Lily Needs A Few Life Skills

Like learning how to use a spoon...or how to not grab the container of yogurt and smear it all over your face.
Lovely. gross. Do the kids realize how gross they are????

Breakfast Time

It may be just the desire to wear a bib at any point during the day as of it were a fancy necklace or it could be the fascination with the British and their hats, either way it makes my kids happy. Just breakfast in typical form...followed by Kaylee hand placing each extra clump of oatmeal from her bowl carefully and precisely where she wants it on her bib. Great.

The Results: Watermelon Muffins

The Good:
They were made. The recipe was easy to follow.

The Okay:
Separating the pulp of the melon from the water was easy, but annoying.

The Bad:
The muffins were a little sticky
No nutritional value
Flavor: just like watermelon juice
Chunks of melon pulp- strange

Due to the kindness of brave neighbors and my husband the muffins were taste tested and with the feedback given I rate this recipe as: Not worth it. The recipe is located here at a little blog called From Apples to Zucchini. Greg says he eats to survive, so he will eat the muffins, but there was no need to make them again- enough said :)

Watermelon Muffins...

I'm giving it a go. Hopefully someone will like them :) I'll report back.

Miss Behavin'

Kaylee made this mess all by herself by taking her pointer finger and flinging the food towards her- grrr! And Alex, well there really isn't much I can say about her.

Forget Memorial Day

Fresh corn is the official start of summer! Just as the girls.

Weeding To Be Done

This lovely bit of real estate may not look like much but after I spend some time cleaning it up it will be ready to be planted with some delicious veggies for my girls! I am so thankful my dad kept a small plot of what used to be a HUGE garden. I may have hated picking certain things from the garden, namely green beans, but squash wasn't my favorite either because the plant itself had these scratchy pricks to them- not like a prick from a burr or a rose thorn, but it feels more like really short pine needles spread across the stem just waiting to scratch you. Now, I never left the squash plants bloody only a little itchy. But having the experience of being able to go outside and pick out your own food to eat was a great experience- I hope that we can continue to plant as the kids get older.

The fresh fruits and veggies were great, but I loved more than anything being able to spend time with mom in the kitchen 'helping' and 'learning' how to can just about everything from green beans to pickles to tomatoes and even jelly (my favorite!). I use the term 'help' and 'learn' loosely because 1. I know that I mostly loaded the dishwasher with the cans and lids that were to be used that day and 2. I know I didn't learn too much because once I start canning on my own mom will be on speed dial and alerted ahead of time to expect many a call :)

So here is to a happy year of veggie growing!

Our New Snack

Alex found 2 cantaloupe rinds and decided to share with her sister. Now I save the rinds after breakfast and stick them in the fridge and give to the girls when it seems like they want a nice cool snack! And they LOVE them-when snack time is over the rinds look like little mice have worked them over.

Hey, Rude Doc.

Did you read this disturbing article about supermarket meats?

You'd Think I Never Feed These Kids

So even though Alex sits right in front of me in the shopping cart I somehow I fail to realize she is eating a hole in the cereal box...I should have learned from past experiences- there was a goldfish incident and then another one with a block of cheddar cheese.

When we get home from the store I have some great helpers who like to unpack the groceries (or eat them). And side note, I'm no tree hugger, but I do LOVE the reusable grocery bags! They are such a huge help in cutting back the number of trips from the car which comes in handy when you have little ones and an obscene amount of stairs like I have (yes, I can be lazy...I'm allowed to when I lug 40 lbs of kids around all day, right?!)

It's Been Said..And We'll Say It Again

We love food! Yeah!

Hello, World

Sick Babies Need Pancakes

The girls told me they wanted to try pancakes- you can't argue with a sick baby, so I whipped up some pancakes for my sick babies. This was also a good practice for them-biting off pieces by themselves rather than just picking up bite size pieces. They did a pretty good job, although Kaylee enjoyed shoving big pieces into her mouth (and smiling).

A New Meaning To 'Scrambled Eggs'

It's gross..I know. and not easy to clean up, eggs kinda roll when you wipe them up.

Just Plant It!

So I had a great idea for this spring- plant a garden. We go through so many fruits and veggies so I thought, why not grow my own?! I started to get some ideas, do I plant right into the ground? Do I build a table and plant there? Do I use planter boxes on the deck? What should I plant? What can't I plant? When do I plant? When do I pick? Am I going to kill everything?
So much to think about, so I called the only person I know that could answer all my burning questions about my veggie garden...my dad. And sure enough he had some great ideas and knew all the timing of planting and picking and what grows well. My current wish list for the garden:

Sweet potatoes
Bell Peppers
Eggplant
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Squash
Asparagus
Beets

and NO GREEN BEANS! I had a tragic childhood* :) I will not be picking green beans, ever. I will happily pay the $1.99/lb before picking any more green beans.

Now you might be wondering where all this food is going to fit- well, another great idea from my dad answers that query- he just so happens to have 250 square feet of garden space ready to be used on the farm and he can easily make the size of the garden bigger if needed. Now this 250 sq. feet of space is a far cry from my 'tragic childhood'*, but I don't need 12 rows of corn on top of all the other veggies.

First plantings take place around St. Patty's Day!!! 3 weeks and counting down to veggie making!


*tragic childhood is defined as having to pick over 250 feet of green beans. Some may not see this as tragic, but you weren't there :)

Hey Mom. We're Hungry.

New Finds

I found two new products for our family at Wegman's today.

Red Bananas- They are tiny little things especially next to the giant yellow bananas. These red bananas are supposed to have a hit of raspberry, though I can't confirm the claims since I don't eat bananas and the girls, well they are still working on their compare/contrast vocabulary. To my surprise the red banana is the same color as a normal banana is on the inside- I was thinking that it would be different, perhaps a slight pink maybe?
Will we buy again?! Maybe later. At $.89 a pound and the fact the the girls can't give me a preference-I'll stick with the $.49/pound yellow banana for now.

Humbles
This little find- how do I describe? If A potato chip mated with a mini rice cake a Humble would be born. they are thin like a chip (Pringle thickness) but small and round like a mini rice cake, with the texture almost like a rice cracker. The crazy part of this little snack is that is made from hummus or chickpeas if you prefer-how does that work?! However it works the girls gobbled them up- and so did momma. I thought they were good and a nice healthy snack.
Will we buy again?! Yes. I think these were on sale for $2.00- a good find, something a little different and an easy way to get some protein :)

Whatcha Got In There?

Waffles! Lots of them! As many as I can fit!

Rainbow Food List/Chart

Earlier I talked about how I was making a list of the food the girls can eat by color. While I was working on adding a few more foods into my red column I stumbled across this...Eat A Rainbow Everyday. Funny how you find the exact thing you were creating/looking for after you finish!

Eat Your Rainbow

So, I've been told to eat your rainbow every day (not through Skittles) and so while I feed the girls I keep that idea in mind. I've been making a list of colors and the fruits and veggies that belong to that particular color. I was getting sightly stumped with the blues/purples. There were the obvious choices, Plums, Eggplants, Blueberries, and Prunes but I wanted something different and Wegman's delivered. I had seen an episode of Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe where he met a potato farmer creating a new type of potato, a purple potato-and Wegman's happened to have this product. I bought two. I got home and cooked them up and the color was so vibrant and once it cooked the color toned down a little, but still pretty. The taste: it tastes like a white potato :) and the girls loved them!
Here is to more variety in our naturally colored food rainbow.