i told them it was the wild wild west!

We’ve been inundated with various house and personal projects that we haven’t really been on many family adventures these past few months. Thankfully, most of our projects are wrapping up, so we’re trying to go on more adventures. This past weekend we told the girls we were taking them to the Wild Wild West and boy were they excited about that! Actually, it was really Pioneertown out in the desert, but that place made you feel like you stepped into a Western movie for sure. We had an early dinner at Pappy and Harriet’s and then we let the girls roam around the teeny little town. They had a blast just walking, exploring, and pretending they were cowgirls. They’ve got Texan in their blood, so maybe some of it comes naturally. That little baby of ours was especially happy to be walking and walking about. She’s got such a curious little personality and is an excellent copycat (always trying to do what the big sisters do). She’s such a doll!

After our Old West exploring, we headed out to Joshua Tree to get some family pictures taken by Kimberly Geneviève. Kim and Andre are such sweeties and we always have a good time when we see them. This was the first time we got official family pictures done as a family of 6! You could see a sneak peek of the pictures they got here and here, and I’m so excited to see the rest! We ended up getting an annual pass to Joshua Tree, so we can’t wait to go back and do more exploring soon!

Obviously, we had a pretty pack weekend, which included seeing the BFF and her hubs cross the finish line for the OC half holding hands (it’s such a big moment for them!), spending time with church family, and then spending Sunday afternoon feasting with my family. Weekends like this are fun, but oh man does it leave the house in a shambles. Oh well, that’s what Mondays are for, right?! Happy Monday friends!

on true: dress, vintage. on brave: mix match dress, c/o homespun vintage (their stuff is so cute!!!). on soul: dress, gifted from Rachel. on glow: dress, vintage. shoes, c/o freshly picked. the bigger girls all wearing salt-water sandals (we pass them down to the next gal each year).

huzzah!

This week was great! No one was sick, we got to hang out with friends, did lots of schooling, and filled in the other times with cleaning and catching up on life things. Oh and we started it off with the San Antonio Spurs moving on to the next phase of the playoffs. Woot! Woot! If Papi’s happy, all his girls are too!

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

Love how True and Brave’s writing have really improved over this past year. Their penmanship is so much more legible and their stories filled with lots of details. They really are ready for the next grade! I can see how they’ve grown so much from the beginning of the year and we are pretty much done with some of this year’s curriculum, though we still have about a month and a half left.

Soulie. That girl is the girliest of my girls. She wants nail polish, lipstick, blush, necklaces, bracelets, and rings all on her birthday. It’s still 6 months away, but she’s already started plotting it out.

The heat (and wind) has been crazy lately! Today it got up to 99 degrees! Cray cray!

Love our Mightee Kids Tees. I love how you can get a cute tee for your kid and educate them on some of the difficulties other kids around the world face using the tee (and a card that comes along with it) as a learning tool. Last month was in support of autism and this month is to help soccer balls and build fields for kids in Africa to protect them from wars, drugs, and child soldiers. The tee designs are super cute too! I really love the concept behind these rad tees.

I want to get Gwyneth Paltrow’s new cookbook. I heard it’s a good one! Anyone try it yet?

I want to try these anti-break colored pencils. Our colored pencils are always breaking and we seem to run out of colored pencils all the time because of it.

Beth shared with me her new shop full of her colorful paintings. This one is my fave. I’m always encouraged to see people doing things they love and thankful that the internet really helps you get your work out there.

This week I was being all hormonal and Ben and I got in a fight because I didn’t think he cuddled me enough! HA! Us girls are just so silly sometimes, aren’t we?! Sometimes, most times, I’m just plain crazy!

Thankful for Friday nights because that’s when Ben and I do our dine-in/movie date nights in our bedroom (and I go pick up some fro-yo too). I always look forward to it! It’s an easy way to get quiet together time when it’s not so easy to get in a consistent date night.

We have a family outing planned for tomorrow afternoon, so we’re excited about that. It seems we’re always up to our ears in house projects that we don’t get out enough as a family. Tomorrow we’re making time to do so. Hip, hip hooray! The weekend is here!!!

family meals: week 38

Curried Split Pea Soup with Coconut Milk. Even if you aren’t a fan of vegetarian dishes, I’m almost sure you’ll like this one. It’s a yummy one!

Dumplings. Shrimp & Chive Dumplings and the other kind, which was ground turkey based, I kind of just winged it with my own ideas. The dumplings were a hit with the girls! Brave and Glow especially liked the shrimp ones and those were spicy! It was about a year ago when I first made dumplings for our dumpling party and they are such an easy dish to make. Don’t get intimidated and give it a shot! Mine aren’t perfectly wrapped, but whatever. As long as it’s yummy, there’s not much to complain about.

Week 5/6 – 5/10

Monday: Chicken Enchiladas (Just made it a couple weeks ago, but it’s so good, I want it again!)
Tuesday: Salmon Tacos with Mango-Avocado Salsa
Wednesday: Leftovers
Thursday: Hummus Wraps
Friday: Pizza/sushi night

We have had one meal outside this past month, but I’m hoping for more soon. I’m ready to sit under twinkly lights and our (mostly) cool summer evenings!

curried split pea soup with coconut milk

Curried Split Pea Soup with Coconut Milk
Serves 6

Ingredients:
1 tbsp canola oil
2 medium yellow onions, chopped (2 generous cups)
6 cloves of garlic, chopped
5 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced into coins (about 1 cup of coins) *I doubled this amount for our batch
8 cups of low sodium chicken or vegetable broth
3 cups of yellow split peas
3 tbsp Indian curry powder
1 can light coconut milk
6 oz baby kale (or spinach) *I tripled the amount of kale we used for our batch
1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1/2 tsp ground cumin
Pinch of cayenne pepper or to taste
Sea salt, to taste

Directions:
1. In a large pot, bring broth and split peas to boil, then lower the heat and simmer covered until split peas are perfectly tender, mushy, and falling apart. It may take longer than an hour depending on the age of the split peas.
2. Heat the canola oil in a  large pot over medium heat. Add onions, carrots, 1 teaspoon salt, and sauté over medium heat until softened, about 5 minutes.
3. Add garlic, black pepper, cumin, and curry powder, and sauté another 1-2 minutes until the garlic is cooked.
4. Blend 1/2 the split peas with an immersion blender or standard blender. If using a standard blender, do not fill more than half full and use care as hot liquids can explode out of blender.
5. Add curried onion mixture to soup and simmer for 15 minutes.
6. Stir in the coconut milk, baby kale, and cayenne. Bring back to a boil for 3-5 minutes, stirring well until the soup is thick and creamy and the kale is wilted. Adjust salt as needed.

Ben has a co-worker, Julianne, who is always sharing with us a little batch of whatever she makes at home, and every batch she has shared has always been quite delicious! Without fail, I send Ben off to work the next day reminding him to ask Julianne for the recipe. She’s vegan (and a dietitian), so everything she makes it meatless and healthy. Throw in the yumminess that it always ends up to be, and I’m always secretly hoping she makes something else and brings it to work to have Ben share it with us at home.

This curry recipe is from her and so deliciously good! It may look simple, but I say give it a try! It’s such an easy dish to make and it is so flavorful. I’m thinking that I must make this recipe again soon. I was eating it for days after and I never got sick of it! Thanks for sharing it with us Julianne!

our mini maypoles

Happy May Day! I disappeared for a bit because I had my biggest gal turn 7 and then I was just busy being mom, teacher, and housekeeper that I was needing to spend time away from this space. Other things were needing my attention, so that’s where my attention went. Of course, even if I’m not here, I’m instagramming because that’s much easier to do than blogging these days.

In honor of May Day, we made these simple mini maypoles yesterday with things we had already…

Materials:
2-3 strips of 24″-36″ crepe paper streamers in various colors
Scissors
12″ dowel
Hole puncher
3″ of washi tape

Directions:
Cut your streamers in half lengthwise, so that they are thinner strips. Layer them together, find the middle point, and punch a hole. Insert your dowel through the hole, fold the streamers down and wrap your strip of washi tape around the top. Tada! Give to your little one and talk about May Day and the history behind it.

A couple weeks ago, we were studying the Greek gods in Ancient History, so today we will revisit our Greek gods and talk about the Festival of Flora and how it was a time to celebrate the Greek goddess Flora who was the goddess of flowers (Hence, the name Flora). Then, we’ll probably spend some time in the garden cutting roses to bring inside the house to make it more festive inside too.

These mini maypoles aren’t exactly as grand as your traditional maypole, but all my girls like to do is dance with them anyways. Plus, this way they each get their own and hopefully it will eliminate some of that fighting. Hopefully. If I had really been efficient at planning May Day for teaching and learning, I probably would have looked up more stories on May Day, but I didn’t, so we will just have to take a trip to the library to check some out and read them sometime in May at least. If you make it to the library today, be sure to check out some stories on May Day.

Book suggestions:
The Rainbow Tulip by Pat Mora
On the Morn of Mayfest by Erica Silverman
Lily Bouquet and a Special May Day by Sue Wolfe

Enjoy the first of May friends! If you want another fun May Day project, these crepe paper floral crowns would definitely be perfect for today too!