for several months now, i've been enjoying a perk of being a blogger: free books! i get a book in the mail quite frequently and i'm allowed to review it on my blog, or read it and keep it or give it away without ever blogging about it. i'm happy to report that after months and months and dozens of books sent to me...i just received two books that are KEEPERS and that i'm really excited about!

the first of these two books i'll review today. Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld (due out this weekend!) arrived on my doorstep last week and I dove into it immediately. the concept is simple: hide veggies in normal, kid-friendly foods, and they'll get their veggies whether they like them or not. the plan is a bit more complicated...you're not tossing broccoli in the bowl with lucky charms and soy milk (not that that would be hiding the veggies so much). you prepare vegetable and fruit purees, freeze them, and then use them in the recipes in the book.

it's been a while since i've pureed much of anything since adam has been on solid foods for months already, so if i want to follow any of these recipes, i'll have to get back into it. but i love the concept enough that i'm willing to give it a try again. besides, i love the veggies that she has listed to puree (and adam is NOT a veggie eater at all).

she lists a lot of breakfast recipes - which is great because i'm at a loss for healthy breakfast choices some mornings. rowan doesn't like eggs, but sawyer and adam love them. kenny loves eggs and toast...i prefer a bowl of cereal or oatmeal. we all love pancakes. i love her recipes for applesauce muffins, peanut butter and banana muffins, blueberry lemon muffins and coffee cake.

there are so many meals listed that i don't know where to start: beef stew, spaghetti with meatballs, quesadillas, or sloppy joes? twice-baked potatoes, waffle sandwiches, or pita pizzas?

and the desserts? brownies (with carrot and spinach puree), hot cocoa, chocolate cupcakes, or chocolate chip muffins? the amounts of puree in each recipe is impressive, so you're getting a good amount of veggies in each bite (especially in kid-sized portions).

the book itself is lovely - it's ring binder style, so it'll stay open on your counter. the pictures are cute, and the recipes are easy to follow (with the veggie/fruit puree listed under the recipe title as well as the amount listed in the recipe). i'm excited to give the recipes a try. when i do, i'll be sure to review them again, along with the responses from each of the boys, and my husband (who doesn't have any trouble eating veggies) and let you know if this is just a pretty book to look at, or a worth-while, useful cookbook.

and yes, she is the wife of jerry seinfeld.

our life with chickens seems to stay so similar from day to day until something exciting happens - like a blue-green egg! and then i'm reminded just how fortunate we are to be living with these fowl.  i discovered today, that it is our beloved araucana, bettis (named for her thick neck, like the beloved, retired steeler, jerome bettis), that is producing the blue-green egg. both my mom and i discovered her in the nest box today, around the time the egg appeared. here she is in all her thick-neck glory:

when beginning our research into raising chickens, kenny and i fell in love with all the characteristics of the Buff Orpington. So far, our Buffs won't let us near them, and we are not sure if they're laying yet - two opposites of what we were expecting of them (very friendly, and good layers). But they sure are beautiful!

now, when i refer to our chickens as beautiful, i know that some of you are rolling your eyes or laughing thinking, "beautiful? i think NOT!" i know i'm in the minority. and this is a picture that doesn't flatter our Golden Buffs...and i agree, these chickens aren't necessarily beautiful. but they're our current fabulous egg-layers, and we're thankful for our eggs!

here's another beauty. am i the only one who is reminded of george washington upon looking at these silver laced wyandottes?

every evening, our boys love running around with the chickens. a few of them usually hang out with us when we're outside at the jungle gym in the evenings. rowan usually ends up picking a few of them up, while sawyer tries to, but freaks out at the last minute. adam is also very fond of them - as they are of him. they walk right up to him and peck his hand, his fingers, his feet.... he laughs and "yells" at them.

...except for the fact that kenny and i were awakened at 5:30 by a pretty awful sound coming from the outside. we're still not sure if it was an animal or made by a human, but neither of us could get back to sleep. so off we went downstairs to make the coffee at 6:00.

but for the first time in several days (even weeks?), adam was in a cheerful mood upon waking up and throughout the morning. i've been wondering about his ears, but more sure it was his teeth that have been bothering him (have you ever watched those molars creep their way through the gums in the back of your child's mouth? it looks so...painful!) since he's just grumpy for most of the day. but today? he had his milk, ate an egg and some toast and played happily on the back porch with his brothers all morning.

at 9:00, the boys and i piled into the car for a grocery trip, and to hit the Goodwill (i'm loving the boys' fall/winter clothes i'm finding for 99 cents and $1.99 at Goodwill and Salvation Army!). on the way out, i let the chickens out and checked the nest boxes - something either kenny or i do every morning. this morning, smack dab in the middle of our brown eggs sat a beautiful blue-green egg. rowan couldn't be more excited!

Goodwill was a bust for boys' clothes, but i found a whole section of just fabric for cheap (i didn't buy any since none of it was what i needed for current projects). on the way out, i drove around back to the donation center and something caught my eye...i thought i saw what could have been an antique sewing machine. but at the Goodwill? wouldn't they be in an antique store? i decided to ignore it and went on to the grocery store.

but i couldn't forget about it. fortunately, the grocery store is just across the street from the Goodwill, so after i piled the boys into their car seats, strapped them all in, found their favorite music, we headed over to the Goodwill again. i pulled around back, hopped out of the car and walked over to the piece of furniture...and it was: an antique sewing machine. it wasn't antique enough to have a pedal that you pump; it was electric. but it was old enough. and get this...it was $5.99!

kenny and i have always liked antiques. i don't care that this machine probably doesn't work (i haven't plugged it in yet - i'm afraid to, looking at the frayed cord) because at least it would fill a corner in our home. so i bought it.

and despite the fact that adam only slept a total of 45 minutes today, he was still chipper and happy and non-clingy. it's amazing how your child's well-being really plays into the overall feel of how a day goes. because even though the blue egg and the sewing machine were big parts of my day...really, it was adam being pleasant and happy that did it for me.

on one of my first visits to kenny's parents' home (when we were dating or engaged...i can't remember which), i remember spotting something hanging on their basement wall that caught my eye. when i asked kenny about it, he told me it was an embroidered version of a painting he did when he was about 5 years old. his grandmother recreated one of his paintings with yarn. i fell in love with the idea and tucked it in the back of my mind.

a year or so ago, kenny's mom gave him a thick envelope filled with paintings and report cards, drawings and notes that he had done as s child. i think he was ready to throw it out, but being the nostaligc type, i opened it and examined each picture, read each note that he had written to his parents or grandparents, and put the envelope on a shelf so he couldn't throw it away. why throw away such treasures?

it wasn't until early this summer that i put two and two together and realized that in that envelope was the original "kenny smith painting" that his grandmother reproduced. and i'm now honored to have both!

the first month we moved into our new digs here in the country, i took a composting class hosted by an environmental group in allegheny county where we were given a brand new composter (which is serving us well...we've been composting green and brown materials now for 16 months and it's only 1/3 of the way full). the class took place at the rachel carson homestead which was the original home of who is known as the pioneer of the environmental movement, rachel carson.

i found out that she wrote a book called silent spring in the 1960s which is known as an attack on the newly developed insecticides and other chemicals for use in farming and suburban gardens.

then i had a baby and forgot all about her. until just last week when i came across an episode on our local PBS station of "On Q" that focused a bit on rachel and her local homestead. i found that she wrote more than just one book, so i requested a bunch of her books at the library last week and brought them home just yesterday. Silent Spring is one of the books i requested and can't wait to read, but one that i'm totally stuck on and in love with and now want to buy for all my friends who are parents of young ones is the sense of wonder. it's a remake of an old pamphlet that she wrote just before her death. the copy that i have includes stunning nature photos by nick kelsh among the words of her original pamphlet.

one of my favorite quotes:

i think i like that one so much because she has described who i am NOT...but who i want to become for the sake of my kids. when the fireflies were out in june and july, rowan and sawyer couldn't wait to chase them. that usually meant it was close to dark, which was closer to 8:30 or 9:00 - well past their bedtime. initially i was concerened about them being overtired, but then i realized that you're only their age once. and their minds are beginning to retain memories (i have memories from when i was three, so i know at least rowan will remember these times).

my favorite memories of our mini-vacation to lake erie this summer was playing on the beach at sunset. normally, i'd do my best to keep adam out of the water since he was in clothes and not a bathing suit, but it was at least 45 minutes until sunset and he wasn't happy unless he was at least ankle-deep in the water. so he splashed around, got completely drenched, and loved every minute of it.

i am becoming less tightly wound as a parent watching my kids take it all in for the first, second, and third times; seeing the wide sky over a big lake, or hearing a rain storm fall so hard it's hard to talk over its din.

reading this book comes at a time in my life as a parent when i am realizing how amazing the outside world is to a young child. all summer i've watched adam transfixed on ocean waves, staring up at our hemlock tree blowing back and forth on a windy day, watching rain fall from the sky. this summer, the older two boys have become more independent in their outside play and adam is learning how to navigate the yard, the pine trees, and the outside toys by playing with them. summer is the perfect time to soak it all in, and winter the perfect time to reflect on the outside from the inside warmth of a fireplace. spring and fall are perfect for both.

in the meantime, i'm excited to watch adam see and feel snow for the first time. i can't wait to see what next summer brings to us. i promise to let them all stay up a bit later, get a bit wetter and messier and enjoy every minute of it.

and here's our big three-year-old today. our rough-and-tumble yet super snuggly sawyer cole. we love you, sawco! happy birthday!

just after college, i read a book that gutted me, and continues to haunt me today

the book was Two Part Invention by Madeleine L'Engle. it's a beautiful telling of two people madly in love who married and raised a family all the while living life to the absolute fullest. at the end of the book, L'Engle's husband, Hugh, dies of cancer, and i remember feeling just heartbroken for her as she described the death of her husband being like an amputation.

i re-read the book a month before kenny and i got married and it struck the same deep sadness in me then as it did the first time i read it. perhaps it is time for me to read it again, as Madeleine herself passed away this week.

although news of her passing is so sad, i can't help but smile at the thought of hugh and madeleine reunited in that forever place where there are no more tears.

adam seems to have found the snack drawer already. and he's already helping himself to his favorite snack (graham crackers). and i guess the quarter-of-a-sheet-o-crackers-at-a-time just ain't cutting it for him. i should have known that he prefers to put four whole sheets in his mouth at once.

rowan took one look at this photo and said, "what a troublemaker." he's wise beyond his years.

the end of summer seems so...heavy. take a look around you. the green leaves are weighing branches down. the gardens have candy-apple red (or ripe-tomato red) fruit hanging on plants shared with dead, yellowed (once green) tomato leaves. the weeds have overpowered every effort of weeding. shrubs, grasses, and plants look tired of their summer life...as kenny likes to say, they look "rode hard and put away wet." they've had a good life in the hot sun. it's time to rest for the colder months and re-awaken with vigor come spring.

this is the first summer in a long time that i've enjoyed every last bit of heat and sunshine, and would love a few more weeks of MORE. fortunately, it can be in the 70s well into october in these here parts (i.e., october 21, 2001 was in the mid 70s...i remember this because i was wearing a heavy, silk wedding dress that day), so i don't really have to let go of it just yet. however, everywhere you look, fall is here: pumpkins and scarecrows and halloween and thanksgiving decorations line the shelves in every store.

we've been enjoying the cooler (or less humid) evenings after dinner playing aerobie while the three boys run around us in the yard. rowan and sawyer usually spend the time riding their bikes into the pine trees or swinging on their jungle gym while adam walks circles around us.

the other evening, kenny and i stayed on the deck with adam after eating dinner outside while the older two went to swing. they eventually ended up watching clouds (something i haven't done since i was a kid myself!). adam had fun with the cat: