Lately...

Yup, more muffins: I think my muffin baking fetish is well-documented, so I love this Mark Bittman article on achieving a good balance in whole wheat muffins. Since making Thomas's favorite baked potatoes with sour cream always leaves me with leftover sour cream, I'm going to try to use Bittman's tips to adapt this sour cream muffin recipe.

Listening and Reading: If you like the music of Elizabeth Mitchell (and we happen to love her), check out Frances England. We are currently loving her album Fascinating Creatures. Sylvie got one of the books from the If You Give... series by Laura Numeroff from her teacher for Christmas, and is now having fun getting others from the series from the library.

Chinese New Year: We have celebrated Chinese New Year with some tiger crafts, a night of Lion's Head meatballs and a night of won ton soup (with bok choy from the garden). I'm thinking about taking Sylvie to the Chinese New Year Festival this Sunday, but am wondering if I will have the energy. This 3rd trimester has come on like a ton of bricks and I find myself ready for bedtime these days by approximately noon.

Gardening: I'm trying to get my spring and summer garden plot ready and I think maybe by the end of this weekend it may be. Never one to be patient and wait though when it comes to gardening, Sylvie and I took a trip to our favorite nursery, H&H in Lakewood with Bestemor on Wednesday. Beste had never been and we are glad she loved it as much as we do. I am excited to get some more lettuce planted and some early-producing tomatoes, so that Thomas can grill the best burgers in town.
Learning about Winter Animals: Fun4Kids has a great post on winter animals. Sylvie made the textured polar bear yesterday.
After making the textured polar bear with rice, she asked for another polar bear to paint red.

Kind of looks like one polar bear got into a pretty bad polar bear fight, doesn't it? I think we will make the traced shoe penguin next.