Happy Birthday, Cowgirl!

We celebrated Amy's 10th birthday this past weekend with a sleepover, and last weekend with a horse! So far in our family, 10 has been a milestone birthday.

Soleil, our new horse!

Amy did a great job leading her into the "scary" barn.

Amy made sure to give her horse a bath before her party. She spent more time grooming Soleil than she did herself!

Emily and her friends, Kate and Rose talking about the horses, playing to be horses, and trying to stay out of the way of horses.

Evan loves helping with the horses too! (We're boarding 3 others for a little while; lots of fun!)

A happy cowgirl!

Enjoying Life in the Country

Driving new toys...

Baking cakes...

Decorating cakes...(With a neighbor's flowers)

Painting fences...

Shooting squirrels...

More For Me!

Yesterday I received my co-op order and everyone in our group wanted to know, "What's in the tube?" It was rhubarb! I know, it's funny to some to have to order rhubarb, but I can't find it here even though it's rhubarb season. I keep looking for it at Farmers market, but to no avail. And the stuff they're selling at the grocery store is pretty pathetic looking. But my tube had several pounds of lovely ruby red rhubarb, perfect for pie!

I'm embarrassed to say that 10 years ago, I watched a few episodes of Oprah. The only redeeming thing about those hours wasted was the cooking show. I frantically scribbled down the recipes and I'm so glad I did. There were two recipes that were gold. One was a soup recipe that is aptly named Summer in A Bowl. It's delicious! The other was a recipe for Strawberry Rhubarb Pie. I've made it simpler, but still yummy by substituting a streusel top for the two- crust version .

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

4 cups rhubarb, sliced

2 cups strawberries, sliced

1/2 Tablespoon lemon zest

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup flour

Mix together and put in a pie plate. Add streusel topping. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until the top is golden brown, and the pie filling is bubbly.

Topping

1/4 cup flour

1/3 cup cold butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 cup oats

Toss together with your fingers until crumbly. Add to the top of your pie and gently press down.

When I made this last month from our co-op order, Evan and Amy and I loved it. (Poor Emily is allergic to strawberries.) Evan declared it was the best pie he'd ever eaten. He takes after his Papa who also loves Rhubarb pie. But Sean, who I was hoping to impress, said he could take it or LEAVE it! Evan and I looked at each other and smiled. I know we were both thinking, "If dad doesn't want it, then there's more for me!"

Modern Art

My parents went to the Modern Art museum in SFO. I loved these pictures they took of themselves next to paintings they matched.

Before...

Evan's "pink" bathroom. Eventually, it will be replaced with a wild African Safari theme. We already bought the zebra stripe towels at Target and my mom brought some cheetah skin fabric to cover his window seat. We laugh that he got such a girly bathroom.

The girls room, which we promptly painted a lovely shade of pale pink. The rest of the house has very interesting and expensive Venetian Plaster on the walls. But for some reason the previous owner decided to paint over it in this room with Laker colors. Bizarre. The girls have a bathroom off their room too, but I don't have a picture of it.

Our bathroom. The toilet and tub are around the corner. It's huge! Apparently the original owner liked pink. The tile is high on Sean's list of things to improve.

This is the guest room. Our room looks pretty much the same.

The upstairs loft in between Evan's room and the girls room.

Evan's bed room.

The kitchen. It's so much bigger than our previous one. I love that. I'm also really enjoying the double wall oven that Sean bought me for a birthday present! The cabinets are really nicely made but it's a bit too much oak for me. Painting them an antique white and adding some hardware is high on my list of improvements.

The mud room. There is so much storage here, it's really nice. And there is a bathroom off the mudroom. It's the only one with a functioning toilet. So realistically, no matter how much we dislike the pink bathrooms, or the oak cabinets, they will have to wait. Getting things up and running will probably take the better part of a year.

The dining room. This is my favorite room in the house. I love the tall windows, the Spanish tile and the color of the walls.

Our two story fire place in the middle of the living room.

Looking down from the loft on the fireplace. I really like that the loft is open with a half wall.

The view from our back porch looking out at the back pastures. The little building in the distance is a shade structure of sorts for horses. The fence behind it is our property line.

Our back porch. Emily has been having a lot of fun playing here. And Evan is having a lot of fun shooting squirrels from here.

It will be a while before I post any after pictures. Things are still pretty disorganized. But we're having lots of fun while we work hard!

A Blessing

One of the first things people notice when they come over to our new house is what they hear. If you stand still outside, all you can hear are the birds. We are in a valley that muffles the noise of the world. It is one of the first things we noticed too. It was such a contrast to where we lived before. And it's one of the reasons we loved this house and property.

Today Al Mohler writes about noise and children. It's a very interesting article.

"Our culture now assumes noise and the constant availability of music, electronic chatter, and entertainment. In many homes, there is virtually no silence -- at least during waking hours. In some homes, family members live in isolated environments of independent sound, with iPods, televisions, radios, and any number of other technologies providing a customized experience of noise.

The life of the mind and the shaping of the soul require the ability to hear, recognize, and understand what would be lost in a cacophony of sound. "

Read the whole article here.

It reminded me again what a gift from God this house is for our family. We took the kids to see the movie UP (very good, by the way) and while the kids liked it, they had their hands over their ears almost the whole time. I didn't realize how sensitive they are to noise. It was so loud for them. However, I would rather it be a bit of a shock for them to be in a movie theater, than a shock for them to be outside, where all they could hear would be the birds.

In the article he makes a quote about the quietness needed for children to watch a lady bird crawl up a leaf. I laughed because just last week, Emily and her friends sat for 15 minutes watching a snail move. They were fascinated watching it leave a trail across the driveway.

We still have so much work to make this house our home. Boxes need to be unpacked, carpet needs to be replaced, toilets need to be installed, and pictures need to be hung. But I am glad to be reminded of another reason why this move and this house are a blessing.