Moving my blogs

You can find me now at Living and Learning my new Wordpress blog.

The joy of mud.

These pictures don't need much explanation. I let Zane enjoy some time playing in the mud last week. It was so much fun watching him explore.




Zane was screeching at me because he wanted to go back outside and I thought he needed to come in and get dry and warm.

A quiet afternoon, ahhh...

I am enjoying a quiet afternoon today. Two little ones are napping and the other two are enjoying a video. I am enjoying the smell of my afternoon coffee brewing and apple chunk bread baking in the bread machine. My quiet moment could end anytime but for now I will enjoy it. I thought I would take a moment to update my blog with some recent moments with the kids.

These pictures are of Annika helping me make waffles. I finally got a waffle iron a few months ago and Annika likes to flip them over and help me make them.


Jude really enjoys throwing the frisbee in the yard.

Zane likes to smack the ball with his hand and then crawl after it. He is starting to take more steps and I think he will be walking soon.

I can never resist taking a picture of Zane's smile :)

I'm excited to see his eyes are going to be deep dark brown like Annika's.
Jude with some crazy hair and his trains, he recently got his hair cut so he is looking a little more polished these days.

Annika watering flowers and trying to get herself wet.

She loves flowers and was so excited to have her picture taken in them.

What can I say I have a tree climbing princess here. She did not know I was watching her and it was so funny to see her throwing her arm out and posing, I had to try to get a picture.

White Bean and Kale Minestrone

I was thinking recently how I used to post recipes on my blog and I miss doing that. So I have decided I am going to start posting some of favorite recipes again.

My first recipe is from the book Feeding the Whole Family: Cooking with Whole Foods. I absolutely love this book and highly recommend it. This recipe along with a video is on their website Cookus Interruptus. They have some great recipes on this website and their videos are fun. This stuff is super delicious and quite simple to make. To make the meal complete we serve it over brown rice and add a salad. Notes on changes to the recipe, we use grated parmesan cheese instead of the pecorino cheese and I use about a 1 1/2 tsp of rubbed sage instead of the fresh sage leaves. I prepare quite a few meatless meals in our house and this is one of our family favorites, with the exception of Jude who has had an aversion to anything green since birth but that could be a whole another blog post ;)

Yummy

Zane after filling his belly

Growing and Discovering Each Day

Although I miss Zane's snuggly newborn days it is such an exciting time watching him grow and discover more in his environment every day. Zane loves to clap and move his body to music. He is having fun discovering the sounds that the different instruments make and he loves me to sing to him and tries to sing too. He loves to play in the yard with sticks, leaves, and balls. He is working on saying some words and likes to imitate anything we do. He is such a happy little guy and graces us with his beautifully cheesy smile frequently. His big brother and sister love to include him in their play and you can tell he takes it all in.

Exploration with instruments.


Tasty tambourine

Somebody left some chalk out

A nice big stick

Zane has fed himself since he started solids with the exception of yogurt. He is now starting to learn to use a spoon on his own. Here he is using the hand and spoon method.

I love the yogurt beard he is wearing :)

Best Friends

If you ask Jude or Annika they will tell you that they are best friends. Here are a few pictures of them having fun together.

They were doing some imaginative play here, something about the sea I think. Maybe he was rescuing her.

Then there was wrestling.

Then there was chasing.

Annika's Birthday, the pictures

Her actual birthday
Annika was very excited to finally get the fairy I had been knitting for her. The first time she saw this in my knitting book she asked me to make her one. I gave it to her in the morning and she was thrilled!



She also got The Princess and The Frog dvd and leapster game.

Celebration with Grammy Gayle

This was one of those spontaneous Annika modeling poses