Toddler trendsetting, tomatoes, and flowers

Monkey see, monkey do...

Troy was watching Brooklyn get ready this morning, and she did her hair (by putting a headband on, of course). He thought he would be proactive and get ready himself.

Travis is gone again this weekend, this time to a conference in St. Louis. So the kids and I are partying it up at home again! Mostly roasting 5 lbs. of tomatoes...

 So back in Maryland some friends and I started a freezer meal group. It was so great to cook once and then have a whole bunch of meals, and fun to try new dishes (without having to prepare them myself!) I knew I would really miss those girls, and of course the food, when we moved, so I was excited to discover such a group here! Only... this one is intense! They operate on a much larger scale. Previously I would prepare maybe 6 meals (3-4 servings) to exchange, and I was always on the higher end (we could each choose how many to exchange). This group is made up of 10 people, and we prepare 6-serving meals to exchange with everyone. I'll do the math for you - that means I'm cooking for 60 people once a month! My Maryland group was flabbergasted when I told them and thought it was ridiculous and proposed various solutions, but it turns out, I secretly love cooking for vast amounts of people. I didn't realize this until I whipped out my cutting board today and tackled the large pile of tomatoes crowding out my fridge, but I was inwardly looking forward to the massive cooking task ahead. Why? I don't know, since I complain about cooking for 3.25 people on a daily basis.
(Let me help you with THAT math too. I eat for 1 person, Travis for maybe .75, and everyone else for .5 - and that's being generous. Maybe Kate, .75, and Troy & Brooke each .375, but let's not get carried away.)
You can go ahead and take that as a hint and bring 50 or so people to visit, and I will cook for you. (Tara?)


Anyway, if you don't really care about how much my family eats or how much I like to cook, but I snagged your interest by mentioning the freezer meals, I will next direct you to the blog set up by my dear friend Callie, who spearheaded the Maryland freezer group. There you will find all our recipes. Why do I feel like a traitor for sharing them? I'm pretty sure you can find most of them online anyway...

And here are my girls enjoying the spring flowers.

 I planted these tulips myself! Which is to say, I bought the small tulip plants when they were only leaves and put them in the planter on the porch and poured dirt around them, and then they grew! Brooklyn chose the color, and I'm so glad she did. I was about to choose something much uglier I mean less beautiful (my girls have also been trying to help me censor my language.)

They call these ones "sunflowers" and don't care a bit that I tell them they are not sunflowers but actually weeds. They just care that they look like the sun. And then after that they turn into "cloud" flowers. Clever, eh?