Happy Halloween

Sorry Mom....I never got these pictures mailed! Here are my little Grease Lightning Halloween toddlers. :-)

Zoo

We had an awesome time at the zoo with my sister & her husband last weekend. JD & Maia loved the animals and entertained us with their own animal sounds (they roar for lions, bears, jaguars and sssssss for the snakes and ha!ha!ha! for monkeys), identifying the animals (Bir! Bir! Bir! for any type of bird). Cute Cute.

Petting Zoo

Maia, Meet Goat

Coloring

We got out the crayons last May and they tried to eat them....4 months later we tried again and it clicked! :-) This is our new wall art. Obviously they had a little help but the scribbles are totally original. They each wanted a crayon for each hand. 

Thus starts the home-decorated-by-children phase of life. This is hanging in the living room and I need to clear some room on the fridge for future creations....

First Fall......

When I first saw this, I thought it was jam from the half-eaten piece of toast smeared on Maia's  nose (see the rest of it hanging out of her mouth? that's why we call her our little chipmunk, she likes to pack those cute little cheeks). Nope.....the bring red nose is a scrape from the spill she took while playing in the living room. JD has already had his first black eye from his adventures in learning to walk (somehow I didn't get a good picture of that) but this is Miss Maia's first big-time owie....her nose is swollen and bruised and scabbed today from hitting her face on the train table when she tripped over her own two feet. She was a little trooper and besides being really, really cuddly for a few minutes, she was back on her feet and ready to go. That's my sweet-but-tough girl. :-)

Almost 1.5

These kids could not love being outdoors more

Visit from the Newmans

A few highlights from the last week:

*JD hugging Maia. The first time we saw it was he hit Maia on the head - Ryan immediately said "JD, no hitting" and JD turned around and gave Maia a hug. Yesterday it happened a lot, Maia was pretty cranky (I think they are both cutting more molars) and when she would cry, JD would try and give her a hug. She didn't always like it, but it was cute anyway.

*"Pretend hurt" - the first time we saw this was when JD actually fell and hurt himself out in the backyard. He wasn't calming down, so Ryan took him inside. Maia was concerned and so she and I followed a minute later and found Ryan in the kitchen feeding JD ice cream (of course that makes everything better). After sharing a few bites with Maia, we put it away and went into the living room. Maia pretty quickly walked over to the table, gently bumped her head (on purpose) on the table, and then started fake crying and ran over to the gate at the kitchen door. JD realized what she was doing and did the same. So we had two kids standing at the kitchen gate, fake crying, hoping that because they were "hurt", they would get more ice cream. :-)

We have two tables right next to each other outside, a big one for adults and mini one for them, and we don't let them up on the adult table. Last night JD hurt himself again and I ended up letting him sit on my lap at the adult table. Maia immediately went over to Ryan, bumped her head (on purpose again) gently on the ground, started fake crying, and lifted up her arms to Ryan so she could sit at the adult table too. Smart kids!

*Maia makes a monkey noise now. We say "ooo ooo eee eee ahh ahh ahhh" when we see a monkey in a book, and now she'll it and say "ahh ahh ahh ahh" for monkey. Last week, she was a picture of a monkey in a book and pointed to it and said "JD! JD! JD!" A few minutes later, in the kitchen where we have pictures of the kids, she pointed to a picture of JD and said "ahh ahh ahh ahh"!! Somehow I don't think this was a mix-up....she seemed pretty sure of what she was doing!

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.