treats

French bread baking. Oh my.

Pear and almond tart.

Can you say "love handles?"

key lime pie #2

Even better than the first!

homemade butter

Wanted to make pancakes this morning, but alas! no butter. So we made some! All you need is cream, a jar and a marble, and about 30 minutes.

Bryan shaking the cream.

Pouring out the buttermilk.

Almost done...rinsing the butter with cold water.

Butter!!!

Butterfingers.

film of the week

Took a brief hiatus from our Willem Dafoe-athon to watch a library pick, Man Push Cart, a slow and pensive, but rather depressing, tale of a Pakistani man working in New York City in a coffee cart. Made me thankful for everything I am blessed with. But the best part was, Bryan didn't fall asleep!

children's film of the week

We don't have a functioning television but we do watch our share of films. We get a lot from the library - it's free and fun to choose from whatever is available. Last night, Bryan was out and the rest of us needed some mellow time before bed. I made a hot milk drink, with ground almonds and cardomom (yum!), and we settled in to watch Paddle to the Sea, a sweet and short little film from the '60's about the journey of a wooden boat carved by a boy.

scrabble

We've been playing quite a bit of Scrabble lately. It's a great game for the kids to practice spelling and math skills along with learning strategy.


The end of a 3-hour game between Bryan and Nicole.

This was a game Bryan and I started and couldn't finish. If you look closely, you'll see why.

key lime pie

Key lime pie is my (Nicole's) favorite dessert. I came home one day last week to find Bryan, Lyla and Jonah in the kitchen, mixing bowls and spoons out, standing around the butcher block. Then Jonah said, "Mom, we're not making key lime pie." Guess you can't trust a 4-year old to keep a secret.

The pie, of course, was delicious. It was later determined that I ate more than half of it.