Potato pizza and lots of blue.

It has happened. Its been 5 months since Kiki spilled my husbands coffee all over our old laptop and since then each time we would use it something else was no longer working. We got to the point were we could no longer type what so ever and had to buy an external keyboard. Eventually while we were online different websites would constantly reload or sometimes the pages would scroll indefinitely. Needless to say it is more than pleasant to be typing this with out any of the previous issues on a very pink new laptop.

It feels like we have settled into our new home. I am starting to get antsy about adding color. I no longer like the white walls in the living room, or the light gray and blue in our own room, but these are big projects that involve buying paint and moving furniture which with the two little ones as energetic as they are lately does no seem possible.  Instead though there were two cabinets in the kitchen that were painted all white, that have turned into a new project.

I like to look back at pictures from just a few months ago to see how much we have already changed. All the little projects we have already started and completed and the bigger ones that will happen over the years are all seem so exciting. But color is the one thing that I like to change first. I love bright rooms with lots of different colors and textures. And so I got started in the kitchen, I have a few pictures but it was a quick project. I starting with a light blue and brushing on a thin first coat of paint. Then before it was able to dry adding a darker watered down blue paint brushed over the top.  Some mixed and some did not, but the brush lines look great! I started with just one cabinet yesterday but Neil liked it enough that I did a second this morning.

But beyond computers, babies and painting the other big thing I cant seem to get away from is Potato pizza, I have no idea where I came across the recipe for it, but since the first time I made it the entire family loves it.  Most weeks I make it more than once. Its a great side for soup at dinner, or most of a lunch for the kiddos, and sometimes just the perfect afternoon snack.

I don't use a specific pizza dough for the base, but instead a no knead bread recipe that I always have on hand.

Basic bread dough recipe:

3 1/2 - 4 cups of warm water

6 or so cups of flour

2 Tbls of salt

2 Tbls of yeast

first add water to a large re-useable container. Sift the 6 cups of flour over that, then add the yeast and salt.

Mix everything just until well combined, it should be a shapeless but not too wet dough.

Cover and let sit out 2 hours.

After that the dough is ready to use or to refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.

I use this dough almost everyday for pizzas, cinnamon rolls, or just different kinds of bread. Its great to have on hand, and when it comes time to actually do the baking you set the oven to 450/F and shape the dough correctly for what you are making. Then let it rest while the oven heats up, pop in your bread and bake till done. A large loaf of bread takes about 45 minutes where as a pizza only about 15-20.

Getting back to the actual Potato pizza recipe though you will need

a quarter of the dough from the recipe above

splash of olive oil

2 potatos

half an onion

salt and pepper

Roll out and shape the dough, and either put in the pan you are using or on a peel with cornmeal to transfer to a pizza stone. Pour a few Tbls of olive oil onto the dough and spread out evenly.

Next slice the potatoes and onion as thinly as possible. Arrange the potatoes over the top of the dough and sprinkle the onions on top of the potato. finally add salt and pepper to your liking over everything else and let rest till the oven is ready.

Bake till the crust is a golden brown and the potatoes are looking crispy at their edges.

Sometimes we add salami or capers, but tend to use a lot less salt if adding these.

I think this is good for now though.  I have two babies with a few too many boogers who are more than ready to get our selves together to head to the library for story hour.

And one last thing! We fell so in love with the blue cabinets, that we ended up painting the ceramic tile in the kitchen as well, so one last picture mainly so Nonna can see how blue our yellow kitchen has become.

Messy babies and more Dolls.

I can't get the idea of starting an Etsy shop out of my mind. I have been making more dolls in the past week than ever before and I am liking each one more than the last. I have also finally settled into my sewing room, organized, cozy, and right off the kitchen it is my favorite part of the house. a trip to scrap in Portland over the weekend and  morning of folding and separating fabric has me ready to stock pile some dolls before I spend time setting up the online shop.

In other news Mia is ready to eat with the rest of us. Lunch and dinner at the table with her food chopped up into tiny pieces has her so excited! Though she still needs to work on getting more food into her mouth than on the floor, she has figured out how to feed the dogs with ease. Kiki on the other hand is great at getting the food in her mouth, on the floor, in the dog's mouth and just about anywhere else a two-year-old can reach. Beyond just where to put your food, Kiki has figured out the basic rules for meal time, which is nice. Sit at the table with everyone, try at least a bite of everything on your plate (this one is still bit tough), and I am really really really not giving you something else just because you cry. But all of that plus a ten-year-old who cannot seem to get the words out of her mouth fast enough or the food into it any slower, makes for a wonderfully lively and usually comical dinner.

But with a few more dolls to make and perhaps some other little critters, I will share some pictures of my beloved sewing room and more recent projects, as well as some messy babies, because really who does not enjoy messy babies.

My wonderful husband found this old (but working and in great shape) Kenmore sewing machine at  goodwill for me more than three years ago. Speaking of which today is our three year anniversary, three years that have flown by!  Two babies a dog and a  house have all come into our lives, as well as new friends and so many new plans for the future. I am the luckiest lady I know.

Kiki's smile always makes me laugh.

Dolls, dolls, dolls.

It was probably around the time I was six months pregnant with Kiki that I started making toys. I had crocheted hats and blankets, little socks and a sweater and wanted to try something new. At first I made animals, turtles, possums, and little monsters that had loops to hold binkies.  From there I went to work on a kids book ( that I can't seem to finish), and sewing dolls and little elephants.

The first dolls I made were cute but never seemed quite right. The second round hit a better note but the faces were off still. This third time I think I have found a mix between the sewing and painting that I enjoy. With Mia being under a year still I tend to have a fair amount of time to sew or crochet while she is breast feeding, though as she is getting bigger and more curious it has become harder to work around her. Especially since little baby hands are always stronger than I expect.

 I have plans to start an etsy shop when I can figure out all the little parts to it (and have enough things to sell). In the mean time though I find my self working on more and more little sewing projects that will hopefully soon become more than just that. The dolls will become more  involved and could perhaps end up with little critter friends. The elephants were such fun to make that I should get going on some new patterns for smaller animals or perhaps plants to go along with these new dolls.

Perhaps the holidays fulfilled my need for cooking for a while and I am now ready to get back into the swing of sewing  all the time (with a little painting thrown in and maybe a break to work on trying to learn to knit here and there!)

Any thoughts on other creatures/ critters that I should be making would be more than welcome!

Christmas Time and runny noses.

We now have a computer with a keyboard that works! It is pretty exciting all around. The holidays have completly gotten away from me. I kept meaning to post but always found one project or another that seemed to occupy all the time I had set aside to do this.

That did mean I was able to make far more of the kids Christmas presents than I intended and was able to sneak in a quick present for Neil as well. The kids have managed to get sick and better and become sick again. Poor little Mia woke up with Croup cough the other night sending the whole family to wait at the Hospital while they checked to make sure she did not have pneumonia.

Our good friends had their newest little one on the 22nd of this month and November was filled with my family visiting. It has been such a wonderful couple of months! And a perfect first Christmas in our very own little house.  I have more pictures than I know what to do with and less recipes to share than I planned.

 With the two littlest spending a fair amount of time sick lately cooking has taken the back burner to sewing. It is much easier to sew with an unhappy sleepy baby on my lap than it is to cook. I also gave knitting another try and am working (slowly) at that. Crochet has always been easier but the patterns that one can do with knitting are much more exciting and just seem a bit more refined.

I really don't have much more time but wanted to share some photos from the holidays and of my husband's latest project. He decided to try doing a Fresco on one of our walls and it came out so well.

Lastly a quick recipe for Kale Pesto because well its to cold for basil and I can't have dairy anyway. So this post is mainly just photos for my mom and my latest projects (sewing dolls again, but much cuter this time)

Kale Pesto
One bunch of Kale

half one onion ( i like white or red)

a few cloves of garlic

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup lemon juice

hand full of sunflower seeds ( mainly because I don't have pine nuts)

handful of nutritional yeast ( because I have a kiddo with a dairy allergy)

salt and pepper to taste

Chop the kale, onion, and garlic.

Blanch the kale and let rest in strainer while in a blending together, the onion, garlic, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, and sunflower seeds.

Add in the kale and turn on the blender. While the blender is running slowly add the olive oil and let the blender run till the mixture has reached a mostly smooth consistency.

Apple Oatmeal cake and rain boots

Yesterday we woke up to our very first day being completely transitioned from Portland  to our new area. We moved to our new house almost a month ago, but until yesterday Neil was traveling each day to work in the city. That is finally finished! With a surprise five days off together and an almost free Sailboat we find ourselves settled in to the Willamette Valley and more than happy to be here.

Yesterday it rained the entire day, but this morning it just felt like rain. It was a cool with a grey light and the sun trying to push through.  We put the girls in baby back packs, leashed the dogs, and poured the first cups of coffee for the day. Following a trail that winds  in and out of the woods bordering the river I am happy to leave behind the hot days of summer.
 Neil just got a sailboat. He is busy dreaming of ways to fix it up, and mentions future trips saling around little bays and spending nights camped out on islands. The trees are changing, the geese are migrating and it really is the first time I have felt at home since leaving Vermont more then ten years ago. The air smells like winter with promises of rosey cheeks and frosty noses even though it probably wont snow here. My husband insists that the country side reminds him of northern Italy.

Kiki is now at the age where all she wants to do is help. She likes to scoop flour into the bowl when we make bread, she likes to stir the pot of soup or pasta while it bubbles on the stove top, and most of ll she wants to be part of helping Mia whenever she can. This to leads to fair amount of bumps and bruises for baby Mia (who does her best to take her sister's help in stride.) With all of Kiki's help and the fact that Mia is very mobile these days there seems to be less and less time to get things done. It's already November! My mother will be arriving in a week with my father and brother soon to follow, Halloween flew by and Thanksgiving is almost here, Gwen turns 10 this year and I bet Mia will be walking by Christmas.

I have been trying to get this post finished for good while now, but with our laptop barely chugging along it seems to get harder and harder. Until Yesterdy we had been with out a keybord for bit over week, and now we are using two different ones to type what we are able. So considering how much I wanted to say but how long it now takes to type I would not be surprised if the posts to come are shorter rather than longer.

and on that note this is really all the patience I have with the two keybord combo for today. Here are lots of pictures and my favorite apple cake recipe right now!

Apple Oatmeal cake.

about half a cup of oil
2 eggs
1 cup of brown sugar
splash of vanilla

Mix all ingredients well.
add:
1 cup of flour
1 tbls of baking powder
a fair amount of cinnamon.

mix well and add to the wet ingredients. Again mixing well.

Chop one apple and add to mixture. Pour all of the batter into a well greased baking container, or muffin tin, or bread pan, or really anything shaped baking dish you would like.

about a cup of oats
1/4 cup of sugar
some more cinnamon
a few tbls of coconut oil,

mix the oats, sugar, and cinnamon, mash in coconut oil with your fingers, then sprinkle mixture over the top of the batter evenly. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 or so minutes. Let it cool a few minutes before cutting. Its great.

A yellow Kitchen and a very large pile of cardboard boxes.

I have been meaning to get back to this for a while but every time I think its about time to start I end up distracted and find myself unpacking another box, changing a dirty diaper or buried in the fridge trying to figure out what dinner should be (though what it should be and what it ends up being usually are very different things).

But the unpacking is the big news, and the main reason I have found myself with a thousand things to do instead of working on a new post. We bought a house! Not a very big house, in not a very big town but a very wonderful house in a very wonderful town! Kiki ( who likes to find her way into our bed when daddy leaves for work) rolled over this morning and said 'I love this house mama. Thank you mama.'

So as you might guessed having moved  just over a week ago to a house that was built in 1900 finishing one project  tends to lead to at least a couple more. Which have all taken slightly longer than we had planned. Due to a very unfortunate farewell to our more than wonderful old neighbors,  with a mishap that prompted comments like "well at least you left with a bang," and a note left by our front door reading 'get well soon' with a butterfinger taped to it.

Looking back everything really can be blamed on a small brood of chickens.

It was Gwen's last evening on her last weekend in our old house and she had gone to her friends to announce that we would be moving. Neil and I were finishing up some evening packing and thought it might be a nice evening to take the two younger girls for a walk and collect Gwen on the way home.

(This is where the chickens come in) With our walk ending at the house we were to collect Gwen at we sealed our fate. Accepting an offer to meet these new chickens brought us to the backyard and a somewhat lengthy conversation with the neighbors. Kiki joined the pack of children (including Gwen) playing on the swing set and running wild through out the house. It was actually Kiki's fall from the swing leaving her with a mouth full of dirt and blood that signaled our departure. Neil went to find Gwen and while I was saying good bye we heard a door slam, Neil yelling, and children sobbing.

Apparently as a joke when told it was time to go Gwen had yelled "I'll never leave" and with both hands slammed shut the bedroom door. Unfortunately at the very same moment (to steady himself on the stairs as he turned to listen to her) Neil placed his hand at the side of the door and the top of one finger within the hinge side of the door jam. It was at this very moment that the entire world sped up, and did not have the courtesy to slow down again till rather recently.

The rest of that evening was a blur. Some how (though according to the ER doctor is pretty common) Gwen had managed to chop off the top of her father's finger, twisting a childish joke into a very painful and serious event. I retrieved the finger tip, the blood was cleaned up and the children were calmed down.

Eventually Neil's finger was sewn back on, he missed a few days of work and we needed a fair amount of extra help with the move, but we are here and so happy to be!

Our Kitchen is yellow. Our kitchen is perfect. Its probably the largest room in the house, and the most open. Its the sort of kitchen where the kids can crawl around and play with toys by my feet, and where Kiki will come in and tell me  "I just dance mama. I just dance," and I can watch her spin and jump as I roll our pasta or chop vegetables for dinner.
There is a small table with only two chairs that is perfect for Kiki and I to sit at and have afternoon snack while Mia naps. And it is probably the only room in the house that really just needed a coat of paint to be perfect.

We have been so busy that I have just yesterday re-stocked the kitchen with all the things we have been doing with out for the past few weeks. It feels so good to be able to make dinner based on what we want to eat and not just what is left. And all though we are firmly grounded in October the weather seems to disagree. Its the time of year for roast chickens, stews and hearty winter meals, and though its still warm outside my body is ready for the long winter months and all the foods that go along with them.

I think this is really all I have time to catch myself up on at this point, the children are getting restless and Kiki has weasled her way into more then a few oatmeal cookies this afternoon, while Mia has managed to get more of her banana outside of herself then the inside. For now lets just hope the cool weather is not a long time coming.

Oh but quickly! when we went to rip up our carpet yesterday, with plans to just paint the sub floor for the time being we instead found a wonderful linoleum floor!

Soy milk and cat food

It's one of those days where nothing seems to go right. My soy milk machine is broken. Mia can't handle dairy so to make life easier we all switched over to soy milk, or in our case soy/chickpea milk. Like most things we make our soy milk at home. This allows us to add the flavor and mix of beans that we prefer. But my soy milk maker is broken. Which puts me back to making it stove top until I send in to be fixed. The only real upside here is that the one and only time in my life I have sent in a warranty was for this machine.

But back to this morning. Knowing I only had enough soy milk left for one bottle I knew making it stove top was my first priority, but Kiki did not seem to want to let me get there. She was rough this morning and it took me the better part of 2 hours to figure out that the reason she was so up set was that she wanted to wear a diaper today (we are in the middle of no-pants potty training summer). But it didn't end there. She cried her little two-year-old butt off through the better part of the morning. I did all the checks- no new teeth that I could see, no fever, no tummy ache, she told me nothing hurt, she had breakfast, her milk, I tried a movie, reading a book, cuddle time, you name it. I got to the point where I thought maybe she was just acting up and had her stand in the corner which usually halts the crying. Not this time. This time she persevered.

Eventually I just gave up and after a while she did as well. Once Mia was down for her morning nap it was time to begin the process of making soy milk stove top. I have gotten so used to the convenience of having a machine I really was not as prepared as I used to be for the amount of time it actually takes, along with the amount of attention it needs. Luckily I have the book Asian Tofu by Andrea Nguyen. It has a comprehensive recipe for at-home soy milk making. I've used it many times usually when making tofu and before I got my lovely machine. Half way done though is whereI ran into trouble. I had strained my soy milk and was in the middle of re-cooking it when I went to check on Kiki. She had been playing outside for a few minutes and I was just curious was she was up to. I called to her, she looked back at me and took off. As I watched her running away I realized her diaper had failed.

There is a shrub in our yard probably about ten feet long and six or so feet high. She loves to play underneath it and has little toddler sized tunnels through the entire thing. Toddler-sized being the key here, for whenever I go to fetch her she runs full speed for that shrub, tries to get herself as deep inside it as she is able.  This morning was no exception. By the time I got to the opening of the shrub I realized something else. She was eating cat food. At this point I do my best to get myself into the shrub grab the poop covered child and get as much of the cat food out of her mouth and hands as I was able.When we get back inside and I give the soy milk a quick stir, grab the wipes to clean Kiki up and that's when Mia decides she is ready to wake up from her nap and would also really like mommy's attention.

The in-between then and now is about on par with the rest of my morning. Leaving me here with Kiki in the bath Mia on my lap and me wondering if I can shut all the blinds, call the girls lunch their dinner and convince both them and me that it is in fact bedtime and that once we all fall asleep we can wake up to a slightly less stressful morning.

Instead I have at least found my cup of coffee from this morning and have just realized that nap time is only about an hour away. So I've got kids to feed and hope for a more mellow afternoon.