Hiking and Bento's

We love to go hiking! The following pictures are from two different hikes. Both at our local metro parks, one park was flat and paved for putting K in the stroller. The other park had unpaved trails, nice hills and streams.


M waiting for us to catch up. She is a runner.



Snacks were provided along the way.


K loved riding in the backpack carrier.


We'd all take turns showing K the woods. Look
acorns and flowers.


Neat trees!

Interesting plant life!

It just didn't hold little K's attention.


She'll catch it all next time we go....maybe.


And when I'm not trekking all over with the girls I'm trying to come up with new and fun foods to pack in M's Bento Box. What's a Bento?

The Bento is an ancient Japanese tradition of packing a lunch. Usually in a decorative container with small compartments that help with portion control and hitting the food groups. Its a nice way of going "green" for school lunches. No plastic bags to throw away.

M picked out this Bento for her school lunches.


I'm still learning what to pack and trying to be healthy about it.



Not too bad here. The PB&J is with Organic whole wheat bread, natural peanut butter and homemade strawberry jam. I have cut up nectarines, pretzel chips, Babybel Light Laughing Cow Cheese, and Trader Joe's vanilla meringue.... for dessert..

This Bento's came with it's own fork and spoon and BPA free water bottle. Sorry not pictured.

We purchased ours here: http://www.generationgreenstore.com/

If you have nifty Bento packing ideas... send them my way!

Thanks!

Cool Sisters....

K and I have the coolest sisters. I'll start with mine...the retired art teacher.

When we came back from China, K had this over her crib.



Here is a closer look at the wise old owl that watches over our sleeping K.


Pretty cool, right?

What's even more cool is the freezer of pop in the oven ready meals waiting for us. Yum! The only hard work I had to do to get dinner ready for all of us is getting the foil and tape off the tightly wrapped prepared dinners. My sister has great skills in wrapping. Opening up Christmas gifts would go alot faster if she gave up the glue gun and used scotch tape like us regular folks. But you would miss out on those beautifully wrap little works of art. And she'd miss out on the ribbing we give her each year about her wrapping. Moving on....

This is really cool. Who else can find the perfect card for us? Yep, my sister.



Told you, major coolness! With the jetlag after we got home, the craziness of settling in, the nasty head colds we all got... I don't think I really said Thank You enough to her. I know she peaks in here, so a big THANKS to my cool sister.

And here is another.. K is lucky to have this cool sister.



Look at the pure joy on this face!


K loves her big sister. She makes her laugh by singing her silly songs about putting a banana in your ear, or, tickling her feet. She plays blocks and bangs cups with her. She pushes her in the stroller for walks around the neighborhood. And the coolest thing she does... she keeps feeding her when mommy has to go to the bathroom or go answer the phone, or whatever. But M is off to school these days and K looks like she's asking me:

When is my cool sister coming home?

Soon, little one, soon.

Looking back on the 20th

The 20th of each month will always be remembered. In 2010, July 20th will mark an anniversary. As of today, August 20th marks our first month anniversary. One month ago I was handed a very unhappy, little girl. I, of course, was thrilled, humbled, sad and happy all at the same time. But our baby K was angry, terrified, screaming, crying, and generally very confused about it all. I held her, held her for about 40 minutes. 40 minutes of arched rigid back, howling, mad at the world, beautiful bewildered baby girl. I remember feeling so sad for her. She was being taken away from everything she knew, loved and was comfortable with. I also remember feeling so proud. So proud that she could scream so loud, so long and be so upset about her new situation. It told us alot about her, in those 40 minutes. I eventually passed her off to her new daddy. Should have done this alot sooner. She settled with him. I don't know if it was because he was so not female or that her protest of it all was winding down. This picture below is of her on the bus ride back to the hotel.



After all the turmoil of the morning it was time to sleep it off.

Spent

We sang songs to her the whole way back. I hope our travel companions were so involved with their new beautiful babies that they didn't take notice of our wondrous singing voices.

Today, K is happy and loves to discover new things, especially food! She sings and dances. She plays with her older sister and the one cat of ours that will let her. She signs to us when she wants "up" and "more" and she is quick to remember what not to touch by a simple "no, no". She loves being outdoors and feels a responsibility to pick up every leaf that has fallen from our trees. The Fall season should be a blast around here!

" I love what falls from the trees!"

She takes one 2 hour nap in the morning and sleeps about 12 hours at night. She only gets her night bottle now and has graduated to a sippy cup during the day. No baby food here either! She will eat whatever we are having for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Doesn't care too much for cold items unless, of course, it is ice cream! She still has moments of fear. when it is just her and I home alone she doesn't like it if I walk away from her. New noises are frightening the first time she hears them. After she sees that we don't react she is okay. Bath times can be fun unless you mess with the hair. DON'T MESS WITH THE HAIR!

Sometimes you just have to!

Can't wait to see what new changes the coming 20th's will bring.

Bed Head, James Taylor, and Scrambled Eggs

We are getting into a nice morning routine.



No time to look presentable. Scrambled eggs are being served.




With a little banana or peaches on the side. Yum!



Got James Taylor playing for morning music. Sometimes gotta stop eating to sway to that Sweet Baby James song!



Yes, I love the mornings!



But not so much when the eggs stop coming....

The Long and Short of it

My daughters.... so different.

No, this isn't a post about becoming a blended family.

I'm talking about.. legs. Look at them.

M's legs go on forever, K's legs from the bottom of her knee to the top of her ankle is as long as the palm of my hand..sideways.

Yes, there is a big age difference.

But I think its the height difference that is amazing.


In more ways than the obvious, I hope K will always look up to her big sister.

Of course there may be times when that will be hard to do.

But I think this little one can handle whatever comes her way. Even a goofy big leggy sister.

The long and short of it... I think they will be just great with each other.

Home, a little late.

I'm a little late in posting that we are home! We walked through our front door last Saturday and our house never looked so good. We all hit our beds and everyone slept through the night!
K did so well on the long flights.

K taking advantage of the bassinets provided by Continental Airlines.

Mom taking advantage of the Newark Airport floor - waiting for our connecting flight.

And yes, I did fall completely asleep on the filthy airport floor and truthfully, it didn't bother me one bit. After all, I had already been on a plane for 15 hours with baby spit up on me and all.

We are just happy to be home (did I say that already) and settling in. K is getting more and more comfortable with her new surroundings. At first she was frightened of everything, even grass. Wouldn't walk on it. But she happily runs around the backyard now. The first couple of days she was major velcro baby with me. Would fuss and cry if she wasn't touching me at all times. This has seemed to settle with her switching back and forth between me and her daddy. I can now go to the bathroom without her hanging on to me. Oh joy! To pee in peace!

M is adjusting to her new little sister also. At first she was hurt that K didn't take to her right away but that has changed now. K has no problem including M in her hair pulling and body slamming playtimes. To give her (and me) a break, M and I had a date and went to the zoo, just the two of us.

M wanted to stay the whole day feeding this little bird.

But then remembered that there was other things to do at the zoo too.

Like fly in this bird plane.

Not me, you won't get me on another plane anytime soon.