Problem Solvin' Mom

Cooking with Kids - Little hands helping in the kitchen!

2012-05-22T22:46:00.002-04:00

Mommy, Can I Help?

Our family spends a lot of time in the kitchen, as I'm sure is true about many families. I love that the girls want to help while I'm cooking, and there are a lot of lessons about math, science and life that occur in the time we spend there, whether they recognize it or not. That said, many of the activities we enjoy together take a lot of preparation, not to mention careful management and cleanup! Every once in awhile I want the girls to be able to enjoy themselves and play a bit in a way that actually helps me and also allows me to be productive at the same time. This is one of those activities!

Look! A clean potato!

I had a huge sack of potatoes and was making several dishes at the same time - all of which required slicing and dicing of cleaned potatoes. In came two sweet little girls wanting to help, and so we got out two big bowls, a stack of towels, and two vegetable scrubbers. With towels spread out underneath, I filled the bowls halfway with water and the girls went to town scrubbing and splashing. When they were done, we dumped the water out and used the wet towels to clean the floor - how's that for serving double duty!

Do you have little hands that like to help? What are your favorite activities when your kids are in the kitchen?

Finger Print "Rain" Art

2012-04-04T16:32:00.003-04:00

Even though it's only April 4, we've already had several "April Showers". The weather overall has been fantastic this spring, but even so this mama has been around the block enough to know it's important to have several rainy day activities in her toolbox! :)

Most kids love to paint, and if mine aren't closely supervised things nearly always dissolve into finger/hand painting. Imagine their delight when I squeezed out the paint and encouraged them to make finger prints all over the paper!

We started with a blank sheet and made several finger prints in different orientations and colors. We talked about how the blue ones looked a bit like raindrops. Then I drew an umbrella on a fresh sheet for each of them and encouraged them to create their own rainy day scene - complete with fingerprint raindrops! Both girls loved this, and afterward we switched back to free painting which they also enjoy. It was fun to see them plan their project in advance, get started and make edits along the way. We will definitely do this again!

What are your favorite rainy day activities?

Free St Patrick's Day Fun - all week at McAlister's Deli!

2012-03-16T11:08:00.000-04:00

YUM! McAlister’s Deli celebrates St. Patrick’s Day with Free Cookies
Looking for a little luck of the Irish?

McAlister’s Deli is celebrating St. Patrick’s Day

all week

by giving away free cookies to patrons wearing green.

McAlister’s Deli “Lucky Days” run through the week of March 12-17.

Show off your best green attire for a fabulous sweet treat!
The following locations are participating in "Lucky Days":

7720 Montgomery Rd. Cincinnati, OH 45236

4560 Cornell Rd. Cincinnati, OH 45241

7622 Cox Ln. West Chester, OH 45069

5040 Deerfield Blvd. Mason, OH 45040

2865 Dixie Hwy. Crestview Hills, KY 41017

Entertaining Kids at the Grocery - scavenger cards

2012-03-09T16:24:00.003-05:00

If you're like me, the thought of inviting kids along on a shopping trip can set your nerves on edge! If someone had told my 16 year old self that sneaking out of the house for a solo grocery trip would be a rare chance for some alone time, I would have thought they were crazy. With EmDee's work schedule, the girls and I do most everything together and that solo trip really IS a rare one. I've found that involving the girls in our errands always makes things go more smoothly. So does avoiding meal and nap time, but that's a post for another day! ;)

Tis the season for seed catalogs, and we always seem to receive more of them each year. I've started crafting with them, and this is one of my favorites yet. I had the girls search for their favorite fruits and vegetables, along with some that I picked for them. Once the produce had been located, Sweetpea and I cut them out and Sweetpea and Sugar Plum glued them onto squares of cardboard from a cereal box we'd finished.

Once the cards were dry, the girls hole punched a corner, and we added the cards to one of our Dandelion teething key rings! Aren't these adorable? We can add or subtract to include produce that is actually on the grocery list, and the girls each get a ring. They are responsible for locating their produce, and if the trip is going well they get to help load their items into the cart as well.

I'm thinking of upcycling a grocery ad or two to include some more items from our shopping list.

What tricks do you use to make shopping with kids go more smoothly?

*disclaimer* Dandelion sent me several of their corn based teething rings to compost, and a few extras for the girls to play with. (isn't it cool that their corn based bioplastics will compost?!) I'll keep you posted as to how the composting is going, and in the meantime, the girls love their keys and grocery cards!

Sweet, soft and sustainable: Dandelion handcrafted hats!

2012-03-04T06:57:00.007-05:00

In the pursuit of eco friendly and sustainable products, I'm so glad I was introduced to Dandelion Earth Friendly Goods. Dandelion makes several products, from feeding accessories to toys to layette items.

As I have been relentlessly attacking the "stuff" in our house in an effort to simplify and declutter, I was looking for useful and fun Christmas presents for the girls this past December. These hats (with matching rattle balls) fit the bill - who could resist the cute? Made from bamboo fibers, they are cuddly soft.

My girls love to try on hats, but rarely leave them on. Finally we have hats that the girls want to wear everywhere! Here they are, modeling their favorite outerwear in the one snowfall we've had this year...

Mmmm, this white stuff is good!

What, you don't kiss your snowmen? :)

Need some quick hearts? Easy Valentine's Decorations

2012-02-11T15:31:00.006-05:00

Need a bunch of Valentine's decorations? These pipe cleaner hearts are about 5 seconds to make...

Take a pipe cleaner and fold it in half.

Twist the ends together carefully and fold the twist into itself toward the folded edge.

If needed, adjust to get that perfect heart shape. This is one my four year old made, so it's a fun craft even for little ones!

Measuring and estimating with cookie dough - YUM!

2012-02-08T11:08:00.008-05:00

For those of us who homeschool or want to supplement our child's learning, the idea of adding one more thing to our already busy family life can seem daunting. In order to maximize our learning and make the best use of our time, I try and integrate learning into our daily activities as much as possible. Opportunities to introduce new concepts and practice problem solving are everywhere!

Today we were baking rainbow sparkle cookies (otherwise known as my fake out snickerdoodles) and took the time to discuss how to divide the cookie dough evenly, so that all the cookies would cook correctly. Sweetpea is still a bit young to fully grasp fractions, but this was a good introduction. We cut the chilled dough in half, then half again. We counted how many dough balls we had. Everything went into half again, more counting...and so on until we had the sized dough balls that we wanted.

After we started rolling dough balls and covering them with colored sugar and cinnamon we talked about how the balls had to be two inches apart. How do we estimate two inches, and what does that look like anyway? We got out a ruler and thought about it a bit. We decided to measure Sweetpea's fingers, to see how many together made two inches. It turned out we needed three fingers between cookie balls.

Our cookies came out colorful and evenly spaced. Sweetpea is obsessed with estimating now, and the idea of how big something is. She thinks it is hilarious that a foot used to be determined by the size of the kings actual foot.

What have you been learning lately? Do you teach in the kitchen?

Chocolate Peppermint Syrup, Oh Yes!

2012-01-13T15:16:00.006-05:00

Our daycare provider shares my love of all things peppermint chocolate flavored. I love to pamper her with the occasional unexpected treat, as she is so wonderful to my girls when I have to work. So of course I thought of her when Rachel from Southern Fairytale shared her fabulous hot chocolate recipe with me. So much more frugal (and made with love!) to bring this yummy treat occasionally when I pick up the girls.

When I was considering ideas for homemade gifts this holiday season, the hot chocolate mix immediately came to mind. Who doesn't like decadently delicious hot chocolate this time of year, anyway?

Then I read Amy's peppermint mocha recipe that I had been seeing all over twitter and pinterest. Not only was it genius, but buried in there was the super simple idea of making peppermint syrup! I had to make some right away. As I was stirring my syrup and checking to see if I had the right amount of mint extract, it hit me - how fabulous would it be to stir in some hot chocolate mix to the still hot mint syrup? That was my own genius moment, as it was as spectacular as I'd imagined. Many thanks to Rachel and Amy for providing two delicious recipes that were a match made in heaven.

If you'd like to make this yourself, follow Amy's directions for peppermint syrup (all the way at the bottom of her post), and then after the syrup is finished and still hot, whisk in hot chocolate mix to taste. Refrigerate and enjoy as chocolate mint milk, hot minty chocolate or a peppermint mocha!

Keep little hands warm with those unmatched socks

2012-01-11T10:58:00.003-05:00

The Christmas season brought many magical moments with it this year, with both girls being in the perfect age range for enjoying our holiday traditions. In addition to those rapturous family moments, this season also brought several rounds with the stomach bug. The best way I found to keep the girls hydrated while they were sick was with the beloved Popsicle, more specifically those electrolyte freeze pops. In so doing I found a use for all of the mismatched socks the dryer seems to give me - as a sleeve to keep little hands warm! When not in use as a hand warmer, this particular one moonlights as a sock puppet, drawing smiles and giggles out of even the sickest little ones in the house. :)

Making mornings smoother with an evening routine

2011-10-17T05:56:00.004-04:00

Those of you who read the last post in this series might have anticipated today’s topic? What better way to prepare for a stress free morning than with a little evening preparation!

Each evening I make an effort to complete the following items:

Prepare lunch
Choose everyone’s clothing
Put together a reminder list for the morning
Pack Sweetpea’s preschool bag
Load the dishwasher
Lay out or write down (on the reminder list) breakfast ideas
Identify wake up plan

I find that the best time to pack lunches is as I’m cleaning up after dinner. I believe this elegant and effective idea came to me via Meagan Francis on twitter. If we have enough food for a meal later in the week, I package it accordingly, and the remainder is portioned into lunch sized containers and put either in the refrigerator or the freezer. If we have a lot of food already in the fridge, it’s nice to have some things stashed in the freezer for later!

Both girls like to choose their clothing (already!) and given the option would change their minds multiple times each morning. To reduce this frustrating time suck, we choose outfits ahead of time and I have them get dressed at daycare. Somehow they never have outfit attitude with the daycare provider like they do for mama. I pack clothes in the daycare bag and put it in the car the night before. I also carry an extra pair of shoes in the car for each child – I don’t want to admit the number of times one of them has arrived without footwear…

I am a list mama, and if I need to remember something – especially in the morning – it needs to be written down. An added bonus of this strategy is that it helps me decompress and empty my brain at the end of the day, which makes it easier to relax and unwind. The last thing I want is for my mind to be racing when I finally get to lie down at night. This list goes under my car keys on the kitchen counter.

Sweetpea started preschool this fall, and her class made special bags for transporting to and from school each day. Anything that needs taken to school gets packed into that bag, and projects or notes to parents come home in the bag each day. I empty the contents and reload as necessary. This bag gets put into the car the night before so it doesn't get left behind.

It’s funny how a pile of dishes in the sink when I wake up bothers me – the thought of them sitting there all day, waiting for me to return home is what gets me. Somehow I don’t mind them at all when my bed is singing its siren song at the end of the day. To keep myself from being tempted to waste precious time in the morning, I rinse and load anything that is dishwasher safe and call it “good enough”.

As with lunch, a little prep for breakfast is a big help. I try and have two options available to give the girls a choice in the morning. They love to be in control of their breakfast (are you noticing a pattern here?!) and I like to be able to give at least the impression that I’m being flexible and giving the girls their way!

Wake up plan – this is the topic for the next blog post in this series – for now suffice it to say that I spend time thinking about how I’m going to get the girls up and at ‘em each morning. They like some predictability, but we also like to mix it up from time to time.

Do you have an evening routine? What tasks do you complete each evening in order to smooth out your mornings?

No More Morning Mania! Tips for more peaceful mornings...

2011-10-10T07:00:00.001-04:00

Going back to work has brought crazy back to our mornings. I hate it when my failure to plan causes melt downs, stress and widespread grouchiness. It's so much nicer to savor the mornings at a leisurely pace than to rush through them sprinting to the car in a desperate attempt to be on time.

This is the first in a series on making mornings more peaceful -regardless of what your day might hold, I hope you'll find some ideas that get it started in a positive way, and in turn share what works for you!

First things First: Have a plan, write it down, review/revise it as needed, and STICK TO IT! For me, that means a morning and evening routine and a wake up time that allows me time to reflect and get prepared before the rest of the family wakes up. A plan also allows me to be realistic about what I can get done before leaving the house, and a minimum list of accomplishments that, once complete, mean the day will get off to a good (enough) start. It's amazing what I think I can do the next morning when I'm wilting from exhaustion and just want to go to bed...my routine keeps me honest and provides a bit of a reality check.

Do you have a morning and/or evening routine? How often do you revise it?

Nature Walking

2011-09-20T22:30:00.005-04:00

Sweetpea was captivated by the dragonflies and tadpoles at the edge of this pond during a recent trip to our favorite park. I loved the look of the clouds reflecting off the surface of the water.

We followed the stream that leads off the pond and I let the girls walk along the edge, this time watching the bugs that were skimming along the top of the water. What a wonderful opportunity to get them excited and investigating! And who would wander by next but a duck family out for a quick drink.

They didn't seem to mind that we were nearby, and the girls stayed still and quiet, just watching.

Is it any wonder this is our favorite park?

Our Overnight Cloth Diaper Solution - Lollidoo!

2011-08-14T21:31:00.009-04:00

We have been cloth diapering during the day for quite some time now, but night time had been a real challenge. Both of my girls are heavy wetters, and the last thing I wanted was added night waking and bleary eyed sheet changes. Until recently I had been using disposibles at night, and even then Sugar Plum would often wake up in the early morning and need changing.

I was excited to receive a Lollidoo overnight diaper to test out - I had heard great things about them. Not only are they made out of recycled plastic bottles, but they are super soft and don't require a cover. There is an amazing amount of adjustability designed into the diapers, and the absorbency can also be adjusted by adding additional inserts. The outer cover retains wetness but is also very breathable, helping to keep baby's bottom dry. {as a side note, if your baby is older like mine, this may also mean you will really smell baby's diaper in the morning, but I'll take that as a trade off for dry pajamas and sheets!}

It took a few tries to get the fit just right, but we found the right combination of adjustments and have been enjoying dry nights ever since. We use three of the Lollidoo innies for overnight, and two for naps.

If you're interested in trying LolliDoo diapers for yourself, you can use the code problemsolvinmom at LolliPlace to save 10% on any purchase over $40!

Tips for Stress Free Family Travel

2011-08-11T15:54:00.002-04:00

Family vacations can be magical for young kids and parents alike, but traveling, long lines and late bedtimes can set up the perfect storm for meltdowns. Here are my tips for planning a vacation to remember, rather than one everyone is ready to forget.

Choose a location that has activities that will appeal to everyone in your group - and find a hotel or rental that has the amenities you want (such as a pool or wifi).

Be realistic about what you can do each day. Plan time for rest, eating, relaxing and naps if necessary. If dinner reservations are late, you may want to feed younger children ahead of time or arrange babysitting.

Prepare plenty of entertainment during travel and wait times - a travel activity book, electronic toy or new book may be in order.

Do your research - sites like tripadvisor and chowhound and twitter allow you to search for food and lodging options as well as reviews like never before. The more research you do ahead of time, the more likely you are to choose wisely.

Relax, be flexible and have a sense of humor. Even if things don't turn out as expected, try and find the bright side. At least you're with family, try and make the best of it. Advocate for yourself if you are in a position that is outside your expectations.

Do you travel regularly with your family? What are your tips and tricks for stress free travel and successful vacations?

Beat the Heat with a Cold Summer Treat!

2011-07-20T22:27:00.009-04:00

The heat has finally set in here, and we're pulling out sprinklers, baby pools, and delicious summer treats to stay cool! The watermelon this season has been fantastic, and both girls have been regularly requesting it multiple times a day and especially for breakfast. They love to eat it sliced in wedges like this...

Yummy!

Kid Friendly Pasta Salad

2011-07-14T22:46:00.004-04:00

Who doesn't love a cold pasta salad on a hot summer day? In addition to being tasty, cool and refreshing, pasta salad is one of my secrets for providing a variety of healthy foods my entire family will love. Don't get caught up in visions of plain jane macaroni salad from the grocery deli - come up with a list of fruits, vegetables, meats and cheeses that your family likes and group them in complimentary combinations. Then come up with a dressing that is well suited to your combination- easy, right? And the combinations are endless.

The photo above is one of my girls' favorites right now - let's call it a very grape garden salad! As this is more of a method than a recipe, here are a few tips, and then a list of ingredients:

Keep ingredients small enough for little mouths, and also easy for little fingers to pick up if the fork and spoon loose their appeal. When making these salads, I often cook 2 boxes of pasta at once and make 2-3 different salads so we can rotate flavors.

In the salad above, we have peas, corn, sliced grape tomatoes, sliced grapes and shredded cheese with a poppyseed dressing.

Does your family love pasta salad? What are your favorite ingredients?

This post was written as part of the Hungry Toddler Blog Hop. Join the fun, add your linky below!

Berry Granola Parfait

2011-07-08T22:47:00.004-04:00

It's berry season here in the midwest, and here at the Problem Solvin' homestead we are picking strawberries and raspberries. It looks to be a promising season for blackberries as well, which is always exciting! One of my favorite quick treats with fresh berries (other than enjoying them fresh in the garden with my family) is a parfait. Easy to throw together and healthy, I love to enjoy one after the girls are in bed as I'm winding down for the day. Serving it up in a wine glass makes it extra special and helps keep my portion in check.

In this parfait, I combined roughly 1 cup of sliced strawberries with half of a cup of homemade granola and added a drizzle of warmed Dark Chocolate Dreams. I will share the granola recipe next week. Yogurt is delicious in a parfait as well, but when the berries are especially fresh I like the way they stand out against the crunchy granola.

What is your favorite late night treat?

Survive Before 5 {Review}

2011-06-28T23:25:00.003-04:00

For most of us, providing a healthy home cooked menu for our family means planning and preparation at some point. I have batch cooked and meal planned complimentary menu items in order to minimize prep work and share ingredients, but Trisha at Once a Month Mom takes meal planning to the next level. Her site provides recipe cards, grocery lists, and detailed instructions for a big day freezer cooking event each month and she recently added a whole foods option to the menu selections!

Just as exciting, she has a new ebook out - Survive Before 5: Toddler Meals for your Busy Days. Survive Before 5 provides recipes for healthy breakfasts, lunches and snacks - those pesky meals that aren't covered in the once a month menus on her website! In addition, you will find a sample calendar for organizing these meals and serving size recommendations. There are detailed plans for preparing your freezer meals as well as recipe cards, labels, and a grocery list that can be tailored to the number of children needing to be fed. One of my favorite features of the book is that each recipe includes toddler tasks. What a great way to get your little ones involved, excited, and learning. So much of our kitchen routine is method based, and that is what makes this cookbook so valuable - the methods and tips shared in these recipes can be extended to your own family favorites, making your time in the kitchen even more efficient and enjoyable.

Survive Before 5 is a great deal at $7.99, but for the rest of this month you can purchase it for $5.99 using the code OAMM599

More smoothie pops ideas!

2011-06-27T22:32:00.003-04:00

I guest posted Saturday at BabyCenter, sharing 7 of our favorite healthy and homeade popsicle ideas. I am so excited to be working with BabyCenter -the first site I jumped on when I found out I was pregnant, and one of the first I read on a regular basis.

I had a few questions about my smoothie pops come out of that guest post, so I thought I would post a few more ideas and specifics about our smoothie recipes. Here are some of the fruit combinations we go to most often:

Banana, Strawberry, Watermelon

Canteloupe, Blueberry, Peach

Blackberry, Strawberry, Banana

Pineapple, Orange

It helps to freeze one of your fruits - we grow strawberries and blackberries, so most often we use last year's crop as the "ice" to keep our smoothies cool.

To add some extra fiber and nutrition, veggies are a great addition. Two handfuls of baby spinach, a half cup of diced kale or cabbage can be added with your juice at the start into your blender, then add the remaining ingredients.

To start, try a cup of juice with your greens. Then add in a cup of fresh fruit, a cup and a half of frozen fruit. After everything is well blended, try adding a half cup of yogurt or peanut butter.

As you can see in the picture above, smoothie making is a family affair at our house! The girls love helping to choose the ingredients, and as with most foods, helping with preparation makes them more adventurous eaters and excited to try their creation.

What flavor combinations do you like best?

Rain, rain and more rain...

2011-06-27T22:16:00.001-04:00

means we've been enjoying a lot of these lately!

She has the force on her side

2011-06-22T14:20:00.005-04:00

Sweetpea is a force of nature - I love to sit back and watch her go. Suffice it to say that she was right at home as the littlest apprentice in Jedi training at Hollywood Studios!

Sea Shells, Boogie Boards and Memories

2011-06-19T14:05:00.004-04:00

Earlier this month we were at the beach. It is such a different experience, being at the beach as a parent - especially of small children -but I love watching our girls explore and enjoy the sand and surf in their own ways. Both girls love the water and will jump right into the swimming pool. Sweetpea loved the sand during her first visit to the beach (she was just a few months past 1) but wasn't so sure about the salt water. Sugar Plum likes to dig in the sand and pick up shells with her sister. She also keeps a good distance from the waves - so she hasn't even discovered that the water is salty yet...

Every trip to the beach brings with it memories of my Dad. This trip especially, as Sweetpea took longer walks picking up shells with us and made her first attempts with a boogie board. Now that we are home, she is eager to tend the garden and to cook with me - also things I loved to do with Dad. As she and I share many of the things I once did with Dad, I am starting to feel ready to share some of those memories with her. I wrote a while ago about how I plan to share my memories with the girls, and since then I've been jotting a few ideas out here and there, but haven't really gotten started. Today seems like a good day to look for some pictures to use on my cards...

Happy Father's Day to you Dads out there, and big hugs to those of you who are missing your Dad today.

The view from here

2011-06-13T19:41:00.001-04:00

Lots of "gardening": digging, watering, and otherwise enjoying themselves while EmDee and I plant and weed. I love watching them play, and it reminds me of when I was a girl doing the same while my Dad planted and picked.

Lots of playing in our new "park" - Santa brought the girls a playground set that we finally put together last weekend.

Lots and lots of popsicles. I shared one of our favorites last week, look for many more ideas in the coming weeks!

What are you up to these sweet summer days?
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Taste of Summer - Peanut Butter & Jelly Popsicles

2011-05-26T10:06:00.001-04:00

As the heat is rising and it's finally starting to feel like summer, the blender gets more and more action at our house. We love to make smoothies with fresh and frozen berries, and whatever is left over goes straight into the popsicle mold. Not only is it a tasty healthy snack (or breakfast!) but it freezes even faster as it's cold and thick to begin with. In the spirit of impending summer, I'm sharing this post from last year, for peanut butter and jelly popsicles!

Making your own popsicles is fun and frugal - we love smoothies at the problem solvin house, and I always make big batch so there is extra for making into popsicles. When fruit isn't in season locally, frozen and canned fruit work wonderfully as well. We decided to mix things up a bit by adding peanut butter, and the results were delicious!

While peanut butter isn't something we want to overdo, the addition of some protein is nice and tasty. We call these peanut butter and jelly smoothies/pops. Everyone gets one small glass of smoothie and the extra gets poured into molds and become peanut butter and jelly pops. One added bonus to making smoothies into popsicles is that they freeze faster - every little bit helps when you have an anxious preschooler who can't wait to eat her frozen treats!

Recently I saw a tip about how to make spinach smoothies when you don't have a fancy blender - if you've seen it please let me know so I can give credit. Basically you want to add the spinach and liquid and let it mash up for a bit before adding anything else. Here is a good basic spinach smoothie recipe, though we have to omit the yogurt for now since I'm dairy free. We add spinach anytime there is some in the house. It works well with any fruit combination and adds a subtle flavor without being overpowering. Sweetpea loves the bright green color and mama loves the added nutrition. We come up with seasonal names for the spinach mash that starts out each smoothie - it's been leprechaun juice and is now spring green power juice!

*Edited to include one of our favorite veggie PB&J combinations*
I had a few requests for specifics, so here is one of our favorites. My recommendation if you're new to smoothies is to start here and adjust to your taste. Plain yogurt is great in smoothies too, though this recipe doesn't include it.

PB&J Fruit and Veggie Smoothie

2 handfuls of washed baby spinach
1 cup 100% fruit juice
1-1/2 cups frozen strawberries
1 banana
1 cup watermelon, cubed
1/2 cup peanut butter

We have successfully used spinach, kale and cabbage in smoothies, and by successfully, I mean my kids love them. The trick is to put the greens in the blender with all of the juice and blend together for a minute or two until the greens are well blended. Once that is done, we add the banana and watermelon and mix some more, then the frozen strawberries. Once the berries are blended in (you won't hear them knocking around in the blender anymore when they are well incorporated) we add the peanut butter. One more good blend and they are ready to serve as smoothies or pour into popsicle molds and freeze. This amount will make 6-8 popsicles depending on the size of your molds. I find a smaller batch like this works well with the greens and peanut butter, so when we are having smoothies and want extra to freeze I make two batches one right after the other.

Many Blessings, Big and Small

2011-05-24T14:48:00.003-04:00

The fabulous Miss Kate took time out before having her precious little boy to take some pictures of my girls with their great grandparents. Each time I look at this picture, the breath catches a little bit in my throat. So much love- I am so blessed!

As the girls have grown quite a bit while I've been neglecting things here, I'll share several more of these pictures soon, but I think this one stands alone, don't you? :)