It's official.

This kiddo rolls.

P.S. He has absurdly large ears and I love 'em.

Listen Up

Remember the BeeGee's classic "How Deep is your Love?" Here's the cover by The Bird and The Bee.

Yum Yum Monday

The jury is out when it comes to brownies...cake-like or fudgy? These are my favorite fudgy brownies.

{fudgy brownies}

10 TBS. (1 1/4 sticks) butter
1/2 c. rapadura (or succanat)
3/4 c. plus 2 TBS. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp.salt
½ tsp. vanilla
2 cold large eggs
1/2 c. WW flour or spelt flour
2/3 c. pecan pieces


1 Preheat oven to 325°F with rack positioned in the lower third of the oven. Line the bottom and the sides of an 8-inch square baking pan with foil or parchment paper, leaving an overhang on two opposite sides to make it easier to lift the brownies out of the pan when they are done.

2 Combine the butter, cocoa, sugar, and salt in a medium heatproof bowl. Set the bowl in a wide skillet of barely simmering water. Stir the butter cocoa mixture from time to time until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth and hot enough that you want to remove your finger quickly after dipping it in to test. Remove the bowl from the skillet and set aside briefly until the mixture is only warm, not hot.

3 Using a wooden spoon, stir in the vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring quickly after each one. When the batter looks shiny, thick, and well mixed, add the flour and stir until you cannot see it any longer, then beat for 40 strokes with the wooden spoon. Stir in the pecans. Spread the batter evenly in the lined pan.

4 Bake until a tester inserted into the center comes out just slightly moist with batter, 15-25 minutes. In my oven and at my altitude these puppies were done in 17 minutes. Let the brownies cool completely on a rack. Lift up the ends of the foil or parchment paper liner, and transfer the brownies to a cutting board. Cut into squares.

The Christmas Rundown

For Family Night this week we told Sage that we'd be celebrating two birthdays but we didn't tell her who. We made birthday hats (check out the photo above) and even a birthday cake (brownies). Then we played a guessing game to find out who had a birthday. Can you guess? Joseph Smith and the Savior!




Le Jeep looks good in white no? Just in time for Christmas! Woohoo!

A lovely mom in our new ward invited us to Christmas Eve. Kaly has the most beautiful house and it's perfect for hosting parties. Sage met 2 other 4 1/2 year olds and ate more goodies in one sitting than she's probably had in her entire life. When Shane told her to try a doughnut she asked, "What's a doughnut?"

After eating, playing, acting out the Christmas story with all the other kids and listening to "The Night Before Christmas" she was hungry again. With all of the yummy food around Sage chose an apple...atta girl!




Sage thought Santa would enjoy some cookies and tomatoes, the carrot is for the reindeer.
She wanted to serve Santa two beverages...milk and orange juice. No oranges so we squeezed tangerines. Santa loooved the tangerine juice and thinks we should serve it more often.

Sage's letter to Santa (she wrote it out herself):

Hello Santa Claus. This food is for you. The carrot is for the reindeer.

On the back she provided a food key (you can see in the photo up above). She drew and colored pictures of each food item and then labeled them.




Favorite Gifts:

Sage: Dark Chocolate Reindeer
Micah: wrapping paper (hours of fun)
Shane and Alicia: Sage's 7:30 wake-up time




Santa ran out of sleds so he left this IOU for Sage. We'll take her tomorrow to find one. Shane... errr Santa tried to disguise his handwriting and wrote in lower case. It's been almost a decade since he's used lower case. I about died laughing when I saw his t's....if you click on the picture you'll see what I mean.





Would you believe it if I told you that a hot dog is a big treat around here? We decided that dogs and fries and kombucha would make a great Christmas dinner. The ultimate low key holiday meal eh?

Joy to the world!

Merry Christmas!

A girl can dream.

From Anthropologie.

Golden Slumbers

When Sage was born my sister-in-laws made me promise that I would sleep train her. I read half a dozen book on the subject and at 11 weeks we went to work. It was easy and we were happy.

Sage

Night 1: cried 30 minutes
Night 2: cried 40 minutes
Night 3: cried 30 minutes
Night 4: slept 12 hours straight (plus 2-2 hour naps during the day)

For some strange reason when it comes to Micah I have no will power and I waited 17 (long) weeks to sleep train him. We finally took the plunge last week.

Micah

Night 1: cried 2.5 hours (plus 2 night wakings with lots more crying)
Night 2: cried 3 hours (plus 1 night waking)
Night 3: cried 1 hour
Night 4: Some crying

Yikes! I'm not sure if he's just more persistent than Sage or if he can cry longer because he's older.

It was painful to hear him cry so much but the payoff is huge: a happier baby and two rested parents.

We wanted to see where our milk comes from.

Calf pen where the babies are kept for the first 6 weeks to be domesticated before they're turned out to pasture


The goats tried to eat my scarf and Micah's toes


These lovely ladies produce mighty delicious eggs. They live in an old trailer.

Our new raw milk dairy is Windsor Dairy. One of the owners, Meg, took us on a tour yesterday. Not only is she a dairy farmer but she, and her husband, are vets. She was incredibly patient as I asked a thousand question. She was also so knowledgeable and funny and tenderhearted (she sure loves her animals). Meg's dairy has been through three phases: conventional dairy (cows packed in dirt pens, fed diet of soy and corn and antibiotics/hormones), an organic dairy (fed organic grains) and now totally grass fed. She couple of interesting facts about her dairy in all three of it's stages (conventional/organic/grass-fed):

1) Incidence of Mastitis (an udder infection that makes milk unfit to drink)
Conventional: 100+ cases/yr
Organic: 6 cases/yr
Grassfed: 0

Milk Production:
Conventional: 9 gallons/day
Organic: 6 gallons/day
Grassfed: 3 gallons/day---all this means is that the cows may not produce as much but what they do produce is packed with nutrients

2) The milk from her cows has TWICE the amount of protein and fat that conventional grocery store milk does.

3) Every batch of milk is tested for salmonella, listeria, E-coli and camphylobacter. In 3.5 years that they've been producing milk from grass fed cows they have never tested positive for any of those. That's some clean milk. A conventional dairy produces milk that is chock full of all those nasty pathogens...that's why they have to pasteurize it and kill all those germs.

Meg also talked about how she was once a specialist in shoulder dystocia (when shoulders get stuck during a birthing). Now that her cows are grass fed and healthy she said she never has to assist with a birth.In fact, she rarely has to use her vet training now that her cows are eating what cows are meant to eat.

Hmmm...kinda makes you think. Cows eating what they're made to eat= healthy cows. Same thing goes for humans. Goldfish, Skippy and Wonder Bread do not a healthy person make.

Feeding our family the best food possible is more expensive but is there anything better we could spend our money on? After all we only get one shot with these bodies of ours.

Cheap foods come with a high cost...our health.

In the words of Hippocrates, "Let food be your medicine and let medicine be your food."

And now I'll step down from my soapbox.

Gingerbread Men

We're a little (read:waaay) behind this year in the Christmas department. We haven't even decorated our tree yet except for a few stray candy canes. This morning we finally got around to our tradition of baking gingerbread men for decorations. The popcorn and cranberry strands will have to wait until next year!

{gingerbread men}

• 3 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
  
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter (room temperature, softened)
• 1/2 cup dark-brown sugar, packed (I used 1/4 c. succanat)
  
• 1 Tbsp ground ginger
• 1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup unsulfured molasses

1 In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, and spices. Set aside.

2 In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter. Add sugar and beat until fluffy. Mix in eggs and molasses. Gradually add the flour mixture; combine on low speed. (You may need to work it with your hands to incorporate the last bit of flour.) Divide dough in thirds; wrap each third in plastic. Chill for at least 1 hour or overnight. Before rolling out, let sit at room temperature for 5-10 minutes. If after refrigerating the dough feels too soft to roll-out, work in a little more flour.

3 Heat oven to 350°. Place a dough third on a large piece of lightly floured parchment paper or wax paper. Using a rolling pin, roll dough 1/8 inch thick. Refrigerate again for 5-10 minutes to make it easier to cut out the cookies. Use either a cookie cutter or place a stencil over the dough and use a knife to cut into desired shapes. Press raisins, chocolate chips, or candy pieces in the center of each cookie if desired for "buttons".

4 Transfer to ungreased baking sheets. Bake until crisp but not darkened, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from oven. Let sit a few minutes and then use a metal spatula to transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Note: If you're planning to use these little men for your tree you'll need to do the following:

• bake cookies for 13-15 minutes (til crispy)
• as soon as they come out of the oven, make a good size hole (using a toothpick) where you want to thread your ribbon through
• leave cookies out for a day or so until they are nice and stale
• thread some skinny red ribbon through the cookie hole, tie a bow using both ends and hang it up!

Ice Princess

Whoopsadasiy!

Hitting her stride

We told her we would go ice skating at 3 when Micah woke up. As soon as she heard him stirring she made a beeline for the door.

Lots of wobbles and a few crash landings at first but after an hour she was lookin' good and feeling oh so confident.

We drank hot cocoa with loads of whipped cream after. We're still not sure which part Sage loved best...the skating or the cocoa.

Homesick

Sage and I went to the park the other day...it didn't last long.

We've been home lots because of the snow and cold (it's been hovering around 9 degrees 'round here) and the lack of friends.

Tonight Sage finally cracked and blurted out:

"I'm homesick! I'm sick of being home all the time!"

Colorado Firsts

First snow

And yes, those are plastic bags on her feet---the snow caught us off guard and without boots



First bath together



First fire

I love Micah's ears...he takes after his daddy

Climbing

We took our first CO family hike today. Cold and gorgeous.




Sage was a little mountain goat, climbing up the rocks with no fear at all.




If we hadn't seen the change in Sage with our own eyes Shane and I wouldn't believe it...she is freer and happier. Maybe it's all the fresh air and wide open spaces.



She and Shane are already planning their next climbing expedition.

More

In keeping with the musical theme here's a parody of the Internet and West Side Story.

Web Site Story

Pretty clever.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Obsession

I love musicals. Stage and screen. In hopes that Sage would love them too I started her listening at a tender age. It worked...a little too well. Now this kiddo walks around singing, "Doo... doodoodoodoodoo...doodoodoodoodoo" (the Phantom's theme from Phantom of the Opera). And whenever we're in the car guess what she requests? Phantom. At home all day she asks if we can listen to Phantom or South Pacific or Singing in the Rain. And she wants to know what every song means and who's singing it and why they're singing it. How many times can I possibly explain why the Phantom loves Christine and hates her too?

Darn my brilliant ideas.

Jelly Belly

Can't show you the current state of the belly but here it is with 10.5 lbs of Micah in it

I was pumping the other day, tummy fully exposed, when Sage came along,

"Your tummy is fat mama!"

Yep. The cold hard truth from my toddler.

Listen Up

Local boy makes good. The lead singer of Crash Boom Bang, Omar, is a high school buddy of my sister. The producer of his latest album is none other than Tom Higgenson, the lead singer of the Plain White T's.

Yum Yum Monday

{em's lentil soup}

2 c. dried lentils, rinsed
9-10 c. chicken broth
2 c. chopped onion
4 garlic clove, minced
1 TBS. butter
4 c. chopped fresh tomatoes
2 c. finely diced carrots
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. dried marjoram (optional)

Bring lentils and chicken broth to a boil in a large saucepan. Reduce heat; simmer for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, saute the onion and garlic in oil; add to the saucepan. Add the tomatoes, carrots, thyme, and marjoram. Cook 30 minutes longer or until lentils and vegetables are tender. Top with lots of shredded cheddar cheese and serve with hunks of crusty bread!

Thanks for this amazing recipe Emily!

Best Buns in Town

Yum.

Halloween

One little punkin and a cowgirl (who was oft mistaken for a cowboy--poor kiddo).

Total cost? Nada.

Shirt, hat, bandana and pumpkin costume: borrowed

Vest: I turned a paper sack inside out, cut out a pattern and stapled the pieces together. Then I soaked it in water, crumpled it in a ball and let it dry in the sun to give it a weathered leather look.

And in the grand tradition of the S. family Sage carried a pillowcase to stash her candy in.

Yeehaw!































Shane was out of town in Colorado. He missed seeing our kiddos all dressed up but he did catch a Halloween parade. Here's our favorite costume from that night:
























P.S. Pretty sure that name tag says "Brother Locos" as in in "Brother Crazy." Ha! He's loco if he doesn't know that he's holding a treasure in his hands.

All our bags are packed, we're ready to go.

Goodbye OC and hello Boulder, Colorado.

In 2 weeks.

We'll miss wonderful friends, beautiful beaches and practically perfect weather but we're excited for a new adventure.

First Talk

Last Sunday Sage gave her first talk. The topic was my family and I can serve others. A week before I asked her some questions and put her answers together into a short little talk. We practiced all week and by Sunday morning she was ready...talk memorized and story of the Great Samaritan (her change of adjectives) down pat.

The moment of truth came and she stood at the podium quietly whispering the first line then her voice got louder and more confident as she finished up. Then came time to tell the story, "I don't wanna tell it." Sage exited stage right and sat down in her chair.

Guess we'll try again.

Here's the talk:

Jesus served people. He was nice and He took care of people. Serving people means: bringing them to church, inviting them to play, inviting them to dinner, praying for them. I feel good when I serve people.

This is what I find when I wake up in the morning.

And this is why I love him so much.

Like Mother Like Daughter

Sage wanted to try pumping.

Why I Love Shane-Part 6

This morning Shane grabbed a slice of freshly baked pumpkin bread on his way out the door. Later, when I walked into the kitchen to cut a slice for myself I noticed the end piece (cue the Hallelujah chorus) waiting for me on the cooling rack. Sweet Shane saved my most favorite part. It sure is wonderful that in this crazy world someone loves me enough to remember that I love the crusty, crunchy goodness of the end slice.

Count Your Blessings

I was all ready for my 3-day doula training this weekend.

Diapers and wipes. Check.

Lunch, dinner and snacks. Check.

Directions. Check.

Micah. Check.

Ready to go.

The class is in LA at a doula's home. Google Maps says that in traffic it will take 2 hours. I decide to leave super early to avoid the traffic and I arrive an hour and a half early. Micah and I kick around. He eats, I change a diaper, we go for a walk. As the time approaches 9 AM I knock on the door, no answer. Call on the phone, no answer. Knock on neighbors doors. "Do you know the lady next door?" "No" (welcome to Southern California folks). Finally I find a neighbor who tells me that the teacher is out of town until the 1st.

Right date. uhhhhh....no.

I was so mad that I drove so far, wasted so much time and energy. Driving down the road fuming and frustrated, a few mad tears in my eyes, I saw a billboard for a local news station, a great big anchor face staring out at me.

The name of the anchor? Micah.

Suddenly the angry cloud lifted and I remembered my Micah. I glanced over my shoulder at him sleeping peacefully in the back seat and my heart welled up with love. I remembered how much I have to be grateful for. I spent the long car ride home counting my blessings and arrived home with a smile on my face.

Listen Up-Flashback

Stina Nordenstam's voice is a Catch-22....odd yet compelling and lovely. You might remember this song from "Romeo & Juliet."

Yum Yum Monday

The perfect cup of hot cocoa to keep you toasty on a cold night.

Recipe here.

The Many Faces of Micah

Worried

Curious

Sleepy

Delighted

Homemade Baby Wipes

Call me cheap but I don't like paying $4.50 for "natural" baby wipes. I started looking around for alternatives: washable wipes I wasn't quite ready for so instead we made our own disposables. It takes about 10 minutes and the wipes are 100 times better than store bought. The essential oils help heal and prevent diaper rash; tea tree oil is an antibacterial and lavender has healing properties. Micah's bum has never looked better.

1 roll paper towels, cut in half
2 cups hot water
2 TBS. coconut oil (can use baby oil)
2 TBS. Dr. Bronner's Baby Soap (can use baby soap)
5 drops lavender oil--optional
5 drops tea tree oil--a must, it prevents the wipes from getting moldy

1. Here's the hardest part of the whole process: cut paper towel roll in half with a serrated knife (if you have an electric knife that would be really handy here).
2. Place 1/2 of paper towels, cut side down, in an empty wipes container.
3. Mix hot water with oil, baby wash and essential oils. Pour over wipes, close wipes container and turn upside down. After 5 minutes, remove cardboard tube and start wipes from center (where the tube was).
   

Dreamin'

At dinner recently we were discussing our dream to someday have land and animals.

Sage piped in:

"I'll have sooo many chores. I'll get the eggs from the chickens and the milk from the cows and the bacon from the pigs."

Is it just me?

Or does the name of this OC joint make you think ...

chronic diarrhea

Blech.

Count me out.

Conference Fun

Yay for Conference weekend! I love hearing the wisdom and counsel of our prophet and apostles. Since there's no cable 'round this house we head to the church to watch Conference. How do we get Sage to sit quietly? She has pictures (see above) laid out next to her on a pew. Every time she hears the word pictured she gets to choose a small treat from a bowl.

She has been SO excited about Conference because she knows that for 8 hours she'll get unlimited snacking on treats. Lucky girl.

The goodies

It's Amazing..

that Sage caught this cucumber (she requested that I post this)

and

that Micah slept for 6 hours (I feel like a new woman!)

P.S. My children don't always run around naked but it's been hot as Hades lately so I don't mind

Yum Yum Monday

Hot days are coming to a close so I'm trying to enjoy all of my summer salads one last time. Chicken, Spinach and Cashew Salad with Honey Mustard Dressing is one of our standbys.

Go here for the recipe.

It's a Hard Knock Life

Micah here. Let me tell you, it's ruff (with a capital R) being the baby around here. I have this big sister who's always mugging on me...smothering me with kisses and cooing over my cuteness. Mom says Sage adores me and she means well...I'll let you decide for yourself.

Exhibit A
She is constantly taking my picture. When Mommy uploads photos she finds dozens of blurry pictures and videos of me doing nothing.

Exhibit B
She adjusts me...scary! Check out the look of terror on my face.
I'd like to leave the adjustments to the professional around the house, thank you very much.

Exhibit C
She builds tents and makes me join her inside.

Mom says that some day we'll be best friends and play together all day.

Even though I like to complain about big sis I can't wait for that day.

Just don't tell Sage.