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Farm Share, Week 13

This week’s farm share had lettuce, cabbage, kohlrabi, broccoli, and swiss chard (finally!).  Although I did have a meltdown yesterday where I destroyed dinner and had to dump the whole thing in the trash (Tommy ended up having a slice of storebought bread and an egg; Derek and I had dinner during our date night instead of going couch shopping like we’d really hoped to do), I am generally feeling more confident about using the strange veggies.  I’m super-excited about trying several swiss chard recipes, so hopefully we’ll start getting plenty of that in the weeks to come!
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I’m pretty sure this was the biggest cabbage I’ve ever seen.  Here’s my hand for comparison.  Definitely enough for two full meals for the three of us!

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Staying Cool in the Pool

With the 90+ degree weather hitting Chicago, we’ve pulled out the kiddy pool this week.  Here are a few pictures of the kids in the backyard over the past few days:

Who says babies can’t wear swimsuits?

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Running water is even funnier when it’s spraying your belly button!

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Caroline came over for one last play date before the Wolfes move back to STL…

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…and we had a picnic, because eating lunch in your swimsuit is pretty cool!

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Meanwhile, Elizabeth just chilled in the shade!

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Laura came up this week to meet the little “niece” who has her name…and to introduce us to Stephen!

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Lizzie and Auntie Laura were smitten with each other!

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We took the kids for a walk to the playground in their newly re-covered stroller…

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Lizzie discovered a new favorite place to nap–against Auntie Laura!

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The coupe

From expensive to free…I found this Coupe by dumpster diving on trash day in our neighborhood a couple weeks ago.  Tommy LOVES it!

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Our New Vibe!

A couple of weeks ago I went for my first walk with both kids and Tommy’s friend Reagan.  Since Dana had forgotten to bring Reagan’s stroller, we used the old double I’d picked up last spring at a garage sale.  Well, Peg Perego is a good brand, but it just wasn’t cutting it on our Chicago sidewalks!  So I did a LOT of shopping around and reading up on stroller reviews, and I decided to get a Phil and Ted’s stroller.  These jogging strollers come from New Zealand and are unlike anything else on the market because they can be a single or double stroller just by adding or taking off the doubles seat kit.  I like that they’re lightweight and only as wide as one stroller (actually, narrower than our old Graco) and not much longer than a single!  Two of my girlfriends have the Phil and Ted’s Sport model and love it, but I actually found a nicer model, the Vibe, on sale at Costco.com, of all places, for over 40% off–less than the cost of a Sport!  The reason?  The ugly “Grafitti” line of seat cushions.  But $4 of Walmart fabric later, they look totally cute to me. =) 

Here we are, trying it out for the first time…Tommy comes running to the new stroller!

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I can push two down the sidewalk easily–it’s like the bumps don’t exist!

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Caught in mid-stride–I’m liking it already!

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It’s incredibly difficult to explain that in the infant/toddler setting, Tommy’s sitting on the doubles seat on top of Lizzie, who is laying flat.  You just have to show it–this is the view from behind with the flaps up.  I really like that she’s basically hidden from the world, and when we walked to the library, no one knew she was there so no one was wanting to touch her…

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And here’s what you see from the front–if you take care to look in between Tommy’s legs!:

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before and after (which do you like better?):

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Obviously time will tell if this was the good investment I’m hoping it will be…but so far, we’re big fans!

Grandma and Tommy arrived yesterday afternoon, and boy, were Tommy and I glad to see each other!  He’s been so excited about being home, and he seems pretty pleased that “Baby Iz-bet” is still around.  I’m so glad to have my sweet girl and my little dude together again!  This morning he asked me to put him up in his old crib with Elizabeth, even though he’s a big boy…so we did our best to imitate Janet’s adorable crowded crib photos:

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Attitude Check

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This past week I had one of those “Oh my goodness!” moments where I realized the enormity of what I’ve taken on to raise a daughter.  With Tommy I remember the overwhelming sense of responsibility in training him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and of course I want to direct Elizabeth’s little heart to the Lord, too.  But Tommy is going to learn to be a man in large part by watching Derek, while Elizabeth will be forming her ideas on Godly womanhood by watching me.  I think of how influential my mom was in forming my desire to be a homemaker.  Am I up to the task of modeling a love of the home?  Sometimes I think I was a more cheerful homemaker when I was working full-time in South Bend than now when it IS my full-time job.  Knowing that I have a little homemaker-in-training watching my every move should make me careful about what attitude I exhibit throughout the day!  Okay–I’m off to (joyfully) switch loads of laundry and make my list-of-things-to-do-today… 

One Month Stats

Elizabeth checked out at the doctor yesterday:

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9 lbs 13 ounces (75%)

20 7/8 inches (50%)

The doctor just had a bit of concern over the fact that we’ve been noticing mucus in her dirty diapers.  That’s usually a sign of an allergy to milk proteins…so it’s likely that she has a dairy allergy like her brother did.  That is pretty much terrible news for a breastfeeding mommy, and I’m not excited at the prospect of going off dairy again for another 11 months!  So we are going to wait and see if this continues before I start chugging rice milk.  Otherwise, our little girl looked fine and is growing healthy and strong!

Compare her to Tommy at one month:

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10 lbs

22 1/4 inches

(Didn’t manage to write down the percentiles in his baby book, but I’m pretty sure he was more in the 95th for height and weight at that age.)

Farm Share, Week 12

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This week is more like it!  Our farm share box was nice and full, and we should be able to use everything.  With green and red leaf lettuce and a big bag of baby spinach, we’re set for salads for the week!  Another pint of fresh strawberries…yum!  The big head of kale and the bunch of asparagus have me pretty sure I know what’s been in season for the past 6 weeks!  Oh well, kale is supposedly one of the best superfoods out there, and Derek isn’t sick of asparagus yet.  We have a large bag of cilantro, and I have to admit that I  haven’t been very good about using my herbs yet.  I have oregano and something else still sitting in my cooler drawer from past weeks, and I’m not really a fan of cilantro.  I love Mexican, just not with cilantro.  We might be finding a friend to take it off our hands.  And those weird white things are daikon radishes.  Supposedly they cook up like carrots or regular radishes.  Hmmm…maybe we’ll hide them in eggrolls again?  I’m sortof in a rut for using extra-random veggies, but hey, I still have some leftover wraps from last week!  If anyone has any great suggestions for using cilantro so it doesn’t taste like cilantro or for using lettuce in anything other than a salad, please let me know. =)

Photo shoots

With Tommy gone, I’m determined to get in some good photo shoots of just Lizzie. Let it not be said that I had thousands of pictures of my firstborn and none of the other kids by themselves! Last night we tried, but she was just too camera shy:

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This afternoon we were able to get some better shots. Note the progression of her head postion…she gets tuckered out pretty easily!:

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