The Rispok elves were hard at work over the weekend. Summer Craftacular is close at hand and the to-do list is not finished... In between weekend family time, shopping, cooking, and visiting with friends from out of town, I managed to get all the printing done for my placemats and throw pillows- hooray!
There are a few new designs in there, what do you think? I did a very trendy chevron, and a rather geometric berry-type thing and I'm pretty pleased with the results.
Now, I just need those elves to sew like the wind ALL WEEK!

While I was grocery shopping on Saturday, the boys were busy injuring themselves. Mr. 5 crawled around and pulled things down, including a nice long piece of wood that knocked a frame off the wall which hit the floor and bounced up to hit him in the eyebrow. Dad was taking pictures. Of him. So it's well-documented.
With the double ice method (one on the wound, one in the mouth) the swelling went down quickly. He just has a red mark on his eyebrow that looks like he used to have an eyebrow ring, but it got all infected after some three-day rave in the desert, and now he has to take it out for a while...

'Nuff said.

That is an excellent question. The food pics are lacking for two reasons.

1. The last few weeks I've been cooking almost exclusively from my new cookbook Super Natural Every Day (go get it, it's awesome) so I don't have any recipes to share.

2. Strawberry season has finally hit the Keweenaw and all I'm eating is strawberries and ice cream. Yes, I know, awesome, but how many pictures can you see of strawberries and ice cream? Lots, you say? Well, it's hot and I can't wait to take a picture, I have to eat it NOW!

I promise, they'll return soon, and with them some fabulous recipes!

This week I whipped up a picnic quilt (and I use the term "quilt" VERY loosely here)! With meal mess increasing exponentially, it seemed a prudent idea to prepare for outside eating. We tried just setting the Bumbo seat in the yard, but little 5 can reach down and add grass to the meal a little too easily...
This will be perfect for us- heavy enough to keep out ground chill, light enough to fit in a tote bag, beautiful enough that I will want to bring it everywhere, but not so pretty that I will fret over the inevitable food spills.

Quilt details:
    This beauty measures 64" by 72".
    The super sweet center fabric and red fabric on the edge was picked up at Ikea in Sweden (although I believe both of these patterns were available in the US as well)
    The blue border fabric is some upholstery fabric I bought on super clearance years ago.
    The back (oops! forgot to photograph it) is two full yards of a crazy bright plaid I got from someone's destashing frenzy.
    The middle is half of a cotton blanket I scored (for $2.62 no less!) from the Salvation Army, which I then hot hot washed and dried.
    I call this a quilt because there's patchwork on one side (I know, not a requirement), and there are three layers. I have yet, and may never, bother to do true quilting on the body of the blanket. I also did not bind the edge- I just sewed the three layers together inside out, flipped it right side out, and topstitched.

Good enough for me!

I was alerted to the end of one of 5's naps the other day by a very strange sound. Kind of a scratching, scraping sound. I was delighted to find that the little pumpkin was entertaining himself by reading the next chapter of my book!
He is already enthralled with books of all kinds, and sometimes enjoys being read to, but mostly wants to read to himself with help turning the pages occasionally...

I recently got the Johnny Cash Children's Album through our Inter-Library Loan program. I waited and waited for several weeks, eagerly anticipating such a marvel concept as Johnny Cash singing kid's music.
I was a little disappointed.
I should have known.
While all the songs were truly aimed at children, the subject matter was often just as dark and violent as the rest of his music.
My favorite inappropriate song was about a boy who loved his dog, and when the dog got old and he had to shoot it, he wished he could be shot himself instead.
Hmmm, perhaps this album would be best edited before giving the kiddos a listen...

My parents came up in the middle of last week and my Mom is here just a few days more. She has undertaken the arduous task of playing with the baby while I frantically try to get as MUCH WORK DONE as possible! You can see that they are both a little worn out from all the fun...
By the time she leaves on Wednesday, I'm hoping to have billfolds, and wallets, and pouches, and coin purses, oh my! I should have a product-erific photo for my next post.

While my parents were here, we took them out to Lake Superior to (kind of) see the sunset. It was far too cloudy to enjoy any sunset action, but we did get a few nice photos of us as a family (of which we have precious few), and the boys were brave enough to test the CHILLY water.

At Hungarian Falls the next day, my husband attempted to give me a heart attack. Luckily, there were lots of other beautiful things to see so I could just ignore them...
Five, as you can see, was neither bothered nor excited by all this thrilling endangerment. He seems to have figured us out pretty well already. Dad seems like a nut job, but he won't ACTUALLY throw babies over the waterfall. At least not until they can swim.

Anyone who has seen a picture of my son (and that would be about half the planet by now- thanks mom) would probably agree that he has a complexion in the porcelain family. Now that we are having the kind of weather that encourages (ok demands) that one spend hours upon hours out-of-doors, this said complexion is concerning to me.
I find that even on the briefest walks (like 7 minutes to the coop), by the time we get home he has formed tan lines in his arm folds. No burns yet, but I need to form some strategies ASAP!

Obviously sunblock will play a huge role in our lives in later years, but I'm a bit nervous covering him in anything that's not supposed to go in his mouth, since that's where EVERYTHING goes...

This past weekend, my husband came up with a fairly inspired solution, we took him camping! No, not really. He set up a tent in the front yard so 5 could safely play outside while Dad worked on his bike and Mom read in the sun. The only drawback is that it's nearly impossible to set the tent up if you are alone, like I am all day during the week, and we can't leave it up all the time (for various reasons, not the least of which the spider colony it would become if it were ever out of my sight).

The second our average temperature gets above freezing I start thinking Summer food- lemonade, homemade popsicles, sandwiches, picnics, cold salads with grains, the list goes on...
This week I made Summer tacos, so simple, so easy! Today I'm posting my recipe for the Mexican slaw that separates these from all other tacos for all other seasons. I've been catching the big Fred sneaking extra spoonfuls all week, so I recommend you make a little extra...