Weekend Update

We are having FANTASTIC weather up here in AK! It's beautiful, dry, and finally all the leaves are budding. It's so warm, in fact, that we wound up planting our herb garden yesterday. Pictures to come soon.

In Kira news, she completed her first week of toddler-training, which means she is learning all sorts of new behaviors:
1) She's decided that clothing -- including diapers-- is optional and rather disagreeable. So, every clothing change is a struggle now. Luckily, I have learned that she can do stand-up diaper changes, which makes her much more compliant.
2) Her love of books is insatiable. She calls them BOCKS. And she wants to read them repeatedly, sometimes six in a row.
3) She loves going on walks. Of course, this is only to pick up everything that she finds on the sidewalk, from gravel to trash. Each little find is a little treasure, and she raises it up, starts running to the nearest parent, with a "WOW WOW WOW". We "almost" made it to the neighborhood park yesterday, but not quite.
4) Regarding the diaper changes, when she is stopped from doing what she wants (especially when we pick her up to move her) she shouts OWEE OWEE OWEE over and over again. Cute, I suppose, and better than "NO" which will come later.
5) She continues to be a little martha stewart in training. How do I know? How else to explain her stash of interior paint swatches? How about the diligent cleaning of the coffee table? The constant monitoring of the carpet for bits of string/choke hazards (with a "Uh OH!"). Next thing you know, she's going to come home armed with glitter, felt and a glue gun.
6) "Babies" are becoming much more important. Elizabeth, baby beluga, and baby bear must be taken care of constantly. They are constantly being put to sleep under blankets, diapered with tissue paper, or carried by their hair around the house. To see Miss K carry three dolls around is really sweet.

Anyways, hope everyone had a great mother's day!

Cordova Pics

Weekly Recipes: Brazilian Black Bean Stew and Baby Food

Yesterday, we had a fantastic and easy slow cooker brazilian black bean stew.  I made it up based on multiple recipes but here's the idea:

Ingredients:

Two cans of black beans, with water

.75 lb Italian Sausage (ground is best, but I suppose you could slice up a kielbasa if you wanted)

Hot salsa of your choosing (I used safeway's deli brand)

sweet potato cut up into small chunks

Mango slices (Del Monte does all the hard stuff for you)

Cilantro (chopped)

Directions:

Take all ingredients except mango and cilantro.  Put into slow cooker on high.  Make sure there is enough water to just cover the ingredients -- if not, add water by filling up one black bean can.  Cook on high for 3-4 hours, or until sausage is not pink inside.  Plate with mango slices on top and chopped cilantro.  Yum!

Baby Pasta with sweet potato chunks:

Note: I used sweet potato chunks from the stew above.  One key to baby food prep is identifying baby food components in your regular meals, and putting aside those components.  Slow cooker made the sweet potato soft, so I didn't have to individually steam/bake the sweet potato.

Ingredients:

one handful chunks of baked sweet potato (soft according to baby palate)

two handfuls Baby Farfalle Pasta (bow-tie, but you could use macaroni as well)

dab of butter

dab cream cheese

two tablespoonse shredded cheese

Cook the farfalle to instructions while you find the rest of the ingredients.  Drain the pasta and put into a medium sized bowl.  Throw in your butter, cream cheese, and shredded cheese while it is still warm and stir.  It should form into a cheese sauce.  Throw in your potato chunks so they get cheesy too.  Yum!

For Breakfast:  Apple, banana, strawberry, mango smoothie

Note:  Again, used the sliced mangos from the meal above.  The rest of the ingredients we had on hand.  Use less cider than you think you need; mangos hold a lot of water.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup apple cider

two bananas

two strawberries

four slices of mango

squirt of lemon

This one's easy.  Spin with your immersion blender, add apple cider to your desired consistency. To freeze, scoop into ice cream trays and place in freezer.  Transfer into ziplocs once solid.

New Photos!

New photos on the right --->

Six things about baby.

So Baby this weekend was a true character!

Some of the best parts...

1) Going to brunch at a friend's house.  Seeing Miss K interact with new people, playing peekaboo...demanding to see everyone's belly buttons.

2) Palm Sunday -- Kira at first was not into the palm branches.  But then, she saw all the kids waving them and marching around during the first song, she was transfixed.  After a nap in the nursery, she grabbed a palm and waved it, triumphantly shouting WOW! WHOA! as she toddled up and down the hallway!  I can't wait for the easter baskets next weekend.

3) Kira loves the kitchen, which is why we now have drawer locks on the most dangerous drawers.  K is known to walk around with a pie pan for tens of minutes, talking to herself, and licking the pan like she's eating something yummy.  

4) It was fun watching her play with a melon baller.  Out of all the things she could have done with it, she decided to scoop puppy food out of the dog bowl and feed it to puppy.  

5) Her language skills are improving by leaps and bounds.  She now knows the sign (followed shortly by the word) Please and says HIYEEE! and BYEEE! to everyone and everything, particularly birds.

6) She LOVES Galileo.  This weekend, while he was trying to take a nap, she pet him on the back gently and sang to him(because this is how she is put down to sleep at school), then found a blanket to put on top of him.  In the evening, I sometimes find the two of them lying next to each other.  The first thing she asks for every morning is puppy.  Galileo loves the attention, especially the extra treats she feeds him.

Ba-Ba Bahbit-Baht? Dis? Dis?

Thought I'd share a little snippet of Kira-speak for you.  We spent some time watching the basketball games last afternoon.  

Me:  Look!  There's a ball!  That guy is bouncing the ball!  He threw the ball!  He makes a basket! Yay!

Kira:  Baht?  Baht?  (Kira makes the sign for ball)

Me:  Yes that's right, it's a ball...

Kira:  Bahbit! (throws hands up in the air)

Me:  Yes!  He made a basket!

Kira: (claps, pauses, pats chest) ba-ba. 

Me:  Yes, you're the baby.

Kira:  Ba-ba baht?  (points to tv) Dis? Dis? Baht Dis?

(pause, then off of my lap and on to the next thing)

Kira also knows most of the time about her Het (head), Ice (eyes), Ba-ba Ba-ba (baby beluga), chuice (shoes), Tiktyu (thank you), and the incessant Dis? Dis? Dis? Dis? (either a I want whatever is out of my reach or tell me what its' name is over and over again).  It's great to see her communicating more clearly, although now that she knows we understand the angrier she gets when she can't have something.  Can the terrible twos start at 13 months?

Kira on the Move!

Kira is officially a toddler this week. She is definitely walking (more like running) and talking more than ever. She is working on her greeting skills this week by announcing HIEEE!!!! and BYEEE! to everyone within earshot at the grocery store. She can spend 15 minutes waving and jabbering to the "boids" in our trees in the backyard. She also loves to play jokes on Mom and Dad by calling us by each others' names and cackling. When she walks, she walks with her arms outstretched like frankenstein, usually wiggling her fingers, bidding whatever is in her path to move to her.

With toddlerhood, of course, has come a myriad of new behaviors. Some of these are very sweet and loving, as when she tries to brush puppy's hair, or takes her hair ribbons out of her hair and pins them on my head. On the other hand, she now gets mad when you take things away from her, throwing her head and body back and forth with incredible force. This morning, I took the raisin box away from her and the response sounded like she was mortally wounded. And the fun, I hear, is that I can just expect it to get worse. Yikes!

In other news, we have a volcano that's erupting near us. But don't worry, we are somewhat prepared and now that the equinox has passed, we alaskans are all in a much happier mood.

I've been lax on baby food mondays. Let's talk about beverages. When K gets a snotty nose, I've learned now to give her a little bit of weak herbal tea that's lukewarm -- it warms the nasal passages and gets the snot out without having to use the evil bulb. My favorite is lemon echinacea, because we all know that the battle with day care crud is ongoing, especially in winter.

For our KFC Monday this week, I did slow cooker pork tacos:
1 4 oz can of dried chiles
2 tbsp chile powder
1 tbsp cumin
1 can of chunky salsa
1 lb pork roast
1 bag of dried kidney beans
Water to cover
salt, oregano and pepper to taste

Fixins:
Tortillas
Cheese
Extra salsa

Take all the ingredients and dump it into a slow cooker in the morning. Put the slow cooker on low obviously. Check periodically to confirm that the beans haven't taken all of the water -- if so, add a half cup of water and check in an hour. It's supposed to take nine hours, but I was able to raise the slow cooker to high at the five hour mark and things were tender by 7. You'll know that it's done when you press onto the pork with a wooden spoon and the pork just falls apart.

When the pork is done, take the pork out and shred with a fork. Make tacos using the beans, cheese, salsa and pork. Yum!