Green Green Green

Ok, I know this is a blog for pictures of the kids, but I have to share the other big thing that is taking up our time and energy right now - getting healthy. We already ate pretty healthy before, but as our kids started eating real foods and not just milk, my aunt emailed me about a program her family was doing, and we decided to join. We are about 3 months into the 12 month Whole Food eating plan over at Green Smoothie Girl. The goal of the program is, over 12 months, to get you eating 60-80% whole/raw foods. I think Ryan and I are eating about a pound of produce a day now and our kids are learning that green things are normal - they have no reference point for anything else. Remember this picture?

What's all over Maia's face is strawberry, blueberry, kale, spinach, beet greens, collard greens, carrots, chia and flax. That's the type of thing we're eating every day now and the kids LOVE it. The one she ate was fruit-colored because the blueberries have a strong color, but they both drink bright green smoothies all the time and love them too.

This was breakfast this morning and the kids love it all except JD doesn't eat the eggs. The colorful hash is what they think hashbrowns are and it's my new favorite recipe. We started using the greens on the tops of beets in our smoothies, so I had to figure out what to do with the beets - I've never cooked them before. Here's all it takes: Dice 3 beets, two small golden Yukon potatoes, and 3-4 carrots. Cover with water and boil for 10 minutes. Run 2 cups spinach and 4 or 5 tsp parsley through the food processor, then add a small onion and run that through too. When the beets etc are done boiling, combine everything in a large skillet. Add salt and pepper to taste and pan-fry until it's getting a little crispy on the outside. The smaller you diced the root veges, the faster it will cook and the more it will mimic actual hashbrowns. So good and a great way to pretend it's fall (the beets & carrots are pretty this time of year....) even when it still feels like summer.

Park

This is not the greatest video and I made it vertical instead of horizontal (oops) but you can see how great Maia is walking now. She took her first steps on July 20 so she has had a couple of months to practice and now she is little Miss Independent.

Also you can't hear it in the video but Aunt Allison has been watching JD & Maia for a couple of weeks during the day, we had a two week gap in our previous child care and next child care, and she has taught them to make a horse sound. Allison discovered this park within walking distance of our house (can't believe we've lived here for 5 months and never realized we could WALK to the park!) and when we all went to the park together after work, they saw these toy horses and Maia kept making the horse sound over and over. Cute! The park is only about a 10 minute walk.

Weekend

Favorite moment this weekend - Maia was chewing on half of a bagel and as I was holding her I said "I need to go get some breakfast too, Mama is hungry." She immediately took the soggy, half-chewed bagel out of her mouth, gave me a big smile, and tried to put it in my  mouth! Apparently she was happy to share with her hungry Mama, and apparently she totally understands the word and concept of "hungry" now!

We lost the battery pack on my camera so until I get the new one we ordered in the mail, here are some pictures from about a month ago....

Our good friends Keith & Charlotte visited this weekend and brought a big box, the kids loved it just as much as they loved the one below when another good friend, Jen, was visiting. This weekend's box was much bigger and the kids loved it until - gasp! - Ryan threw it away! What was he thinking?!?

 

 When you live in Southern California you have to love the sand.

Beach babe

Deciding whether the water is too cold to get in....

Of course JD-boy finds the one stick on the beach and carries it around the rest of the afternoon....

Reading

 We spend a ton of time reading at our house - we love our books! Maia has been into reading for a couple of months but JD has just picked up on it the past couple of weeks. They will both sit through a whole toddler book, then go pick another one and sometimes read 4 or 5 in a row before taking a break to play.

It's not uncommon to find Maia sitting in her favorite little rocking chair with a book or two. She also likes to look at books while we're walking in the stroller or in the car.

JD prefers to pull a whole stack of books off the shelf and then read them all simultaneously. :-) He has a couple of favorite books, one with a bee (which he picks out and says "bzzzzzz") and one with a lion that he roars at. Pretty cute.

They also have a book with words, the page with the girls waving they will wave and say "hi" to. When Maia sees the page with the eyes she will blink really hard. When they see the page with the nose they will both point to their own nose and say n. They also point to ears when they see that page and clap when they see the page with the kids clapping. They are definitely starting to understand things.....

I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook and since I've been minimizing my activity there lately, but still want to share pics of the kids with family and friends out-of-town, I'm going to attempt to get the blogging thing started again. :-)

Maia & JD are almost 17 months now and SO fun and full of energy. The above picture has been one of my favorites lately because it shows a few standard things about their personalities.......JD is full of passion and emotion - that boy is not neutral! He is usually expressing huge amounts of excitement about whatever he's doing. On the flip side, if he doesn't get something he wants, he is EXTREMELY devistated (you should hear his pitiful sobbing) or EXTREMELY angry (he has already thrown things at me in anger, knocked things off the table, pushed chairs down, etc).

Maia is a little more reserved in her emotion and can more easily be distracted from a disappointing moment. She stands back and observes, thinking carefully before diving into a new experience (therefore she gets hurt less, for example JD has already had two minor black eyes and Maia hasn't even really had a single bruise). She is incredibly affectionate and will sit and cuddle with me more than JD.

Here are some fun new things in the past week or two:
*Both know where their belly button is now
*Both will stick their tongue out at you if you ask where it is
*JD doesn't have many clear words yet besides "dog" and "light". Maia has been saying "Mama," "yeah" in response to questions, "dog," "JD," "baby," and "Nikki." New this week is "danka" when you give her something (thanks but she's picked up the German word for it) and shaking her head no in response to questions.
*They are both incredibly proud of the fact that they can turn around in a circle when asked. Maia will start clapping for herself before she's even finished the turn and she will also clap for JD.
*JD loves to wear necklaces. If I am wearing one, he has to be wearing one.
*Both are pretty self-sufficient at the park now, climbing the play structures and going down the slides without help.
*We have started drinking green smoothies almost everyday - fruit masking the taste of kale, spinach, collard greens, arugula, chia, flax - and they LOVE them. We have to be careful not to let them indulge too much or we pay the price in diaper changes the next day.