Thanksgiving Weekend

I hosted Thanksgiving this year for some of Adam's co-workers. I wanted to try some new side dishes, so a couple weeks beforehand, I experimented by making roasted Brussels sprouts with apples and bacon. It's official: I don't like Brussels sprouts. I can say that with confidence because if they're not good with bacon, they're not going to be good with anything. So long, Brussels sprouts!

 I bought a brined turkey and brined it again. After his nice soak, I injected him with a blend of chicken stock, butter and garlic, then rubbed him inside and out with sage butter, and finally, I filled the cavity with celery, apples and onions. I didn't get a good shot of the after effect, but it was a beautiful bird and it was, by far, my best tasting, most moist turkey yet. I owe it all to the syringe.

 Buttered rolls fresh out of the oven.

 Guests dishing up. Aside from feeling triumphant about my turkey, I was also stoked to finally make a really good turkey gravy.

 These are our guests, clockwise from bottom left: Kristen, Dave, Yue, Joanna, Brett, Stephanie, and, of course, Adam. Not pictured: Kristen and Dave's newborn, and me. The meal was fantastic. The group was fantastic. We finished the evening by watching the Seahawks game.

 The next day it rained non-stop and we stayed inside as long as possible and watched The Sound of Music and Toy Story 3. By afternoon, we had cabin fever and decided to venture downtown for the lighting of the Christmas Tree in Westlake Plaza. We hit up Piroshky, Piroshky first because nothing is better on a rainy day than a piroshky (a soft bun filled with meat and cheese, or, for me, salmon pate).

 We sat in the hall to eat our piroshkies and Adam and Noah played with Buzz Lightyear and dragon car.

 When we were inside Westlake Mall waiting for the tree lighting to start, we became enveloped in a Ferguson protest. We were on the top floor, coming down the escalators, and tons of protesters flooded the building and went up the escalators. There were police everywhere, including those ones I've only seen on the news lately, with their fold-down masks and billy clubs. It was jarring and I forgot to take any pictures of the Christmas tree or any part of the whole event. The protesters were so loud that the program had to be cut short. The tree was lit and as well as the Macy's star, and the rain let up enough so they could set off the fireworks. After that we decided to jet. We saw on the news later that it did not get violent but there were five arrests. Yikes! It was sad. I was sad for the protesters and whatever pain they were feeling (even if some of them were probably just jumping on the next activist band-wagon) and I felt bad for us and all the other families who were there to enjoy some innocent holiday cheer, and I felt bad for the kids' choir that was too rattled to perform, some of them crying, and I felt bad for the shoppers because the mall closed three hours early. I have never ever wanted to be near - let alone in - a mall on Black Friday, but when I had a moment to peruse Zara while we were killing time, those incredibly low prices made me think twice. Hence my feeling sorry for the shoppers.

On the way back to the car, we stopped at Target for new coloring books (Sienna is obsessed with coloring lately, and had just finished burning through her mermaid book) and walked through a closing Pike Place. We couldn't pass Beecher's without stopping in for some cheese curds and fontina. That's dinner, folks!

 Yesterday was a homebody type day because: snow. It was frigid and windy all day and the snow is still here this morning!

Turns out I'm an Introverted Minimalist

I've discovered two very important pieces of information about myself in the past year or so.

1) I am an introvert.

2) I am a minimalist.

Explanation:

1) I am a social introvert. The part of the definition about being an introvert that applies to me is the fact that I need to be alone to recharge my energy. Alone and in silence. I love meeting people and hanging out with friends, but when I've had my fill of that, I need to go into my cave and bask in peace. This, of course, has been difficult since having children. But, the older they get the better they get at basking in their own peace: in front of the TV. So, yeah, let me recharge from your presence, and I'll love you so much more. Later. When I'm done being alone.

2) I slapped on my official "minimalist" label when I decided to embrace the capsule wardrobe. One day, I was listening to a podcast interviewing the blogger of Un-Fancy while I painted my bedroom closet. The blogger was admonishing me to take out all of the clothes from my closet, examine everything, and pare it down to 37 pieces to mix and match for three months at a time. The idea is to change out pieces with the four seasons, but for three months at a time, you work with the same 37 pieces and don't shop at all until right before the season changes. Every item of clothing I own happened to be out of my closet right at that moment so I started right then and there, got it down to 40 and decided to stay. I won't go into all the details of the capsule wardrobe, but suffice it to say, it was a revelatory moment in the history of Marthdom. And it made me understand why I am often overwhelmed by things like large houses, choosing clothes, doing my hair, decorating for the holidays, buying toys for my kids, shopping at Costco, too many pillows on a couch, too many things in general. It's because I am a minimalist. I don't like having more hair than I need (although I've decided to grow my hair for one more year...just to force myself to resist taking the easy route). I don't like food storage (what's a Mormon to do?). I can't buy holiday decorations because I have a hard time with the fact that they won't be useful for the majority of the year, or worse, I'll just throw them out. I have a hard time choosing toys for my kids because I dread the idea that they'll never play with them and I'll have wasted money and space. I have a difficult time watching professional decorators stuff homes full of beautiful things. I feel much better looking at spaces that lean toward the spare side of the decorating spectrum.

What a relief! Now if only I could figure out what color my aura is?!

Hiking

The sun came out on Friday! What a reason to celebrate by spending some quality time with nature. I got together with my nature school homies and we hiked around Carkeek Park.

Noah was energized by the presence of friends. Last week he and I hiked around Carkeek in the pouring rain alone and he was so angry. I don't blame him, but I was desperate for an outing. So I bribed him with the promise of a grocery store donut at the end. It did the job I guess. But he wasn't going to be happy about it.

I'm just so mean and horrid.

Anyway, back to sunshine. This tree was really cool.

 The kids explored inside it and Noah waved his giant leaf, indeed the biggest leaf we have yet seen with our bare eyes.

 It's salmon running season, which totally lived up to the hype! The salmon swim upstream to lay their eggs and then die. Isn't that strange?! They were HUGE, about three feet long, and thrashing all over the place in the shallow stream which made them easy for everyone to see. It was seriously so cool. Here's Levi, Noah, Brielle, and Lief watching them.

 After the hike, Noah still had some energy to burn so he and I headed to the train tracks and the beach to wait for a train. Alas, someone told us the trains were stopped because a young man was trying to throw himself in front of the train and was being restrained and about to be carried off by the cops. The weirdest stuff happens at this park; it's unfortunate because the scenery is so beautiful.

 A happy Mr. Nobes and mom.

 Yesterday was sunny again! A family hike was in order. We went to North Bend and hiked in Olallie State Park. I made the kids "fishing poles."

 They dipped them in every puddle they came across.

 Even on a cloudless day, you can still be stuck in dusk during a hike. Such is the state of the forest thicket in the PNW.

 The view at the end of our hike, Twin Falls.

Washington, you're a babe.

Happy Halloween!

By the time Halloween was done, the kids and I had been involved in seven Halloween/Fall related celebrations! Like Adam had said on Facebook, "Is it just me? Or has Halloween been going on for 3 weeks?" SIGH. These are the times in which we live. And..... I LOVE it! Why not celebrate everything all the time? I think our generation is on to something...

Here's Noah at his preschool presentation. They (read: their teachers) sang some songs about pumpkins and shouted BOO. It was adorable.

 Sienna also had a party at school and I forgot to take my camera. :(
Here they are on Halloween, just before setting off to trick or treat. Noah is a fireman and Sienna is princess Jasmine.

 We ran into my friend, Leah, and her kids.

 We also ran into our other neighbor, Jon, and his kids, so we all traipsed through the park together.

 It's the best day of the year to live across the street from our park. People really go all out to make the kids smile on Halloween. I just love it! These pumpkin heads were the perfect blend of awesome and creepy.

 Seriously, props to you, sir, for wearing a stinky, slimy pumpkin on your head. Wow.

 Yes, kids, take that candy from those strangers.

 When we were done, we ran into Uncle Allen who was just pulling up to our front door. He'd been working in Seattle for a few days and stayed the night. It was great to see him and catch up until he left the next morning.

Another successful Halloween in the .... pumpkin bucket!

Pumpkin Painting

'Tis the season to carve pumpkins. Except I didn't want to carve pumpkins. I wanted to paint them. No knives and no inner pumpkin gloop to scoop. (Thanks be to my sister for this idea.)

Watching the kids explain their paintings was the highlight of my week. I love that they are becoming more autonomous and creative. It is so fun to watch what they come up with.

Here is Sienna describing her pumpkin face:



Here's Noah describing his pumpkin face:



My favorite part is when he says, "That one is the creak of it." I have no idea what that means!

Here's my pumpkin. I only share this because I love the kid commentary that goes along with it, especially when they name their pumpkins. Plus Sienna bursts into song at the end. That's always a treat.

Lately

And now for a hodge podge post. 

Adam's sister was one of our fabulous nannies that watched the kids while we were in Peru. We had a day to spend with her and her adorable little 10 month old Levi before we left. She'd never been to Pike Place, so we took her there, obviously.

 We got a babysitter and ate large burgers at Uneeda burger.

Fast forward, we're back from Peru and I went on a run one morning and came home to my little fan club waving at me out on the balcony. "HI MOM!" 

 We went back to Pike Place on a recent Saturday to putz around. I had my eye on Piroshky, Piroshky, a widely acclaimed Russian bun eatery. We got a couple meat and cheese buns to share. I liked them. Adam positively died over them. We need to go back for the salmon pate one apparently. The apple cinnamon roll was okay.

 More dessert was needed, so we got ice cream. Mint on mint on Noah.

 Last weekend Adam introduced our home to his family's General Conference tradition of cinnamon rolls.

 So yummy!

 After dinner one night last week, we did this. Adam was getting home late, so what else were we supposed to do?

 Fridays some friends and I do a very informal nature school. Last week's was at the UW Arboretum's Japanese Gardens. Sienna had school off this day, so she came with us. The colors were turning so it was extra beautiful. The kids did pretty well at obeying the "please be calm and quiet" rules. Until they didn't, and we left to do a hike along the outskirts of the gardens. We collected some leaves and brought them home. I showed them how to put the leaf under paper and press a crayon over the top. Sienna thought it was pretty neat but couldn't really do it on her own.

Who needs Pinterest when you've got a brain as naturally creative as mine?

 Sienna, Brielle, Noah, Leif.

We visited The Farm at Swan's Trail yesterday for the obligatory yearly pumpkin patch experience. We came to this place last year and it was all sorts of fun.

 Here's the money shot.

 Adam and his mini-me.

 Here's a disjointed family shot. It looks like Adam and I were hoping to have a couples only photo with some hay bails and our kids happened to show up right behind us with smiles on.

 This barn was a real hit. It made me miss my grandpa's farm where I'd spend hours jumping all over hay bales and throwing myself into piles of hay. These kids got 20 minutes of that. Is that enough to sustain a proper childhood?

 Adam and I really branched out for date night last night. We always talk about "getting in on the Seattle music scene" but never know where to start. Adam went for it and bought very cheap tickets to some bands we'd never even heard of. We got there right on time, we are punctual people after all. The show didn't start until an hour later, rockers are not punctual people after all. The bands we saw were as follows: If Penguins Could Fly, Ghost Parade (pictured below), Kiven, and the band everyone was most excited about, Rags and Ribbons. Memorable band names found on advertisements on the grimy wall beside me that I read while I was waiting for take down of set up of each band were as follows:  Guttermouth (playing today, darn it, we're going to miss them), Witchburn, Skinlab, and Pup.

Other things I did while waiting for each band to set up and take down were as follows: read my lesson I was to teach today in my Valiant 9 class and at 10 pm eat a BBQ pulled pork sandwich with potato salad. Adam caught up on his scripture reading.

Obviously this was not our venue of true belonging, but it was a start! I think we'll find our niche soon enough in the Seattle music scene. Right after my ears stop ringing.