sliding into winter

This morning we awoke to the first snow of the season.  Perfect. White. Still. "Do you want to go sledding today?" Loren asks Sadie.  "Yes!" She shouts enthusiastically, "and find a Christmas tree and eat candy canes!" 

Eli goes to the door and gets his boots.  This is probably the first winter for him as far as memory serves, as bundled up & backpacked as we kept him last year. This season, he is ready to dive head first into winter.  Literally.  That is his way, this funny little guy of ours.

I'm ready for winter too.  This next few months is going to be a whirlwind of non-stop holiday delight and family merry-making, peppered with some much anticipated travel to the far off exotic shores of Southeast Alaska.

I used to dread Alaska's long winters, but something about having children has just re-invented holiday cheer for me.  The gift of seeing the marvels of the changing seasons through their young eyes is a treasure beyond anything I could have dreamed up myself.

Its funny how just a little shift in perspective can change your entire outlook on something.

until one day you wake up and find yourself saying the exact words you swore you never would.

Elias turns one

At this very hour one year ago I was 42 weeks pregnant and feeling pretty down in the dumps because I was fairly sure that I was never going to have my baby. Little did I know that in just a few hours as a blue moon was rising I would naturally deliver an 11 pound baby boy at the Geneva Woods birthing center.  The arrival of Eli was swift.  One minute I was in labor and the next minute I was holding a yollering, red-faced baby in my arms--that's how this little man made his entrance into the world--full of vigor and ready to let everyone know it.  After a year of getting to know this guy, I think that part of his personality is very much the same.  He is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kinda guy.  His happy is a BIG happy, and when something is amiss, well...he lets you know about it.

But more often than not it's the big happy that we see these days.  In the last month or two Eli has really developed a snuggly side, and he is working so hard on being gentle...which is a challenge for a baby his size with very fast reflexes and the astounding ability to grab with a deadly sense of accuracy.  We will all breathe a collective sigh of relief when he learns that noses, lips and eyes are not detachable from people's faces.

He is an observant little guy and he loves to be outdoors.  He examines things with an intense focus.  And he has an impressive associative memory for someone his age.  I see the wheels of language development spinning around in his little brain--that point and look to someone for a definition motion over and over again. 

It's so interesting watching the way your second kid puts things together--a whole different process in many ways than your first.

 But of course, Eli's point of view is bound to be different because he will never know a world without sister Sadie there.  Sometimes I wonder if it gives him just a little extra sense of security.  He seems to rest easier than I remember her doing...but it could just be that he needs the rest because he is always on the move.  always.

And this is his motion posture.  His chest is in a whole different time zone than the rest of his body, and it arrives at all appointments just a few seconds before he does.  It cracks me up--kind of reminds me of a rooster. 

We had a quiet celebration of Eli's first year on this eve of our little guy's birthday.  Some gifts decorated and wrapped by big sister (she decided to gift him with a dinosaur and a mama gorilla with a baby on her back--very Godzilla & King Kong Loren pointed out).

A peach pie, and a boquet of flowers from the garden.

lots of help with the unwrapping of gifts

and testing them out

In true one-year-old form his favorite thing was the stickers on the wrapping paper.

But the peach pie came in a close second.  We sure do love you Elias.  Your first year has been an adventure and a gift and we are looking forward to many more to come. 

 

And of course, I must post this picture of the birthday boy in his birthday suit so that when he is a teenager he can roll his eyes and be all embarassed when the family photo album gets dragged out and dusted off.  Be thankful son...at least you aren't rockin' a mean mullet like your mama did...

yet:)

vegetable dyed easter eggs

Sadie and I tried out some vegetable dye ideas for our Easter eggs this year--I love the way the colors came out on these.  They really aren't hard to do either; they just require a smidgen of patience, because they need to soak in their color baths for about 15 hours.  But it's so sciencey and fun--and the unveiling of the final colored eggs was well worth the wait!
The basic dye "recipe" which is really more of a process is this:

2 cups water 

1 T. vinegar

coloring agents:

blue: 5+ red cabbage leaves, 

yellow: 3T. Turmeric, 

Purple & Grey (same dye, one egg was white, one egg was brown to start) 

2 whole beets+1/2 cup wild blueberry, 

Khaki Brown: 1 red onion skin +2T. Dill seed, 

orange (light & dark): 3 yellow onion skins, plus 4 green carrot tops

Add water, eggs, vinegar and plant material/spices together in a sauce pan, bring to boil, simmer for 11 minutes.  Carefully pour all of the ingredients into a mason jar.  Add eggs in last, with a spoon so they don't crack.  Let sit on the counter till cool, then put in fridge for the next 15 hours or so.  Open jars, scoop out beautiful eggs.  Let dry on paper towels (don't scrub or wash!)

Have a very happy Easter!

green day

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  It was a green day for us which started out with a delicious Paleo Eggs Florentine, and commenced with many long-overdue house projects, and a few cute kid cameos thrown in for good measure.  I hope your Irish eyes were smiling today.  I know ours were.

Sadie 2.5

I didn't take a ton of pictures over the holidays, mainly because I didn't want a camera stuck to my face the whole time. Sometimes it's nice to sit back and enjoy the moment without worrying about getting your lens adjusted just right.  And Christmas with a 2 1/2 year old is oh so magical and fun, even if it means singing Santa Clause is Coming to Town and Jingle Bells an infinite amount of times.  Thank you Sadie, for adding so much joy to our lives, and keeping us on our toes; you are such a delight.

snow days

After a very dry and windy early winter here in Palmer we finally got our wish for a white Christmas.  A really white one if all this snow sticks around. It does my heart good to see snow falling straight down for a change, and landing on trees even! We have been out playing with the grommits.  Sadie got her first sled today, and after a couple runs down the pasture hill, Loren towed her all around the trails in our woods while she sang "Jingle Bells" at the top of her lungs.  Christmas with a two-point-five year old  is so awesome.  Eli only adds to the merriment by stealing my qiviut cowl and looking oh so cute and photogenic.

and just for fun...dug up these pictures of Sadie's first December. I am a lucky mama to have so many sweet memories with my little girl, and to be making new ones with this little man.

Wishing you all a beautiful holiday season.  Cherish this time with your loved ones--hold them close to you heart and say a prayer for all the grieving families in Connecticut- may they find some peace and comfort.

happy endings and beginnings

 

These pictures have nothing to do with this blog post, except that I have hardly any pictures of Eli and me together, and since this sort of doubles as his baby book, I needed to represent.  Now...onto the good, great and better news.

 Last week ended on a really sad note with my doggo Cash disappearing into thin air on Friday.  After 3 days of searching and posting flyers and haunting craigslist with no sign of him a kind lady called us on Monday and told us she had seen our flyer on the bulletin board at the grocery store, and then saw Cash running and terrified in her neighborhood on the way home.  Since he wouldn't go to her, she went back, got our number and called, and Loren was able to drive to the location she had seen him and find him.  We are so, so happy.  I had honestly written him off as a goner after days of hiking around the trails in the woods by our house, and driving all the neighborhood streets looking in the ditch for him. Since his return I have received a couple of calls from people saying they saw him here and there, and that poor pup--he was very lost, and pretty much ran an ultra-marathon trying to find his way home.

Our kind new neighbors who Loren met while looking for Cash dropped off a big stack of firewood, and our other neighbor who is a vet came over and checked Cash out to make sure he was whole and healthy after his journey.

To add to the great happiness of our prodigal pup's return, Eli and Sadie got a new cousin yesterday!  Loren's brother and his wife are now the proud parents to a beautiful baby girl (born on my Sister in Law's birthday no less!) And Dimitri gets to be a big brother:)

But that's not all...my mom and her husband who I haven't seen in 8 months get to come stay with us for two weeks.  Yay for Elias who gets to meet his other Grandma and Grandpa for the first time, Yay for Sadie who is already plotting out all the projects she wants grandma Jones to help her with (getting a Christmas tree and baking a gingerbread house and making more bird feeders is what she told me today, but the list is ongoing). And Loren is stoked to have Grandpa Ernie here to help him with his mission to fell the standing dead trees on our property and buck them up into firewood.  

So... in this season of thanksgiving, I am so so thankful, and excited for the warm and busy winter months we have ahead of us!

Happy Valentine's Day!

31: the way I see it.

Even though I spent today recovering from the stomach flu, in a discombobulated construction zone, I tend to think that with these two monkeys to keep me company

31 is going to be a really good year.

No matter how you slice it.

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

 

Okay, the spooky ice fog rolling in this afternoon isn't really Christmassy, per se, but it is transforming the Bering Sea into yet another amazing martian landscape. And the weather has felt downright balmy and humid by Nome standards, and that is just fine by me.

AND we got a Christmas tree today! YAY!

Just in time for us to fly out tomorrow to the land of many, many trees. Again, YAY!

 Even though this isn't Sadie's first Christmas, it is her first Christmas tree, and she took her decorating duties very seriously, I assure you.

Look at that game face.  

Reason #2435 why kids are awesome:

They put all the magic back into the holidays.

Thanksgiving dinner triage-HELP!

In spite of little miss "Say-sie"  (guess who says her own name now?) and I pouring over the fanciest of cooking magazines, I am totally uninspired for Thanksgiving dinner this year...and it's coming up fast!  So help a blogger out.  Tell me what will be on your table this year--I need some inspiration soon, because we need to put our CSA order in by Friday.  What's everyone making?  Don't blurk. Leave a comment:)

Mindful Holidays: for the planet, for the people

The holiday season is upon us.  Walk into any place of commerce (large or small) and you are apt to see a plethora of gaudy, disposable Halloween/ Thanksgiving or even Christmas decorations cluttering up your field of vision.  Does that make me sound humbug?  I'm not...I swear.  I love the holidays, but I hate the commercialized, consumerist frenzy that seems to be what a lot of people celebrate these days.

happy 4th

Hope yours was good... ours was busy and fun in an Alaskan summer kinda way.  The sun never went down, so like always, the fireworks were a little underwhelming.

 

But, they were loud enough to scare the bejeezurs out of the dogs.

 

The weather was chilly, the fire was toasty...

We cooked some FN FUN FOOD, and the beers stayed cold thanks to Loren and Caleb's Hamms Dam...

 

Sadie helped dad put up the tent:

 

and enjoyed contemplating nature in that deep way that only babies can...

While dad got to catch and release Grayling in frigid water late into the night in that way that only obsessed fly-fishermen can...

Mom got to snap pictures of wildlife, and wished she had remembered her longer lens.

but all told... it was a good weekend.

And we're all pooped.

Lets hope that stays metaphorical.  Happy first Fourth of July sweet Sadie, and happy Fourth to the rest of you too. 

xoxo, Tara