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. =)