Today was so sweet, and one of those days where everything falls into place. I worked for a few hours while the girls were at school, then after pickup we went to the grocery store. Not prepared with a list, we did the usual - just grabbed what looked good. Butternut squash, some nice cheeses, rhubarb, etc. When we got home, L took a nap while Isla and I began to prepare the dinner we would bring our friends and their new baby. Sage and Butternut Squash Mac N Cheese
*Apologies to the organized types, there are no measurements, but if you try letting go, and just go for it, I bet it will turn out amazing!
You will need:
butternut squash (med. size)
2 T butter fresh sage (a big handful, washed and torn into small pieces)
a splash of 1/2 1/2
two egg yolks
one small container part skim ricotta cheese
a big handful of shredded mozzarella cheese
a big handful of shredded parmesan cheese plus more for the top
1 and a half c vegetable stock
olive oil
salt
pepper
Peel and chop up the squash into bite-sized pieces. Toss with olive oil and a little salt. Bake at 450 for half an hour or so, until soft. Cook a small bag of pasta (we used egg noodles) according to the directions on package while squash is cooking. Remove squash and let cool a little. Turn the oven down to 375. In a small saucepan, heat up butter until just bubbling. Add the sage and cook until just starting to brown (five minutes or so). Add the stock to the pot. Smoosh up the squash a little with a potato masher, then add the stock mixture. In another bowl, mix up the ricotta, parmesan, 1/2 1/2, and egg yolks, and a little salt and pepper. Layer (kind of like lasagne) the ricotta mixture, squash mixture, pasta in a baking dish (we used two so we'd have dinner for our friends as well as our family), and top the last layer with some extra shredded parmesan. Cook on 375 until the top is kind of golden and crispy-looking. We also made garbanzo bean and brown rice flour bread, chia-seed pudding, and a big kale-carrot-avocado salad, and put it all in a big basket. On the way, we listened to the audio story "Visiting the New Baby" (highly recommend! Check out SparkleStories.com, under the "At Home with Martin and Sylvia" section) which beautifully mirrored our afternoon! My favorite part: Isla mindfully picking the bugs off of each leaf of sage before carefully tearing it up into the perfect-sized pieces <3
play time on the beach,
a picnic in the teepee, garden harvesting, and painting. I painted with the girls and finally got some daily/weekly/yearly rhythms up on the fridge, above their art table. 
I'm feeling happy and inspired and grateful today, and now I'm off to study group :)
Every mom I know of a 4 - 5 year-old is going crazy over the same thing - kindergarten. We are lucky in Santa Barbara in that there are so many great choices, but it does make the decision really hard. I keep going back to the idea of homeschooling. Even if we don't decide to homeschool our kids, I really want our house to be set up in the best possible way for them. I recently organized the art cabinet, which makes using my list (see below) even easier. The homemade play-doh in baby food jars is on the top shelf with the beeswax, modeling clay, and crayons. The paint and art sets are on the middle shelf, and the stamping supplies and paper are on the bottom. I even went for it and cut all of the corners off of their watercolor paper and sketch pad paper. Feeling inspired...
There are list people and there are normal people. I am a list person. I can't get anything at all done unless I first write it down on a piece of paper. Of the many things I'm responsible for, momming is by far the most important, and so it is also the subject of most of my lists. I thought I'd share this last one. It's unlike my other lists, in that I don't have the day of the week specified. The lists I made which categorized activities by the day of the week didn't work for me, since much of my life is spontaneous (Will I get called in to work at the coffee shop? Or to substitute in the kindergarten class? Will the girls be invited to Brody's? Will the ocean be irresistible tomorrow?...) and then my lists would seem stressful and unfulfilled. This is my master list, and I just refer to it throughout the day. If we are in need of a good in-breath, maybe I'll check the art projects; if it's out-breath time, I might whisk the girls away to the tide pools, or choose an activity from outdoor play. To me, it's a list of inspirations, not a to-do list. It is a list of reminders of all of the things I want to remember to do, when they work with our schedule. Hopefully there's some fresh ideas for your family, too, and I'd love to hear your suggestions as well!
It is a little tricky at times to keep up a mamatoto group now that most of the totos are in school and most of the mamas are working. The nap schedules of the second crop of totos usually conflicts, and it's hard to find a day and time that works for everyone. Our answer to this was to add more times to meet up. My favorite of the additions is "Friendly Fridays," otherwise known as "Nature Toto." We try to get out in the beautiful nature of Santa Barbara every Friday morning and have done things like: apple picking, blueberry picking, hikes (such as Coldsprings, pictured), the butterflies at Elwood, The Backyard at the NHM, miniature donkey-riding in Santa Ynez, the beach, and White Rock. I am much less concerned with getting my girls in organized-anything (sports, ballet, other classes) as I am with getting them in nature. While organized activities can lend an atmosphere of competition, our Nature Toto has fostered cooperation (building teepees together, searching for treasure, playing house in the roots of a tree...) while still giving the children plenty of opportunities to develop their gross motor skills. And all the while they are developing an attitude of love and respect for our Mother Earth!
