Pancakes and Butterflies

Pancakes are a weekend tradition around here. Actually, the two houses tend to battle over who makes the better pancakes (I should clarify - Ross battles...Tommy doesn't know it's a competition yet). And I'm just happy to get pancakes mostly!

Should we call it "Hole in the Fence," or "The Secret Garden"? 

 On Saturdays, we go through the secret door in our backyard and have breakfast at my sister's place. How cool is that? Our yards connect, which is possibly the neatest thing ever. Eventually I'll get to telling that story, of how we found our home, and then how she found hers. We have big plans for that yard, but for now, the fence just has a few missing boards, and with a quick climb through the ivy and over a garden-gone-wild, we can be in each other's yards.

 So, most Saturday mornings, that's just what my little family does. In our pajamas, we head through our little backyard portal and arrive at "Auntie's House," which usually already smells like pancakes and bacon. All 5 of us crowd into the little breakfast nook in her adorable, black-and-white tiled kitchen. Emmett sits on books, in between his "dahdee" and his "tahmee," and pretty gleefully eats his "pancheeks" with dip (which is what he calls ALL condiments...ketchup, mustard, sriracha, maple syrup, etc).

Boys side versus girls side

Tomorrow, Ross will make pancakes again, but it'll just be the three of us. Which is nice, but it's not this silly dream-come-true of a little family compound that we're living on Saturday mornings. Every once in a while, I try my hand at pancakes, but I almost always go for the Swedish version, like this one I pinned. Being 1/4 Swedish by marriage and family legend, I know a good Swedish pancake when I have one. If there's not a lot of butter and a little bit of sugar, they're not right. And this recipe has both.

Also, tomorrow, we're heading off to the art store to make some big purchases. Blick's having a big sale, and Ross needs new colors, and more paper, because dang, has that guy been working. We decided to launch this business 3 days ago, and he's already got one near-completed work and two more in progress. I've been sneaking around the house snapping pictures of his paintings, and I love being able to share the progression of his works. I think he was inspired by our niece, who has a butterfly bedroom. Thinking about what parents might want to decorate their kids' rooms with, and while reading the wonderful The Very Hungry Caterpillar to our kiddo, he was inspired to create this watercolor and colored pencil piece, which is now our first item for sale on our Etsy store! Click here to buy

A Beautiful Butterfly