My Three Munchkins!!

8 Month Photos

I can't believe he is 8 months old!!

Isn't This How You Cook At Your House??

We have been having the kids help out around the house. They have one job a day!! It has worked well for their age and is easy for me to keep up on. Isabelle has always been my little helper. She loves to help me in the kitchen. One thing she is great at is buttering the bread.


She is not suppose to be on the counter, but I didn't even notice! She asked for a knife and started to butter. Finally I realized where she was sitting, feet on the plates and cookie sheet. Well, isn't this how you cook at your house??
It was such a great picture, I had to take it. I clicked away, and promptly removed her from the counter.

Does anyone want to come over for food at our house?? It may be a bit disgusting, but the chef sure is cute!!

Feeding Karter

Feeding Karter has been a bit of a challenge. He just hasn't been that interested in food. We started with rice cereal back in December and he would eat some of it. Most of it ended up on his shirt. His first vegetable was peas. I started each of my kids on peas and they loved them!! It wasn't until they had fruit that they weren't too crazy about the peas. Karter was not excited about peas.

Most of them ended up on his shirt. He gave the most disgusted look when I put them in his mouth. Not excited!!! I thought it might have been because I put the peas through a food mill and he didn't like the texture. Well, I bought baby food peas at the store. Same thing, he did not like it.

We moved onto sweet potatoes. These went over better. He seemed to like the texture. We tried fruit. I knew this would be a hit, what baby doesn't like fruit. Well, Karter had a hard time with apples, peaches, and nectarines. He would just pucker up his lips and squint his eyes. Most of it ended up on his shirt.

At this point I was making a lot of the baby food. This last month I decided to buy it. Psychologically I had an easier time "wasting" store bought food. We have had a lot of spoonfuls in the mouth, followed by spitting them out all over his bib. If he doesn't like it, he won't eat it.

For awhile all he would eat was bananas and rice cereal. We kept trying different things, kept working with him.

Now he will eat squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, applesauce with blueberries, bananas, oatmeal cereal mixed with fruit, and rice cereal. I make the bananas, sweet potatoes, and squash. He is really doing better with the eating.

Green Smoothies

Here is the blog where I first saw the green smoothie. Close to the end of the post she tells you how to make it.

I also found this on YouTube. It shows you how to make the smoothie. Enjoy!!

Mmmmmm, treat!

I have been drinking these Green Smoothies for the last couple of weeks!! I read about them on a couple people's blogs and thought I would try them! They have been great!! I've been trying different varieties of fruit with spinach and I definately have my preferences!! One reason I love these is because my kids like them!!
Notice the green mustache?? After each sip of her smoothie she would say, "Mmmmm, treat!" I love that they are getting tons of fruit AND GREEN VEGGIES!!

Isabelle isn't a big veggie eater. I always put a few on her plate, but she usually doesn't try to eat them on her own. She is pretty good about eating a couple bites, but I have to work with her, convincing her of how good they are. Jakob does great with vegetables and likes all of them except mushrooms! I think exposing him to a variety of vegetables and telling him they make him strong and healthy has worked well for him.

She is such a poser for the camera!! She loves to eat her snacks, she even gets comments from her nursery leaders on how much she loves snack time.
Isabelle loves fruit!! So this is a great way to slip some good, healthy veggies into her diet. So far we've only tried spinach and chard. I'm going to get some other greens next shopping trip so we can try other varieties. (Don't you just love Karter hanging out in his swing!! Cute boy!)
I've been loving all the extra energy I get from drinking these. I really have felt great this last week especially.

Happy Birthday Babe!!

Yes, he is finally 30!!

We celebrated Steve's 30th Birthday yesterday!

He requested fruit salad for his dessert. I've never made fruit salad for a birthday before, but it was very yummy!!
We added peaches, strawberries, grapes, pineapple, apples, bananas, walnuts, marshmellows and real whipped cream.

I think Jakob was more excited then Steve to celebrate his birthday. The kids were so excited when Steve got home. We went to the store last week and Jakob took his money and bought Steve a semi truck toy. He couldn't wait for his dad to open it!!

Here was our fruit salad "cake." I wasn't sure how to do it at first, but I just put the fruit cups on our cake stand. When it came time to sing him Happy Birthday, I put three candles in the middle cup.

Here is the pictures Jakob drew for Steve. Steve is in the middle and we are all around him. I'm on the left holding Karter, Isabelle is on her side in the air, and Jakob is the blue one on the right. The brown one on the right is the bad guy because every picture has to have a bad guy.

Happy Birthday Steven!! We hope you know how much you are loved, how much we rely on you, how much we appreciate you. Thank you for always taking such good care of us. Thank you for encouraging, supporting, and loving us. You are an amazing father and husband. Happy Birthday.