What...we have a dog?!

E has just realized that he lives with mom, dad, and a big hairy creature we call Cooper. It is too cute!

Chicken & Waffles

After a long wait, our good friend Kurt has finally opened May's Counter in Tucson, AZ. 

 

Tucson's first taste of Chicken & Waffles from Rikki Mitchell on Vimeo.

an empty school

Have you ever wondered what goes on in an empty school during the weekend? Well this weekend I borrowed a school for a teacher training and wandering the darkened hallways we encountered one of those desert creatures you rather not ever stumble upon.

Was it a snake?...nope, not quite that long. 

A tarantula?...nope, but it did have eight legs.

It was a GIANT... DESERT... HAIRY... SCORPION. 

And that is the real name of this creature. A giant desert hairy scorpion

Yuck!

All weekend I made up stories in my head of the adventures this not so little guy was having in the halls of an empty school until we so rudely captured him and set him free outside - far from the school building.

Even though I had to work on my birthday this Friday, my "work" that day entailed accompanying a middle school group on a field trip, outside, to a water source for pond dipping and water quality testing! Not a bad way to start off my birthday.

Dinner at one of our favorite spots included a cheese plate, a bottle of wine and dessert. Yes, the cake was long gone by Friday evening!

 

Did I mention my new shoes???

 Thanks for the calls, cards, emails, and well wishes

xoxo

It's my birthday tomorrow, and looking to be a good one.

I got an early birthday cake

It even had the Ball fudge frosting, or at least a close imitation. SG handed over the recipe to a dear friend who attempted the elusive blend of buttery chocolate, but was more successful at the chocolate sauce. Maybe the mastery of the frosting will be my New Year's resolution???

Tomorrow includes dinner plans with SG, alone, presents :), and some more of that cake...if there is any left. If not, there is a bucketful of chocolate sauce just calling out for ice cream.

Autumnal Equinox

The last days of summer are upon us. We are still having a few glorious days of sunny, blue skies and 80 degree temps, but the nights are downright chilly. It won't be long before we light our first fire.  Here's a glimpse of our summer.

TO DO
chop wood
meatballs
bake bread 
balance washer & dryer
present for new big sister
visit new house!
visit new baby!

Don't you just love crossing things off a to do list?

Yes, these are real meatballs, that is how much I love my husband

oak!

 

we named him Cliff...doesn't everyone name their loaves of bread???

big sisters are superheros, right?

and then a couple of pictures of E, because I know this is really why you visit kickenbejos!

A Sense of Place

My entire job is based upon sense of place education, which is a perfect fit for me because it was out here in the west that I first discovered a real sense of place for myself. Although I love upstate NY and can appreciate its beauty, I love Arizona. 

Each and every time we have visitors, as we did this past weekend, it reminds me of just how much I love the place in which I live.

Nothing like a new pair of eyes to take a look at your home.

Camping, redefined

Once upon a time SG and I camped like this, carrying everything we needed on our backs

 also like this, with as little as we could get away, which seemed decadent at the time - I mean a hammock, really!? But the tent was still little, a two person capacity that fit SG, Coop and me in a very close and personal way. God help us if Cooper found a mudhole or cow patties!

But this Labor Day weekend we discovered a new level of camping that amounted to packing everything ERG owns and emptying our camping shelf of every piece of equipment we have. Cooper was lucky that he even fit in the truck anymore.

Sigh, the days of lightest and fastest camping are behind us for now, perhaps to return one day....


We had a great time none-the-less

Milestones

Let me set the scene...... Thursday evening, opening night of football season - Saints vs. Vikings, first half. SG checking on Fantasy Football via internet, KT and Nanny Kat cooking up a storm (Thai tofu tacos...yum, yum!), baby ERG kicking up a storm on the living room floor.

Kat: "Look at you doing tummy time!"
KT: "What! Tummy time?"
SG: "Tummy time?!"

The shock that may or may not be transmitted through this short dialogue is that when baby ERG was placed on the living room floor he was not doing tummy time. At the very moment each and every adult in the room was preoccupied with something other than the baby, which is rare, he chose to complete his very first unassisted rollover. The very rollover that he has been on the verge of accomplishing for the last three weeks. Apparently the stars aligned and he managed to combine all the right muscle groups at all the right time to reach this milestone...and we missed it.

However, like any good parents we rolled him back over onto his back and made him perform his new trick again and again until exhaustion set in and the bedtime cry began. The video is a re-enactment of the event.

Tamales with Nanny Kat

After having Everett, the term "maternity leave" seemed like a never ending expanse of time and space that I naively thought would be filled with the completion of oodles of projects. What was actually accomplished amounted to walks - lots of walks. And then, before I knew it, the middle of August was here and I went back to work.

Luckily I have a job with a flexible schedule that allows me to work from home. Every now and then I do have to venture out to visit schools and the eventuality of finding childcare was an unavoidable reality. In an unexpected turn of events our good friend Kat just happened to be living in limbo - between towns and jobs - and took us up on the offer of being our short term live-in nanny. How very white collar of us! Besides being a great nanny and a patient soul as we try to get Ev on a nap schedule, it was fun just to have her around.

So, inspired by a rare cloudy morning, freshly roasted chiles in the fridge and perhaps most importantly, a NAPPING BABY, Kat and I made tamales.

the corn husks

masa

cheese

freshly roasted green chiles

calabacitas

and the perfect package

during which the little guy did a lot of this