Winnie the Peanut Butter

Even though Jenavieve and Journey have only been living as sisters for a few weeks, they've already got the sisterly mischief down pat!

The other day, I gave both girls a bath. Their skin gets dry easily, so I got them both out and dried off, then I sat in the bathroom and lotioned Journey while Vivi ran around. Then they switched. My back was facing the house, Journey was just crawling around right near me, and then I heard this sound that reminded me of nothing so much as Winnie the Pooh eating honey right out of a pot. I turned around and sure enough, Journey was sitting there eating peanut butter out of the jar! It had to have been a joint operation, Vivi must have either put the peanut butter on the floor or knocked it off somehow, and I must admit I'm guilty of not spinning the top closed all the way.

Of course I had to get a picture! By the way, this is homemade peanut/almond butter that I made in my new Blendtec blender. It contains only peanuts and almonds, and is sooo good!

A Day at the Gardens

We went to the botanical gardens in Ann Arbor last week while babysitting Vivi's best friend Amira for a couple of days. My mom rode with us, and we also met up with my sister. We had never been there before, it was really nice! We pretty much stayed in the children's garden area because they had so much for the kids to do. They even had child-sized picnic tables in the picnic area! Playing in the dirt was a big hit, all 3 kids were filthy by the time we left, and you should have seen the bath water that night, gross! The outdoor part of the garden is free, so even though it was a drive, it was definitely a 'worth it' outing.

Well that was pretty traumatic!

Since I have a husband who is very squeamish and I can't even tell him this story, I'm going to warn you, if you're at all squeamish about blood and needles, do NOT read this! I warned you!




Journey had a blood draw today, some routine stuff (although not exactly what I asked the pediatrician to do...I asked for genetics and she didn't put that on the script...but hopefully Eric is getting that figured out now) Rather than going to the closest hospital, Eric requested that we go to one of his hospitals so his company gets the money for it. No big deal, just a 20 minute drive. Eric is working from home and Journey and I got up early and left while Vivi was still sleeping. We got there and checked in pretty fast, and only waited about 3 minutes before getting called back to the room. At that point I was pretty optimistic that we'd be in and out in no time. Boy was I wrong!

I sat with Journey on my lap, and she held her stuffed seal, which has become her best friend, and we had 2 nurses to help hold her and change the vials and everything. It took them a few minutes of each of them prodding to find a good vein, they checked her right arm, then her left, and finally found a small one. They got the needle in and Journey didn't even flinch. Again, I was feeling optimistic, my brave little girl! Unfortunately they couldn't get the blood out fast enough and it started clotting in the tube and not letting more out. So they had to stop and throw that vial away and start again. They decided to try her other arm, and thought they had a good vein, but after poking around with the needle, weren't able to get anything, so they had to pull it out again. At that point Journey started getting a little annoyed, and when they decided to try the other arm again and wiped over her first poke hole with the alcohol cloth, that was the end of being compliant!

She ended up getting poked at least twice in each arm, maybe more, I lost count. She was gripping me with one arm, and her seal in the other, and was quite unhappy. Finally they decided to give up and call someone from pediatrics in who was better at smaller veins. She checked each arm, tried the needle in one arm, didn't work, and then she spent a few minutes trying to find a good vein somewhere else on her body. They checked her wrists, backs of her hands, fingers, and eventually found a good one on top of her foot. Once they got a good one, the draw was over in about a minute. Phew! Poor baby has a bandaid on each arm and one on her foot, and I'm pretty sure all 3 areas are going to be sore for awhile after all that poking.

She cried for a few minutes afterwards, but then calmed down and even waved goodbye to the nurses as we were leaving, which is way more forgiveness than the eye doctor got from her!

We stopped at Dunkin Donuts on the way home to get a treat for her and one for Vivi (with sprinkles of course!) and then she played with her sister, and is now taking a well deserved nap.

My lesson for the day is that next time we'll ask for a pediatric nurse right away!

Here's a picture from right after the appointment of Journey with Sealy the seal :)

Decoupage Letters

Since the house is taking For.Ev.Er...I've started working on the inside of the house, mostly ideas for the kids' rooms. Jenavieve and Journey will share a room, and their theme is garden/outdoors/cutesy nature. I found some cute stencils that will make trees, picket fences, flowers, frogs, etc, and can't stop finding adorable craft ideas to decorate in their room. Stools that look like mushrooms, a butterfly 'chandelier', mini birdhouses that the girls can decorate and then hang...

But, one project at a time! If only our contractor understood that concept... Anyway, I found this cute craft and thought it would be just perfect for in their room!

http://www.spearmintbaby.com/2011/06/hanging-letters-from-a-branch/

Simple! So, I used a Michael's coupon to buy a pack of pretty scrapbook paper, then checked every craft store in a 20 mile radius for the kind of letters I had in mind. Couldn't find them. So I settled for these letters from Joanns, and took advantage of their coupon mania promotion over the weekend to get them. I picked pieces of paper from the pack that I liked and put them in an order that evenly distributed the colors, then traced the letters, cut them out, and used a decoupage glue to stick them on. After they dry, I'll trace and cut out the other side of the letter (I got excited and wanted to see what they looked like glued on!) and then I'll put hooks on them and find a nice branch. Vivi's branch is going to have to be pretty big!

I didn't do Journey's yet because the store ran out of J's and Y's, but I'll post more pictures when I get them done.

Goodies from our garden!

We picked these yesterday in our garden. This is the 2nd strawberry we have gotten to eat, something was nibbling them before we could get to them, but we managed to find this one first!

Next year we will definitely need more of each plant, we ate it all right away and Vivi was asking for more of everything.

Journey and popsicles, take 2

You can see take one here!

Cheers!

















Soo cold!



Yum!

Homemade healthy popsicles

As you know, we try to be a health conscious family. We try to buy as few packaged foods as possible and try to avoid excess sugar. This summer, Vivi discovered that popsicles are just the coolest thing around, and started asking for them a lot. She gets them at Nana's house occasionally, but she started asking for them at home too. I don't mind an occasional sugary treat, but I'd rather not keep them in the house. So, I decided to put my popsicle molds to good use. For my first recipe, I was using my only so-so Magic Bullet Blender. The following week was my birthday, and Eric surprised me with a Blendtec Blender, woo hoo! So now I can blend anything!

To make healthy popsicles, just throw whatever fruits you want in the blender, blend to your desired consistency (I do it smooth since I have little mouths still, but chunky fruit would be good too), and pour into popsicle molds. When they are frozen, I put them into labelled freezer bags so I can make more. My mold makes 8 popsicles, which fits just right in a quart sized freezer bag, and now the girls can pick their flavor!

To make sure the kids don't miss the sugar, make sure your fruit is really ripe, so that it's sweeter.

Our recipes so far:

Peach Banana
3 ripe peaches
1 ripe banana
splash of lemon juice to prevent browning

Strawberry Cantaloupe
equal parts strawberry and cantaloupe
I actually threw a raw carrot in this one too, but most blenders can't do that

Blueberry mango
1 ripe mango
2 handfuls blueberries

We also had leftover peanut butter chocolate banana milkshake one day, so I poured that into popsicle molds and made ice cream pops!