Let's Pack Lunch!

Monday, October 17th:

Contents: carrot sticks & green pepper strips, peanuts & candy corn, Pumpkin Walnut Biscuit, apple slices.

Wednesday, October 19:
Contents: strawberries, dried blueberries & cranberries with peanuts, candy corn, green peppers, apple slices and a "pumpkin-apple sammie" (1/2 of a pumpkin waffle smeared very lightly with cream cheese, thin-sliced apples sprinkled with cinnamon layered between)

Friday, October 21st:

Contents: green pepper slices, chocolate covered pretzels & wheat braid pretzels, triceratops pb&j, almonds, apple slices.

Monday, October 24:

Contents: grapes, candy corn & peanuts, "barn & silo" turkey & cheese sandwich (colored on with food safe markers), green pepper slices and carrot "coins", dried strawberries (courtesy of Nichole - thank you!).

Wednesday, October 26th:

Contents: green peppers, grape tomatoes & cucumbers, dried strawberries & banana chips, apple slices and pumpkin chocolate chip granola "bars"(... a.k.a. a big fat disappointment). The "bars" baked for.EVER... and still didn't set. So I ended up scooping it out like regular 'ole granola and it was kinda' burnt. Not even worth sharing the recipe. I was just excited to use more of my pumpkin puree in something. :)

Friday, October 28th:

Contents: cheese cube and tomato kabobs, sesame sticks, apple slices and green pepper slices, dried strawberries & chocolate chips (idea from Nichole), and almonds.

Reading & Phonics

Will reads to us almost every night now. And then we still read a couple of books to him too. His favorites to read are Go, Dog! Go!...

...Gus Gets Scared... Jack and Jill and Big Dog Bill...
...and many of the Sandra Boynton books.

Here are a couple of video clips of him when he was just starting to get really excited about reading independently back in mid-August.
At the time, we hadn't picked up that Jack and Jill book in ages so, although there is repetition in the content, he definitely wasn't "reading" by memorization.
(And P.S. - after all my excitement about finally learning to embed a video clip into my blog, it's suddenly not working for me again. So I'm back to just linking to YouTube. Sorry, I'll figure all these mediums out one day.)
Just click on the links:
Will reading Jack and Jill - part 1
Will reading Jack and Jill - part 2

And here's a video from mid-September of him reading that Sesame Street book to Sophie. This was the first book he'd ever read completely through independently on the first try.
Will reading to Sophie

Will and I had been getting back into the Magic Tree House books for a little while and read about four or five more of them, when he decided he'd like to give those a rest again. I think he likes them, but now that he's reading independently, prefers shorter books that he can follow along with. So even when I'm reading, he's looking at the text and recognizing the words as I'm saying them. Or, if he's looking at the picture, he'll ask me "where does it say ____?" so that he can get back to following along with what I'm reading.
Will is definitely a book worm and Sophie is not too far behind him with her love of books.

Mostly what she does is carry around her favorites or sit and "read" by making up text to go with the pictures. She's also a huge fan of the Leap Frog Phonics games/movies and loves practicing letter sounds and recognizing letters (mostly uppercase).

Here are a couple video clips from the end of September of her singing letter sounds. When watching the first one, you can just stop it after she runs off to get more letters, because she doesn't come back in that clip. Haha! She comes back a little later and that's where the second clip picks up. ;-)

Sophie's letter sounds part 1

Sophie's letter sounds part 2

Here is our latest stack of books from the library.

I'll leave you with the picture above if you care to know what we've read, but I'm going to skip the description this time. ;-)

I will tell you that these two were our very favorite books and I would highly recommend them. So cute and funny.

What's For Dinner? Week 3

Another bountiful vegetable bag!

This was the last for the regular 20-week season and I had my picture taken by a newspaper photographer who was doing an article on CSA's and Riehm Farm. He took pictures of me getting my bag and then exchanging something (chard? I think?) for another squash in the "exchange box". I have winter squash coming out of my ears right now though. ;)

The 6-week extended season started last week and we've gotten two bags so far. I will miss this when it ends for the winter!

Contents: 1 brown bag of red skin potatoes, 2 green peppers, 1 onion, 1 bunch broccoli, 1 butternut squash, 2 acorn squash, 3 ears corn, 1 bunch green onions ("bunching onions"), 1 bunch lettuce.

We have been eating so much butternut squash lately!

On Saturday morning, I made my favorite Golden Winter Soup (from Cooking Light) to serve for lunch. I've been making this since Will was a baby and I absolutely love it. It calls for butternut squash, potatoes & leeks, so it is perfect for making use of our recent CSA foods.
Everything gets sauteed in the pot and then I use my immersion blender to blend it all together with chicken stock and half-and-half. To go with, I made a batch of my favorite Pumpkin Walnut Biscuits from Family Fun. These are so good with a little butter and a drizzle of honey!

On Saturday night, Casey & Wes were supposed to go to her 10-year class reunion. So I had Mya & Stella for dinner in the evening. I always like to serve breakfast for dinner when they're over because I know everyone will eat that well. ;)

So I made a batch of Weelicious Pumpkin Waffles (these make a LOT!) and served some fruit and yogurt on the side. See? Didn't I tell you we've been eating a lot of squash? I'm not kidding. And there's lots more to come! It's so funny how we get overloaded on whatever the seasonal fruit or vegetable is at each stage of the year. But I guess that's how God and mother nature intended it.

I love the rest of these cousin pictures.

Not the best of Will, but I love this of Stella.

This one of Mya reminds me of ME when I was little. ;)

Okay, let's put 10 seconds on the clock and see how many fake smile pictures we can get of Sophia. LOL

After the kidlins were finished, they played while I made my own plate. I sauteed some apple slices and walnuts in a tiny bit of butter and then glazed them with real maple syrup at the end before topping my own pumpkin waffle with them. I've done this for the kids before and they don't like it as well as I do. So this is my treat. Yum!

The rest of the waffles were placed on wax-paper-lined cookie sheets and frozen in a single layer before popping all into a gallon freezer bag and using for easy school morning breakfasts for the next couple of weeks. Will's been on a waffle kick over pancakes lately so I LOVE this! It's so easy and healthy. I'm getting ready to whip up another batch for breakfast this coming weekend and do the same thing.

I tried a new slow cooker Sweet and Sour Pork recipe from Robin Miller of Food Network on Sunday evening. Another good use of our CSA potatoes and the kids ate this pretty well. I made tossed salads to go with to finish off our garden tomatoes and use some CSA lettuce. Sophie ate some pumpkin puree mixed with applesauce since she's not a big salad eater and we all had bread and butter.

For Monday (karate night), I had prepped my favorite homemade Mac 'n Cheese recipe from Tyler Florence of Food Network. The sauce is all sharp white cheddar (as a roux) with fresh chopped parsley stirred in.

And then after it's baked, you put on a top layer of sauteed bacon, onion and thyme. Heavenly!! I put the onion & thyme only on one side because I knew Craig wouldn't like it as much.

Sophie and I devoured it, but Will and Craig aren't such fans of this version. I think it's because the cheese tastes more like real cheese and not the unnatural smoothness of fake, liquid cheese. Bummer. It really is amazing.

CSA broccoli on the side.

"Pumpkin Pie-sicles" for dessert! Made with... more butternut squash. Called "pumpkin" because with the pumpkin pie spice added, they taste like frozen pumpkin pie.

Tuesday was Craig's birthday and we did steaks on the grill, salad, corn and ice cream with strawberries. His fave. :)

Okay, I know this is kind of a lot of pasta for one week, but this was another recipe on my want-to-make-soon list from my big fat binder of recipes... and I had so much butternut squash to use! I made it last fall too and loved it. But I planned this for a night Craig was working later because I knew he wouldn't like it and he just ate leftovers of something else.

Spaghetti with Roasted Butternut Squash (from Better Homes & Gardens)

The recipe seems like a lot of garlic, but when it roasts, it's very mild - not overpowering at all. There's also walnuts, pecorino cheese and green onions in it. Deeeelicious!

Again, Sophie was my great eater and loved this meal.

Will ate the pasta but left the squash. ;)

As you might imagine, there were a lot of leftovers from this week's menu so I was taking lots of leftovers for lunch and using them to fill in the remaining dinners for the week.

Sophia at 2 1/2

Where did the last half a year go??

Sophia turned 2 1/2 on October 20th and I just can't believe that her next birthday will be 3!

I went back and read her 2yr+3mo post and many of those updates are still the same. But she's added a lot more to her vocabulary and is speaking in complete sentences almost always now. Her grammar needs correcting on occasion, but for the most part, she can be understood by strangers most of the time.
Her many silly expressions and voice alterations give us a laugh every day. Mostly she has this high pitch, super-sweet voice. But sometimes she'll switch it up with a growl or a deeper, bossy tone.

This little girl can be sweet as pie or ornery as sin. Her tantrums are unpredictable but seem to be on a high streak as of late. Sometimes she listens so well and calmly does as she's told when things don't go her way. Other times, she throws a fit and needs redirection to organize herself. Her manners are pretty good. She has some work to do on saying "please"... but "thank you", "excuse me" and "you're welcome" are pretty frequent.

Recently we went to the doctor for a 30-month well check for Sophie. (This is a new thing, I guess, because Will didn't have one.) Sophie weighed in at 32# wearing just a diaper and socks (~80th%) and 37" tall (~85th%). So she's still above average for height and her weight is proportionate to that. And guess what! Her head circumference is only 19.5"! That is... dare I say?... AVERAGE! Really? Our kid? ;)

Here are a few pictures from the last three months...

Go Bucks! Love this one.

Still one of my all time faves.

And here, she's modeling a new "spider" hair clip that our friend Jill got her for Halloween. Craig is such a "t-shirt and jeans" guy, so this is one of his favorite outfits on her.

Running out to play on pretty fall evening.

Aaaand... her new fascination with winking again, thanks to daddy's encouragement. She often tilts her head and sticks her hip out to go with it lately.

Here is some more of the latest on Sophie:

1) She suddenly loves her baby doll ("baby") and carries her around everywhere. She also insists that "baby" is always swaddled and daddy usually does that for her. He's the best swaddler.

2) Is it just my child or do little girls at this age get SO DIRTY, SO EASILY!?!?! I swear, by the end of each day, she is so grubby and I just can't wait to get her into the tub and smelling sweet and fresh again.

3) At bedtime, Sophie loves to burrow under her bed covers when she snuggles in. She's also often out of bed the minute we walk out the door but each time she snuggles into bed, she burrows. Once, Craig heard her calling and crying in the middle of the night and when he went in to check on her, she was so far under the covers and facing the foot of the bed that she couldn't find her way out. She was saying "I'm stuck in my bed!" And she kept trying to move further down. Craig had to pull her out so she'd calm down. Haha - poor baby. :(

4) The latest obsession is JUMPING... off of anything and everything she can climb on: couches, chairs, her bed, the sit-n-spin, stools, stairs, whatever. She loves to jump.

5) I'm so afraid of jinxing this, but Sophie has been eating so well lately. Just about everything I've put in front of her has been eaten without qualm... just s.l.o.w.l.y. Her favorites continue to be grains and yogurt, but she has gotten much better with fruits and main dishes too.

6) Sophie loves to cuddle and snuggle. She especially loves when Craig and I are snuggling and she can climb in the middle of us. I mean, I know kids like to see their parents being loving... but Sophie REALLY loves it. She's always trying to push our heads together for a kiss and she seems completely content when she's cuddled up right between us.

7) One of her favorite games is hide and seek... and she's really good at it. Like, scary good. She's actually scared us a few times trying to find her. ;) The other favorite game is running and being chased. That's just annoying. But I am secretly pleased that she loves to run.

8) And if you ask, her favorite color is purple.

The next six months are going to fly, as the holiday months always do. Lookin' forward to see what they bring!