Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

Sugar-Free: By request, I'm starting this update by blogging about my no-sugar-experiment. two weeks ago I decided to quit eating sugar. I mean totally. I check the labels of anything and don't eat it if there's any kind of sugar added. This means I can't eat most crackers, sauces, spreads, prepared foods, canned goods, etc. It never ceases to amaze me how many things have sugar in them, that you wouldn't think would have sugar. Bread! Meat! Cheese! No wonder the American consumption of fructose has gone up 1000x in the last 40 years.  So anyway, I've had to make all my food from scratch (which is good to do anyway, but who has the time on a regular basis?) and forego my regular infusion of chocolate and sweets. In fact, this is part of why I started this. I need sweets after every meal. I get intense cravings. And, come on, who doesn't crave chocolate at regular intervals throughout the day, but I felt like it was getting out of control. Perhaps a result of my breastfeeding two babies, but I figured my body can't need all that sugar. I'm pretty much exclusively breastfeeding 35lbs of baby, which amounts to something like 140 oz of milk a day, and yet my "baby weight" persists, determined as ever to hang on. So I thought maybe it was my love handles asking for the sugar, not my boobs. It was worth a shot to see if it made a difference.

This was not the only reason. Jared recently gave up sugar for a month when the babies were born. He read an interview with Steve Nash that he had given up sugar and was more energetic and even-keeled and athletic because of it. Jared cut it out and did become more energetic, even-keeled, etc. He also lost 10 lbs right away (he was also playing soccer 3x/week, which couldn't have hurt).  The other big reason is that I'm a little freaked out by the prevalence of cancer in young people close to me. My husband. My sister. Other friends. Who knows what the reason is for so much cancer these days, but the American sugar intake has risen at roughly the same rate as the American cancer rate (I think, anyway), so it's on my list of suspicious possible culprits, along with pesticides, chemicals in our water, preservatives and other unnatural things we eat, additives in childhood vaccines, contaminants in plastic bowls and cups, air and water pollution, cell phone waves, too much corn in our diets, hormones in our beef, and secret government conspiracies (obviously, I think some of these ideas are more feasible than others). And I wanted to see if I could even do it - a feat which Jared seriously doubted was within the realm of my own power and self-discipline.

It's been a good experiment, and was not nearly as hard as I thought it would be, for a few reasons. Reason #1: Trader Joe's sugar-free chocolate covered almonds. They use inulin as a sweetener, a natural vegetable fiber (don't eat too many of these at once. trust me on this.).  #2: Medjool dates. So sweet and delicious. #3: A few great recipes for treats that use alternative sweeteners. I made really great breakfast granola using pureed raisins as the main sweet ingredient. Apple crisp using stevia and agave. And chocolate fudge balls using honey. There were more that I didn't even try, but I plan to get around to.

So it's been good. Do I feel better, more energetic, more emotionally stable, skinnier? Meh. I really WANTED my life, energy, digestive health, emotionality, physique, immune system and everything else to improve, but so far there's really no noticeable difference. But I feel better about eating less sugar regardless. This has been a good chance to get some treats and sweets into my repertoire that don't use so much cane sugar, so that's good. I plan to continue using as little sugar as possible. Except not over Thanksgiving. All things be damned at Thanksgiving.

Other exciting events in the Engstrom lives:

-Trajan (aliases: The Trajanator. Toot-aloo. Li'l Traj. Brickley. Brickles. Happy.) sleeps like crazy and spends his rare awake time smiling and laughing and charming everyone in the room. He's super interested in anything he can get his hands on to play with. He's not that interested in rolling or bouncing or standing, but loves people and toys. He wants to know how the world works and is very involved in figuring it out. He did roll over once, purportedly, but hasn't repeated the experiment. He doesn't eat much, compared to his brother, and has the figure and feel of a baby monkey - the one who clings effortlessly to his mother's fur, and weightlessly rides her wherever she goes. As far as I can tell, there is not an ounce of "babyfat" on his body, much like his sister Seville was. He's photogenic and charismatic, and a clear favorite of his bigger sister, who always wants to play with him.

-Oswell (aliases: Ozalicious. Noodle-Roo. Oz. Ozzie. LuvvieBunns. Squeaky.) is more like a luscious little Roly Poly Snuggly Buddha-bellied baby. He weighs 12 oz more than Trajan (despite the same height and head circumference, and smaller birth weight). He is making us concerned that he will eat us out of house and home.  It seems that my body has tapped out at its current milk supply and it's not enough for him. Though I have some great milk-producing supplements, they cause me quite a bit of personal discomfort, so I'm not sure I can torture myself to keep taking them to the level that would produce to Oswell's demand. Though I have all the obligatory feelings of inadequacy as a mother, I remind myself that your average mom starts supplementing with solid food when her baby weighs, oh, say, 12-15 lbs or so. So there is no shame in being unable to sustain 35 lbs of baby from breast alone (right?). We are starting to give him extra formula bottles now and again, and he is sleeping a little better.  Oswell is really into rolling over, bouncing, and all things "my-cool-new-body." Where Trajan wants to know how the world works, Oswell wants to know how he himself works, and he's certainly getting it down. He rolls over the instant you put him in bed and then cries to be turned back over again. It's a long and tedious exercise getting him to sleep, but he's very cute about it so all is forgiven.

-Seville (aliases: Savilla la Maravilla (pronounced in perfect Spanish of course: saveeya la madaveeya. translation: Seville the Marvelous), Sweetheart, The Big Sister. She used to be called The Poopsmith when she was a baby, but she doesn't want us to call her that now). Seville is in preschool now, doing big girl stuff. She has accepted purple into her catalog of colors she likes (so she has two now. pink and purple). She loves to play with her brothers, even though all they do is smile at her. She says funny things all the time, and as every parent, I wish I wrote them all down. Some favorites that I remember:

"Mommy, sometime, when the moon is up, we should buy the moon a present. We should buy it some stars. Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots [...] of stars!" She also told me I could make it come down by playing it music, and then we could release the stars from their ribbons. I should hire her to write my songs.

"my face starts to look like a raisin whenever I poop" (sorry, Seville, to preserve that for posterity, but it was too funny).

"I don't wanna die..." which commenced in a conversation about dying and how your body stays here but your spirit goes to heaven. And no, you're not going to die anytime soon, but when you do, there will be lots of people in heaven who will be so excited to see you they'll put their arms around you and give you a big hug... "but... would they have arms?"

Putting two and two together one day, Seville informed me that peanut butter is made out of pee, nuts, and butter.

Pictures from this Fall:

2010 Fall

6 Months

Bedtime Stories

That's right. They're officially 6 months old! Which means they're more like 4 month-olds, being 2 months premature. They're not the size of 4 month-olds, mind you - they're already busting out of all those cute fall clothes I bought in 3-6 month size (aargh!). Unlike Seville, they are little chunk-a-lunks, growing like weeds. But developmentally, they're more like 4 month-olds, which means they're starting to play with toys, chew on stuff, Oswell can roll over, and they're starting to get picky about where and when they sleep. Which means I'm officially on house-arrest until they drop a nap or two or seven. I'll catch you guys on the flip side - wish me luck as I descend into the depths of isolation and reclusiveness. If I start to act weird it's because I've forgotten how to socially interact with adult human beings, so I hope you'll cut me a little slack and still be my friend.

Sleeping Arrangements

Anyway, you'd think we'd take more pictures, given how cute multiple babies are, but cameras inconveniently require hands to operate (stupid camera-makers), and so there's actually not a lot of photography going on around here. Here are a few recent-ish pictures though.

Boys n' Grandma

And by the way, as long as we're talking about hands, or the lack thereof, I am in bewilderment over ANY piece of baby equipment that requires two hands to operate! Seriously Graco???!!  What are they thinking? I have a number of things (car seats, swings, baby carriers) that have these weird snap/lock/release/lever/clasp thingies that require BOTH HANDS!! Honestly, I just want to slap those designers, if not do something more severe that I shouldn't print here lest it be interpreted as a "threat." Especially since some of them seem to be designed as "safety" measures (so... you think that it's safer to dangle the baby precariously  by a combination of my teeth and my left knee while balancing on one foot in order to free up both hands to undo your clasp instead of just having single-handed operation? yeah, that's just brilliant.) Anyway, if any of you work for a baby-gear company, would you please hand them a real, crying baby and say, "here, now try." Cuz apparently the empty warehouses in Bangladesh which are full of nothing but able-bodied adults do not convey the ridiculousness of what they are asking parents to accomplish with their fancy 5-star rated piece of equipment that's purportedly making parents' lives easier (as if!).

First Day of (Pre) School

Jared's New Look

As for Seville, she started pre-school a couple of weeks ago. I was really nervous about her letting me leave her somewhere without me. After all, I can't even leave her at church nursery without her getting all clingy and momma's girl on me, and she knows those people. But as with most things, I was more nervous about it than she was. We spent lots of time preparing her in advance and talking about what was going to happen, even going so far as to role-play her first day of school, complete with me peacefully leaving with a kiss and then coming back to get her at the end. Much to my surprise and delight, our plan worked! I took her to her classroom, explored it a bit with her, and then got up the guts to say I had to leave and could I have a kiss goodbye. She kissed me and that was that! Then I paced the floors at my house for 2 hours. Amazingly, her teacher did not call me frantic to come get her, she did not cry for me for 2 hours, she did not get hit by a bus or fall and break anything. When I went to pick her up she was happy and told me about her day. Go figure. (and by the way, I know you're wondering how on earth I am planning to get Seville to preschool and back twice a week. SO WAS I! My saint of a neighbor, whose twin boys are Seville's age and in her class, and with whom I had arranged to carpool, said that her stomach turned thinking about me loading all our kids and taking them to school, even for my "share," and she'll just do the driving. Hallelujah! Did I mention she's a saint? yeah.)

Babies in Bulk

The boys are 4 months old now. 4 and a half, actually, though their "corrected" age is closer to 2 1/2 months, so we've had double the amount of "little baby infant time." Which is both a blessing and a curse, I'm sure you realize.

It's been a while since we've updated here, and there is too much and too little to say at the same time. We feed and change babies, put them various places around our living room to keep them happy to mix it up now and again. But other than feeding, changing, rocking, pumping, washing bottles, washing clothes, there's not much else that happens around here.  We took them to Costco the other day, put the carseats on a flat cart and went around the store that way, adding our purchases to the cart with them. At the checkout line the guy behind us said, "which aisle'd you get those on?" We all joked about how you can buy anything in bulk at Costco, and these come in a 2-pack, etc. It was the highlight of our week. Actually, almost any adult conversation is the highlight of my week, but I think that isn't much different from other young mothers.

I'm doing pretty ok with the whole twin situation. I was telling a friend today that I've adjusted to having twins probably better than I adjusted to having my first baby. I think with twins you expect that your life will be sucked right out from under you and that you'll need nannies, prozac, and therapy to get you through. And so when you miraculously survive on less than that, you feel really good about yourself. When you have one baby (girls, you can back me up on this), you imagine all the blissful baby moments at home: You will hold and rock this baby, nurse it effortlessly to sleep, and while it is slumbering peacefully all afternoon you will do sewing projects and start scrapbooking and paint your bathroom and plant 27 varieties of tomatoes in your garden and you'll work out every day and be just as tiny as you were pre-pregnancy within 3 weeks and you'll start cooking organic meals and your husband will come home every night to a tidy home and a warm dinner and he'll kiss you and scoop up your darling little blessing and cuddle it while you leisurely eat your delicious cooking, after which you'll put the little pumpkin to bed and then you and hubby will spend a quiet evening together watching a movie, cuddling, and going to bed before the sun rises another blissful day of New Motherhood.

So when you find yourself robbed of your body, your time, your sleep, your hair, your food, when you wake up 50 times a night to a baby who wants to suck violently on your scabbed and raw nipples and have to function the next day heaving around that extra 30 pounds and spend the rest of your day elbow deep in poop and laundry and spit up during those spare moments between trying to feed and/or settle a baby who is completely unpredictable and upset whenever you don't immediately read its mind and attend to its every whim and you're starving but can't find a minute to eat a half a grapefruit until 5:00 in the evening (this happened to me. I'm not exaggerating), and then when your also-tired husband comes home from work to find you haggard and weary heating up leftover hotdogs in the microwave for a dinner you can barely bring yourself to swallow, despite the fact that you're ravenous, and then you spend your evening disagreeing on whether to let the baby "cry it out" or not and your husband eventually collapses into bed and falls asleep before you have any "quality time" only to start the night over again... for SOME reason... I don't know why... this is difficult for a new mom. So, yeah, twins has been a piece of cake in that respect. I never imagined I would have a life. I don't. It's all good.

Meanwhile the boys are growing like weeds (something Seville never managed. She still weighs about as much as your average 12-month old). They have officially started to laugh and "talk" to us. They do everything different from each other. You know all those things your baby did that you thought was a result of your parenting style and choices? Wrong! Those had nothing to do with you. Babies just each have their own way of doing things. Think their pacifier preferences are because of how you handled it? no. Think they slept well because of your careful parenting planning? no way. These guys have been treated identically, and they are completely different.  They need different things, they respond to different things, they like different things. It's impossible not to compare twins to each other. I know. You are always told that babies develop at their own pace and in different ways, but holy cow when it's right in front of you you can't help but compare.

Brickley is much more observant, alert and wakeful. He was the first to smile, the first to laugh. He can hold his head up pretty well and generally seems to have better physical control than Oswell. He's really charismatic and will interact with and smile at anyone on command.

Oswell is sleepier and more cuddly and baby-ish. He probably sleeps more because he's growing faster. He's a big juicy baby with jowls dangling to his shoulders and a cute little knob of a chin poking out of his luscious little face. Despite the fact that he sleeps more and doesn't hold his huge noggin up well yet, he's more of a talker and his sounds are more developed than Brickley's so far. It's so cute to see him smile, like his tiny face muscles have to lift his huge cheeks to pull it off.

Seville is starting to adjust and she loves her little babies. She's very proud of her Big Sister role and sometimes gets mad if I help a baby before she does (she's good at popping pacifiers back in mouths, which is good because there is much pacifier popping going on around here.) She also wears ballerina clothes on a daily basis. She loves to help mommy and has started to get a little devious. Today we put a popsicle in the freezer for her to save for after dinner, to which she protested loudly and with much crying. She ran into the kitchen and yelled at daddy to "go away!"  When he asked her why she wanted him to leave she said because he might see her getting the popsicle out of the freezer. We both laughed so hard. Nice try, honey. You're getting there. We eventually set a timer for the popsicle and it all worked out.

More pics of our summer:

Summer 2010

Casualties of Daddy-Time

Seville has had a lot of "Daddy-Time" lately. Daddies don't do as much coloring or crafty stuff, like mommies do...
Daddies are more likely to do something like... say... play with remote controlled helicopters...

...indoors...

...and near their daughters' heads.

(If a brother did this, not only would he be chastised by mom but Seville would no doubt be upset about it. But since Daddy did it, it's all funny and adventurous. sigh.)

Introducing Seville

Since Seville is not allowed into the NICU, we have a challenge including her in our new family and introducing her to her new baby brothers. It broke my heart to learn they wouldn't allow her in - she had been so excited to meet them.  In any case, we decided we'd have a challenge either way, because it would be difficult to explain to her where they are and why they have tubes and things, even if she was allowed in. None of this is what a 3 year old might expect. Thankfully, she doesn't really know any different, and so when we explained that the babies came out a little bit too soon and they're in a place where they are still pretending to be inside a tummy, she took it at face value.

We introduced her to them for the first time with pictures, in my hospital room, and I caught a little of it on my iPhone. It's cute, you can see her little mind churning, trying to process what's going on in the pictures.

3!

Seville turned 3 last Sunday! We had a birthday tea party for her on Saturday with family and a few of her little friends. It was so cute. Here are a few pics of the big event:

The happy 3-year old.

Playing with cousin Ashlynn

Wrapped up in her new fairy blanket that Mommy made

The spread: tea, little cookies, scones of various types, Devonshire cream and jam, egg & cress sandwiches, cake.

The rest of the pics can be seen here:

Forrest-Inspiration

My little bro and his wife came to town last weekend. While they were here they went to the beach, and invited anyone to come along who wanted (we wanted). Despite a dismal forecast, it was the most pleasant beach weather I've seen in a long long time. Perfect and sunny and beautiful.





You can see the rest of our pictures here:

Forrest-inspired Hug Point Trip

Knee Surgery + 5 Weeks =

Finally! Backpacking!

Last time we went backpacking Jared said he wouldn't go with me again unless I got my knee fixed. See, my knee does this thing, occasionally, where I'll be walking along just fine, and then suddenly and without warning, something shifts and I can no longer bend my knee or bear weight on it without excruciating pain. Then later in the day or the next morning or a couple days later it will shift back and everything will be fine again. Very mysterious.

Now, walking around normally, this is no big deal; I can go home and rest it until it goes away. But of course, this doesn't usually happen when I'm walking around normally, it happens most times when I'm doing something active. Like, say, backpacking. And in fact, we were once backpacking in Joshua Tree National Park when it happened, 4 miles in. Joshua Tree is, may I remind you, a desert, and so having a finite amount of water and an undetermined amount of time before we get more was a little nerve-racking. We had to stop and make camp in the wash right there, I took as much ibuprofen as I had in my first aid kit, and hoped it would "sleep off." I was able to gingerly walk in the morning and hike out (if you can do anything "gingerly" with a 40 lb pack on your back).

Anyway, that was the trip Jared said he wasn't doing it again until I got it fixed. The problem was, no one knew what was wrong with it. Pokes and prods by my favorite orthopedic surgeon plus MRIs at various angles showed nothing. And so no one was quite sure how to "fix" what ain't broke. But I had a standing offer from the doc to go in there and take a look anytime. 5 years later, finding myself a) desperate to be able to recreate the way I used to, b) not pregnant, and c) not breastfeeding, I decided my window of opportunity was now, and called up my old doc to schedule "the procedure."

Bless his heart, Dr. Weintraub found a floating piece of cartilage in my knee that didn't belong. It was not the kind of thing that an MRI would pick up, and since it was literally floating, unattached to anything, it would explain how the pain would move around and be totally unpredictable. I guess it could just get wedged into various parts of my knee joint - and then feel kinda like somebody's jabbing fork between my bones.

So anyway, now it's gone (yippee!), and though my knee is far from better a mere 5 weeks later, I was able to go on my first little backpacking trip, without worrying about my joint freezing up on me at random.

Since we were going with Jared's sister and her husband and their 2 month old baby - and bringing our own toddler who is, just this year, really too big to realistically pack in in a carrier - we were looking for a short, easy hike. Where to go?!

A few years ago, just after we got our GPS, we decided to do some adventuring by picking a spot on the map and seeing if we could find it. I once found a tiny blue smudge on a map that looked like a mountain lake and thought it would be fun to see if we could get there. After much twisting and turning on dirt forest service roads we got about as close as we figured we could by car, and bushwhacked the rest of the way there. Indeed, we found not only a beautiful, shallow, warm, idyllic, natural mountain lake, but a trail, just north of where we'd been bushwhacking, that would have saved us a lot of time and scrapes on our ankles (and arms, this being Oregon, after all). There was also a firepit and good campsite on the north side of the lake, and I remarked on our way back that this would be the perfect place to bring friends or family members who were a little leery of backpacking, because it was such a short, easy hike to a secluded beautiful place.
So we decided to try and find it again. Of course, we couldn't remember a thing about it. Not what it was called, not how we got there. We couldn't even agree on which National Forest it was in. So we almost had to give up. Then Jared had the brilliant idea of getting out the old GPS and seeing if we marked any points on it. And after searching through our marked waypoints, converting the coordinates and finding a map I could plug them into (did you know you can plug GPS coordinates into Google Maps? Works flawlessly. Awesome. Took me ages to figure that out.), we found our spot.
And so with in-laws and kids in tow we headed up there on Saturday morning to see if it was still there.

And so it was....The rest of the pics...

2009 Cripple Creek Backpacking Trip

Playing Make-Believe

So one of Seville's favorite things to do lately is pretend we're all somebody else. She pretends to be friends or cousins sometimes (in which case I pretend to be their Mommy), but mostly we pretend we're each other. So at least once a day she'll announce that she is Daddy or she is Mommy and then Daddy and Mommy get assigned parts - one of us has to be the other one and one of us gets to be Seville. It's pretty fun. And she is actually very obedient when I say things like, "Mommy, are you getting in the car fast?" "Yes, Seville!" she'll say, speedily getting into the car. Only it's more like, "Yes, Seviiwe!"

The other day, after Seville took a bath, Jared came into the living room to find her doing this...


"I'm Mommy! I'm on the computer!" she announced.

Seriously, is this what she thinks of me? Leading up to my recent concert with Cantico, I was on my computer it seemed all day every day (I was managing web-sales and other stuff for the concert, as well as singing in it), so after I heard about her little "imitation" of me, I vowed to stay off my computer unless she was asleep, for a while. So far it seems to be working, and the impression she has of me as an ever-computing Mom is fading into the background. Now when she pretends to be me, she says, "I'm Mommy! I'm driving!" (is that even better? hm.)

Kids' Questionnaire

This little questionnaire has been floating around my extended family for a few weeks. You can get pretty hilarious answers from kids when you ask them questions about their mom. Anyway we finally took the time to ask Seville the questions. She's a little young for this, and we skipped some of them, but some of what she said was pretty cute. Jared did the asking, while I was sitting there:


1. What is something Mommy always says to you?

“Um.... [gasp!]... that’s MY chair!!!” [she made me get out of her chair before we continued]

2. What makes Mommy happy?

“I make mommy happy.”

3. What makes Mommy sad?

“The bunny makes mommy sad.” [there was this Easter Bunny in the room we had been playing with. I think she was just searching for something to say, since obviously I'm NEVER sad.]

4. How does Mommy make you laugh?

“...um... yeah..”

[Asked again, in different ways]

“...um... the bunny... [laugh]... um... tickle me on my tummy.”

6. How old is mommy?

Uh.. 2

7. How tall is mommy?

Seville addressing Daddy: “Um... you make mommy taller and taller.”

Daddy: “Oh really?”

Seville addressing Mommy: “Mommy... do you... daddy makes you taller and taller?”

8. What is your mommy's favorite thing to do?

“She likes to do me if I will be gone in the toilet.”

Mommy: “...uh...what was that, will you say that again?”

Seville: “you won’t put me in the toilet.”

Mommy, laughing: “That’s true. I won’t.”

11. What is your mommy really good at?

“Mommy is really really good at to me.”

12. What is your mom not very good at?

“Um... She...She’s not getting the bunny.”

13. What does daddy do for work?

“Um... he drives.”

13. What does mommy do for work?

“She drives too.”

14. What is your mommy's favorite food?

“Um... salad.”

17. What do you and mommy do together?

“Um... we are gonna make things.”

20. How do you know that mommy loves you?

“She loves somebody.”

[Daddy asks the question several ways, trying to get a response, and eventually Seville, understanding that we must want her to say something different, gets creative:]

“She bites me in the morning.”

Easter & Fake Easter

So I got this hat at an estate sale last summer. I thought it was to die for, and it fits Seville, so it was to be her Easter Hat for this year. The rest of her outfit was made to match, including the organza silk shawl.

Here she is enthusiastically running around looking for Easter goodies.

And taking a break to devour a peep.

And swinging, as she is wont to do every time we step foot out of doors.

The funny thing is, none of these pictures is really of Easter. We staged a fake Easter today (which was beautiful) because actual Easter Sunday was a day of torrential rains and cold. After taking Seville's dress off for her nap last week, I couldn't bear to make her wear it again for the hunt afterward, lest she freeze. We used the same easter eggs (she's 2. She doesn't know the difference ;). We even used the same real, dyed eggs. Are those edible after a week? I'm scared)

Here are the rest of our pictures, for those interested:

Birthday Photos

Here are the rest of the pics from Seville's birthday - and a couple from Jared's and mine too.

Holiday Slideshow

Pictures of our holidays, for those who want more.

Merry Christmas from Seville

Big Girl Bed

Seville's first night in a toddler bed was last week, and when we went to check on her before turning in ourselves, this is where we found her. We sat there cracking up and taking pictures before putting her back in bed (some great parents we are, eh?).

Which reminded me of the story about my older brother, who slept in the top bunk. My parents one night were awakened by a loud "thump," and ran startled into the bedroom to see what was going on. They found him still asleep on the floor. Kids are weird like that. They seem to be able to sleep through anything.

From the Mouths of Babes

As many of you know, my mother doesn't cook in quantifiable "amounts" like normal people. Rather she cooks in a "dump" of this, a "handful" of that, and "however much looks good" of the other. So many of us, her kids, have attempted over the years to capture something akin to "recipes" from the food she makes. On three separate occasions I've tried to observe and write down what the heck she's doing when she makes her famous sweetbread, and thus I have three sets of notes on the subject.

Today I was attempting to make sweetbread for Thanksgiving, and had Seville helping me, complete with stool and apron and sticky hands delving into all my ingredients. In any case, I set my three sets of notes on the counter, leaned over them and said, half to myself, half to Seville, " ...[sigh]... okay, which of these should we follow?"

To which Seville promptly replied, "Follow the Prophet!" :)

The Obligatory Halloween '08 Blog Post

Seville was a bee for Halloween.



I was a flower (or rather, a whole plant, and rife with bees, actually, for the benefit of those who might have been slow on the uptake about, y'know, she's a bee, I'm a flower, get it? get it?)

These are terrible pics, I know. Weird flash-less shadows, I look like some sweaty amazonian German housefrau (I swear, I'm not this unattractive in real life). But they're what I got.

Jared was too busy answering the door for trick-or-treaters (our first year doing that. We've always been away partying), to put on his costume, so maybe he'll save it for next year. That being the case, I cannot now divulge his ingenious idea. Until next year....