A Baby on the Way…

I am beyond thrilled to announce that there’s a new little one coming soon to join the Fisher family.  A small, wiggling, bundle of joy with bright eyes and soft wispy dark hair.  And it’s a GIRL….

It’s MUFFIN the Shetland sheepdog puppy!

Will’s Mom & Dad will be the proud parents to this new addition, due to arrive from the breeder next week.  I have been really wanting a puppy, and while this isn’t the right time for us (boo hoo! ) I am so excited not only to meet this sweet Sheltie baby but because we are puppy sitting this cutie pie often! (And soon, we already know we’ll have her for a week in May!)

So welcome to Texas Muffin, we cannot wait to meet you!

Bella Is Sassy

Pumpkin Log

Do you have a picky eater? Then you know that heart swelling happiness that comes when your picky eater actually requests something special and that something is outside the three things they normally eat.  So, when Jacob asks me to make this Pumpkin Log recipe, I said yes, even though it is sort of “off-season”.

This recipe comes from his Kindergarten teacher who made this back in the fall when the class was learning all about pumpkins. 

Put wax paper on a cookie sheet (with raised edges) and grease the wax paper. Preheat oven to 375.

-Mix 3 eggs, 2/3 cup canned pumpkin, 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp baking soda, and 3/4 cup flour.

-Add 2 tsp of cinnamon or more depending on what you like. You can also add nutmeg, ginger, and cloves if you like. (I used 2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice)

Pour into the pan and bake for 15 minutes.

(You will have leftover pumpkin, I suggest you call it soup and feed it to your children)

-Spread out a tea towel and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

When the cake is ready, dump it out onto the tea towel and pull off the wax paper. Be careful b/c it can stick. Roll up the cake in the towel. Let cool on counter. I usually do it overnight, but it at least needs 4 hours.

Filling:2 tbsp butter, 8oz cream cheese, 3/4 tsp vanilla, 1 cup powdered sugar. Mix well.

-Unroll cake carefully and spread with filling, re-roll. Wrap with saran wrap and then foil, store in fridge.

This pumpkin log is fantastic and even better the next day after it has chilled and the flavors have set.  Although we think of pumpkin as a Fall/winter thing – this cake is perfect for warm weather – it is light, cold, creamy and not too sweet.

Bayou City Art Festival

This  March was our third time to attend the Bayou City Art Festival.  It falls close  to Will’s mother’s birthday and it has become a really nice Fisher tradition.

You take a shuttle bus over to Memorial Park. 

There’s a place under the bus for strollers and wagons and stuff.  This year all we had gear wise was one light stroller and our Sherpa backpack with the built in cooler.  Slowly but surely we are able to travel lighter to things like this.

Jacob was stylin’ in his straw hat. Both my Dad and Will’s Dad are major hat wearers, so he comes by it naturally!

These were guys painted blue with basketball goals attached to them.  Of course Jacob had to try it out.  I think they were part of some basketball camp or something.

Food at the festival is not particularly child or wallet friendly. My kids picnicked on pasta, parmesan cheese, fruit and juice boxes from home.

There are long pathways lined with artist’s booths. As in hundreds it seems like. It is more than I can even begin to take in, Jacob was keeper of the map as usual. He also proved that six is not too old to ride in a stroller, hah hah.

Bella loves to do any and all kinds of art. Jacob, not so much. He likes to construct or do process driven things where there is a definite start and end. (He gets that from me!) She was happy to spend 20 minutes painting, gluing,glittering a rock. Look at his face in the background – he was hot and bored and ready to go.

Paw Paw kept Bella entertained with leaves.

Jacob was measured for some Piper sandals. These are completely hand made leather “Jesus” style sandals from a little family owned company out of San Antonio.

They should be here any day now, I can’t wait to see them.  Will and I had rather envisioned brown sandals, but Jacob chose red.  They emboss the inner sole with a name and date, I had them put Fisher instead of Jacob, I figure Bella will be a size 1 someday.

Happy Birthday Theresa! After the art fest we all went to the Cadillac Bar (which is actually really a great restaurant and not a bar, well I mean they have a bar, but it isn’t A Bar, as in no, really, I don’t take my kids to bars!)

We did do a little art shopping. Will surprised me with me a small oil painting of loaves of bread sitting in the sunshine, which is really sweet. I always rather imagine that he just humors me on the whole bread making thing. So for him to pick that painting out for me is really special.  And we bought this print by artist Jay Long.  Oh I love his work, I really wanted this one, this one and this one but of course had to pick just the one! But he is in Austin, so you know, it’s totally feasible that someday I might have another or at least visit the studio and drool. (Not of course, actually drooling – drool and original giclee do not mix.)  Go and click on the orginal and then zoom, you have to see how the boat and tree is all made up of printed paper. It’s off the hook!~

Lastly we got this hand made pottery bread bowl.

It is neat, for one I love functional art and then also because the bread can rise,  bake and then be served all right in the bowl.  So far I have used it make beer bread (shown below) and also rosemary bread (which I did not take a picture of because it was literally devoured before it was even cooled but I used fresh rosemary from my own garden and it was AMAZING)

So that was our day at the Art Festival 2011. It is right up there on my list with Renaissance Festival. I think I’m just a festival kind of person.

First Playground Kiss!

Today Jacob told me that Lilly Poe, a girl in his Kindergarten class, kissed him twice, once on the ear and once on the cheek.  So cute!

The most exciting thing EVER* and Why I love YouTube…

– Toy Story 3 is available for streaming on Netflix!!!  Somehow we don’t actually own these movies (my mother in law does though) so my little ones are UBER EXCITED when it showed up to watch online!

What I really love, the thing that really makes my Mommy heart swell, is that the kids are up there right now with all their toys acting out their own Toy Story.  We do have some officially licensed Toy Story stuff (Jesse, Woody & Buzz) but I love it that they just insert whatever we have in place of the other characters.  There is a random dinosaur, a stuffed horse, a big baby doll etc.  I love watching them play together and listening to them act out all the voices and different parts of the movie.

Can I also just say I love the Blu-ray player? Sure it is nice to watch Blu-ray movies, but what I really love is that it streams Netflix and also I can watch YouTube videos on it.  I think you can also go to Facebook, but I’m not on Facebook so I haven’t tried that part. But Youtube, oh gosh that’s another thing that just makes me so happy, this is my current favorite video…If you don’t know the backstory on this, here is an article about it from NPR.org.

I love that people can interact and inspire one another and tick each other off – I just thrive on diversity and people never cease to amuse, shock and entertain me.

My favorite quote from the NPR interview is what he says at the end

"I would like to tell her that I totally forgive her," Wong says. "I would love to meet for coffee and give her a big hug."

*if you are between the ages of 3-7…

Bluebonnets 2011

 

Aw – me and my sweetie!

This one of Jacob is my favorite of the bunch.

This was the best of all the family shots. Bella isn’t quite smiling but her dress was down and everyone’s eyes are open and looking at the camera. 

Spring Break part 2

When we returned from our hill country travels we picked up the kids and then spent a dew days getting the yard fixed up for Spring.

We went to the nursery and the hardware store. Will put new mulch in all the flower beds.  Bella planted these, I think they are daisies?

 

Top View: Into my horse water trough garden I planted two heirloom tomato plants, basil and Italian flat leaf parsley. Over on the left is my rosemary, which is all that survived the cold winter we had.

Same trough, from the side. I take these for comparison’s sake. It amazes me how fast things grow!

Here is Miss Bella, into whom I have planted the word of God.  She amazes me too! 

She is in that stage where she doesn’t really want me to take pictures.  I have to tell her that I am not taking a picture of her, but of something behind her or beside her. Hence she is not looking at the camera in any pictures lately.

I will try to get a better Bella & the garden picture. It is my intention to do a few each year when the garden goes in and put them all into a book together someday.

Here she is in April of 2009

Here she is last year, in March

On the left - Chives (These are seeds, I don’t know if they will sprout or not???)

On the right – thyme.

Left: Cilantro, Right: Sage

Up in the front yard around the tree, new flowers and fresh new layer of mulch.

Behind Jacob you can see the Azaleas are blooming.

Will worked really hard that weekend, I pretty much just wrangled kids, unpacked and planted my herbs.  I’m not sure how much of a “break” this part of the week was for Will!