looky looky...

oh, i couldn't wait to show you my new etsy banner and avatar!!! i just love them!!! thank you nileen!!! www.nileen.etsy.com/

on the way...

to what's been dubbed 'the wood' park we passed this huge field of sunflowers...sunflowers always make me happy...they look as if they're smiling right at you...so cheerful.

anyways, we get to the wood park and there's a huge yellow sign saying NO PLAYING ON THE FIELD and in itty bitty letters '& playground'. now, after dragging three kids to this out of the way playground i wasn't going to let a little thing like a HUGE yellow sign saying no playing get in my way...probably not a good message to send my kids but i was hot. so we carried on and to my relief there were a couple other moms breakin' the rules. i immediately asked them what was up with THE SIGN but they claimed they hadn't seen it (i'm thinking uhhhh how could you not?)...anyhoo we giggled about our unlawfulness together and let the kids play away. about 45 minutes later a cop shows up (we're talking tiny little town here folks...not a ton of crime...gotta bust the moms at the park)...gist. we got kicked out...but it gave the kids just enough time to play and then it rained after we left anyways.

now for some random spewing:

~ i've gotten 9 migraines already this month and am out of my prescription (which by the way is a miracle worker) i should know, i've tried just about everything there is. so now i need to go spend $50 on two pills just to get me through...hopefully that's all i'll need until the 8th!!!

~ why the heck isn't there a trader joe's in southern new hampshire...are we not hip enough??? cripes, i'd spend enough in your store to justify putting one here...(dear trader joe, if you're coming no more than 20 minutes from my house would be ideal)

~ i love you starbucks and all your store closings and layoffs really has me scared you're going to bite the dust completely and leave me without my favorite beverage.

~ i'm dreading my trip to walmart to get more fusible web...i hate making 'quick' trips with three kids....it SUCKS!!!!

~ we're off to santa's village this weekend and of course it's supposed to....RAIN!

~ i miss my friend lisa and working out at the gym...can't wait for school to start again!!

~ i just ordered labels for my etsy stuff and a new banner and avatar for my etsy site.

~ molly is shedding like you wouldn't believe and no matter how much i brush her she still has hair falling off everywhere...where the heck are c's clippers.

~ why in the world does r still like to watch caillou??????

~ lastly....what am i going to make for dinner??????

right now...

later i'll catch you all up with random musings but right now i can hear da ladies battling it out upstairs...doesn't quite make for good concentration...till then i'll leave you with some recent shots. xoxo

z holding the tiniest frog you ever did see

a sweet bib i made

my favorite afternoon treat...yum!

lassie girl treats...can't wait to dive in!

loved

went back to butternut this past weekend for some good company and peaches. picking was light as it was the first day for these summer favorites and the peaches needed a little bit more time but we found more than enough. these were made this morning and boy are they tasty!!! these are light and fluffy (cake-like, not low in calories chicas!) and are finished with melted butter and sugar....soooo good :)

Peachy Muffins

4c flour

2 T baking powder

1t baking soda

1 t salt

4 large eggs

2 c buttermilk (you can use yogurt or sour cream here)

2/3 c light brown sugar

2/3 c sugar -plus more for tops of cooked muffins

8T melted butter -plus more for tops of cooked muffins

2t vanilla

4-5 peeled and chopped fresh peaches

preheat oven to 400. i melt the butter in a large bowl and whisk the eggs, buttermilk, sugars, and vanilla together. add flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. fold in chopped peaches. bake approximately 18 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. have ready a small bowl with melted butter and a small bowl of sugar. while muffin is warm dip top into butter than sugar. voila!!!

note: you can use milk in this recipe instead of buttermilk only omit the baking soda. you don't need the last step of melted butter and sugar on the muffin tops but i highly recommend it :) okay, we all know i have a sweet tooth!

oh please...

last nights sky...

deep breath in, deep breath out...count to 10, feel yourself breath from your toes, ohm....

it's quite beautiful out and once again it's like pulling teeth to get my kids to go outside for more than five minutes. i've tried every tempting thing i could to just GET. THEM. OUT!!!!! when i was a kid i LOVED being outside and could keep myself entertained for hours...mud pies, biking, rollerskating (am i dating myself here?), swings, hide-n-seek, climbing trees...gosh the list goes on. my older girlies were threatened (gasp) with having to wash the windows, clean the floors, and organize their room if they didn't go outside...you gonna guess what they're doing right now? r says to me 'i want to do the windows' and z said 'i'll do the floors'....are you freaking kidding me right now? i should have prefaced this post by saying this morning i offered to take them to the beach...groans and grunts ensued. i then offered to take them to a park...no, no, no! finally, reaching my boiling point i told them they'd be going to full day camp next summer instead of sitting around the house...and you know what? that's just what i'm gonna do! this sucks!

love...

oh dear. it's been one whole week and my baby of babies is now weaned and onto other vices that may or may not be met with a raised brow. s loved, loved, LOVED her sweet lil' bed and would go down oh so nicely at bedtime. oh, how the tides have turned (i feel like my head just turned green when i wrote that...or maybe shades of red?). cripes, why oh why didn't we get a king sized bed when we had the chance five years ago???? okay. deep breath. all she wants is this one little thing...so simple and easy to just let it be...it's not like she'll be sleeping with us when she's ten. you ARE getting what i'm saying, right? i'm on one edge, c if he's lucky is on the other edge and sweet lil s is (not nestled in between) but laying horizontal so her head is inching me off the bed and her feet are inching c off the bed. g. total failure in the book of ferber. sometimes i swear i walk around with SUCKKKAAAAHHHHH stamped on my beeeehind.

please.
send.
HELP......

playdoh...

is good for one thing and one thing only...a couple of hours of peace and quiet which will more than make up for the hour (if i'm lucky) i'll spend cleaning up all the nooks and crannies embedded in my floor, rugs, chairs, toys, hair, bathroom sink, and G__ knows where else! i think whoever invented playdoh was a man. i think he had a deep rooted hatred towards all mothers but softened that hatred with pretty colors and a cushy feel. i think he got his rocks off by imagining all the 'fun' places playdoh could end up and the frustration i'd feel in trying to get that.very.last.CRUMB!

....but, i WAS able to get some things done while the girlies stayed pleasantly entertained so big props to you mr. playdoh...oh and yeah, mr. playdoh MUST have LOVED children so i guess he can't be all that bad :)

a couple new etsy treats...

i'll be listing these in the next day or so...i've got a couple more waiting to be finished so i'll list them all together. the shrooms and the soon to be seen peace tree are for you annie (hope you like!) :)

i can't seem to get a handle on how to photograph these better...i've tried different lighting but nothing seems to work...anyone have any suggestions?

good mom points...

how pretty are our little cupcake crayons??? r started out by sorting the broken crayons but that grew old quickly...i spent the next hour peeling and breaking perfectly good coloring utensils in order to make these muahhhh!

i then followed this up by letting r help make edible playdoh but i neglected to get a shot of that...our colors didn't turn out as brilliant as i've seen other mom's do but i gave myself an 'A' for effort :)

raspberries, oh my!

okay, so things have been a bit dull around my house today so another berry post :) we just made THE beST raspberry ice cream EVER!!!! the color is the prettiest pink you ever did see and the flavor to.die.for! i have a 'premier donvier' ice cream maker (thanks for the hand me down mom!) and until a couple of weeks ago it just sat in it's box looking at me longingly...okay, not really...i admit i was just too lazy to get it down of the shelf...crazy to think of me being lazy when all i do is go, go, go (thanks for that genetic hand me down grandma :). anyhoo, r and i made banana ice cream about a week and a half a go and since i had all these berries taking up valuable shelf space in the fridge i thought, why not?

ahhhh berries...

we took our first trip of the summer to butternut farm and stocked up on fresh raspberries! i love going there...it's so peaceful and beautiful. we had hoped to pick blueberries too but they were done for the day so another trip is already planned for later this week when we'll be able to pick peaches too. i had no idea just how many berries we had picked until we all put our baskets in the wagon...ooops, too many berries!

Plum's Raspberry Muffins

2 sticks of butter (i used salted but you could use unsalted too)

2c sugar

4 large eggs

4c flour

3t baking powder

1t salt

2t pure almond extract

1c sour cream

1/2c-3/4 c milk

4c fresh raspberries

preheat oven to 375. combine softened butter and sugar. mix in eggs and almond extract. add baking powder and salt. stir in flour, sour cream, and milk. fold in raspberries gently. bake for approx 30min until toothpick comes out clean.

note: i added a little bit of sugar to the tops of the unbaked muffins as i thought maybe the berries might be too tart. i'm glad i did it because it added a perfect amount of sweetness and a little added crunch.

so grown up...

this sweet girl entered our lives almost eight years ago...we weren't ready, we weren't married (ahem...we had been engaged for two by this point, together five...we knew we wanted babies just not that quick). i had a successful career, we were young and in the rock n' roll scene, we wanted to parrrttaaay :) i'll never forget. it was new years eve 1999...rolling into the millennium and we had BIG plans that night. l and i had gone shopping for hours at bloomingdales to find the perfect outfit...laughing and planning the whole time. we got home and started to get ready...nothing out of the ordinary. for some reason c suspected i was pregnant and i was in D-NILE!!! we bought not one, two, three, four but five tests and all of them said 'hello mama!' i called my girlie l who lived across the parking lot from our apartment in Brighton...she couldn't believe it yet i'll never forget her secret knowing smile every time she looked at c & i. we didn't say a word to anyone for a few weeks until it had been confirmed from the dr. alas, no partying went on that night. i had made a silent promise to z that from that point on i would take care of her, treasure her, love her. all the bad vices ended that night and we began our journey of parenthood. sure, i wonder what or where i could have been if we had waited but you can't plan all things. life takes you for a curve and most of the time it's your choice with what you do with it. i love you sweet z, my big girl.

xo

splish splash...

argghhhh the long days of summer...notice it's not 'ahhhhh' the long days of summer yep, my eyebrows are furrowed and my voice strained from refereeing my two older girlies during their daily battles of will. geez, why can't we all get along? i certainly don't remember 'fighting' with my sisters this much growing up but then again i think it might be something only a mother would remember...am i right mom?

after s woke up from her nap i HAD to get out of the house. took the girls over to the pool for a swim and some play time on the playground. boy, a change of scenery is just what they needed! they had a great time in the water and for a brief moment in time all the bickering came to a stand still....until we loaded up to go home and it just started up where they left off...tick tock, bedtime is just around the corner...got to love those days that seem to last forever when really, i'll be longing for these moments when they're grown.

a little display of s's :)

xo

lovely day...

i so wish s didn't have that 'gookie' in her mouth...she was missing her nap so it was a must have :)

we had one, did you? we got up early for a fun day of boating around lake winnipesaukee. i really didn't think s would last but boy did that girl love it! who would have thought a 2yr old would be able to sit/bounce around for hours on end? she made me proud. z was deemed 'first mate' and rightly so. she sat in the front longing for speed, spray, and bumps! r ended up feeling the motion a bit too much in the belly and needed a little extra cuddle from dad :) i'll bypass talking about lunch ;) and skip right to the super yummy ice cream we enjoyed on the way home...soooo creamy! thanks nonno!

a taste of my treats...

no sillies, not my cakes and other delightful baked yummies....these!

XO

my girlies...

these three girlies are my world! they make me laugh, believe, sing, dance, do crazy things, dream, forgive, trust, hope, desire, and sometimes (clear throat) mad.

here i am...

well, at least four blogs of mine are now laid to rest in the cyber graveyard...i guess with most things unless you're really ready to commit they go neglected. i'm promising myself (and you) i'm going to make this a priority...will you stay with me and cheer me on, i could really use it at times? :)

i've started a company called 'i love plum'. it's been a long time dream of mine to do something artful and creative. i'm no artist mind you just someone i consider to be on the crafty side. why this totally random name you may ask (or maybe not). i know my sweet sister asked but she already knew the answer and was waiting for my confirmation :) it had started out that i thought i'd like to incorporate my girlies into the name of my business...then maybe my name. it all sounded hokey and contrived by the time i had a list down. when one lovely day i happened to be eating...guess what? A PLUM! i said to myself...ooooo, 'i love plum'...eureka! my baby was born. why not have something totally random, off the beaten path, meaningless (other than to you plum lovers out there) yet fun and sweet. so here i am.

my darling husband bought me a sewing machine at least seven years ago because i had casually mentioned around the time of my birthday i'd like to make a quilt. he's like that. just picks up these little things i say and runs with it...so sweet. that lovely gift remained untouched by me for ahhheemmm seven years... until now. i'd like to thank my beautiful friend l for inspiring me and lighting a fire under my beeeehind and taking me to that applique class. xo to you l. i came home from that class with a handmade pillow and butterflies in my belly...the fire was burning a hole and i immediately got to work on my first shirt. a couple months later i decided i HAD to have an etsy shop. those of you who know me know that once i've got something in my head it's a go. so la-di-dah...i now have an etsy shop to go with my 'i love plum' designs. this is only the beginning my friends. i'm making pillows, tags, curtains....i. can't. stop!

so come visit me here...i've got loads to share!

xo