MunckinJuice

My little munchkin went to the doctor and was a trooper getting all her shots. She hates that place.  We hadn't been there in 3 months and she still crawls all over me to try to to be let down.  She's doing great though- 97th% in height and weight, and 80% on her little noggin.  She's just my tall bag of potatoes!

 Our babysitter shared some of her Marionberry jam with us.  Holy moly! That stuff is G.O.O.D!!!!

Fun Ellie Facts:
She can say, mama in several forms, daddy in several forms, yes,  no, this, whoa, uhoh, uhm, hi, buh-bye, and the best garbly gook I've ever heard!

She can sign: more, please, no, food, milk, cereal, banana, ouch, binky, blanket (she actually made up her own sign for this, it's darling), all done

She can: put her toys away (with direction :) ), climb up stairs, play legos- bigger ones, brush her teeth, give wonderful kisses, hugs, and best of all, I get squeals of delight when I go pick her up every day.  Nothing could make me happier.

Love this girl!

Summer's over

Well let's see....not much has happened this week- I finished painting my chalkboards- they look brilliant if I do say so myself! Elisabeth and I have just been hanging out, trying to hold onto summer by thin threads in the realization that work really does start on Monday.  Ah well- at least it's been a really great summer :)

I'm having a hard time not going out and buying lots of fall/winter clothes and tons of school supplies.  We just don't need them, but man, I sure want to!!!

For our produce box on Tuesday, we got strawberries, romano beans, radishes, corn, lettuce, basil, cherry tomatoes (like Drew's hand? hahaha), and some heirloom tomatoes.  Good thing I love tomaotes!!

My little munchkin picking a book to read!

If you look closely, you can see her top front teeth!!!

Like that? Her hand had been down on the side "hiding" her treasures that I didn't see until after she was done. what a silly girl ;)

Nom, Nom, Nom tomatoes!!!

She plays this game of, "How many magnets can I make fall at one time"...she's getting pretty good at it

Dog Days

This week has been *H.O.T* needless to say, we hung outside a lot. Did you know that it's near impossible to find a sand and water table anywhere around here?!? I had to improvise. I grabbed a storage container from the attic and we filled it up with water. Elisabeth had a great time. She preferred trying to drink out of the hose. The first day we played, she also felt it necessary to get IN the container! So get this, I'm sitting there, taking cutie pictures of her cause she kept putting her little leg up on the ledge and then BAM she plops in. I was grateful for a shockproof/waterproof camera! Elisabeth wasn't hurt or anything, I think she was pissed at getting into such cold water! Anyway, add that to my "awesome mom moments."

So now that I've been home for a week, I've run out of *things* to do with Elisabeth. We go on walks, go to the library- it had been too hot for the park, but I plan on doing that this week. What else do people do with little busy bodies??

And speaking of busy bodies, today, Ellie has been walking around the house! Just little bits here and there, but she's been walking, all by herself! I'm pretty excited for her! And her teeth are ALMOST in- and THAT I'm very excited for, just so that she won't be in so much pain anymore. Cuttin 4 teeth in a row couldn't feel good for anyone!


Smile!


mmm nom, nom, nom!


Totally random- I made strawberry shortcake cake and it was *divine* seriously. Probably worth the 10lbs I'll gain from eating it.


Daddy let me get in my tub with my diaper on- we learned those diapers can hold a lot of water! (so why do they leak at night?!!)


I love the hair!

Lettuce, Lettuce everywhere!

I was so excited to get our produce box yesterday. After eating not so great food for a week on vacation, I was actually missing all the fresh fruits and vegetables we were getting. I was sad to find out we didn't get any cucumbers this week cause I was absolutely loving my cucumbers and pesto.

This is what we did get:
2 heads of lettuce- one green, one red
2 sweet onions - one white, one red
1 bunch of garlic
1 bunch of radishes
1 basket of strawberries
1 basket of raspberries
1 pint of tomatoes
1 bunch of basil
2lbs of purple viking potatoes



At dinner last night, we ate about half the strawberries, raspberries and tomatoes so the containers aren't as full as they should be in the picture.

When we got back from our trip, one of the heads of lettuce in my itty bitty garden was giant sized. It took Drew and me 3 days to get through it. I think that might be my only head of lettuce that grew decently this summer- but that's ok. Anyway, needless to say, we're going to be eating a lot of salads this week!

I've been attempting to clean the house this week, and barely anything has gotten done. I forget how much time little ones take up! Last night though, when Drew was home, I somehow mustered enough energy to clean the kitchen- including wiping the faces of cabinets. I was shocked! I also made freezer jam!

(can you tell which one is from the grocery store and which one is from our farm friends?)*

On Monday, we went grocery shopping and decided to get a whole chicken rather than pieces since it was so much cheaper and we eat all the parts anyway. We took it home and I actually cut it all apart. I wasn't nearly as grossed out as I had imagined being either. Once I cut everything up, I even make chicken stock and froze it!


all the pieces cut up and piled. I should have lied them all out, but I was getting tired and didn't want to wash my hands another time.


The start of my chicken stock- I didn't take after pics since it was about 11pm and I was tired.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to this week. Today, when the weather warms up a little more, I'm going to set up a little water table for Ellie to go play and splash about in!


*The one on the left is from the farm, the one on the right is from the store- did you guess correctly?

...Just Sayin...

I love breakfast...

Summer Vacation and Fava Beans

Apart from Thursday and Friday being reserved for math training, my summer vacation has started! I took most of the day off on Friday and realized how difficult it is for me to get back into the "being at home" Maddy. I took a nap and just hung out at the house all day. I'm sure I'll clean the house eventually, but I'm soaking up the not having to do anything-ness while I still can.

I'm excited to cook good, healthy food, and I'm excited to spend lots of time with Elisabeth. This should be a pretty good summer (despite having a difficult time with allergies)

So on to pictures:

Remember those 2.5lbs of fava beans we got in our CSA box on Tuesday? Well, I finally got around to making something with them today. I had 3 recipe suggestions to use with them. 1. was to eat them like edamame...we decided we could do that any time, so we went for a Mediterranean dish, and a favas with lemon and yogurt.



Here's when I was shelling them. The pod was unlike anything I've experienced before...it was fuzzy inside. These beans were giant! It reminded me of the giant level on Super Mario Bros. The farm suggested scoring the surface of the pod so that popping them out of their skin would be easier.

I had to blanch them for 3 minutes then put them in ice water.


This is what they looked like with their shell off. They tasted similar to peas/lima beans
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This was the fava beans with lemon and yogurt. It has sauteed garlic, onions and fava beans. Then the "dressing" was lemon juice, oil, salt and yogurt. Drew really enjoyed it and he thought it was similar to having a baked potato. I felt it was missing something and wasn't overly impressed.


This was the "Mediterranean" dish - it was fava beans, garlic, onions fresh parsley and tomato sauce...I just added rice so we'd have something else to eat. The recipe said to use diced tomatoes, but I didn't have any, so I used some pasta sauce. If we were to do this again, I would probably wait and use tomatoes because like all pasta sauce, everything tastes like the sauce.

If I were to do that one again, besides the tomatoes rather than pasta sauce, I might cut up the beans, or even toss it with some spaghetti. Elisabeth liked it though!

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She's getting pretty good with a spoon! I found out that the delicious champagne mangoes stick well to those spoons- she can flail her arms and it still says stuck until it gets in her mouth! Impressive!

STRAWBERRIES!!! She ate both of those strawberries! I was impressed!


Daddy showing baby how it's done...


We've been working on just having binkies at nap times. I had left the room to do whatever I was doing and it got quiet. I went in her room to check to see why it had gotten quiet. She had gone to her crib, taken TWO pacifiers out + her blankie and somehow managed to get to the other side of the room. Doesn't she look guilty!? hahahahaha Love her!

S.P.A.G.H.E.T.T.I.

Holy Smokes! I had no idea this kid loved spaghetti so much! Normally I do a quick puree through the spaghetti and feed it to her with a spoon. Not this time though- we just took it how it was, and it was delightful!



You may think she's doing her OH MY face, but really, she's playing Peek-A-Boo with Drew.
She cheats...


Mama, give me the camera, I take good pictures.


Inspecting the noodles


She was saying num, num, num! - So cute!

Blog Spew

I seem to get spurts of time on the computer, and find extremely random things to do while I'm online. Today I went to one of my favorite sites to oogle at wall decals. This website has Super Mario Bros. wall decals, so you can pretend you're in a VIDEO GAME!!!!





I want it so bad. I can't justify $75 on something like that though! Besides, where would I put such awesomeness?!!? Drew would NEVER let me put it in the bedroom! Treadmill's room? Nah....gotta leave that for the Fire Brigade!




I think eventually though, when we do have babies, I'll get the restickable decals of Alphabet Zoo!



Tonight, I drank a cup of apple cider, ate a cupcake, and had some whipping cream...ohohoh, and some cotton candy from Farmer's Market today. HAHAHA I feel all sugared up, and ready for bed! I'm going to go put the new sheets on the bed and snuggle in and watch some random movie til I pass out (I think Ratatouille is in there right now!)

**And remember, if it's clear and yella, you've got juice there fella, if it's tangy and brown, you're in cider town!**



I want to note that I made vanilla cuppycakes with vanilla icing, no sprinkles - tomorrow once theyve cooled, but not tonight, and no cherries. I just found the one with the cherry on top because it reminded me of Mr. Bean and how he had that cuppycake with the cherry on top and I like that episode a lot!

I also have this awesome cuppycake book on how to decorate them all crazy like. Maybe I'll post some pictures of that later.

Wednesday #6 - Albondigas

Last night for comida (mom it's literal translation is food) - but really, it's like full on mega lunch/dinner. Anyway, last night, we had albondegas, rice, black beans, torillas, tostadas, and limeade. "A traditional Mexican meal" You guys want to know what a "traditional Mexican meal" consists of?? Well I will tell you! A traditional mexican meal consists of whatever the crap you want with tortillas and/or tostadas, rice and beans. Avocado if there aren't kids around to eat it all is also very popular. But seriously, albondigas are meatballs. So you're supposed to stuff cut up meatballs with rice and beans into your nasty corn tortillas. Ok, I can handle that (although 99% of the time, I don't eat the tortillas). These meatballs were made up of random hard boiled egg parts in the very middle, and then meat and RICE mushed together! And to my amazement, I actually really liked them. Lydia's nephews liked them too. So much so, that Lydia is making chili rellenos and albondigas (for the ninos) tonight for dinner. hahahaha!

This is kind of what they looked like, but the sauce wasn't so fancy:

They look all normal, but they aren't! It's like a Kinder Egg where you get surprises in the middle! Maybe today, I'll get a quarter!

I got all sorts of wonderful Breaking Dawn spoilers I am so hoping they are real! Oh I am all giggly goodness over this lame stuff!