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!

In the past few days...

On Thursday/Friday I went out on the Penninsula for a visit with Lia. She taught me free-motion quilting. I didn't get around to taking many pictures...just this one: Annika giving Chick a violin lesson (so sweet!). Chick is also wearing one of their dresses, because she can't resist fancy dresses.

Here's a picture of what I did while I was there--one or two of these may become pot holders...they are just little practice squares. The figure 8 was the hardest for me. Clearly this is a skill that will take some practice, but it was really exciting to learn anyhow. Thanks, Lia!

On Saturday I put my new knowledge to use and started my first real project (for one of my promised giveaway items). I got it all quilted that day, but haven't finished the binding yet. Since it's a gift, I can't show it to you, but here's a little sample section. The quilting is hard to see--making it a little difficult to quilt it because I could hardly see where I'd already quilted, but it was still really good practice at stippling & was kind of an adrenaline rush to be able to do : )

After I finished that, I went shopping. By myself. Without feeling guilty. ok, a little guilty. but not too much. I went to the thrift store, and the fabric store, and got myself some french fries & a smoothie. And I went grocery shopping, which was the "reason" for me to go out in the first place. Anyhow, at the thrift store I got some cute kid's spoons--regular ole' stainless steel spoons like normal, but they're smaller & are the perfect size for my little munchkins. I also got a basket, which was one of the things that I was specifically looking for...I'll put pictures on later: it's going to have a makeover : ) I also got a lazy susan, which may prove to be useful, but so far is best for HH & Chick to play with (HH: "Lets see how fast we need to spin it to make this fall over" etc). That will also get a makeover, and I'll be posting a poll later to help me decide on color selection.

At the fabric store I got new sewing scissors, as well as some supplies for upcoming projects. The scissors I've been using were cheap ones that I've had for 10 years or so, and which I avoided using because they were so dull. I bought a nice Gingher pair, which work like a dream.

I came home, fixed dinner, and worked on finishing my ribbon spooling project while I watched movies.

The next day was church, and then we had our friends, the Hebers, over for dinner. I made Lettuce Wraps from this recipe. Not the best idea: I've only made them one other time, a couple of years ago. I forgot how long they take to make--lots and LOTS of mincing. Thankfully HH was a good sport about being a sous chef, so we weren't tooo late in getting to the table. But honestly, I think I'll add them to my monthly repertoire, they are SO GOOD, SO GOOD YOU SEE. The recipe says that it's for one person, so I pretty much quadrupled it and we had enough left over for dinner tonight & I'll have more for lunch tomorrow! (good thing I like them).

Today I was tired. I hate that...I slept on the couch while the girls played. But Chick informed me that it was Monday, so we needed to do Muffin Tin Monday. Huh, I didn't know she knew the days of the week? Anyhow, there wasn't a theme today, so they got: cheese, tangerines, carrot sticks, crackers with cottage cheese, hard boiled egg, and a beverage (soy milk for Monkey, juice for Chickadee).

In my unproductivity, I blog-browsed & came across Once a Month Mom...a freezer cooking blog that does a lot of the organizational work for you (menus & prep timeline provided). They're doing a cookoff, and I think I'll do it. It's due by March 8th, so I'll need to decide and get it done pretty quickly.....

I guess that's it.

Here's a little familial felicity.

Muffin Tin Monday: Dr. Suess

I cancelled a visit to my parents' house today, because really I needed a day of rest (every other day this week has some hustle & bustle and then I go straight into layout on Friday evening).

What better way to spend too much time on my rest day but by exercising my brain with MTM. The theme was fun, but I don't know how I'd have done without the inspiration of these other participants (here, here, and here). To see the official MTM blog & links to all other participants, go here.

I used several of the books as our material: Green Eggs & Ham (green deviled eggs, ham rolled with green cream cheese), Mr. Brown Can Moo (milk with a silly straw), Horton Hatches the Egg (tortilla with Horton drawn on it), and Happy Birthday to You (the clock fish, which Chick was quite intrigued with last night).

The 3 Musketeer bar has nothing to do with the theme. She got this cute birthday can from her nursery teachers at church yesterday (they are the greatest, honestly). In it were 3 3Musketeer bars & a tiny stuffed dog named Buddy.

Chick loved it (Monkey was napping, but she did end up eating some of Chick's...some green ham & the tortilla pieces).

Muffin Tin Monday: ABC, 123 Theme

Here's our MTM for the day:

ABC: Apples, Beans, Chips & Cheese

123: 1 glass of Milk, 2 fishy crackers, 3 fruit snacks

Little Happy Things (rather a long posting)

This is layout week, and yesterday was really busy & stressful & my eyes were wiggin' out from staring at the computer ALL DAY LONG...but right now I have no work to do & the girls are playing happily together, so I get to take a minute to update you all on the little happy things of this week.

On Wednesday I bought lighting. Recessed lighting for the living room (YAY!), a new chandelier for the dining room, and a chandelier with a dimmer switch for the bedroom. And, even better than buying it, HH INSTALLED the bedroom chandelier & dimmer switch THAT DAY! It'll be a while, I think, for the rest of the lighting, because he is dreading having to work through the insulation & mess with wiring. But in the meantime, I love my new chandelier. And we tested out the dimmer switch & liked it, but that's all I'll say because a lady never tells ; )

(Please ignore the maternity clothes that weren't put away properly under the bed...and the lack of crown moulding...Rome wasn't built in a day, you know.)

I won a giveaway! I won a book, and a coupon for free Yoplait yogurt (Now that all four of us are eating yogurt, we go through it like nobody's business), and a Yoplait yoga mat (which I TOTALLY need & am excited about, even if it does say Yoplait on it)! The giveaway was on the Super Healthy Kids blog. Amy has lots of good ideas & I find it helpful & inspiring to be reminded that some people are trying to actually nourish their children still. So refreshing.

I never got around to posting about Muffin Tin Monday on Monday, but we did it, and I wanted to share it because it was the "all about me" theme.

So for Chick:

• blueberries because she has blue eyes,
• a fruit cup because she's sweet,
• a cheese "2" because she's 2 yrs old,
• chocolate milk because at our house that is a special thing & she's special,
• fettucine because it looked like her white-blond hair (spaghetti would have been a better shape, but I only had wheat),
• and lastly, peanuts because she's a little nutty sometimes. : )

And for Monkey (She didn't get a muffin tin, but she did get "all about me" foods):

• blueberries because she has blue eyes,
• banana because she is a Monkey & that's her favorite food,
• fettucine because she has an Italian name,
• and 10 pieces of cheese because she's 10 months old.

I have some simplified Bee costume plans tumbling around in my head...thanks to all who have offered suggestions. I hope to get to start work on it next week, so stay tuned.

The last little happy thing is actually a collection of happys. I just KNEW that people kept having kids for a reason. That reason, of course, is that eventually they get old enough to work. Well, finally, I now get to sit back & live off the sweat of my children's brows.

Specifically, Chick washed dishes the other day, and is ALL ABOUT setting the table (though clearly we need to work on the technical details some more). She also tells me sometimes that my hair looks pretty, and she looks after her sister ("Monkey! No, honey! Don't climb up on that!").

And Monkey has learned to share her sippy cup with me, as well as to put things away (yesterday she got into the box with the spice packets & was strewing them around on the floor...but then she put them all back in! Plus she helps put blocks in the block basket when we're cleaning up). And she gives great sloppy open mouth kisses, and you can never get enough of those.

And, if all of that wasn't wonderful enough--Chick has been sleeping in until 8:30! Monkey wakes up to nurse at around 6, but then we both fall asleep in my bed & even though she wakes up before me she just looks around, lays on my neck, scratches my teeth, etc...but she does it quietly so that I can "keep sleeping."

So, despite being congested & sniffly during layout, and having a teething baby & a messy house, there have been some lovely little happy things this week to get me through.

More Chick-isms

A few weeks ago the neighbors were having some trees cut down. Chick had fun watching the trees come down, and watching the "monkey" in the tree...do you see the monkey? I wonder what the world looks like to little people for whom anything is possible still.

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Yesterday was Muffin Tin Monday. It was no theme, and I didn't really plan anything out (or have anything special on hand, even). So Chick's dinner of leftovers was turned into MTM. She still insisted that we needed to take a picture--thank goodness for 2-year-olds who don't know that leftovers aren't special. Anyhow, it was applesauce, asparagus, juice, chicken, cheese-stuffed pasta, and carrots. Next week I'll do something really cute & next week has a fun theme (all about me).

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We have the little Pim dvds. Lately Chick has been referring to Monkey as her "piebi"...she said it was Italian for "baby." I told her that baby was "bambina" but I couldn't figure out where "piebi" came from. A few minutes ago I heard it--they showed a baby in a bath, but more importantly they showed the baby's FEET (piedi). ah hah. I think I need to make those dvd's more interactive, or I'm going to have one funky faux-italian little girl running around!

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Yesterday at lunch I was getting some green pepper for Chick. I asked her if she wanted it "in strips or in little chunks." She responded that she wanted it "in Italian."

Chick stories

Yesterday's Chick story: All of us were gathered on my bed. Here's part of the conversation which ensued:

Chick: Daddy has been eating grapes.

Me: Why do you think that?

Chick: Because he has a grape in his throat (foat).

I looked and she was pointing to his adam's apple.

HH: Maybe I've been eating an apple.

Chick: No, it's a grape.

Me: Daddy has a lump in his throat.

Chick: Yeah. Daddy has a yump in his foat.

The weekend mornings when the girls join us in our bed is the setting for some of my favorite family memories so far.

Other news: Monkey has started dancing. Mostly it's bending her knees in time to music when she's standing. She also claps her hands, making her even more monkey-like.

The Everett Historic Theater had a "yard sale" (on the stage) this weekend. I spent $2.00 and got a navy blue v-neck sweater for me, and dress up stuff for the girls-- feather boa, string of pearls, turquoise colored bead necklace, and a head scarf.

Here are some dressup pics. The first are from Saturday, and then today I decided that I didn't really want to accomplish anything & should dress Chick up for better pictures (but my batteries are almost dead, so we didn't get to take many). We even did MAKEUP, which hopefully won't fuel any fires for Chick....

Last Friday I visited my parents' house. My brother & his family are living there for a couple of days (just moved up from New Mexico), so in an attempt to get him to actually read my blog, here's a picture of Chick helping Evan do a puzzle.

Muffin Tin Monday: Today's theme is People & Faces. We had bread, nuts, cheese, grapes, apple, carrots, & sweet peas...which Chick got to play with a lot.

MTM is hosted by Her Cup Overfloweth... check it out to see everyone else's muffin tins.

Yay, it's Muffin Tin Monday!

For the past couple of days I've been saying that I need a break. So what do I do when both girls are actually napping at the same time? I wreak havoc in the kitchen making the muffin tin meal for the week, of course! These really are just as good for mamas as for little chicks, though.

The theme was Trains, Planes, & Automobiles...

sunny juice

Yogurt cloud

PB&J airplane with carrot wings, raisin windows & popcorn exhaust

A train on a carrot track, traversing:

applesauce desert

cheese-its & almonds mountain

and broccoli forest

When Chick woke up I showed her the muffin tin & she was as excited as I was : )
She started with the yogurt saying, "I eat the cloud!"

For more Muffin Tins check out Her Cup Overfloweth.

**Update: I was in at the computer (looking at all the other muffin tins) while Chick was eating her lunch, and I heard her say that she had gone potty. I went in there & sure enough, she'd had an accident. I asked her why she didn't tell me that she needed to go, or why she hadn't sat on the potty by herself, and she said, "Because I was eating my muffin tin!" ...not so excited that she had an accident, but I'm happy that she liked her muffin tin that much : )

the bees knees

On Thursday I went to the thrift store to use my $50 off of $100 coupon, and got really great stuff. Here's a picture. I spent $46, and will be returning about that much worth, but I got my money's worth already. I got the denim duvet cover to turn into a slipcover to match my other slipcover. I got the cherry printed makeup-case to keep Chick's babydoll clothes in (she loves it). The pink jumper doesn't look like much, but it is seriously cute & will be Chick's Easter dress next year. Not pictured is another duvet cover that we have plans to repurpose & I may blog about at a later date. For my own record keeping, here's the initial stats on the shopping:

15 items purchased (& kept)

$46.86 spent

average cost (for now) $3.12

Saturday, rather than going camping, we stayed home to be productive... and we actually WERE. I'll be posting before and after pics when we get to "after," but clearing the downstairs has been quite a project. I might have mentioned that we cleared out 6 old printers a week or so ago...this weekend HH cut up & disposed of 7 mattresses that were down there. We did a ton of organizing & clearing and cleaning. Not done yet, though, so stay tuned. I have begun to plan out how I want to have it--it'll be a playroom/schoolroom? area.


Sunday we went down to Orting to Erin's baby blessing & luncheon, which was really fun. Little S is her fourth boy, and they are cuties, let me tell you. It was fun to see them--they're far enough away that visits are rare. Thank goodness for blogs.


Monday was Muffin Tin Monday--zucchini bread, cantaloupe, chicken, cheese, grapes, & choc chip cookie (see MTM details here).





Monday was hot. Too too hot, and these little girls melted into puddles of tantrums and fussiness. And mama was cranky, if the truth be told. But the two movies that I wanted to see (Harry Potter 6 & The Proposal) were the double feature at the drive-in nearby, so we set up the travel crib & some chairs & enjoyed the neither-hot-nor-cool night air & the great movies (I enjoyed them both & look forward to seeing them again). It was a really fun break for all of us, even if we didn't get home until 2 am!



Today HH is home & we haven't done much of anything. We have fans going, and the curtains drawn, and we're all sitting around practically in our skivvies drinking smoothies and eating cold chicken. The downstairs is perfectly cool and comfortable, but not cleaned up enough to hang out down there, really.

(Monkey in her skivvies)

Monday

HH is home today, so I got to go to the thrift store for a little bit this morning : ) I got a long black jumper, a white blouse, a grow-into speedo swimsuit for the girls, and the muffin tin that's pictured below. Anyhow, nothing blue or green, so I count it as a victory over my rut.

Here's our muffin tin for the week. No theme, so we just had: grapes, carrot sticks, cheese cubes, viena sausages, fishy crackers, and green apple slices.

Now I need to buckle down and work on layout. ciao ciao.

Muffin Tin Monday

So I recently found Her Cup Overfloweth, who hosts Muffin Tin Mondays. Here is my first one: Patriotic theme. Chick had "Blue" smoothie (that really turned out purple, but what can you do?), cucumber USA, plain yogurt with red berries on top, and pb & honey star sandwiches. It was a huge hit with Chick : )