Reiman with Ryan and Grace

Surprise!  The garden again.  This time I was really excited to take Aunt Grace and Uncle Ryan, mostly Grace because she's super into bugs and used to work at the Butterfly Kingdom at the York Zoo in Maine, so I thought the Butterfly Garden here would be great.  And another surprise!  A picture of a butterfly.

 I think this picture is adorable even though Ryan is making his angry man face.

 It's tulip season here, which believe it or not is a HUGE problem and keeps making the evening news.  There's a town close by with Dutch heritage that has a tulip festival every year.  It's a big tourist attraction with gardens of tulips everywhere, events, a parade, and a pageant to crown Miss Tulip (or whatever it is she gets crowned).  The problem is that because everything has bloomed so early, the town doesn't expect any tulips to be left for the scheduled weekend.  Whoops.  They must all feel a little deflated, kind of like the poor droopy tulip in the front of this planter.  I totally didn't notice until Grace pointed it out.  We got a good laugh at the tired/wimpy/sad/etc. tulip.

 I wish I had taken a picture of this body of water in its entirety, because it's hilarious.  It's called Lake Helen.  Lake, in my mind anyway, means something more than a dug pond.  It is, to the lake's credit, a rather large pond, but still something you might see on someone's front lawn in Maine, if they've got a few acres.  I suppose it's named after someone and they might have thought Lake Helen sounded a bit more stately than Helen Pond or Helen Water Feature.

This is a picture of the nesting Canadian Geese, though you can barely see the nest.  It's on the right, amidst the rocks and weeds.  At one point, one of the geese got out of the pond and walked toward the people at the garden, which thrilled Lucy.  Ryan kept trying to convince Grace to catch a goose ... that would have been fun to watch.

 Awwww, this looks like it could be Ryan and Grace's family.  As you can see, Jamie was struggling toward the water.

 Grace wanted to take a picture under this beautiful tree.  I've got to find out what it's called and have searched for "purple flowering tree", but what I come up with are a bunch of pictures from people's blogs that say things like: "This is a beautiful purple flowering tree, I've got to find out what it's called."  It makes for good photo taking though!

What fun to have our Minnesota family in town!  Lucy will sometimes sit down with her guitar and sing a song that goes like this: "I want to go to Minneapolis but Mommy said no tee dee dah dee."  There was a sincere disappointment when Uncle Ryan and Aunt Grace showed up without Lucy's best friend Tiger, too, but at least we could send Ryan and Grace home with the gift we got for Tiger ages ago.  We'll be looking forward to going back to Minneapolis and seeing Tiger play with his Angry Bird cat balls.

Reiman with Grandma

While Grandma was in town (remember that?  yes ... it was in January) we went to Reiman, our favorite garden.  We love the butterflies and Grandma did too.

 Lucy's favorite photo to take - I've got hundreds of pics of her walking feet.

 And with that reference to Lucy's favorite pic, I have a hard time not taking bunches of pictures of the butterflies while I'm there too.  Maybe I'll make a calendar for Christmas gifts this year.

 In the conservatory there is a pool with a waterfall.  Grandma gave Lucy some coins to make wishes, which she did enthusiastically.  I love the way she wishes - it starts with "I wish for a new ... " and then she casts her eyes about until she finds something "... stroller!" or whatever else happens to be in view.  Often it's a new mommy.

 Hugs.

 This was too funny - Jamie, my water baby, was desperately crawling to splash in the pool.  You can see how I'm hanging on to his pants?  He probably would have gone right in if we'd have let him.

 Grandma gets the job of stroller pusher while she's in town.  It's a very poorly paid position.

 These last two shots are of how the kids felt at the end of the visit.  Lucy was totally spaced, and Jamie totally asleep.  Nothing like a great January day outside to wear out the 3-and-under crowd.

Stay tuned - next post is Reiman pictures from Uncle Ryan and Aunt Grace's visit just this past Easter weekend.  Come to visit, see our one attraction!

Walking

It's been ages since I've seen him crawl.



I think it's been a little over a week since I took this video and he's already so much better walking than he looks here.  Jamie's practically running.

Look Who's 1

You'll never know how fast a year can go until you spend one watching a baby grow.

From this:

To this:

 We had a MASSIVE birthday bash for Jamie on his birthday ... haha.  The elegant dinner began with the pre-nibbled bagel, leftover from Lucy's lunch.  Jamie found it and was desperate to eat it; I couldn't tear it away from him.  Who doesn't love nutella, right?  Even when all that's left is whatever soaked into the bread before Lucy licked all the good stuff off the top.  Let it sit for a few hours and voila - a dinner fit for kings, or first birthday princes.

 On to a delicious yogurt with a dogged determination to feed yourself, no matter how messy you might end up.  We're building spoon skills here.

 Continue by opening the one gift left that Lucy didn't already sneak away to open under her covers in her room.  Oh, wait.  Continue by letting your big sister open your last unopened gift.

 But, hey, at least mommy got a little creative with the cake.  Jamie loves loves loves playing with balls.  We got him a tiny fisher price basketball hoop that lights up and sings when you get a basket, which is why I thought of the basketball cake.  So far he's unimpressed with the hoop, but carries the two balls that it came with around like prizes.  As I write this Jamie's going back and forth in our kitchen with a ball - toss and chase, toss and chase.  I kind of wonder if this baby obsession is at all a preview of how many years I will spend sitting on bleachers. 

Finally, what's better than a personal serenade by Lucy followed by digging into that basketball cake?  I didn't hold sweets and junk from Jamie like I did from Lucy - I was more relaxed this time and he was a much better eater from the start, giving me less reason for concern about eating habits.  Pair with the sharing that happened (Lucy started shoving things like Doritos and brownies in his mouth at about 4 months when he was upright in the exersauce or jumper) and the cake wasn't necessarily totally new, but he hasn't ever been able to chow down a big slice like he did here.

The aftermath.  Thanks for the wonderful year, baby J, and many wishes for a hundred more.

Sledding

We've had a great winter, mild with very little snow to worry about.  If you were to ask Lucy, this is terrible.  We live directly across the street from an amazing sledding hill, the kind of hill you might not necessarily believe exists in Iowa.  The hill that we see every time we look out our front windows or walk out our front door.  It is a constant reminder of the lack of winter snow.  Each time it does snow a little, we make the trek across the street and sled until we're basically on the dirt.  We almost always bring a sledding friend.

Lucy slides on her back.

 She slides on her front.

 She slides on her bottom.

 Good illustration here of friend Silas on the last patch of snow.

Some great video of how much fun we had.  When I said it's an amazing sledding hill, I wasn't kidding.  It's HUGE.


Lucy Sledding from Kristin York on Vimeo.

Thanks to Silas who was willing to take a trip down the hill with Jamie.


Jamie Sledding from Kristin York on Vimeo.

And finally, my favorite wipe-out.  Whoops!


Happy face:

 Where am I and what is this unstable plastic disc under me face:

CFC Fizzle

First, the wild ride Lucy and Grandma took at the MOA:


Roller Coaster from Kristin York on Vimeo.

And the wrap-up details of my CFC week?  I approached this challenge with little thought or preparation.  I went to the co-op and stocked up on lentils, quinoa, raw almonds, raisins, and greens.  I planned on relying on the soup-making skills I've been honing, though I also intended to try a spring roll that will have to wait until this weekend.  I have quite a few recipes that I already make that are "clean" for the challenge.  Last time I felt sick for the first part of the week.  This time, it was no problem.  I was a bit cranky on Tuesday, having nothing to snack on besides raw almonds and raisins :) but other than than it wasn't hard at all.

I think one of my favorite parts of the week was talking to my students about what I was eating before class every morning.  In the land of the walking taco (anyone outside of Iowa know what that one is?) they were fascinated by my food choices.

I call the week a fizzle because I quit (mostly) on Friday evening.  Friday afternoon I was struck down by a back spasm so bad I had to call Eric out of work to rescue me from the floor.  I kneeled to change Jamie and couldn't get back up.  It was hopelessly helpless, and left me with little energy to sustain the focused eating or to prepare food in the way that the CFC requires.  Eric has suffered from back problems for as long as I've known him, spasms and bulging discs, and I think this was my punishment for being less than sympathetic in the past.  He knew just what to do to make me feel better, and I'm feeling back to normal now.  Yikes, though. 

Thinking about how the food week went for me, I'd re-name the CFC something along the lines of "Purposeful Eating Week".  It made me consciously plan what I was going to eat, instead of mindlessly snacking on everything in house and making meals out of what I can finish off the kids plates, top with a spoonful of peanut butter, or find in a bag.  Doesn't that sound terrible?  At least I had some serious nutrition one week this year.

Minneapolis / MOA

Again, in Minneapolis we went to the mall.  Again, to the amusement park instead of the aquarium.  Not surprising, as Lucy chose.

Another go-round on the swings.  Lucy promised, promised that she wouldn't be scared this time.  She chose Grandma as her partner in crime for her chaperone this time.  She did much better, though the swing ride was not entirely without fear.

 We were at the mall for four (?) hours, and not a peep out of Jamie.  He was a total prince: patient, quiet, still patient and still quiet. 

 Don't you just want to eat that face? 

 Waiting in line for the roller coaster.  I was surprised that Grandma was going on so many rides, as I remember her having a strong aversion for anything theme park.  She scoffed at me that I would think she didn't have the stomach to ride the rides you had to be 39 inches tall to ride.

 My other beautiful (not a) baby (anymore).

 So here we were, waiting in line to ride the ferris wheel.  It was pretty big for being indoors, and the only ride that Lucy chose Uncle Ryan to chaperone.  I tagged along. 

 Oh, so excited that we had to wait on the number 3.  They MUST have known Lucy was 3 years old.  She wanted us all to stand on the number the entire time we waited to board our cart.

 Can this day get any better?  The answer is no, it was downhill from there.

 Aunt Grace and Grandma with baby J, looking quite small.

And no more pictures because there was an incident after the SpongeBob bounce house that makes me glad I was 3 hours from home.  We ended up dragging Lucy out of the MOA pantless and with a fleece wrapped around her waist after the most horrific tantrum display I have seen in a long time.  She cried so hard and screamed so much, she peed.  Sheesh, but my fault.  She was exhausted and over-stimulated, and we stayed 30 minutes too long.  Oh well, lesson learned, pants washed, tears dried, and the bad-mommy police did not come to carry me away.

Stay tuned - I'm doing the Clean Food Challenge again this week.  Remember that one?  Check out what Emilie's doing and why on earth she might have inspired me to do this crazy sugar-free-gluten-free-vegan-week again. 

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