(no sugar) Carrot, Apple and Zucchini Muffins

As you can see by my posts these week, this fall blast has put me in the baking mood. It also helped that I have started attending this cooking & health lecture series and it has given me a ton of inspiration on getting even more nutritious things on the table for all of us.  There is this amazing restaurant here in Exeter, Blue Moon Evolution, and they have partnered with the Food and Health Forum to bring a cooking series for parents together. The first class was great! I felt refreshed, inspired and ready to bake!

Let me preface this recipe (that I got from the class) by saying that I have trouble keeping these around. They are so good that everyone can't seem to stop eating them!  I love them because there is basically equal part batter (to hold it together) and part grated fruits and veggies.  They are moist and sweet  but NO refined SUGAR in these!  Just maple syrup, which I love as a mineral boosted natural sweetener.  I'm thinking my next batch I'll add a handful of flax too.

Enjoy!

1 cup of almond flour
1/4 brown rice or oat flour
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/3 cup grapeseed oil (or coconut oil)
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 large egg at room temp
1/2 cup grated carrots
1/2 cup grated zucchini (from 1 unpeeled organic medium zucchini)
1/2 cup grated apple
1/2 cup of raisins
1/2 cup Pecans (optional)

Preheat 350
Line 12 muffin tins

In a medium bowl sift together the flours, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Add any solids leftover in the sifter to the bowl and mix.

In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the oil, syrup, and egg. Add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Mix in the grated carrot, grated zucchini, apple and raisins.

Fill muffin tins 3/4 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes and transfer to a wire rack.

Chalkboard Wall!

Have you seen our giant chalkboard wall?

We LOVE it but we were a little nervous to begin with because as you can see it was an enormous focal point in our kitchen/dining room. HUGE!

But we went forward with it and I loved it right away! 

Everyone, adults and children, use it all the time. 

I would highly recommend adding one to a big family space in your home.   My 2 and 4 year old use it all the time. It comes in spurts. They go a week with out touching it and then all of a sudden its all they do for 2 hours one night.  The mess is not bad at all, but I have found that the wall needs to be carefully erased.  We need to wipe the board down with a wet soapy cloth, and then rewipe with another clean cloth. This is after the chalk has built up for awhile and the traditional eraser does nothing but move it around eventually. 

And case you are wondering, the top is a piece of picture wire stretched tightly. I found these bird clothespins at Crate & Barrel.

Yum! Banana Bread

I had a couple of bananas today that were at the end of their life so I decided to make banana bread. Since I rarely do the same recipe twice I looked around online, found a recipe that looked good and then I changed a bunch of stuff to help make it a teensy bit more nutritious for the kiddos. The result was soooooo good!!! Yum Yum! Really moist and delicious!

Here it is:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of butter (1 stick), room temp

2/3 cups of sugar

1/3 cup of unsweetened organic applesauce

2 eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla

CREAM ALL OF THESE INGREDIENTS TOGETHER

Then add the dry ingredients:

1 1/2 cup flour ( I used equal parts unbleached white flour, almond flour, oat flour)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (optional)

MIX THESE DRY INGREDIENTS UNTIL JUST COMBINED

Add:
1 cup mashed banana
1/2 cup sour cream

We also added a 1/4 cup of dried cranberries and 1/4 cup of FLAX SEED for some sneaky Omega 3s.

Feel free to add nuts!

Give it all one last mix....

Put in a greased bread pan and bake at 350 for 55 - 60 mins

Let cool and enjoy!

What We Are Reading

Tonight A pulls this book "The Rabbits" off the shelf. An amazing, spot-on, illustrated book about colonization. I've never read it to her because I expected it would be more appropriate when she was older. But she insisted. She interpreted the book (at 3 years old) more as about the Rabbits not taking care of the planet earth, but I was impressed anyway. 

The last line of the book is "Who will save us from the rabbits?". I looked at her and she answered, "A Saver!" I asked her if that was her. She responded, "Mom, I'm not a saver. I'm just a kid! I am a helper." 

When I was doing my Master's in Education, and subsequently doing professional development with educators, I was constantly reminding teachers that kids can understand so much more than they are given credit for and more importantly interpret and internalize it in a positive way. Kids don't carry the same mental baggage that we do. What can seem too dark to us just isn't to them. They take the lessons they need and understand (and that we want them to have) from books and events that at first glance seem far above them.

My daughter proved this to me tonight.

Half Way to Christmas - The Truth About Santa

So I haven't written in a really long time. There are a lot of personal reasons for that which I am sure I will get into on my next post. But in the meantime, this is the first thing in over a month that has inspired me to take 5 minutes, dry my tears, and post.

Below is a letter written by a mother, to her daughter about Santa's existence after her daughter begged to know the TRUTH.

I LOVE this letter. Love it.

Dear Lucy,

Thank you for your letter. You asked a very good question: “Are you Santa?”

I know you’ve wanted the answer to this question for a long time, and I’ve had to give it careful thought to know just what to say.

The answer is no. I am not Santa. There is no one Santa.

I am the person who fills your stockings with presents, though. I also choose and wrap the presents under the tree, the same way my mom did for me, and the same way her mom did for her. (And yes, Daddy helps, too.)

I imagine you will someday do this for your children, and I know you will love seeing them run down the stairs on Christmas morning. You will love seeing them sit under the tree, their small faces lit with Christmas lights.

This won’t make you Santa, though.

Santa is bigger than any person, and his work has gone on longer than any of us have lived. What he does is simple, but it is powerful. He teaches children how to have belief in something they can’t see or touch.

It’s a big job, and it’s an important one. Throughout your life, you will need this capacity to believe: in yourself, in your friends, in your talents and in your family. You’ll also need to believe in things you can’t measure or even hold in your hand. Here, I am talking about love, that great power that will light your life from the inside out, even during its darkest, coldest moments.

Santa is a teacher, and I have been his student, and now you know the secret of how he gets down all those chimneys on Christmas Eve: he has help from all the people whose hearts he’s filled with joy.

With full hearts, people like Daddy and me take our turns helping Santa do a job that would otherwise be impossible.

So, no. I am not Santa. Santa is love and magic and hope and happiness. I’m on his team, and now you are, too.

I love you and I always will.

Mama

I remember clearly what it felt like to believe. And I remember BEGGING to know the truth at an age when many were years past "knowing".  I hope to share something like this one day for my kids too.

The full blog post is HERE

Win a KitchenAid Food Processor

For my son's first birthday we hired Brian Samuels to photograph a portion of the event. Brian also writes a really great food blog called A Thought for Food that I love to read. I love anyone who is as obsessed with food as I am. But he hit on a memory for me last week when running this great giveaway and asked: "What would you make with this KitchenAid Food processor". 
I immediatley remembered that my husabnd bought me a food processor years ago as a gift. I loved it! And then when we were packing to move last time he accidentily dropped it and it smashed into too many pieces to mend. :-(
Before the accident, what I actually did many times with that food processor was make fresh breadcrumbs for some italian family receipes that had been passed down to me. Stuffed artichokes especially. Yum!

I love that this giveaway got me thinking about my family recipes so I thought that I'd share the link for all of you. What would you do with your winnings?!?!

What we are (all) reading!

Its our new favorite book in the house!!!

What's better for a couple of artsy parents - including a Graphic Designer geek dad - than a color book Pantone: Colors.

The book highlights 9 different colors and 20 shades of each. 

N is totally into any book in general that will make us test his knowledge of anything (colors, shapes, numbers, letters) and A just thinks the different shades, and their different names are fascinating!  She asks us to read them over and over and gets a kick out of thinking & talking about them! 

From other reviews I've read the age span of interest in this book goes for a long time. Some even mentioning their third graders interest!  Love it.  Highly recommend adding it to your collection even if you don't consider yourself "artsy". :-)

Wedding Dress-Up Project

The studio had released the PHOTOS

A little while a go I wrote a post including a photo of A wearing my wedding dress as part of a photo project. She did that photo shoot for Pizzuti Studios and they have released a few of the photos from the session.

My favorite moment from that day was when the photographer asked her if she wanted to marry a handsome prince and A answered "No. I want to marry my mommy."

I thought I'd share their link here so you can see the rest of the cuties! Read the blog post HERE

New on the iPad this week

So our favorite new app this week is Toddler Teasers combo pack app. We previously just had the stand alone Shape app which both of our kids have loved. The shape app has both the quizzing function and the flash card function.  My 19 month old can whip through the quizzes so fast its amazing! I'm pretty sure I never taught him "hexagon" but he knows his hexagons!...(and crescents, rectangles, squares, triangles, ovals and circles)...The new app has only the quizzing function but it includes all 4 categories: Letter, Numbers, Colors and Shapes.  Its slightly easy for my 3 year old and the 19 month old will grow into it for the next few months but overall its a good one! Download it at iTunes HERE

Home Improvement

So I am posting this on a "parenting blog" which I know seems strange at first -but it makes sense to me. You see, I painted every single one of these cabinets. And changed the hardware. All while I was working full time and mommy to a 7 month old.  

This still amazes me when I look at the photos.

This kitchen makeover, at first glance seems drastic, but really all this is is some fresh paint, new hardware, new fixtures and furniture.  Yeah, that's it. But in reality that was a LOT of work.  The time we owned our house overlapped for one month with our rental apartment 45 minutes away. To try to conquer this project, while being a mom, I removed all the cabinet doors and drove them back to our apartment. I spent the month cleaning, sanding, priming and painting each one during nap times and after bedtimes. As the doors were finished, on the few saturdays that we actually had a sitter for a few hours, I would work on the on the cleaning, sanding, priming, and painting of the bases of the cabinets at our house (45 minutes away). I had some help one of the days (shout out to S and E!) but other than that- Holy pajamas that was a big project!!!

So, as we have just started to look around at new houses, in an area that will only allow us to buy a fixer again, I see these kitchens that leave something to be desired, to say the least.  I know it can be done because I've done it before. I'm just not sure I want to again! I have two kids and we are very busy but more importantly I was blind with ignorance the first time. I dove into the project unknowing.  I was excited for what seemed like a simple fix. 

Now I know the dark, dark truth. :-) 

Even simple paint is a lot of TIME and WORK. Do I have it in me again at this stage of the game?

The fixtures were put in over time by my husband and once that was done, and on the occasions that it is actually clean (which is rare with kids), it looks good! And looking at this photo does give me a sense of accomplishment which is irresistible to someone like me.  I'll keep you posted when the home search becomes more real as to whether or not I see hours of painting in my future again.  But in the meantime my mantra must be, "Home improvement IS possible"-- even in the throws of the first few years of parenthood.

At what age can the kids hold a paint brush and a hammer themselves and start earning their keep! ;-)

More Disney Travel Tips

The "Disney talk" came up again today. The "talk" consists of figuring out when we can go again. :-) We took the kids to the Zoo for the first time this season and we had a wonderful time. The kids were happy, and excited and appreciative.  The were being so sweet and responsive and holding our hands when we asked them to which is like a holiday around here.  This made my husband start thinking about Disney World. Not sure why-- I guess just that all over feeling of enjoying family time outside of the normal routine.  Talking about when we are going to go again reminded me I had yet to write my second round of tips that I had promised after my first post. So here we go:

1) Booking character breakfasts early in the morning are a great way to be the first ones in the park. Animal Kingdom is the best, and beautiful early in the morning when its all quiet. You can take the long walk to Donald's character breakfast at the Tusker House in peace and have the ability to take in the scenery. Then right after breakfast you hop on the Safari with no line!

2) Something I learned the second time we went. If I had done even minimal research for the first trip, I would have known but Fast Passes do not need to be used at the time it says on them. If your fast pass says to return between 10 -11 it doesn't matter if you use it in the afternoon. What IS really cool is that once 10:00 hits that day you can actually get ANOTHER fast pass. So if you plan it right you could stock up. We took Fantasy Land by storm that way on our second trip. Grab a fast pass go on a few rides that don't have lines. Grab another fast pass....then hit those fast pass rides all in a row right before lunch.

3) At Epcot the best advice I got (thanks to my sisters who have been to Disney way more than me!) was to go towards the right as soon as you get in early and hit the Living Seas first. Both times we went we basically were the only ones on that Finding Nemo ride and then it spills into the HUGE aquarium that we got to wander around alone. First showing of "Turtle Talk with Crush" is at 9:40 am in that aquarium area.

 

My first post I wrote about was more basic travel tips with kids.  We plan on staying on property when they get older when we will find staying in a traditional hotel room will be easier. I found the condo set-up with the young ones to be invaluable. AND we ordered groceries ahead of time online at gardengrocer.com so that all of our drinks, snacks, and the makings for PB&J's and light dinners were waiting for us when we got there. Even diapers and babyfood! We brought kid snacks and our own bottles of water into the parks every day.

Now, off to research our next trip!

nostalgia [no-stal-juh, -jee-uh, nuh-]

This week ended up being full of nostalgic moments. Like, grab your tissues, this is going to be good kind of nostalgia. But both moments are really special and I'm so happy they were captured on camera.

First, a local photographer is doing a marketing project with little girls wearing their mother's wedding dresses. On Sunday, A and I went to her studio and had a photo shoot with A wearing MY wedding dress and veil! It was so fast that I hardly had a moment to take it in but it did take my breath away seeing it.  I am excited to see the photographers final project which I will post here in May. Hoping Avery makes the cut--but in the meantime, here is a photo of me on my wedding day and the one of Avery I quickly snapped just with my iphone.  So cool!

Next, I had been dreaming since the day I met my son-with his massive amount of blonde hair and his chubby, total boy look- to have a photo taken of him like one that I have of my father. To be clear, in person, N is a exact replica of my husband, but when you see this photo of my father at 18 months you can't help but take pause.  There is a resemblance! 

So as N's 18 month birthday was rolling near I made an appointment for the shoot to try to match this photo from 1943.  As usual N was totally stubborn at the shoot (making the photographers crack-up but not a smirk from him) but by some miracle I got him to smile ONCE and she actually got THIS!

Its not perfect, and N's smile isn't as big as it normally is. That would show the resemblance even more but either way-- I LOVE IT.  So happy I kept this dream for the last year and half and that I stuck with it even with N trying really, really hard to make it impossible. My father passed away when I was 19, so he never got a chance to meet my husband or my children. I think he'd appreciate this photo -- And N's sense of humor too. :-)

And we're back!

Back online after a little hiatus for personal and work reasons.  

Many thanks to my sister for redesigning my beautiful new blog. 

We are still in the construction process but new posts will be here now. 

Please follow us here at our new address!

What's new on our iPad...

The latest App that I've installed on our iPad was brought to my attention by the new blog Matter of App.  It is Alphatots and it is fantastic! It has been mom, dad, and kid approved.  I LOVE that it teaches the letter (both upper & lowercase), the sound, and then its example is an action word and the app has you do that action before you move on to the next letter.  My 3.5 year old loves sounding out the letter with the narrator and then eagerly awaits her related activity.

Here is the full review.

Half-Birthday Colorful Butterfly Cake!

So I think half-birthdays are pretty fantastic. Especially around here when all 4 of our birthdays occur in one 30 day period. This make for an entire year of waiting for a birthday/cake obsessed 3 year old. So the end of last week we celebrated the much anticipated 3.5!! We did this by making a colorful butterfly cake together. 

I got the idea from my sister who had made rainbow cupcakes for A for her birthday.  Being that this was a spur of the moment decision to go from plain cake to awesome cake I didn't look up any "right" way to do it. So my method was just adding food color to the batter in batches--First blue, then added red for purple, and then GREEN!  All in the same bowl.

It was really, really fun for her. Really easy for me.  (If you want a real method for a Rainbow cake here's a cool one HERE.)

Or you can try our delicious, hodge-podge mystery cake! Cutting into was a surprise each time!

And for a 3 year old---its really just about the frosting and the candle. :-)

What the 3 year old is reading...

This week, little A is happily reading (and rereading) Tammy Turtle (thank you Auntie Chelsea!)   Quite a cute story, simply written, easy to understand. It's about a sea turtle, born on the beach, makes its tremendous journey into the ocean, grows up, mistakes a plastic bag for a jelly fish, and has to be rescued.  The story has a happy ending with Tammy recovering and setting off on her own beach journey into motherhood.

There are a lot of things that A is getting out of this book other than the "moral" of the story. The drawings are cute and allow her to ask a lot of questions about the ocean and sea life. There is an entire Nature series by Suzanne Tate.  I recommend sprinkling these books into your collection. They are in expensive and effective.

Sweet, Sweet, Perspective on Toddlers

I've read two posts in the last week about the Toddler years (basically anything between 1 and 5) and I am LOVING them. Because as parents of a 1.5 and 3.5 year old there are many times that we need to give each other a little pep talk of, "its going to get better". The older they get we know new challenges will be presented but, right now, patience is thin, brains are crashing with over load and some days you wonder what the heck we were we thinking! And let me tell you, kids bedtime and mommy's bottle of wine can't come quick enough.

On the flip side, now that my son is approaching 1.5 yrs things ARE easier than a year ago, and we know it. The first year is just a blur of well, blur, cause you never remember much later except for snippets. Now, I'll admit it feels like complete mayhem most of them time around here, but there is also a LOT of fun. They are funny, smart, fascinating little kids. Becoming active,  joke-telling, goofy members of our little family pod. We laugh a lot. Those are the days that we say, "There it is! The reason we had kids!"

At around 15 months old, with both of our kids, was when I felt like my head was starting to literally lift. For a long time you have that feeling, like when you go to a party or gathering with two (even just one) toddlers, you leave the party feeling like you never actually made eye contact with an adult the entire time you were there. Its a really strange feeling. With your first baby its hard because it one of those times that you are acutely aware that your life is CHANGED. And you sort of feel like that, in general life, for a long time. That you spend all you time looking down. When each of my kids were around 15 months is when I really began to feel like I was seeing the world around me for the first time. It is a good feeling.

And now the next stage we look forward to is self sufficiency! This is why my first JOY DAY post was about A getting out of bed on her own. And I remember the first time a while back, when she went to the bathroom totally by herself, washed her hands and rejoined our activity: heaven. Every step towards happy independence IS joyful.

So this week I saw this piece "Toddlers: The Hours Are Long, The Years Are Short". Love it. It also referenced Ask Moxie's "It Gets Better: Toddler Edition". I recommend both of these readings for any one who is living with their head down right now. Or for anyone who's head is slowly raising to find themselves holding pom-poms for independence.  My favorite sentence on Ask Moxie: "they are still little boys even though a lot of days it's like having two adult roommates who just like to snuggle a lot."

I can't wait!

But we still look around and say to ourselves, breeeeaaaaathe. Its going to be over soon. She won't always have this ridiculously cute lisp. And his 1 year old feet won't always be this chubby.

First Birthday Fun!

It's actually been almost 6 months since N's First Birthday party but I have yet to showcase the photos here. Since N is about to turn 1 and a 1/2 in a couple of weeks, I am feeling nostalgic.

This was a really, really fun party for me to plan and design. I went all out with the "Farmyard" theme and I was really proud of the way everything turned out. It was a beautiful end of summer day just like his sister's 1st birthday. Lots of friends and family were there to enjoy with us. I had so much fun with the cake and cupcakes and decorations and birthday "activities". The photos below are a perfect mixture of the work of my photographer sister Barbara Brush and Brian Samuels (of Brian Samuels Photography) who we hired for that day. Brian was amazing and blended right in to the action. He caught some great moments that I missed because, like most hostesses, I was in the kitchen for the first hour of the party.... Enjoy!

The decorations...

The food...

The cake (and cupcake garden!)...

The fun...

A few days before the party I thought of this idea--- Using pictures that I cut out of all of my extra invitation I made a "clothesline" type of thing and asked people to safety pin a message for N that he will read on his 10th birthday. It was a big hit! And really really sweet to read them all now from all ages that were at the party.

Face painting!

Happy Mardi Gras! (recipe for Jambalaya)

In honor of, well, February I guess, I decided to make Jambalaya for dinner this week.  This super simple recipe turned out great, although it made enough to feed a small army!

CHICKEN & SAUSAGE JAMBALAYA

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 small onion, diced
½ red pepper, diced
2 ribs celery, diced
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon whole thyme
½ teaspoon chili powder
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 package sausage, sliced thinly
1 lb chicken, cut into chunks
½ cup white wine
1 can diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato Paste
2 cups white rice
1 large can chicken broth
¼ teaspoon salt

Heat oil in a large roasting or sauté pan over high heat. Add onions, peppers, celery, Creole seasoning, pepper, thyme, chili powder and garlic; cook for 5 minutes. Add sausage and chicken and cook an additional 5 minutes. Stir in wine, tomatoes, tomato paste, rice, chicken broth and salt, cover, and cook over low heat approximately 30 to 40 minutes, until liquid is absorbed and rice is tender. Salt to taste and serve.

If you are making it for two adults, I'd cut it in half. Its a little bit spicy so you can cut down on the Cayenne pepper to make friendly for all ages. Although my 1 year old did demand to try it and then ran off with the spoon to lick it clean!

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!

So here is what happened this year. As a holiday that I loathed, both as a single and as an attached girl, I suddenly found value in Valentine's Day this year. Just another excuse to have fun and shower the family with love. 1) First, I had not noticed, in life previously, that you can buy decorations for your home for almost any occasion. More importantly I didn't realize that as my kids got older that would be something I would actually WANT to do. We had tons of fun decorating the house with A. Anything is magical at 3! And even 1.5 year olds will play for hours with holiday themed window clings!

2) We had tons of fun making valentines that would actually be passed out to her preschool class. And anytime there is a big "party" at school the excitement turns up a few notches at home. What I did not know is that Valentine's day is right up there with Halloween in the candy department - no matter how many notes that go home with the parents that say "do not bring in candy". I will be mentally prepared next year -- And I'll remember to block out more time for me on the treadmill :-)

3) We received valentines this year from our 3 year old (with help from the babysitter) and the presentation was super amazing! (This is in the lead for a JOY DAY post but lets see if something else beats it out this week)

4) Making Valentine's themed treats is fun. My go-to recipe for Tri Berry Muffins from Barefoot Contessa look all pink and purple when you bake them! BUT, one must be careful when making heart shaped pancakes, as my husband found out this morning. The the shapes can mistakenly get a little "dirty" :-) 

5) And finally, although on a much smaller scale, setting up their little gifts on the eve of Valentine's Day and watching their reactions in the morning was like a teeny, tiny Christmas. 

Hope your day was filled with fun and love too!

Water Color Valentines! (little master pieces)

Our big craft project this week, of course, are valentines. A is in preschool this year so we get to make them for more than just our family.

One of my favorite things to do for almost any event is to "re-purpose" some of the beautiful paintings that they have already created. This year we made special watercolor paintings to use just for our Valentine's Cards, but if you are like me you probably have piles of paintings that you just don't know what to do with. You don't want to throw them out but....

So here's an idea: Just use pieces of the paintings! It is amazing to see the perfect little masterpieces that exist within the larger one. Kids can free-form express themselves while painting, but really mom is in charge of the final composition.

Tip: Let the kids use REAL PAPER and REAL WATERCOLORS. Messier and not as washable but so worth it. Take a painting away when its only partly "finished" and let it dry for a little while while they work on another. Then when you give back the first for more painting, the layering will be fantastic!

Other supplies for this project came from, my favorite, Paper Source in Cambridge, MA.

There were actually a LOT of little moments this week when I was filled with appreciation for my little bundles. It was a special week. This mild winter helps a ton.The one moment I want to highlight though is my daughter getting to wear her recital dress for the first time.  Much to my dismay they have already passed their dresses out when the recital is not until May. Explaining to a 3 year old over and over on a daily basis that we are supposed to be keeping the dresses nice just feels futile. But so far she has managed to only wear it the one day she brought it home.  I was lucky enough to feel like a fly on the wall when I took this video: Pink dress 

I wasn't like this as a kid. I wasn't into dresses (although I could bore my parents for hours with my performances) I can't relate to this in anyway now other than seeing such miraculous joy in her it spills over into me. The "Toddler & Tiaras" type dress is hard to swallow but look how HAPPY SHE IS!  Love it!

Does anyone else have a moment joy moment from the week that you want to share? We would love to hear them!

Capturing Time

So I decided at around January 3rd to participate in the Photo A Day project. Granted that means I missed three days but I have been keeping up ever since. There are days that I almost forget and I take picture of something random, like my cat snuggled in my bed right before I get in. Other days I actually remember to pull out my camera at a moment that is telling of my day. Like today when I caught N's protest on the streets of Cambridge. He just sat down and wouldn't move. He wasn't screaming. It wasn't a full blown out tantrum. Just a protest that he didn't want to leave. So he went limp on the sidewalk and just sat there. And I let him. Sometimes it's easier. I let him sit there for a few minutes, pointing at trucks and "talking" to me. I took photos.

As much as a lot of these photos seem trivial on a daily basis (like the one I took of my blueberry muffin batter) I imagine when I look back at them at the end of the year I will enjoy them. They will give me a sense of where I was a year ago, or ten months ago, or 5 months ago. When you have young children those can be very different spaces of time. So in that same line of thinking I've decided to capture the joy of the year as well. Parenting is so much about just getting through. Getting through this stage, this event, this meal, this bedtime, this night..... But along the way there are those moments of sublime joy. And in the 99% of the day of "getting through" its hard to remember the 1%. It's probably why my favorite article ever about parenting (with the most telling title) is the NY Times "All Joy, No Fun". But the reality is that each week has a moment. Maybe more than one, maybe less, but I want to make Friday JOY DAY. Starting now, each I will write about one moment of pure parenting joy from the week. This leaves 48 more weeks for me to come up with something. Per usual, it's to help me keep things in perspective.

And to be clear, this week's moment of joy was NOT N's Occupy Porter Square stunt. Not even close.

lunchtime

So my fruit & veggie pounding baby has turned into an uber picky 3 year old. This is nothing but frustrating to me as I previously thought picky eating had to be a result of poor parenting. Alas, I was wrong. Again. Sigh.

So of course I am now reading all sorts of literature about how to handle it. And even bought The Sneaky Chef to see if I could make some seemingly yummy snacks that were sneakily hiding healthy things. At least to get us through this period of time. I haven't tried an actual recipe yet but will let you know when I do.

My latest idea, which came up spontaneously  is what I like to call my "Lunchtime Lecture Series".

My impromptu chart drawn on the chalk board in our kitchen describes any information I could remember from my middle school health class.  We had lots of fun thinking of things in each category and watching mommy try to draw them (we combined fruit and veggies into one). And now at meal times we look at our plate and decide which category each thing is in. There should be one thing from each group on her plate.  A challenge to A to eat them all. And quite frankly a challenge to mom to supply all four!



Doing a little more research I found a Nourish Interactive that has some great information and lots of printables for parents and kids.

Although its been a short period of time, I think its working! At least on the education side. Tonight we talked about all the parts of her pizza.....Ok. Maybe there is still work to be done. :-)

Two trips to Disney World in 8 months!

Crazy, we are. I know.  Let me begin by saying our first trip 8 months ago was booked in the middle of the winter duldrums. In a desperate moment of "when the heck are we getting out of here!".  So we booked Disney for May 2011 and it was magical! Then this January one of my sisters had been planning to run in the 1/2 marathon and we needed to book a winter vacation anyway so we decided to bring everyone along!

With a 2.5 year old and an 8 month old last May our expectations were actually pretty low and it blew our minds how fantastic it was for all of us! This trip our expectations were, well, different. We knew even though it was 8 months later we were going with two very different kids.  A being 3 is much more opinionated than she was at 2 and N being 16 months is quite...energetic.  But some how we succeeded again it keeping everyone happy, tantrums at a minimum, and focusing on why we went there to begin with: to have FUN.

So I'm writing this because everyone alway asks for "tips" after we get back.  Being that I don't consider myself a Disney expert I can tell you what we did to keep our trip magical. I can not tell you which character breakfast is the best or which hotel had a better pool.  Our rules both trips were keep it simple, and most importantly, how do we make it EASY.

1) Book a non-stop flight -- Its easier to push through than have to get off and do it all over again.

2) We chose to rent a 3 bedroom condo offsite. HIGHLY recommend it. Its the Floridays and its #1 on tripadvisor right now. The place was perfect for our needs and super close to the parks. 10 - 15 minute drive. Here's why we chose it, especially with such young children:

• It didn't break the bank like many villas at Disney do. We booked on expedia and orbitz.
• THREE bedrooms!!! I know this seems extreme for a family of four but my kids don't share a room at home so we wanted to recreate their home experience as much as possible. Also, if one of them did end up having trouble sleeping at the new hotel, they wouldn't wake up the other.  (on our second trip our oldest had a fever and had trouble sleeping one night- this is why we have them in separate rooms)
• Layout - Kitchen, livingroom, dining room, patio. Master bedroom and bath off the living room. Kids rooms and their bathroom down a LONG hall. This means mommy and daddy got to hang out, have dinner and cocktails after the kids went to bed. We wanted this to be vacation for US too!
• WASHER AND DRYER IN THE ROOM - 'nuff said.
• Zero entry pool - perfect for two toddlers or a baby and toddler. So.much.fun!!!
• Also, the staff here is amazing. So helpful. My kids sleep with white noise. They gave us a full size crib for N and box fans for all bedrooms.

3) We stayed within their routine as much as possible. This meant we were back at the hotel every afternoon.  If our older child didn't nap, she rested and then got in some pool time.  We never kept them out late. Every single night they had dinner, bath, story and bedtime just as they would at home.  I did not want to be the mom at the park with a screaming, exhausted toddler wondering why they weren't having more fun! Of course this means we have yet to see any of the night stuff at Disney but my kids go to bed at 7:30. When they are older we have something to look forward too!

4) Make a plan but BE FLEXIBLE! The most important thing is to pick out the 3 or 4 most important things you want to see that day and if you get to those, great. If you squeeze in a few more, awesome! On our first trip for the first couple of days I kept saying to my husband, there is still so much to see! But we had to keep it in perspective. There would be more trips ahead. More time. They'd be older someday and wouldn't need naps. And think about it, when in your real life do you squeeze in the equivalent of The Children's Museum, The aquarium, 3 Rides, and 2 Broadway-esque shows into one morning? You don't. If everyone stays in their happy place you get your money's worth with young children even if you've only seen 1/4 quarter of what there is to see.

And the kids love the pool at the hotel the most anyway :-)

5) Make a reservation for a sit down, full service lunch every single day. Worth the money! All members of the family need an hour to sit, regroup and be waited on. Especially if you are there during a hot time.

I will post again about the rides that my kids liked the best this time around compared to last time because like I said, we had two different kids for each trip.  That's how much they change in 8 months!

I have about 3 "Disney" tips too that I will pass on.

Would we do it again? YUP!!!