished book 2 of the Twilight series and I am hooked.  I am doing everything I can to not start book 3 because once I start I can hardly do anything else. Besides, the sooner I begin the sooner it will all be over. I know it is perhaps a bit pathetic but I will most likely be depressed for a few days when I have finished the series. Matt won't call me Bella and since I have decided he is more like  werewolf than a vampire, I have been calling him Jacob and he looks at me funny whenever I do that. He compares my ravenous reading to an addicts' love of heroin and he seems amused. The last three novels that had this effect on me were: The Time travelors Wife, Villette, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. 

Have to go and do something that will take my mind off reading......

Happy Birthday Matty!!!

freshly laundered patchwork

These were Nana Kitty's...

I think they will be pillow covers.

Sibs, let me know if you want a cushion cover.

I love the vintage prints.
I especially love the pink and brown combo here. 

wiki wiki post -really fast, (if I remember my Hawaiian correctly)

an easy lunch...ny times no knead bread, local fresh tomatoes, gruyere, coarse salt and fresh pepper...broil...et voila
forgive me my flour covered table...

home again, home again, jiggety jig

We were greeted by many overgrown weeds and giant zinnias and cosmos when we arrived.  And  few volunteer nasturtiums, thanks guys.

An overgrown bean vine ( Henry's from school) was climbing all over our gold currant tomatoes. The boys set to work quickly making me a "meal" out of beans, mint and pretzel rods that they had skillfully chopped up with a butter knife.

Henry and Ezra both had open houses for preschool and first grade on Friday. They both went very well. It is a bit early, but we seem to have been blessed with great teachers again. Henry's Ms. Michel gives off a serene, glowy and intelligent vibe. I asked Henry if she seemed sweet and he said "Yes, and she is very pretty too."  Ezra's teacher reminds me of Henry's last year, artsy, clever and motherly. The open houses were a success, both kids seem in good spirits about school. In between visits we learned of great nana's passing. Bittersweet. I had just seen her and felt sure, inside, that it was good bye. She was really suffering so I feel she is in a better place. Tonight we will tell Henry.

36 hours of freedom

museum of fun

or museum of play, in Rochester... my personal faves were the butterfly garden, a mini rainforest inside a sunlight-filled greenhouse swarming with exotic butterflies, turtles and mini quail of some sort. I also loved the old toy exhibits, especially the dollhouses. There is something eerie and other worldly about the perfectly furnished, exquisite dollhouses. The dolls are beautiful and they look as if they are haunting the houses they inhabit...

butterfly garden

Curtis

 Curt doesn't even read my blog but I can't leave him out. Curt is learning how to build boats and sail them in Maine. He is cool without even trying, at all.  He has an effortless style. He gives fantastic hugs. He is hilariously funny. He eats way too much. He has great teeth. He once gave all of his sisters pearl earrings for Christmas, just because (and we don't even exchange gifts with everyone). He is super sweet and sensitive. His girlfriend is awesome. My favorite brother.

Amy

Smells better than anyone I have ever met, modeled pearls at Tiffany's because of glowing skin, reads children's books and gets paid for it, sets the best table and makes the best bed, voracious reader, bluest eyes ever seen, gives amazing manicures, takes care of me like only older sisters can, wonderful auntie, gives best presents, one of my favorite sisters...  

Molly

Funny, Smart, athletic, awesome biceps, amazing aunt, lactose intolerant, loves to talk about b.ms, can hip hop dance like no other white person I know, broke Olivia Shea's running records at SCCS, unbelievably talented artist, can draw anything,  loves to eat, gives great hugs....one of my favorite sisters...

self cleaning oven my a@#

So today I cleaned my mother's oven with a razor, vinegar and palmolive. I am pretty sure this is the only time in my life when I will simultaneously be thinking of Sylvia Plath and Amelia Bedelia. 

the berkshires

a photo of aunt sheila and a beau that i love...

charlie got posted twice...

sara picking blackberries...


the main lodge...
we sleep in the bunkhouse...

salamander and frog searching

molly might hate me for this picture but i think she is always lovely...

What I did not capture: vibrant (a.k.a noisy and yummy) meals. It is difficult to wield a camera and a glass of wine while keeping an eye on two boys. I did not get many pictures of people either, though they were plentiful. It was a whirlwind weekend. We had lots of fun.

off to the berkshires...

We are off to Hayes Pond Camp in Otis, MA. for our annual family reunion. It is a rowdy weekend of almost too much food, hugs, volume, shmancy booze, beautiful women, men with ample calves, pool, ping pong, rowing, swimming, compliments, loud singing, avoiding bears, carved mahogany doors, expensive lamps, reading, card games, automatic espresso, long walks, poison ivy, family reunion tee shirts, artistic southern uncles and his friends, beloved siblings, amazing grilled steaks and portabella mushrooms, a closet carpeted with (circa early nineties) stuffed animals  for the young'ins...did I say too much food? Photos coming...

Moby Dick or The Whale...or The Whale Kelly Will Become if She Continuously Eats Chocolate While She Reads The Whale...

Who else has read  Moby Dick? I know Molly has. I started it, just because. And maybe it is one of those classics, that takes awhile to get into... The writing is exquisite. My copy also has the original illustrations. I thought it wouldn't be such a trial to read, after all, whaling is in my blood, my mother's grandfather and his brothers were all whaling merchants. Plus, I love reading. And the length does not intimidate me at all.  I think it might be that I miss a feminine voice to relate to. If only Ishmael was a woman...Okay I'll stop whining now. 

Some of my favorite bits so far...

" Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping onto the street, and methodically knocking peoples hats off- then, I account it high time to get to the sea as soon as I can."

" ...a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it."

" Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal."