Blueberry Pancakes

Little B and Mom enjoyed some delicious blueberry pancakes the other night. I think this is the first time Brady has ever tried blueberries and I figure they would be a little tart for his taste buds (especially since they aren't in season locally!), but I was wrong. He gobbles them up. Even went so far as to pick the blueberries out of the pancakes and eat just the berries.

Messy eating!
Oooh, let me grab the camera with my messy hands.

I'm going to try again.

Just happy eating the pancakes.

Book Review - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

I finished another book over the weekend. And I've got say. I LOVED IT. Really, I loved it and it was even a non-fiction book! I loved it so much that I would like to own it, and that is saying a lot. I am typically happy just to check out books and return them, but I'm having a hard time taking this one back to the library. If you come across a cheap copy, send it my way!
The premises of the book is the author, her husband and children eating and living off "locally" produced for one year. By local, they either had to grow it themselves or know the people who did grow it.
The author lived in Virginia and had a decent-sized garden. She also took to raising chickens and turkeys. But she and her family made it a point to find out where their food was coming from. Where did that apple get picked? Was it in the next county or was it in Washington, where it was then loaded onto a semi and trucked across the country? Or was it grown somewhere in south America where a forest was cleared for a fruit orchard? I'll save you more examples, but I really enjoyed the message of the book. And the fact i enjoyed it so much means I'm probably a bit of a hippie. It's okay, I don't mind. And please don't be offended by my use of the word hippie.
I like the idea of knowing the history of my food. Now, if you only eat local then that means those of us in Kansas would never eat things like bananas or kiwis again and I don't know that I could go that far. But I'm certain I could do better. So, we're going to have a small garden this summer and see what it can produce! And, I'm going to try and be better about going to the farmers market and stocking up on fruits and veggies as each is in season.
Interested? Go read the book or visit the website.
I would HIGHLY recommend this book. Just don't blame me if it brings out the hippie in you, too.

Play time

We have some "action" shots from playing at the playground last weekend. This weather has just been great and having the playground nearby has been such a blessing. Always a good place to play with lots of cool stuff!

Up.

And over!

The playground is right across the street from our neighborhood. It's a whopping 2-block walk to get there, though it is uphill the way back home. And young B, in an ever-growing attempt to assert his independence, decided he wanted to push his Cozy Coupe all the way back home, uphill, rather than ride in it.

He did make it halfway up the hill before finally relenting and letting us push him home. It was pretty adorable.

And I don't know where he gets that independent streak. Neither Mom nor Dad have any personality traits like that, right?

More Easter

Brady has discovered the full-length mirror in our bedroom lately and has quite the habit of going into our room and just admiring himself in the mirror. He usually stands and claps and just giggles!

Laugh and then turn in circles.

Give a serious look to the mirror.

And here he makes his way back out to the great room. He is very, very active these days and it is pretty darn fun.

Easter weekend

As you can tell by my previous post, we did a lot of work in the yard over Easter weekend. Brian was home, so we got tons of stuff done. We took a trip to the Sunset Zoo on Saturday for Eggstravaganza. We didn't do any egg hunting, but we strolled through the zoo to check out all the animals. Brady's favorite part was the petting zoo.

He enjoyed meeting the goat!
That's it for zoo pictures. We really didn't take too many shots; just wandered around and enjoyed the beautiful weather and sunshine.

We also opened up the windows over the weekend for some fresh air. Brady was fascinated by the screen windows.

Spring Time!

What does spring time mean for you? One of the great things about spring is the green stuff that comes back into our lives. Green trees, green grass, green, green, green! I like green so much better than the browns and grays of winter.

Spring means daylilies growing up beside the driveway. I did nothing except plant these last year and they are already spreading.
These daylilies have some added help of compost I put into the soil last year. For reference, the "soil" at our house is more like sand. Really. there's nothing very soil-like about it at all. It's just this sandy mixture that doesn't support much plant life. But the daylilies have no problem!

And neither do the hostas! Look at all those little buds poking out the ground! (for you non-gardening types out there, the beginnings of my hostas are those purple things poking out of the ground).

And even my hydrangea is coming to life! I thought I killed that thing last year and figured it just couldn't survive in the sandy soil (which is why I kept the receipt) but even it is starting to bloom, so we'll see!

Yeah for Spring!

Baseball

Baseball season is in full swing in the Smoller household. We've had some pretty good weather for it so far and the team is off to a great start, which is even better!

Brady met Willie for the first time over the weekend. He didn't cry but he wasn't quite sure what to think about the big-headed creature. I so wish we could see the thoughts going through those little minds.
Brady has lots of fun at the games.

Brady and Colten (of The Tadtman's) are becoming buddies and Colten is just about the sweetest thing ever. Lately Colten gives Brady hugs and tells him "I love you, Brady." Oh, it could not get any more adorable!

And the two of them just crack each other up! Most of the weekend was spent in laughter. Colten and Brady laugh. Then Colten's sister Aubrey chimes in with more laughter. And then us adults are laughing, too.

Really, what is not to love about those faces! That is one of my favorite pictures!

More pictures

Smiling for the camera.
Smiling as we reach to grab the camera out of Mommy's hand!

Making a mess with the Lego's. And playing with the remote.

Playing in the Lego container. I can't explain this one, other than to say he dumps out all of his blocks and then climbs in the container and just LOVES it.

Lounging

Even an active kid has to lounge around sometimes!
It doesn't happen very often, but the other night he played on the couch and then just laid down to watch some basketball.