On Growing Mushrooms ... and Divas

Behold, the cousins! Baby Alise is walking and Lily is so happy to "help" her. Lily often asks for Baby Alise. It's sweet and kind and adorable. Also, heart-warming.

Lily can now count all of her fingers - all the way up to 11. Which is awesome. I've always thought an extra finger would be helpful.  She LOVES dressing herself now. A lot of "NO, I'll do it!" and multiple outfit changes (wants one thing, then decides on another etc).

This perfect angel of a kid says the cutest, sweetest things in the world. He said to Lily when he and manny Jason picked Lily up from school, "You have a ponytail Lily, how did you get so beautiful?" =)

Jamisen's school photos are in. Wow! His smile is awesome. He has such a kind disposition 85% of the time; he loves to be helpful and is SO protective of his sister. If we discipline her, he tries to free her from her time out. If we refuse her a second piece of string cheese until she eats her squash, he sneaks her one (true story; happened just last night).

 

One of the things I love about Jamisen is that he is adventurous in his food choices. In the above photo, he's holding a giant oyster mushroom clump that we grew together. I sauteed it up with some olive oil and apple cider vinegar and he ate ALL of those mushrooms for breakfast. He is quite a foodie. His other favorite food right now is a oat/flaxseed/pumpkin puree/coconut oil breakfast concoction.

He gave up naps almost a full 2 years ago but if you get him right at the perfect time in the car, he falls right asleep. Same with sister Lily. She gave up naps before she turned 2 years old (clearly, someone hates us) but if they're in the car between 2 and 5 in the afternoon for longer than 20 minutes, they'll often fall asleep.

I try to do crafts with the kids multiple times a week. This is a little challenging with two kids of such vastly different ages. But, they both made amazing Halloween decorations (popsicle sticks dyed orange and taped together with pipe cleaner for the handle and black paper hot glued onto the entire schabang). The kids love doing art projects and so far, the only causalities have been the kitchen (oh poor kitchen table; ye of many dents and abuses) and my fingers (ouch! Hot glue gun. Hot!). The kids are growing every day and delighting and confounding us with every new growth phase they hit. We love our little family. =)

That Good Conversation

Here's the official photos from the Bellingham Bay Half Marathon - I'm pointing to Patrice - trying to help whip the crowd into a frenzy for her amazing 8-month-pregnant finish. In hindsight, they needed no whipping; they were already in awe.

My running team at the start of the race. Lisa, in the green hat, and I trained together most of the year and also have done three (!?) Whole30's together (no sugar, wheat, dairy, soy, corn). She's lost almost 40 pounds and I've maintained my normal weight (which makes sense given that it's pretty much how I naturally eat give or take 5 extra servings of fish a week).

Victorious over the finish line! That last mile was tough mentally - it's on a long stretch of road (closed down) and feels very zombie-apocolyptic. It's also uneven terrain which isn't cool. It's difficult to run on and feels slightly injury making.

I've never been a runner - ever. I run because it's caloricaly efficient and cheap to do and, I can do it anywhere but I've never enjoyed it. Ever.

However, with friends and conversation, running became magical. And bearable. And, something I completely and totally looked forward to every single time. Even those long runs were interesting with smart, funny people by my side.

The half marathon is over but Lisa and I have already logged two (short) runs this week and we're planning a long run tomorrow. I just can't get enough of that good conversation!

A big thanks to Grandpa Faiola for most of these photos and to the family for bringing the kids to the finish line and, a point or two along the race. It was a huge emotional shot in the arm to see the kiddos and enjoy their smiling faces. I love that they saw their Mom finish something that was difficult and be successful at it.

Half Marathon. Check. Check and Checkmark.

October was the month of running for me. After six months of training, I finished a 10K and a half-marathon.

I had the help of very good friends - Patrice (in photo above and below) who has run several marathons and many halves. She was 8 months pregnant at the time of both the 10K (above photo) and half-marathon (below photo).

I made date balls for us to eat close to the end of the race so at mile 11 (above), Patrice and I are eating and, celebrating.

Amazingly, the race felt good and I felt happy and strong the entire time. I think that it helped that I was with friends and really, it was basically a captive audience that was stuck listening to my stream-of-consciousness talking for 2 hours and 45 minutes (you're so welcome for those pearls of wisdom).

At this point in the race, Patrice was flagging (and hello, she is carrying a baby inside her that is totally viable on its own at this point) but with her Mom finishing right beside her, she was in strong and fine spirits crossing that finish line.

Raven - beside me - finished almost an hour ahead of us but doubled back to finish the race with her Mom (as did I). It was great to finish the race with two sets of friends (but boy did that mess up my timing chip!).

I Tried, and I Tried... Or, on Stump Climbing

We had the best time .... litterally (hahah, get it! litter! See that deliberate spelling error?!) at Whatcom County Farm Tour Day.  Big thanks for Grandma and Grandpa Faiola for coming up. Chris was on a business trip so it was awesome to have extra hands on board. The kids were fascinated (sooooo intrigued) the cute kittens at one of the farm stops. With Grandma Faiola's allergies kittens are not something they typically get to play with so they really took a shining to these little fur balls. Alas, there was none coming home with us. We have fish and that's good enough.

 

The kids also tried to feed the goats (that's a coin operated goat food feeder) and that was less successful because the goats seem to have had their fill of delicious little goat pellets. I assume that since they are cute that they are massively overfed. I expect they'll be put on a diet by their owners at any time.  The kiddos were sad that the goats did not come nibble from their hands. If that's the worst disappointment of the day, I'd say the day was a massive success.

We also visited a mushroom farm (!!!) YES! An actual farm where they grow mushrooms. It's one of those things that you really never think about. Like, where do they grow copious amounts of food-safe fungi for me to eat? It turns out, it's a rather fascinating process and the kids came away with a hugely excited love of all things mushrooms. And by kids, I mean Jamisen ... but where Jamisen goes, Lily goes. It is frightening how much influence her older brother currently has on her. He's using it for evil right now, "Lily, go hit Mommy! Lily, go tell Mommy she's a stupidhead!" and other such childhood gems.

Back to the mushrooms: the mushrooms need to be very, very moist to grow. We're growing some at home right now and so far, we've had one bumper crop and then one sort of decent crop and then a lot of failure to launch and grow. I'm assuming we're not keeping them wet enough.

We love our kiddos more than any words could possibly say. During this outing, Jamisen and Lily had to cross a mini bridge to get across a culvert. Jamisen proclaimed loudly, "If Lily falls down, I will save her. I will...." and then proceeded to go into quite a lot of detail about how he would jump down into the 18" ditch to save her. His protective instincts are perfect, amazing, gentlemanly and adorable.

Of course, then he immediately pinched her as he walked by so he may have a bit of learning to do in the 'hands are not for hurting' department.

 

We had the most amazing experience with Jamisen recently. He tried reallllllly hard to climb this stump (side story: said stump was right outside their Nanny McKenna's house and the tree had fallen over in a crazy insane windstorm, almost taking their house out).... anyways, Jamisen was trying to climb the stump and kept failing. But, he kept trying. And when he finally mounted the stump, victorious (!!!!!!!), he said "I tried and I tried and I tried just like Mommy told me to. And, I did it!!!" He was very proud. 

And his Mamma then called it a day and said, "My work here is done. You can find me at the spa." (That's a joke. I would never say that. I only am at home with the children. At all times. 24/7. Would never dream of leaving them for a frivolous personal time relaxation experience.)

We are so proud of both of our kiddos - and love the little people they are and the little people they are becoming.

Summertime, and the Livin' is Easy

Oh summertime, how we loved you this year. It is firmly fall now but we are still getting some nice warm days. Recently, one such day necessitated a balloon fight where Jamisen tried to take out Grandpa Faiola in one shot. He did hit Grandpa Faiola but alas, the balloon bounced off him.

Baby Alise continues to be a welcome playmate and is growing daily. It is so much fun to see her learn to walk and continue to see her sweet and happy personality shine. She is so easy-going (!) when it comes to everything but food.

Lucky Lily got a big bite of Licorice ice cream, Grandma Faiola's favorite. We went on the Whatcom County (self-guided) Farm tour and it was epic. We ended up in Lynden at this little sandwich and ice cream place. The kids were so happy about the ice cream that they didn't want to eat their grilled cheese sandwiches.

Baby Lily was very pleased with her Licorice ice cream and rewarded us with quite a full diaper. So, Grandma Faiola and I figured out how to change Lily in a public restroom, with Lily standing up (no changing table). And of course, we didn't have any wet wipes either so it was quite the comedy of errors as we tried to wipe Lily properly while she was standing on the sink without anyone falling or getting an errant finger into the poop. We laughed so hard!

Jamisen's latest thing is to use his words when he's mad (good; progress!) but the things he says, with fully clenched fists, his little leg thrust forward and face all scrunched up and red... well, the things he says range something along the lines of, "No! You cannot touch my toys. And if you do that again, I am going to hit you in the face. And if you do it again, I am going to hit you in the face again!" So, yay for progress (words are better than actual hitting) but now we need to work on toning it down a notch with the intensity of messaging.

In school, the teacher says that Jamisen LOVES to clean and is constantly cleaning the windows and does such a great job putting away all the kid's towels after they eat. Teacher Yuki says Jamisen is an excellent example to the younger kids. Awwww ....