Same old, same old

We've had so many special events lately - visits, trips, holidays - that I haven't shared some of the regular, daily life moments. (One more post is coming on this weekend's guests, so stay tuned!)

First, a little food catch-up. But, as a preview, here's the executive chef in action:

Roasted tomato soup with broiled cheese topping:

Pumpkin buttermilk scones (from scratch!)

(This was the before picture. No after picture, since they were too yummy!)

Pumpkin Praline Pie (link is for the recipe; I'm not a reader of this blog, and can't vouch for it, though it seems cool enough)

(This was Mike's birthday pie. Coming off the weekend in Austin and Halloween, we were sort of caked- and treated-out, so Mike requested something a little different. A good birthday was had by all!)

Also, I'm still knitting. This is the season of gift-knitting, but, hey, these projects were a birthday gift (the swirly hat) / an extremely belated baby gift and a just-in-time baby gift (the green elf/pixie hats) / and (gasp!) something I made for myself (the beret). Behold!

As you may have seen or heard, we are pretty much still, uh, doing summer down here. We had a cold snap severe enough to kill half the basil in the garden (don't worry - ample pesto cubes were made in time!), but then it warmed back up again. And I do mean warm - today was nearly 80! Luckily, girlfriend here can rock the sunglasses and the fleece slippers with equal savvy.

We had a rainy day! Okay, actually, it was just kinda, sorta overcast with a slim chance of rain, but preparing for the rain is so! much! fun!

And we are wearing long sleeves here at the park because of the sun and the wind, not because of the cold.

As a further artifact of our warm temps, Natalie has learned my Starbucks order. She'll often call out "Mommy have iced grande. Okay, okay, Mommy have iced grande" whenever I'm drinking coffee - even at home. I can't figure out if this parenting success beyond my wildest dreams or just one more step in the crass commercialization of childhood.

In other news, we take recycling very seriously.

Tigers are also serious business. Actually, this is Natalie readying herself for the long journey to the mailbox. All that junk mail has to get into  the house somehow, you know?

It's good that the tiger is more of a ride-on thing than a car seat thing, since sitting nicely in the car seat while it gets buckled has not, um, been a strength of hers.

You know what is not serious business? Couch cushions! It's like the princess and the 
. . . . sometimes this blog just writes itself . . . . .

It's funny that Natalie is the one on the cushions here - because while we were having a spate of bad sleep on her part, she was actually handling it pretty decently for the most part. Mike and I were wrecked. Wrecked. Forthemoment, though, things seem to have stabilized (The two year molars have made their appearance? We've moved past the bad habits we started in Austin?), and she's giving us more continuous sleep at night.

That doesn't mean she goes to sleep willingly, though. She often provides a topic for her lullaby song - recent prompts have included: her teachers, quesadillas, jeans, garbage trucks, and her crib. The kicker came the other day, though, when she kept demanding "CD song". I tried various CDs, only to finally realize that what she wanted was a song about a CD. And then - just as you are getting ready to leave the room, she'll demand extra kisses ("kiss my elbow") or claim that she can't find her blanket - you know, the blanket that is covering her . . . .

Love to you all! Sleep well!