Recently at our house...

Just an update - the boys are changing more and more every day. Charles is trying to stand up without support - he lets go of his support with one hand and tries to balance. Most of the time, he ends up sitting on the floor although we have seen him balance precariously in a standing position for about 0.1 seconds maybe twice.

Joseph is still creeping around, but he's getting faster and is realizing there is a multitude of interesting items across the threshold of the living room, where he has spent most of the last 8 months of his life. Recent discoveries - the water jugs in the kitchen, the laundry basket in the kitchen, and the view from underneath the kitchen table. Both boys are laughing and smiling a lot these days and are very interactive. Their interaction is more purposeful now, I think - trying to express specific wants through their intonations instead of just crying and me trying to guess what the crying means. Love these cartoon pictures of the babies - Mom did them but I am posting them.

Last night for dinner - hamburger omelet. I love omelets for dinner since they are 1) fast 2) tasty 3) cheap 4) make for easy cleanup.

Last night for the boys' dinner - ground grassfed beef and broccoli. I have discovered the boys love meat...they just love food in general. They eat more than I realized they would at this stage which is fine, just takes a bit more planning on my part. Raising whole foods babies is not cheap and it takes some extra time to prepare their meals, but that's ok. I think they are learning to appreciate good food.

I have introduced so far with great success: acorn squash, apples, avocado, bananas, beef (grass-fed only), butter, broccoli, butternut squash, cauliflower, carrots, chicken (broth mixed with vegetables and chicken liver), egg yolk (duck and chicken), garlic (only spice introduced so far besides mineral salt), mineral salt (pink Himalayan rock salt - just a bit over certain foods), pear, parsnip, peas, potato, sweet potato. They loved everything except for the cauliflower, but I think it's because I prepared it wrong, so we will try again soon.

Plan to introduce in the near future - ground lamb, beets, slight amounts of paprika and ginger as seasonings. I have looked for organic apricots and peaches but they are out of season so haven't had luck with that so far.

That's all for now :-)

Ode to John

In celebration of our third year, three candles on the table! We celebrated our anniversary with a spread of favorite treats from Trader Joe's - smoked salmon, crackers, cheese, olives, lady fingers, wine.
Neglected to take enough pictures, but did manage the candles.

Charles in the Corner

Shepherds Pie

Tonight, we made Shepherds Pie for the first time. I won't post the recipe because I think I will hunt around a bit more to see what other recipes are out there. It turned out pretty well - we used ground beef from Creekside Farms, and although John prefers lamb in his Shepherds Pie, the beef was very tasty!
We overdid it a bit in our casserole dish so no pictures this time - we were supposed to use a 9x9 dish, and only had an 8x8 in the cabinet, so our pie was delicious but not so photogenic.

Today was a very busy day. We got our highchairs, finally! After a lot of highchair shopping by me, the very picky mom, I finally selected the Keekaroo and so far I am very happy with the purchase. The boys seem to really enjoy sitting elevated above the ground (no more eating solids in their Bumbos!) more at our level, and they enjoyed talking with each other while next to each other in their chairs. The whole afternoon was devoted to assembling them and making sure the boys were comfortably seated, then it was quick errands to Earth Fare and Trader Joe's, then finally back to home base where we made dinner.

Really looking forward to worship tomorrow. All for now, to all a good night.

Shakshuka

Last night, we cooked Shakshuka with Spinach and Feta, adapted from Janna Gur's The Book of New Israeli Food. The recipe called for sautéed leeks, but we substituted half a white onion and it turned out well. Shaksuka is one of my favorite dishes from Israel, but usually it's cooked in tomato sauce. I thought this book did a great job creating a tomato-less version. This is not exactly the book's recipe, but it's close.

For our version, you need:

About 6 ounces feta cheese, cut into cubes
One bunch organic spinach, chopped
1/2 organic white onion, sliced
6 free range eggs butter
1 clove organic garlic
Salt and green pepper to taste

Preparation:

In a deep pan with a lid, sauté onion until soft. Add spinach and garlic and sauté until soft. Blend ingredients well and spread around the pan. Crack 6 eggs on top of your spinach mixture, spread the feta around the pan, and turn heat to low. Put the lid on the pan and steam until egg whites are done. Season with salt and pepper (we used green peppercorns). Careful with the time so you don't cook the yolks completely...unless of course you like them that way. Shakshuka is supposed to have soft yolks and cooked whites. We enjoyed our shakshuka with red wine and flax oat bran bread =)

Happy Cooking!

Visit to St. Patricks

Tonight, we visited the East side church plant of our home church, King of Kings called St. Patrick's. It is a home church for now, but with full evening service and communion. It was the first time we had taken the boys out at night and it went really well. The boys did great! We had to leave a bit earlier than we would have preferred simply due to poor planning on our part but next time we will make sure we have a place for them to sleep in case we want to stay longer. My Messianic background has familiarized me with liturgical services to the point where I am very comfortable using a prayer book. John's experience in the Messianic movement was less liturgical, but he also has a Catholic background - long story - which makes him more familiar with the order of service in an Anglican church than I am. I have been struck by the parallels in Anglican liturgy to some of the Jewish liturgy that I am more familiar with, particularly the "Holy Holy Holy" portions of the prayer book. In the Jewish tradition, we lift our heels off the floor during "Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh" symbolizing with our bodies our reaching toward God's holiness. I don't notice the same bodily reflection in the Anglican church, but the words are similar. Of course the liturgies share sources and thus commonalities. For dinner we enjoyed baked potatoes, very quickly consumed on our way out the door to feed our ravenous boys. John's potato waited until we were actually at home, since he held both babies so I could get some dinner, thanks honey;) We also had some good red wine during dinner, which I was able to enjoy while nursing the boys in the back of the house at the end of service. =)

Enjoying a Warm Fire

Tonight we made our first fire of the winter season. Of course, it qualifies as the first fall fire, too, since we haven't built a fire since last year. So, we're enjoying the crackling sound and earthy smell of our real wood fire. We had leftover soup tonight with more of the bread and some Cabernet that mom bought us on her last visit down here. We felt like it had a smoky finish (Smoking Loon, perhaps the origin of the name?) but then again we were pretty close to the fire. Praying Charles sleeps better tonight. He's given us two full nights of sleep in the past month. I'm not sure if he needs extra food or extra comfort at this stage, maybe a little bit of both. Either way, we need wisdom in dealing with his frequent night wake-ups that have kept both of us pretty tired during the day. That's about it for now! John is cleaning up the last bit of the kitchen before we head to bed.