When a mama has a posse...

... that mama runs fast. Reasons running with the kids (as they bike) is fun:

1. It's so cool to have a pace team. Go, mama! (Seriously: people got out of our way. We were a force of nature. I doubt it was righteous fear on their part as much as healthy self-preservation, but I so rarely get a chance menace the general walking public.)

2. It is finally spring, we can be outside, and there is nothing nicer than the fresh, green outdoors with my delightful, energetic kids.

3. Their slowest bike pace>my fastest foot pace, so I got a workout. Also my endurance>their endurance, so they were usually either well ahead of or well behind me. So they got a workout. (We did a pretty solid three miles.)

4. Peter has a great future as a coach, which I am nurturing by volunteering to be his first, um, subject. He kept encouraging me to sprint, and then when I did, despite my best efforts (and despite the fact that for this brief period I was faster than he was), he was unimpressed. "Mama, you call that a sprint? Your hands are supposed to be like this [hands unclenched] when you sprint!" Sigh. Mama sprint fail. Peter coach win. Mama will attend to her form.

5. The full moon, visible in the late afternoon sky as we walked home up the hill, was simply gorgeous.

6. Rabbits! Birds of prey! Trees! Spring! all on display. Usually I come home from a run with a summary of whom, and what, I've seen, but the kids in tandem notice far more than I do alone.

7. Grace will totally carry your gear if you need to slip off that long-sleeved tech hoodie three minutes in. And, when you do, leaving yourself clad in a long-sleeved purple tech top and a bright blue running skirt, and pink sneakers, her usual colorful ensemble will make you blend in rather than stand out. A keen sartorial sense, has my child.

8. I'd recently loaded "Spirit in the Sky" onto my iPod (I listened with only one earbud, fyi, so that I could also chat with the kids) and it came on as we were finishing, and I played it a few times, so my memory of that song is now indelibly fixed to that series of moments, in the spring air, fresh from running and happily connected with my sweethearts. (Plus the theologian in me is amused by the image of Jesus being one's reference when appealing to the Spirit... I should slip his name onto my CV. Although if Jesus has email, I'm not privvy to the address.)

Finally, we make savory food...

We use our pasta maker - oh, about twice every ten years, it turns out. I think we'll make pasta more often after yesterday's success, though. Fairly easy to make the dough, although it took me two tries, and then the kids really enjoyed the process of rolling the dough through the machine (a gorgeous hand-crank job that is, as Grace noted, from Italy.)

We filled the pasta with pesto, but could have used something more substantive, like cooked sausage, or maybe cheese, or a cheese/tomato mix, or... you name it. Next time I'd like to make lasagne noodles, since they're easier, and it would be fun to experiment a bit. We found that each ravioli needed to be very firmly tamped around the edges or the pesto leaked out, but about 90% of ours held together nicely. I'd like to try a simple farfalle, but I'm not sure how to get the shape to hold together. (I would guess that google might be able to teach me that little trick, possibly even providing video, since that seems to be how all the cool kids are learning these days.)

Not pictured: our beautiful weather, destined to be short-lived this week since we're expecting snow tomorrow. But spring is headed our way; we can tell by the tulips peeking out, and the snow melting, and the birds taking a gander at the new wreath hanging on our front porch, and the ever-important emergence of the peep-toe shoe from the closet. Also not pictured: mama's haircut, which yesterday was way, way foofy in a somewhat alarming way, but which today has calmed down into a perfectly nice short spring cut.

Next up on the Spring Break Blogging Bonanaza: the outside! and its cool spring tricks of growing stuff, again! And (if I can get good images) the kids' newspaper, which they made under the editing supervision of my beloved workstudy student Brittney, which is so hilarious that I can't do it justice with mere words. Also upcoming: Easter! Including mimosas at brunch, I think, since I have (mostly successfully) given up alcohol for Lent and it has been A Long Damn Month.

Spring. We're ready.

And... still more cake.

So this is perhaps not a representative sample of our daily living, but we did indeed eat cake again, this time cheesecake. Behold: it starts with cream cheese! and granola crust! And requires a lemon zester and a springform pan. This is one cheesecake that always turns out beautifully, and we topped it with a great blueberry compote. Those are, attentive blog viewers will note, the birthday dishes, because it happens that the second-oldest denizen of our corner of the world... is now a leeetlee bit older. Ah, 35. So far, so good. It was very much the highlight of the day that our beloved honorary cousin, the fabulous Dorothy, now has a brother, born on my birthday. Now *that* is a friend who really loves you!

The days are getting longer, and warmer, here - I had a nice good run outside on Saturday and am thinking about a cheap local 10K next Saturday. Spring is not around the corner, exactly, but it's across the street and down the block a bit, browsing in some shop window, not noticing our impatient foot-tapping. The kids are now accustomed to thinking of 34 degrees as "warm out" and play pretty well in the snow still, although the novelty has long worn off. But as we endure, we're holding out for better things, and it looks like it might pay off yet.