Sometimes Heading off the Path is Better

We are learning a lot as we continue setting out to explore this enormous city we live in, and today we learned another valuable lesson when it comes to exploring this morning! Thanks to the super cool book I wrote about last time we went out adventuring, we found another new place to play today.  We thought we'd take advantage of the gorgeous November weather (okay, it's almost too warm for me!) and packed up to head down to the Beverly area of LA to Pan Pacific Park, a public park that had a train theme to it.  Seeing as how our little guy is obsessed with choo-choos and we've had a lot of fun exploring the variety of public parks LA has to offer we thought we'd check it out.

The playground was pretty cool, although I'm not sure there was anything about it that made it exceptionally stand out from other playgrounds we've been to.  It did have a "train" to drive, but it wasn't quite what we had pictured.  Aidan did love "driving" but it didn't hold his attention for all that long.

 The choo choo to drive

Peek a boo!

He was too busy telling me what letters were on the sign to look at the camera apparently.

 

 The Pan Pacific Park

Exploring with daddy

Unfortunately, there was a little boy at the park who had a little ride-on car that my little "driver" got obsessed with and could not get over the fact that it wasn't his to ride.  So once he saw that and was told no, he wanted nothing to do with the rest of the park.  We had to change scenery, so I suggested we go exploring down some of the paths in the park.  We couldn't figure out what kind of "garden" we ended up in, but upon more exploring realized it was part of the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum.  It was very cool, a 2 minute walk across the park we had been in. 

So we kept exploring the museum, and found some powerful outdoor memorials...

A wall where you could places notes or thoughts into little holes, like a wailing wall.

Outside were huge pillars with some of the history written on them year by year throughout the WWII era. (That would be Aidan there in the background playing with the water fountain....hey whatever kept him occupied was fine with me!)

We wandered inside just to look, and found that it was a free museum and we were the only ones there at the time.  We obviously couldn't spend much time looking at anything with a toddler running around, but I snapped a few photos and we definitely would love to come back minus the little one.

Part of a display about the Jewish faith and monotheism.  This is a Hebrew scroll of part of the Old Testament which I thought was so beautiful.

It's a museum with very little to read, they really encourage you to do the audio tour (which we obviously couldn't do today), but this was the display of people who resisted the Nazis--Miep Gies, Anne Frank and Oskar Schindler being some of them.

Back outside crunching the few leaves that had fallen.

Our initial plan was to finish at the park and then drive over to have lunch at The Grove, but when we looked at our maps we realized The Grove was just across the park, so we loaded Aidan into the stroller and set off for a quick 5 minute walk.  We arrived at The Grove to find a ginormous Christmas tree.  I feel like it's a bit early for this especially since it was 80 degrees, but it was beautiful against such a blue sky! (Aidan was 100% NOT impressed by the way.  I had told him there was a Choo Choo at The Grove (a little trolley that runs up and down the shopping plaza) and he was busy looking for that.  Which doesn't start running til 1 PM by the way--we were there at 11:30--so needless to say someone was a tiny bit cranky about not seeing the choo choo AND not getting to drive the "little car!" at the park...whoops!)

I love the fountain here, I could watch it for quite awhile.

So could Aidan :)

We had a bit of drama figuring out where to eat--we were going to eat at The Farmer's Market but we ended up at Johnny Rocket's instead...not super unique but a place we all enjoy that was going to be fast, relatively inexpensive and with high chairs :)

Um and they have butterfinger milkshakes.  Definitely a plus!

Aidan is now officially a bit fan of "mook shakes!"

So today we learned is that sometimes the original "adventure" isn't all that cool, but at least in LA if you walk a few minutes in one way or another you will undoubtedly find something else worth exploring, which is such an awesome thing about our city.  We're looking forward to what our next opportunity to explore might have in store for us!

Aidan's Adventures

One of the things we're trying to be really intentional about as a family is having adventures together. We realized recently how easy it can be for a weekend to roll around and instead of thinking about what we want to do with our time we just kind of let it pass and pretty soon the weekend is over without us doing anything meaningful, memorable or fun together.  Aidan and I head out on a lot of adventures throughout the week--both of us get a little stir crazy just sitting at home so I am thankful there are a TON of places I can take him within 30 minutes of us that often don't cost a lot (definitely one of the perks of living in LA!).  However, daddy doesn't get to come with us very often, so if we wanted to start making some family memories we needed to be intentional about our Saturdays together.  It turns out that our first MOPS speaker of this year was a woman whose life's mission and passion was just that--helping families have fun, educational adventures together around Southern California.  Susan Peterson was an AWESOME speaker and shared her book with us, Fun and Educational Places to Go With Kids and Adults in Southern California.  She talked about the importance and value of getting out and having experiences together as a family, and exposing our kids to a variety of places and situations.  She was a homeschooling mom of 3 active boys who hated just sitting at home, so when her boys were young (they are now in their 20s) she just started taking them places, anywhere she could find, as part of their education.  She started writing down all the places they went and eventually it became a book (which is now in its 9th edition and 846 pages long!).  She motivated me once again to continue thinking outside the box and be willing to try new places and things (which isn't necessarily my strong point!).

So this past weekend, even though I was fighting a cold, we decided there was no time like the present to start working through her book (at least the LA County places!) and try a new place or two together. After taking it easy for the morning to rest a bit, we set off. We ended up choosing a free public park but it caught our attention as we flipped through the pages because it's name is Aidan's Place, named after a little boy with disabilities who passed away.  What's awesome is that her book is broken down by county, and then into categories.  So I went to the LA County "Great Outdoors" section to find a park or outdoor adventure for us, and then I went to the LA County "Edible Adventures" section to find somewhere fun for us to eat dinner.  Such a great book--if you are living in Southern Cal and need a gift idea for a family--this one is awesome and available on line--she tells you EVERYTHING you need to know about visiting a place--how much it costs, how long you'll spend there, if it's good for birthday parties, how to get there, hours, recommended ages etc!  Anyways! Enough with the sale's pitch :)  We started our adventure at Aidan's Place, a park in West LA, just off the 405 in Westwood Park. It was a fantastic park--fully handicapped accessible, which also means great for a toddler because there are fewer things for him to fall off of or have trouble maneuvering on his own.  It also has an amazing sand play area that is set up for kids of all abilities to be able to enjoy this sensory experience.

This kid LOVES to drive anything and everything!

I loved that the little boy whose name this park has spelled Aidan the same way we do!

Beautiful random park in the middle of a big city!

A great sand play area--kids who are in wheel chairs can still access the sand in buckets atop those platforms.

I love that I snapped the camera just as he was making the "thank you" sign to a little girl who gave him back his bucket!

After about an hour and a half of sliding, scooping, driving and running around we packed up to head to our next stop on the adventure--dinner inside a choo choo!  (We knew this would be a hit with the train-obsessed toddler!)  We headed to Carney's, which I'd never heard of but is apparently a famous LA landmark known for their hot dogs (and other yummy, but not so healthy dishes!)  There are two Carney's, which we learned the hard way. One is NOT as close to our house, on Sunset Strip, which of course is where we went.  The other is in Studio City, which is the one I thought my iphone was taking us to.  Whoops!  (she did tell us that in the book, but I wasn't paying attention when I pulled up Yelp's reviews....) Oh well, it was fun to see another part of LA--although the toddler stuck in his car seat while we navigated Sunset Blvd's Saturday afternoon traffic was less than thrilled...

 They took 3 train cars and turned them into a fast-food type restaurant that sells a variety of hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, chili-cheese fries (which they are famous for--and they were delicious!) and some healthier options--wraps and grilled tacos.  We would definitely visit here again, Aidan thought it was so good I had to go order him a second hot dog (which he ate--yikes!) so he'd leave my food alone! 

It was a gorgeous fall day, and we are all glad we had an adventure together--now we're looking forward to our next one!

Monthly Menu (October 2013)

Hey friends!  So meal planning seems to be coming up in a lot of conversations I've been having lately with folks (perhaps because in our crazy busy world we all have to be strategic about thinking through meals in order to make them happen!).  Several of you saw my random instagram picture with my cookbooks out and asked me if I'd share what I came up with and how I go about putting together a monthly menu, so I thought I'd share on here what I'm cooking this month, but also a bit about how and why I do put time into meal planning for our family.  Feel free to try any recipes--if you click on each recipe name it will take you to the recipe itself--either at another website or it will take you to my personal recipe blog, a blog I started awhile ago in attempts to organize and keep recipes in one spot.  I don't tend to use it as much any more (thanks to Pinterest) but I added several of these to that page for this month so you can find them if you'd like to try some of these.  Happy cooking!

The "Why?"
One of the questions I get is "why do you take the time to menu plan?  Don't you just buy a standard list of ingredients and then just cook what sounds good each day?"  I know that method works for some folks, but it really does not work for me.  Quite honestly, I menu plan because without a plan in place at the start of a week I get a little stressed.   We have a lot of evening commitments with my husband's job and various things I do at the church, and we have a little boy who likes to be entertained as much as possible, so if I waited until 4 every afternoon to see what inspired me or sounded good we would end up eating quesadillas every night of the week because they are simple and I know my child loves them :)  I love waking up in the morning knowing what is for dinner so if it's something that will be more labor intensive I can start prepping during nap time, or I know what kind of meat to pull out of the freezer to start thawing.  I also menu plan because if I'm inspired to make something like a soup, chances are there are going to be a few things on the recipe list I don't have.  I have tried substituting things and sometimes that works great, and others it's a bit of a train wreck, so I've learned sticking relatively close to the recipe works well for me!  To make multiple trips to the grocery store each week for random items I don't have takes a lot of extra time and usually results in way too many impulse buys that I don't need.  So for me, I need a plan in place by Sunday evening of what meals I'm going to prepare that week and what items I'll need from the store for one shopping trip I usually do on Monday morning.  We are not big "lunch meat" sandwich folks in our house, so most of our lunches are made up of leftovers from the night before (I LOVE leftovers!), so some families may only need to cook 3 times a week and eat left overs the other dinners, but our left overs usually go to lunches.  That means I do need to cook dinners most nights, but if the meals are simple I don't mind.

The "How?"
Everyone has a different menu planning method.  Some do theirs by the week, others by the month.  Everyone has different ways of narrowing down recipes and choosing what meals they'd like to make as well.  I have gone through cycles over the years of how I go about this, but what has been working really well for me this past year is to sit down during the last week of the previous month and come up with a menu for the whole month.  Why?  Mostly because I like to drag all the cookbooks, pinterest pages etc out once instead of every week.  It takes a bit longer to do 4 weeks of menus at once, but once you get a system in place it doesn't have to be super time consuming, and I love having it done and out of the way.  I can usually finish it all during one of my kiddo's naps (and he NEVER naps longer than an hour and a half on a GOOD day!)  I don't make 4 weeks of grocery lists at once.  I tried that for awhile and it took WAY too much time for me, so I have my meals chosen a month at a time, and Sunday evenings I'll look at the next 5-6 recipes and make my list for that next week.  

It can be overwhelming looking at the sheer numbers of recipes out there while trying to decide which ones to make.  Thanks to the internet the possibilities are endless!  I love cookbooks but sometimes I get so focused on yummy looking pinterest recipes I never open my cookbooks, and that makes me a bit sad :)  So the way I choose recipes (and have for about a year now) is to have each night of the week be focused on one type of food all the way through the month.  So for instance, some months every Monday is Mexican food at our house and Thursdays might be a night focused on various kinds of chicken dishes.  This particular season finds me in Pasadena working with a Fuller class every Monday & I don't get home til almost 7.  I needed to have dinner ready for my husband and little one much earlier than that, so for the next two months, every Monday night in our house will be a crock pot meal that Charles can serve to himself and Aidan when Aidan needs to eat.  My "themes" for each night change throughout the seasons as our schedules change and as the type of foods we like to eat throughout the year change.  I don't usually assign a night to "soup" in July, and December isn't usually when I have "a summer salad" night of the week.  Some of you are thinking I put WAY too much time into thinking about this but to me it's really fun coming up with new categories, and then it makes my recipe choosing SO much easier because I've narrowed it down a bit (instead of looking at all my food pins on pinterest I may only go to my "soup" board or the "sandwich" section of my latest cookbook).

For this month, here are my "categories:" 

Sundays are always leftover night where we clean out whatever needs to be finished before the next week starts. 
Monday: Crock Pot Meals
Tuesday: Family Favorites (I love trying new recipes but I realized with all the new recipes I try I forget to make some standby favorites like teriyaki burgers, meat loaf and roasted sweet potatoes, the lettuce wraps we love etc. So this month I dedicated one night a week to pulling out a favorite I know all 3 of us love that I know how to make easily). 
Wednesday: Soup & Bread
Thursday: Mexican food
Friday: Italian inspired foods
Saturday: Fancy sandwiches (we only have 2 Saturdays we're home this month).

Does that mean I always cook my soup recipe for the week on Wednesday?  No, things shift around.  Life gets busy and maybe my meatloaf that needs to cook for an hour needs to wait for another night that week while my pasta dish from Friday could be made in 20 minutes.  So we eat the pasta on Tuesday and the meatloaf on Friday and it's great.  I already have al the ingredients for both dishes so it doesn't matter what night they are consumed.  But it helps immensely in selecting recipes and then in having a bit of a structure to our week so I know we're eating a variety of things.  

Okay, without further ado here are the recipes we're trying this month.  I should say our family doesn't have any particular food sensitivities.  We're not gluten free or vegetarian or have any other specific dietary needs or allergies.  We try to eat balanced meals and round out each meal with salads or roasted veggies, but some nights we eat a super cheesy, creamy comfort-food enchilada recipe and I don't worry about it knowing the next night we might have a meal that is more heavily based on vegetables or a ground turkey chili.  Just wanted to throw that disclaimer out there since in our food-sensitive society we all have various preferences and needs!

October 1-6

Tuesday's Family Favorite Meal: Thai Turkey Lettuce Wraps 
Wednesday's Soup Supper: Colorado White Chicken Chili 
Thursday's Mexican Food: Chicken Chimichangas
Friday's Italian Dinner:  One Skillet Lasagna
Saturday: Dinner out with friends!
Sunday: Leftovers

October 7-13

Monday's Crock Pot Meal: Crock Pot Kid Friendly Turkey Chili  

Tuesday's Family Favorite: Mom's Meat Loaf and Roasted Sweet Potatoes

Wednesday's Soup Supper: Italian Wedding Soup from Cooking With all Things Trader Joe's

Thursday's Mexican Food: Annette's Enchiladas from Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist

Friday's Italian Inspired Meal:  BBQ Chicken Pizza from Don't Panic, Dinner's in the Freezer

Saturday's Sandwiches:  French Onion Grilled Cheese

Sunday: Leftovers

October 14-20

Monday's Crock Pot Meal: Crock Pot Honey Garlic Chicken 
Tuesday's Family Favorite:  Bacon Apple Raspberry Vinaigrette Salad
Wednesday's Soup Supper: Taco Soup
Thursday's Mexican Food:  Butternut Squash Quesadillas (one of my very favorite fall food recipes!)
Friday's Italian Dinner: so I'm at the women's retreat Friday & Saturday nights--I'll have to leave Charles and Aidan with something yummy so they don't starve!

October 21-27

Monday's Crock Pot Meal: Not So Sloppy Joes

Tuesday's Family Favorite: Teriyaki Burgers (SO SO delicious)

Wednesday's Soup Supper: Hearty Red Lentil Soup 

Thursday's Mexican Food: Classic Taco Salad (use whatever meats, beans, toppings you have in the house!)

Friday's Italian Dinner: Penne with Chicken, Broccoli and Gorgonzola

Saturday's Sandwiches:  The Pioneer Woman's Veggie and Cheese Bagel Sandwiches

October 28-31

Monday's Crock Pot Meal: Real Pork and Beans

Tuesday's Family Favorite: Chicken Gyros 

Wednesday's Soup Supper: 3 Bean Minnestrone

Thursday's Mexican Food: Baked Tacos (one of my favorite Pinterest finds this year!)

Because I Don't Want to Forget (or What I'm Into, Summer 2013)

I can sense it already.  I'm not remembering the little moments quite like I always imagined I would be able to, or like I want to.  Maybe it's the sheer pace of life, or maybe it's the constant sleep deprivation and exhaustion, but there are days I literally can't figure out if my son is 19 or 20 months old.  I can't remember when he took those first steps (I think I wrote in his baby book that it was in March, but maybe that's wrong?)  I always imagined that those key moments in my child's life would be so significant that they'd be forever etched into my mind--this mind that loves details and can recite all kinds of useless information for you.  But that is apparently not the case, much to my dismay.  That's one of the reasons I adore this monthly series that Leigh Kramer hosts on her blog--I love the chance to sit down and think at least once a month about the things that have happened, the little things that have helped define that season.  It seems to be the only writing I can muster these days.  Many of the blogs I read are written by moms of little ones and their philosophy is that if you want to be a writer you just have to do it.  You have to make time.  So they get up at 4 AM and write before their kids wake.  I'd love to do that.  Except I really love sleep, so I don't anticipate that happening anytime soon.  So instead I jot notes in my phone of things I'd love to write about, and I manage to eek out this post once a month (except for July--somehow I haven't written since June...whoops).

Moving...It's been a month of what has felt like chaos to me, which is not my favorite feeling that's for sure.  But anytime you move to a new home you're bound to feel a bit disoriented and chaotic for awhile.  We only moved a couple of miles, from an apartment to a town home with twice as much space, which we LOVE! We were supposed to close on August 8th, but at the last minute closing was pushed back a week, which in the end was fine but led to us doing some reconfiguring of our logistics, move out dates, and family coming into town to help us.  We had an amazing team of helpers, and moving weekend went as smoothly as a move can go.  Our entire house is a stark white color which is completely unacceptable in my mind, so we've already been hard at work painting each room.  Aidan's room was first completed, and we now have the laundry room, kitchen, and master bedroom also painted.  I think I have finalized my color choices for the main neutral tones that will be carried throughout the living spaces and stairwells, so it's just a matter of getting someone to come in and paint those spaces for us (we have HUGE tall walls in our living room that no ladder we own could ever reach). It's slowly starting to feel like home, and in another couple weeks I think we'll be mostly done with feeling like we have to be doing something house-related each evening. We feel SO beyond blessed to have this space--and our prayer is that we can be hospitable and use it to serve others out of.  We've already made a long list of folks we'd love to have over for a meal (something that was so hard in our tiny apartment), and we also hope to host high school small groups here at some point.

Traveling...Other than moving, August was a month of going nowhere.  I know, that is so unlike me!  (But don't worry, I'm in the process of booking plane tickets for a September trip!)  July found Aidan and I taking a quick 4 night trip up to Santa Cruz while Charles was house boating with the youth.  My sister's in laws have a home in the mountains of Santa Cruz and invited us up since my sister and her girls were going to be there visiting.  It was so fun letting the cousins play together, being in a much cooler climate, and enjoying some family time.  We also got to see our aunt and uncle and cousins which was a lovely surprise! The kids played and played and ran around shrieking together--and spent HOURS pushing strollers around--for some reason that was the huge activity for the week, pushing the doll strollers around the block. (And someday I am going to have a porch swing in the redwoods to read on.  I've just decided this).

Sermon Writing--and Re-writing...I had the incredible privilege of preaching at our church in August, as part of a summer series on the Psalms.  It had been a long time since I have been given that opportunity and it was so much fun to get to tap back into the seminary side of me that isn't always utilized on a daily basis in my child-raising life.  I will be honest, this was probably the toughest passage of scripture I've ever preached on, and I spent more time and worked harder on this sermon than any I've ever done before.  I re-wrote this several times, and wrestled hard with what God wanted to communicate to our congregation through Psalm 88 this time around.  It was such an honor, I absolutely loved working with scripture like this again and writing (and re-writing...) so much.   It has been an amazing sermon series, and if you're looking for a few week series to listen to, I'd highly recommend this one.  You can find them all here beginning on July 28. 

Books, Movies, and Netflix...Surprise surprise, in a month when I moved, had both sets of parents visit, preached a sermon and prepped for a fall of MOPS I haven't read much.  Our book club selection this summer was The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer which I have to be honest, I didn't like much.  In fact I only finished half of it.  The reviews in our group were pretty mixed, and I don't think any of us put it on our new list of favorites.  I'm just starting And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini which I'm hoping will be wonderful--he is such a fantastic writer.  I have several books to read before the end of September about adolescent faith longevity for a class I'm going to TA at Fuller this fall.  It's all about how to help students develop a faith that "sticks" beyond high school, and the reading list looks awesome so hopefully by the time I write this post in September I'll have something more exciting to say about books! 

We have watched pretty much nothing but The West Wing this summer, working our way through the seasons--up through the middle of season 3--and we are both obsessed.  It is such a good show, and has prompted some fun conversations between us.  And I am not sure we've seen a movie this summer...that is pathetic, I realize, but baby sitters are expensive! 

The Little Man...Oh there are not enough words to describe how amazing this kid is to me!  He has learned so much, and is so incredible to watch as he explores his world.  Aidan is super verbal, always talking, trying so hard to speak.  The pediatrician asked me if he had at least 5 words I recognized and I told her that I think he has at least 40.  He is 100% all boy--fascinated by anything with wheels that moves--lawn mowers, trucks, planes, trains, cars, "bigguks" (big trucks), mail trucks, shopping carts and baby strollers.  Trains are his current favorite thing, he's obsessed.  He loves going to his baby gym classes, loves any indoor play place I can find, and is happy as a clam at any park or other place to explore.  Aidan's other big obsession are books and the letters of the alphabet.  As active as he is, he will sit for an hour straight bringing me books to read to him, and he can now recognize about half of the letters of the alphabet completely out of context.  He can tell me all the letters in his name and some days we'll be driving down the road and from the back seat I'll hear "M!" or "W!" as we drive past McDonalds or Walgreens.  He is my little snuggle bug who will come give mommy hugs and kisses randomly throughout the day, and absolutely cracks himself (and us!) up with the most random things.  He pushes all my buttons every day and is incredibly strong willed and is doing his best to live into the meaning of his name "little fiery one!"  We've started going on more and more play dates with friends, and he loves his buddies Joshua, Luke and Sienna--and has started asking for them by name.  We adore this little guy and can't wait to see what else he'll surprise us with in the next month!

Deliciousness I've discovered this month....
Dinner a Love Story's Salsa Fresca My husband said this is the best salsa he has ever had.  It's amazing!
Hot dogs on the grill with a side of watermelon--nothing beats this simple meal for a summer weekend evening! 
Oven Baked Tacos SO delicious--mix the filling together ahead of time, fill hard taco shells, and bake in the oven to soften the crunchy shells--they are awesome. 

In the blogging world...favorite posts by others
Hope for Spicy Families by Jen Hatmaker
This is my Body, Sacred, and Scarred by Beth at Five Kids is a Lot of Kids
Story Formed: An Interview with Sarah Clarkson (part one) (an author who wrote a book all about what to be reading to our kids--how the quality of books we read to them really is important, and she has a book of huge suggestions of books to be reading to kids--LOVE her perspective!)
Story Formed: An Interview with Sarah Clarkson (part two)
You Are Not Too Much of Anything by Beth at Five Kids is a Lot of Kids

What I'm Into (June 2013)

Clearly writing is not something I've been into in the past few months!  Yikes!  It's been almost 2 months since I have posted anything--how in the world did that happen??  I thought life moved quickly when I was in grad school--you get the syllabus on day 1 of the quarter and before you know it you're at finals 10 weeks later.  But that was nothing compared to full days with a very busy and very curious 17 month old.  I never. stop. moving.  I never sit down.  If he's napping I'm busy trying to prepare the next meal or quickly do a load of laundry since hauling laundry baskets and a 27 pound wiggly boy down to the laundry room is no longer physically feasible.  Life feels full, rich, a bit tedious somedays (how many times can you beg a 1 year old to not touch the DVD player??), and always always involves at least one change of clothes per day (for him...but often for me as well...this kid is a pro at finding water, dirt, mud, etc).  So as I think back over the past 2 months, here are a few of the things we've been into and up to in our little corner of Northridge.

The Little Man:  Aidan is growing & changing in new ways every day.  Today I heard him "baa" like a sheep for the first time.  I know, probably not earth-shattering, but I've never heard him do that before!  He surprises me all the time with new things and he is trying so hard to communicate, and he doesn't miss a thing.  This morning the car seat was sitting in our entry way when we woke up because my husband had gone to the beach super early & left the car seat so I could use it in a friend's car.  Aidan sees it and immediately starts making his airplane signs and sounds--he knows the only time we ever pull that car seat out is when he goes on an airplane.  It took me forever to convince him we weren't going on a plane today, no matter how many times he asked for Papa and Grandma, but I was amazed--that was a connection he made immediately that I probably never would have.  He's trying to learn how to "sing" which as one of our high school friends says is "the. cutest. thing. EVER!"  (I agree, it is).

We got him a water table at Costco one day because it was so warm outside and we wanted something he could play with out on our patio.  This kid is obsessed.  He's out there all the time, often before 7 AM in his pjs playing in the "wa-wa."  Definitely money well spent! He is completely in love with Elmo (Mo-mo) and will ask for Elmo at all hours.  Part of me is beginning to regret introducing Elmo but part of me is grateful that for the first time in a year and a half I can make dinner without him tearing my pantry and cupboards apart while whining to be entertained.  I used to be one of those moms who thought I'd never let my kid watch TV this young.  Yeah, there are a lot of things I used to think about parenting.  And then I had Aidan.  And now we do what works as we go along, and in this season of constant toddler activity and destruction, that means we watch Elmo twice a day (as Mommy drinks her morning coffee and as Mommy makes dinner!).  Just today for the first time he started asking for "choo choos" so we watched Thomas the Train instead and he was fascinated (my parents took him to play with the Thomas the Train table at Barnes and Noble last weekend and he LOVED it!) So perhaps there is hope that I can have a bit of variety in my toddler-TV time :)

Since we have a tiny apartment and almost no outdoor space with a very active little boy, I spend a lot of my days taking him on outings.  We've gone all kinds of random places together which has been so fun.  Underwood Farms, Universal Studios City Walk, the LA Zoo, friend's houses, a local park with a splash zone in it, and lots of places that involve ice cream or frozen yogurt.  I love these times with him, getting to see new things and getting to explore more of LA myself.  He adores the beach, can't get enough of the sand and water--this kid definitely doesn't have sensory issues that we've found so far!  While his mommy hates the texture of sand, he rolls in it.  I can't imagine having to roll in sand, but he dives in--usually face first. Yuck.

Books, Music, and Netflix:  We cancelled our cable, so whatever we watch now is either online or on Netflix, which so far has been just fine (I do miss the Today Show.  A lot).  In May I watched season 1 of the show Hart of Dixie on Netflix while I was home in the evenings by myself and I got a teensy bit addicted.  I loved it.  Small town, cute characters, medical stuff, love triangles--I was hooked and am looking forward to season 2 coming out this fall on DVD.  Charles and I finished season 1 of The West Wing last night and were going to start season 2 tonight (but someone decided to go to bed at 7:30 after an early morning surf session....I'm not naming any names!)  We both adore this show, the writing, characters and politics.  I always said if Jed Bartlett could run for president he'd have my vote in a heartbeat!

I'm super late to the party but I just discovered The Lumineers and adore them.  I've known Hey Ho for awhile now but hadn't ever heard the rest of their album....it's fantastic. The Nashville Soundtrack has also been frequently played in the car this past month, which has some wonderful new songs on it, and I'm still living in my obsession of Elizabeth Mitchell's kid's music--so beautiful and folksy and not obnoxious at all.  I just found out she's doing a kid's concert at The Getty in August and I think I might be a teensy bit excited.

I got to go on vacation in June for 2 weeks to see my family, and I managed to read a lot while I was there.  After Aidan went to bed every evening at 7 I read for a couple of hours because I didn't have any responsibilities of cleaning or laundry or anything else that occupies my time here at home.  I read 3 books and started 2 more (hey, for me that's a lot these days!).  I loved Sister of My Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, a novel set in India about two cousins born on the same day and raised together.  It's a story of their lives unfolding, their arranged marriages, their family's secrets and past--all woven together beautifully.  Definitely recommend this one!  I also read Sparkly Green Earrings, Catching the Light at Every Turn by Melanie Shankle.  She's the author of the Big Mama blog which I really love and this is her first book, a memoir of parenting that is hysterical and will bring you to tears.  Her chapter on potty training made me about die laughing!  The last book I read was one my mom's neighbor read and immediate brought over to us.  My mom read it in a couple days and then I picked it up and finished it in a few days.  It's called Left Neglected by Lisa Genova, author of the popular book Still Alice.  It's about a woman who is incredibly successful, a high powered exec, mother of 3, carefully juggling her life.  A car accident leaves her with a brain injury that causes "left neglect" where her brain completely ignores the left side of everything.  She isn't blind but she literally doesn't register the left side of her plate, a book, her body, a room, anything she's looking at.  It's a very real disorder that people experience (often stroke patients) and reading her story & her path to recovery was fascinating.  It's a fiction book, easy to read, and definitely one I'd recommend.  I've started Francis Chan's Crazy Love, and Sticky Faith by Kara Powell and Brad Griffin from the Fuller Youth Institute (since I'm going to be Kara's TA in the fall as she teaches a class on Sticky Faith I figured I should read the book!)  I get the opportunity to preach at First Pres Granada Hills in August and have been doing some reading to prepare for that as well.  Walter Brueggemann's book The Message of the Psalms is fantastic, and has given me a lot to think about as I dive into the world of the Psalms of Lament.

Other Events and Happenings: Memorial Day weekend saw us heading up to Forrest Home camp with 110 other folks from church for the All Church Retreat.  It was a lovely weekend of connecting with those I might not have known well, and letting Aidan explore nature a bit more and playing.  I will say it was REALLY exhausting with a 1 year old--who didn't sleep hardly at all and who needed to be watched at all times to avoid you know, falling off a mountain or down a hill into a rockbed.  But I am still glad we went and am hoping next year might be a bit easier.

We're still house hunting, which is a painful process in LA on a limited budget!  The market is ridiculously competitive and we've put in offers on several places now only to have 15 other offers be submitted as well.  So nothing exciting to report on that front!

June saw us getting to attend two graduation parties from students we've known and loved since they were freshmen at the church we were at previously.  It was wonderful getting to reconnect with them and their families, and to hear all about their plans as they head to places like Stanford, Yale, and Harvard (yes I had a ridiculously smart freshmen girl's small group one year!)


I hopped on an airplane June 12 and headed to Minneapolis to spend 2 weeks there with my parents (with a 5 days side trip down to Iowa to see my sister's family & new home!)  Charles was in Costa Rica with the high school students so I headed east.  It was a blast letting Aidan explore, get to know his cousins, and having extra people to chase him and keep him from eating dirt (too much anyways) and falling into the fountain at my parent's house.  He LOVED being with his cousins and asks for Lulu and Book (Lily & Brooke) all the time.  They taught him the lovely skill of shrieking and he's been practicing to see if he can give them some competition next time we see them.  He could not get enough dirt and bark and rocks and grass and sand and water in their yards.  I think we went through 2-3 outfits a day while we were there.  But in my mind that's exactly what summertime should be for a little boy!  He discovered a few new foods that he loves while there--most notably "nini" (Zucchini).  My parents took him one Saturday for several hours while I worked on my sermon, and the 3 of them went to explore the aquarium at the mall of america and then went to eat ice cream and play with the train table at Barnes & Noble.  He had an absolute ball.  He learned to make choo choo noises, and came home with a stuffed turtle just like the turtles he saw swimming in the water.  He loves his new "turtle" and makes sure turtle is now in his crib for naps.  My parents also discovered having a little boy in the house is a little different in terms of what he's interested in exploring and getting into than having the two girls come to visit.  He got into all kinds of things the girls have never dreamed of touching and kept all of us running.  I loved eating delicious summer food off the grill almost every day--steaks, teriyaki burgers, apple basil chicken burgers, shish ka bobs twice, and salmon.  Stuff I never make for us but love to eat!

 Phew!  I think that's about it for what's been going on here.  Mostly I love having a little record of what each month has held for us since life is busy enough that I'm not journaling or writing much these days.  As usual I'm linking this post up with the lovely Leigh Kramer's collection of What I'm Into Posts from around the country :)  Happy summer everyone!

What I'm Into (April 2013 edition)

Clearly blogging and writing is NOT one of the things I've been into lately based on the lack of postings here!  This past season (few months) has been full.  Really full.  Not necessarily in a bad way, but in that "by the end of the day I'm so tired and don't have the creative energy to write two words" kind of full.  I've learned that there are different kinds of tiredness.  There's that "newborn, up every 90 minutes all night long exhaustion that brings out tears, depression and loneliness" kind of tired and then there is the tired that results from fun, outings, social time with others, and involvement in various activities.  This past season has been the latter for me, and it's felt lovely and rich.  So what have we been up to this past month?  (as always I'm linking up with the awesome Leigh Kramer and her monthly round up of "what I've been into" posts from around the country) :)

MOPS.  I have loved the chance to coordinate MOPS this past year, and I will do so again next year to complete my 2 year turn at this job, and this past season has felt extra full in this area.  We're planning our biggest fundraiser/event of the year coming up on June 1, and there are a lot of moving parts in this one!  So we've had a few extra evening meetings, lots more emails, and administrating that has gone in to this one.  I've also been busily working on finalizing our summer social calendar, giving moms a chance to still connect with one another about once a week.  (My favorite...a mom's only pajama party and movie night complete with various popcorn flavor tastings...that sounds heavenly and relaxing to me right about now!)  A mom's night out to a mexican restaurant a few weeks ago brought 18 of us together without our kiddos, and a trip to Underwood Farms with our littles this past week was a great and fun way to get outside and connect with one another.

Friends.  We've now lived in Northridge for a year and a half, and seeing as how we had a baby 6 weeks after moving here we didn't have a ton of time to invest in developing quality friendships before Aidan came along.  So now that he's 15 months and yelling to get out of the apartment if he's awake, we've found ourselves connecting with others more and more, which has been lovely.  Through MOPS I've met many other stay at home moms who are great at texting if they're going to go do something that day to see if anyone else wants to join them.  We ended up spontaneously meeting up with two other moms at the mall food court yesterday where they had a "meet and pet the rabbits" event going on.  Yes, random, but it was good to get out!

Money.  I know, this sounds random, but we're working on cutting our monthly expenses and trying to cut our budget back a bit.  We just cancelled cable and have spent a week now without TV.  I miss the Today show, I'll admit, and I haven't seen any news in a week, but it's been kind of lovely.  We did sign up for Netflix again and can get unlimited streaming of movies and many many TV shows for $8 a month.  Between that and Hulu we're pretty set--who needs cable??

House Hunting.  We are just getting started with this daunting task, but we have a great realtor working with us and have seen several properties so far.  Nothing we've made an offer on yet, but we've seen some good options.  We're trusting God has a place for us somewhere, and we're hoping he makes that abundantly clear!  It happened that way when we found our place in Seattle two years ago, and we're praying for that again!  I will say, house hunting with a one year old is a bit of a nightmare.  Especially homes where people still live--trying to keep him from destroying everyone else's stuff while getting a feel for the property--NOT fun!  (Or from falling down the stairs.  Or from playing in the toilets--ours have locks on them, so he discovered quickly he can get into the toilets at these empty houses!  Or climbing right into a fireplace while my back was turned....yeah he's finding all kinds of ways to explore these potential homes!)  My sister is also house hunting right now...we won't even talk about what she can get for her money in the middle of nowhere Iowa as opposed to what we can get for that same amount here in the San Fernando Valley.....it's just depressing to think about....

Entertainment.  We haven't had much time this past month for books, music or movies.  Does anyone else go through slumps when it comes to reading?  I go through seasons where I read all the time and then I hit a several month lull where it doesn't even appeal to me. I'm just coming out of one of those lulls.  I did read The Great Gatsby this past month for our book club, and I didn't love it, just like when I was in high school.  I'm starting to get motivated to pick up books again though, and I have a few already started that are wonderful.

I'm reading Lauren Winner's book Still: Notes on a Mid Faith Crisis and am loving it so much more than I expected.  Written in the wake of her divorce and her mother's death this book of really short essays (she wasn't kidding when she titled it "notes" on a mid faith crisis) is beautiful.

I picked up a Newberry award winning book I've never read before: Moon Over Manifest and am really enjoying this late elementary school book surrounding a summer of mystery, history, and a young girl finding a new family/community for herself.

I put a few books on hold at the library and wasn't expecting them to all show up at once.  The latest one I picked up is Ellen Degeneres' book Seriously, I'm Kidding and while I"m only up to chapter 2 I love it.  Reading this is just like listening to the monologues of her show--which is my favorite part of each Ellen show!

I thought they had played the Nashville season finale already since it disappeared for many weeks, but a new episode aired this week!  That makes me so ridiculously happy I just can't stand it!  It still is my favorite show out there!  Now that we have netflix Charles and I decided to choose a show to watch together, we haven't had a series we've both enjoyed for a couple years now.  We are starting with season 1 of the West Wing and hope to watch all the way through.  I've seen the first 3 1/2 seasons, and he hasn't seen much of it at all.  We are loving it--such amazing writing!

Pinterest Attempt.  I've loved getting fun new ideas to try with my very busy and very curious toddler off Pinterest.  They have not always gone as planned however.  This was my latest attempt.  Has anyone else seen "cloud dough?"  Made from cornstarch and shaving cream this stuff is AWESOME!  SO SO soft and fun to mold and scoop and feel.  Look at these nice children playing so neatly with their cloud dough from pinterest.  See, their clothes are still clean.  They haven't tried eating it based on the lack of white stuff on their faces.  It looked like such a great idea!

Here's how our cloud dough adventure went down:

First we took a big cup of it and tried to eat it--hence the white stuff all over his face.  

 Then we dumped a bunch all over our belly like we do with cups of water in the bath tub.  Not exactly the same results as the water in the bath tub....thankfully I did have him contained in a bit rubber maid bin so I just stuck the lid on and saved it for another day....no clean up of the floor was necessary.

I think that's about it around here!  How about you?  What have you been into this past month?

The Friday Update....or what we've been up to this past month!

It's been a CRAZY busy month around here which has led to complete silence in the blogging world for me, I haven't had much time to read anyone else's posts let alone write my own these days!  But I have a few minutes this morning and thought I'd share a bit about what we've been up to and into these past several weeks!

FOOD!

This sounds like a strange thing to start with but we've done a few things really different for us in the food department this month that have been kind of fun.  First, I scored a bread maker at the church yard sale for $15 and have decided to start baking our own bread.  It's been such a fun venture, I love the process of letting it bake and mix and rise, and I think I have finally figured out how to cut the homemade loafs with out butchering them!  I haven't bought a loaf of bread in about a month now and what I've made has been decently tasty.  I did pizza dough in it last Friday and oh wow, it was so delicious.  It turned out perfectly!  

We also signed up for one month of a Community Supported Agriculture box (a CSA box) through a local farm here in the valley.  Once a week I go up to our local Whole Foods and pick up my box of produce that was picked on the farm the day before and packed up and shipped to my neighborhood the next day.  It has been quite an experience, one I have always wanted to try.  There are definite plusses and minuses to this program--the produce is delicious, so fresh, and the variety has been great--who knew you could get purple carrots and purple cauliflower?!  The down side is that it's too much produce for us for one week.  Going in with another family someday might be a good solution.  It's also tough at this stage of life, where I have such limited time for cooking and menu planning, to be forced to come up with creative ways to use things like leeks.  If I didn't have a rather demanding 1 year old, it would be a fun adventure, but right now it's too much work and pressure to figure out how to eat it all and what to do with it all.  So this week was our last week and I'm not going to renew our subscription at this point.  But it's been a fascinating trial and someday when we are a family of 4 with kids in school I'd love to do it again.  Plus, it has shown me that I can branch out at the store and purchase things I otherwise might not have.  We've learned both of us really like raw kale in salads with a creamy type dressing (like poppyseed).  We have both enjoyed the fresh spinach salads.  We have not enjoyed the beets or onslaught of oranges we've gotten! :)

The other thing I've been doing this month in attempts to save us a little money (which has worked by the way!) is to choose just 7 meals and cook those 7 meals every week for the month.  Yes, it sounds monotonous, and at times it is, but oh my word it has made life so much easier!  I don't have to spend time combing through recipes every week trying to figure out what sounds good.  I don't have to make a new grocery list every week.  And I always know what's for dinner.  What have we been enjoying this month?  

Southwestern Chicken Chopped Salad (the dressing is made from plain greek yogurt with a bit of ranch and taco seasonings mixed in--so so good, it's addicting!)

Cheesy Rice & Beans

Chicken Gyros (so so good!)

Homemade pizza (dough from the breadmaker!)

one night of the week is "eat what we already have in the freezer" night

BBQ Chicken Quesadillas

Salads from our CSA box

It's been a rich and different month for us food-wise, but it's been fun!  I'm looking forward to mixing up our menu again next month and choosing 7 new dishes to round out our meals.  

Entertainment:

I am still addicted to Nashville.  The season finale was this week (I still need to watch it) and I'll miss this show over the summer!  If you're not on the band wagon, jump on!  

I've rediscovered my love of the NPR Podcast Wait Wait Don't Tell Me--a news quiz game show held every Saturday.  It's been a great way to keep up with some of what's going on in the world in a very humorous way.  

The Biggest Loser is done with for the year (and my favorite contestant won!) so thus ends our reality TV watching.  The Voice is back on, and while I enjoy it I don't tend to follow singing competitions closely enough to really know what's going on.  

This month's book club book is The Great Gatsby which I suppose I really need to get a jump on!  The movie comes out next month so we decided it was a good one to read now :)

The LA Zoo--we bought a year long membership last week and I've already taken Aidan twice.  He loves the animals and after we see each one he starts saying "more more!"  I've figured out that if we leave at 9:30 in the morning we miss traffic and can be there in about 20 minutes when the gates open at 10.  The animals are super active in the morning, eating breakfast, running around (last week we saw zebras racing each other and a gorilla beating on his chest which aidan thought was hysterical!).  And since it's "free" to us now it's okay if I'm only there an hour or so before heading home.

The Little Dude

Oh my gosh Aidan has grown so much and is learning new things all the time!  It is crazy to watch!  He's trying SO hard to talk and babbles non stop.  He does have some decipherable words which is so fun.  His latest words are "nana!" (banana), "bapa!" (Papa), "Wawa" (waffle, his breakfast most mornings) and "gate!" (he watches the gate to our parking lot open and close every time we drive in and out).  

He is officially a walker--getting more and more steady each day, although he still cant stand up from the ground without pulling up on something.  He is a kid who was born to be out and about.  He wakes up from his naps standing in his crib saying "go go go!" and will bring me shoes and point to the door.  He doesn't care where we're going he just wants to go!  Every day he hears the garbage truck and whines and points until I scoop him up and we run out to the parking lot to watch and wave as the garbage man drives by.  His vocabulary of things he now recognizes is pretty impressive.  He can identify a TON of things in his books (including a lobster, a clam, and a peacock) and will point them out to you as you "read" with him.  He is finally able to sit through a bedtime story at night which I love.  He snuggles in, holds his giraffe and will listen and help turn pages.  Although he's obsessed with Good Night Moon and actually won't let me read anything else but the "moo moo" book.  So I'm ready for a new title but he's not.  (Good thing I don't mind good night moon!)

He is obsessed with any moving vehicle and will no longer sleep in the car.  He gets to a point where he is about to doze off and a dang truck will pass us and from the back seat I'll hear "ga ga!!" and he will be wide awake again.  At the end of April we're going to an event where he can meet the trash trucks and watch them in action and sit in one and he will be thrilled.  

It's been a busy month of learning and growing for all of us!  Happy Easter season to all of you--Christ is risen!