Spinach Ice Cream?!

I don't have a picky eater. In fact, she's quite the opposite and will eat just about anything you put in front of her without questioning it. I've only found one or two things in her entire life that she's just flat out refused to finish after trying. It's been a huge blessing, though, I think a lot of it is because she gets what's put in front of her and if she doesn't finish it, she doesn't get a second choice. I like to keep things fun and interesting for her, though, because I know the same bland ways of eating veggies can get old. We've made mac n cheese with veggie noodles, we make all kinds of veggie chips and season them in different ways, she helps make veggie soups, we freeze veggies so she can eat them on hot days (she LOVES frozen green beans and peas) and yesterday we made spinach ice cream!

I know, it sounds disgusting. In fact, spinach is one of those things that she's refused to eat, so I was a little nervous when I found the recipe because I wasn't sure how she'd react to it and didn't want to have a tub of ice cream that wasn't going to be eaten. But, I thought it'd be a fun activity for us to do together and the ingredients weren't expensive.

I measured out the ingredients and let Logan dump them into the blender for us.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup frozen spinach

3/4 cup frozen pineapple chunks

A half of a peeled orange

3/4 cup coconut milk

1-2 bananas

Logan threw them all in and we let it blend for about 2 minutes (I actually added a little extra pineapple because we had it).

We pulled it out and put it in the freezer. Logan wanted some after dinner so it didn't have time to set, so her first taste of it was a little mushy but she loved it. This evening it was perfect! We pulled it out about 20 minutes before eating it so it could soften just enough to scoop and put it in a cone and voila! Spinach ice cream...which is actually more of a sorbet and tastes a lot better than it sounds. The proof is in the pictures:

She loved her "deen ice team" (green ice cream) and absolutely wanted more and then asked if she could share with daddy (sharing is our big lesson this week, it seems). I told him if she asked, I bet he'd try it. ;)

Conversations with my 2 Year Old

Logan: Mommy, Brody pooped. It stinks. I can poop too. Happy Birthday! (Happy Birthday is something new that she likes to add to the end of a lot of her sentences....not sure where it came from)

*Covering her eyes with her hands* Mommy, look, I turned my eyes off! I can't see, I turned my eyes off!

After putting something on and asking Mike if it made me look fat (hey, I just had a baby, I have to ask. It's pretty mandatory for a female in my situation). Mike says no. Logan thought otherwise and added, "Yes, you look fat. Sorry."

Logan frequently puts her sunglasses on and begins to yell, "Hey! It's dark in here, I can't see anything!"

A few days ago Logan pulled the cabinet under the sink open as far as it would go (it's got a child lock on it) and began talking to the paper towels. "It's dark in here. Pa-er (paper) towels, can you see? No? Mommy, pa-er towels can't see, it's too dark."

Logan gets a chick-fil-a lemonade when we go grocery shopping if she behaves in the store. It's a fun weekly reward for her. This week, I had to go to the store twice. To convince Logan it was the cool thing to do I asked, "Do you want to go to Target with mommy? We'll stop and get a lemonade on the way home." She looked pensively and then replied, "No, I want diet tote (diet coke)." Oh man.

2 Months!

Brody was two months old on Tuesday!

It's been a crazy two months, but it's been so much fun. We fall more and more in love with our little boy every day and just love watching him grow.

(see those Carlsen lips, mom?)

Here's what you're up to, little buddy:

- You're sleeping 4-5 hr stretches at night so we're only getting up about once a night.

-You works GREAT on a schedule, which is such a blessing. You eat every 3 hours, take three great naps a day and go to bed around 7pm. I can lay you down and you go right to sleep on your own which makes things much easier for me.

- You hold your head up on your own for quite a bit of time.

- You hate tummy time!

- You wear some newborn clothes, but mostly 0-3 month stuff. You're wearing a small sized cloth diaper right now and I anticipate we'll be switching to the one-size bum genius in the next month or two.

- You are such a sweet, smiley baby. You'll smile at just about anything.

- You coo and giggle.

- You only sleep well if you're swaddled and once mommy figured that out, life got 1,000 times easier.

- You've become a much more content baby since we started you on reflux meds.

- You love to sit in your bouncer and are much less fond of the swing than your sister was.

- As soon as Logan walks into the room and makes her presence known you start looking for her. She loves to help calm you down.

- You took your first roadtrip this month to Ohio. 11+ hours in the car and you did great! We were shocked because you hated the car so much before we left....and you hate it again now. God heard our prayers and provided a calm trip-- maybe we should have prayed that you instead would just love the car all the time!

- You are just as sweet as can be and we love having you in our family!

While you look a lot like your sister, you certainly grow much faster than she did! you're a whopping 12 lbs 5.5 oz and are 23 inches long. At the same age Logan was 10lbs 5oz and was only 20 inches long.

Here's Brody at 1 and 2 months. He's looking a LOT less newborn and a lot more baby now.

Daddy's Little Girl

And she proved that she's just that today when she fished through a bucket full of soccer balls, bouncey balls and footballs to find the lone volleyball at the bottom while we were at Old Navy. She snatched it up, declared it a "bollyball" and ran proudly to show her daddy her find. How could he say no to that? So he bought it for her and they brought it home and we didn't even make it upstairs for lunch before she wanted to play with it. Mike obliged. Gladly.

Teaching her good form at a young age:

She was so excited to have a pink volleyball! She kept declaring, "it's pink! it's pink! I love my volleyball" all the way home.

Volleyball hands!! (Don't worry, no little brother's were harmed in the making of this blog entry...even though he's sitting right behind Logan and Mike was about to throw the ball to her)

I'm sure this will create hours and hours of endless entertainment and father/daughter bonding moments so it was worth every penny.

Mother's Day 2011

I am so thankful to be a mom! It's been the hardest but most rewarding job ever. I've spent the last two years smiling with my babies when they're happy, crying with my babies when they're sad, laughing when they laugh (even if they're laughing at nothing at all) and swelling with pride when they get that "I just figured out how to do something" look. There is just no greater joy to me.

(Brody was screaming his head off while we tried to get a shot of the three of us...that's why he's backwards in the pictures)

But today, my heart also hurts for those whose deepest desire is to have a baby but they haven't yet gotten the opportunity to hold one. I lost two babies to miscarriages, and have felt that sadness that runs so deep you feel like it's in your bones and will never go away. I've also got close friends who have lost babies soon after birth and I've cried along with them as they laid their sweet babies to rest in the arms of Jesus. And I know those who are trying desperately to have a baby of their own but it just hasn't happened yet. I know that mother's day can be a harsh reminder of what hasn't happened yet or what you've lost, and I pray that God give you a sense of peace and comfort that no human can. Know you are loved by the King of Kings and there's nothing greater in life than that.

I am so blessed to have now experience motherhood twofold. With each passing day I can only praise God all the more for the wonderful blessings He's bestowed on me in my children. I couldn't say it better than this article, so I'm going to leave you with it. (get your tissues out)

Time is running out for my friend.

We are sitting at lunch when she casually mentions that she and her husband are thinking of "starting a family." What she means is that her biological clock has begun its countdown and she is considering the prospect of motherhood.

"We're taking a survey," she says, half jokingly. "Do you think I should have a baby?"

"It will change your life," I say carefully.

"I know," she says. "No more sleeping in on Saturdays, no more spontaneous vacations..."

But that is not what I mean at all.

I look at my friend, trying to decide what to tell her. I want her to know what she will never learn in childbirth classes. I want to tell her that the physical wounds of childbirth heal, but that becoming a mother will leave her with an emotional wound so raw that she will be forever vulnerable.

I consider warning her that she will never read a newspaper again without asking "What if that had been my child?" That every plane crash, every fire will haunt her. That when she sees pictures of starving children, she will look at the mothers and wonder if anything could be worse than watching your child die.

I look at her carefully manicured nails and stylish suit and think she should know that no matter how sophisticated she is, becoming a mother will immediately reduce her to the primitive level. That a slightly urgent call of "Mom!" will cause her to drop her best crystal without a moment's hesitation.

I feel I should warn her that no matter how many years she has invested in her career, she will be professionally derailed by motherhood. She might successfully arrange for child care, but one day she will be waiting to go into an important business meeting, and she will think about her baby's sweet smell. She will have to use every ounce of discipline to keep from running home, just to make sure he is all right.

I want my friend to know that everyday routine decisions will no longer be routine. That a visit to Mc Donald's and a five year old boy's desire to go to the men's room rather than the women's room will become a major dilemma. That right there, in the midst of clattering trays and screaming children, issues of independence and gender identity will be weighed against the prospect that danger may be lurking in the rest room.

I want her to know that however decisive she may be at the office, she will second-guess herself constantly as a mother. Looking at my attractive friend, I want to assure her that eventually she will shed the pounds of pregnancy, but will never feel the same about herself. That her life, now so important, will be of less value to her once she has a child. That she would give it up in a moment to save her offspring, but will also begin to hope for more years, not so much to accomplish her own dreams, but to watch her child accomplish his.

I want her to know that a cesarean scar or stretch marks will become badges of honor.

My friend's relationship with her husband will change, but not in the ways she thinks. I wish she could understand how much more you can love a man who is always careful to powder the baby or who never hesitates to play with his son. I think she should know that she will fall in love with her husband again for reasons she would never have imagined.

I wish my modern friend could sense the bond she will feel with other women throughout history who have tried desperately to stop war and prejudice and drunk driving.

I want to describe to my friend the exhilaration of seeing your son learn to hit a baseball. I want to capture for her the laugh of a baby who is touching the soft fur of a dog for the first time. I want her to taste the joy that is so real that it hurts.

My friend's quizzical look makes me realize that tears have formed in my eyes.

"You'll never regret it," I say finally.

-Dale Hanson Bourke

Going to Hi-O...

...That's what Logan declares every time we walk out the door to go to the car. That or "dimey (disney), mi-a-mi mi (miami)" She has quite the affinity for both sets of grandparents and I think would gladly move in with either set. :)

Brody had started smiling for reasons other than gas right before we went to Ohio so it was nice to be able to capture some sweet awake pictures of him smiling away:

Here's Logan on our first day frosting cookies with nana:

This was such a treat for her!

Logan loved the opportunity to snuggle up with Brody during their afternoon naps:

She helped color Easter Eggs with daddy, Aunt Lindsey and Benjamin...all while wearing her tiara, of course.

Logan spent a lot quality time with her papa and her sweet cousin, Benjamin, who is now old enough to actually play with her. She had so much fun having a built in playmate for a few days! (check out those ballet feet, only about 9 more months until we can enroll her in her first dance class!)

Opening Easter gifts from nana and papa:

Dancing in some of Aunt Lindsey's old dance gear:

She also got to hang out with her gigi Sue for a little while. She brought Logan some fun sunglasses and buckets for this summer!

We tried desperately to get Logan and Benjamin to get a good picture together but trying to wrangle two toddlers is hard enough...try getting them sitting together, looking at the camera and semi-smile. Didn't happen.

Nana and Papa kept Brody nice and calm while mommy and daddy packed up the car to leave bright and early.

And Logan held Brody's hand most of the way home to keep him a happy baby:

Conversations With My 2 Yr Old Part ?

Me: Logan, how much does mommy love you?

L: um.....two. yike (like) two finers (fingers) (holds up 2 fingers), one, two.

Logan's prayer tonight:

"Dear God, thank you for:

Happy Birthdays

Tea Parties

Chick-a-le (chick-fil-a)

and Princesses. Emen."

Logan, in response to an automatic toilet while it flushed:

"WOW! Dood dob (good job), potty (clapping)! You fuuuud (flushed)!!!" Yes, I realize it is probably highly unsettling for people to hear a two year old screaming "you fud" as when it's said out loud, definitely sounds like something I would hope she'd never say. I'm working on correcting that.

In response to her inability to tie her own shoe:

"Tum (come) on shoe! Sherioshly (seriously)?? Dit on ma foot!"