Christmas Eve

For Christmas Eve dinner we wanted to do something that was no cooking and no fuss involved since we would be gone for Christmas mass from 4:00 until 6:30 or so. So Brett and I decided to try to duplicate an awesome meal we'd had in New York at a restaurant called "Artisinal". They specialize in cheese and have cheese plates that you can eat for dinner or to share as an appetizer. We LOVE cheese, so we copied Artisinal's meal and really enjoyed it! We stumbled upon bamboo cutting boards at Southern Season on major sale, so we couldn't resist serving dinner on them just like they do at Artisinal. We chose six cheeses and had the cheese monger order them for us from mild to strong and we paired three different wines with the cheeses. We added all the yummy sides that accompany cheese so well like cornichons, seasoned olives, pears, dried salami, dried fruit and of course bread. We also had escargots! It was oh so tasty. Sydney stayed up with us for the special "cheese party" and had her own plate with a bubbly apple juice so she could be like the adults. Her favorite parts of the meal were the juice she got to drink out of crystal, the dried fruit, the cornichons, the goat cheese and the brie. She also tried escargots. Love her adventurous spirit!

Gift Giving: a few ideas

I recently posted about how we are trying to make more meaningful decisions about what we buy, consume and give as gifts. I couldn't give concrete examples of gifts we purchased because it was before Christmas, but now I can share a few ideas. Here are a few things we purchased for friends and family this year.

• Locally-made and hand-made soaps, lotions, and bath salts. An awesome and affordable gift for any occasion. (www.moondancesoaps.com)
• Maple syrup from a small family-owned organic farm in Vermont (actually owned by a friend of mine's dad). (www.maplesyrupvermont.com)
• Coffee from a local company that only sells organic fair-trade and shade-grown beans in compostable bags. So yummy! (www.larrysbeans.com)
• Personalized photo books from Shutterfly. These are a LOT of work, but they are such a personal and wonderful gift and a great way to preserve memories. (www.shutterfly.com)
• Keva planks. These are high quality, made in the USA wooden building blocks for kids of all ages. This is the kind of toy you never throw out and can pass on to the next generation. (www.kevaplanks.com)
• Book-marks hand-made by Sydney for all the readers in our family! These were a big hit!
• Ornaments that the kids painted at a local pottery place called Paint Your Pot.
• Hand-made earrings from my mom and her "Penne Panache," also a big hit!

There are lots of other great gift ideas, but these are just some of the ones we gave this year. I think charitable donations in someone's name are also great gift ideas, especially for that person in your life who already has everything!!! If you have a garden then you have endless options of things you can grow yourself and gift to others (dried herbs, canned veggies, jams, dried fruits and veggies). I got a breadmaker for Christmas, so you can be sure people will be getting freshly made organic bread as gifts from me in the coming years! Mmm...

Happy New Year, everyone!

A REAL Snow...and technically a white Christmas!

Although it didn't start snowing in Cary until about 9 pm yesterday, we technically had a white Christmas! What a treat. When we woke up this morning the entire neighborhood was covered in white and it was still fluttering down out of the sky. The world was silent and still. What a beautiful sight and sound. Sydney has croup, so unfortunately she was not in shape for sledding or snow man building today. So sad. We couldn't not let the kids experience the snow, though, so we bundled them up and took them for a wagon ride around the neighborhood. They loved it! It was perfect for Sydney because the cold air quells her coughing and she didn't have to exert herself at all. The only problem was finding appropriate clothing. Since we are southerners it doesn't make much sense to invest in expensive snow suits that our children will outgrow each year. So we don't bother, but when the snow comes we are always saying, "I wish we had ski or snow clothes for them so they could go out and have fun without getting cold and wet!" Well, we did have ONE snow suit, size 12-18 months from when Sydney was a toddler in Paris...only problem is that it is PINK. Oh well, Brett said it was ok, so Pierce went in the girly pink snow suit and had a good old time! He didn't care what color it was, but I was quite hesitant to put him in it. He loved his snow ride and even loved the pink snow suit. SO CUTE! I love these monkeys!

Pierce's First Snow

Well, as most of you know it has already snowed twice here this year and it's not even Christmas! Pierce enjoyed seeing his first snow last week and as soon as we told him what the white stuff was called he quickly added the word "snow" to his very limited vocabulary. It may be his most used word now even though there is no more snow on the ground to talk about! He can't say the "s" so he makes a sort of "s" sound out of his nose and then says "no". So funny!

Sydney Louise

My sweet little girl is in her last year of preschool, which is really hard to believe. She had a Christmas performance at school today and she was so excited to sing all her songs for me and Pierce. We loved watching her and her classmates perform. My favorite song was the Little Drummer Boy! Great job, Sydney!

Eggs!

I am a big proponent of buying local farm fresh ("free range") eggs. There are numerous reasons to do so, especially nutritional ones since they have more than twice the omega-3's found in "conventional" eggs and half the cholesterol. Not to mention, the conditions that "regular" eggs come from are frighteningly unsanitary and the things they are fed are disgusting (think chicken cannibalism).

But today I learned something new about eggs. The farmer I bought mine from this morning told me that conventional eggs sit in cold storage on the "farm" where they are collected for up to 21 days, at which point the USDA requires the "Use By" date to be stamped on them at 65 days from that day. So the eggs you buy in the store are generally 86 days old by their "use-by" date! 86 DAYS! Yikes. I have noticed that every time I have to buy store eggs (if I missed the farmer's market that weekend), the "use by" date seems to never be more than 2-3 weeks from the day I purchase the eggs. That means that the store bought eggs you / we are buying are 9 to 10 weeks old already! Yikes! Where have they been for those nine to ten weeks? And why are they so old?

The eggs I bought this morning are exactly three days old and I met the man who gathered them for me, so I feel pretty good about their nutrition and freshness. I paid $4, which some people consider extremely expensive. But the way I look at it is that I am willing to make other small sacrifices in order to spend $2 extra on eggs each week. It really isn't all that much money anyway, even for someone on an all cash food budget each week. Our health is worth it!

Gift Giving: a new challenge

We are working in our house to put more meaning into the overly-commercialized and often meaningless Christmas holiday and the traditions that go along with it. The advent Calendar drop-ins I made and sold were one example, but there are lots of other ways to make Christmas a more meaningful time for your family. One other thing we are doing this year is to change how we buy gifts. Every year I feel more and more strongly about the overabundance of gifts exchanged and how many of them don't represent the values we hold. Many of the kids toys are produced in China with unsafe ingredients and do not hold up for long. Gift cards are impersonal. Electronics seem to outdate before you can even get them unwrapped. And so on and so on... I'm sure everyone has some aspect of the gift exchange that they feel is wasteful or impersonal. So, this year, we decided to try to purchase gifts that embody the values we hold as consumers and as a family. We are purchasing things that are one or more of the following (for about 75% of our gifts):


1. made locally (or at least made in the USA)
2. made by a small family-owned business
3. organically or sustainably produced
4. benefit a charitable cause
5. educational
6. recycled
7. made by us!


So far, we have found some great gift options that fit one or more of these criteria! I can't share them yet (for obvious reasons!), but I wanted to post my thoughts on gift giving so maybe I can inspire others to change some of their gift giving practices. Of course, there are a few items we just can't seem to get to fit these criteria, but for the most part we have found some great gifts!


A few suggestions:

• your local farmers markets and craft fairs are great resources
• each region of the country has local specialities - find out what yours is and find a small local supplier to purchase from
• a number of not-so-local and not-so-sustainable companies are at least donating a portion of their profits to charities
• tickets to local cultural performances and educational classes are a great way to spend your money
• buying art or pottery from a local artist makes for a unique and personal gift
• auctions are a great place to pick up some unique gifts (just ask my mom!) and give something a second life instead of using more resources to buy it new
• use your own talents to share with others (painting, photography, writing, baking, gardening)

Here's to a more meaningful holiday season and more meaningful consumption throughout the year!

Thank you!

Thank you to everyone who purchased advent calendar drop-ins from me! I sold 120 sets and raised over $700 towards our pledge for Home of Hope India. I was a busy bee cutting paper and assembling the sets for several weeks in November! I am glad they are all shipped out and delivered, and I hope everyone enjoys sharing the story of Christmas with their little ones this year.

As for us, we stuck with our little bags from last year as our "advent calendar." I dropped two gold coins and the little scroll in each bag. I also purchased some small Christmas ornaments that look like miniature presents from a craft store and dropped them in to a few of the bags to let the kids know that on that day they have a small present to open. For their gifts during advent I purchased a few Christmas books (like the Grinch Stole Christmas, Berenstein Bears and the Joy of Giving, and so on). So, on a few lucky days when they open their bags they will have a little gift to open!

Happy Holidays!

Children’s Advent Calendar Drop-ins For Sale!!!

Last year I broke down the story of Christ’s birth into 25 short, simple readings to drop into each of day of Sydney’s Advent calendar. After reading each day’s sentence we would glue it to a piece of construction paper and assemble the story of Christmas over the course of Advent. By Christmas Eve we had the entire story pasted together and we could read it together. She and I both enjoyed it and I thought other parents who would like to make sure the story of Christ is an important part of their Christmas season might also like to use our little story.

Because Brett and I have pledged a contribution to help build a new orphanage for the young girls from Home of Hope India, I decided to make and sell my “Children’s Advent Calendar Drop-ins” for $5 each to raise money for our pledge. I hope you will consider buying them for your loved ones this Christmas! The price includes:

• 25 short daily readings recounting the story of Christ’s birth with a short prayer for each Sunday in Advent.
• 25 ribbons to tie each reading into a little scroll to easily fit into the pocket of an advent calendar.
• A small book of colorful paper in which the children can glue their daily readings and create their own “Story of Christmas.”
  

All money raised from the sale of these Drop-ins will go to help purchase a “stepping stone” to build a new orphanage for the young girls living Hyderabad, India through a charity called Home of Hope India. Right now these girls are sleeping on concrete floors at night and they have nowhere to play, so they really need our help!
http://www.homeofhopeindia.org/
http://www.100stepstohome.com/

This is a great and inexpensive gift to give for children, grandchildren, godchildren, nieces and nephews over the Thanksgiving holidays. It is written in language most appropriate for younger children (toddlers through age 10).

If you don’t have an advent calendar, there are SO many ways to make one creatively, or you can buy one at places like Land of Nod, Pottery Barn Kids, etc.

Last year, we bought small, inexpensive Christmas gift bags and wrote a number on each bag from 1-25 and hung them around our breakfast nook. Inside each bag was a small piece of candy and our daily reading. (The little chocolate “gold” coins you can buy are a great sparkly filler to accompany the scrolls.) You can also buy miniature stockings for very little money and hang them on a rope with clothes pins.

Here are some photos of creative do-it-yourself advent calendars if you need some inspiration:

If you would like to order Drop-ins for your loved ones, please email or call me to tell me how many and send a check for $5 each to:

Claire Burkhart
7545 McCrimmon Parkway
Cary, NC 27519

I will have them all completed before Thanksgiving, so please place your orders early in November. Please add $1 for shipping if you are not in Cary or Wilmington (where I can deliver or you can pick them up).

Remember that all money from these Drop-ins will go to build an orphanage for young girls in India!

Thanks!

Happy Birthday to me

Brett made me an awesome birthday dinner on Thursday. All week he had been asking me what I wanted for my birthday dinner. Since it was a weeknight and we have kids, it made the answer very simple:

"Not a restaurant because that's more work for me to bring food for Pierce and keep the kids happy while we wait for our food. Not some fancy complicated meal that you have to cook and I have to watch the kids by myself all night then sit by myself while you do dishes. Nothing that I have to cook myself."

That left me with one option: something that requires no cooking and no dishes... A French-style meal of just cheese, bread, salad and wine. Perfect!

So, Brett got 7 different cheeses from Southern Season and had the cheese monger arrange them from mildest to strongest. He also paired the cheeses with wine (red for the milder ones and white for the more pungent ones). And he sort of broke the rules by preparing escargots. But all he had to do was stuff the shells and heat them, so it wasn't too much cooking. And they were wonderful.

Dinner was awesome, but I was so stuffed after we (almost) finished all the cheeses that I was actually disappointed when he told me he had dessert! Wow!

Thanks for an awesome birthday dinner, Brett. It matched all my criteria - not in a restaurant, no cooking and (almost) no dishes.

Prayer of St. Francis

A good friend of mine recently posted this prayer on her blog and I really enjoyed reading it. So I'm copying it from her to share with my friends and family. Thanks, Gina! Gina recently went through the RCIA program to become Catholic (like I did years ago). She is an awesome example of a strong Christian and Catholic. Those converts always seem to make the best Catholics! :)

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon:
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope
where there is darkness, light
where there is sadness, joy
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

Congratulations, Dad!

The reason we all went to Spain was to see my dad recieve an Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Miguel Hernandez in Elche, Spain. This award is an extremely special honor bestowed upon someone who has made great contributions to his field of research and teaching. It was a great excuse to get all of my dad's family together, including his wife and her two daughters and granddaughter. We really enjoyed spending time with Knox, Julie, Gemma, Andy, baby Savannah, and Heidi!

Dad's ceremony was really nice. He got a fancy outfit, hat, ring, gloves and honorary degree. They even had a pianist play a marvelous jazz ensemble for him during the ceremony.

Thanks for inviting us, Dad! Great job!

And they're off!

Just the other day I looked at Pierce as he was chasing his sister around the living room and I realized what a big boy he was becoming. It was a nice day out, so I ran up to the attic, grabbed the tricycle and brought it down for him to try. It just seemed like he was ready for it. Well, his little feet didn't quite touch the pedals, but the look in his eyes let me know he was ready to go! He was so excited to ride it and once we got going you could tell how proud he was of himself. What a cutie! Sydney enjoyed taking her brother out for his first ride.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar visits Spain

Brett and I had the absolute pleasure of spending last week in Spain with my brother Ian and his wife Nathalie. We had a wonderful time visiting the cities of Madrid, Toledo, Campo de Criptana, Chinchilla de Monte Aragon and Alicante. One of the things Brett and I were most looking forward to in our trip were quality and uninterrupted meals with no dishes to do and no children to feed! So we ended up eating our way through Spain with enthusiasm and seemingly insatiable hunger! On many occasions I thought about that iconic children's story, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. We were that caterpillar! Especially on Saturday as we feasted our way through Madrid on a five hour tapas bar crawl. Just as the caterpillar ate one piece of chocolate cake, one slice of swiss cheese, one slice of salami and so on until he had a major stomach ache, our meal went something like this:

One spanish ham and manchego croissant

One beer

One glass of port

One bowl of garlic shrimp

One bowl of breaded fried shrimp

One glass of wine

One plate of crispy fried pigs ear (mmm, cartilage)

One plate of olives

One glass of wine

One plate of stuffed mushrooms

One glass of sangria

One plate of spanish cheeses

One glass of wine

And One cone of gelatto!

And after that, we were finally full!

On Sunday we also had a green leaf sort of day to cleanse ourselves from the indulgences of Saturday night.

Eating tapas is such a fun and unique experience. The idea of a social and mobile meal that involves exercise and small portions is such a contrast to the American way of eating. Taking pleasure in food and making it the center of conversation during a five hour meal is really a cultural experience that you have to leave the US to enjoy. We ate each plate of food at a different bar and probably walked over a mile during the meal. We were in the good company of hundreds of thousands of other people (literally!) crowding the bars and streets of Madrid into the wee hours of Sunday morning.

There were many many more adventures to recount from our trip to Spain. I'll try to highlight a few of them on my blog as I find time in the next few days.

Goodbye Summer, Hello Fall!

We split our day today between summer and fall. After lunch we spent one last hour in our awesome neighborhood pool before it closes for the year. The water was a little cool, but it was such a beautiful day and we really appreciated that time as a little "goodbye" to summer.

Then after a nap and snack, we headed about two miles down the road to one of the local farms to welcome fall with a corn maze, bounce houses and tractors. We had a fabulous afternoon and got so many great pictures. I'll just post a few here...

Labor Day Weekend

We had a really nice Labor Day weekend in Hilton Head visiting Brett's mom. We began and ended our summer here - what a treat! For our three day weekend, we...

Practised Motzart on the piano

Danced to Brett's piano concert

Checked out the babes at the beach

Checked out the surf

Ran races on the sand

Lounged around

And just had a nice time.

A Visit to DC

We went to DC last weekend to visit Brett's sister Susan and celebrate Brett's 37th birthday. It was a short visit, but we had a great time. On Saturday we enjoyed the National Zoo in 75 degree weather!

At the zoo, Sydney enjoyed her first ever cotton candy and spent some quality time with Aunt Susan.

Pierce practiced his toe stretches and watched tigers prowl and cows graze.

Then Susan got 2 dozen Maryland Blue Crabs for dinner for Brett's birthday celebration. He had been wanting to try a crab dinner for years, so it was a real treat for him. Since we have two young ones, and dismantling your own crabs takes hours, we opted for take-out instead of eating it at a restaurant on the water (sigh...). It tasted just as good, but when the kids are older, we'll have to go back for the full experience. I made Brett a peach cobbler (at his request) from our local peaches for his birthday "cake". YUM! Dinner ran from 8pm to 10:30pm and we felt really good about our decision not to try to take two young kids to a restaurant for the meal! Sydney tried a little bit before bed and liked it. Of course, having someone feed you delicious crab meat without having to do any dirty work yourself, who wouldn't like it?

They were oh so tasty, but breaking those little buggers apart and getting all the guts and bile out is dirty work! The claws and shells are sharp, too. I got two gashes on my hand as did Brett. Even though they were dead, they still got me!

On Sunday we visited the Air and Space Museum by Dulles Airport. It was a really neat place with dozens and dozens of actual planes to see. We saw a space shuttle, WWII bombers, a Concorde, the SR-71 Blackbird, and all sorts of combat planes and recreational creations. Lots of fun for the adults, but it wasn't Sydney's cup of tea.

On the way home from DC I asked Sydney what her favorite part of the weekend was and she said, "When Susan gave me gum. That was the best part." Go figure! You take a kid to the national zoo, feed her expensive crab meat, show her an ACTUAL space ship and she just wanted a pack of gum.

Garden Update!

While we are not quite ready to open a stand at our local farmer's market, we have actually "harvested" a few things from our garden, and it is looking SO much healthier than in June.

So far we have picked: more basil than I ever thought I could consume, 2 green peppers, a couple dozen delicious sun gold (cherry) tomatoes, 4 jalapenos, one Asian eggplant, three miniscule carrots, countless pods of black-eyed-peas, and thyme and rosemary. We have one rosa bianca eggplant growing nicely and two beautiful (but still small and green) heirloom tomatoes on the vine. We also have one miniature Asian eggplant we are keeping our eye on. The sun golds keep appearing every day, and we have to fight with the kids over who gets to pop those sweet juicy things in their mouths! The kids usually win - I think I've only eaten one! But what parent can deny her begging pre-schooler and skinny toddler such a perfect dose of lycopene and vitamin A, C, K, E...? Not me.

So, while you could hardly feed a family on our little garden, we have gotten a little bit of productivity and have also learned a lot so that next year we can get more out of it. I have shelled enough black-eyed-peas to make the traditional southern dish for New Years Day, and I am quite happy about that!

Pretty in Pink

Sydney participated in a ballet dance camp last week and really enjoyed it! It was a princess dance camp, so they got to pretend they were princesses each day and make fun accessories like wands and crowns. We got to go see her performance on the last day and it was so special to see her in her element, following along behind her teacher and not missing a beat. What a beautiful ballerina she makes!

Oh, the things I can do!

Pierce has been learning lots of new things and going lots of new places in the last few months. He can walk very well now and loves playing rough with Sydney and Daddy.

He watches Sydney color with great interest, so I finally let him have a go with the crayons (while trying to keep them out of his mouth!). He loved it and was very focused. He'd pick a crayon, color, carefully put the crayon back in the cup, and get another color. I think he enjoyed the taking and putting back the crayons as much as coloring. What a cutie!

Pierce also watches Sydney do her gymnastics both at home and at the gym. He must be taking it all in, because now he tries to do his own gymnastics moves. So funny!