inaugural father's day

breakfast in bed

a trip to the dog park

it was a little hot for the dogs’ tastes

a dinner of the best roast chicken ever (tutorial to come…maybe), salad, + avocado

(no matter how I took this picture, it still just looked like a headless chicken sitting on a platter. oh well.)

not pictured: a gift card to his favorite outdoor/sports store + a coupon for a father/son afternoon of shopping. (everyone wins!)

—-UPDATE—–

this chicken expert has kindly illustrated part of this post for me.

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panini is italian for delicious

Hello everyone. I am here to introduce you to Nathan’s best friend, the panini.

You can put just about anything on a panini. I saw Giada de laCleavage put pears + honey on one the other day — but Nathan would call that sacrilege. If I’m cooking for Nathan, I always start with some sort of meat. I am using thin-sliced pancetta, because I had some leftover from a recipe. Put it in a hot skillet and let it cook up just like bacon. (It pretty much IS bacon.) Lay it on some paper towels to drain.

Pour the grease out of the pan into a little jar. My dad has always done this, so I do, too. The difference is, he actually uses it at some point.

Slice up an onion.

Throw the slices in the pan + don’t let them out until they are soft, brown, and super sweet. Like my sister Molly.

Take the pan off the heat + throw some spinach on there just until it’s wilted.

Mix it with the onions and set them aside to wait their turn.

Slice up some cheese (I like fresh mozzarella for its meltability). Cheese is very important. You can leave pretty much anything off a panini except the bread and the cheese.

By now your baby is probably upset that you haven’t helped him do the macarena (his new favorite thing) in at least 15 minutes, so go ahead and put him down for a nap.

Lastly, get out something special, like fresh basil, sun-dried tomatoes, or, in my case, marinated artichoke hearts. Nathan loves these for some reason. Slice ’em up real nice.

Now for the secret ingredient …. BREAD. I think this is the best way to slice it for maximum crispiness:

Assemble yourself a panini! Pretend you work at Subway.


Sometimes sliced artichokes look like tiny squids. Don’t let that put you off. They don’t taste even remotely seafoodish.

Now it’s time to grill it. But first, if you are feeling particularly naughty (and let’s be honest, I usually am), slather both sides with butter.

Get your heating implement ready. This is where the young sandwich turns into a full-grown panini.
Hello, George.

Open wide!

(Please try to refrain from licking your computer.)

Serve it up with a simple salad and voila! A panini by Jax.*

*Not to be confused with Buttons by Brite.

wait … they grow up!?

Remember this guy?

Here he is at one month:

And at two months:

Three months:

Four months:

Last week he turned five months old!

He’s changed from an adorable, non-interactive tiny blob into this little character, hamming it up every time anyone pays him attention. He laughs at us now, rolls all around the living room, + gobbles down spoons full of cereal faster than we can shovel them in. I can’t wait to see what he does next!

P.S. Enough pictures for you, Mom? 🙂

blueberries for Eli

This weekend I looked online for “U-Pick” farms in our area, located the nearest blueberry farm, + convinced Nathan (with the promise of blueberry pie) to join Eli and me on our adventure. We drove twenty minutes to state road 24, then past various crops to the blueberry farm … or, at least, the address of the blueberry farm. A mailbox with stick-on numbers that corresponded to the address I’d found online. No signage whatsoever indicating the possible presence of blueberries. Dare we venture down the long gravel driveway into the woods?

Blueberry patch is obviously not my best look. But look how cute E is in his little hat!

We dared. We found a huge log cabin, 12 dogs in kennels, and one nice (if a bit lonely and chatty) lady who happens to own some blueberry bushes. We came away with about 4 pints of blueberries (which she eyeballed + decided was three pints, at a dollar each — not bad!) and her life story. And all 12 dogs are hers.

On our way home, we drove past a little diner I’d noticed on the way in + decided to stop and check out the soda fountain. Nathan ordered a good old-fashioned banana split, I got my standard chocolate malt, and Eli consumed ice water from the end of a drinking straw. I told him I’d give him some of my milkshake later.

Eli was flirting with our waitress with whole time. We are trying to train him to charm waitstaff into giving us our meal for free.

There also just happened to be an antique store upstairs (and of course I had NO IDEA about this when I suggested we stop in), so we went upstairs to check it out.

We were all a little tired afterwards, so we went home for a nap. Some of us got a head start on the napping.

Nathan with our spoils:

You can't see it, but his tongue is blue.

The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out with friends, visiting a new church, and watching graphic documentaries about animals eating each other (one of our newest obsessions).

In closing, I love these guys!

…and now I'm a blogger.

Things you should probably know about me:

I have the most amazing husband + a beautiful son.
Oh yeah, and I have two dogs.
I own 54 pairs of shoes (and counting).
I live in + curate a tiny apartment.
I fall over at least once per yoga class.
It turns out I do like being a housewife.