Today

My day began with this beautiful, delicious quiche. It was the first time I've made quiche in the several years since I became vegan, and I was not disappointed. I'll track down the recipe and post it soon, but for now you just get the teaser photo.

(That brown crustiness you see around the edges is {drum roll, please} shredded potatoes, hash brown style - what a great idea!)

Carlos' favorite person was in town today - his 9-year-old cousin Calvyn...

We went for a walk at a nearby wildlife refuge...

...isn't it pretty?

It was hazy today, even here on the coast, due to the zillions of wildfires (none of which are very close to us, thank goodness, although they did cause our much anticipated weekend trip to Farm Sanctuary to be cancelled; wah). You can see the haze in this picture, as well as an egret (I wish my camera had a stronger zoom).

We also saw this beautiful deer having a snack.

After a picnic lunch, we continued on for a canoe ride. I didn't take any pictures in the canoe, but here are the boys in the parking lot afterwards.

Sorry, Grandma!

Scenes from a canoe

This is how all the cool kids pick their noses

Our Little Boy is Growing Up!

Last night was Carlos' preschool "graduation" (I put that in quotes because he's not actually graduating to a new school - just finishing his first year of preschool - but they have an end-of-year graduation ceremony that all of the kids participate in regardless of age).

Here they are performing a couple of songs -





And here is Carlos receiving his "diploma". Too cute.



I think it was all kind of bewildering for him, but fun.

Speaking of how much Carlos has grown, I took this picture of him with his Grandma last night after graduation -

(That blue thing on the counter is my new cupcake courier; it rocks!)

And here's the same pose about a year and a half ago -


Besides being way bigger, you can tell from the pictures how much more relaxed and happy he is now (the picture above was taken within days of us bringing him home from Guatemala).

Here are a couple more cute pictures from last night -



Oh yeah, and I made a yummy salad to bring to the potluck after the graduation. I have a few tweaks to make before I share it, but it was really good. Stay tuned for details.

Little Swimmer

We ventured to a slightly warmer climate over the weekend and Carlos got to go swimming. At first he wasn't too sure about these strange 'water wing' contraptions (although he figured they couldn't be too bad since they featured dolphins, penguins and flamingos)...


...but soon enough, he was all smiles.

Carlitos

Carlos loves having his picture taken. When he saw me photographing my beads today, he had to take a break from eating his lunch (granola - his new obsession) to put on this hat and have me take his picture. Please excuse the bib and the granola crumbs.

Home Safe & Sound

We got back from our little trip today and it's nice to be home. We had fun visiting family and friends; unfortunately I was so preoccupied with keeping Carlos happy and safe, I never really got it together to take any pictures until the guilt caught up with me this morning and I took a few cute ones in the diner where we had breakfast. Carlos, as usual, had a blast hanging out with his big cousin Calvyn, who (whom?) he idolizes.

{dog puppet eating tub of jam}

We got a nice little tour of Animal Place today when we picked up our chickens. The staff was very nice about showing us around even though it wasn't a regular tour day. The chickens did great on the way home... they were a little stinky in my car but that's not their fault of course.

We wedged 'em in between all of our luggage...

I took a few pictures this evening - they aren't the greatest, but I'll share anyways.

Front to back on the ramp, that's Rosa (the boss), Clara, and LaFonda. The ducks (whose names we've finally decided are Shannon and Dean - named after the couple who runs the rescue group we adopted them from) are swimming in the background, and the rooster is there on the ground on the right. We're having a bit of a heated discussion over the rooster's name - Matt is pushing hard for Chuck Norris and I'm madly in love with Thomas Magnum (both the name itself, and the character, and the show, ha ha).

Another shot of Rosa, LaFonda, and Clara

And here's the fourth hen, Greta, who seems to be a bit of a loner.

Aren't they cute? I'll post better pictures in a few days once we let them out into the main yard and I don't have to shoot through the fence.

Pictures from this morning...

There's something about boys and dirt... I turn my back for one second (okay, maybe one minute) and find Carlos wallowing in our soon-to-be vegetable beds.



And I must say - I love my ducks - they are the cutest!!! They aren't as skittish as they were before, and it's fun to see their little ducky personalities coming out. I hope they like the chickens we will be bringing home in a few days!

{quack}

{waddle waddle}

{in a hurry - see those blurry feet?}

I finally joined YouTube...

I was thinking how nice it would be for Carlos' foster family back in Guatemala (who we stay in touch with via email) to see videos of him, rather than just still photos, so I went and joined YouTube. So far I can't get the recent video (the one I wanted to show the foster family) to upload but I was able to load this one from back in November 2006. This was during my third visit to see Carlos during the long adoption process, and this little clip shows him playing with my Dad in our hotel room. As it turned out, this was the only good day we had during that whole trip; Carlos got really sick and was throwing up the rest of the time - poor baby.

More Scenes

Scenes from Family Life...

I haven't posted much about Carlos lately, except to say how sick he's been. Fortunately, he's a lot better now, and was able to go back to preschool for the first time in a week and a half today.

His favorite toy these days is a little plastic sheep named Sheila. Sheila is also Mama and Papa's favorite toy because she seems to have magical powers... whenever we want Carlos to do something he doesn't want to do, we just ask him if we can do it to Sheila first, and about 90% of the time, he agrees to let Sheila go, then himself. ('Time to brush Sheila's teeth!'; 'Sheila needs a diaper...', 'Is Sheila ready for a nap?', etc.)

One thing that I find pretty hilarious about his relationship with Sheila is how it can go from tender to violent in the blink of an eye. One moment, Carlos is telling me, 'Sheila cold, need a snuggle,' and nuzzling her sweetly under his chin, and the next moment, he's traveling around the house, bashing poor Sheila's skull against any and every hard object he can find.

Case in point - Sheila joins Carlos and Papa for a nice, civilized game of Hungry Hippos.

One minute later, Shelia is hippo food...

Pretty funny.

Yep, life is good for Carlos these days. The extreme illness has passed, the weather has been nice enough to play outside, he has a new love interest (Sheila the sheep, of course), and last but definitely not least, today we got this put up in our yard:

Woo-hoo! Carlos is in heaven. I wish I'd gotten some pictures of him going down the slide before he went down for his nap. Maybe tomorrow. He climbs up the ladder and goes down the slide over and over, like a pro.

Guess what else Matt got finished today?


Chickens, here we come!

Oh, and here's a picture of Carlos that I think is just too cute not to share. He understands now about how the camera works, and he likes to pose for pictures and then run over and see them on the digital camera screen right away. He had requested that I take his picture with his little toy duck.

Bits & Pieces

I just have a few random, unrelated things to share today. First I need to brag about my talented husband. Remember our recent shed debacle? Well, the outcome of that mess was our decision to build a new chicken house from scratch, one that is exactly what we want. Well, here we are, maybe a week out from that decision, and my hard-working husband already has it practically finished! It still needs a roof and paint, but look how cute it is already!

Human door

Chicken door

Nesting boxes (with a handy-dandy door to open from the outside to collect eggs)

Perch

Full frontal

I also snapped a few pictures today of our newly emerging flowers. Spring must be getting closer - I can't wait! I don't even know what these flowers are - they came from a bunch of bulbs that Carlos and I planted about a month ago. Anyone care to identify them for me?

The other day I walked in on Carlos playing with some paint bottles and bowls and I was so impressed that he had sorted the bottles into the coordinating colored bowls. Okay, so maybe I'm easily impressed (at least when it comes to Carlos)...

This morning I made the Chocolate Chip Scones from The Joy of Vegan Baking and they are delicious. I used whole wheat pastry flour and substituted dried cranberries for half of the chocolate chips. Carlos loves them.

And one last thought... is anyone else totally lusting over the Kindle? I want one. Bad. I'm hoping if I hold out until my birthday in October, maybe the price will come down some. I was already drooling over the thought if it just for reading novels, etc., but the other day I realized how incredibly spectacular it would be for cookbooks, and now I really, really want one. Of course, the list of available books isn't huge yet, but I imagine if it catches on, that will change.

Breakfast of Champions

I have been making a lot of smoothies lately, and this one's definitely a winner. Our household is overcome with sniffles, sneezes, and coughs, so I thought a power shot of Vitamin C would be a good idea. In a blender, I combined a handful each of strawberries (frozen), banana chunks (frozen), pineapple (from a can), and mango chunks (fresh), plus enough orange juice to almost cover the fruit, and a splash of flax oil. The results are so tropical and delicious, it's almost enough to make me forget it's winter and we're buried in a mountain of used tissues and cold medicine.

Oh, and the enormous cookie - that's a 'Big Gigantoid Crunchy Peanut Butter - Oatmeal Cookie' (recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance); mine didn't turn out so crunchy because I substituted applesauce for half the oil (I liked it softer though). I also used white whole wheat flour and added a cup of chocolate chips. I figured I could get away with having one for breakfast, what with all the whole grains and peanut butter.

Here's a somewhat blurry picture of Carlos enjoying a tropical smoothie and a bowl of fresh mango.

Oh no!

Carlos has a cavity! Matt took him to the dentist today (I was at my own dentist appointment at the time) because we had noticed a tiny dark speck on one of his molars and wanted to have it checked out. Sure enough, it's a tiny little cavity. Of course we were surprised because he eats really healthy and we brush his little toothies twice every day (although he often fights like crazy). The hygenist told Matt that sometimes when the little buds of their teeth are forming, a little air pocket is left and it eventually becomes a cavity, so no blame on us, whew! The good news is that we caught it so early, it's really just a tiny little thing, and will require only the most minute little bit of drilling. Even so, I think I'm going to let Matt take him in for the cavity work without me. I get so worried about things like that, and Carlos picks up on my freak-outedness, plus he' s just generally more compliant and laid back with Papa...

The moral of the story is to take your kids in as soon as you see some little thing like this and don't let it get bad. I'm relieved that we caught it right away.

Our boy's a swinger

Why in the world did we wait over a year to put up this swing??? He loves it.

Fashion Trends

We all go through phases when it comes to fashion, I suppose... for me lately, it's been hoop earrings (these, these, and these). For Carlos, it is this hat -

He wants to wear it all the time, and he doesn't just try it on and take it off a few minutes later; he wears it all day. It's pretty comical, especially because it doesn't coordinate particularly well with most of his other clothes. Oh well, it's cute anyways.

Birth of a Christmas Tradition

This morning I made cinnamon rolls as a special holiday breakfast treat. I know I've raved about this recipe before, sorry to be repetitive, but really, if you haven't tried them, you MUST. They are amazing. I suppose it would have been more festive to enjoy them on Christmas morning, but Matt's working on Christmas day, so we had them today instead.


Merry Christmas to all my real life and bloggy friends. I hope your holidays and the coming year are filled with many sweet and wonderful things.

The boy has an APPETITE.

Matt was working on our actual Family Day anniversary, so we went out to dinner last night instead to celebrate. We went to a Japanese restaurant, which is Carlos' favorite (we like it too).

Carlos seemed hungry before the food actually arrived so we experimented with giving him some ginger. Perhaps you can't tell from the pictures, but he liked it a lot, just like his mama.


Then the food came. And came. And came. He ate tons of agedashi tofu, plus more than his fair share of edamame, and a healthy serving of avocado.


He left the restaurant a very happy boy. We then proceeded to the mall (woo-hoo) so he could go on the slide for a while. Too cute!

One year ago today...

Our lives changed forever.

We were given the most precious gift imaginable, our son.

One year ago today, we were united forever with Carlos, the most amazing, lovable, hilarious child I have ever known.

To commemorate this momentous occasion, here is a photograph from that day, December 18, 2006, of Carlos looking fairly freaked out by the scary red-lipped Santa Claus at the Marriott Hotel in Guatemala City.


Life will never be the same. Thank goodness.