Peeling oranges

Lucas has been more and more involved in food preparation lately. He loves helping get meals ready. Yesterday he was standing around while I was making lunch, so I asked him to pull up a chair and help me peel an orange. I didn't really expect him to be able to do it, I just thought it would keep him happily busy for a few minutes. Much to my surprise, he peeled the orange perfectly by himself. Then he asked me for a bowl and broke all of the slices apart and put them in the bowl. Wow!
He enjoyed it so much, I set him out four oranges to peel for lunch today. He was thrilled and so proud that he was able to help prepare our meal :)

Muffin tin snack

Theme: planes and automobiles
our menu:
two racecars made out of mushrooms and olives
two planes made out of apples
and a carrot windsock

A cucumber

Our neighbor brought some cucumbers and parsley from his garden over for us today. Gwendolyn LOVED the cucumber!! Once she figured out how to eat it :) Lucas said that the parlsey 'tastes like good grass.'

Muffin tin lunch

our menu:
4 mini cups of olives
6 mini cups of cherries
2 mini cups of Kashi crackers

Lucas really enjoyed his muffin tin lunch last week, so I thought we would give it a try again. He was much better this time about eating what was in front of him and not asking for more of each thing as he finished it. Awesome! Of course, I was eating alf alfa sprouts and he *needed* some of those :) He is a sweet little bunny. And it is hard to say no to a kid that wants to eat something as healthy as sprouts and thinks it's a treat to eat 'little plants.'


Check out this blog for more ideas :)
Her Cup Overfloweth

Elusive carrot

We went to this awesome smoothie/juice place a few days ago and I got some carrot apple juice. It was beyond awesome. So we went to the store and bought a giant sack of carrots and a giant sack of apples so that I could make my own carrot apple juice. (Yes, this has something to do with the pictures.. eventually..) Because we live kind of far from said awesome juice place. (It's in Geneva and called Froots, in case you wanted to know) Well, Lucas asked to eat one of the carrots. So, of course I gave him one. And then Gwendolyn wanted one. So, of course I gave her one. Then Tim and I needed one... They are really good carrots. And oddly huge. They're each like 18 inches long. So the kids look beyond funny eating them. And they've been eating them everyday. So today I tried to take a picture of Gwendolyn eating a carrot as big as she is. And this was the result (See? there was a point, afterall.) She saw the camera and took off skittering. I finally got a picture of her and the carrot. But by then, Lucas had come along and bitten off a lot, so it just looks like a regular small carrot...

The carrot

It seems like wherever Gwendolyn goes, a carrot is sure to follow :) Courtesy of Lucas. It makes her so happy to have a fresh cold carrot stick to chew on while she's teething. And Lucas is such a sweet, thoughtful boy, he makes sure Gwendolyn is well supplied.

(The carrot is sitting behind Gwendolyn in the outdoor pictures - Lucas supplies small red shovels when we're outside. And who can resist a small red shovel??)

Food, food, glorious food

We had a special breakfast treat of chocolate chip pancakes. Oh yeah, Lucas LOVED those. Did I mention he didn't sleep the rest of the day? Oops!

And who needs a bowl for spaghetti????