hi. my name is davi.

And this is my little kid. Twainy. or Tweedle. Or just Tweeds.

And this little Tweeds thinks he pretttty wise these days.

A few days ago, twain and ollie were being completely wild. I had to settle them down, because things were getting outta control. I said, "you need to settle down or I will have to give you a consequence". Twain looked up at me and said "I'm sorry Davi" {{{giggle, giggle}}}.

Who does he think he is???? He thought he was very smart and funny.

And then I came home from a baby shower one night and overheard Twain saying to John. "Davi's home!"

He sure thinks he's in the know. It's just SO odd hearing my name from him. Because my name is kinda odd as it is. And hearing it from him makes it even more peculiar.

But just so it's clear, Tweeds. To you, my name is mommy or mama. Forever. Ok?

teriyaki chicken {without the teriyaki}.

***updated. My sister Jess called and said the important factor for the soy sauce is that it's 'naturally fermented'...not 'naturally brewed'. I stand corrected, hahaha. Did not want my sister's good name being besmirched. Anyhow, the San J seen below is still good, k? So don't fret.

And today, I am posting another recipe.

I know, I know.

I have no business posting recipes like I'm some sort of kitchen show.

But this Teriyaki Chicken recipe is just so quick, easy and yummy, that I would feel unchristian not sharing it with you. My sister Jessica gave me this recipe but I might have modified it a smidge.

My favorite part of this recipe is the San-J soy sauce seen to the left. John calls it shoyu. We love it.

A few weeks ago, I did not even know about this soy sauce. I was cluelessly roaming the aisles of Lassens trying to find the most perfect soy sauce known to mankind. So I called my sister Jess and asked her which kind to get, as is our custom. From the phone, she was telling me to get something 'naturally brewed', while the Lassen's worker was working feverishly to fulfill our demands. They deserve a ribbon or something for puttin' up with us.

Oh and my sister uses freshly grated ginger root in this recipe, but I just grabbed some ground ginger from the pantry.

Here we go. Combine these 4 simple ingredients.

Literally it takes just a few minutes(confession #1. i was feeling a bit ambitious that day and used 8 cloves of garlic rather than 4. I'm pretty wild. I figured you can NEVER have too much garlic, right? Well guess what? You CAN have too much garlic. It was a bit spicier than I like. But still really good).

Are you wondering where the teriyaki sauce is added? There isn't any teriyaki sauce in this recipe! And it STILL tastes like teriyaki chicken. Very mysterious indeed, but do not question my sister, sensei Jessica, or else! Just kidding. She's as sweet as pie. I don't think she could hurt a fly. In fact, she will never ever kill an ant with her bare hands. It's a true story.

So, why no teriyaki sauce? Well, we couldn't find any that was naturally brewed, that's why. And I do what sensei Jessica commands. I really don't know all the ins and outs of cooking so I just listen to her.

Put your chicken THIGHS in the mixture(please, do NOT use chicken breasts--they will be so dry and gross). Put in the fridge to marinate for at least an hour--in my experience, around 3 or 4 hours for best results. But it's still great even if you just marinated it for 1 or 2 hours!

I usually make this around 1 or 2 in the afternoon and throw in the fridge for a few hours. It just makes my dinner routine SO mindless. And it tastes like perfection.

Put in the oven at 375 degrees for just 20 minutes! So speedy!

I think it tastes fab with broccoli and rice.

I use some of the extra sauce in the pyrex and pour it over my rice and it tastes as yummy as take-out.

Confession#2: I am currently sick of brown rice, quinoa and any healthy version therein. I'm hoping it's just a phase I will grow out of. In the photo above, I used brown rice. And the rice tasted kind of yucko compared to white rice. So every now and then we just live large and pour it all over some white rice. I know. Such rebels. So the moral of this story: if you are making this recipe for company, use white rice so your guests will like you more. I am partly kidding.

My boys love this chicken so much. Down to the last bite....

...it is completely devoured.

a jewelry stand and a box.

This is the sight I wake up to every morning from my bed: I spy a wooden jewelry stand on my dresser.

I realize this jewelry stand is hardly newsworthy. But. If a very pregnant Jessica Simpson wearing 6 inch heels makes Yahoo news...well then...perhaps you can oblige me and take a quick peek at my jewelry stand?

I got it at the Salvation Army a little while ago. I picked it up and was like, "Hm. $2.50...good price...but I might be too lazy to wait in line for one item." I almost put it back. But they were having a sale so it was even cheaper, so I ended up mustering the energy to wait in line for my piddly purchase.

And I'm so glad I bought it. Because it's SO convenient. My jewelry used to get all tangled and lost in my bathroom drawers. And now it's all tidy.

And one thing that IS newsworthy: my dad made me that cool wood box to the right.

It is so perfect and I love everything about it, especially the fun pattern on top. Very fashionable, dad. I actually want to put all my remedies in it one day. It's definitely calling out for the eye of a newt and tail of a dragon.

Thank you dad, for putting so much work and detail into my special box.

a highlight!

John and I LOVE hanging out with our parents. They are such delightful peeps.

When my mom comes up and spends the night, it really is one of the highlights of our life. It had been a little while since mom's last visit and so we were super pumped...Here are some highlights.

1. Joyful reunions! I could hardly contain my excitement as she walked through the front door. Thought I might cry. The 3 older boys were at school and so Tweedle and I were the only ones to greet her.

Tweed's hair is getting long.

More hugs as Calvin and Ollie come home.

Picking up Finn at the bus stop for another happy reunion.

Mom and Finn look almost transparent because I snapped the photo through my car window. So kewl.

All 4 kids, happily reunited with Grandma Del. My mom's name is actually Adele. And so you can only imagine what it's like to have such a famous mom all of a sudden.

2. When we walked outside, mom saw John's "garden" and thought she saw a tomato.

Or weeds and a tennis ball. Same diff. Haha. We had a good laugh.

3. SHOPPING! One of my favorite things to do!! Mom needed new earrings at Kohls. My ear piercings have closed up. Rude. So I can only imagine how lovely it is to wear some dangle feather earrings.

Don't ever take your ear piercings for granted. My ears were always allergic to earrings as a kid, so I never got them re-pierced.

4. Watching House Hunters and Property Virgins. I don't get any TV stations since I have no converter thingy. So mom and I jerry-rigged our own little ghetto theatre, on the computer.

Mom just may have created a monster. I could sit and rot my brains out all day watching these shows. But I won't. Just a little. Maybe.

5. Impromptu trip to get some fro yo at Yogurtland! Thanks for the huge treat mom! The place was hopping.

6. Waking up the next morning with Mom. Nothing better than a good spend-the-nighty!

Remember the white cat, Marshmallow? Mom is freakishly obsessed with her.

By noon the next day, mom had to leave...with a kiss and a wave...we shall see her tomorrow at my sister's house. It was the best of visits, one that I will always remember with great fondness.

7. And one low light. As mom exits, an intruder takes her place. The boys scream in horror and look scared to death. They shriek, "There's a weird bug in the curtains!" I stealthily creep up and see a slithery lizard plastered onto my ruffled curtain.

I almost threw up in my mouth. It was completely nauseating.

I had to call my neighbor Patty to come, ASAP, to rescue us from this creeper. Something about the way it just sat there, glued to my curtain, just really skeeved me. I'm still thanking my lucky stars that Patty had the intestinal fortitude to pry this sucker off. {{{shudder}}}

morning routine

Every day, it's a joint effort getting Finn and Calvin ready for school. The night before, I set out their clothes, and pack their lunches. Daddy gets them up and feeds them breakfast. And then I help them get dressed, brush their hair & teeth and get them out the door.

Then Ollie, Twain and I eat breakfast.

One of our morning rituals is to eat eggs, toast and applesauce.

I try to sneak some extras into the applesauce: Probiotics and Vitamin C powder. And when they are sick, I also like to add drops of Children's Echinacea(the brown stuff).

Ollie asks, "Is the brown stuff sugar mommy?"

How am I supposed to answer that?

"No honey, but it's very yummy, so just eat it!"

We all had some version of the flu/cold that is going around and so I was very busy mixing echinacea into their applesauce last week.

1. The vitamin C powder(Calcium Ascorbate) is seen on the left. It was recommended by our homeopathic doctor in santa cruz. I guess it's easy to just put some in their food when it's in the powder form. And it helps the immune system.

2. The Children's Echinacea is in the brown dropper bottle in the middle. It's by a company called herb pharm. Nice product. We only use it when we are sick though. I use the adult version when I am sick.

3. People often ask me what type of probiotic I use. For the kids, I use the Natren Life Start2, goat milk formula, seen in the right of this photo. They come in capsules and I sprinkle 1/3 of the capsule into each bowl of applesauce. This type of probiotic must be refrigerated(The kind that do not require refrigeration are not as potent and do not work as well). I buy it from Dr. W and she says it comes to her house on a refrigerated truck, so that is important.

For me, I use a probiotic called Trenev Trio, also by Natren. I also like to take a few other supplements here and there. Like fish oil and Vitamin C.

I am sure there are many other supplements that are super useful...but this is all I am doing right now. I don't really want to take a lot of things anyway, so that's fine by me.

Last week, I ended up getting really sick from the head flu...which turned into a sinus infection. I am slowly improving, as long as I just take it easy and putz around the house. These sinus infections knock me out and I am learning that I just have to cancel all my plans and stay home resting, if I want to get better. Novel concept right? Stay home and rest? But it's SOOOO hard for me to cancel certain plans because I feel so terrible disappointing people! But I am learning that if I don't stay home and take it easy, I pay for it big time.

cafeteria cups

For the last few years, John has been asking me to buy plastic tumblers for the boys and neighbor kids to use. I did buy some from target, but it was time to replace them. And I decided that if I was actually going to pay money to buy any more plastic cups, I would prefer that they would be BPA-free and dishwasher safe, etc...

I really had a hard time finding any here in town, so in December, John sent me a link to kidsmartliving.com.

John asked me to buy 4 different color cups. Each boy would get his own color cup to use for the day--to replace this mess that we have been looking at for the past year. This photo pains my eyes.

Seriously this random mess just stresses me out.

The only cups from Kid Smart Living that had 4 different colors that were acceptable to me, come from the Bentley collection. So after much debate I ordered them.

When they arrived, I thought they looked like votives and John thought they look like pots. We were disappointed with their shape, but I still really like the colors and want to use them, regardless of their pot-like essence.

I also ordered a bunch of amber colored tumblers for the neighbor kids to use--they are from the same online site, but are from a different collection. They are called Retro Stackable Plastic Tumblers.

When we first opened the box, my heart sank. They looked more brown than amber. I was just very disappointed that the color was not as pretty as the Bentleys. But the Bentleys are more expensive(not to mention pot-like) and these Retro Stackables are really affordable, and still BPA-free.

My sisters think these Retro Stackables are ugly, LOL. One sister calls them "Straw Hat Pizza cups", while the other sister calls them "cafeteria cups"... the latter I am fine with, ha. I actually like the thought of my kitchen as industrial as a cafeteria. It suits me.

And they are growing on me. I'm starting to think they are super cool in their own utilitarian way.

And I just clicked back on the site and was cracking up when I read the following:

Retro stackable plastic tumblers are the same water and cola glass found in pizza parlors across the country!

HAHA. So my sister was RIGHT. They are found at Straw Hat Pizza.

But we are just gonna call them cafeteria cups, k? This ends my professional critique of cups.