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happy valentine's day everyone! i had grand plans of making lots of beautiful valentines with gigi and sending them to everyone we knew. we made a couple. it just kept slipping my mind. maybe it's because i'm still not really getting enough sleep. normally (when not pregnant or caring for an infant) 8 hours is just enough and anything less than that leaves me feeling flat. last night i got 6.5 hours and feel like it was amazing. dino slept 6.5 hours straight which is partly why it felt so good. he woke up at 4:45 this morning and i knew that i wasn't going to go back to sleep. i changed him and nursed him but my mind had already turned on for the day. vincent gets up at 5 and gigi has been waking around 6, so i knew the day would be starting soon. i thought about how i could get up and do some yoga, or more realistically fold some laundry. i ended up doing neither and opting instead of sip tea and read blogs, a lovely start to the day.

anyway, we did a little crafting with baby brother in the bouncy chair while a pot of chicken broth simmered on the stove in the afternoon. i have run out of my stash of homemade stock and have been using store bought instead. it really isn't the same. not at all.

we are thinking about cutting out refined sugar and refined flour for a while. i'm going to miss pasta. and what about our weekly pizza night? does anyone have a good whole grain pizza dough recipe? i have been experimenting a bit lately to see what we will be able to eat. my most recent success are these blueberry muffins made with whole wheat pastry flour and sweetened with maple syrup. we all liked them! i sure wish maple syrup was as cheap as sugar.

lastly, i noticed that the pinecones on our nature table have bloomed. last week they were tight and smooth, but now they are open and ready to shake their seeds out.