Weekend Recap

After having every Saturday and Sunday in the month of May with something going on, it was SO nice to relax and stay at home this weekend.  Saturday morning we ventured out to Sam's and Kroger for some much needed groceries and Sunday morning we went to church, but that was it.  The rest of the three day weekend was spent at home.

Snuggling 

And playing outside.

 The weather was beautiful, especially in the evenings and Monday morning before it got too hot.  We spent a LOT of time outside.  The water table resurfaced and was a big hit every day. 

Charlotte did not like the hat at all.   I tied it so she couldn't get it off and once she finally realized she couldn't go outside without it on, she left it alone for a couple of hours.  Now if only I could convince her to leave her hairbows alone....

Trey was super excited about his new sunglasses.  He is not really this white, that is just the sunscreen that didn't completely get rubbed it.  My kids were covered from head to toe with sunscreen every morning and afternoon!

Splashing together!

Luckily we cleaned out the water table and put in fresh water every morning because I could not get her to stop drinking the water!

Trey loves blowing bubbles and chasing them.  He is getting really good at blowing them using the wand.  I think we could blow bubbles for hours and he would have a blast popping them.  

Trey is also sporting his "STAR reader for Eagle Rock Elementary hat.

Inside the house I rotated some toys around and brought up one of Charlotte's Christmas gifts.  It is a princess chair/sofa and I figured since she loves to climb so much it would be nice for her to have something to climb in that is just her size.

Charlotte likes to have her snack in her new princess chair. 

Trey is also a big fan of the chair.  He likes to take over the sofa so Charlotte has no room to sit.  In case the princess chair makes him feel less masculine, he needed to carry his football with him.

Charlotte is reading a princess book in her princess chair.  I sense a theme starting to take over here.

Trey didn't really want to take any pictures of himself.  He kept telling me no and turning away when I took out the camera.  Charlotte is always up for having her picture taken.  Especially when she is making music and dancing to it!

Look Whose Walking!

Guess who has (finally!) decided she is ready to walk?

Charlotte has decided she is ready to walk on her own.  Just like when she wouldn't sleep through the night at 3 months of age (or nine months of age!), or get on a schedule by 4 months, or any other milestone I tried to establish based on what her brother had done, Charlotte had to do it when she was ready.  She has been cruising and walking around hold our hands for months, but she wouldn't let go! Just when I thought she would never venture out on her own, she did! She took her first few steps earlier last week and now she is doing circles around the house.  When she falls,  she just laughs and picks herself up. 

Lifelong Friends

On a mission trip to Texas in 1998.

They are those friends you share all your "firsts" with.  My first sleepover, my first time at a sleep away camp, my first time driving a friend, my first person to call about a crush or a date.  The girls I spent HOURS on the phone with in high school and my evening was not complete until we all talked about our day and what boy borrowed our pencil.

My brother's wedding in 2001.

We have known each other since kindergarten and were best friends from 6th grade until we graduated high school.  Even though we said we would always be best friends, life happens.  And even though I hadn't seen them in 3 years, seeing them (all but one!) on Saturday night was like coming home to my best friends.

Summer break from college 2005.

One of the girls got married on Saturday evening.  The rest of us were there to cheer her on and wish her well. The wedding was held were she grew up.  As we walked along the grounds and strolled by the house it brought back so many memories.  The sunroom where I would let myself in and say hi to her parents on the way to her room.  The den where we had sleepovers.  The tennis courts where we laid out in the sun one hot spring afternoon.  

Christmas time 2008.

 I can still tell you the names they had picked out for their kids in middle school.  Now that I think about it, I didn't use one of the names I had picked out on my own children!

Carson's wedding 2012.

Some days those high school years seem so long ago, and yet when I close my eyes they seem just like yesterday. 

How We Approach Real Food part 2

I feel like a hypocrite writing a post with "real food" in the title because it has been one of those weeks where we have had lots of compromises!

Where do I compromise?
 Snacks.  I don't buy snack cakes, or puddings, or chips for us to eat.  The kids are usually starving as soon as we get home, and I can fix dinner easier if they have a snack to eat. If I have whole wheat muffins or rolls made, those work great for snacks.  That is usually available about 50% of the time at my house because I like to keep those things on hand for a quick breakfast.  When it is not available we usually go straight to cheerios or goldfish.  I know they are "processed", but since there are a lot worse things I could feed my kids than cheerios or goldfish I choose to not to worry about it too often. In the summer when I home I tend to make whole grain soft pretzels, granola bars and other snacky foods.  During the school year after making all the meals for the day, I really don't have time to make snacks too. I usually have homemade granola on hand that Trey likes, but it has nuts in it, which makes me really nervous for Charlotte.  I don't let Trey have the homemade granola around Charlotte because whenever Trey starts to eat something, the rest of it ends up in Charlotte's mouth.

When we are out.  On Wednesday nights we eat dinner at church.  Trey eats about a half a frozen chicken tender every Wednesday night.  Do I ,keep those at home? No. Is it worth making my life easier by not having to worry about dinner on Wednesday's between late faculty meeting and getting him to choir by feeding him "processed" chicken tenders? Absolutely.

I also tend to compromise when entertaining.  Let's be honest, organic food is often more expensive and everything from scratch takes extra time.  When we are having a group of people over I would stress myself out too much trying to do everything, and I have learned to just buy items that make my life easier and don't stretch our budget to the limit.  I like to serve homemade pizza but if life happens and I go get a pizza for dinner when friends come over, it is not the end of the world.

Ok, now it sounds like we never serve real food!

What about those picky eaters? 
 I have learned I can't make my three year old eat something he doesn't want to eat.  I can maybe get in one bite, but it is pointless to serve him food I know he doesn't like and expect him to eat a full meal.  It isn't going to happen.  So I often put out healthy options for him to eat and one new thing that I fixed for dinner.  Usually both kids have a grain and fruit I know they will eat for dinner, then I offer whatever else I have fixed.  Sometimes cutting things into shapes helps Trey eat, sometimes it doesn't nothing.


My favorite food blogs

Lot's of the blogs have great ideas and recipes.  I don't necessarily agree with all their opinions, but they have good ideas and make me think about what I serve my family.
www.100daysof realfood.com
www.heavenlyhomemakers.com
www.passionatehomemaking.com
http://megsfavrecipes.blogspot.com/

Recipes I use over and over .
Homemake tortillas
Granola
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
All the bread, rolls, pancakes, muffins, and any variation of those come from the recipes in this book from Bread Beckers.  Best $6 I have ever spent.

Real food is a journey.  For our family right now we are working on trying new vegetables (some of us are just working on eating a vegetable!), finding new ways to buy local food, and deciding what is worth compromising on and what isn't.  We aren't there yet.  We will probably never be there.  But I leave with this story from Tuesday night.

While I was grinding my grains into flour to make some bread, Trey was playing with the grain bucket.  I kept bending over to refill my measuring cup and pour it into the mill.  Trey started telling me, "Good job Mommy! I am so proud of you! Go faster Mommy, go faster!" So does this mean he appreciates the extra effort I put into making his food? Doubtful.

Strawberry Farm

Speaking of real food, I have really wanted to go pick local strawberries this spring.  Last week there was an article in the paper about some of the local (okay still about an hour away) farms and the article talked about how most of the strawberries would be gone by Memorial Day weekend.  We have a busy May coming up, so we decided to go yesterday. 

I spent the morning with some other young mom from our Sunday School getting pedicures and having a lunch out.  We had the best time! Then I met up with Jay and the kids and we headed to Scott's Strawberry Farm in Bedford.

Charlotte was a pro at picking strawberries.  Once I showed her you put them in the bucket she had that job covered.  She would pick them off and put them in the bucket herself, or I would put a pile beside her and she would pick them up and put them in the bucket then.

 

After we had one bucket full I showed her she could eat the strawberries.  There was no turning back after that.  She ate strawberries off the ground, out of the bucket, and picked ones just to eat.  When we left strawberry juice was covering her from head to toe.

 Trey was very excited on the way there, but he got a little scared by a loud tractor nearby and didn't want to pick strawberries after we arrived.  He mainly just played in the field alongside us and played with the sticks and hay.  At first, he was disappointed the berries were just red and not blue.  We kept having to promise him we would get blue ones later (meaning at Kroger since blueberries are not in season).  Apparently on a Max and Ruby DVD we got from the library recently, when they went berry picking there were red and blue berries on the same bush.  Not helpful Nickelodeon.

Right before we left he picked up a strawberry and took the tiniest bite.

Now I have 10 quarts of strawberries to take care of this week! On the list to make this week is strawberry bread, fruit leather, and strawberry scones. The rest I plan to freeze for smoothies and strawberry baked goods throughout the year.  

How We Approach Real Food

I have been getting a lot of questions lately from friends and co-workers about how we do "real" food at our house and what our food looks like.  Let me start off by saying I am in no way an expert on real food, nor do I feed my family real food 100% of the time.  My goal is about 75% real and 25% close to real but with some grace built in :) I wanted to get all my thoughts on this topic organized so I thought a blog post might help me to do that.  Here are some of the top questions I get.

How did you get started making your own bread?
Two years ago when Trey was first starting into table food I realized I had quite the picky eater on my hands.  I was determined that what he was going to have an opportunity to eat was going to be healthy for him, even if it was whole grains and fruit instead of vegetables.  Thus began our journey. After a class at my church I learned about milling grains and baking bread.  The class was based around the teaching of Sue Becker.  She has some great articles at her website here http://info.breadbeckers.com/articles/  We purchased a grain mill and a new bread machine.  I grind grains and make from scratch all our bread products (muffins, sandwich bread, pancakes, etc.) and use the bread machine to make loaves of bread.

This is the grain mill we use.  Source

Where do you get your grains?
Originally I bought my grains through a Bread Beckers coop in Roanoke, but I found a much cheaper source at the Cheese Shop in Stuarts Draft, VA.  I used to get grains every 5-6 months, but now I am making bread for another family also so I go through about 40 lbs of grain in 2-3 months.  The Cheese Shop works great because if we are traveling to Richmond to see my family I can call the day before and place my order and pay for it over the phone, then it is ready when we drive by.  My parents sometimes even picked up an order for me when they come to visit.

This is the closest thing I could find to my bread machine.  I have used it at least once a week for 2 years and it is still going strong! Source

What kind of grains do you buy?
There are a ton of different grains available in natural food stores, but we mainly stick to hard red wheat, soft white wheat and hard white wheat.  Sometimes I buy both hard red wheat and soft white wheat.  Then I use the hard red for bread and yeast doughs and the soft white wheat for pancakes, tortillas, and anything that doesn't have to rise.  Lately though I have just been getting hard white wheat and using it for everything.  It has a less "nutty" flavor than hard red so it tastes good in pancakes and cookies, but it still works well with yeast for regular bread.  I think the hard white tastes more like the bread I was used to eating, but Jay likes the richer flavor of the hard red better.

Here is my bread machine in action tonight.  It was working hard to make a loaf of bread while I cleaned up dinner and went upstairs with the kids to get ready for bed. 

Do you buy all organic with your food? 
I try to stick to the outside of the grocery store when I shop.  I like to buy all organic produce, but sometimes my budget just doesn't allow it.  My kids eat a ton of fruit and organic fruit is expensive, so often I buy the regular stuff, rinse it really good, and tell myself it is good for them because it is fruit.  Some places have great farmer's markets and local sources for food, but where we live there isn't much close.  In Daleville there is a farmer's market on Saturdays from May-October, so I try to shop there for in season produce in the summer.  During the winter when there is no local source it is a lot harder to buy local/organic.

All my grains are stored in the big buckets with gamma seal lids in the corner pantry.  I use the red lid for hard red and white lid for soft white, that way I don't get confused.  Right now they both have hard white grains in them so that system isn't really working anymore.  You can also see part of my mill on the floor.  The other part is in the fridge with flour I just ground this evening when I make some bread.

How do you have time to do this?
Plan, plan, plan.  Usually on Friday evenings I make a meal plan for the next week (Sat.-Sat.) and then on Sat. I do my grocery shopping.  I like Saturday mornings early because the farmer's market is available.
Also, I often double recipes.  When I make pancakes on Saturdays I freeze half for later in the week.  I do a lot of make ahead when my kids nap on Sunday or Saturday.  That is usually when I make pizza dough or tortillas if we are having those during the week.  The making of the actual bread takes very little hands on time.  It takes about 10 minutes to get everything put in the bread machine, and it comes out all ready to slice at eat 2 1/2 hours later.  If I know I am going to be making pizza dough and bread in the next few days, I go ahead and grind the grains for the bread when I make my pizza dough and store in the fridge for a day or two until I need it.

These are some of my ingredients I keep on hand.  I went ahead and made up jars of Italian seasoning, taco seasoning, and other items I use regularly.  This saves times and means no preservatives because I made them myself!

Where do you shop? 
I already shared where I buy my grains.  I like to stock up on spices, honey, olive oil, ingredients for granola, and butter there also.  They sell amish butter for a good deal and so I buy about 8 lbs. at a time and freeze what I don't need for later.   My family goes through some cheese so I am looking into purchase cheese in bulk there and freezing it as well.  We usually do our regular grocery shoping at Kroger in Daleville and the farmer's market at Ikenberry's is right along the way for us.  I usually buy my eggs at Ikenberry's because they sell eggs from local farmers.  Something we haven't gotten into is buying local chicken to eat.  It is just really expensive, and while I usually make my chickens stretch 3-4 meals and make broth out of it, I just have a hard time justifying the cost.  I know it is better for us, but at the same time I have a pretty strict
 grocery budget to follow.

And just to keep it real, here is my kitchen sink after dinner.  I was waiting for the dishwasher to finish so I could unload it and then reload it with all these dirty dishes.  Ahh, the benefits of a huge sink :)

There are still more things I want to share, like my favorite real food blogs, recipes I use all the time, and how to deal with real food with kids and other people who don't share your ideas.  Those will be coming in a part 2 post soon!

100%

I love that Charlotte knows to say cheese as soon as she sees the camera!

 Charlotte is back to her normal playful self.  It is so nice to have our sweet, easy going baby girl back.  She is back to eating, playing, laughing and saying no all the time. 

Charlotte is a Daddy's girl.

Charlotte believes in full on the mouth kisses, none of those sissy cheek kisses.  Her kisses are the real deal, full of snot and everything :)

Last weekend Charlotte's carseat had an unfortunate incident with a squished banana.  It was not pretty.  While I took off the cover and washed it, the carseat spent a few days in the mudroom.  The girl who usually says "No, No!" the entire time you are putting her in the carseat spent a whole evening climbing into her seat and just relaxing. 

Trey is really into crafts these days. I would like to be a great crafty mom and plan projects together.  That doesn't really happen.  Instead he just found an old foam Christmas tree in a drawer and decided to decorate it. 

Heard Around Here

Trey is full of wisdom being all of 3 years and 1 month old.  His thoughts shock me, crack me up, and just make me marvel at how he knows so much just through observation.

This morning when I was putting him in his car seat he buckled up all by himself.  I told him I couldn't believe he was so big.  I asked him when got to be so big.  "Uh.. I don't know Mommy, but I am not all that big.  Someday I will be as big as Daddy!"

When Charlotte was sick Trey tried to comfort her.  "Charlotte, Mommy will take your temperature, give you medicine and you will feel better."  Then he looked at me, "Mommy, do you mind taking Charlotte to the doctor so she can feel better?"

He was helping me make pizza dough this afternoon and didn't exactly want to follow the recipe.  I showed it to him and told him it was like a map, we had to follow what it told us to do.  Unfortunately it was on purple paper.  "Oh, it's a map? Ok.  But I think it is Charlotte's map so I don't have to follow it." I asked why it was Charlotte's.  "Because it is purple, so I don't have to follow it, Charlotte does."

A few days ago we went to the library.  On the way out he kept insisting on walking on the handicap line in the parking lot.  I kept trying to get him to walk towards our car, which was on the other side of the parking lot.  "No, Mommy I don't want to take the white path, I want to take the blue one." 

Trey has been mostly potty trained since January and we are so fortunate he hardly ever has accidents.  He still sleeps in pull ups though just so he isn't waking up in the middle of the night with a wet bed.  He also poops in them.  There was a package of pull ups on the counter that I bought at the store last night.  When he saw them today he said, "Oh thank you Mommy for buying me some pull ups that I can poop in. I might need to use them."

Tonight he told Jay, "I want Charlotte to be a boy."  Jay tried to explain that God made Charlotte a girl and she is special the way she is and that God made Trey a boy and that he special too.  Trey's response, "But I still just want her to be a boy like me."

He went through a period of a few months where he would not stay in bed after bedtime.  He is doing so much better now and stays in bed most nights unless something from the above mentioned bullet happens in his pull up.  One evening he kept calling for me, but stayed in his bed. He told me he wanted me to lay with him so I did.  When I started to get under the covers he held them up for me and said, "Don't worry Mommy I will keep you warm.  You can snuggle with me."  So sweet.

MidWeek Confessions

I love reading blogs with people in the same stage of life as me.  One blog I follow does MidWeek Confessions every week.  It makes me smile every week to realize every other mom does some of the things I do that I really don't admit to anyone.  So I thought I would link up. 

•  I have never linked to anyone's blog before and it took me quite a while to figure out how to get the whole button thing to work and I hope this button takes you back to the original blog.
• My husband can design websites and his job involves web design and coding.  When I asked him to help me figure out the button thing, he couldn't understand the point of what I was doing so I just sighed and decided to figure it out myself.  That is the same reason why I don't have a cute blog header or design.
• We have lived in our new house for 7 months.  There is still nothing on the walls.  I look on pinterest, get ideas, then never follow through.  Story of my life. 
• Tonight I went to the grocery store by myself.  I wandered around the aisles because I could. 
• Sometimes my three year old eats cereal for dinner.  Many days it is just not worth the fight to make him eat something else. 
• My kids and my husband are not a big fan of meat.  We eat chicken maybe twice a week for dinner and that's about it.  The other night I thawed out some chicken to made chicken parmesan with the pasta and marinara sauce I had left over.  My husband informs me that I didn't need to make chicken for his sake.  I tell him I realize that but I hadn't had any meat in 4 days and I just really want some chicken! A vegetarian I am not. 
• We let Charlotte have her paci the whole weekend. 
• Most of my blogs have typos.  I really do proofread, I just read what I think I want to say and not what the post actually says. 

Sick Baby

Charlotte loves her blankie.  I used to lay it on her when she napped in the swing. Then she started using it to cuddle with and now I can't remember when we first put it in her crib with her. She sleeps like this every night.

Her blanket tucked underneath her and wadded up to make a pillow. 

 If she is upset about not getting her way, usually just handing her the blankie to cuddle with makes her feel all better.

She got her blankie a lot this weekend.  On Friday evening she had a slight temperature, which I just chalked up to her molars coming in.  She was still acting normal so I didn't worry too much.

 Then on Saturday morning she had a temperature of 103 when she woke up.  It was too early to make an appointment with the doctor, so we tried breakfast.  When she didn't eat anything we knew it was more than just a virus.  I called our pediatrician's office (thank goodness for weekend hours!) and got her an appointment that morning.  We were so glad it was our regular pediatrician that was on call last weekend.

 She checked Charlotte all over and couldn't see anything to make her 103 temp seem logical, so she decided to do some more checking.  15 month olds can't exactly tell you what hurts. Poor Charlotte had to have a catheter for a urine sample and then a finger print for a blood sample.  They ran some tests and found she had a urinary tract infection.  No wonder she was so unhappy! Then they gave her a shot of antibiodics in her leg to start clearing up the infection right away and to help relieve some of her pain.  When the nurse who had done the catheter and blood sample came back in to give her a shot, Charlotte started crying as soon as she came through the door.  Charlotte was a trooper though and really didn't cry that much. 

 Saturday evening we thought things were getting better.  When the shot wore off we could tell she was experiencing much more discomfort.  On Sunday I stayed home from church with her and she just basically wanted to be held the whole time.  We did puzzles and read books together. 

Monday I stayed home from work with her because she was acting so clingy/needy we didn't want Grandma to have to deal with that plus a three year old.  I am so glad I stayed home because that morning she had an allergic reaction to her antibiotics.  We went back to the doctor again and now her chart says she is allergic to sulfur based medicines.  Monday evening, when the new medicine started to work, she seemed so much happier and more herself.  Today she was smiling, playing, and eating like normal.  We aren't back to 100% yet, but a close 90%.