Fathers' Day

Even though baby's first year seems like the "year of the mom" what with pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and all the other nurturing our little sprout has needed to get to almost one, I cannot begin to put words to how important dads are in their children's lives.  In some ways this is especially true with daughters.  As Sadie grows, Loren will have an integral part in teaching her.  I'm sure they will go on their fair share of father-daughter adventures, but Loren's actions and attitudes are also teaching her about her self-worth, and what to look for way down the road, when she starts searching for those meaningful relationships that will be a big part of her adult life.  I'm sure that Loren will roll his eyes when he reads this and say,  

"Whatever, dads are there to teach daughters how to fly fish, and go moose hunting."

AND "Sadie isn't going to start dating till she's 35."

But he knows...

 

Here's to a dad who isn't afraid to go all in and love BIG.  

Happy Father's Day Loren!

xoxo, Tara & Sadie

some assembly required.

This has been a crazy week. Cra-zay-zee.  Most of the craziness revolved around a certain two boys, whose names, ahem... I shall not mention, who decided to make their wives and family worry like crazy by going AWOL on a caribou hunt.  I don't even know how to begin to blog about that fiasco, so readers, you are in for a treat.  In the next couple days you can expect a guest "blog Alaska" entry from none other than my dear husband Loren. It is probably better to let him tell his side of the story anyways.  The upside was that I got to hang out with my awesome sister in law, Alena:

Now that is what I call some extreme baby-wearing. 

It was fun to have some girl company (of course baby Dimitri represented for the boys) and get to catch up, visit, and even sew some buckwheat hot/cold packs with soothing herbs to help relieve the stress from aforementioned AWOL husbands.

(also good to soothe the home-coming hunter's frostbitten face.)

After all the company took off today, I decided to work on framing some prints and original artwork that have been hanging around my house  for way too long. I ordered frames and matting from here, and let me tell you, they have very reasonable prices, but expect to assemble the frames yourself.  For me, it is well worth the savings to roll that way.

(artwork by James Adcox, Karen Olanna, and yours truly)

With that project out of the way I tackled a clean and mop of the living-room and then decided to plant round one of my seeds for the summer garden.

Unfortunately, Sadie was all about trying to eat my jiffy starts, so I had to come up with a compromise to keep her busy while I planted my tomato, pepper, chinese cabbage and kale (and even some flowers--we'll see how that goes).  The compromise:

 I gave her my ric-rac collection.  Boy, was that ever a hit! 

Well, that's all for now folks. Time for me to drink my tea and watch the sun go down.   Stay tuned for what I am sure will be an riveting (and funny) story from the LP later this week:)

a happy cooking mistake!

Meet the "Scookie"

Last night I was trying to multitask by getting Sadie to fall asleep in the Ergo whilst simultaneously whipping up a batch of cranberry orange scones.  As distraction fate would have it, I goofed up on the recipe and came out with something that wasn't very scone-ish.  I thought I would fudge, and go for drop scones--but they actually came out better--lighter, and fluffier and mmmmm.... delish.  So here is a recipe for cranberry orange scookies.  I made them with Nome cranberries, which are actually lingonberries--so tangy and tart and wonderful!

preheat oven to 375.

In a large mixing bowl combine:

2 cups flour

1/2 c. brown sugar

zest of one orange

1 c. frozen cranberries

1/4tsp. nutmeg

1T. baking powder

1/4 t. salt

Whip together and add to dry ingredients:

1/4 c. oil

3/4 c. milk

1egg.

Drop by generous spoonfuls onto a baking sheet.

Bake for 20 minutes.

I topped these off with a glaze made from the juice of the  zested orange, a dash of vanilla, and some powdered sugar, but they would be good without too. 

enjoy!