As soon as he was aware we began sitting together and reading through stories together.

His favorite for the first few years of his life was Time For Bed, by Mem Fox:

“It’s time for bed little mouse, little mouse. Darkness is falling all through the house.”

We all knew it by heart after reading it three or four or seventeen times each night.

Then came Putt-Putt and The Bean Boy as he grew a little older. And then the Little House books, The Chronicles of Narnia, the Animorphs series, Harry Potter and then Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

There were many things in Zeb’s early life that I would rush through and forget to relish, but reading was never one of them.

Perhaps it was because of the memories I have with my mom, cuddling in bed together, her melodic voice telling the story as my eyes followed along the page or dreamily imagined the scenes she described or finally became too heavy to stay open.

She’d probably say my memory is pretty forgiving, but it didn’t seem to matter how busy she was or tired she was; there seemed to always be time for reading together, even if it was only a chapter.

And so whenever Zeb asked for a story or seven, I knew just how important it was to curl up next to him, to create those memories, to say yes as many times as I could.

And then one more time, for good measure.

Now, at 12, he’s spent many months not being interested in cuddling up together and being read to. And as much as I enjoy seeing him grow and change, a part of me was still a little sad at what I thought was the closing of a tradition.

I mean, I knew it would happen. I knew there would be a day when he moved onto other things in his life. But it still felt bittersweet, ya know?

So a few weeks ago, after a hilarious night of Uno playing, when he asked if I wanted to start reading Percy Jackson again my heart smiled as it melted.

One, two, five chapters…we still read until the eyelids get heavy (mine now, instead of his). We read until I begin to see words that aren’t even on the page. We read as we travel down the road, and we take breaks from our individual tasks to read together during the day.

And it’s only now that I see the real value of it.

You see, when he was a baby I read to him in hopes of creating a love of reading. I read to him because it was educational. I read to him because it seemed like the thing a mom should do.

But looking back over the last 12 years I’ve found that reading together had less to do with learning to read, or learning to love reading. It had little to do with teaching him how to read on his own.

In fact, it had very little to do with books at all.

Looking back over the last 12 years I can see that the books were just a tool to the real benefit of reading together: the time we spent with our heads on the same pillow, the discussions we had as the plot twisted or turned, surprised us or irritated us, the sense of connection that comes from simply being next to one another, sharing a common thought.

We create those bigger and more important lessons and experiences with more than just books. We do it with games, or movies or video games, too.

We, as parents, do it every time we prioritize our kids and what they ask us to do with them over our long day or our big tasks.

Maybe he’ll “outgrow” our tradition again some time. Maybe he never really will.

But since I’m never sure when “just one more chapter” will be our last together, I’ll keep my head rested upon his as he rests his upon my shoulder. I’ll keep brushing down his curly hair so that I can see the page.

And I’ll keep relishing in these simple moments, that are always so much bigger than I sometimes remember they are.

Today we spent the afternoon with grandparents, aunt, uncles and cute little nieces making, icing and decorating holiday cookies…and playing in the flour.

I hope your Christmas is just as beautifully messy, in the very best of ways.

Lefse (and now gluten-free lefse) is all about tradition.

Justin’s family has been making lefse (pronounced leff-suh) since I’ve known them (and for a very long time before that). Every Thanksgiving they pick a home, tote over their Norwegian gear and paraphernalia and spend the evening grilling what is probably most easily described as a tortilla made from mashed potatoes.

I know, it doesn’t sound amazing. But it is. And Thanksgiving just wouldn’t be the same without it.

But alas, I’m gluten-free and lefse recipes call for flour and I was a little daunted by the idea of mixing my own gluten-free flour.

So I cheated a bit, bought a premixed gluten-free flour, made a few adjustments to our normal repertoire and am pretty happy with how they turned out.

The Gluten-Free Lefse Recipe

One important note about making lefse: It’s not an activity, it’s an event.

It takes several hours to make  and cool the mixture and several more to cook it all up. So if you’re going to attempt it, invite friends, plan to rotate shifts at the griddle and the rolling pin and provide a meal (you won’t want to be waiting around for the lefse to be finished all night).

Ideally, you’ll want a few specialty tools for this (we found ours here), but I’ll try to offer alternatives as well.

Specialty Tools:

• Potato ricer (alternatively you can try to mash them by hand if you’re very thorough in getting out the lumps, or you can check out these ideas)
• Pastry board covered in a pastry cloth (I’m still not convinced you couldn’t just use a hard, floured surface)
• Rolling pin with pastry sleeve (or floured rolling pin)
• Lefse turning stick (or for this recipes you could use a spatula or a few well-placed hands)
• Lefse griddle, large hot pan or stovetop griddle
• Two large towels or cozies for finished lefse
• A few awesome “It’s Lefse Time” t-shirts or “Lefse is Beautiful” aprons, if you’re a true die-hard

The Gluten-Free Lefse Version:

5 pounds of potatoes, peeled and diced
1/4 cup of butter (we used salted; I’m not sure it matters)
3 tablespoons of heavy cream
1 and 1/2 teaspoons of sea salt
1 and 1/2 teaspoons organic evaporated cane sugar
1 and 1/4 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour from Gluten-Free Pantry (if you’re not gluten-free, use regular all-purpose flour)
Several more cups of flour for dusting

1. Boil the diced potatoes until tender. While they are still hot, put them through a potato ricer to remove the lumps.
2. In a large bowl mix well the riced potatoes, butter, cream, salt and sugar. Let this mixture cool to room temp.
3. Once cooled, mix in the flour. Form a few lefse “logs” and stick these in the fridge for a few hours.
4. When you’re ready to cooking, tear off a tennis ball size chunk of dough. On your floured surface, roll the dough out as thin as possible into circles.
5. Cook on a hot, unoiled griddle (between 400-500 degrees) until each side browns, popping any bubbles as you go. Place the warm lefse between towels or a cozy to cool. You can store them in the fridge for a week.

Some Notes on Gluten-Free Lefse

With regular lefse, you can usually make fairly large pieces (larger than a dinner plate), but with gluten-free lefse we found it would tear if we rolled it out larger than 6-8 inches in diameter. Also, if we rolled the dough out too thin, it would get crispy on the griddle. Lefse crackers do not win points for creativity in this family.

The edges of the lefse turning stick didn’t agree with our gluten-free dough, so I found it easier to loosen the lefse from the pastry board with the stick but use my hands to carefully pick it up and transfer it to the griddle.

And we found the gluten-free lefse is best eaten warm to prevent tearing; the cold lefse tended to fall apart at the folds. (The photo above was from lefse that was folded when warm, then refrigerated, then warmed again; it just fell apart – still yummy though!)

Next year I may try some different things to see if we can improve upon the recipe at all. But for our first try, we were both happy with the way it turned out. It tasted just like traditional lefse!

Traditionally lefse is eaten with butter, sugar and cinnamon. But my favorite is slathered with butter and rolled up with leftover turkey inside. Yum!

If you try the recipe, let me know how it goes!

What Thanksgiving traditions did you share this year?

My mom and I began working on this tiny house when I was about 8 years old. But we had left it just shy of complete and it had sat untouched ever since. As we were packing up our art room it became very clear what we needed to do.

So, Mom and I got to work and lots of glue and sandpaper and one funny trip to the dollhouse store (they have tiny Playg!rl magazines!) later, we finished it up just in time to gift to my niece.

Granted, she’s still a little young and the front door now needs new hinges. But it was fun watching her eyes light up and I love passing along something we worked so hard on.

More dollhouse photos here.

I also discovered something about myself – and it applies to all areas of my life: I enjoy things much more when they aren’t for me. I enjoyed growing my veggies last year, but loved giving them away even more than eating them. I’m learning to enjoy cooking and when I can keep my focus on giving my husband and son nourishing foods as a gift of love it becomes much easier. And for nearly two decades I put off finishing this dollhouse until I had another person to keep in mind while I worked.

I just hope she continues to love it as much as I loved watching her with it. Something to always remember me by.

And something to remember her uncle by as well…

This will be our last Christmas here, so we’re really trying to make the most of it. We hung lights outside for the first time in years and are planning our entire month with activities or events. Or, trying to. It’s difficult to find traditions that speak to us personally, in a spiritual but non-religious way, and also include plenty of time spent with family and friends.

We intended to start the Advent traditions off yesterday with decorating the Christmas tree. (Yes, we’re on the “real tree” side of the debate.) But we apparently got the National Lapoon variety of tree; the dang thing wouldn’t stay up! After nearly an hour of recutting and readjusting, it was bedtime for a very grumpy husband and a postponement of our Advent kickoff.

I’ve started compiling a list of ideas to run by the guys. Then we’ll decide together which ones we’d like to do. I suppose, we’ll likely combine some of these ideas or fill in any open nights with movies or stories or do nothing at all.

Here are the Advent activities I’ve come up with so far:

• Decorate the darn tree already!
• Christmas movie and homemade caramel popcorn
• Homemade Christmas cards
• Make pine wreaths from Justin tree hackings
• Making salt dough ornaments
• Letters to Santa Not this year, maybe we’ll try Letters of Gratitude & Prayer
• Family Game Night with friends
• Gift shopping with dinner out
• Homemade eggnog night
• Visit the Magical Forest (decorated park with charity proceeds)
• A children’s production of The Nutcracker
• Walk the neighborhood to see the decorations
• Make Christmas cookies
• Holiday productions
• Something to do with candles would be nice
• Homemade gifts for family
• Volunteering for a charity
• Play Christmas songs on the piano together
• Make pinecone bird seed feeders to decorate an outdoor tree
• Angel Tree shopping
• Making paper snowflakes or other holiday origami
• Read The Christmas Carol or other stories together
• Party with our local unschooling group
• Gingerbread houses or Christmas Trees made from sugar cones
• Gift wrapping night
• Sledding, if there is enough snow, or ice skating
• Christmas Eve dinner with family
• Stuff stockings and open a small gift on Christmas Eve

Any more ideas?

This year, my family decided to cancel the annual Easter Egg Hunt for the kids, cancel dinner and instead eat at a restaurant. Of course my first inclination was disappointment, something Justin and Zeb shared with me this time. There were just too many reasons not to join them; finances, our wish to eat locally and healthy, an attempt to break our habit of eating out, as well as a sense of Easter tradition and a restaurant dinner not fitting our ideal.

So, we stayed home with our own traditions and created some new ones. And for once, I didn’t feel disappointed. I had to smile. All day long, as we played or baked, everytime I turned around I had the urge to smile. It was a beautiful day.

Each year we do a scavenger hunt: a clue inside one egg, leading to the next egg with the next clue and so on until Zeb finds the basket at the end. These days he’s less about a basket and more about getting one good gift, which of course meant LEGOs.

But this was he first year he did a hunt for me! His clues were really good and tough and clever. And at the end, I had an awesome LEGO creation to place on my dresser (with the assurance he wouldn’t take it apart for pieces).

While he spent his Easter diligently building 1,000+ piece Republic Shuttle and Justin was busy catching up on sleep, I spent my time in the kitchen, listening to Ray LaMontagne, dancing among the dirty dishes, baking this recipe of hot cross buns, and reading up on their history.

There was nothing extraordinary about the day. But I had to smile anyway, every time I turned around and remembered the special Wonder of the day, and the quiet enjoyment spent loving what we have.

We met the family for dessert at my grandmother’s house, played amongst her flower beds, indulged in a swing with my niece and enjoyed a game or twelve. And as much as I loved all that, it didn’t compare to the joy I felt just being at home, doing nothing extravagant, and being happy about it.

And just because here are a few more of my favorite photos from the day (with a couple more here):

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We were blessed to have space and inherited their old piano. This sweet thing has been in the family for nearly five decades and now adorns my dining room. If you press down on several of the keys you can see the names of my grandparents and aunts and uncle lightly scrawled in pencil by a rambunctious 5 year old in the 60′s.

On occasion, Zeb will sit down on the piano seat his great-great-grandmother embroidered and play around with the keys. He has such an ear for music and rhythm and despite the piano being slightly out of tune, I love to hear him plunk away on it. We found a few “Teach Yourself Piano” books, which he loves to use to play Christmas carols in June or teach himself chords. But mostly he loves to create his own songs. Tuesday, he had sat down for no more than 10 minutes and put together a few notes that I’ve been humming every since. Perhaps someday (maybe even in his 70′s) he’ll decide to expand his piano skill as well. Until then I’m enjoying things like this that prove to my mom that her grandson is, in fact, a genius: