hidden villa

today we took a little road trip after church

to a little place called hidden villa in los altos hills.

it's a big organic farm, educational center, csa grounds and walking trail site. oh, and they also have a hostile (in case you're interested).

it was pretty wonderful to see chickens lay eggs,

take in the kitschiness that the site had to offer,

and beauty

and pigs.

oh, and did i say beauty?

there was even a cool vintage vibe.

and my girls were delightful.

and we rolled up our pants and played in a creek

which was a lot of fun.

and even sweet poppy became one with the earth

and with some cheese crackers.

and i continued a wonderful weekend with the love of my life.

we even tried to teach e some photography 101 (which required a little bit of ducking and dodging to be sure to be in the frame).

d played in this little grapevine hut in the middle of an organic garden.

it was a wonderful windy day.

and i think we'll go back soon.

p.s. we discovered this little gem on the website www.sfkids.org which is my new fave! they have this amazing calendar for all types of events and locations. just click on a date and you are bound to discover an adventure that meets your fancy.

wente

if you keep up with status updates on facebook, then you know that my hubby passed the california bar exam. in case you need a little refresher... over thanksgiving we had a family swine flue extravaganza. the next week, scott began studying for the bar. for him that entailed working full time and then attending classes one night a week and on the weekend from december through mid-february. in his spare time he was charged with mastering all sorts of assignments and practice essays. the week before the exam, our entire family came down with seasonal flu. he then took the two day exam at the end of february.

after he finished the big nasty test, we felt a little bit of relief. but truth be told, we were both just totally worn out and exhausted. it took a lot out of him mentally and it took a lot out of me physically.

if you had asked me if i thought he passed, i would have said "yes"... because i think my hubby is incredibly intelligent. in addition, he was so diligent in the test prep process. but neither one of us could bank on that. because the fact remained that if he didn't pass, we were going to have to go through this whole process a second time. and the truth is, many california bar takers do have to do this twice.

but by the grace of God, my hubby passed.

naturally, i thought a celebration was in order. and so last night, we went out to dinner at a restaurant at a vineyard. it was lovely. every minute of it.

after a while you forget how nice it is to have uninterrupted conversation that meanders away from the day to day and gradually crosses over into the more whimsical side of life. that doesn't happen all that often when you have three young kids, so when it does you cherish it.

and we did.

congratulations, babe! thanks for a wonderful night. and thanks for being brave to take on this journey of california. i can't see where it takes us now. i can bet that it won't be to easy street, but i'm glad to travel this path with you by my side.

name that photo

i love this picture... and following the suit of a fellow blogger, could you? would you? give it a name?

busy

i've been a little busy lately with starting a business, continuing with on-line classes, celebrating my hubby's bar exam success, hosting my momma for four weeks, making new friends, keeping up with old friends, mops, almost buying a house, deciding to not buy a house just yet, attacking the laundry that somehow seems to multiply when you aren't looking... you know, life. and while i have some blog posts in the works, i thought that in the meantime you might want to see these sweet little faces.

i promise i'll post more soon, but these mugs should tide you over. right?

suburban momma's momma

my mom's been visiting for the past month. if i'm honest, i can say that i was sort of dreading this month. don't get me wrong, i love my mom. but she can make me just a teensy weensy bit crazy. (i can totally say that because a.) she knows it's ture and b.) she doesn't read my blog because she doesn't know how to turn on a computer let alone find my blog on the web.)

now, with three days left in our month together, i can say with honesty that this month has blown me out of the water. she's been AMAZING! she loved all over my kiddos. she encouraged me to go on outings i would never have embarked on if it weren't for her love of adventure. she made me see the beauty in the most simple of things. she beat me in the game of sorry way too many times...

and now that she is about to come home, i keep thinking about how much i am going to miss her. in fact, i am already planning things for her next trip.

today, we went to the city and took in yuerba buena botanical gardens, attempted to ride the cable car (not so much an option with a handicapped rider and three kids, but fun for them to see), and put our toes in the pacific ocean.

she's quite a woman! when i think of my own challenges as a mom of three, i can't help but think that this lady did everything that i do...

you know, except,

she did it alone

on a small fixed income

without a car

while being paralyzed on the left side.

it's quite remarkable! i can hardly do it with a husband, a salary, two cars, and a fully in tack body.

raindrops on roses

these are a few of d's favorite things...

momma: delaney, what's your favorite food?

d: bbq sauce

m: what's your favorite color?

d: pink

m: if you could go anywhere in the car, where would you go?

d: old mcdonald's

m: how about your favorite book?

d: i don't know

m: do you have a favorite number?

d: 8

m: what about a favorite song?

d: abc's

m: who's your best friend?

d: ellie

and then she climbed down from our cuddle party/chat session and ran into the backyard to play with grandy.

the end.

mt. poppy

even poppy has had a mountain to climb.

not sure i'm feeling her mountain so much, but i'm trying to embrace it.

does anyone make a little "stop growing up so darn fast" tonic? i need some of THAT!

a little treat cont'd

do you remember earlier this week when i wrote this? i can't resist telling you the rest of that story!

as you can tell, d was a super sticky mess after her love affair with her push-pop. seriously. the pop had melted all over her. when i took the dress off of her i had to give her a kitchen sink bath. she had pop juice on her belly, down her arms, and on her legs. she was a sight!

as i took off the dress, i was a little miffed. it was a brand-new, worn twice dress that i had bought for summer. as i peeled it off of her, i was pretty certain that it was done for. i wadded it up and set it aside while i attended the sticky girl. and as life goes, once the sticky girl was "un-stuck" i went in search of a new outfit, leaving the push-pop dress in the dust. and there it sat for about six hours... until i remembered it later. much later.

not sure what the best route was... i threw it into the washer solo. i added my superconcentrated shaklee laundry detergent and then went in search of a new product that i hadn't opened yet... the nature bright laundry booster and stain remover. i've heard all sorts of things about how it rivals oxi-clean, shout and bio-clean products in the area of efficacy, that it is crazy inexpensive in comparison, and i was aware that it is probably the greenest stain fighter on the market... but i was a little skeptical. because, well, you've seen the pictures!

i threw a tiny scoop into the washer

crossed my fingers

and voila!

take a look for yourself. oh, and if you were wondering, i didn't leave out a single detail (come on, ya'll... you know i'm the queen of details! i wouldn't hold out on you here). if you noticed that i never mentioned scrubbing, soaking, or rubbing the spots with detergent... well that's because i never did.

it was that easy.

and it's that clean. well...

what are you waiting for? get some for your own sticky push-pop sized stains.

vino for grandy

my mom also thought it would be fun to take in a winery since we live near a wine region (livermore valley). my hubby did a little bit of research and came up with one that was supposed to be kid friendly.

it was.

very much so

and pretty
they had a parrot that did a lot of yelling to another parrot across the parking lot. it was sort of funny. they were kind of like two old bitty's hashing it out.

they also had some goats. e and d really liked this one. p didn't really know what to make of him.

and we fed strawberries to a horse (who almost took off my hand).

p rode around on my hip in my sling.

scott and grandy tasted the wine

while e and d explored the toy bins and colored pictures at the kids table.

a little treat

on sunday,

daddy bought delaney a push-pop

and she REALLY,

really,

liked it.

can you tell?

climbing

i haven't seen my momma in over a year. the last time that i saw her was last march. you may recall, my sisters and i met up in philly and then drove to her house in winchester, va to pack it up. she then spent the rest of the year living in my sister's guest room while her house was on the market, sold, and then building of her new garage apartment took place. you could say, she's had a mountain to climb.

she's visiting me right now for a month. it has been such fun so far. she's spent time doing sticker books with ellie and going through a highlights activity book. she has a little hand lotion routine with delaney. she laughs with poppy and is investing in her in ways that make this momma smile. she also has a zeal for adventure, so she is spurring our family on to tackle some new experiences. she also has a list of things she wanted to do while she's here.

and so when she said that one of her desires was to view my california hills from the top, i thought i'd let her... you know, climb her mountain.

and so last week, we headed to san ramon and took in a little nature walk. my mom couldn't make it to the top, but she got pretty far.

look closely at the picture below. can you find her? she hiked up a little ways. the hill was steep, but she was pretty determined. and as a result, she got to take in some pretty breathtaking views.

i guess, when we climb our mountain, we get a pretty beautiful reward when the climbing is done.
and isn't it true, we all have our mountain to climb? even my girls have had a little mountain in front of them this year. this is them at the top.
what's your mountain to climb?

ladybug, ladybug fly away home

if you look really closely you'll see a tiny red ladybug on the rosebud. that is our ladybug named ice cream. ice cream was e's most recent acquisition . as part of an earth day science unit, my little kindergartner had her first "intro to ecology 101". she spent the better part of last week learning all about ladybugs. they read ladybug books. they made ladybug thumb prints. they learned about the ladybug life cycle. they observed them. they counted them... you get the point.

and then they got to bring one home. they were given a little plastic jar which housed one lone ladybug. they were instructed to place it on a rose bush (we live in california, so we've got rose bushes aplenty) and let it eat the aphids.

and so here is e, placing her sweet lil' bug on the rose bush by our front door. this particular bush is filled with new blooms and gives your nose a treat as you enter and exit our home. and now, it has it's own little aphid vacuum cleaner residing on its branches taking care of business.

the most interesting part? well, that is the fact that we have seen the little ladybug each day for a few days. he's gone missing for the past two, but it was pretty fun to look for him each day and to discover that he was still there doing his job of keeping our roses healthy.

it was also pretty cool to see my little scientist so engaged. i love lessons like this. in fact, i just eat them up!

totally inappropriate, but kind of giggle inducing

a few weeks ago i posted on facebook that delaney was saying her prayers in the voice of darth vader. there were some requests for a video. i debated this for a while, not wanting to reinforce the inappropriate voice for prayer. really, i hoped the voice would stop. while giving it some thought i decided that she's two... and it's funny... and some day i will want to remember this moment.

and so without further ado, darth vader and delaney, sugar and spice... or whatever you want to call it.

*if you'd like to view our little prayer warrior and are on facebook, you need to go to www.diaryofasuburbanmomma.blogspot.com

*pause the music on the right side so you can hear her in her full glory

future missionary? you just never know.

eco goal 2010

two years ago i unveiled my "earth day resolution" on my blog and have stuck with my "no-plastic bag" resolve. there have been days when i forgot my bags and carried my loot in my arms, days when i bought new bags at the checkout to avoid the dreaded plastic, and yes, days when i did in fact take the dreaded plastic. while i don't have any statistics about the amount of plastic that i have kept out of landfills with my personal choice (although as a junkie for statistics i'd love to know), i do know that this small change has in fact had impact.

and so this year, i set out to make another change. carefully, i considered the things that i am doing that have a negative impact on the planet (and let's face it, we all probably have a list of areas that could stand some eco-improvement). one of the areas that kept coming to my mind was the amount of plastic that gets put into our recycling bin each week.

recyclable plastic is a step in the right direction, but i believe that eliminating waste is a better solution. (if you think about it each plastic product that gets transformed into something else emits toxic fumes into the air through melting and transportation, each container requires an obscene amount of water to allow the transformation process to take place, each piece of plastic uses a great deal of energy in the melting process... the list goes on.) and so for me, i thought i'd evaluate the bin and see what the source of most of this plastic waste was.

it was shocking. the most frequent offenders in the bin were cardboard tp tubes (and the like) and cleaning product containers. well, what's a girl to do?

not much i can do about the amount of tp we are using, so i decided to leave that one alone.

but the cleaning stuff bugged me- there were laundry detergent containers, surface cleaning bottles, shampoo containers, windex... the list goes on. now we certainly don't go through each cleaning product bottle a week, but each week it seemed like there were at least 3-6 bottles that fell into this category. and so i got to work and i began to look for ways to cut down on this amount of waste.

my journey brought me to the book store, which led me to a book, which led me to shaklee. i'll tell you more about that later, but today i'm going to focus on the waste component that shaklee is committed to.

you see, shaklee sells a cleaning product (organic basic h) that is delivered in its concentrated form. they do this because they believe that you are in fact smart enough to add the water. brilliant. so for around $12 you get 16 oz. of concentrated solution. that solution mixed with water will make 5,824 bottles of window cleaner.

stop for a minute and think about that. that's a lot of waste eliminated (and for 12 bucks a lot of pocketbook savings to boot).

shaklee also sells laundry detergent. my little bottle of shaklee superconcentrated laundry detergent (32 oz. bottle) equals 32 loads of laundry. compare that to my bottle of cheer (40 oz.) that equals 25 loads... the math is unbelievable!

and that is just the tip of the iceberg. shaklee has been green for 50 years, long before green was hip or trendy. in fact, it is the founding principle that the company was built upon- living in harmony with nature.

love it.

and so for me, this is my change for the year. i'm switching to shaklee. by switching to shaklee i am eliminating 100 lbs. of packaging waste from entering the local landfill, eliminating 248 lbs. of greenhouse gasses, eliminating my contribution of phosphates to the water system, and in return i get a non-toxic clean. pretty cool.

what about you? have you thought about a personal eco-goal? i'd love to hear about it. in fact, i'd argue that if you share your goal, you'll be much more likely to stick with your goal. and in the sharing you might also inspire someone else to make the same change.

i believe that by reading through other people's ideas, we might even see how easy some of these changes can be. it might even spur some of us into taking on more than one change! i'm up for the challenge.

what are you waiting for? post a comment and let me know what YOU are doing.

florida, part 3

after celebrating jenny's wedding on the east side of the state, we headed west to visit nana and papa browning. the kids were greeted by this...

and we spent a lot of time swimming in their resort like pool (seriously, it was like being at club med. i'd show you pictures but the fact is, i didn't take any. my dad sent me some, but i'm just too stinkin' tired to figure out how to upload them, so you're going to have to take my word for it.)

we went and checked out their new town and had ice cream before lunch (papa's are allowed to do this, right?).

and they played games with their papa and laughed together. and papa even took them to see a real live gator and let the girls feed him a leftover sub.

and while delaney STILL didn't sleep (i'm not kidding- the girl didn't even nap in the car on the drive across the state of florida!), we did have a wonderful time.

florida, part 2: the wedding

ellie has a special love for auntie jenny and i would venture to say that auntie jenny has a special spot for ellie. months ago, auntie jenny asked ellie to be the flower girl in her wedding. ellie has been talking about it every since. her excitement mounted as auntie jenny sent her a book about being a flower girl, selected the dress she wanted ellie to wear, allowed ellie to choose the basket she would hold her petals in etc. with each step, e began to bubble over more and more.

as the mum of the flower girl, it is hard to know what to do. on one hand, you want to prepare them and be certain that the child who walks down the aisle moments before the bride handles the job well. on the other hand, you don't want to let them see that they might have reason to be nervous and thus cause them to bail at the last minute.

our little e, was the perfect flower girl. she walked the aisle, she dropped her petals, she went where she was told and she enjoyed each and every minute.

she savored her time with the bride and has been talking about how beautiful auntie jenny looked and how perfect the wedding day was. she noticed everything, right down to auntie jenny's beautiful blue shoes.

she also enjoyed auntie lindsey. she was impressed that auntie linds spoke at the reception and has been making plans for her own maid of honor. in fact, she has been debating who would be good at this job and who might not be (delaney is currently not on the list but is being considered for bridesmaid. p has the job of flower girl in spite of the fact that i keep trying to explain that p will be too old for that job when the time comes).

and here she is at the reception holding her place card (adorable, right?... the place cards and the girl).

it was a good day! a beautiful wedding venue, a beautiful bride, lots of beautiful touches to make the wedding memorable, and of course, a beautiful flower girl!

florida, part 1

pictures are an interesting thing. if you look these, you might be led to believe that we had a laid back and relaxing trip to florida last week.

the truth is a little bit different. we went to florida to celebrate the marriage of my step-sister-in-law (aka jenny). her wedding was beautiful and i'll blog about that later, but the trip overall was somewhat difficult.

we made a fatal error concerning this trip. we thought that d could handle a week in a big girl bed- traveling with two kiddos in cribs is a bit of a pain in the tush, so we just decided to pretend that only one of our kiddos needed a crib. big mistake. apparently d, my uber energetic babe, has some late night stamina that this momma was unaware of. that girl partied like a rock star until the very late hours of the night. she would not be put down and it was exhausting.

so while we loved lots of moments from our trip, we came home a bit less than relaxed, with dark circles under our eyes, and in need of another vacation.

but for the sake of fun- just look at these snaps and pretend we had a fabulous time, because in these moments we actually did.

the fam at auntie jenny's beach side rehearsal dinner.

momma and her girlies. notice a theme with poppy- as in, not interested in photographs!

my little e and her auntie jenny rehearsing for the big day. i love the look on jenny's face. isn't she beautiful?

and lastly, two little girlies by the inter coastal sharing some love.

awww.

oh the places you'll go!

you might remember my little academic e from two years ago. she's come a long way, baby, and this momma is thrilled.

at the end of preschool last year, e began to read. she could tackle the basic three letter words like cat, pan, bin, fun, men etc. she also had a few sight words under her belt, but fluency was lacking because there were so many letter patterns that she just hadn't mastered yet. none the less, i was pretty excited.

when she started kindergarten, it was like it all came to a screeching halt. she knew what she knew, but she wasn't going forward in any way. until now. since january, my little e has been rockin' and rollin'.

for the dr's birthday, i broke out all of his books that had been buried in the garage since the big move. e was thrilled. every night she sits up in her bed going through each of the books before falling asleep. tonight, as i was making my way into her room to tuck her in, i caught her reading away.

and in addition to books, she is a sign reading nut. every where we go she is taking in all the text she can. she reads signs at the dry cleaners, magazine titles in the grocery store checkout, signs on the gas pump, product names in rite-aid...

and i can't help but think, oh the places you'll go!

wait for it...

yesterday i had e alone in the car for a few minutes. with three little chatterboxes under foot, i cherish the one on one time we get together.

momma: e, i picked up some books for you today at the library

e: what kind of books?

m: some stories and then a few books about earth day. do you remember earth day?

e: yeah, mom! i love earth day.

m: do you want to use the books to think of some new ideas on how you can work to help the environment this year?

e: yes! i do mom. i also want to go on a litter walk. i want to learn how to recycle like you do. i want to save water... (and she went on and on) and then, mom, i want to start a club and teach all of my friends how to save the earth.

m: wow, ellie, that's a big plan. i love it. do you really want to learn about recycling in our house?

e: yes!

m: i bet you grandy can help you when she comes next month. she's REALLY good at recycling. maybe she can teach you everything she knows about recycling and you guys can come up with a sorting system. then, you can be our household recycling manager! does that sound good?

e: yes, mom! i can't wait to be in charge of recycling.

when daddy arrived home from work, i told ellie to tell him our plan. she told him the story, but left out the part about her title. i prompted her to tell him that part.

m: tell daddy what you job title is going to be.

e: i don't remember

m: you know... household... recycling... (waiting for her to try and recall it) manager.

e: (throwing her head back and laughing) mom, that's not my title! it's household recycling girlager! i'm not a man!


introducing e, our future household recycling girlager.

book bucks

when i was growing up all the schools participated in the "book it" program sponsored by pizza hut. you read a book. you earned a star sticker and a button. you read some more books. you earned more stars. eventually, you earned enough stars to buy a personal pan pizza. it was motivating and fun for the pizza lovers out there.

but that was on the east coast. out here in cali they dance to a different reading drum. a cooler one, if i do say so myself. it's called "book bucks".

on monday the kids are sent home with a newspaper. each day they are tasked with reading the paper for 15 minutes and doing an age appropriate newspaper scavenger hunt. it was pretty fun to watch e read her paper. it was a new form of text for her and she liked exploring something different.

this doesn't really surprise me as her daddy and my daddy are big fans of newspapers. my father worked in print media and spends each morning perusing his local paper from cover to cover. e's daddy skims the on-line newspaper for each city where he has ever lived (yes, every day. and the number of cities is starting to add up.)

back to e- so she read her paper, she hunted for words, pictures, headlines etc.

at the end of the week she turned in her documentation and earned her "bucks". this is where the program rocks, in my opinion. local companies sponsor the "book bucks" by accepting them in exchange for certain goods. when the kids received their newspaper it came with an insert indicating who the sponsors were and the items they were selling in exchange for "bucks".

my e tends to be pretty thoughtful in decisions such as this. she scrutinized the choices, counted her bucks, and came up with a plan. her choices? why two goldfish... friends, meet sarah and sunny. here's to hoping our third set of goldfish make it!

and a happy meal complete with playtime on the "forbidden" germ (i mean, ah-hem, play) structure.

this mcdonald's avoiding momma was happy to oblige. she earned the "bucks" all by herself, so i thought it fitting to let her choose how she would spend them... even if it meant lunch at contamination station (joking- we used to eat here way too much so i am finally putting my foot down. it's not that bad in moderation but we were struggling with moderation). and e loved every bite.