Pretty High Trade in Value

This weekend I decided to trade in my old model of Husband and get a new upgraded version. The early version was working fine, but needed some help. These upgrades were needed mainly in the hair department, as there were some issues of compatibility between the Old Version with the Mother - In - Law.  Upgrades were also made in the shoe and outerwear departments . Also, we were beginning to get a little concerned with how much longer the Old Version would be able to keep up the illusion of  "professional appearance" at work.
Behold, Husband - The Old Model:

Forward view

Side View

And now, new improved Husband:

Am I a lucky gal, or what?

He wanted to make sure that you got to see the shoes.

My beautiful, happy, totally silly family.

I sure do love them a whole heap!

Happy Friday!

Tractor Riding in the Sun, Move it Isla

Nana's House is Simon's Favorite Place IN THE WORLD. 

Happy Boy!

Happy Friday!

Lent 2010: Day Ten List of Ten

It has been ten or so days of gluten and dairy free living and this is what I have learned so far:

1. When baking gluten and dairy free, you have to forget everything you thought you knew about how to bake.

2. When in doubt bake brownies, chocolate can save anything!

3. A quick scrambled egg in the morning can give you the brain and will power to plan for lunch and dinner. 

4. There are no suitable replacements for cheese, forget even trying.

5. There are some really great websites full of useful information and recipes, like Gluten Free Goddess from whom I've learned some really great things, like how to make an amazing and spicy African Sweet Potato Soup and equally important, that there is a new Massive Attack album out. I love this woman already.  

6. There are literally dozens of dairy substitutes out there, but I haven't found one I like to bake with yet. 

7. Isla misses cheese and she tells me so with big loud "YAs" every time I open the fridge and get near the old faithful cheese drawer. 

8. There is dairy in caramel. So those caramel soy lattes I thought I was being good about having, not so much.

9. When cooking dairy and gluten free things, follow the recipes exactly. EXACTLY. Trust me on that one.

10. Seeing your kids be able to eat things without getting rashes or buggery or throwing up = worth it. 

Vanilla Soy Latte, the new norm.

I Will Bake You Some Gluten-Free Bread If You Will Fix My Dishwasher.

Nathan broke our dishwasher. As in, when it drains, water flows freely from the bottom all over the kitchen floor. 

At first I didn't really care. He promised to fix it. But then the parts for the car came in the mail and he spent two days cleaning out the garage and then another day fixing the car door and then a day of yard work and then it's been over a week with no dishwasher. The car door has been broken for about eight months, and that sort of tells you the reality of how busy Nathan is and how sometimes priorities get rearranged. I tried really hard to make sure that I got the dishes done as soon as we were done eating or cooking, but then Nathan did some fancy cooking (because I ran out of gluten free dinner ideas and he's better at that) and Zoe needed cupcakes made for school and we needed some sandwich bread so I did a whole lot of baking. Now, it's 4:21PM on Wednesday and tomorrow I have to go to work for the next 24 or so days and I have something shameful to show you.

This is my kitchen sink. RIGHT NOW. There are also more dishes to the left and more to the right. I can see them clearly from where I am sitting right this minute, and they are taunting me, telling me that I am a slob.  But really the sloppiness isn't all mine. If the dishwasher was fixed I wouldn't have to spend so much time washing dishes by hand and I wouldn't be so grumpy at the end of the day and would have energy for doing other household chores like folding laundry. It's a slippery slope type thing. Yesterday was the last day I attempted to keep up with the dishes. Today, instead of filling the sink with sudsy bubbles, I took the kids to play group. After play group, I shoved all the dishes aside and made gluten/dairy free hamburger buns for Nathan. And then I made some gluten/dairy free bread so that Isla can have something to eat other than chicken nuggets.  All of that together makes for a lot of dirty dishes. Let's see if I can distract you with gluten free baked goods.

These are the hamburger buns I made. Simon helped. Well, Simon put on his apron and put spoonfuls of rice flour in neat piles all over the counter. But he calls these buns his, and so it is. Personally, I am thinking they look more like biscuits than buns and I'm a  little worried about how they will taste. I got the recipe from the book, Easy Gluten-Free Baking, by Elizabeth Barbone. So far I have had limited success with gluten free baking. The cupcakes I made turned out more like muffins. They tasted pretty good, but were heavy and gummy. I think the error was mine though, rather than the recipe. Before I even had all the wet ingredients added to the dry I turned the mixer on, then I beat the batter too long and after that things got extra gooey and rubbery. I was tempted to try them again in my baking frenzy today, but they take about five oranges, and we are fresh out. 

The bread Simon and I made just came out of the oven and looks a little dark, but just like a normal loaf. 

I guess I have run out of things to do to distract myself.

Are you still thinking about those dirty dishes?

Yeah, me too. I guess I better get to them, because we are only going to make more as soon as we start cooking dinner. 

Lent 2010: The Day Where We Let the Kids Sleep In and Miss Church.

I love weekends.
Working part time kind of skewed my perspective on weekends for a bit, but the reality is simply that when Nathan is home from work, all is right with the Warner World. We sure do enjoy these two days a week together.
So far this weekend we've been really productive. We spent the morning yesterday with my parents hearing all about their adventure at the Olympics. They saw a hockey match Friday night and on Saturday went to speed skating. After breakfast we took a chainsaw to the front yard and did all kinds of yard work. Simon and I pulled dead weeds and ferns from the back yard and Morgan and Zoe made a huge pile of branches from a tree that fell down during a big windstorm a few weeks ago. Nathan also cleaned out the garage as we have some parts coming for the car to get fixed up soon. Speaking of fixed up, the cat got spayed on Friday and it's been eerily quiet in the house since. The poor kitty has not left hiding (under Simon's or Morgan's beds) since she got home.
I finished the hat for Mary, but it came out small with no stretch so now it's a hat for Isla. I guess that is why it is important to check gauge before starting projects like that. Oops.

We are on day five of our Lenten gluten/dairy free diet. I'm having a lot of fun with recipes, but man, there have been a lot of moments where I just want to have some toast with butter, or CHEESE. Simon had a grilled cheese sandwich last night and it was all I could do to not steal it from him and take a huge gooey bite. I read a blog post somewhere about a mom who had to put her little boy on a gluten free diet, and after a few days he was craving anything gluten so bad he began to chew on the table. There have been a few intense moments where tables have had some appeal.
Today I am going to bake some Frosted Orange Creme Cupcakes. This will be a trial run for the cupcakes Zoe wants to take to school next week for her half birthday. Don't those look delicious?

Also today is promised trips to the toy store and book store. I promised Simon and Isla I would get them Spike, the chomping dinosaur. He was the gift for the birthday boy last weekend, but our kids fell in love with it too.
So now it's off to the shower and then some waffles (we found a mix at the co-op), bacon and coconut lattes. I hope your day is lovely and full of fun family adventures too!

Lent 2010: Day Two, or The Day of Attempted Accomplishments

Today we tried to get the cat spayed, but were told to come back tomorrow.
We tried to get groceries, but the checker was super rude when I handed him our WIC checks.
We tried to wash dishes, but were disappointed when the dishwasher was still broken.
We tried to make lunch, but wanted something quick and easy, and we haven't found gluten and dairy free to be quick or easy yet.
We tried to take naps, but "I DON'T WANT TO" may have won that round.
We tried to do laundry, but the down comforter took all day to dry in the drier.
So, instead, we finished off the last bottle of bubbles in the back yard. We watched Pippy Long Stockings with Daddy when he got home from work and we (ahem, I) had a soy caramel latte.
These days, when I get some down time, one of my favorite things to do is knit.

I made Zoe this hat, it was supposed to be a slouchy type hat, but came out more of a beanie. My yarn choice was way off, so I experimented with some stitches and came up with this kind of fun texture. This is the one completed thing today. But that is a bit of a lie, since I finished it a while ago, but just finally attached the ribbon.

  And then I decided I wanted to try knitting in some kind of fun pattern, you know, other than stripes, and when Mary came over for the Superbowl she found some yarn colors she really liked, so I started this hat for her. I worked on it some today, but it's still not done.

Whenever I try to knit when the Isla is not sleeping, I have to deal with things like this:

It's good to know she takes advantage of every opportunity. This is no doubt Isla's favorite thing to do. It wouldn't bother me either if she made the mess while reading books or playing, but she does this just for the pleasure of taking things off of the bookshelf. She can't walk through the room without making a quick stop to de-book the shelves. She does this with all the shelves in the house, books, dvds, cds, and folded laundry in baskets.

So nothing really gets done in my house lately, 

but I think I'm finally OK with that.

Summer in Winter

Those of us in Whatcom County can all attest to what a strange winter it's been this year. As much as I kind of long for a good freeze and some snow on the ground to play in, it has been pretty amazing to be able to send the kids out in the sun for most of January and February. It's not even the end of February and we've already burned though one of those large multi packs of bubbles.
Simon's quote for the month? "I went on the potty! Can I go outside and blow bubbles?"
It hasn't felt like winter since we took the Christmas tree down.
It's going to be a long wait though for the spray parks to open and the real summer activities to begin. The sun may be out and it may be 56 degrees, but somehow we are supposed to remember that it is still winter.
I am really tempted to take the Styrofoam covers off the outside faucets, but then it will freeze again for sure. Also, we have a turnaround at the refinery in March. I have yet to work a turnaround that didn't have sub-freezing temperatures to suffer long days/nights through.
I won't give up on winter yet, but in the meantime, I'm going to go mow the lawn.

Also...

Two things before I pick up all the dvds and books off the floor (Isla's doing), wash the dishes and call it a night:
1. Ever wonder what Lent is all about? Baron wrote a good response to this here.

2. I couldn't resist sharing this freshly taken photo of Isla with you, sharing our love of coffee in her own way.

Lent 2010: More God, Less Gluten?

Things have been crazy as usual in the Warner house. In the last three months we have: left babyhood in the dust and moved on to all things toddler and big kid, we got into a better work routine thanks to the amazing Nicole, we went childless to San Francisco, we taught the boy how to go on the potty 99% of the time, and all of this to the background music of a kitten in heat for five straight weeks. Seriously. In true Warner fashion there have been a few hiccups in these recent events.
Miss Isla, in her newly one-year-old-ness, has found out that she is not so able to handle dairy. We've never had to deal with a food allergy before, and so far we aren't impressed. We like our cheese. I began to look up some dairy free recipes online, and started to wonder about also taking out some wheat and such from our diets. Maybe a day after I started on that thought process, we went to a birthday party for a charming three year old and had some fantastic gluten and dairy free ice cream as well as inspiring conversations revolving around this gluten and dairy free diet.  On the drive home from the party we hatched a plan. We'd give this gluten and dairy free diet a shot, and we'd start with Lent!
Today marked day one of Lent, a season of sacrifice and reflection, and today we made it 24 hours gluten and dairy free. At least Nathan and I did, I'm not so sure about the other three. Isla has been dairy free for a few weeks now, but gluten is kind of hard to erase out of kid diets.
For dinner Nathan made steak with wild rice and I baked us some gluten/dairy free brownies with dark chocolate nuggets added in for extra joy. Is it OK to try to put extra joy in the season of Lent? Maybe I broke some rules there. Tomorrow we are taking the kitty to the spay clinic, and I am thinking that will bring some joy too, because really, the noise coming out of that tiny cat is just ridiculous.