The Lady Clan makes sushi with Daddy

After the sushi party yesterday, the girls decided that they wanted more sushi.  Fortunately, they persuaded daddy to make more with them.  

Party prep is in full swing

Zion's birthday is only a week away.  A week until my baby turns four.  I look back at previous birthday posts for Zion and they all focus on my last firsts.  Last first steps, last first birthdays, last first words... I love the little girl that my last baby is growing into, so this year, I will try to focus less on her being my LAST baby and focus more on her just being my baby.  I will say this, I am in the throes of planning my last first big birthday party!  All of the girls are so excited for Zion's sushi party.  I will be more excited when I have finished cutting and assembling all of these tiny little odds and ends.  I've decided to make goodie bags for this little shindig.  I am not a huge fan of goodie bags myself because they tend to include a ton of candy and a bunch of little plastic toys that end up in the trash before the day is over.  So it is very rare that I do goodie bags (and they never include candy).  Zion's bags will include a kokeshi bookmark that the kids will be able to color at the party, a mini paper koma spinning tops, a paper crane, a pair of chopsticks and a fortune cookie.  Everything is handmade except the chopsticks and fortune cookie.

Little paper sushi will go on tags for the goodie bags.  I am currently covered in glitter (much to my dismay).

I love kokeshi dolls.  I have loved them since I randomly found one in a thrift store in St. Croix five (or more) years ago.  She became my favorite little trinket.  I found a couple of kokeshi designs on the internet that I like and drew up some blank ones and copied them onto cardstock for the kids to decorate.  I will add a little ribbon so that they can be used as bookmarks.  The large kokeshi will be used to play Fukuwarai.  It's similar to pin the tail on the donkey (we always have some version of that at every party).  Kids cut out the facial features and, while blindfolded, attempt to arrange them correctly on the face.

That red take out box in full of tiny little spinning tops.  I had to hide them in the box because my girls LOVE them and will not stop taking them.

One more week until this party and there is still plenty to do.  I'm sure I will be vacuuming tiny paper scraps and glitter from my carpet for weeks to come.

On a completely unrelated note, Jena made lasagna all by herself last night.  Eggplant, spinach, and sweet peppers!  It was tasty.

Farmer's Market Dinners

I love the fact that we have a couple of good farmer's markets and local grocery stores in this town.  I am enjoying meals made with fresh, locally grown ingredients.  Saturday's dinner was made almost exclusively from food bought that day at the market (the pizza dough excluded).

We made flat bread pizzas with yellow tomato, fresh mozzarella and a little mint (we didn't have basil) from the girls' garden.

 I made the dough and cooked one side on our flat cast iron skillet.  Then I put it under the broiler to melt the cheese and brown the top of the crust.

We had the pizza with roasted cabbage and yellow summer squash.  Bijou LOVED the summer squash.  It was met with a lukewarm reception from the other girls.  I think they enjoyed the flavor, but the texture left much to be desired.  I personally, thought it was tasty.  And the roasted cabbage, they could eat several heads of cabbage if I roast them!

Sunday Dinner

This year I decided to add a couple of things to our weekly school (and just regular old life) routine.  This year, the older girls will get the opportunity to plan and prepare a meal for the family for Sunday dinner.  Now, they cook on a fairly regular basis.  Their meals usually consist of pasta, pizza, stir fry, etc., but this meal has to be something special.  They will have two weeks to plan their Sunday dinner.  The planning includes: finding a recipe and adjusting it to feed six (if it doesn't already), making a shopping list (excluding the things we already have in the kitchen), going to the store to price each item, creating a budget for grocery shopping and making sure we have all of the necessary equipment in our kitchen.  Jena got the opportunity to make her first Sunday dinner tonight.  She was VERY ambitious in her first solo dinner preparation, but I have to say, she completely surpassed all of my expectations.  Our dinner this evening was an onion and leek tart, sauteed asparagus, salmon and for dessert, raspberry (and strawberry) napoleons.  (I know.  Crazy, right?)  She started out this afternoon making pastry cream FROM SCRATCH as well as pastry crust from scratch.  (Her crust was flaky and delicious, by the way).  When I say that she made this dinner solo, I mean SOLO.  My only job was to be assistant in the dessert assembly (I put the berries on as she layered).  I'm pretty proud of her (and she's pretty proud of herself, too). 

The little girls were not very patient when waiting for dinner.  Granted, they did not get to eat until it was past their bedtime, but it was well worth the wait.

The napoleon

And one very happy baby sister.  She cried all while she waited for dinner (she hadn't had a nap and it was past her bedtime), but look how content she is with dessert in her hand.

Pi(e)

I forgot to take a picture of the pie that we made for Einstein's birthday (and pi day).  Fortunately, the hubs was on the ball that day.  It was delicious, by the way.

Just another night in the David household...

Sometimes I feel like my children live in a fantastic musical.  There's an abundance of song, dance and fantasy around here quite often.  Tonight, the girls decided that we needed to have a fancy dinner.  Jena wanted to cook dinner.  She made whole wheat penne pasta and tomato sauce with broccoli and mushrooms.  Ashni wanted to add some gourmet flair, so she was in charge of plating (chopped fresh spinach and smear of sauce).  A pot of peppermint tea and a few dressy outfits later, the girls were eating Italian food with chopsticks!  As if that was not enough, they also decided that they needed to speak in pretend accents for the entire dinner. 

I told you I'd be back...

I am officially back to blogging. I know, I know, it's been FOREVER! Hopefully there are still a couple of people who still care about what's going on in our little corner of the world. There have been big changes around here.


First and foremost, I am now an official member of the work force again. So, I am up and out everyday at 7:20 (that's in the morning), which is a HUGE change for me. That also means that The Hubs is now handling the bulk of the homeschooling activities. I'm still putting together the lesson plans for the most part, but he is carrying them out. We will be wrapping up 3rd (Ashni)and 4th (Jena) grade in the next few weeks and begin 4th and 5th grade in January. Bijou has learned to read several sight words and can sound out short words on her own. She's very proud.


Jena turned 10 on August 20th. She officially had her last big birthday party. It was rainbow themed and all of her friends came out to celebrate with her.



This is a version of a very complicated sounding cake that Jena saw in a Martha Stewart magazine (a frozen rainbow chiffon cake). My version consists of several flavors of sorbet melted and refrozen in a cake pan in rainbow order, then covered in whipped cream. It looked and tasted awesome! It was a bigger hit than the cupcakes!

I haven't really created much in the way of crafts or art, but I have a couple of portrait commissions waiting in the wings. I did make chocolate souffles several weeks ago. They weren't as difficult as I thought they would be and were delicious. (I think I won Mother of the Year the day after the souffles were made because I let the girls have them for breakfast. I mean, they're mostly eggs, so that makes it okay. Right?).

(they were taller when they first came out of the oven, but I didn't think to take a picture when they first came out)

Time to make the donuts

Why, yes. Yes, I am up at 10pm making donuts. What?! You're not?

Yum...

Candy from Ancient Greece

We are studying ancient Greece right now for history. We're just starting out and so far we have listened to Homer's The Odyssey, worked on Zeus' family tree and made these little treats (that apparently were popular during symposiums in ancient Greece). They were very simple and the kids really liked them.



Here's the recipe:

7 tablespoons of sesame seeds
4 large tablespoons of honey
(That's it!)

Add sesame seeds and honey to a small saucepan. Simmer on low for 15 minutes stirring regularly. Remove from heat and let cool stirring occasionally. Let it cool until it's almost room temperature. It gets really stiff, so you may want to pour it onto a piece of wax paper while it's still warm and let it cool there. When it's cool, wet you hands with cold water and roll small spoonfuls into balls. You can wrap them in squares of wax paper.

Nothing really fun going on here....

So, yeah... I'm in full force party planner mode right now, so that's taking up a lot of time (hopefully I will have an awesome update to share after the 28th). So i figured I'd just do a little update on our day today.

We are trying to get our backyard ready for the tea party and for the impending onset of spring (keeping my fingers crossed). So the girls went out to rake up the leaves that have carpeted our backyard for, well, since we moved in honestly. The girls are always happy to get time outside and 55 degrees seems warm after weeks of 30's.

The progression of peas and marigolds. (photo by Jena)

My little bear in her big girls sneakers and fancy pants. She doesn't like to get her hands dirty (yet), so getting up when she stumbles is an entertaining sight.

Zion and Ashni discovering a new species of backyard moss, I think.

Nothing really to say here. She's just so darn cute! And the hat makes her a bajillion time cuter. Babies should wear ears more often!

Ashni and I found a slug. She really liked that slug.

Who cares what we had for dinner? You do? Stuffed tilapia, sesame green beans and couscous. Yummy!

Zion cleaned her plate!