In Memoriam: Brooksie Myklebust

Woody's grandmother, Brooksie, passed away this week.

That's her with Bestafor, Woody's grandfather, at our wedding.

One of my favorite memories of our wedding was when they danced together during the married couples dance. Our DJ (the uberly talented Frank Warren) set up the whole beautiful scene: year-by-married-year he had couples leave the floor until it was just them, happily and sweetly dancing together to Rod Stewart's, You're in my Heart.

Everyone was cheering and clapping and the eternal love was seriously flowing. 

I loved it so much. I'll never forget it.

Afterwards they told me how much it meant to them. 

Look how cute they are:

RIP Brooksie. 

We're so sad you're not here but we know you're now with your true love, Bestafor. ♥♥

beignets

Can I take your order?

Sure Maya, what are you serving today?

Beignets!

She's been serving beignets in her restaurant-kitchen ever since we first watched Princess and the Frog. 

So we finally decided to make the real thing.

I used this recipe from Epicurious. 

(I didn't have evaporated milk so I used 1/4 cup sweetened condensed and 1/4 cup regular milk and then 1/8 cup of sugar. I also didn't have "instant" active dry yeast but they turned out super poofy. I mean, I had yeast but not instant:))

It's super easy: 

You make the dough the night before, refrigerate it, and then roll it out and fry them the next day.

And of course sprinkle on plenty of powdered sugar.

They were a big hit!

some things to try and check out

My new favorite blog/website is Design*Sponge and if you click here you'll get an excellent recipe for a DIY hair mask. 

If you have dry, coarse, lion-mane hair like me then you've looked into buying store brand hair masks and know those babies are PRICEY!

So, save your pennies and make this instead. 

It works! It's great. And messy. But so worth it.

I'd follow Ashley's suggestion and puree the mixture. I was too lazy to get out the Cuisinart and used my potato masher instead. So, it was quite chunky still and didn't spread through my hair as well if it had been smoother. 

OM were quite amused to see me rubbing guacamole in my hair.

I'm totally trying this one next.

These next two videos have been making their way through the blogosphere and social network websites but in case you've missed them:

I just love Zooey's voice. Ever since Elf. Plus it's a sweet message and a visually beautiful little video. 

She & Him - Don't Look Back from Merge Records on Vimeo.

Maya loves singing this one. We watch it all the time:

My next favorite thing is this:

It's a book of my blog. Woo frigging Hoo!

So, I've been trying, with zero success, to embed a print feature on my blog so that I could start printing it to save for OM one day (in case blog's are out and/or the whole thing gets accidentally deleted).

I recently stumbled upon this service and decided to try it.

I am so very pleased with results.

I decided to just try one year (2009) to see if I liked before I committed to having the whole thing printed. I split it up into two six month sections (they recommend this if you have large files; soulemama would probably need to do quarters).

You can make a dedication and then there is a table of contents w/ all of your entries.

It automatically chooses the first and second photograph for the front and back covers but you can override that (I didn't). 

And they have lots of colors to choose from but I stuck with basic grey for this first go.

It's pretty great. 

I also chose to have them fit as many photos and text onto each page instead of following the exact layout of my blog (to save paper). So, the captions don't line up but I'd rather spare the resources than keep it exactly like the blog.

The first half is kind of cringe-inducing to reread. My use of the apostrophe is atrocious and my melodramatic rants make me wince but ya know, it's all a rough draft. Time is short when you do these things. Although, I will try and use the apostrophe with care from here on out. 

When I was looking into this I also read good things about this company. 

In case you're wondering how Beautiful is doing, she's doing awesome. :)

Happy Birthday Grandma May!

We wish you a Happy Birthday from Oregon!

We made a gluten-free cake with chocolate frosting (luckily the frosting was extra tasty b/c the cake tasted like cornbread).

Star got some crumbs too!

Happy Birthday! We love you!!

MLK Jr. Day

"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."

‎"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

swampy

It rains a lot here. 

This winter has been especially wet.

The swamp:

which has been flooding the crawl space underneath the house.

This hose spews water for hours...

from this sump pump under the house.

I guess we're lucky we get so much water up here, as I've spent a fair amount of time washing sheets this week.

First Maya puked, on every bedding surface (and my face and body, so gross) from the mattress pad to the duvet cover.

Then Maya got pink eye so everyone's bedding got a hot wash, again.

Then Maya got a bloody nose last night. I was able to get away with just the pillow cases for that one.

Until Owen pointed out this guy:

 So now he's in the wash too.

Owen wanted to make life size cut outs today.

Then he wrote this letter to post on the door.

It says:

 In case you didn't catch all that is says,

Deer everyone,

There is a paper person.

Hope your day is drier than ours. :)

mini boden inspiration

She's still not a fan of vegetables (or much other than bread, butter and yogurt) but she gladly drinks down her green monster smoothies. 

It brings me much joy. :)

Today they did some crafting. Owen really wanted a cowboy hat and a mustache.

The mustache fell off...

This is on my crafty to do list. Sew this dress:

I think it's doable, minus the pleats.

And I think it will make a cute Easter dress.

And these pants for O...

I'm excited.

I'm also excited because I will be dining here and rooming here very shortly!

Beautiful

Meet Beautiful. Maya named her. 

'Flowers are beautiful' she said, so we should name her Beautiful.

When I spotted her @ Trader Joe's and knew I really wanted her I looked at Maya and asked her if she thought we could keep her alive. Maya asserted YES!

So then Maya gave her a pep talk on the way home, holding Beautiful in her lap, telling her we promised not to kill her and that we would take good care of her.

We had orchids at our wedding (from here) and I just love them so but haven't had much success keeping them happy at home. But I'm we're up to the challange now. 

If me and my little helper can keep Beautiful alive then maybe we'll consider the guinea pig she still wants. 

I am the master of my fate.

I am the captain of my soul.

Woody and I watched Invictus the other night. I've been thinking about that poem a lot. Especially those last two lines.

We just watched Alice in Wonderland and Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, also beautiful films. I love Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. And Helena Bonham Carter: 'off with their heads!' 

Oh, and, I keep changing the blog background. Sorry if that's annoying. I'm just trying to find one I like. I think it's possible to upload my own image so I'll try that. I'd love to find one and stick with it. 

Maya the Brave & The Mitten

Our crazy girl being her crazy self...

Owen is reading The Mitten in kindergarten and today they made these mittens to replicate the one in the story. They filled it with all the animals in the story (not pictured here but he made those too). 

Owen is the big figure. I asked him what he was holding in his hand: 'remote control for my video game.' Ah. Fantastic. 

I think we need to work on that so next time his little figure is holding a book. :)