New Eleanor-isms

These are all just from this morning!

• Gesturing around at the inside of our house, "This is MYYY house.  It's not Mama's house, but my house!"  (She knew she was being funny.)  Me: "Oh really?  How much money did you pay for it?"  "I paid lots of dollars!"  "How many dollars?"  "I paid FIVE dollars!"  Oh, if only...  :)
• In the car, passing a restaurant with a large American flag outside:  "There's a flag!  It's a gigantic flag!'  "Yes Eleanor, that's our country's flag.  You know, our country has a birthday in July and you have a birthday in July!"  She thought for a minute, started to laugh, and said, "But it doesn't have a mouth so it can't eat cake!"
• We went to Target and I had a list but I knew there was one thing I forgot to write down.  I explained this to Eleanor and told her that I was trying to remember what else I needed.  She gave me helpful suggestions that we really did need (avocado, for example), but I told her that I was planning to get those things at our next stop at Publix.  Then she got a big smile on her face and said, "I know what it was!  A great, BIG dinosaur!"  She was holding 2 of her dinosaurs in the shopping cart with her and I know what she meant was that she wanted me to buy her more dinosaurs.  :)  So funny!
• Somehow we ended up talking about Halloween yesterday and I told her what she's been for the past 3 years.  (pea pod, strawberry, black cat)  Today she told me that she wants to be a Dilophosaurus for Halloween this year, and that I should be a Tyrannosaurus Rex, Hunter should be a "flying dinosaur" (Pterodactyl), and Arthur should be a "spine-o-saurus" (aka Stegosaurus).  I'm halfway tempted to try to make it happen just because it would be so funny!

Of course, there aren't any Arthur-isms yet, but he's working on it!  I'm almost convinced that he's been trying to say Eleanor's name whenever he sees her.  Also, whenever I nurse him I call it "leche" and there have been several times lately that he has made a sound like "eh-che" when he is about to nurse.  A few times he's even pulled off and said it and then gone back to nursing.  It's not consistent though, and sometimes I think I'm just imagining it.

"Real food"

I was recently inspired by this website to try to only eat real food - meaning no processed foods, no foods with ingredients I can't pronounce, and no food with sugar or white flour in it.  Now, I'm not doing it 100% - even my Stonyfield organic yogurt and my 100% whole wheat bread have sugar in them.  And if I go out to eat (which we do about once/week), I'm going to enjoy my meal and not ask a thousand questions like whether or not there is sugar in the soy sauce.  However, I did make my own plain yogurt the other day and so far, so good.  Hunter's still afraid to eat it, but he said he'll try it if I eat it for a week and don't die or anything.  :)  I also have plans to eventually make my own sugar-free whole wheat bread, but I'm not there yet.

The best part?  I have more energy than I've had in a while.  I was really surprised that after just a few days it made that much of a difference, but it did.  Nap/quiet time came around yesterday and instead of wanting to just go lie down, I organized my drawers and closet and cleaned out the pantry.  This isn't really a drastic change for us because we really don't eat many processed foods in the first place - we make pretty much everything from scratch - but even just cutting out little things here and there makes a difference.

Anyway, I just wanted to share a few of my favorite recipes/tips that I've found so far.

• In the mornings I've been drinking iced coffee (love this way of making it) and I add a little bit of almond milk and maple syrup.  Yes, maple syrup.  You really can't tell the difference and it's a natural sweetener.
• Love this whole wheat banana bread
• Here's my recipe for yogurt in a crock pot, and the berry sauce that I eventually plan to make to go with it.  So far I've just been adding a little bit of honey to it but the berry sauce sounds better.
• These cookies are SO good!  Yes there's some sugar in the chocolate chips, but that's it.
• And I love this granola recipe.  I make it with dried cranberries and for the nuts I do half sliced almonds, half pecan pieces.  Sometimes I reduce the amount of maple syrup, but I can tell the difference.
• I love eating this sandwich for lunch, though I leave off the green goddess sauce.
• Another way of satisfying my sweet tooth - mix a frozen banana, some almond milk (maybe 1/2 cup?), and 2 T of cocoa powder in a blender.  It seriously tastes like chocolate ice cream.

Last day of school! (and more)

Today was Eleanor's last day of school!  Here's the obligatory picture.  Lots of silly poses today!

She did NOT want to put the stick down!

Today they celebrated the 3 summer birthdays at the end of the day.

Here she is listening to everybody sing to her

Chocolate hands!

Posing with the lead teacher

Her favorite activity at school (no surprise!)

The other night we had enchiladas that definitely had a kick to them.

I think Arthur enjoyed them.

Here's a video of my funny, funny boy:


Hunter took the kids to the zoo to see the temporary dinosaur exhibit.  (What, there are no dinosaurs at your zoo?)
 

Green Meadows Petting Farm

This weekend we went to visit the Green Meadows Petting Farm in Kissimmee and had a great time!  I didn't realize HOW MUCH there is to see!  The tour took 3 hours, but there was plenty to see along the way and fortunately we brought food with us.  If you're in the Orlando area and you have kids, I highly recommend it!

Riding a pony

Eleanor really enjoyed this!

Feeding a pig

Eleanor and I rode the train

(Arthur was napping)

Arthur woke up in time to see the bunnies and guinea pigs!  I wish you could see his huge smile when he looked at the rabbits!  He really enjoyed some cows later too.

Is he a cutie or what?

Eleanor got to milk a real cow and did a great job

Asian water buffalo

Have you ever seen a zorse before?

Petting the sheep

Holding a baby chick

Less than a week old!  We also saw brand new baby goats later.

Holding a duckling

She took off running when she saw the hayride!

Not the greatest picture, but she enjoyed the hayride.

This sign is way off.  It also said that I'm 5'3".

One of the many peacocks we saw

She really wanted to climb this tree

This is what I get when I say, "Smile!"  :)

 

My little animal lover

I realize there aren't many pictures of Arthur from the day, or at least pictures that I can post.  As a little Arthur bonus, here he is stuck under a piece of furniture.  He started out by that play mat but so far he can only go in reverse.

May happenings

I officially have a finger sucker.  He usually just does this when he's in his crib with his lovey, but occasionally I catch him in the act elsewhere.  Too cute.

Ponytail!
Also, those are Arthur's shorts.  Size 12 months.

Blowing bubbles

We did a little nature walk in our yard during Arthur's nap one day.  I colored lots of different colors in an egg carton and we tried to find something for each color.

Black dirt

We found everything but both shades of blue.  Eleanor said she needed a ladder to climb up and pick the sky.

I had fun taking some pictures of my new flowers

Drawing in shaving cream

Arthur wasn't really supposed to get involved...

This didn't last long.  Eleanor filled the pool with leaves and it was all I could do to keep Arthur from eating them.

Shucking corn - she actually did an entire ear by herself.  She has also learned how to put away things that go on the bottom shelf in the pantry, how to put stuff out in the recycling bins in the garage, and how to water the plants on the porch.  I love that she can REALLY help with some stuff now!

Arthur pretty much refuses to be fed with a spoon, so I have to find things he can feed himself.  He can't really get tiny things to his mouth yet, but I've learned that soft food cut in a french fry shape works well.  Here he has pear slices, avocado slices, and pita bread with hummus.  He used to gag on food a lot but now he does a GREAT job feeding himself...except for making a huge mess.  :)  Other favorites are strawberries, papaya (MAJOR favorite!), steamed carrots, baked sweet potato fries, squash, ground beef, scrambled eggs (sometimes), and banana.

Mmmm, hummus!

One of Eleanor's friends invited us to go to this place that has skating, video games, laser tag, etc.  Eleanor was a little overwhelmed, but she enjoyed the bowling.

First time in "skates"!  She loved it!

She has gotten really into dinosaurs lately.  Here the dinosaurs are singing Ring Around the Rosie...but they don't like to fall down.  (She gets pretty upset if they do.)

Here's the second part of that video.  The dinosaurs are singing her current favorite song from our music class.  It doesn't really have words, but she makes up some new ones.  When we sing it at class we play bells with it, and I think she's pretending that the dinosaurs are playing bells.