A Life Downtown

Week in review

Last week just flew by. I tried to document as best as I could. I feel a bit, right now, like we're just flying by the seat of our pants.

But, I've got to say that it's a lot of fun!

So, this past week we:



Cleaned and setup house (this definitely required some additional parental help!)















Explored the grounds.



Designated Mommy's desk as mission control...





Introduced two new little ladies to the family! They are well loved and Clair has named them Mickey Mouse and Goofy. This, of course goes really well with the already established Minnie and Daisy, who seem to doing just fine themselves in their new digs.





Speaking of new digs...the Rickys had a little father-son bonding moment putting together the new doghouse turned chicken coop.


Started 30 days of vegan eating






Spent the best 12 dollars. Ever. Seriously. Tucson peeps with toddlers, run to Sunflower Market and buy these toys!



Played some awesome soccer! First game where she played all by herself.

And there you go! What a week that was :)

Oh, I almost forgot... We graduated from Puggles to Cubbies in Awanas.



- on the go, y'all

Late nights

Needless to say we stay up late these days...and get up early. Come 11:15 or 11:30 you can find me and Ricky in the kitchen, sitting around 1/2 gallons of ice cream (don't judge) or chips and salsa, rehashing the day and dreaming about the future. I think I love this time. It reminds me of when we first met and we hadn't made any mistakes yet and life was so full of possibility and promise. It still is, you know, and it's been fun to begin to see that promise for our family really come
into being.

Ricky looked at me over an armful of hummingbird feeder supplies and reiterated what we both really believe..."this is the right decision, you know? I really believe it is."

And so we drink another cup of coffee, twist the hardened top off another hummingbird feeder and kiss the top of two heads that sleep within feet of our own. (We even really like that part, the all sleeping in one room part)

We look up another gluten-free recipe and set aside the bananas for bread-making tomorrow.

We do it together. Like we've always dreamed.

- on the go, y'all

morning adventure

This morning after breakfast, we went for a quick walk as a family.  About 2 seconds into our walk, Ricky realized the pond filter was spewing water.  This means it was broken. (Of course I walked by it a week ago and it was spewing water and I just thought it was pretty...perception is a beautiful thing) So, we stopped to investigate and ended up spending the rest of our short "walk" hanging out by the pond watching Daddy do his thing. 

This ended up being very amusing to me because you could really see the kids' personalities come through. Little Ricky spent the entire time throwing rocks...in the air, onto the path, at me, at his sister, into the water. You know, wherever... And Clair sat herself right down as close to Ricky as she could get and began to coach and cheer and instruct him in the ways he should go, "You must be very very careful, Daddy! Your foot is in the water, Daddy! I'm going to sit down by my Daddy and watch him."  My job was to plug and unplug the filter while Ricky screamed, "unplug! unplug! unplug!" over and over again as water came pouring out from the pump.  

It was fun. Ricky even got nibbled on by some crawdads...ha. We have crawdads! So crazy. 

It's what I love about Sundays

 

- on the go, y'all

Vegan Tortes and a little website lovin

Hi friends!

You know how sometimes you just find places online that you love and look forward to visiting daily?

Beauty that moves is just such a site for me. It is so full of pictures and homeschool love and good food. Such a treat for me. Few words, too, which I don't cry about these days...

Yesterday she launched her new sister site where she will begin to focus more of the whole foods teaching skill set. And I am so excited. Really. I will learn how to cook with real food someday. I will I tell you!

Anyways, the site is Nourish the whole self: beauty that moves and the first posted recipe is this yummy raw vegan
chocolate torte.

I wasn't sure how it would go without all the raw ingredients. I substituted cocoa and also just regular nuts from the bulk section of Frys. And I used a food processor for everything because evidently we don't have a blender out here. An issue quickly remedied by a trip into town. But, regardless, the torte was really good! And so easy. I think it will be a good staple with the wine and cheese at the inn.


- on the go, y'all