York Family Fun

We had a chance to visit last week Eric's Aunt Pam and Uncle Joe at their camp for a bit of a family reunion.  Eric's mum was there with her four sisters (of an original family of nine).  Thanks to Pam and Joe for the great time at Etna Pond.

 Jane, Mary, Ann, Pam, and Barbara

 Lucy had a great time swimming in her pink float.  She went all over and out to the float raft that Pam and Joe have anchored.  At one point, Eric's Aunt Barbara asked me, "What is she three going on twenty-two?"

 Playing in the water is so much more fun when you have cousins, especially big ones who will ride you around in a tube.

 

 Baby J looking bright-eyed with Aunt Pam and Uncle Joe.  He was SO GOOD at the party.  Everyone passed him around and he just calmly took kisses and hugs.  Napped right on cue in a strange place with a ton of noise.  Amazing.

 Jacob and I rode Lucy around in the paddle boat for a while.  She pretty desperately wanted to take it out on a tour, so we obliged.  I didn't think I would be able to walk for a week.

 

 Grammy giving Baby J a bottle with cousin Lennon.  Curious?  Jealous?

Wish I had been on the other side of this loving hug.

Reunited and It Feels So Good

Well, back in Maine.  After the Longest. Drive. Ever. we're safe at my parent's house and boy, is Lucy excited to have her Grandma and Grandpa back.  Whenever anyone visits or we visit anyone they are accepted immediately into our family as an integral part of the (now) foursome.

One of the first days we were here, Grandpa took us out on his boat.  Lucy had a lot of fun riding on Grandpa's lap, pretending to drive, and riding up front with Grandma, just cuddling.  She did not like the wind up her nose.

Jamie spent a good portion of the ride sleeping, cheeks and chin squashed up in the life jacket.  Nothing will get in the way of this guy's nap.

We got a chance to feed the ducks our goldfish as Grandpa took the boat out of the water. 

Grandma's house is also filled with other fan favorites, such as eating an english muffin with tongs.  If Lucy had asked nicely, she probably could have had a cookie with an ice cream sandwich for breakfast.  Grandma has little power to refuse her requests.

Jamie awake!  Quick, get the camera.  Believe it or not, Jamie is up for longer periods of time now, and really starting to interact.  Sticking out his tongue when you stick yours out (Grandma discovered this) and making lots of noise.  He's pretty funny!

Lucy has also spent quite a bit of time lounging poolside at Grandma's in her small inflatable pool.  No matter that there's only three inches of water here and her backside is on the ground.  The tiny princesses have also spent a lot of time swimming.

Aren't grandparents great?

The Many Faces of Lucy

Surprised.

                                                                 Mad.

Sad. (the picture doesn't convey the half-sob sound effects)

                                                              Happy.

Silly.

                                                                             And beautiful.

4th of July

Here in Ames, the 4th of July parade and celebration also falls into the category of "Very Big Deal."  There is a pancake breakfast at city hall, a parade, and a festival-like atmosphere downtown with fireworks late.  The parade was decent, certainly better than the Memorial Day "parade" we saw that was just a line of cars with decals on them for the various civic organizations in town led by about ten Vietnam veterans on motorcycles.  Where was the bus of WWII vets I ask?  Anyway ... for Lucy, parade means candy, and once again we forgot to bring a bag to collect goodies with.  Mommy fail.  We were tucked back against the front of a restaurant in the shade, so I sent her streetside by herself.  Here she is waving to the passing parade, a sure-fire way to get pegged with a tootsie roll, right?

 Wrong.  The veterans on motorcycles (again leading the parade) did not throw any candy.  She gave me an "oh, man!"

 Jamie was sleeping when we got to the parade, but woke up when the fire truck went by, and spent the rest of the parade calmly sucking his fingers and checking the scene.

 My friend Ann met us at the parade with her kids.  Lucky for us, Carson's mommy remembered his bag and he willingly shared.  The dynamics between these two were funny.  Carson was totally content to stay on the side and hold the bag for Lucy, while she raced out in the road and beat down the older kids for candy.

We went to the parade with my baby brigade - I knew three other pregnant women when I came to Ames and we had all 4 little boys here: Franklin (Nov. 14), Hayden (Nov. 24), Jamie (Mar. 25) and Jordan (May 5).  Pictured are Hayden and Franklin, or Flankin, if you're asking Lucy. 

 

These four certainly illustrate what the baby books told me about naming trends in the US - that the "ens" are the most popular boy names out there.  And as I wanted Jamie to be named Ethan, so we would have had a clean "en" sweep.

Though we were too worn out after the parade and a trip to the pool to stay up for the fireworks (and so sound asleep I didn't even hear them) it was a Very Fun Day.

Silas Turns 3

 We celebrated friend Silas's 3rd birthday this weekend.  He's exactly one month older than Lucy, and they match each other in being incredible kids, physically and intellectually.  Unfortunately for all involved, Lucy was way tired when we got to the party, and started off the evening with no less than five personal tragedies involving tricycles, scooters and a juice box.

Mommy Sara made that super fire truck cake. You should have seen those seven kids just hanging on her every move, waiting sooo patiently for a slice of cake.   

 Lucy literally nodded off while eating, coming to with a face and two fists-full of frosting to ask for more cake please.

 Then we kicked back into high gear long enough to watch Silas open his tunnel from us.  Lucy has been dying to play with that thing for weeks, since we bought it.  It was just what Silas wanted!

Through all this, Jamie did NOT sleep, believe it or not.  He actually had a breakdown of his own, screaming for about half an hour.  Sara commented that she'd never really heard him cry before.  I think maybe he was just too hot.  I stripped him down and rubbed him with a wet washcloth, and he calmed down to his usual serene self. 

We hope that your fourth year is a great one Silas!

Final CFC Thoughts

It's officially over, and I officially did it.  Because I spent all of Monday feeling like I'd accomplished the task, I did find myself licking the jelly knife and even made my tempeh stew, which had about 1/2 cup of flour in a large saucepot.  I use a modified beef stew recipe: start with the onions, celery, and garlic (sautee until transparent), then add the tempeh (brown slightly then flour and a splash of water to the mixture), before the stock, potatoes and turnip (simmer for about an hour).  I thought about making the stew with no flour, but it was really unappealing.  Admittedly, when I woke up from sleeping with Lucy at 2 am, I also had an oreo and a handful of doritos.  It wasn't the fabulous feeling I'd hoped to get from the snacks ... perhaps I should have had a beer instead?

I never achieved sparkly, but held steady at five pounds lighter than my pre-CFC self, so I'm certainly not complaining.  And as I told a friend tonight, sparkly feelings aside, this challenge really opened my eyes to how much I eat in any day that is unnecessary, snacking, empty calorie type of food.  I wasn't able to have a quick bowl of cereal for breakfast here, a slice of bread and butter there, finish whatever Lucy left on her plate, or grab a granola bar between meals.  It also left me actually hungry, something I don't usually allow myself to get, snacking during the day so much.  As I was explaining all this to Stacy, I noticed some batter from the chocolate cake we baked for our neighbor's birthday on the door of the microwave and licked it off.  That was not clean on so many levels.

My new post-CFC me has grocery shopped with a new benevolence, turning past aisles of dirty food and opting to continue some of my new, healthy habits.  As I scarf the leftover frozen pizza from Lucy's dinner the other night while writing this at two am (what?  I'm hungry - dinner was almost 7 hours ago!), we'll see how long the benevolence lasts.  I certainly didn't eat clean today, but I didn't go on a dirty binge either.  Eric thinks I'll bounce those five pounds right back on, so I'll once again be working hard to prove him wrong, even if it means a little self-sacrifice.  Thanks to Emilie at One Mom in Maine and to Joanna at the High Raw Nourished Kitchen as well as to my friends and family who cheered me on and the other Emilie-inspired CFC bloggers who provided comic relief and great recipes.  And who knows?  This is Emilie's second Clean Food Challenge - maybe some of my friends (you know who you are!) will join me for her third ....

I'll leave you with a picture of our decidedly not-clean chocolate cake that I barely sampled (but from the photo you can probably guess who licked the bowl):

CFC day 6

Tonight, I stared down a frozen pizza and won.  Though day four was the hump day in time, today was the hump day in feeling.  I didn't wake up starving and haven't had the general feeling of dissatisfaction all day either.  In fact, I felt pretty good with the food I had (though I did almost grab a gooey lump of cheese off the pan while serving slices to Lucy).  I've also lost about five pounds, so I'll take skinny without sparkly. 

This morning I only had about 3/4 cup of oatmeal left, so I decided to use it to make a sort of cobbler.  I used apples, peaches, and frozen blueberries mixed with maple syrup.  I mixed the oatmeal with a couple of tablespoons of oil, which was inadequate.  If I were to do this again with no butter and brown sugar, I'd probably pre-cook the oatmeal and mix it with honey to achieve a better topping.  Out of the oven the oatmeal was still dry, not at all crispy or cobbler-y.  After cooking, there was enough liquid at the bottom of the pan between the syrup and blueberries that I just mixed it all together and it turned out pretty good.

 

In fact, this is what fed me most of the day, I ate a little more than half of it for breakfast and my first lunch.  Around two I had some leftover rice and dal, and was finally going to get around to making dinner for myself (the black bean and quinoa salad everyone's been raving about) after seven.  It was a really good salad, though could probably have reached the phenomenal mark if I had all of the ingredients.  No green peppers, no chiles, no corriander, and I used one juiced fresh lemon with a couple of tablespoons of the lime juice from a plastic lime, which got a little overpowering.  Oh yeah, and balsamic instead of red wine vinegar.  I'll have to try it again in the future when I actually buy everything to make it, but it was good enough as stands that I brought a tupperware full over to my neighbors.

What I really like about this CFC is the way it has forced me back into actually preparing food, rather than just grabbing whatever's quickest.  The quick options are definitely NOT on the CFC food-approved list.  With two little ones, it's not always easy to cook, but Lucy can be self-sustaining for at least half an hour and Jamie is just so agreeable, that he often hangs out in the baby rocker in the kitchen watching me do dishes or cook.  About a month ago, I heated an afternoon cup of coffee in the microwave, and when it beeped, Lucy looked up at me and said "dinner's ready?"  Whoops.  From boiling lentils, to scraping corn off the cob for the quinoa salad tonight, I've re-invigorated by culinary inclinations.