Seems like a mighty long time

Hoo boy, I'm not even sure where to start. Hi. Anybody still checking this thing? Suffice it to say, I haven't quite figured out when regularly writing here can fit into my life. I hope to do it more, but I won't make any promises that I can't keep. So, let's see, I last wrote a proper post in . . . June? Let's have a brief recap.

Summer was hot, we did our best to keep cool. We played in the pool,

and spent a lot of time au naturel.

Silas got his first non-Mama haircut (and aged about a year!).

We did a lot of cooking, both real and pretend (these delicious popsicles were a favorite - we used 1/3 cup of sugar, as suggested in the reviews).

We grew teeth (7 at current count, with #8 just below the surface!) 

and grew bigger.

 We went home for a dear friend's beautiful wedding,

a perfect photo of some of my favorite people

spent lots of good time with family and old friends,

'

and had some family photos taken.

Tres was gone for 3 weeks in August. We entertained ourselves by learning to smile and dressing up, among other things.

Then, the kiddos and I spent a wonderful long weekend in Port Townsend with my parents and sister.

 When he got back, Tres started working from home most days and he's really loving it. We've all been enjoying the slower pace of fall and having more time together. These kids are getting bigger by the minute: eating solid food,

learning to crawl,

 getting dressed independently,

He insisted on keeping his shirt like this - and what is this face?

 watching soccer with Opa. . .

Oh yeah, we also did pretty much all of the usual food preservation stuff - a bazillion jars of jam (well,65 half pints, after I promised I'd make fewer this summer than last. . . ha), froze tomato sauce, canned tomatoes, and canned applesauce. Apparently, I didn't take many pictures, although I do thoroughly enjoy this one.

We've finally been having some fall weather and it has me in full soup and baking mode. We're getting excited about Halloween too! I hope to be back here soon.

A man and a woman had a little baby

And now he's three.  He dresses himself, uses the toilet, loves using tools ("Real, not pretend, Mama."), is obsessed with The New Yankee Workshop, has tons of questions (most often, unsurprisingly: why?), sings in the car, and loves snuggling with us, especially at bedtime. . . and past. We had a fun time celebrating him with our folks this past weekend.

We had a "campfire" and roasted marshmallows,

opened presents,

played games,

ate a delicious dinner,

and, of course, enjoyed some cake.

We sure do love this amazing kid.

But you know I know when it's a dream

Well, it seems as though monthly is about as often as I'm able to update around here these days, so I think that I'll just make my peace with that. We've been having warm, warm weather around here and enjoying lots of time outdoors. We're also "working" on potty-training, so there's been a fair amount of naked time. There's something about mundane/every day things being done in the nude that brings me no end of joy. See what I mean?

As usual, we're really loving the onset of fresh fruit and vegetable season. Tres has been stopping every other day or so at the fruit stand for strawberries and we've been devouring them by the pound. After last year's experimenting, I decided to make just one type of strawberry jam this year: the "grown up strawberry jam" from The Blue Chair Jam Book (the amounts have been scaled down here, but it's the only version I could find online). It's quite delicious and the recipe is easy to follow (and high yielding - I got 8 half pints, from the full recipe in the book), plus you end up with most of a bottle of Drambuie to enjoy afterward.

I've been able to try out a bunch of the strawberry recipes that I've had saved away this year too. Here are a few I recommend. First up, is by far my favorite thus far and super easy too, strawberries in wine, with mascarpone cream. I don't think the wine part is even necessary, if you have wonderful, ripe berries, but mascarpone and strawberries are just a match made in heaven (also, I've been mispronouncing mascarpone my whole life - it's mas-car-pone, not mar-sca-pone. . . whoops). Seriously, go make it right now. Some other delicious options: strawberry summer cake, strawberries and cream popsicles, and, for the traditionalists, this is still the tastiest shortcake around.

Even the baby's wearing strawberries!

We can't wait for June

Eep, the time sure is flying around here these days. Do I always start off with that sentiment? If so, I apologize for the repetition, but I really just can't get over it. I mean, this baby? She's 2.5 months old now. Zoiks.

We had a wonderful visit home with family and friends last weekend - lots of baby snuggling, toddler playing, talking, and tasty food. I didn't take any photos, so . . . you'll just have to take my word that it was a great time.

This one was taken by a friend - thanks, Jody!

With summer quickly approaching, we've been spending a lot of time outside. Silas has really been enjoying the pool already this year, as you can see.

It looks like we'll also be getting some homegrown fruit this year! Our strawberries are nearly ripe and some of our fruit trees have lots of proto-fruit. Now if I can just figure out a way to keep those magpies out of them . . . 

So close!

 Pears!

 Peaches!

Cherries!

Yay for fruit, yay for jam season, yay for (soon to arrive) fresh vegetables, yay for summer being almost here!

And you'll find that you're in the rotogravure

I'm not sure why, but I've got a thing for Easter. I suspect that it's because I also love spring and, for me, it's a celebration of the season (eggs, baby animals, new plants growing, flowers), plus a chance to relive/recreate fun childhood memories. Also, chocolate. At any rate, we had a good one this year and hope that you did too.

Carrying on a family tradition: decorating
pussywillow branches with egg and bird ornaments

I made the kiddos a few little Easter presents - fabric baskets (I won't lie, these are really more for me - adding another kid has somehow significantly multiplied the amount of storage/organization we need around here) and little felt chicks (Fern's is a rattle, with a bell from a cat toy inside of it).

I also tried my hand at tsoureki again and was, again, pleasantly surprised with the results, given my relative lack of experience with baking bread. I made the full recipe, which made 4 of the loaves you see below, and pretty much filled up the KitchenAid. Although I'm sure we'll finish it all off, I might halve it next year and cut down on the amount of dried dough I have to clean off of the mixer head. . .

Most of our activities this year centered around eggs. Silas really liked dyeing them. His preferred method was to put one in each jar of dye, then promptly remove them and put in a new batch of eggs. I convinced him to leave a few of the early eggs in a bit longer, but we quickly used the 15 I'd hardboiled and moved on to dyeing raw eggs from the fridge. Luckily, there were plenty on hand (the chickens are laying up a storm these days!). We dyed every egg in the fridge and then saved the dye so that we could do the next day's eggs as well. I didn't do any more experimenting with natural dyes this year, but I'd like to try again next Easter, especially with onion skins and perhaps some red cabbage, as they're awfully pretty.

The main event yesterday was the egg hunt and it was a lot of fun this year. Silas started out slowly. Excitedly carrying around the first two eggs he had found, he was uninterested in looking further.

Then it became this.

Followed by this.

 After a refreshing snack, he was excited to find the rest and (of course), upon doing so relatively quickly, wanted to keep finding more. Ah, the enthusiasm of the two-and-a-half year old.

Fern got a new Easter shirt too - it's a little
silly, but it was a quick sew and I've been
itching to make her a little something to wear

Tasting much sweeter than wine

A few weeks ago, we had a really nice long weekend with Tres's pop, sister, and her husband. We got some quality time together, enjoyed lots of good food and beer, and they gave us a ton of help around the house/yard and with the kiddos. 

Important lessons from Uncle Steve

Headed to the Yakima with Auntie Jessie (and Booker)

One of the projects they took on while they were here was harvesting one of our beehives. The bees didn't survive the winter - I'm not sure if it was disease, pests, an excess of moisture, or some combination - so we harvested all of the honey from their hive. It wasn't full, about half of the combs only had a few inches of honey at the top, and we got about 2.5 gallons of honey from it. I intend to clean/melt the beeswax too, but haven't gotten to a second attempt, after my first failed. I'll post more about it after I try again. The other hive seems to be doing quite well and we may attempt to split it later this spring.

Our supervisor and official taste tester hard at work

 Our stash,  in the (poorly lit) pantry

To remove the honey, they cut the combs off of the bars (I didn't get photos of this part, but here's what the hives and bars look like), crunched them up, and put them in a paint strainer inside a fifty gallon food grade bucket with a spigot on the bottom,  lined with another paint strainer. The honey slowly strained through the cloth and they poured it into pint jars. It was pretty slow going, taking about 12 hours (15 hours?) over the course of two days. As it slowed, it didn't need such constant surveillance, just occasional checks and jar replacement. This was a totally manageable technique for processing what was, for us, a large amount of honey. Assuming (hoping!) we don't lose a hive again, we won't need to do things on such a large scale in the future, but we would employ a similar technique (crushing, straining, jarring) with different equipment. I'm really happy with how it worked out and so grateful to our family for making it possible during an otherwise busy (crazy?) time for us. It was a wonderful family weekend. Oh, and we've been eating honey every day since. It's delicious.

The fam-damily (sans photographer Grandpa)