Meine Kleine Liebchens

totally been slacking again

2010-06-04T17:48:00.001-07:00

I have super busy with the end of the school year. This is the end of week 1 out of school and am looking forward to a fun filled jam packed summer full of park play dates and maybe some mommy ones too. Here is a picture of the end of year gift I made for Morgan's teacher and my friend. My anal retentive side cringes from the imperfection of the quilt but it was made with love.

Since I have a whole summer ahead of me I should really work on the faerie quilt I started 3 years ago.

Aurora has turned into quite a little artist. She is really looking forward to camp at the co-op this summer since it is Alumni Art Camp. Not only does she gets to see her friends from the co-op but she gets a week of art projects. Her elementary school has a program where you can purchase stuff made from the kids artwork so I got a quilt square and will make her a quilt with her art from her school years. Future wedding present maybe?

The girls have been doing ballet. They both love it. They had a performance at the end of the session. I was really surprised how well they did because when I would spy through the window during class it always looked like they were completely lost. I plan on putting Aurora in a more formal program next school year.

Well that is all the rambling for now. Here is hoping it isn't another couple of months before I post again.

Basket full of yumminess

2010-04-10T09:52:00.000-07:00

Today was another pick up for Bountiful Baskets. Once again I was really happy with my purchase. The organic basket is only $25 and I got

3 squash
a bag of green beans
head of romaine lettuce
Swiss chard
head of broccoli
4 zucchini
1 package of grape tomatoes
7 gala apples
3 grapefruit
8 pears
and 1 package of divine smelling strawberries

I also got the Italian add on for another $6

1 eggplant
2 yellow onions
1 red onion
1 zucchini
1 garlic bulb
Italian parsley
1 package of mushrooms
a bag of fresh herbs that I am not 100% sure what they are. I think Rosemary, basil, and something.

Showing up in the mornings if always fun, even though it is a little early for my taste on a Saturday morning. You never know exactly what you will be getting until you are there. This week there wasn't anything too new and exotic which is always kinda fun because it makes me really think about how to use the produce. This week it was just some of my favorite produce. We already have finished off the strawberries and they tasted as good as they looked.

Easter eggs revisted

2010-04-10T09:47:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Cecilia's recipe for dying with natural made dyes I was able to salvage the oh so ugly eggs.

Dying gone wrong

2010-03-30T19:51:00.000-07:00

I was so excited to get my produce that would help dye the eggs. With Aurora's red dye problems the last 3 years have been ongoing experiments with getting our eggs dyed. This year is yet another failed experiment. At least this year I started with all white eggs.

Purple

Green

Orange

I forgot to get a picture of the Blue and in my stupid editing I just erased the pink/red and the yellow. Teach me to erase the photos before I am done.
These are suppose to be purple

These are suppose to be red and green

And these are suppose to be yellow, orange, and blue

The yellow turned out pretty good but the orange, red, and purple all just kinda look brown. And the blue are a really ugly color grey. I am hoping that by some scientific miracle that tomorrow morning when I go check on them in the fridge they will be the right colors. Maybe next year we will just do plastic colored eggs.

Dinner

2010-03-13T18:53:00.000-08:00

Well it has been awhile since I have blogged. Okay, a really really long while. I was inspired today.

This morning I went and picked up my first basket of fruits and veggies from bountiful baskets.
These are all my goodies from the organic basket:
A bag of romaine lettuce
2 eggplants
a leek
2 bunches of dill
3 tomatoes
a whole bunch of potatoes (I did spell check and both came up spelling right so which one is it not toes at the end?)
2 squash
a bunch of asparagus
4 oranges
6 kiwi
a bag of 3 lb gala apples
and the cutest little pineapple ever.

This is my Mexican pack that I also got.
a bag of some kind of red dried chili's
5 jalapenos
4 avocados
2 squash
a bunch of little limes
a yellow onion
a bunch of green onion
a garlic bulb
and last but not least a whole lot of cilantro

So I am looking at my spoils thinking what yummy stuff do I get to cook for dinner. The asparagus was a given. MMMMMM it was yummy. I also had a whole chicken I really needed to cook so my little Mexican pack got me inspired. Here is my before.

I used the vita-mix and pureed the orange and then just started adding other stuff(I got the agave from the cupboard) and then poured in on the chicken and cooked it in the oven. We have a new dish, a cast iron roasting dish, and I think all future chicken must be cooked in this thing. The chicken was a hit because for the first time in a really really really long time I got a complement not a complaint at dinner.

Aurora goes to 1st grade

2009-08-24T19:47:00.000-07:00

Today Aurora started the 1st grade. It was rather uneventful dropping her off. I wanted pictures of course but she was more interested in playing with her friends. It really helped that she knew most of the kids from doing the bodies camp this summer and knew her teacher today from the preschool. At pick up she did not want to leave, she was too busy playing still. Tonight we got to do spelling homework and some vocabulary.

The Lovold Family goes to the beach

2009-08-16T17:22:00.000-07:00

This was Morgan's first trip to the beach. I am not a huge fan of the beaches in California. I think it has to do with hearing about beach closures after the rain every year growing up in Orange County. The day started out with the intention of going bowling but Morgan fell asleep right after we left the condo so we decided to drive to Balboa Island so we could ride the ferry. Morgan woke up as we were going across the little bay and the girls were very excited by all the boats and water so we decided we would find a beach to stop at.

We headed up PCH from Newport Beach in search of "Morgan's Beach" or so she told us the whole time in the car. The first stop was a Huntington State beach. They wanted $10 for us to park the car so we kept on driving. Then the Huntington City Beach...they wanted more. We finally found some meter parking and Morgan informed us she didn't like this beach because it was too big. Since it was a dog park and she has issues with dogs we drove a little more. We found meter parking on the street pretty close to the pier so we stopped and got out. Again the beach was too big but after all that drama we were done searching for good parking and unfortunately for Morgan no matter where we stopped it was going to wind up being "too big". She was wary of the water area for a while but eventually warmed up to the whole thing enough to get to where the sand was still a little wet. Aurora was running into the water and running away from the coming waves having a great time. They hunted for seashells and dug in the sand. I am still not a fan of the beach but it was a fun day.

Today at the phlebotomist

2009-08-05T15:48:00.000-07:00

Well today truly was awful at the the phlebotomist. Having Aurora in my lap trying to hold her down to have them draw her blood was unsuccessful and not fun for either of us. Who knew a 5 year old could be strong enough that I was unable to hold her still. We wound up leaving the office without her blood being drawn,

I called the pediatrician's nurses line. So on Friday we are headed back to get it done with a trip to the pediatrician's office first. They are going to put numbing stuff on her arm, the stuff they use during circumcisions. Wish us luck!

7 Years ago today.

2009-02-02T16:32:00.000-08:00

Wow I really miss my husband's grandparents. This last year would have been really fun to hear what his Grandma, the 1st E Lovold, thought of this election and everything else happening in life.

Well, two days latter I finally have time to look at all my picture cds looking for my red rock pictures. It seems my precious children have been playing around in the dvd/cd area again(or maybe it was a while ago since it has been awhile since I have pulled them out). I should have know better than to keep them with all the other DVDs where the kids might open them up. Maybe I will find them in the print photo area. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

A New President

2009-01-20T20:11:00.000-08:00

This has been a very long political season. Our caucuses were a year and a day ago but it feels like two years ago. I was very happy to be able to be a part of the process this last year. By luck and a little bit of canvassing I was able to see our new president with a group of about 150 other precinct captains.

From there I had a little more luck and was elected to go to our county convention at Bally's. Ughh that was a long day and I forgot to bring my camera that day. I had both Morgan and Aurora in the double stroller and they enjoyed the chanting of "Obama" and "Hillary". Aurora really wanted a Hillary pin but I wasn't able to get one from any of the Hillary advocates. We(Aurora and Morgan) got lots of comments about their Obama shirts and a couple of delegates who wanted the girls picture. Whoever planned the convention messed things up a bit. We had 8,000 show for a room only fitting 5,000. Finally after a really long day it was decided that we would have a re-do convention on April 12th. I submitted my name to go to the state and national conventions. On April 12th I got a great birthday present, I was on my way to Reno for the state convention in May.

The State convention was a really neat experience that I never thought I would ever experience. I got to see all our state Representatives speak, some definitely better than others. I got to meet people that have been life long activists and people brand new to the process. We got to hear an advocate for both candidates. Never in my life would I have thought that I would get to hear Bill Clinton speak in person. He takes up a whole room, maybe that is why some of the other speakers seemed kinda weak(Harry Reid). I was also grossly unprepared for running for a spot to the national convention. People had buttons, bracelets, and fliers all about why they needed to be sent to Denver. I wanted to go but knew I didn't have much of a chance. Aurora and Morgan got to see a little bit of this convention but they spent most of their time at the park with my mom.

I am happy that my canvassing, phone banking, and convention attending resulted in today, the inauguration of Barack Obama. I am also happy I finally got Aurora that Hillary button that I will save for her for when she gets older.

Desert trip

2008-12-30T18:50:00.001-08:00

Christmas

2008-12-29T18:31:00.001-08:00

Christmas at our house starts with the tradition of going out on Christmas Eve to go look at Christmas decorations. While we are gone Santa never fails to leave a pair of brand new pajamas for the Children in the house. My mom got them as a girl and so did I. Aurora thought that maybe he brought them so he could make sure the girls had a good deep nights sleep and wouldn't wake up when he came back later to deliver the rest of the presents. I thought that the idea of magic pj's was a good way to think of it.

When we got home we decided that since we were having a bit of an ant problem in the condo we would leave a note for Santa on the fridge to help himself to the cookie plate and milk in the fridge because we didn't want any ants in his treats. Aurora also wanted to add what she wanted for Christmas because we never mailed a letter off. Santa was nice enough to rinse his plate when he was done and put it in the sink so we were ant free Christmas morning.

We spent the morning opening presents and both girls really liked the doll house that Santa brought. My new year's resolution is that next Christmas there will be no presents that involve parental assembly before Christmas morning. Aurora was a little disappointed that morning because there were no dress up clothes(Santa must have know because that weekend camping in the desert she go them from her grandma) and the superhero cape/ridding hood that I made her for her present wound up being too big. Morgan had a great morning and really digs seeing "Hanta" on stuff. She really got into the whole thing this year.

That afternoon we went to grandma's house for dinner and more presents. The girls really got a kick out of the new pinball machine grandpa had gotten to take out to the desert house.

Getting the Christmas tree

2008-12-29T17:39:00.000-08:00

We arrived in SoCal on Sunday night and Monday was too busy for Dave at work for us to go out so we went the night before Christmas Eve. It was rainy so the girls got bundled up good.

As you can see Aurora has entered a new phase in her life. The mommy stop aiming that stupid camera at me all the time phase.

The tree lot was empty except for us but there were lots of trees left. There were some really nice looking trees but man they sure got expensive. We didn't really like the idea of spending $50-$75 for a tree when Christmas was so close. We were going to leave to go check out another lot when the worker offered us 1/2 off so we picked out one we liked and loaded into the back of the truck.

Dave wrapped the lights around with a little help from Morgan while Aurora made herself her own mini Christmas tree from the clippings from the bottom of the tree. Aurora was extremely happy we got the tree and finally gave up saying "when are we going to get a tree?" over and over again. Morgan was looking forward to "hanta" coming to visit.

We didn't do any other decorations on the tree because we didn't want to bring them all with us but we were all really happy with how pretty the tree was.

Travelling to SoCal

2008-12-21T13:41:00.000-08:00

I have decided that I just do not enjoy packing up stuff to travel for vacation during Christmas. I keep on feeling like I am forgetting something. Packing up for the family is stressful enough for a regular vacation and I have added presents to the mix. Now I remember why after I Christmas in Chicago 3 years ago I said no more travelling over Christmas. Too bad it just makes more sense for us to go back with Dave now not after Christmas. That would have entailed 3 separate trips back and forth for Dave and even though the price of gas and diesel has gone down a lot I just can't see spending that extra trip that we don't have to. Well enough procrastinating....I need to get back to packing.