One more Tuesday night Wordless Wednesday - photos courtesy of this little girl's mom

Even more Tuesday night Wordless Wednesday - Boredom!

More Tuesday night Wordless Wednesday - Lovin' the gym teacher!

Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday night) - Getting fresh with a fellow dancer HEE HEE!

Weekend pics . . .

It has been a nice, laid back weekend. I somehow managed to NOT get any really stellar photos of my girls yesterday, but we were in a hurry to get out the door as usual. Here are the best I managed to get;o)

Bath time!

Until tonight I have not taken any pictures of Mariele's bathtime because I have found the easiest way to bathe her is to just get in the big tub and hold her. But now that she is sitting up more I have the option of the baby bathtub. So I got a few cute pics tonight:





Wrapped up in the fluffy towel!

Din Din . . .

Was awesome tonight! We had vegetarian spring rolls with peanut sauce, vegetarian noodle soup, sushi and seaweed salad! And I did not have to cook because it was TAKE OUT! WOO HOO!

Then Mariele got to have her first taste of rice cereal! She ended up eating the whole serving (it was a very small serving). Toward the end she was figuring it all out and deciding that she kind of liked it!

Here are some pics and a tiny video clip (had to shrink it down a lot):

Anti-inflammatory foods

Hubby emailed me this list of anti-inflammatory foods today, with a request that I incorporate many of these foods into our meal plans.

Here are the foods that interest us (being vegetarians):

Vegetables

Bell Peppers
Bok Choy
Broccoli
Broccoli Sprouts
Brussels Sprouts
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Chard
Collards
Fennel Bulb
Garlic
Green Beans
Green Onions/Spring Onions
Kale
Leeks
Olives
Spinach
Sweet potatoes
Turnip Greens

Herbs & Spices

Basil
Cayenne Peppers/Chilli Peppers
Cinnamon
Cloves
Cocoa (at least 70% cocoa chocolate)
Licorice
Mint
Oregano
Parsley
Rosemary
Thyme
Turmeric

Oils

Avocado Oil
Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Drinks

Green Tea

Fruits

Acerola (West Indian) Cherries
Apples
Avocados
Black Currants
Blueberries
Fresh Pineapple
Guavas
Kiwifruit
Kumquats
Lemons
Limes
Mulberries
Oranges
Papaya
Raspberries
Rhubarb
Strawberries
Tomatoes

Nuts & Seeds

Almonds
Flaxseed/Linseed
Hazelnuts
Sunflower Seeds
Walnuts

We already eat quite a few of these foods on a daily basis. For example, my homemade granola contains almonds, flaxseed and sunflower seeds. And then we often add blueberries to it when we eat it for breakfast. I LOVE avacados and green onions. I'm sure I can find some good recipes to make with those. Since it is summertime, I would like to try grilling some pineapple slices. That would be yummy I am sure! Anyway, it seems like all of these foods are very tasty and have lots of super health benefits.

Lost weight

Hair weight that is!! My hair is wavy/curly so it is deceptively long. It has been driving me nuts. Falling out and growing at the same time. And it has been growing uneven and just has not been feeling healthy. So I just got back from the salon where my stylist took about an inch and a half off! My head feels lighter. I feel so much better! Of course since she blow-dried it straight you really can't tell that she took that much off, but believe me she did!

Pumping is a BEEYOTCH!!

I have nothing but total admiration, respect and awe for those mommies out there who are pumping their breast milk or have pumped their breast milk in the past. I am just trying to pump enough to make little breast milk ice cubes to mix in with some rice cereal for Mariele. About 20 minutes of pumping this morning yielded me about 3.5 ounces!! The milk was coming, but very slowly. I am using a handheld single Avent pump. Anyway, the milk I pumped this morning filled 6 ice cube tray compartments (they are supposed to be 1 ounce servings per compartment). I am going to pump a little every morning to try to get used to it. There is definitely a technique to using those little manual pumps.

So I guess I should have said first that I am planning to start Mariele on rice cereal within the next few days. Her ped gave us the go ahead at her 4 month appointment, but he said it would be fine to wait until 6 months since she is thriving so well on my breast milk alone (chubby thighs hee hee)! Well, lately she is so interested when we are eating. She is grabbing at our food and salivating even more profusely than she normally does. I guess I'm starting to feel bad that we are all eating in front of her. So I will try a little rice cereal with her (no more than once per day for awhile).

Randomness

*** I have been so busy lately trying to be efficient. I'm on this efficiency kick and maybe I'm not very efficient at it. But I'm trying. The shock of having 2 kids has worn off after 5 months. Having only one kid is so much more forgiving to lack of efficiency. So I'm modifying how I do certain things. I'm going to bed pretty tired at night, but I'm still having lots of fun with my kiddos. Trying to enjoy them first and foremost. Becoming more efficient around the house should allow me even more time to enjoy them.

*** I did not even try to do baby scrapbooks with my kids. I knew good and well that if it was not online and digital that I was not going to spend time with it. Hence the blog and the website that I did for Analese. My entire photo library is digital and backed up very well. But I realized that I need to archive my blog somehow. So I followed these instructions for archiving a blog found on Laura C's blog. She has made these wonderful blog books out of her blog. I may eventually do something like that, but until then I found her instructions on archiving to be very helpful. So far I spent an hour and a half yesterday converting 3 months of my blog to a word document. I have 5 months to go. I plan to make this a monthly task once I get caught up. Right now I have a giant word document. I plan on converting to a PDF document once I have it formatted the way I want it (with page breaks in the appropriate spots). At least I will have a nice digitally archived copy of my blog. And I could always print it out on the color laser printer to place in big three ring binders if I want a hard copy. Or there is also the option of publishing at lulu.com the way Laura C and some other bloggers have done. I could also make 100 page books through the Apple store. Anyway, options abound once I format it. So that is another project that is keeping me busy now.

*** I'm enjoying cooking and eating food once again (something I do not enjoy while pregnant). I like to check The Pioneer Woman's cooking site every few days to see if she has posted up any new recipes. I just love her recipes! They always taste great. So last night I made her Springy Shells. It was so absolutely unbelievably fabulous! So funny because at the end of her post she says she will not serve this to her meat eating husband and she refers to this dish as a "quintessential chick dish." My husband actually likes chick food and appreciated this dish very much! I added this dish to my cafe menu!

*** Mariele's goopy eye is gone! Well, her eye is still there, but the goop is gone! I have not seen goop in her eye for a couple of weeks now! I guess I just get so used to seeing the goop and not noticing it. Last week at The little gym, one of my mommy friends noticed that her eye was cleared up. And sure enough, it is! I'm so glad we don't have to take her to the ophthalmologist!

*** Analese's vocabulary is expanding so much! She watches these Sesame Street podcasts on my iPhone and picks up the vocabulary words there. She will ask me if I know what gigantic means or what amazing means. Then she will proceed to tell me the definition! She also wants to know every word in Spanish! This morning she came into my room and the first thing she said was, "Good morning mommy. How do you say good morning in Spanish?" I told her "Buenos dias," and she has been saying that all day now. I would LOVE to raise her bilingual. Problem is, I am not. I have a pretty good Spanish vocab. Constructing actual sentences is a different story. I need to find a good resource for teaching foreign language to a preschooler, because she is SO interested in learning. And she has developed a good Spanish vocabulary as well. She knows how to count to 10 in Spanish and she knows most of the colors in Spanish.

*** Analese really knows how to make Mariele laugh! Lately Analese will crack Mariele up by pretending to be a frog. She will hop like a frog and say, "RIBBIT," and Mariele will laugh like it is the funniest thing in the world! Yesterday Analese really had Mariele all worked up with the laughing. I knew that by the time I went to get the video camera that the moment would be over. I did get this super short video clip of one laugh this morning. I will try to get another one when she is laughing even harder:





Well, off to do a little blog archiving before my kiddos wake up.

Wordless Wednesday - First Position and Butterfly bow!

Happy 5 month birthday to my Mariele!

I was looking forward to Mariele's 5 month photos because I wanted to recreate Analese's 5 month photo pose! When Analese turned 5 months, we were having some Indian summer in Colorado. So the same outfit worked for Mariele today in the heat of a Texas summer. As you can see from the post below, I got some very similar shots. The atmosphere did not look identical - more overcast for Analese's photo. But you get the idea! And the photos really are freakishly similar!

I had to keep this one because of the strand of drool hanging from her mouth. That (and the date on the photo) is how I can know it is Mariele. She is such a drooly baby!



Here are some more good ones:





We got a couple of Analese and Mariele together:




And a few of me and my girls!

Time for another edition of who's who!!

Some Jazzy Bug photos . . .

Yng Yng took these through the glass with her camera. Anita and Analese are in this session of dance together at The Little gym. They just look so cute in there together!

Yet ANOTHER iPhone app!

I am such a sucker for apps! Laura C was blogging about apps that she likes yesterday, and she mentioned this CameraBag app. It simulates different lenses and filters on your iPhone camera. Pretty cool, so of course I had to get it. I still think $1.99 is a bargain for the fun that Analese and I will both have with this app. So here is the original beautiful bird picture that I snapped on our stroll yesterday:



Here are the different effects:

Helga:



Lolo:



Magazine:



Instant:



Mono:



1962:



1974 (the year I was born HA HA!):



Cinema:



Infrared:



Fisheye:

End of the Week Randomness . . .

Well I made it to Friday and I guess I'm still in one piece! My meal planning organization scheme worked great this week. One short trip to the grocery store and 4 delicious evening meals (tonight is leftover night). I've dug out from under the laundry mountain. I've tackled some more home organization projects. The girls and I went to Target this morning and I found this great banana leaf weave storage trunk for hiding the toys in the den. By some miracle I got it home in the passenger seat of my Rav 4. Not the most comfortable driving position, as I had to hold it up with one arm so it would stay off of my gear shift thing! Would not fit in the back cargo area with the double stroller. You all would have been truly sad to see my struggle with this trunk in the Target parking lot. Geometry and spatial analysis are not my strong points. Really really sad. But here it is in the corner of my den where a random toy pile has been accumulating:




And here is my smart girl, Analese. The other day on the way home as we were stopped at a stop sign, Analese said to me, "That is a stop sign, mommy! It is an octagon. It has 8 sides and 8 angles!" Sesame Street is so educational! She learned about octagons from a Sesame Street (or eh street, as she has called it since she started talking) podcast on my iPhone. Another favorite statement of hers this week is, "When I was a baby, you put A & D on my butt!" That is because she was watching me slather some A & D ointment on Mariele's butt during a diaper change and I told her that she also got A & D on her butt when she was a baby. She still loves her little desk. I love it too. Very nifty, and she keeps her art supplies under the seat. She is concentrating so hard here:





Look up and smile Analese!



I dusted off the old exersaucer and the old jumperoo for Mariele this week. Here are some pics of her in the jumperoo. She does not quite jump just yet, but I know it won't be long before she figures it out. Check out the drop of drool on her chin!



I tried to get a big smile out of her, but ultimately only Analese could accomplish this task!