Tag Archives: kids

Lunchtime

  By |
1 Comment

For the longest time, feeding kids lunch has eluded me. Once they got past the baby food and formula, and into the real stuff, I had no idea what to do for lunch. Breakfast and dinner were just fine, but lunch was impossible. Sandwiches simply aren’t an option for the toddler/preschool age, because they don’t understand why you would stack everything just so and then they can’t balance everything between the bread anyway. Even a simple tuna sandwich would be taken apart, the tuna eaten, and then the bread. For the longest time, I made soup, because it’s delicious and easy, but that was still too messy to continue for long. Then the raw foods craze came out, and I figured it out.

Chicken TendersOur lunches now consist of either chicken tenders or left overs and tons of raw fruit and vegetables. Protein and carbs, it’s a perfect meal for the middle of the day. I cook the chicken tenders in olive oil, so there is a bit of fat, but we get the majority of our fat from breakfast and dinner. (If you don’t know yet, I believe that saturated fat is good for you, and that olive oil is good in small amounts as well.…And actually I think everybody’s body is different so there is no one diet that will work for all.)

So, this is how lunchtime goes for us now. Starting around noon, I heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Then I add 3-4 frozen chicken tenders (Costco has the best.) After about five minutes, I flip them over and season the partially cooked side with Emeril’s Original Essence. It’s a fantastic spice blend that has become a staple in our household. Five minutes later, I flip them over again and season the newly cooked side. Then I flip them 1-2 more times until they are completely cooked. When the chicken is done, or very close, I get out a plate and pack it with fruits and vegies that are cut up or prepared in such a way that they make easy finger food for my kids. For example, baby carrots just go straight on the plate, grapes are washed and left on the vine, oranges are peeled and pulled apart, bananas and cucumbers are peeled and sliced into discs, and apples are cut into slices.

Fruit and Vegie PlateThen I stick the fruit and vegie plate between my girls, give them each a chicken tender, and we say a prayer on the food. Yes, I make them exercise self-control to not touch the food while we pray. It’s only 30 seconds max, and they handle it just fine. As soon as we’re done praying, they eagerly load their own plates up with whatever looks good to them. There are a few rules that they are required to follow. First, they must have one bite that they swallow of everything on the fruit and vegie plate. Second, they must have at least one more bite, beyond what they have already had, of chicken before they go for seconds from the fruit and vegie plate. They were resistant to these rules at first, but I stood my ground and stick to my word. If they have had one bite of a food and decided they don’t like it this time around, then I don’t make them eat any more of it. When they are finished, I have them clear their plates off the table, but leave the fruit and vegie plate out with whatever is left over for them to snack on whenever they want. Around dinner time, I give whatever is left over after snacking to our chickens, who devour the rest of it.

Sometimes I pick one color as the theme of the plate, and other times I try to make a rainbow of colors. When I first started, almost everything I put out were fruits and vegetables that they were already used to, but over time, I have been trying to expand their palates by trying a new fruit or vegie every so often. In the past I have done strawberries, raspberries, watermelon, cantaloupe, apples, pears, grapes, bananas, oranges, clementines, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and black olives. This week, I was able to buy more fruits and vegies than normal, so we have cucumbers, yellow cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, and pineapple to try. When I put the sweet peppers out, the girls we very excited to try them, because they’re actually the ones who picked them out. As it turns out, that’s the one food they only took one bite of. Unfortunately for them, I have a whole bag of them, so they’re going to have to take one bite of them every day this week. Maybe I’ll give them some salad dressing to help with the taste. The cucumbers were devoured so fast that I almost didn’t get any for myself.

You Know You’re a Mom When… #1

  By |
Leave a comment

IMG_20130707_182640Yup, that is the back of my smart phone. I take many of the pictures on this blog with it. Today, I was making dinner, and heard Lizzy saying something about my phone. So, I went into the living room, and found Leah coloring on the back of my phone. I haven’t tried to clean it off yet, and I’m almost inclined to just leave it. It’s kind of a cute case, specially designed by my Leah baby.

How to Teach Colors

  By |
Leave a comment

Teaching the names of colors is much easier than I thought it would be, and now that we’re in the thick of it, I don’t know why I thought it would be so difficult. As much as colors are lumped in with art, the names themselves are actually a language thing. Good writers describe things using colors when it is warranted, and as a parent, that’s exactly what you should do.

Purple Shoes Green Tree Pink Flower

There’s no need to break out flash cards that will soon be torn to pieces or chewed on. Rather, talk to your child about all the different colors of things. “Where are your purple shoes? Do you see the green tree? Thank you for the pretty, pink flower.” This is a natural method that allows a child to learn at her own pace. Soon enough, she will be describing things to you using the colors you have taught her.

If you are the kind of parent that likes to evaluate if your efforts are paying off, feel free to ask, “What color is this tomato?” But, don’t worry or worse, over drill, if she can’t immediately answer, “Red.” She might need time to think about what you just asked, or to even figure out that you were asking her a question. She might not know what the word, “color,” means yet. Don’t fret. She’ll figure it out eventually. Just keep talking to her.

Memorial Day Tribute

  By |
Leave a comment

FamilyAs I write, someone is setting off fireworks, which is cool, considering that it’s Memorial Day weekend. We just finished a wonderful evening with family, remembering those we love, who are no longer with us. Earlier in the day, we visited the burial site of my granddad. I have his ham radio call sign, and I think of him often. I do believe he is my guardian angel. At the site, we commented on how well and healthy he feels to all of us, and we marveled that my grandparents were born in the roaring 20s and grew up during WWII.

Lizzy with FlowersMy girls have never met my granddad, because he died when I was still in elementary school. But our oldest understood that we were going to see great grandpapa, and was thrilled to bring him some flowers that she helped me pick. Upon setting up the flowers at our relatives sites, she proceeded to upright the flowers that had blown over at other sites. She is entering a new phase of understanding and caring that gives me extreme pleasure to see. Our youngest is still too young to grasp the general idea, but she knew that she was with family, and was completely at ease.

AdorableAfter we chatted and pulled a few weeds, we had a picnic dinner at my house. Since my grandmother will be ninety this year, we stayed in, rather than finding a park. We had our standard hamburgers, potato salad, and chips, with cookies and my grandmother’s ginger bread, one of my favorites, for dessert. Lettuce, radishes, and broccoli were provided from my garden. Then we enjoyed the BBC version of Sense and Sensibility, which although long, was just what we needed to relax for the evening.

I am so grateful for my family. They are absolutely fantastic, and I wouldn’t be where I am today without them. My grandmother has always been an avid reader, and passed that down through my mother to me. My mother has guided me on my path through life always. Because of her guidance, I have the most wonderful husband anyone could ask for, and I am learning how to be the kind of wife and mother that I want to be.

Plant Protection Barriers

  By |
Leave a comment

We live very close to a mountain. So close, in fact, that deer wander our neighborhood. It’s a bit of an adrenaline rush to watch deer racing up your street and through the vacant lot at the top. So, on top of bugs and birds, we also have to protect our garden from the deer. They love to eat my tulips. Combine that with having two kids, and I am thoroughly deprived of their beauty. They, also, love to eat strawberry plants! Thankfully the few plants that were nibbled on recovered, but I wasn’t about to chance loosing twelve strawberry plants. So, we built protective barriers to put around our garden boxes. The instructions that we followed came from The New Square Foot Gardening book, and proved to be very simple and very light. We can move the barriers whenever we need to access the plants, and we can water right through them so that we aren’t constantly moving them.

Making Covers more zip ties

 

To make them, we used 1″x2″x8′ boards, cut down to the sizes we needed, 1 1/2″ screws, 2′ wide chicken wire and 4′ wide chicken wire, a staple gun, and zip ties. For the strawberries, we needed a 2’x4′ cover, so we cut the boards accordingly and screwed them together. Then we stapled a 4’x4′ piece of chicken wire on one of the 4′ sides, and stapled a 2’x 8′ piece around the other three sides. We folded the 4’x4′ piece in half to form the top of the enclosure, and then zip tied all the edges together. Leah enjoyed handing us the zip ties, sometimes one at a time, and sometimes all at once.

zip ties Baby Trap

We cut off the extra part of the zip ties, so they wouldn’t get in the way when gardening, and for aesthetics. And, we discovered that these make great baby traps. Even the trapped enjoyed playing in it.

Adorable Cutie

Reading to my Kids

  By |
Leave a comment

I am obsessed with learning. It is one of my very favorite things to do. I am the kid that loved going to school, was frequently teacher’s pet, and was thrown for a loop when I stopped going to school. I read non-fiction now more than fiction, because my desire to know has surpassed what fiction can provide. I desire, every day, to share the passion of knowledge with my children. With both of them being younger than pre-school age, my initial idea of them learning by me teaching specific things at specific times had to be scrapped to make way for how kids really learn. I can’t spend hours and hours with them going over reading, writing, and arithmetic. Simply because they can’t sit there for that long.

The one thing that I can do, which breaks the boundaries between parent and teacher, is reading to them. Reading to your kids creates the perfect setting for bonding time, while still allowing you to teach them on an academic level. From the parenting side of things, you get cuddle time, a chance to provide one-on-one attention, and a break from the stresses of everyday life. From the teaching side of things, you are teaching them whatever it is that you are reading about, how to properly use a book, and language skills. It’s perfect, because they don’t even realize that they’re learning something, because they’re so caught up in getting attention from you.

With our children’s young age, we prefer to buy books, rather than check them out from the library. So, then it becomes a matter of having enough books to keep them interested, while still saving money. As far as keeping them interested, they’re at a point in life where reading the same book over and over again is completely acceptable. We could probably get away with only having ten books, but then I’d probably get bored, so we have close to 50 children’s books. Anyone who’s been to their local bookstore can attest that children’s books are not cheap, so we have only ever bought a few there, and about as many have been given to us.

The bulk of our children’s books come from the dollar store or the dollar section of stores. My favorite place to buy books for my girls is at the dollar section in Target. You can buy whole sets for under $5, and spend hours reading them over and over again. Plus they are made out of material more durable than paper, so kids can read them by themselves if they feel inclined. Another place that I have found children’s books for a very good price is yard sales. We have gotten primo books for $.25 each, and walked away almost doubling our collection.

Reading is fun, and reading while cuddling with your children is even more fun. You can make up random voices for all the characters, and your child will copy you. Together, you can pick out a favorite section to memorize and have it as an inside joke. And, you can relax, knowing that you are teaching your child in a way that is conducive to them enjoying learning.

My Dream Come True

  By |
Leave a comment

GirlsThese two girls are my dream come true. Ever since I was twelve, I have wanted to be a mom, and then when I became a mom, I was blown away by how difficult and exhausting it is. But, precious moments, that sometimes only last mere seconds, like this picture, are what make being a mom completely worth it.

This picture was taken, by me, at the tree house at Disneyland. Getting them to sit still, together was nearly impossible. I didn’t even think I had succeeded in capturing this kind of cuteness until after the trip when I was going through all the pictures.

I love getting pictures of them together, because you can see how similar they really are. Being the mom, I see all the little details that make them different, and who they are, but it’s fun to see that my girls look like sisters. The thing that stands out the most to me is their amazing, blue eyes. Neither my husband nor I have blue eyes, so it’s fun to see the blue from our family’s be passed on. Especially such a beautiful, intense blue.