The Playing Begins

Norah truly wants to play with Zion now and it is so sweet! They are more patient with each other some times than others but overall we just love seeing them interact with each other.

Matching Jams from Grandma and Grandpa.

We made a ladies weekend trip to visit my friend Ruth who is a pastor in Ohio. We left Travis to demo our basement but thats a whole other story. We had a great time hanging out and getting to go to her church on Sunday morning and the girls made it pretty easy on me! Zion can't wait to go back!

Zion and Mason

Zion has fun with her buddy Mason. Mason was a pro at building tall towers.
I went out of the room and came back to hear music and see this going on. What in the world!!! Too funny.
I could hardly contain myself and I have no idea how they came up with this.

Beets

Norah tried beets for the first time. She LOVED them. We had roasted some to make beet dip for ourselves so we just pureed some with a little yogurt. We get fresh vegetables from our organic CSA farm every week. They are all so tasty, much tastier than a lot of the regular old vegetables from the grocery store that try so hard to look pretty and lounge around for a long time. We got to visit our farm where our veggies come from and that only made us appreciate our veggies all the more. Farming, especially organic farming is seriously hard work. We love knowing where some of our food comes from especially when its going into precious little mouths. I never knew I liked beets until I tried them from our CSA last year. I thought that beets were always slimey, found on salad bars, and eaten by old people. So if you have not tried beets they are great and you should http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/roasted-beet-wedges/Detail.aspx and if you want to find out about the wonders of a CSA go here: http://www.localharvest.org/

Cooking Day

I was inspired by the thought of not having to come up with what to make for dinner everyday by myself and the idea of freezing meals. So I invited my family ladies to get together and cook up a storm. It was an experiment. We each brought the ingredients and recipes to make two meals and one other item such as a baked good. We planned it all out ahead of time and started the day nice and early with breakfast and planning at 8:00 a.m.

Conveniently mom happens to have an obsession with vintage aprons so we she dressed us all! This was a lot of chicken to shred...yikes!

We each just went for it with our recipes and helped each other with different elements. Beth made a list of all the things we were making on the chalkboard so we could cross things off as we went along.

Kerani's sweet husband Caleb provided us with important ingredients we forgot especially the above COFFEE! Kerani ran home to pick stuff up and stepped out of her car looking like this just as someone drove by. They probably thought the stepped back into time and were driving by a diner. (:

Lots of onions...lots and lots of onions

We made:

Black Bean Soup

Korean Vegetable Soup

Tortellini Soup

Beef Stew

Pumpkin Soup

Chicken Enchiladas

Chicken Sundried Tomato Quinoa

Veggie Burgers

Homemade Buns

Mini Wheat Bread Loaves

Other yummy mini breads (contributed by Nana)

Sweet Potato Empanadas

Spaghetti Sauce

Chocolate Cinnamon Cookie Dough

Lemon Scones

Pumpkin Muffins

Gingerbread Biscotti

Beer Bread Mix

We all went home with a ton of food. I think we agreed it was a success and hope to do it again soon. It simplifies meal planning, from what I can tell it saves money because you can buy bulk ingredients for a couple of meals rather than a lot of different meals and it prevents you from eating out because you have meals on hand. Also, you have things in the freezer so its easy to give a meal to someone in need which I have already gotten to do twice. They have all been very tasty and pretty healthy so far too. We had a great lunch in the middle and got to relax for a bit. I think I could speak for all of us when I say we were spent at the end. Thanks ladies for a great day!

First Day of Preschool

We were very excited to start our first official day of preschool with Zion. Zion has been doing what she calls her "school" for the past couple of years, learning numbers, letters, colors etc. But today was official. We are using the Calvert Pre K Curriculum. Now before you go calling us homeschoolers keep in mind this is just preschool. I always said I would never homeschool when I was younger. I thought it seemed like too much work and did not see why I would want to do it. Travis and I are praying about what to do when Zion is officially school age. We don't consider our public schools a real option because we live in the city and sadly we have not met anyone that has good things to say about them.

Here is a peak into our first day of preschool which only took about an hour and a half. Zion wanted to keep going. Above is her waking up.

Ready to start the day!

Buddies!

Special muffins and hot chocolate for breakfast by her request.

Doing her memory verse with Dad. (we added this to the curriculum.)

Our flag

The pledge of allegiance

Counting and sorting. Today we learned about in and out which Zion remarked "I already know this whats next". She enjoyed her music time and her Peter Rabbit story of the day.

After school we went to the library and she got her very own library card. She asked the librarian herself and was very proud. Then we came home and had a special lunch which she ate in our Peter Rabbit bowl and Peter Rabbit mug in honor of our story. I will be at work tomorrow so Travis will be doing day 2. So far so good!