The Land of K.A. bio picture

I am Stacy, a thirty-something *cough, cough* (I am I really this old??) mother of two very cute, smart and multi-talented toddlers. This blog is my attempt at being witty whilst I detail the trial and tribulations of having two kids 17 months apart and surviving the ordeal. It really helps that they are so dang cute.

I post crafty/gardening stuff on Tuesdays, I host Theme Thursdays, try to post a kid-friendly recipe every Friday and usually post some photography-related mumbo jumbo on Saturdays. That's if I have time. Sometimes I need to sleep.

The rest of the week it is usually photos of our extremely photogenic children and the ruckus they cause in our lives.

Thanks for visiting!

stacy@thelandofka.com

Recipe Friday - Sundried tomato basil pesto

September 5, 2008 – 5:00 am

Since my basil is thriving right now (finally) I decided to use some of my herbs up and make some pesto.   I found a recipe by Rachel Ray but modified it a bit - mostly making a bigger batch!  It also only called for pine nuts, but I didn’t have enough so I added some walnuts into the fray.

Recipe:

2 cups cleaned basil leaves
4 oz - 2/3 cup nuts (I used pine nuts and walnuts), toasted
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes
4 cloves garlic
2/3 cup olive oil
1 cup parmesan romano cheese

To clean the basil, I put it in a bowl of water and allowed the dirt to go to the bottom.  Then I just take them off the top since they float.  Try to get water out of them by putting them in a towel to dry.  Meanwhile, toast the nuts in a dry pan over medium/medium high heat.  Make sure to move them around so they don’t burn.  Meanwhile…put sundried tomatoes in microwave safe dish with water covering them.  Microwave on high for 2 minutes, and then rinse with cold water.  I used a glass measuring cup, which I used again with putting the olive oil in and the garlic cloves.  Microwave on high for 40 seconds.  Put everything together in a blender and you get this, which is enough for two batches:

Cook up some noodles and you get this:

Enjoy!

By Stacy | Posted in Recipes | 1 comments         Show Comments | Add a Comment

Ah…rest!

September 4, 2008 – 12:01 am

Well, so far the vacation has been less than restful.  Instead of eating bonbons on the couch, getting massages and shopping, I have been working hard.  On Tuesday I painted about 3/4 of the basement, which is around 1300 square feet.  It’s unfinished, so the walls were a bit dirty and that is where I sew, so it needed a sunny yellow to clean up the place a bit.  That was about 7 hours of squatting, bending and feeling my neck pop as I continually reached up.  It made my woefully out of shape body a bit tired.

Yesterday my cousin from Phoenix came for lunch so I rushed around trying to pick up the place while the urchins came behind me and destroyed it.  He had never been to our house or seen Anya, so I wanted it to be looking nice.  Yeah.  I didn’t have time to vacuum, so I settled for it being just picked up and still dusty.  Then the kids threw a fit or two while he was here and I burned the food, so that was fun. Or not.  At the end of the day, Kai said he wanted to go to daycare after his sister picked on him all day long.  I don’t blame the kid…and really, I was right there with him.

At least Anya took a nap after crying quite a bit, poor girl got hurt doing something we have told her not to do about a million times.  I feel bad that I didn’t feel more sorry for her, but really, my patience only goes so far.  She has not been a good girl at daycare lately either, so we are trying (fruitlessly it would seem) to get her to actually L.I.S.T.E.N.  Oh yeah, and don’t hurt your friends.  This parenting thing??  Not for the weak at heart.  She has lost her taggie blankies (a.k.a. other limbs) until she can go a whole week without an incident report at daycare…which won’t be this week it would seem. >:(

Ah, she looks so innocent…

*****

I hope everyone else has something restful for today.  What do you have to share?

By Stacy | Posted in Photography, Princess Anya, Theme Thursdays | 21 comments         Show Comments | Add a Comment

A pretty present

September 2, 2008 – 5:00 am

On Saturday one of our friend’s turned 29…again. ;)  I hadn’t made a necklace in a long time so I decided to pull out my beads and see what I had to work with.  The necklace and earrings I made are bronze beads with silver findings.  I  couldn’t just leave it at that, so I made a satin jewelry pouch lined with velvet to go with it.  A lady needs some prettiness! 

Sorry the picture didn’t turn out too clear.  I should have taken it on a solid surface, but I thought the stone had a lot of the same colors.  Unfortunately they all kind of blend together.

I am hoping to accomplish a few projects this week while I am on vacation.  I am going to try to paint part of the basement, though, so I may not get as much done as I want.  I got all the many, many spiders vacuumed up yesterday, so I’m off to good start, right??  Generally when I take a week off, I keep the kids in daycare so I can get things done like painting, sewing, etc.  I try to be productive and get caught up with life.  I hope I’m successful!

By Stacy | Posted in Creativity, Sewing | 12 comments         Show Comments | Add a Comment

An impromptu airshow

September 1, 2008 – 5:00 am

As we were getting ready to leave for home last Sunday, we heard the roar of a prop plane engine pushed to it’s limits.  It appeared over the trees going straight up in the air, where it turned and appeared to fall and recover.  He (I’m assuming testosterone drove the insanity) did this several times, stalling out his engine on the fall at least twice.  :shock:

Somehow HE survived.  And Kailan was completely fascinated. 

By Stacy | Posted in Craziness | 14 comments         Show Comments | Add a Comment

If we don’t live in the country, at least we live here

August 31, 2008 – 8:10 am

We are so lucky that we bought a house near a nature preserve.  We didn’t know it at the time, but a neighbor informed us about it.  I wasn’t expecting much, but when we finally went to find the path to the lake we were pleasantly surprised to find a much larger nature area than we thought.

A few nights ago we went for a walk around the little lake, which is probably a few miles total.  The unpaved side has the lake on one side and a marsh on the other.  When we started down the path, it was so funny to see all the frogs.  There were tons of them.  So much that we had to constantly watch our step to make sure we weren’t stepping on the little guys.  It was dusk, so they were out in full force serenading us…and their potential mates. ;)

After I picked up the first frog to show them, the kids were trying to catch their own frogs.  It was a fun walk and we got home way late.  It was pretty much full on dark by the time we made it home.

By Stacy | Posted in Family | 16 comments         Show Comments | Add a Comment
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