What We Are Reading

So, recently I brought the kids in for our quiet morning at our neighborhood coffee shop and the girl behind the counter starts making small talk with my kids. It's easy to do. They are talkative and typically cute, as 2 and 4 years olds are.  Anyways, she is doing that thing that adults do where they talk through children (I do it all the time). Basically she was telling me she used to be a preschool teacher and she LOVES this book called The Circus Ship. She wrote it down on a piece of paper and slipped it to my 4 year old girl. Well, that little note was like treasure to A. She carefully kept it in her pocket as if the girl behind the counter had handed her the best secret ever. So I looked it up and decided we'd give it a try. And it was a great find!

We love it. Maybe its because we are New Englanders, but who doesn't love a story about circus animals finding a home on an island off of Maine when their boat crashes near shore! The story is very loosely based on true events and the illustrations are amazing. Its an adventure story! With good guys and a bad guy (aptly named Mr. Paine); a sweet tiger that saves a little girl; and the villagers figuring out that they want to be friends with these exotic, yet kind animals. The book is exciting and has a happy ending.  Both my 2 year old and 4 year old are entranced by it.  A fun filled book that's a great addition to any collection. Especially for us Sea-coasters. 

(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!