Trinket box made from craft sticks

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Kaylee is a firm believer in exercise

Bicep curls.


Lifting weights.


Lunge squat jumps. Demonstrating mid-air.
Obviously, she is coaching me here.

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Canning spaghetti sauce made from fresh tomatoes

Nine large mason canning jars of spaghetti sauce made from 12 lbs of tomatoes.


This year I have committed to making sure my family eats healthier. It is my responsibility as a parent to teach my kids to take care of themselves and eat the right kinds of foods that fuel their bodies for proper growth. That means lots of vegetables are being consumed here.

So many parents today are way too busy and don't think twice about nutrition. They just figure "I will feed my kids whatever they will eat" so they can get to the next soccer game, dance practice, or event. Enter McDonald's drive thru, eat junk, done! I am not saying I don't eat fast food once in awhile but let's face it, it should be named "Fat Food.". That is all your body gets out of it, right? There is almost no nutritional value in eating a box of French Fries but we have learned to crave the taste.

Should we as parents encourage that behavior in our already overweight society? No, of course not, most would answer. Why is it then that every two year old out there knows what McDonalds is? Yep, it means food(junk) and of course a toy. Don't get me wrong I am not perfect by any means and sometimes feed my kids "McJunk." I do really try to discourage going there too often which is what brings me to today's blog post and why I planted a large garden this summer.

If you have all these excess vegetables like we had this summer, well you just have to eat them. My girls love picking out vegetables from our garden and selecting which ones we want to make for dinner.

So this weekend one of  my best buddies, Dana and I made marinara spaghetti sauce from pure vegetables right from our gardens and maybe a couple added veggies from the local farmer's market.

It was a long labor intensive day even with all of our modern tools like a food processor, but I believe the nutrients we receive from our vegetable tomato sauce will far outweigh anything you can order from a drive-thru.

We spent our whole day making spaghetti sauce from fresh tomatoes, fresh spinach, fresh onions, garlic, fresh grown basil, fresh parsley, and all the yummy spices we Italians use to season our sauce. I hope my grandma is proud of me and what I made today. I am also thankful to my friend for teaching me a new skill of canning which may come in useful if I have another fruitful year in gardening. Yummy! "Mangia! Mangia bene!" my grandmother Consolino would say. (Roughly translated it means, "Enjoy your meal!")



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Hair bow design with Sophia.

Sophia and I made a few new hair bows this afternoon.


Mommy, I want them in the front so I can see them. Sophia is being silly.

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From our garden to our table

In the past I have made a green bean vegetable dish with fresh green beans, slivered almonds, and just a tiny bit of cooked bacon. I had just a very small amount of green beans so far so I had to stretch that side somehow. Due to some tree nut allergy issues for my little Kaylee, I had to rethink that recipe. Instead of nuts, I used sliced squash with the greens beans and bacon. I think it was a hit because the family ate it all.


Kaylee might have been confused and picked a few green tomatoes but I showed her red tomatoes so she could pick more.


Mmmm!


Fresh spinach, tomato, and cucumber salad is my favorite summer salad.


Um, slightly over-ripe cucumbers.


These tomatoes are perfectly ripe for cooking into a delicious spaghetti meat sauce. I used a variety of tomatoes including Big Boy, grape tomatoes, some hybrids, and cherry tomatoes.


Home-made spaghetti meat sauce made from tomatoes, onions, spinach, and zucchini. All were from the garden. I used the food processor to crush all the extra veggies I snuck into the sauce. My kids never knew they were eating vegetables. It was delicious and I had enough to freeze for four additional meals. Yummy!

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Roller Skating at Winghaven Neighborhood family night at SK8 Galaxy

 

Kaylee using practice bars while roller skating.

Sophia feeling frustrated about falling.

Sophia looking more confident.

I took Sophia out on the roller rink floor and found Kaylee skating really fast behind me to catch up with us.

 Sisters having fun.

 Not using practice bars skatingthe girls roller skated over to the snack bar.

Kaylee fell down but she is laughing!  Oops!

 Eating a Super Pretzel with a little cheese.

Winghaven Residents make sure to check out the new publication that came last week called "Winghaven Life" for more upcoming "Free Family Fun Nights."  You may see some familiar faces in the next publication.

My kid can fly - this one is funny and embarrassing

Lately my life has been a bit too crazy to sit down and blog.  It is just how it is sometimes but I had to share this very funny story about my trip to Walmart yesterday.  Although, I really don't like shopping at Walmart, in general, I knew I could get the majority of the supplies I needed for Mothers of Preschoolers  Moppets babysitting at once so I made the dreadful trip with my two kids safely tucked and strapped into a shopping cart.

If you know my youngest monkey, Kaylee, than you know she won't sit still anywhere for long, let alone, stay strapped into a shopping cart for more than two minutes.  Yes, she is what do they call it, my "spirited energetic" child.  

So I trudge down the rows of the almost empty school supply bins  in the store filled with school aged kid shoving their hands into bins grabbing and pulling at the last few schools supplies on the face of the earth and select a few markers, crayons, pens, etc that are needed to run the show while my preschooler and toddler are yapping at me in the loudest voices possible.  I think they are whining although when I told them to zip it, they claimed "Mommy, we are just singing!"   Great, if that is singing, we are going to need some serious voice lessons around here is what I doubtfully thought as I headed to the beloved craft section of the store. 

As I push my shopping cart down the craft aisle my two girls decide they cannot stand another second in the cart because they want to look at crafts too and they are talking non-stop and making me crazy to boot.  Oh bother, I sigh and lift them onto the floor.  I tell them to behave and begin studying the simple foamies crafts kits for kids and brainstorming ideas and how to make things on the cheap for Moppets.

Meanwhile, Sophia and Kaylee have skipped up and down the craft aisle inspecting every single item at their ever so low munchkin eye level.  And somehow in the background I hear this exclamation of glee as both of their gleaming eyes fall upon the felted butterfly wings.  Oh boy, here we go.  They grab the stack of butterfly wings and hold them up on their backs and start running up and down the aisle "flying".  "Mommy, look we are beautiful butterflies."  I scan the aisle around me to see who is watching and I carefully let my eyes drift over to my two rug rats whom I love with all my heart and gasp in horror as they are knocking down the other felted items trying to get more wings off the shelf.  

I scold both and carefully throw my forty pound preschooler back into the shopping cart and grasp the crazy monkey two year old while re-adjusting the wings and other felted items about ready to cause an avalanche in the craft aisle at Walmart.  I have the two year old in my arms like a sack of potatoes holding her horizontally because, honestly, it is the only way I can keep her from flailing about trying to grab the craft items I am replacing. 

The next thing I know, I am in the middle of a chant by my two year old holding out her arms and flapping them and legs moving around and yelling at the top of her lungs, "Look everybody, I am flying! Look everybody, I am flying!  Look everybody I am flying," and it continues on forever and ever.  I look around wishing I could sink into the ground or at least shrink down behind a shelf as everyone in the entire store, or the people in the aisles next to me, turn around and chuckle at my crazy flying monkey of a child.  My four year old in the cart is laughing at the shenanigans. 

I don't remember much of the trip after that hugely embarrassing moment in my life but somehow I did manage to pay for the few items in my cart and slink out of the store and navigate the car back home feeling defeated once again by my hooligans I am raising over here.

Needless to say, I will never show my face and flying monkeys faces again at the Lake St. Louis Walmart again.