Month: March 2012

Toddler Food: What Miss G Eats {3}

Toddler Food

IMG 8030Breakfast // Scrambled organic egg with basil and fresh parmesan.  Wholewheat english muffin with all-nautral cream cheese.  Strawberries, honeydew, and banana slices.

IMG 7790Breakfast // Old-fashioned oatmeal with stewed apples, walnuts, ground flax, cinnamon, and whole organic milk.

IMG 7609Breakfast // Toasted multigrain bagel with all-natural almond butter.  Melon and avocado slices.

IMG 7667Snack // Blueberry banana oatmeal smoothie.

IMG 7671Snack // Roasted garlic parmesan chickpeas.

IMG 7687Snack // Steamed edamame beans.

IMG 7791Snack // Fresh mango.

IMG 7793Snack // Jalapeño havarti on multigrain seed crackers.

IMG 8045Snack // Apple sandwich (all-natural peanut butter, old-fashioned oats, and organic raisins).

IMG 7612Lunch // Veggie and bean soup with crostini cubes and fresh parmesan.

IMG 7831Lunch // Creamy curry penne with grilled chicken and veggies.

IMG 8100Lunch // Chicken and wild rice wrap (low-sodium spinach tortilla, fresh spinach leaves, brown wild rice, grilled chicken, toasted almonds, green grapes, onions, and celery). Fresh veggies.  Roasted red pepper humus for dipping.

IMG 8124Lunch // Tomato, spinach, and orzo soup topped with feta.  Turkey, oat, and seed meatballs.  Seedy organic sourdough drizzled with olive oil (the bread she selected while on our recent Trader Joe’s visit – a special treat because we don’t normally eat white breads).

IMG 7443Dinner // Chicken and refried bean burritos baked in tomatillo sauce.  Fresh avocado and tomato.  Sour cream for dipping.

IMG 7608Dinner // Poached chicken breast with lemon and herbs.  Barley, kale, cranberry salad.  Steamed beets.

IMG 7681Dinner // California shrimp pizza (wholewheat crust, pesto, shrimp, sun-dried tomato, parmesan, feta, and fresh avocado).  Roasted red cabbage. Lemon wedge for drizzling (or for sucking on if you’re like Grae).

IMG 7779Dinner // Amita’s curry (Amita, our housekeeper in Kuwait made this at least once a week for us and we never got sick of it…delish).  Sticky white rice (a special treat because Papa says Amita’s curry just can’t be on brown rice).

IMG 7832Dinner // Wholewheat spaghetti with grilled chicken, fresh baby spinach, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, feta, garlic, onions, and fresh parmesan.

IMG 7686Dessert // Greek yogurt with hemp hearts and frozen blueberries.

IMG 8025Dessert // Baby banana.  All-natural almond butter for dipping.

IMG 7783Dessert // Organic yogurt with homemade granola and organic raisins.

Shoping in the States

Today was Brad’s virtual Saturday, so we headed down to Bellingham for our monthly stock up and some fun. First, we hit up our two favourites, Trader Joe’s and Target for the essentials.  Gracen was a champ about spending a couple of hours roaming up and down store isles and enjoyed riding around inside the shopping carts.  Afterwards, she and Papa headed to the mall’s play area while I got in a full 45 minutes of clothes shopping by myself (a post-Grae first)!  It was already past nap time, so we snuck in a quick lunch at the Chipotle knock-off, The Habenero Factory, and hit the road to do a few errands while G snoozed in her seat.

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IMG 2861Gracen awoke from her nap to find that we were parked out front of this shop (hmmm…wonder whose stop this was…) and naturally, we had to get out of the car to investigate the big green guy.  She wasn’t so sure of him at first, but she quickly warmed up to him and ended up giving him 5s, kissing his knees, and rubbing his rock hard abs.  After all that, I’d say Miss G and The Hulk are good friends, wouldn’t you?

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Tired and done with shopping, we headed back towards home when we decided to make an impromptu stop in White Rock.  It was absolutely freezing by the ocean, but we layered up and headed towards the beach.  Lucky for us, a train was making its way down the tracks as we got to the boardwalk.  Grae watched closely as it nosily clunked on by, until it stopped.  I mean, completely stopped, creating a barrier between us and the beach.  We waited and watched until it finally started with a jolt, and continued along its path.

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Gracen loved ‘Grizlee’, the bear statue and kissed his fur (she’s all about kissing things she likes right now) and rode on his back.  We played on the grass, collected rocks, threw them in the ocean, and walked along the boardwalk until we were frozen solid and could no longer stand being out in the wind.

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Once we got home, our little helper helped empty all of the grocery bags, we ate dinner, and it was bath time and bedtime for G after a long day.

Beach Afternoon

After a lazy morning at home, I knew we’d both enjoy getting out for the afternoon.  So when Grae woke up from her nap and had had her quiet time, I asked her if she wanted to go to the beach.  As soon as I said “beach”, she started signing ‘Rock! Rock!’ (we always collect rocks at the beach), then ‘Birdie!’ (we watch the crows and seagulls), followed by ‘Drink! Drink!’ (we often cross the street to get hot drinks at Starbucks).  Smart little cookie.  I took that as a yes.  IMG 8079IMG 8081IMG 8084IMG 8094IMG 8097

 

Lazy Sunday Morning

We had a wonderfully lazy morning today.  We meant to get out of the house, but it simply didn’t happen.  Instead, this did:

IMG 8033Peep toes.

IMG 8038Bingo dabbin’.

IMG 8050Apple sandwiches.

IMG 8058Tea party.

IMG 8067Hilarious hair.

IMG 8076Magazine reading.

Toddler Food: What Miss G Eats {2: St. Paddy’s Edition}

I can’t tell you how happy I am that Gracen is a good eater.  As a mama, providing her with proper nutrition is at the tippy top of my list of goals, right next to making sure she gets proper sleep.  Of course I’d like to attribute her good eating habits to the way we introduced her to food initially (and the way we continue to deal with her eating in general), but it could very well just be that we are lucky.  Or perhaps it’s a little bit of both.  Either way, if she was a picky little thing, as many munchkins are, you’d better bet I’d use St. Patrick’s Day to trick her into eating as many green things as possible in one single day of the year.  It would most likely involve some crazy story involving pesky leprechauns and lucky green super foods, but for now, let’s just be thankful I don’t have to go there. Today Gracen and I ate green foods at each meal, and she was more than happy to do so!

Toddler Food

IMG 7836Breakfast // Green pepper enclosed organic egg.  Green fruit salad.  Toasted multigrain farmer’s bread drizzled with olive oil.

IMG 7923Lunch // Veggie and black bean quesadillas (low-sodium spinach tortilla, roasted zucchini, avocado, green onion, no salt added black beans, and jalapeño havarti).  Avocado sour cream for dipping.

IMG 8003Snack // Spinach and green fruit smoothie.

IMG 8011Dinner // Pesto chicken breast.  Spinach linguine with avocado, fresh spinach, and toasted pine nuts.  Roasted spicy green beans.

IMG 8028Dessert // Grape skewers.

Spinach & Green Fruit Smoothie

Recently, Miss G and I have been experimenting with spinach smoothies.  So far, we’ve found that you can pretty much add a couple giant handfuls of fresh baby spinach to any smoothie without altering it’s taste very much.  Now, I’m not going to lie…  Despite the flavour remaining the same, the appearance does not.  In fact, many of the smoothies we’ve tried look like poop.  Strawberries or raspberries plus green spinach equals brown.  Blueberries plus green spinach equals an even darker brown…  So today, with St. Patrick’s Day in mind, we set out to make a bright green, vitamin-packed smoothie that not only tasted good, but looked appetizing too.  And we succeeded!  Here’s our spinach and green fruit smoothie:

IMG 7957First off, our ingredients…  Fresh baby spinach, green grapes, honeydew, a frozen ripe banana, a green apple, and coconut milk.

IMG 7961Start off by putting your frozen banana into a blender.

IMG 7967Add your apple chunks.

IMG 7965Be sure to stop and take a bite.

IMG 7970Dump in your honeydew.

IMG 7971And then pour in your grapes.

IMG 7974Next, fill up your blender with fresh baby spinach.

IMG 7977And pour in some coconut milk (or your preferred type of milk).

IMG 7982Pop on the lid…

IMG 7991And blend until bright green and smooth.

IMG 7994Pour into glasses (or sippy cups).

IMG 7999Enjoy!

Here’s our {approximate} recipe:

Spinach & Green Fruit Smoothie

  • 1 ripe frozen banana
  • 1 green apple, chopped
  • 3/4 cup of green grapes
  • 3/4 cup of honeydew melon
  • 3 big handfuls of fresh baby spinach
  • 1 cup of coconut milk

Put all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.  Enjoy!

*For a less-textured smoothie, peel your apple first.  Plain greek yogurt and kiwi would be great additions to this recipe.

St. Paddy’s Day

Today Grae and I had a busy day filled with all things green.  It started out with a happy little munchkin waking up extra early and extra hungry, so we got to it and prepared a green breakfast.IMG 7844

Finding something green to wear was a bit of a challenge as this little lady has very little green in her closet, but it was nothing a ridiculously big green bow couldn’t fix.  It was so adorable in fact, that we ended up having a little impromptu St. Patty’s Day photo shoot.

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The weather forecast called for a rainy, snowy morning, but by 9:30, neither had made an appearance so we packed up our things and headed down to Granville Island to get some fresh air and do some exploring.  We picked up our usual Granville Island treats (Terra Bread cheese flutes for G and a coffee for Mama) and headed to the playground where Gracen played in sand, slid on repeat, and made some friends.

IMG 7867IMG 7868IMG 7871IMG 7873Afterwards we headed back to the Public Market area and visited the birds, boats, and performers like usual.  IMG 7880IMG 7885IMG 7887IMG 7896Apparently Grae was pooped after a crisp morning outdoors because she was out like a light after just a minute in the car.

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After a great nap, I prepared lunch while Gracen begged for pieces of green onion below me.  I ended up giving her a whole green onion and the little monkey was pleased as punch, headed to the living room with it, and chowed down.  Luckily she saved enough room for our green lunch.IMG 7914IMG 7934
The afternoon turned out to be beautiful too, so we took advantage of it and headed outside to do some art.  Grae was beyond excited to use bingo dabbers (sadly, we didn’t have green, so we ended up with blue and rainbow coloured shamrocks, but oh well…) and dug the sidewalk chalk as usual.

IMG 7947IMG 7949By late afternoon, G had worked up an appetite, so we whipped up a quick green smoothie to hit the  spot.IMG 7997
Shortly after, it was time for our last green meal of the day.  Of course this little monkey carefully picked out and ate each pine nut and avocado chunk before eating anything else.IMG 8020IMG 8024

Gracen’s second St. Patrick’s Day… Whew!  How things have changed in a quick year.  Just take a look at my chubby-cheeked, spiky-haired little munchkin last year.

Sunset Centre Play Gym

It’s Friday, and true to our old routine, we headed up to Sunset Community Centre’s play gym.  It was a bit of an interesting day (a father decided to inform a mother nursing her 6 month old baby – with a  cover no less – that  it was inappropriate to breastfeed her child in public…yikes…poor guy sure knows how to get a group of predominately stay-at-home-mamas riled up!), but Grae had a wonderful time none the less.  Here are a few photos from our visit:

IMG 7796Baby jail.

IMG 7799Teetering.

IMG 7801Dancing and twirling in the centre circle.

IMG 7804Stacking.

IMG 7809Visiting her pony friend (this was taken just after she planted a kiss on his nose).

Car-less Craziness

Today Bradley took the vehicle to work, which left my little adventurer and I car-less for the first time ever.  Of course there were a couple of walks in between bouts of rain, the usual stories, and some favourite games, but not having wheels definitely sparked some silliness…  Just check these out:

IMG 7728In the backyard caw-ing at crows.

IMG 7735Buckling Quatchi for safety.

IMG 7747Attempting to walk in Mama’s shoes.

IMG 7760Bottoms up while smelling the flowers.

IMG 7762Hanging out in the dryer.

Hahaha!  Hopefully it’s business as usual tomorrow.

“Smile”

I don’t know how on earth this came about, but a little while back Gracen started making the most hilarious scrunched up face whenever I’d say “Grae, can you show Mama your smile?” while taking her photo…  Let’s hope it’s a quick stage.

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Little Poser

IMG 7723This morning I asked Gracen if she’d stand by the tree and let me take her picture…  She immediately marched over, put her hands in her pockets, and made this face.  Goodness gracious!  Is this her new go-to pose?!  Please say it isn’t so.