Thursday, June 21, 2012

little of this, little of that

WooHoo! We ordered our holiday turkey today to be shipped from Kenya right in time for Christmas. Thanksgiving we will be on the Kenyan coast hopefully eating as much seafood as our belly's can handle. So our turkey will be saved for Christmas this year.  I miss the beach terribly!

The embassy carpentry team finished our handmade baby gates.  It took them 3 days (after the 4 month wait) to finish and install them with hardware and all.  They're pretty cool.  I like that they are hinged and can fold in on themselves when we want.  The delivery came right in time because Ashlynn is getting faster by the day.

Speaking of Ashlynn.  Her first tooth broke through last night.  Finally.  I was beginning to wonder if she was toothless.  It's about darn time!  It's rainy season over here now and the temperature drops at night significantly.  We might be busting out our heated mattress pads soon!  

Wild flowers at the store today.

I found this little herb tripod drying on the counter. Ordinary things can be so beautiful don't you think?

I love how I find little toys set up among grown up things.  Bella's dino trio made me stop and smile.

No leftovers get left out at our house.  Last night leftover pork loin got chopped and turned into a creamy potato leak carrot soup.  Seriously yummy.  I love soup especially when it's cold. Don't you? We dunked hot crusty bread in our soup last night.  I finally figured out how much roux to make and add to a chicken broth based soup to make it thick and creamy.  Using leftover roasted meat for soups has an added bonus because it's already seasoned and all that seasoning flavors the soup.  Do you make soups?  What's your favorite to make?  I tend to make them as an afterthought with leftovers on days I don't feel like cooking and then always wonder why I don't actually ever plan to make soup cause they taste so good.

Summer camp is going well but Addie and Bella are only going three days a week.  Tuesday and today (Thursday) this week were rough for me.  I didn't have that peaceful silent house in the morning during Ashlynn's nap since they were at home playing.  The good thing is that they play so nicely together and it's fun to all be home together to play.  The bad thing is that they nag me all day long about being hungry or wanting a snack or this or that (you'd think I didn't feed them three meals a day).  I had to apologize a few too many times today for loosing my calm voice.  It might be a long summer.

Homemade mac-n-cheese is the girls' favorite.  I make it with pureed squash so it's sort of healthy.  I try to mix up the pasta shapes so they stay interested (read: today at the store in Ethiopia there was no macaroni just these strange looking snail shell things). I guess it's called Gnocchi pasta. The girls dug it!

 I'm super thankful my sweet husband insisted I open a bottle of Argentinian Syrah last night, knowing I wouldn't have any trouble finishing it while he's gone.  He was right.  A glass tonight was the perfect thing to help bath time along a bit smoother.  

Every evening while I'm cooking dinner Eneye takes Ashlynn outside to play.  Addie and Bella usually join them and they all play with Teklu and Zalalem.  I love hearing the giggles and joy as they all run around together.

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