We’ve been so busy since this year started that I’ve been relying almost completely on PeaPod grocery delivery via an iPhone app for grocery shopping. I’m sure there is a way to use them and not spend as much money as we have been, but the method of using a saved grocery list and fast select shopping has led to a ton of waste. Wasted food that gets bought but spoils before we can cook with it and wasted money since I never take the time to comparison shop or look for coupons (which PeaPod does accept.)

So! Time for a change. But this time the key to success is learning from my big sister. She has developed a system of grocery shopping that is the perfect mix of coupon collecting, bargain hunting, smart shopping and self control. Those of you who know me will get right away that my plan is to add some technology into this mix to make it work for our family, but I’m on board. Time for a change that also saves us some change.

After almost two years of being primarily focused on helping the girls gain weight it’s not just the numbers on the scale for the wee kahunas that have increased. I’m afraid that cooking with heavy cream and real butter was just beyond my personal threshold for willpower. So, it’s fully summertime, the girls are nicely on the growth charts and bigger and stronger than I think we had even dared to hope, and mommy needs to clear out the pantry (both literally and figuratively) with a renewed focus on eating healthy and taking advantage of the lovely farmer’s market produce we have here in the Midwest.

As an added bonus and extremely positive life change Jordan has agreed to move back home and to take on several roles (big brother/nanny/personal assistant/errand runner and now we”re taking advantage of his culinary school education. Which equates to us having a live in personal chef who can whip up everything from the girls favorite turkey meatballs to some of the most amazing grilled dishes and sauces I’ve ever had. (That big smile on my face? It’s just pure gratitude. The girls love all the extra attention and with business doing so well, the extra help around the house is truly making the difference for us)

So, going forward the recipes are a collaborative affair but I can’t take credit for the implementation. We’re going to try to use the month of August to get back to eating really good food cooked from fresh ingredients that take advantage of the season. And who knows, maybe if I can get away from my computer and camera long enough I might even throw caution to the wind and add some exercise into the routine!

It’s my hope that having all this help will mean being able to post more regularly here and on the food buzz site (many of you have sent requests for recipes and updates and I just wanted to say thank you for understanding that life and work had to take the front seat until we got the help we needed. It still amazes me to find that there are readers beyond my family and closest of friends-we started this blog as a way to share the news surrounding the adoption process and then the transition home as a family.) I hope you will let me know what you’d like to see now as we make this more solid transition to just regular life. Well, as “regular” as life can be while managing a family and small business, that includes traveling around the world, can be.

Tonight? Grilled salmon with couscous and Harissa seasoning

Grind up 4 dried chili peppers, 1/4 teaspoon caraway seeds, 1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds, 1/2 teaspoon coriander and two cloves of garlic (we use an old coffee grinder) set aside.

In a big Dutch oven or similar pan heat 1 teaspoon light olive oil (I know. I miss the butter too, but I promise the spices make up for it and this whole meal has only a tiny bit of fat in it) fry 2 thickly sliced onions for about a minute then add two cloves of diced garlic. After a minute toss in multiple colored bell peppers (3 sliced into thick pieces) a chopped jalepeno, a 1/2 teaspoon of fresh chopped thyme and a large zucchini chopped into cubes. Stir it all and cook for about five minutes. Then add 2 cups of instant couscous (our local market has tomato and spinach couscous that is wonderful). Pour in 3 1/2 cups of veggie or garlic stock, 2 large tomatoes that have been diced and then bring to a boil. Cover the pot, remove from heat and let sit for 5 minutes.

The sauce for the salmon is pretty simple: (this works with tofu as a vegetarian meal quiet nicely)

Bring 2 cups of veggie or garlic stock to a boil, add about a teaspoon of the Harissa spice mixture you made. Grill salmon to just slightly underdone, with just salt and pepper then place in the pot of the still hot sauce, cover and remove from the heat and let stand for about four minutes.

After you take the salmon fillet(s) out you pour the remaining spice mixture into the liquid and serve on the side as a sauce.

The process of getting the girls US passports was far less painful than we expected, even though we did have to run around like crazy people to get certified translations of their birth certificates and adoption decrees. (Note that there were already certified translations of these done while we were still in Russia so that US immigration would let us bring the girls home and make them citizens….those translations were good enough for that process but the same US immigration offices wanted a USA certified translation for the passport process.)  I would complain or get grumpy about all that paper chasing and crazy double rules stuff… but we are such pros now after the actual adoption process that now I just ask what I have to do twice and in different colors and wait for the answer.

Mark will be shooting for the first few days, and I’ll be working at nights to keep up with post production on images for two clients and several web sites that we are working on, but seriously? Working from a beach front condo, 10 days with my little family, on an island filled with french food and shops and ummm rum?  ok.. Our great friend Swank Kahuna will be staying at the studio/house and keeping the four legged kahunas and things loved and happy and running while we are gone (she’ll also be studying her ass of for her Medical boards so SHHHH be quiet!) Remind me to use the word GRATEFUL as often as possible.

Beyond the obvious things like the girls getting to play in the ocean for the first time, a real family vacation for the 5 of us, the hope of a slower pace each day….I’m super excited about the food.  The combination of Carribean flavors and spices with French Supermarche living seems just about perfect to me.  The bonus of Chef Kahuana (AKA our son Jordan) being with us to help experiment with the foods and cooking options both on the beach and in the little condo we are renting just puts me over the top.   Did I mention the word grateful yet? (did I spell it right? sheesh I never do!)

So, now the mad rush to get everything in order and projects launched so that we can really enjoy ourselves once we get there.  I’ve been trying to prep the girls about the trip since our last flight with them was the trips from Chita to Moscow then Moscow to Chicago. Elena (almost 4 years old now) has recently announced that she is actually a polar bear.  She approves of the plans for the airplane trip but pointed out that she’d need lots of water to swim in. (Lots of water on an island vacation? CHECK!) Zhanna (turning 5 in a month) was mostly concerned about what shoes she might wear on the plane.  I’m not sure I can do the conversation she and I had justice, but at some point I actually said “Yes, Zhanna…if you want to bring the sparkly pink shoes to wear just on the plane that is fine.” (She wanted to only bring them and I pointed out that they weren’t so much meant for the beach and 20 minutes later I was agreeing to a wardrobe change for a 4 year old during travel.)

The girls start summer camp in one week, and now with Jordan helping us here at home and in the studio as both a personal chef and assistant life is really smoothing out.  In some ways I can hardly remember our lives before we started the process of adding to our family..and in others it seems like only yesterday.

This summer we’ll be doing some major garden experiments and farmer’s market gathering for putting into the pantry to make the next winter a nicer place to live through.  I’ll be posting recipes and photos from all of that in the coming weeks.  Nothing funnier than a city girl with a bent toward tech nerd trying to figure out how to preserve/jar/can in a manner that will keep the food worthy of actually cooking with once the frost comes back.

best wished to everyone for a great summer!

Keep in touch!

I’m not certain how long she was calling out for me, but I didn’t hear Elena until after she had gotten sick in her bed and then become basically hysterical. (really is there anything sadder than a sick, cold, sad child who thinks she can’t find her mommy?)

We have a monitor set up in their room, and a receiver on my nightstand. But I didn’t bother to bring it downstairs with me because the girls sleep through the night on such a regular basis that it’s only real purpose has been to hear the early morning “I need to go potty” refrain.

Both girls still stay in their beds until we come in in the morning, as if they were in cribs and can’t get out. That has always seemed like a good thing, until tonight. Elena needed to get up, but was afraid too. Once she was feeling better and calm again we talked about it being ok to get up and open her door if she needed me. Elena nodded her little head and said she would, but it was clear she wasn’t going to really do it.

And now? Why am I writing a post after midnight? Because even though, once I managed to get her bedding changed and to get her cleaned up and in fresh “jamas”, Elena was ready to go back to sleep. She has a new fear. “mommy didn’t hear me crying”. So about every 20 minutes since 10pm she has woken up and performed a test of the emergency broadcast system (Elena Broadcast to be precise.)

I’m laying here in bed using the monitor to hear her breathe and hoping that the last test at 12:20 am was enough to prove that when she needs me I really will come. But I’m not betting on it.

The dining room? Not so much with that fourth coat of paint. I can only hope that the stuper brought on with 24 hours of flights Mark will have just completed will be enough to distract him from my almost completed surprise when he arrives in the morning.

This has been a test, only a test, if this had been a real emergency you would have had no idea what to do. We now return you to your regularly planned sleep cycle.

So, that was 9:30pm.

First it was a cat that suddenly needed to prove his prowess as a hunter by “capturing” a small stuffed Koala and carrying it up the stairs to lay at my feet. He was of course yowling the entire way. That was 11:15pm

Then it was the tiny voice of the 3 year old over the monitor “uh oh I’m wet”. Sigh, I knew that last glass of water was a mistake. Naturally the clean sheets and were down in the basement laundry room. Ok. I can do this. Calm sad and oh so groggy child down, get to basement, get child cleaned up and changed, get bed made, get child back to sleep. All while doing everything possible to keep from waking 4 year old zonked out in next bed. That was 12:45am

From there it was the natural result of all that hubbub. Just as I got back into bed, and settled down, the dog decided he had to go out….NOW. Ok. Back downstairs. Stand next to the freezing door and wait for him to stop playing in the snow and come back inside so he can bring his snow covered feet back to my pillow. That ended at 1:30am

Ok! Now it’s time for bed….a few hours of sleep and then…the SOUND.

If you have an iPhone, find the “boing” sound effect and turn your volume up as high as it will go. If you don’t, try to remember the sound from Road Runner cartoons whenever a large metal spring was used to fling anything over a mountain {{{BOINNNGG}}}.

I woke up to that sound echoing over and over again up the stairwell. At first all my groggy head could conjure was the idea that a smoke alarm with failing battery was going nuts. But it was so strange
{{BOINNNGG}}}
{{BOINNNGG}}}
{{BOINNNGG}}}

When I finally found the old model iPhone we gave the girls to play games on (in a toy box under the dolls) it was on the last round of alarm from a setting that showed “count down 12 hours”. It would appear that one of the girls was playing with the clock timer function at 2:30pm. Since that was 2:30am when it went off.

Ummm ok, maybe if my heart stops racing I’ll try to get some sleep before the morning starts.

I did eventually get a few hours in, but the girls woke up early and there is no snooze button for that.

It’s not that I don’t see those dates as important,  it is that from the moment we saw the tiny pictures, and read the brief medical documents and background information about the girls in the referral packets that our adoption agency sent us, I have felt like the girls were part of our family.

It wasn’t like we flew all the way to Siberia to go meet them and see IF we wanted them. We wanted the girls to be part of our family, and our only fear was that some part of the adoption process, as affected by the incredible number of diverse and often times overlapping agencies, would grind to a halt and cause us to be unable to bring the girls home.

International adoption is not for the faint of heart and each adoption is as individual in it’s process and experience as the children are themselves.  I learned very quickly to ignore any book, “expert”,  web site,  or blog that started any advice  with the words  ”The rules are…” or “In Russia….”  There is no such thing.  Much like the USA, each town, hamlet or burg of Russia has judges who interpret laws and process in their own way.  There may be standards, and rules, guidelines and even laws to follow – but to be certain our experience in Far East Siberia would not be the same if we went back and adopted from Moscow or Tver or any other of the 100′s of regions. So I’m not going to take time here to write down tips or guides on adoption.  We were extremely fortunate to have the stars align in so many important ways, which enabled us to go from the first act of submitting our paperwork to boarding that last flight home in less than 10 months time.

What I can speak to is the incredible amount of adjustment and change and well, life,  that our little family has experienced this past 12 or so months. These are the milestones we sweat over, and memories we will celebrate. Perhaps when the girls are older, and want to know more about how we became a family, the date we stood in front of a judge in Siberia will be marked on our calendars, for now I choose to use the holiday season to be thoughtful about memories and changes like this:

Like starting off trying to parent a 3 year old who spoke only fluent Russian and a 2 year old speaking baby Russian and having them both completely replace that language with English in the first few months of being a family to the extreme of now not even recognizing words or sounds from their first language. We still have some funny syntax things that I think are remnants of the way Russian is structured, and the order of the alphabet continues to allude our older daughter, but if you didn’t know they used to speak another language you would never guess.

Coming home with both girls so underweight they didn’t show up on any growth charts. Their bodies had been conserving nutrition for their brains (a magic plan that nature puts into effect in times of emergency) so they hadn’t been growing, or having teeth come in, at the pace you’d want to see in small children – to now trying to keep up with our two robust little girls who have each had more than a 40% weight gain and grown more than 6 inches in one year (nothing like nutrition, sunshine, fresh air, and love to act as miracle grow for tiny ones.) Our youngest daughter is still really small for her age, and is working on catching up on those teeth coming in even now, but she is strong – really really strong.

The trials and tribulations of inserting myself as the mother to a child who for the first few years of her life was actually mothering her tiny sister.  When we first met Zhanna, even though she was obviously hungry and needing attention,  she wouldn’t take a snack or a drink from us without first insisting that Elena be given her own portion. She led her around the room and watched over her in a manner that let us know she had taken on the responsibility of caring for her sister and we’d have to earn that right.  I have used the phrase “you are not the mommy” more times than I care to admit, but it’s less and less often now, and the issues we deal with now are about being a bossy big sister and nothing more.

Memories of that first moment when we opened our front door and the girls began to scream and climb up as high as they could get on our shoulders to get away from our two tiny westie dogs. (At the orphanage the only dogs they saw were wild ones who came into the yard looking for scraps of food – the girls had obviously been told dogs were mean and scary and would bite you, as a way of being protected by the caregivers.) Now we have to beg the girls to stop hugging the dogs and give them a moment of rest, and both girls pretend to be puppies on a regular basis as they scamper across the floor.

The trauma of  having to put the girls through the battery of medical tests and blood letting and multiple vaccine injections so soon after coming home and then a few months later having to stay  in a hospital with Elena after they attached electrodes all over her head to try to rule out seizure activity as the cause of her suddenly loosing the ability to speak in multi-word sentences (a symptom that went away as fast as it showed up and has never returned.) For Elena’s part she was far more interested in the temporary tattoos that i covered her body with to keep her busy, than the electrodes and doctors and temporary confinement in the hospital.

Acknowledging that for our older daughter the extra time she spent in the baby hospital system while waiting for placement in the orphanage has at least slightly affected her ability to easily attach, to trust, to control impulses, and even to process information.  But seeing her face light up when her Daddy comes into the room, getting to share in her honest joy at every new discovery and chance to help, witnessing how excited she is when her big brother comes for a visit, watching her absorb new information, marveling at how fast she can grasp a new concept, and knowing that every day she gets a little better at taking a moment to think before she acts, at letting me actually be the mother to her small sister, and at letting me be her mother as well, makes it all fade away.

Realizing that there are some regular life things that the girls have never experienced so even the most mundane of chores or sights might still seem like magic to them. Sometimes overloading their senses at first experience – the first time we turned on the television, the first taste of ice cream or of COLD milk for that matter, playing in the snow (I know, you think since they were born in Siberia that snow would be a part of their world, but it turns out that the caregivers begin to bundle the children up in layers of clothes when the temp dips below 70 and once it gets really cold the children aren’t allowed outside at all.) Getting to be part of the shock and awe that they experience, the wonder and delight,  helps remind me to take moments, to value the getting there as much as the destination. Children do that naturally, getting to re-learn that skill has been a great gift.

Knowing that the incredible leaps of growth, knowledge and emotional stability of this past year are just the beginning of our life-long adventure in parenting.  Making the transition from approaching everything as a recently created/adoptive family to just family…  The adoption was an act, an event, a moment in time, the worrying effects of starting life in an orphanage diminish with each new day. Now it’s time to just be…

So during this  holiday season with the  chaos of cooking, gifts, tree trimming and family gatherings, and before the year ends, I just wanted to take a moment to remember what 2009 brought with it,  how far we have come – how much we have learned – and to try to keep the ideal of not taking these moments (especially the hard-earned ones) for granted.

We are truly fortunate, our little family….for my part, I’m looking forward to 2010 and all the promise and opportunity to make new memories the new year brings.

Hey Chicago! Haven’t purchased your tickets for the Share Our Strength’s – A Tasteful Pursuit Dinner Yet?! What are you waiting for? A discount? Oh ok, here you go!

Use the discount code “kendallffr” to get a reduced price of $95 (regular ticket price is $150). Enter it in the Discount Code Box when you  Click here to make your reservations online or contact Andrea Agalloco at 888.273.6141.

ABOUT THE EVENT

Share Our Strength’s A Tasteful Pursuit^® is a unique national touring dinner series that features the nation’s top chefs taking their talents to the nation’s hottest culinary cities to raise the critical funds needed to end childhood hunger in America.

You’ll be joining Host Chef Christopher Koetke for a unique dinner event featuring the Chicago area’s most talented chefs. The dinner will raise funds to support Share Our Strength’s efforts to end childhood hunger in the United States.

With Guest Chefs:

• Steve Chiappetti, Viand
• Andy Husbands, Tremont 647 and Sister Sorel
• Matt McMillin, 3Sixty Dining Intelligence
• Mindy Segal, Hot Chocolate
• Kristine Subido, Wave

Find out more »

900 N. North Branch Street
Chicago, Illinois

Monday, November 2, 2009

6:00 pm – Reception and Silent Auction
7:00 pm – Tasting Dinner and Live Auction

It’s going well, we continue to have nice growth in our regular reading audience, and I’m learning what kinds of posts are more popular and that writing about recipes that include peanuts makes some people lose their minds.

This process of writing for this blog has given me the head-space to really focus on the food we eat, how we prepare it, where it comes from, even what tools we use to cook with.

The past year was about getting calories into the girls and trying to be as organic as our pocketbooks and circumstances would allow.  Anything to undo and remediate the effects of the girls having spent the first two or three years of their lives eating food that had little or no nutritional value and that was produced and served in a manner that made the consumption of food a lower level function and not an experience to be relished and nurtured by.

The girls and I have planted and harvested from our own vegetable and herb garden, we walk to our local produce shop and, when we can, we go to the farmer’s market days here in Hyde Park. We bake together, and try new foods. Our Refrigerator and pantry are stocked with home made, and locally grown items that we pick with a level of awareness and intent that I never had before we came home from Siberia.  It’s been an ongoing search process to find sources and resources that match our desires to have the girls grow up with a totally different relationship with food and as healthy and happy as they can be.

One of the most interesting side effects of participating in the wave of social networking tools is the ability to find out about services and products and get instant feedback from people who can recommend those services or will tell you why you should stay away…in 140 characters or less.

My iPhone is now packed with links to foodies, sites and services that I would never have come across without twitter and other content aggregators, who make it so easy to search for topics that interest me.

Last week I came across a post on Twitter by Dana Joy Altman of Real Food Rehab.  I had been reading a few of her posts recently on HuffingtonPost.com – there is a great one on creating an authentic kitchen that matches my style of using things like the Juice -O-Mat and other kitchen items that are meaningful to me, instead of hitting big box stores for the next shiny item.  So when I saw her twitter post about a new service she is offering for a short time it made me take notice. She is offering Pantry and Fridge makeovers. Makeovers to help people transition from using so many processed foods to real foods.

Dana writes, “There is a Real Food Revolution happening in this country and my mission at Real Food Rehab is to help make it available to everyone, not just the self-styled foodies of the world.  What I see out there are thousands of people who want desperately to eat better but don’t know where to begin. I understand it can be intimidating to learn how to use fresh, seasonal produce, learn cooking basics or even throw together a healthy meal without falling back on processed and pre-packaged foods. It doesn’t help that we’re inundated with information that creates so much fear around food; irrational fears about fat and carbs, food safety concerns such as e. coli, not to mention the fear that can arise when we try to make significant change in our lives.”

The service includes up to eight hours of one-on-one time (she says that it’s usually split into two or more segments based on the client’s schedule) with Dana. You pay for the groceries and containers, but with her help I’m betting the end result will be a Pantry you can really cook and live from.  You also get a resource guide with recipes for your new pantry as well as a listing of markets, etc.

I don’t know Dana personally, but you can tell a lot about a person from their writing style and the topics that are important enough to them to write about. From that I can say that her approach is real, friendly and informed.   In her email to me she made a point of saying that her approach is pleasure and satisfaction based. “I am not a drill sergeant.” For me it’s her description of quality, not just ingredients but experiences in the kitchen.

The great news is that she has reduced the price of her service to make it more accessible.  Dana will only be offering her service until November, so if you are ready to get a fresh start, don’t wait until New Year’s for resolutions that you’ll break.  Give Dana a chance to explain her service and see if it’s a good fit for you and your pantry.

To schedule an appointment and inquire about fees, please call: 773-342-1927 or  email: info@realfoodrehab.com.

Twisted Sticker is a Canadian-based company that makes all kinds of labels and stickers that are super great, especially if you have kids with lunch boxes, water bottles etc. But besides having a most excellent name, it turns out they make custom labels specially designed for your spice jars and ingredient cannisters.

There is a pretty funny side story to how I found them. I recently asked several people to blog, email, Face Book post, and Tweet to help us promote our new Really Really Big Wall Photos online store. One of the people I asked was Natalie of Bake and Destroy. She was nice enough to post a tweet about our wall prints and in it she said she wanted to use us to make a giant version of the awesome Bake and Destroy logo, and within moments she got a direct message from the people at Twisted Sticker saying they could do it better. Har! I mean, who knew this was such a cutthroat business. Kudos, though, to them for using social media marketing faster than any competitor I’ve seen. She sent me a note about it, so I checked them out.

I was all set to be aggravated by seeing the competition but, Be Still My Beating Heart; look at what they have! Besides being able to select the background color and options for choosing from the list of ingredients you want labels for, you can select the font–

something that makes my day since I hate the font that standard labels come with. The labels are made of a durable vinyl so they’re washable, and they say they’re also microwave safe (I haven’t tested that yet).

Then, if you want, you get to choose graphics for them as well. I love the idea of using the skull and crossbones on items that no one else should be using, but that might be taking it a bit too far, even for me!

This isn’t a product review since I’m literally ordering my set as I finish typing this post, so I’ll just say that they look great online, and even though they tried to scoop a potential client from us using Twitter as a mad marketing tool, I think they have a great product line and plan to spend some time standing in my pantry admiring the newly-labeled goods as soon as they get here.

You know, things like flossing every day, getting at least regular exercise, reading a book – a whole book at least twice a month. Those kinds of habits.

I’m sure there is a list of habits I already have, that I should be trying to break before I turn 40 as well. But that isn’t what I’m ready to focus on.

So, I checked the calendar a while back and noted that I had 90 days until my 40th birthday.

That seemed like a decent period to actively change my routine. And if I can keep it going through my birthday it felt like any habit I have kept for that period of time I can keep for life.

Now it’s the middle of July. Basically I’m half way. Flossing teeth every night? Pretty much , other than the occasional work so late that morning comes before sleep (one of the habits to add to my list of -to be broken- before my birthday) I’ve managed to get into this habit by placing the floss pic thingys right next to the bathroom sink. Every time I see them I think well shit, it’s one thing to forget to floss but to see it and walk away? Just asking for trouble right?

Reading? Not so much. Unless you’ll let me count the dozens of times I’ve read good night moon to the girls I’m on month two and have only read 1/4 of Herzog and a third of a novel on my iphone kindle app. I blame Twitter, and Facebook, and you know, life. But really it’s just being too tired to stay up and read and having a dvr full of shows I’d like to watch but think will be a bit much for the 2 year old.

It just seems so lame that I can’t commit to even 24 books a year. Not physics books. Books, novels, fiction or biographies or anything without single sylabols for the “early reader” and a moon and cow.

I know better, I know that I can’t be a good example to the girls without reading for myself.  I know that the more time I spend solely in the land of animated characters the less my brain is working….

So here is where I’m going to track my reading list, with the hope that it being public like this will shame me into action, The goal? Read a minimum of 24 books before I turn 41:

Feel free to suggest a tittle using the comments link. I’m open to it all, my current book shelf is filled with books, all read before the girls came into our lives, that cover everything from attachment parenting for adopted children to the history of Argonne National Laboratory. Books by David Sedaris keep the selection funny and wry and those by Cormac McCarthy keep it vivid. I’m not a book reviewer and I’m not sure that my opinion about a particular book should hold any merit, but I like being able to keep track of what i’ve read and make notes about those books…mostly because my memory isn’t what it used to be and i have started an alarming habit of buying a book and reading half way through it before realizing that i’ve already read it…

I’ll divulge a little too much about myself and tell you that when the world around me starts to press in, starts to feel uncontrollable (I am a self described control freak) I tend to organize my pantry. I’m not speaking in some metaphorical code here, I mean I actually go through the kitchen pantry and organize the canned goods and check expiration dates on foods and sort through items to decide what I need to purchase/toss/cook.

In a strange way if my cupboards are a bit of a mess it means my life is running smoothly and I feel on top of things. A true sign that I might need to ask for help is when you slide the door open and you find the canned goods in some sort of Dewey decimal inspired order and all labels turned so that you could do a photoshoot without any prep time.

It runs in cycles with me. I can leave it alone for weeks at a time or I have to reorder things daily to undo any tampering by outsider hands.

In the past year my husband Mark and I started and completed the process of adopting two children under the age of 4 from Russia. We own and manage our own video production and photography business and already have a 19 year old son, 2 dogs, 3 cats and a 116 year old Victorian row house that is an ongoing renovation project. So adding the paperwork and emotional ups and downs of, first adoption, and now parenting, to the mix has led to a tidy pantry indeed.

This blog is my attempt at channeling some of that energy. It started out as dedicated to the process we were going through to bring the Wee Kahunas hope from Siberia, and now is about our every day life. Hopefully, it may also serve to be an interesting platform for the food porn images that I create, recipes that I test and re-test, share the resources that I’ve found for cooking-gardening-parenting-living, and possibly even help potential adoptive parents through the maze they are about to encounter as well as create an opportunity to form a bit of a social network of friends, family, and others, who fit into any of the many many roles; parenting toddlers, renovating homes, running a business or for that matter who just like to read blogs about the things other people are trying to manage the best way they know how.

I’m not an expert. I don’t even play one on tv. I’m just a woman who wears a lot of hats who thinks there may be some interest in any of the worlds I’m juggling at the moment.
photographer/mother/wife/cook/accountant/renovator/gardener/daughter/writer/web developer/business owner/homeschool teacher and you know….human.

In 5 months there has been a lot of experimenting with menus of course, and a lot of success and failure along the way (I think it’s like this for every parent), except when it comes to breakfast. Breakfast is always a success. We’re convinced we’ve been able to get our girls to grow so quickly (they’ve each added 6cm and more than 30% weight gain!) because their most important meal of the day, breakfast, is one they always completely and happily finish and, amazingly, one that’s even great for them.

I’m talking about Malt-O-Meal, which is what my wife grew up eating. I was a C-O-W kid, never had Malt-O-Meal at all, but my wife was from a M-O-M family, and she insisted from Day 1 that we try it. Home Run!! Malt-O-Meal with butter, brown sugar, and blueberries (the girls’ nickname for it, “mush!”, which they evolved from their Russian “kash”) is THE signature meal in our home. In the beginning, to help get the weight-gain ball rolling, we’d make it with whole milk, and even added a little heavy cream. Once their cheeks starting getting chubby, we went back to the regular recipe. But from the start, and even now, these tiny girls are putting away a whole adult serving of M-O-M each and every morning.

And so here we are, 5 months in to our parenting journey (AND the first morning of pre-primary school for our oldest girl!) looking once again at empty bowls, smiling, healthy faces, and full, happy tummies…theirs and our! Thanks Malt-O-Meal!!

The girls are still recovering from ear infections and the weather here in Chicago has been blustery (go figure!) so we have been mostly trapped indoors. And I’m running out of things for us to do.

Don’t get me wrong, shredding up the junk mail while sitting on the kitchen floor IS super fun, I’m just not sure how long the girls will let me get away with it as a project.

The routine is, well, routine. Bed time, wake time, snack time, lunch time, nap time, bath time, diner time…. All relatively predictable.

What is never predictable are things like how many words Zhanna will suddenly add to her new English vocabulary. Very important additions in the past two weeks include “more juice/milk”, “be nice”(which she is now saying to Elena about pet interactions), “rosie/apoleon” (the puppies who have gone from sources of terror to sources of comfort-she asks where they are almost as she wakes up), “bless you”, “wow” (especially when peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with no crust appear on a plate), “lola” (the dog from next door who barks and scares Elena-as in “NO LOLA”, “shoes”, “cool” (includes a thumbs up), “peace” (includes an attempt at two fingers up)

It blows us away how quickly she is replacing words- counting in English has started and letters too.

Elena has a tiny tiny voice (unless she’s screaching with crazy delight at something.) she will say more please, and bye bye and juice etc but mostly she let’s Zhanna speak for her.

In the middle of this past week we experienced a moment right out of a movie script. During the girls afternoon nap I let the pups outside in the back yard, when I let them back in Rosie trotted up to me with a kitten in her mouth! Yes, an actual kitten. At first I thought she had hurt it or worse, but after basically running up the stairs to the studio with a handful of kitten wrapped in a baby bib (I don’t know, I just grabbed for something on the counter and that is what I came up with) mark and I checked out the smallest kitten I have ever seen and found nothing wrong other than the terror of having a puppy carrying it around. We looked for the mommy cat and any signs of other kittens but found nothing and the weather was getting awful outside. . Ok, now what?! Our house is already a zoo with the two dogs and three cats and two children. The last thing we need is some more responsibility. And surely the last thing this tiny scared kitten needs is to be “loved” by the girls who are currently showing affection to the full grown cats by pulling whiskers and smothering them with full body hugs. Then it hit us, big brother, Jordan has been talking about wanting a kitten for his new apartment. An overnight stay at the vet for testing and a trip to Petsmart later and “Matza Ball” has a new home.

Sometimes I think our lives would make for a pretty good sitcom. Other times? I’m certain of it…

Back in the day to day we continue to find other unpredictable things, especially which foods the girls will eat. It eludes us since there isn’t a real pattern. Both girls continue to devour peas and carrots, green beans and sweet potatoes. Malt-o-meal is a big hit and so are scrambled eggs. But the home made sugar cookies were turned down with the same face you’d make if I handed you a plate of poo. Chicken and hot dogs are considered “kaka” and spat out with disdain. But tonight Zhanna ate 3 ounces of poached salmon. And the other day she slurped down cream of tomato soup so fast that it was awe inspiring. They both will drink only small amounts of the whole milk their tiny bodies need so much of, so we are hiding it in the “mush”, in the eggs, in the sweet potatoes, in the tomoto soup etc. They guzzle apple juice, and even the scary “first juice” for infants made of carrots and apple or bannana carrot (it has half the sugar of the apple juice and also vitamin D)

The TB test were read on Thursday, both girls showed no response to the special test given them since they had been vaccinated with the live BCG vaccine in Russia (often children adopted from Russia are given the stronger test by well meaning pediatricians which results in antibiotic treatments as a precaution). We are really fortunate to have a team if International Adoption Specialists at the University of Chicago Children’s hospital. (only 6 blocks away from the house).

So with that hurdle behind us we are on to dealing with Zhanna having to take medicine for an internal parasite, and poor thing has made it clear that it tastes awful- she swallows it all anyway with no more than some kind words of encouragement. 12 more days of that 3 times a day then we should be through with the yucky stuff.

We spend a fair amount of time each day picking out tights and shoes to go with the dresses the girls pick out each day. Zhanna would wear her fur lined boots to bed if we’d let her and she has found that even pajamas with feet will fit in them. She’s a trendsetter to be sure!

Mark and I are doing our best to navigate the white water rapids of toddlerhood. The not wanting to share thing and Elena tossing herself on the floor when unhappy is pretty eye opening (to the fact that their tiny bodies contain a world of emotion and plans and energy all bundled up and ready to spring out at a moments notice.)

But the girls continue to play together and run to us with hugs and pretend food and bath time has turned into a whole event of water play that includes mommy and daddy in bathing suits so we can join in. Zhanna gets so sad when we stop the water and dry off that we have to bribe her with baby lotion and extra time in the frog hood towels.

So, in a nutshell- Life is good, exausting, messy and chaotic. We wouldn’t trade any moment of it for anything!