like devito and schwarzenegger, right?

"We should dress like twins mama," Katie says last week while we're putting away clothes in our respective rooms.

"Umm okay."

A game of clothing "go fish" followed.

Katie (shouting from her room): Mama, do you have a pink sparkly skirt?

Me (in my room): No honey.

Katie: Do you have a rainbow skirt?

Me: No babygirl.

Katie: Do you have a brown skirt with apples on it?

Me: Sorry hon.

Alas, we found a match.

Katie: Do you think Papa will know who's who when he gets home?

Me: I don't know sweetheart, I guess we'll see.

i've come a long way, baby

I am so frickn' domestic these days all I can do is laugh sometimes.

I recently made jam for the third year in a row.

As I was dropping cans into an enormous pot of boiling water with my new fancy canning tongs (which I LOVE) I thought back to my days spent in suits, when I would have a headset virtually permanently attached for conference calls, when I would spend hours on currency Web sites trying to figure out budgets in different countries.

Oh how my life has changed. And, for the better I might add.

Instead of approving Web site design and copy, I create my own jam labels.

Instead of telling executives what to say to the media, I help my four-year old memorize her prayers for Bible school so she can get a prize.

Instead of planning trade show events, I make weekly tents, caves and forts.

I now know where every park is in my city. I know all the words to the song "Trash Truck." I can whip up a dinner that includes every food group in less than a half hour with no advanced planning.

I'm thinking of adding these as bullet points to my CV. What do you think?

The best thing about my job bar none: I get to look at these two mugs all day long.

futbol & four-year-olds

Confession: I watch soccer on Spanish stations.

So you have to understand it's pretty darn exciting when soccer is actually on English-speaking stations -- and in HD to boot.

Yes people, I'm talking about the World Cup.

What I'm loving perhaps even more is watching with my girls.

Each match we get our globe out and find the countries who are squaring off.

We see how far each is from the U.S. and because I'm talking with Kaitlyn the conversation usually digresses into how long the plane flight would be to each country, how hot it is there right now, if they are in the same/different season we are in, how many people live in the country, etc.

Focus girl!

I'm trying to make this marginally educational -- the point is to watch soccer!

Here are some Katie-isms while watching World Cup soccer (and just think we're only in group play right now):

- "Mama, can we watch Butter Cup soccer together?"

- "What is that buzzing, why does it sound like bees?" (referring to the loud vuvuzelas you incessantly hear)

- "Which team has more players?"

- "Don't score white team!"

- "I think we should root for Germany because it's closer to us (than Serbia)."

And btw, the score should have been 3-2.

blueberries

Strawberry season may be ending, but blueberry picking is in its prime right now so we headed out to get our fill today.

You must think we are obsessed with fruit with all the posts about strawberries, etc. I've made this season. (On a side note: I was quite pleased to see the appearance of apricots last weekend at the farmer's market. Now that season is way too short if you ask me.)

Like many activities, Katie was all-business when it came to finding the most choice berries.

I love how one-year-olds will cop-a-squat just about anywhere.

Here Mo and Lo are sharing a berry or two.

We now have over two pounds of very sweet blueberries in the house.

I heard Miyo talking about blueberry pancakes which sound great.

Any other fantastic uses for blueberries?

5th times a charm

Strawberry season is slipping away.

The stand by our house is about to close, and the strawberries you get right now go bad so fast, it's virtually impossible to eat them all before they get mushy.

We've been experimenting with making strawberry mini muffins. We made some with our friends last week and have since made them four additional times tweaking the recipe each time.

I love that mini muffins bake so fast and since I've prepped strawberries in one cup increments my start-to-finish time is under a half hour now.

I added whole wheat flour (which is probably pretty much nixed health-wise if you add chocolate chips like me).

Strawberry Mini Muffins

1/4 C. canola oil

1/2 C. milk

1 egg

1/2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 C. sugar

1/4 C. brown sugar

1 C. all-purpose flour

3/4 C. whole wheat flour

1 C. chopped strawberries

1/2 tsp. cinnamon 1 tsp vanilla

cinnamon sugar

mini chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees

2. Combine all dry ingredients except cinnamon sugar in a bowl.

3. Combine all wet ingredients except strawberries in a separate bowl.

4. Mix dry and wet contents. Fold in strawberries (and mini chocolate chips if you're using them)

5. Scoop batter into muffin pan, then sprinkle cinnamon sugar over batter.

6. Bake for 13 min.

me try sew

That pretty sums up my level of needle-and-thread literacy.

A while back we were lucky to receive some scraps of fabric over at rice babies. She was even so sweet as to include a note offering to sew the pillows together once the girls had colored them.

Apparently my lack of sewing skills has permeated the greater blogosphere.

We had a bit of a slow afternoon so I let the girls have at it with some fabric markers.

Maddie would only color on that left-hand window for some reason. I even tried turning the fabric to face a different direction thinking she was coloring what was closer to her. But alas, she kept coloring the same window.

After, I suggested -- to the girls horror -- that we sacrifice a little-used stuffed animal to finish off our pillows.

In the end I climbed up into my linen cabinet, brought down a vacuum-packed bag and found a pillow that we weren't using.

My finish work on the pillow is -- well, let's just say it's sub-par.

But the Little Wickies don't seem to mind.

mu-ha-ha-ha

We have a plan.

The plan is to strategically lure the few friends we have to live in our town.

So far the plan is going pretty well.

Chris and Megan and their family moved here not long after us. And now Jason and Jeni are moving here from Michigan.

I can not tell you how excited we are.

Some pics I snapped last time they were in town (Mo was napping).

she calls her chicken

Katie's nickname for Madeleine is "chicken."

Why?

"Because she's little like a chicken... and she acts like one," says Katie.

Uh, okay.

I actually caught her chicken act the other day on video.

Enjoy, and happy weekend.

every once in awhile it comes to dessert

and I can't decide: fruit or chocolate?

What's a girl to do?

Answer: both.

Cinnamon caramel apple dessert pizza and my signature Smores dessert pizza

It's not that time of the month, but last week I was craving, and I mean had-to-have-craving dessert -- midday.

These were my creations during quiet time. Yes, that means they were created and consumed between the hours of one and three o'clock.

r.i.p.

Alas, today we retire Madeleine's cat boots. Her little toes are finally too big and were rubbed red after a morning of play.

If you've seen Madeleine in the past 8 months it's highly likely you've seen these boots.

She has seemingly refused to wear nothing but them for some time now.

"Boooos" she shouts when she wants them. Heck, it was one of her first words -- though I'll be honest, I think part of that is courtesy of watching Dora.

Farewell Booos, you'll be missed.

(almost) summer nights

The Little Wickies love to play after dinner. And, Mama is loving the late day light for pictures.

We play baseball -- skirts and skins.

We can't seem to get a shirt on Maddie in the afternoon these days.

Pants yes, but shirts she refuses.

She looks like a little boy running around with only jeans on. Papa has taken to calling her "Matt."

As for Katie, she thinks skirts are appropriate for all athletic endeavors from baseball to biking to running.

down on the farm

Headed out to the farm this week with Halmoni.

Mo really liked picking raspberries.

Almost as much as she enjoyed picking choice rocks.

There were also sunflowers you could pick which we thought was going to be great.

That was until we realized some of the stalks were upwards of an inch in diameter.

Miyo tried twisting some off until I found a tiny, and I mean tiny, knife on my key chain.

We tirelessly sawed at the flowers until we each had a nice bouquet (and sufficiently mangled enough plants).

Lesson learned: ask them for clippers before you hike out to the back of the farm where the flowers are.
The little ones were trying to touch a gigantic black bee in the sweet peas.

Those two were d-i-r-t-y by the end of the outing.

memorial day weekend

This weekend we had swim class, went to the beach, played in our mini-pool, played in our friend's mini-pool and then played in our mini-pool some more.

Needless to say I did two laundry loads of towels in a little over 48 hours.

For me, the highlight of the weekend was seeing my little brother.

For the Little Wickies, it very well might have been seeing his dog Bella.

For Papa, it might have been the fact that Scott and Amy brought Korean BBQ for us all to eat.

No really, they brought something like two dozen pounds of bulgogi and kalbi.

They also brought mussammari which I had never had before and really, really liked.

I love this picture I snapped of them with the girls. They look like a little family.

They recently got engaged. Can't wait for them to have their own little family some day!