Picnic at the Nelson

What a fun event!
This year is the 25th Anniversary of the sculpture park at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. They have had special events all year, including this Big Picnic on the lawn a few Sundays ago. Again, the weather was just perfect, and Betsy agreed to join us!

It was also National Ice Cream Day, so we had free ice cream BEFORE dinner from Blue Bell. Lucky!

And we ate and explored and relaxed and listened to music. Hope they do it again next year!

Exploring the Plaza

We were planning to attend a friend's birthday party in the early evening, but the day was just gorgeous, so Erik pushed us to pull ourselves together and head to the Plaza to wander around first. The weather was greast, so we sat outside on the patio and had a leisurely drink and snack.

Scratch that.

We chased our children over every inch of that place and were exhausted. But, Pictures!

Easter season at the Plaza = time to pose with creepy statues. I don't know that we have ever taken Ellen there at this time of year, so she was loving it. She had a bit of trouble with taking turns and not barreling through the other kids wanting pictures but, really, if there is a 8 foot tall Pelican available, you should probably make it a priority to have a personal photo shoot.

This bunny's name was "Ellyn", which prompted Ellen to spell her name that way for weeks.

This posing was entirely her own idea, which I'm sure I don't even need to tell you.

Georgia is not impressed.

I mean, really ....

These steps hold a special place in our hearts - Erik proposed at the bottom of them. I'm not sure Ellen knows that. She did take it upon herself, after working up a sweat posing, to run to the top. #Rocky

On the way back down. She is too stubborn to not complete it, but got to the bottom and said, "Phew. That's a lot of steps, right?!?"

And, a brief (oh so tiny) moment of sisterly-kindness:

Instameet

Betsy has been participating in the KC Instameet walks for a while now and has always invited me, but I've just never made it. She and Erik both encouraged me to go to the last one and it happened to be a beautiful day, so I dragged Ellen along. It was really tons of fun and we all enjoyed it so much!

We have a kid's digital camera that Ellen loves, but I knew it wouldn't cut it for this activity, so I dug out an old camera of ours and miraculously found the charger. She was so proud of herself for having a REAL camera and really took her photography seriously - SO cute.

There were so many nice people there and we wandered the West Bottoms on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon - probably the best time to do that with a young child. :) Ellen did BEG to go to the haunted houses and we flat out said NO, of course, the she made us talk about all the spooky things that happen there for the rest of our visit.

You can follow me (mollylund) on Instagram, or I think you can see my pictures here. Or, check the #instameetkc hashtag.
Here are some of my pictures :

Teacher and student

All her idea, totally took this seriously

DNA-ish

Favorite girls

Subject of many pictures!

Proper form

Great murals in the West Bottoms. The artist of this one, in particular, also does all the art at Children's Mercy. Love it.

And here are some of Ellen's pictures from her camera:

Lot's of art direction from her, posing us here and there

And here are some screen shots from other people at the Instameet because I don't know a better way to do this:

And finally, my favorite. The first is Ellen's picture and the second is someone taking a picture of her taking a picture of us:

My biggest photo tip of the day? Have a child take your picture - you'll always have a great smile.

As we are

Several weeks ago I started to feel a pressing need to have some family pictures taken. You see, there is this little thing ... our family of 3 will become a family of 4 in November and time seems to be racing by.

Most everyone knows about Baby Girl #2, but there is still something scary about "putting it out there" and sharing it with the world. I'm a nervous nellie by nature, and by profession, but we are so hopeful and happy.

Back to the pictures ... I am our family "documentarian" - did I just make up that word?? - and it is a job I love. I feel triumphant when I capture a great picture of Ellen, or a niece or a nephew, or of grandparents and our girl, and it is something I want to continue practicing. The problem, though, is that I am never in the pictures. We are so lucky that Betsy feels the same way and is always taking great pictures of us, but she can't be here all the time for the little things.

Fast forward (and/or reverse) to our friend Becca Spears. Becca grew up down the street from Erik and she has been one of Betsy's best friends forever. She is a super talented photographer and the person I felt most comfortable with taking some maternity pictures back when I was pregnant with Ellen. She took the newborn photos of Ellen that we used for her birth announcement and we took some great family pictures close to Ellen's first birthday, but nothing since.

We don't really have family pictures all over our house, but it's more than that - it's making a record for the future. I love to look back at pictures, but I also want Ellen to have a record of her childhood and see pictures of herself interacting with both of her parents - that is a real gift, I think.

Soooo ... a long-winded way of saying that Becca came to spend a morning with us and just documented "Life with the Lunds". It was a more action-packed Saturday morning than typical, but did just include our normal stuff - breakfast / bath / clothing battle / dance party / park / playtime. We are so, so happy with the preview - hope you enjoy, too.

The Lunds - Becca Spears Photography

Friday Funday

Ellen and I had a little adventure on Friday to the Nelson Atkins Museum.  She likes to talk (A LOT) about mummies and Cairo and pyramids and Egypt and treasure and sarcophaguses (sarcophagi?) and bad guys. She first saw the mummy there when we went to the Chinese New Year event and has been asking to visit ever since. 

So, we got cleaned up .... here she is waiting patiently to have her hair dried. Yes, holding two mascara brushes - doesn't everyone? 

Then we finally got to the museum and went straight to the Egyptian exhibit and she was scared of the mummy and sarcophagus! It was a brief tour, though she generally did enjoy wandering through the other exhibits. We seemed to be going against the flow of all the school groups, so we had a lot of galleries almost to ourselves. Nice way to get a walk in!

And, finally an early lunch at Rozzelle court. It's such a nice place to sit and eat, and pretty tasty. Ellen was very reluctant to share her cookie - can you tell? 

In her words, it was a "very, very, very, very, VERY good day!"

Kale Salad

(true story ... when I typed that title, it aut0-filled in 'Ke$ha & Lund' ... who does Blogger think we are?)

Back to my point .... KALE SALAD.

Are you into it?

I am. Seriously. Game changer. (Life changer seems dramatic, but may, in fact, be true).

I first heard of this mysterious "kale salad" from Erik's mom and our sister-in-law who had lunch at Unforked in OP. (Photo courtesy of The Making of a Foodie).


I didn't know I liked kale until it started showing up in our Door to Door Organics box. (Braised kale and spaghetti and tuscan kale chips are some of our favorites - see right hand side of the blog for recipes). I was kind of afraid to eat it raw, though, due to the - let's be polite - digestive issues. Ahem.

Anyway ... they raved about the salad and it sounded so simple: kale, parmesan, pine nuts, panko and a lemony vinaigrette. My sister-in-law, Darla, started making it at home and then I asked her to bring it to our Christmas dinner. Her version was a little different - she added roasted red peppers and balsamic vinaigrette - and it was good. So. Good.

But ... here is the really great part ... I ate the leftover salad for about 4 days and it was PERFECT. Already dressed the first day and then I didn't do anything else to it. The kale continue to wilt a little bit, but was still crunchy even 4 days later. This is truly about the only way I can take salad for lunch at work without having to make it each morning. Because, let's face it, Never Happening.

I attempted it on my own over our New Year's weekend and the result was OK, but could be improved. (To be fair, we were working within the limitations of the Ozark kitchen). I sort of used a technique I found in this video from Girl's Gone Child (scroll down and watch the video). Cutting the kale pretty small and kind of massaging in the dressing worked well for the salad the first night, but it wasn't as good leftover, which is really the beauty of kale salad.

Since then I've made it two or three times and my basic formula is:
- 1 head of curly leaf green kale or Dinosaur/Lacinato kale. Wash and dry thoroughly. Cut out ribs/stems and slice kale into fat ribbons, then roughly chop, so you end up with about 1 inch pieces of kale.
- 1 red pepper, roasted over gas flame on stove. I find this to be a huge pain in the ass, but I love the flavor and the jarred just doesn't cut it. Chop/slice roasted red pepper.
- 3-4 carrots, either diced or cut into ribbons with carrot peeler
- handful of grated parmesan cheese
- balsamic vinaigrette (I just mix a smidge of dijon mustard, a little olive oil, a little balsamic and salt and pepper. Probably less than 1/4 cup for the whole salad.)
- I skip the panko and nuts because I don't think they last well beyond the first day, but by all means add them if you want.
- Toss everything together and portion out for several days. Will probably make 3-4 servings depending on amount of kale.

It is super good. You could use any ingredients that don't soggy or aren't too wet (like cucumbers/celery would get weird, I think).

Share the recipe you come up with!!

Finally made it

We finally made it to the Louisburg Cider Mill to visit the pumpkins. Oh, who am I kidding, we really went to eat the apple cider donuts.

Betsy went with us (volunteer child wrangler) and we met Marie and Preston - thanks for inviting us! The kids had a great time jumping off hay bales, rolling around with pumpkins, playing some pumpkin drums (?), and getting hopped up on apple cider.

Again, no cooperation with the obligatory pumpkin picture.

You, too, can have perfectly coiffed hair like this. It involves not taking a bath, getting kiwis and yogurt in your hair, refusing to brush it, and twirling around in your sleep. Voila!

Awww, sweet girl. You can't sense my exasperation, can you?

See? Keepin' it real ...