Another post in our First on Friday series where we share a new experience from the week (or, in this case, from last week!).

Here’s my daughter playing with Uncle Lee’s band, The Honey Gitters, at a brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Yes, she’s really playing. Well, Lee and her are both holding the drumsticks, but she’s holding on tight!

Earlier in the evening, cheering with Gramma from “back stage:”

Singing along or, more accurately, making up her own lyrics:

When she wasn’t hanging in a brewery, she was playing pool at Uncle Lee’s house:

Where else can you climb upon the pool table?!

Good times with the Leyba boys. She loved it!

We’ve been busy crafting over here (as always!). Here’s a glimpse at what Miss Leyba and I have been working on lately. All works in progress!

Mini wreaths wrapped with red shiny thread and bells.


Pine cones painted with silver acrylic paint. Think holiday ornaments. In progress. VERY in progress.

I beg you, please leave a comment answering this very important question: Should we add glitter to the pine cones or would that be overkill?!

I can’t decide. Really. I have no idea.

Miss Leyba would probably say, “Go for it, Mom. We love glitter.”

What do you think?

A trip down memory lane…

In our recap of our Colorado trip, we’re still at Garden of the Gods. (Day 2 of our trip!)

Two years ago, when she was nine months old, my daughter was not yet walking and she never once looked up to notice the giant rocks surrounding us:

Movie: Garden of the Gods #2 (Colorado Springs, Colorado) from Carrie on Vimeo.

This time she saw the park from a totally different perspective and loved the red rocks. Some things didn’t change though. Here is she enjoying the same spot, the exact same rock, in the park:

Movie: Garden of the Gods 2010 from Carrie on Vimeo.

This fall we grew potatoes for the first time. We messed up every step along the way: we planted them too late; we didn’t buy starts, instead relying on sprouted potatoes from our pantry; we planted the potatoes whole instead of cutting them up; and we were away for the first frost and didn’t insulate our potato crop with the frost cover.

Coming home from vacation, we found our potato plants completely dead. Could we even still harvest the potatoes? We had no idea what to expect below ground.

To say we were pleasantly surprised would be a gross understatement:

The toddler was gleeful as we found more and more potatoes:

In true Miss Leyba fashion though, she was completely focused on the task at hand and wouldn’t consider smiling for a photo. Removing potatoes from the ground is serious business!

See, a lovely little purple potato crop.

Now my daughter is talking nonstop about dinner and how tasty these potatoes will be!

Too bad we’re having Noddle Salad with Ginger Peanut Dressing tonight instead. (Already prepped and ready to go!)

I suppose we’ll be eating potatoes with dinner tomorrow…

For a quick, healthy meal, we like this easy Edamame Salad adapted from a Sunset Magazine recipe.

Edamame Salad
Prep Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
2 teaspoons wheat-free tamari or soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon Asian chili garlic sauce (found on the specialty aisle of many supermarkets and in all Asian markets), optional
1 pound shelled edamame, cooked and cooled
3 green onions, thinly sliced
1/3 cup chopped mint
1/2 cup sliced almonds

Preparation
In a small bowl, whisk together sesame oil, rice vinegar, soy sauce, and chili sauce. Set aside. In a large bowl, combine edamame, green onions, mint, and almonds. Toss with dressing to coat.

Spritzer Leyba Variations
We add cooked (and cooled) quinoa or quinoa-corn pasta to this recipe to make it more hardy. We also like to toss roasted sesame seeds in for protein and more crunch; try using black sesame seeds for a colorful punch!

A trip down memory lane…

In 2008 at Garden of the Gods in Colorado:

Last week, almost exactly two years later (this time with Gramma):

My, how she’s grown!

And, yes, we’ve been away on vacation! More on that soon…

Inspired by the miriad of Life Lists floating around the web, I feel compelled to create a list of books to read before I turn 40 (in just over nine years).

On this list are books that I’ve always wanted to read, books that I feel I need to read, books that sound like a lot of fun, books that are thought provoking, books that I own but haven’t cracked open, books that I read once upon a time but can’t remember, and books I started or have read excerpts from, but never finished.

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

1. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring
2. Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights
3. On the Origins of Species by Charles Darwin
4. Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx (currently reading)
5. Richard Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth
6. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
7. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
8. Grow Great Grub by Gayla Trail
9. Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs ans Steel
10. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt
11. Sharon Shinn’s The Shape-Changer’s Wife
12. A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (yet to be written, due to be published in 2012)

Clearly I have many more books to add to this list and so I need your help! Do you have any suggestions? What must-read books would you recommend?

Most importantly, please don’t suggest any heartbreaking books! Real life (in the news! on the radio!) is depressing enough, I don’t need to cry while reading. (Unless it’s happy romantic tears. I am completely okay with those!)

I’m excited to see what you suggest.