The Very Hungry Moose

I'm so backlogged.  June was a great, busy month...which means that I have lots to blog about, but didn't have time to do any of the blogging.  So you can expect to see several new posts from me this week.

Ok, so Moose turned one at the start of June. 

I threw him a Very Hungry Caterpillar party, because he's a Very Hungry Moose most of the time.

We read the book, found "food" for the caterpillar in the yard (we'd hidden little cardboard circles with food drawn on -from the Hungry Caterpillar board game- around our yard), and then "fed the caterpillar" in a bean bag toss. 



(He wasn't there when we were throwing the bean bags)



Then Moose opened his presents.  He did better at opening presents than either of his sisters had done at one year...he really liked ripping paper.  It helps that he got really cool presents : )

It was fun having some of our local family here to celebrate with us.

Then we ate.  We had all of the food from the book-- fruit skewers, meat/pickle/cheese/lettuce skewers, mini cherry "pies" and chocolate cake (brownies). Lollipops for part of the take-home, and of course cupcakes and ice cream. (And yes, I know the head should be red, but I COULD.NOT feed a baby that much red food coloring).

Anyhow, it was a fun party for a fun little guy.  He's all boy.  One of his nicknames is Stinky Pete, because he's often stinky.  And he kisses with his mouth so wide open that I don't even know how to kiss him back (but he insists on mouth-to-mouth kisses so I just aim for some part of his lips and hope for the best).  He makes funny faces, and is tolerant of his older sisters and their "mothering."  He cleans things up well & likes to throw things in the garbage can (for better or worse).  He loves bananas and food in general.  He can be VERY LOUD, but generally he's a quiet guy...but he gets really chatty right before he falls asleep.  He loves to swing and be outside.  His hugs are tremendous, and he's always been a good cuddler.  Honestly, I can't believe that I am fortunate enough to have such a sweet little boy, and I love having him in our family.

And to think I wanted a third girl! 

Bastyr

My oldest sister is studying nutrition at Bastyr, and stays with us some nights (because our home is closer to Bastyr than her home).  It's been very fun having her-- she often comes home and tells me things that she's learned, which is fascinating (more often than not).

Anyhow, she invited my Mom and me to the annual Herb & Food Fair recently.  I thought I'd write down a few of the things that I found most helpful/interesting...most of it pertaining to feeding children.

They had a booth with some activities for kids--one of the activities was making trail mix.  They had bowls of various trail mix items, and each child was given a baggy to fill.  I thought that was a brilliant idea.  Lately we've been out and about more, and would often need to eat while we were out.  To avoid fast food, I was resorting too much to bars (like Kashi, etc), so I love this idea of letting them make their own trail mix.

There was a lot of discussion in one of the classes about introducing new foods to kids, and how to be more successful at it.  I commented about peer pressure: having one child like something seems to make it easier for the other kids to like it.  I have a funny video of Moose making funny faces as he kept eating brussel sprouts.  Clearly he didn't like them, but his sisters were happily eating theirs, so he just kept trying it.
Other ideas were to make it fun and appealing.  One thing that I wrote down was to get a nice washable tablecloth for the kitchen table--our nicer tablecloths fit the dining table, not the kitchen, and ANY tablecloth will be dirty in minutes.  I think that's something that will make the meal more enjoyable for all of us, though. 
other ideas:

• muffin tin Mondays, or bento boxes, or anything that "markets" the food for you
• let kids help select food at the store
• let kids help prepare the food
• honor mealtimes (keep to the schedule, and all sit down together at least for some meals)
• provide choices (but make sure they're all good ones)
• have a "what's served is what's served" policy-- no short order cooking
• include a winner with every meal (so if they like nothing else, at least they won't starve!)
• refrain from bribing, punishing, or rewarding with food

One of the highlights of the day was hearing from Cynthia Lair, one of the keynote speakers.  You should check out her site http://www.cookusinterruptus.com/ which has wonderful, wonderful videos.

She talked about the importance of stopping eating in the evening so that your body has time to get hungry by breakfast.  Breakfast like a king, lunch like a duke, dinner like a pauper.

Anyhow, it was a really fun day, and gave me some girl time without my kids, but it also gave me so many good ideas on how to better nourish my children.  Thanks for the fun outing, L!

Catching Up: Summary of May

As a Relief Society Presidency we made chocolate covered strawberries for all of the sisters in the ward as a Mother's Day treat...

We had a couple of days of sunshine here and there.

We had a picnic dinner at the temple.

I got a membership at a local gym, and we went there quite a bit.  I started having one-on-one swim "dates" with the girls, to get them comfortable in the water.  The membership has been great so far--I can exercise without someone hanging on my leg or crying at me, and everyone is happy in their respective rooms.  No weight lost yet, but it's felt great to have some "ME" time as well as to get a little bit of exercise!

We went thrift store shopping.  Chick made her first purchase with her own money!  It's this necklace. 

Shopping must have worn Monkey out.

(On a side note, I have pictures of myself at this age sleeping in weird places/outfits/etc.  Chick NEVER falls asleep on accident, so it's fun that Monkey does it!)

When Monkey realized that Chick got to buy a necklace, she wanted to use money from her piggy bank and buy a necklace too.  Then when we went back to the thrift store to buy one, she decided that she needed a purse instead.  A hot pink sequined one.  Pretty cute stuff, really.

Moose started walking.

My kids were cute : )

Just struck me as pretty.

Celebrating the new Marriage!

The party for my sister and her new husband was this past weekend.  Here are a million pictures from it.

The theme was woodland/eco-chic.  The decor consisted of moss, rocks, and tree branches, mostly. 

Mini moss balls and branches in the chandelier

branches and candles in the fireplace (I know, you can't really see it in this picture)

branches (and little lovey birds) in the money tree

moss balls and ripped fabric "streamers" on the ceiling

moss and fern-wrapped votives

rocks and moss mounds with candles

burlap and moss on the food table

Everyone pitched in for the food, and it was delicious!  We had compostable dishes to eat on.  There were stuffed mushrooms, roll-ups, cream cheese and sprouts on bread, a chocolate fountain with various things to dip, birdnest cupcakes, devilled eggs, water with a decorative ice ring, and spinach dip with bread.  Mmmm, thanks to all who contributed!

We did two games: the newlywed game, featuring the bride and groom and we all bet on how they'd do (they did badly, but really, who doesn't?!).



This was taken during the pre-Newlywed game questionaire.
It looks like it's about to come to blows
but to the best of my knowledge it did NOT.

 

and "A to Z" with Melinda & Robert/wedding/love themed topics.  The winning token was on "Y Honeymoon location: Yemin."  Because we all want to go to Yemin on our honeymoons.

The game prizes were plants in burlap bags.

Everyone seemed to have a good time.

 

Everyone had feet.

It was even fun when Moose threw up on my nephew Jake  (who was a good sport about it).  (Moose also threw up on Grandma during the party set-up.  And on Daddy the next morning.  He's the one that got the ball rolling...we've had vomit ever since, but lets focus on the party, shall we?).

Special thanks to my friends: Heidi for the AtoZ game, Rachel for the chocolate fountain, and Denise for the branches!

Eating a Rainbow

The other day I thought it would be fun to add a bit of artistry to our smoothies.

We made a rainbow
(though we didn't exactly have B.I.V.  because I only had blueberries and grapes for that end of the spectrum).

The girls loved it.

Of course, when all blended together it was brown,
because that's what you get when you mix all of your watercolor paints together, right?

Tasted good though.

HI!

I only have a minute, but I miss blogging : (

I mentioned in my last post that I was working on the downstairs.  Still no "after pictures," but today I did some of the color painting.  It's a light avocado color (I don't think the swatch shown is green enough, but maybe it's just my computer?).  It'll be paired with a robins egg blue.  The actual color names are: Greentree and Wintergreen Ash.  Whatever.  Anyhow, most of the room is a creamy white, but there are accents in these colors.  I'm pretty excited.

I knew in my head that I wanted a blue-green-(slight)yellow palatte (I like the peaceful analogous combination--it reminds me of an impressionist pastoral painting).  I found fabric for the curtains, but hesitated.  Now the fabric is nowhere to be found.  I bought solid fabric and am going to paint the stripes on.  Wish me luck.  Seriously.  I'm nervous.

The party for my sister...oh, I haven't mentioned that.  My sister recently got married and isn't having a reception.  So I volunteered to throw a family party for her.  I didn't want it here, but for lack of a better space.... Anyhow, that's what started all of the work downstairs-- if we can fix it up down there then we'll double our party space.  Anyhow, here's the invitation that I designed for it:

Ok, so the party, is in less than a week and a half.  eeeeee.  I'm excited, but have much to do before then.  I'm actually considering hiring a cleaning lady for a few hours.

I haven't started teaching the kids Italian yet, but I have exposed them to more Italian than before, and it's been fun to hear some Italian "jibberish" being spoken.

I found a compromise for the recliner.  I'm replacing the missing spring, and I ordered a slipcover today.  Cross your fingers.  I hope HH appreciates my efforts : )  Stay tuned for "after" pictures of that too.

Since it wouldn't be a proper post without pictures of my kids:
Monkey stuck a bobby pin into an electrical outlet and burned her fingers (& a spot of the carpet).  I'm really glad that that's all that got damaged and that she's fine otherwise.  Scary.  We now have the annoying plug covers on all accessible outlets.

Speaking of bobby pins: Chick was holding a bobby pin and said that she was going to pretend that it was a "smoke stick."  She said the girl on "The Trouble with Angels" had a smoke stick.  At another point in the day she said, "I'm going to kill myself."  Turns out it was a quote from that same movie.  The movie is now banned.

I'm just waiting for Moose to choke on a bobby pin, and then I will ban those too.

The kids had a tent and fort set up while I did my monthly layout.  I always think their play is cutest when I'm supposed to be working.

To redeem the above stories about Chick: she gave her first talk in primary on Sunday and did a fabulous job.  She's a good public speaker.

(Next year Monkey will be a sunbeam, and I'm dreading when she is assigned a talk.  There's no way that she'll do anything of the kind.)

Well, I guess I gotta get to bed.  Tomorrow is a trial day at the gym, shopping for stuff for the party, making soup and bread, and a blue painting day : )