Suburban Homestead

Snapshots of Father's Day

Well, I'm pretty pooped after a great day filled with lots of food and exercise so I'll keep this short. The kids and I performed well today, I'm thinking. We don't always, but I had remembered a comment in passing from Daddy last fall when he mentioned he wanted a cruiser. He doesn't ask for much, so when something like this comes along, I grab it and tuck it away into a special place... a place I can hopefully find my way back to at a later date. He got his cruiser this morning and so we took a ride down to the *agrarian-chic* Marin Country Mart for a shared lunch at Belcampo with my pops. The food was incredible, the center full of families, there was live music and a long line out the door of Three Twins Ice Cream. Bliss.

Fabulous Friday + The Last Day of School

I love the last day of school... and I hate it, all at the same time.

I love it, hate it.

Love, hate, love, hate.

I love it because it marks the beginning of what will be a magical time in every child's mind - summertime! I love it because it gives way to camps offering new and unique adventures, heightened by warm weather, late nights and lazy mornings. I hate it because the last day of school has become a logistical nightmare with off-campus class parties in different zip codes and too many heart-felt *goodbyes*.  As we powered up yesterday morning for a an intense day of tag-team parenting, I wondered if it wouldn't be a better idea to just skip the last day of school all together and go to the beach. ;)

We started a tradition on the last day of school many years ago, when the big kid was still the only one in school. Even though it was just pre-school, we celebrated the end of his year with a special dinner out - just the three of us, along with a gift of some quasi-educational books to keep him busy during summer. Eventually his sister got in on the action after her first year of pre-school, and this year, Mr. Noodle joined the fun for his first time.

Last night was the third year in a row where we've celebrated at Umami, in the city. The kids love the food and always ask to go back.

After ordering food and drinks, we gave each of the kids their packages...

...and then the food arrived! Pot stickers, Ahi tacos, beef sliders, edimame hummus and flat bread, and veggie fritters.

The real reason we keep coming back to Umami - the dessert roll made of vanilla ice cream wrapped in chocolate chip cookie dough, drizzled in chocolate and served alongside wasabi whipped cream and ginger candies!

Hello summer!

Fabulous Friday

We tried something very different this Friday - Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies made with chickpeas and honey instead of flour and sugar. Super exciting stuff I should say, as I experiment with a wheat-free diet. They were...pretty good! Delicious for what they actually are - flour-free and all. The kids loved them, I loved them and all of us took seconds.





This guy ran around post-cookie with a chocolate beard for hours and I didn't have the heart to wipe it off.











After dinner we had a ladybug release party. I do this once a year with the kids and they love it, of course. We wait until the sun is down, spray the vegetable garden with water to make it damp and desirable, and then we let 500 bugs slowly crawl out on to our beets, chard, lettuce and beans. I typically find them for days after all around the garden. :)

Wordless Wednesday

Fabulous Friday

Tell me you don't love Fridays.

See - you can't do it! Fridays are THE BEST. And with summer upon us, and one. more. week. down., I had to pee my pants when I read this post about the marathon that is the end-of-the-school-year-shuffle.

I'm feeling a little bit more pressure these days than normal, but to be truthful, Jen Hatmaker's description of the end of the year is kind of how I feel all year long. I'm always feeling like the worst mom. My paperwork is always late, I'm always forgetting volunteer shifts (despite checking my calendar upon waking), I've yet to muster up the strength to volunteer for a *board position*, and our pediatrician just called to say she hasn't seen either of our boys in over two years. We haven't all five enjoyed a *similar looking dinner* in over two weeks and I really need to make an OBGYN appointment - cos it's been 3.5 years (as in, since I last gave birth).

But I'm pretty sure I did something right today when Mr. Noodle asked me if we could make a dinosaur garden outside his window and I said "YES!" My enthusiasm to oblige was completely selfish though. See, that sweet kid pretty much has the worst view in the house - all cinder blocks and ivy out his window. Every time I take in that view I silently fear I am crippling his creativity with my lack of motivation to make it more interesting.

But that was Thursday, and today is Friday...

After the big kids left for school, and after Mr. Noodle and I scrambled to get to the kindergarten concert, we went to our favorite nursery and stocked up on all sorts of wonderful succulents fit for a dinosaur habitat.

"Hey look at this one, Mama!" he'd say. "This one looks super dinosaur-y to me!"

And so we selected, purchase, planned and planted our garden. The final touches came in the forms of little plastic dinosaurs that now call these high-gloss orange pots their home. Overall, the finished pots didn't add quite the punch I'd hoped they would there on the wall, but they are pretty cute up close, and Mr. Noodle is in no way critical of our work .

All that said, we didn't have much time to do our usual Friday morning dessert making. But I figure it doesn't have to be homemade every single week. (Right? That's OK to do that, right?) So this afternoon we picked up one of everybody's favorite at Miette Bakery. Each one of these desserts (I'll admit I sampled three) tasted *perfect*. They honestly tasted just as pure and perfect as they looked. Nothing unusual or unexpected, just pure goodness. I'm glad we cheated this week, in the name of the dinosaur garden.

Memorial Day

Thank you to all the brave men and women who gave their lives for our freedom. Without the sacrifices of too many, days like today might not have been possible for any of us. We are forever grateful and hope this weekend was good to you and yours as well!

Fabulous Friday

Today I finally took the opportunity to make these cookies, recently posted on one of my favorite blogs, Vintage Revivals. Mandi has such a great energy, and man, can that woman sell a cookie!





I would love to try the original SWIG cookie she recreates with this recipe - the whole room-temperature-frosting-atop-a-chilled-cookie has me intrigued. I tried it that way initially, but decided it wasn't working for me on several levels, and so we just frosted the whole lot of room temp cookies, cleaned up the kitchen and called it a day - but A GREAT DAY! These are delicious!!! My favorite part is the actual cookie itself (sans frosting) - so incredible and so not needing to be cut into complicated fancy shapes before freezing and then baking. Just a sugar-butter ball, smashed down with a sugar-coated glass bottom, and thrown into the oven. I can get on board with that. As much as I appreciate (and love to eat) the highly decorated sugar cookie, I personally just want to throw down a thick slab of frosting on simple shapes and save the rest of my energy for eating them and crawling into bed. These do the trick! The recipe gave us 48 cookies total and we will be sharing them this weekend with family. Happy Memorial Day Weekend!!

Wordless Wednesday

Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West

We returned from Scottsdale on Wednesday night. It was all sooo good - seeing a great new town, checking out an exciting new renovation project (think Melrose Place meets Southwest adobe architecture), having lots of free time to explore, and getting to do it all with my mom. I love coming home after just a few days away and 1.) wondering if my kids haven't each grown an inch and 2.) seeing how much my veggie garden HAS grown!

Our last morning in Scottsdale was a real cooker. At the recommendation of a friend we took a guided tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West (a school of architecture) at 10:00AM and regardless of the timing, it was so incredibly hot! I had thought that I might be able to skip this visit - did I really want to tour another FLW building? Did I really want to learn more about this genius who up and left his wife and six kids?

Turns out, I did!

These sorts of tours rarely disappoint, and I need to commit that to memory. There is just no substitute for all the great stories and details that come with visiting an historical landmark such as this. I could spend hours putting it all down (and I wish I had the time because I will probably forget most of it by next week), but I need to get breakfast on the table now.

I now want to go tour our own FLW masterpiece - The Marin County Civic Center. Even though I've walked through it a hundred times, and driven past it thousands, I know there are some incredible stories about its design and construction that will be well worth the trip. Who wants in?!