crayon aprons and such

Here's Mirelle sporting my old crayon apron I dug up at my parents' house a few months back. I love idea of making some of these as gifts for all of Mirelle's friends (now turning two). Ha! Very small chance that will happen, but I already found a good design on Skip to My Lou's blog. That one's not so much an apron, but a crayon roll. Super cute. Maybe someday I'll get the material and stay up late one night (or get up early one day, more likely) and crank some of these out. Could also just get this on etsy...


I'm also feeling really inspired by Artful Parent's blog to create a little art space for Mirelle. Oh, and hosting an art group!?! Maybe when I'm not working fulltime. Here are her suggestions for the top 10 art supplies for toddlers. I need to search around on craigslist for a good little art table.


We had a fun, busy weekend! Kept Mirelle up 'til 11 on the 4th. She's been making up for it ever since. The garden is growing, and growing, and I'm adding mileage to my long runs (still aiming for either the full or half marathon in September). We're heading out of town later this week for a few nights of backpacking while Mirelle hangs with my folks. She's going to be happy as a clam with them. And we are way, way, waaaay overdue for a backpacking trip. Do I even remember what to pack? (We went on a mini last summer with Mirelle - 1 mile in. I thought it was great, actually, but I was only carrying in Mirelle on my back ... Ross had everything else...!)

I'm hoping to post one more time this week before we head out. Putting together a little cheat sheet for my fridge of my 'go-to' recipes. (Inspired by angry chicken.) I'll post that if I get it done.

Gosh I love summer.

Way, way past bedtime

We had a really full weekend - saw lots of friends and family, ate lots of yummy food, sampled some delicious wines, and generally just said 'yes' to summer. Mirelle stayed up way past her bedtime Friday, Saturday and Sunday just to make it all happen. And we forgoed Sunday's nap too. We celebrated Sophia's second birthday Friday night, and welcomed Jay and Mimi to Boulder. We clinked wine glasses and bidded for silent auction items Saturday night in Denver at my cousin Eric's gala for his non-profit organization, while Mirelle ran around in the grass with Olivia, the 4-year-old of the hosts. Sunday we visited new second cousin Brayden (9 days old) and Great Grandma (almost 89 years old) in Colorado Springs, then had dinner with friends visiting from Albuquerque. Mirelle romped, frolicked, got dirty, sifted rocks, slipped in the grass, got grass stains on her PJs, ate drive-by dinners (ie put a forkful of food in her mouth as she motors by), and mimicked the wanderings of McKenna, our friends' little girl exactly 1 year older than Mirelle to the day.

Ross sent me this link to this great little article about discipline/permission and letting kids be kids. I particularly like this part:

So breathe deeply and pray for gentleness, patience and the ability to forgo perfect control or perfect behavior at every turn. Guide, and then let them run and tumble, and go by themselves, and sometimes fail. Let the little ones get wet and get dirty, let the teens borrow the car and go without you. They grow anyway, hindered or unhindered by us.

What are some other ways to let our little ones be a little more unhindered? What about ourselves? (This is definitely a challenge for me - I usually like to keep things pretty orderly and on schedule, both for Mirelle and for me.) Time to say yes to spontaneity and things not always looking tidy!

Sneaky sneaky

Some ideas for sneaking veggies into your tot's food (from Delcious Living) If they're not down with it as is...

avocado: puree 1/2 avocado with 2 cups smoothie
cauliflower: cook 1 cup florets, drain. Puree with a bit of water or milk 'til smooth. Mash in equal parts with potatoes; whisk 1/2 cup into 2 eggs before scrambling, or whisk 1/2 cup into 1 cup cheese sauce
pumpkin: blend 1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree with 1 cup pasta sauce; or whisk 1/4 cup into 1 cup warm cheese sauce
spinach: puree 1/4 cup frozen, thawed, chopped spinach with 2 cups chocolate shake or 1 cup pasta sauce before cooking; or mix 1/2 cup into brownie or muffin batter before baking

Maddy's shoes

We watched our friends Jess and Justin's little girl Maddy tonight while they went to the Death Cab for Cutie concert at Red Rocks. Maddy had on the most amazing little girl shoes so I had to look them up.

See Kai Run - check them out. So cute. Here are some of my favorites:





Aaah, I want a pair, too!



Oh, and while you're there, get good ideas for your next baby's name! They can be named after a beautiful pair of shoes, right?

Parents Magazine's baby announcement contest

Yippee! I just found out that the birth announcement I made for Peapod (aka Mirelle) is in the runnings for Parents magazine's announcement contest. Woohoo! Just got an email from Amanda Kingloff, Parenting's Lifestyle Editor, asking me to send an actual invitation to them for the judging. (They've only seen the JPGs, above).

Here are the details I told Amanda about the announcement:

Here are a couple of photos of my daughter Mirelle’s birth announcement (showing front and back). Since we called Mirelle ‘peapod’ while she was in utero, it seemed fitting to use this peapod patterned paper from iota. The announcements included a colored corrugated backing; the back featured an entire sheet of the peapod paper; the front of the card just a torn piece of the paper overlapping the announcement. Everything was tied together with a piece of green velvet ribbon. (I had all of the pieces cut out and ready before she was born; the piece of paper with her photo and birth news was the only thing I had to create after she was born.) Cross your fingers!!

Friday, already?

Wow, I've been a very negligent blogger this week. My apologies! It was one of my goals when I started this blog (well, when I finally decided to actually go for it), was to maintain it - that means a post every week day (or every other, at least). Oops. For some reason I was feeling some blog rebellion this week. Not sure what it was. But I'm back, today. What has been happening this week? Not only have I not been posting, I also haven't found a lot of time to exercise. Not even a little window of time. Work is busy (like usual), but what else? I'm looking back over my calendar from the last five days, and I think the reason exercise and blogging wasn't present is because I had other appointments and activities scheduled - and those took up my little window of time away from my work stuff. (Not really a great excuse, but c'mon, I'm reaching here.) Monday Mirelle and I had a chiropractic appointment. I know chiropractic care is controversial, but it's worked for me, and Mirelle gets checked out every couple of months for preventative care. It's really shown to be effective in preventing ear infections in little ones. (Mirelle didn't have any last winter, but she's also not in a daycare setting.) Tuesday I took Mirelle to the local science/kids museum with our friends Jess and Maddy in the morning. She loved the music room, the giant dinosaur, the balls, the lights, the mirrors ... super fun. Good reminder about all of the cool things to check out with kids in the big city. Well, anyway, somehow the week got away from me. And now it's the weekend, and we have big plans for our garden. More on that to come.

Here's one thing I've been working on this week. Creating a fancy invitation for the Aspen Writers' Foundation's annual gala. At $25K a table, the invitation has to be fabulous. This is the email blast image that's going out. The actual invitation will combine iridescent paper, metallic ink, a diecut ... It'll be a beautiful thing.



P.S. It's bike to work day! I walked down about 5 steps to get to work, so guess I did my part! Here's a cool little bike commuting calculator you can use to figure out cost savings, calories burned, etc (thanks for the tip, Lindsey!)

Mom time

Whew! Happy Monday! A very busy weekend, but a lot of fun, and all revolving around moms. Thursday night my mom, sister and I headed to the tony Cherry Creek district of Denver and listened to Lynne Rossetto Kasper chat about food, entertaining, and the correct lighting for your dinner table (that's eye level). We nibbled on appetizers from recipes from her book: fried risotto, plumped ginger shrimp, and local mou co cheese from Fort Collins. It was a wonderful event, not crowded, and Lynne and her producer, Sally, were so friendly and receptive.



Sunday morning, for mother's day, Mirelle and I jogged in the Title 9K run around Boulder Reservoir. Lots of moms, dirt roads, beautiful cool weather ... a lot of fun. (Mirelle enjoyed the run from the comfort of the jogger, while eating a pancake.) Met up with mamas and dads afterwards for a little picnic.



Hope your mother's day was great!

Oh, and check out the new lobotoME pads I designed for Jenny over at her blog. I think my favorite right now is the FitME pad!

Aliveness

I made the stunning realization yesterday that the reason I enjoy going for runs (especially on dirt trails, next to streams, and past blossoming trees) is because it makes me feel really alive. It reminds me (subconsciously) about what I really am and about what I'm here to do. My body gets to work hard, I get to be connected and in touch with the natural world and the rhythyms of the changing season. I made this realization yesterday after being at my desk all day. At 4, Mirelle woke up from her nap and we went outside. Aah! It was such a glorious afternoon. Glorious is the most fitting description. Little blossoms were emerging on a red-leaved bush, the delicate first shoots of growth on the tree in the front yard were starting to shift toward leaves, purple flowers had already appeared on a creeping vine. I plucked one, two, three, four and five ! purple flowers and placed one in each of Mirelle's button holes on her sweater. We watched a fat robin dart from tree to tree. Since Mirelle notices everything, I start to, too -- we are a good team. I show her new things, tell her what things mean; she reminds me of the beauty and wonder in the mundane.

But spring is anything but mundane, and it was just then, laying in the grass with Mirelle, already a world away from the glow of my computer screen, that I remembered/woke up/realized what I already knew: that doing things that make you feel truly ALIVE are really what it's all about. And I remembered how I had felt the day before on my run: it was that feeling. I do love my job, but it's still a job: Working at my computer, sitting, moving from task to task. My work is so much easier at my desk if I instill some aliveness into my day, away from the computer.

Other things that have recently brought on a sense of aliveness: hot yoga class, being creative with paper/collage (need to do this one, but I know it works...)

More aliveness. More often. What does it for you?

Snacks for kids

Happy Monday! Picked up the latest Delicious Living magazine at the natural foods store this weekend. I really love that magazine, and I love that it's free. Of all the magazines I subscribe to (Yoga Journal, Body + Soul, Sierra, Mothering), Delicious Living is one of my faves, and I don't even have to pay for it. They always have the best recipes. If you can't find one at the health food store near you, they're online, and this issue features some great snack ideas for kids.

Here's one I'll have to try out on Mirelle (a huge fan of this combo): Core an apple, stuff it with a mixture of peanut butter, rolled oats, and a touch of honey. Slice the apple crosswise, and voila! Apple rings with peanut-butter centers.

Some other ideas for kids snacks from that issue:
• Apples and cheddar cheese
• Graham crackers crumbled in cottage cheese
• Yogurt dip with fruit slices
• String cheese and whole-grain crackers
• Salsa with baked chips
• Whole-grain, low-sugar cereal and milk
• Raw-food fruit and nut bars
• Whole-grain pretzels and almond butter
• Cinnamon graham crackers and peanut or cashew butter
• Guacamole or hummus with jicama sticks
• Smoothies with yogurt, milk, frozen berries, and banana
• Organic dried veggies

Also, you may be interested in reading Jenny's post about kid's lunches here.

Oh, and I had breakfast on Saturday with my college roommate, Genia, who is now chef extraordinaire and owner of her own healthy, tasty meal business. If you live in Denver, you may want to utilize her services next time 'making dinner' doesn't make it on your to-do list for the day.

open the door to compassion

Next weekend I'm teaching a mother's day yoga workshop (on Saturday). The inspiration for the workshop is from a 'mommy mantra' I read in a book I have of the same name. The mantra is open the door to compassion.

From Myla Kabat-Zinn, in Everyday Blessings:
When a child, no matter how old, feels our acceptance, when he feels our love, not just for his easy-to-live-with, loveable, attractive self, but also for his difficult, repulsive, exasperating self, it feeds him and frees him to become more balanced and whole. That is compassion in action. (But she’s not saying we put up with unacceptable behaviour.) We just might need to be mindful of what might be going on from our child’s point of view, and factor compassion into our response, rather than react automatically and unthinkingly.

Here's a thought on showing compassion towards ourselves as mothers, from Buddhism for Mothers, by Australian author Sarah Napthali:

In practicing compassion we speak kindly to ourselves and notice whether our inner voices are supportive and friendly or judgmental and demanding. We are patient when we falter, for parenting makes amateurs of us all as we confront its never-ending new stages. It helps to cultivate self-awareness, not guilt.

This whole compassion mantra is starting to play more of a role for me now that Mirelle is acting more assertive and entering tantrum land. (Or at least what I think are tantrums...)


screaming/crying as she tries to get to her pacifier, which lives in the crib...

Oh, and one more thing about mother's day: visit this site to donate money in your mother's name to help war victims. (The founder of Mother's Day, Julia Ward Howe, created the holiday with the intention of women uniting for peace.)

Sippy cup debate

With all of the buzz about bisphenol A (BPA) (found in many plastics), it's good to know there are some alternatives on the market when it comes to children's sippy cups. I've been a wary plastic user for many years (ditched my old nalgene three years ago for a SIGG), so I was glad to find this stainless steel sippy cup from Thermos. It's the foogo. It's really good at keeping liquids cold, too - up to 6 hours, they claim, which is good when you're taking the cup out and about with milk. I'm really happy with the thing - it's just a bit heavier than the standard plastic sippy cup, and it's recommended that you hand wash it.

Brekkie at our house

Still life with brekkie

Our breakfast this morning made such a nice little still-life that I thought I'd take a quick snap and let you in on a typical brekkie at our house. I think 'what do you eat for breakfast' is sort of an intimate question ... breakfasts are so personal and I think most people have a pretty standard fare that they stick to. My friend Alice, for instance, is a yogurt and homemade granola kinda gal. Her husband is a raisin bran and diet dr pepper kinda guy. My mom has a buttered toast and tea ritual. My dad prefers oatmeal, or toast with lots and lots of jam.

My typical weekday breakfast? (Mind you, weekend breakfasts can be quite different.) Pretty much just a variation of what you see here. Lemon yerba mate tea with honey and milk, maybe some yogurt (today it was lemon brown cow), perhaps with grape nuts or granola, and/or some raisin pecan bread with butter and creamed honey from Colorado's western slope. And some grapefruit. That's Mirelle's menu too (sans tea) and plus an egg.



Breakfast is a favorite meal around here.

Coral Camellia

Saw this post on Coral Camellia (fabulous childrens wear) on design mom today, and the designer is from lil ol' Palisade on the Western Slope of Colorado (not far from where I grew up, in Glenwood Springs). I'm dreaming of Mirelle in this coat, but my bank account isn't.



This little outfit is so darn cute, too. Everything on her site is. Gosh she has some cute stuff.

If anything, some inspiration for those aspiring sewers out there ... in all your free time, right?

Handmade paper

Back in the pre-child, pre-real-world days (aka college), I actually had time to make paper with scraps of paper, newsprint, junk mail ... whatever I could scrounge up. Once Mirelle is a little older, though, it'd be fun to break out the screen and do it again (it really is a lot of fun.) My sister sent me this link to make paper out of junk mail - looks like a good one. When I do make paper again, I'll post my process.


The paper at top has less texture and was therefore better for drawing/writing. In these papers above (also made many moons ago), I added in some torn leaves, rose petals (probably from an old boyfriend!), and other textural elements. I like the way the rose petals bled a little into the paper. Handmade papers could also add some cool texture to scrapbooking/journal pages.

Manic Monday

Well, not really, but it does just feel like a Monday. And waking up to snow kinda makes it harder to motivate at the start of the week! We had a really nice weekend. Ross's parents are in town so Mirelle got some good QT with grammy and grandad. I took her to the first class in her Music Together session on Friday, and she loves it.



I've also been meaning to get her dialed in with some nutritional supplements, especially after a talk I went to with Dr. Roy Steinbock of Mindful Pediatrics in Boulder. He's an MD, but incorporates a lot of holistic medicine into his practice. Mirelle and I took a trip to Pharmaca (really helpful natural pharmacy in Boulder) and I bought her some Nordic Naturals fish oil (DHA) that tastes like strawberries. She's also taking a multi-vitamin that tastes like mango. And a probiotic (FOS/Acodophilus powder). Probiotics are really good for everyone, and 'absolutely essential for good health' says Dr. Roy.

I also spent some time preparing for a mothers' yoga workshop I'm teaching in May. More on that soon.

Falafel and pita and baba ghanoush oh my

We had a fabulous feast last night - and discovered aside from all of the raw garlic in the yogurt and tahini dressings (well, and in the baba ghanoush), falafel and pita is a really good, fun kid food. We made standard garbanzo bean falafel and a parsnip falafel (coated in sesame seeds). Different ... good, but we like the original falafel the best. Mirelle was happy with either.

(The flowers are courtesy Mary and John from my b-day last week ... thanks guys!)

Greens, glorious greens

The best way I've found to get my 18-month-old to eat greens is this: steam them, chop them up really small (no tough spines), and serve them with a peanutty-coconutty, yummy sauce (alongside brown rice and some baked tofu or tempeh). Here's my favorite peanut sauce recipe ever (not to peanutty, not too salty, just mild and delicious). If your little one is allergic to peanuts, try substituting cashew butter or almond butter. (You can save $ by skipping the jarred cashew butter and just grinding raw cashew pieces up with a little water in your blender.)

Sate Sauce (from 1000 Vegetarian Recipes, by Carol Gelles - a really good vege cookbook)

In a 1-qt saucepan, heat 2 teaspoons oil over med-high heat. Add 2 cloves minced garlic, cook 10 seconds, stirring until softened. Add 2 teaspoons curry powder, cook, stirring, until absorbed. Stir in 1 cup unsweetened coconut milk, 1/4 cup peanut butter, 2 tablespoons brown sugar (or other sweetener, like honey or agave), and 1 tablespoon tamari (or soy sauce). Cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about 10 minutes.

And for more info on greens, Whole Foods has a nice little review. (Lovely rainbow swiss chard shown above.)

P.S. My favorite greens of all are beet greens (from the tops of beets) - mild, tender, and delicate, just with a little olive oil and garlic sauteed in the pan. Especially good when they're straight from the garden!

One more P.S. that I'm adding after talking to my friend Andi, who's making baby food for her little Sophia: the best way I was able to get Mirelle to eat greens as a wee babe was to puree the cooked greens up with some soft cooked fruit - ie pears or plums. The greens end up being brown, but really sweet, and you can feed them to your little one in place of a fruit. Sneaky mama...