It's all about the LOVE

Over the weekend, Abby and Elise had a little Valentine's worksheet that involved defining "love" according to the dictionary, their parents, best friend, and on their own. They included Anna in this exercise and her response left us all smiling in agreement: "it just makes your heart feel better". 

You're nodding aren't you? Right?!?!?! Toddler speaks the truth... she also takes great pride in her flamingo pose.

Abby and Elise spent the last several days carefully crafting Valentine's for everyone in the family: Anna's had the little pig characters from some of her fave books drawn on it; John's was decorated with pants and referenced reading Harry Potter together; mine had a ball of yarn and crochet hooks. As I was sitting here typing, John walked in the door with handmade dark chocolates and a cherry sour beer from a local brewery. That is love. 

Happy Valentine's Day from our hearts to yours! May you find/do/be/say/see/make something, just even a little something, today and everyday that you LOVE. And, while you're at it, feed your body a little something it will love, like these super tasty and new favorite breakfast cookies!

Crisp and Delish Breakfast Cookies
Adapted from My Darling Vegan: Gluten Free Breakfast Cookies

- 1 C organic rolled oats
- 1/2 C organic almond flour
- 1/2 C organic unsweetened shredded coconut
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 2 local eggs
- 1/4 C melted coconut oil
- 1/3 C organic creamy peanut butter
- 1/3 C maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 C raw pumpkin seeds
- 1/4 C dried fruit (I used chopped pineapple but cranberries would be great!)
- 1/4 C chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix dry ingredents; in a separate bowl mix wet ingredients; add wet to dry and then fold in dried fruit, seeds, and nuts.

Bake for 13-15 minutes or until browned a bit - I made approximately 18 cookies out of this recipe. 

Our favorite tiny muffins

The past year has given me a great sense of stability and order: Abby and Elise are settled into school, we have committed to staying in this house to allow them to finish elementary where they started, John's job is a nice balance of work-at-home and out-and-about, Anna is getting great variety in her week with playtime at home, library storytime, playdates, and dance class, and my Baby Sing and Sign gig is strong and steady. With all of those ducks in a row, it allows me the time and mental energy to focus on hobbies and activities that I love... one of which is experimenting in the kitchen. My desire to feed my family real, whole foods never sleeps. ;)

The biggest changes that I've experimented with are using a bigger variety of nut/seed blends and increasing fermented food/drink consumption (lots more to come on that one). I want to share this muffin recipe that has become a staple in the breakfast routine and a favorite among everyone! Abby is not a muffin-eater - she prefers crusty breads and drier baked goods like scones or biscuits. But that kid will eat these muffins until we cut her off!

Pecan Coconut Muffins

Adapted from Deliciously Organic's Pecan Coconut Muffin recipe

- 3/4 C almond flour

- 2 T coconut flour

- 1 1/2 tsp aluminum free baking powder

- 1/4 C coconut sugar or sucanat

- 1/2 C unsweetened shredded coconut

- 5 T unsalted butter

- 1/4 C maple syrup

- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla

- 2 large eggs

- 1 C pecans (chopped or I toss them in the Vitamix until they're crumbly)

*all ingredients are organic and/or local, if possible

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees

- Grease mini-muffin tin with coconut oil; this recipe makes 24 mini muffins and I typically have enough batter left to fill a single regular sized silicone muffin liner, which I just set in the oven beside the muffin tin

- Mix dry ingredients (except pecans)

- In a separate bowl, mix wet ingredients

- Add wet to dry; stir in pecans

- Bake for 11-13 minutes

New year, new pictures.

As I slowly try and reincorporate blogging into my routine, I'll try and catch up with a few fave photos from the past months... from starting soccer to the annual monarch butterfly crop to a family road trip (Lawrence to St. Louis to Indianapolis) to Halloween shenanigans to holiday traditions.

Abby and Elise LOVED playing soccer and are eagerly awaiting the start of the Spring season. They continue to excel at piano (Elise keeps us moving with "The Entertainer" almost daily and Abby has mastered "Colors of the Wind" with such emotion)... Speaking of piano, I missed their last recital as a certain someone couldn't stay quiet for even 30 seconds and we spent the next 35 minutes in the car. Four of us (sans Anna) read The Hobbit together and then enjoyed movie nights to see it in action - A and E are now working their way through the fourth Harry Potter with John as their nightly read-aloud. They joined student council at school and we got to enjoy a proud parent moment when a teacher from STUCO emailed and used the words "kind" and "mature" and "amazing". Speaking of teachers... third grade will be hard to beat. I practically have to drag Anna away each morning because it is the most inviting, nurturing, and upbeat learning environment (they are in the same class again this year) - the girls have each missed one day of school and even that was too much, in their opinions. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I have NOT done Abby's pigtail braids for school; I can probably count on one hand the number of times I HAVE helped style Elise's hair for school. When fixing lunches each morning, no matter the question ("Do you want a cheese stick or a babybel?"), Elise always answer "I don't care". When Abby is asked, she always answers: "What kind of cheese stick? Is it a white cheddar babybel? Actually, do we have any of the cheese I like from the Merc? Can I have slices of that instead?". This. is. them.

Anna continues to serenade us with "The Twelve Days of Christmas", sometimes loudly in the shopping cart at the store, sometimes quietly through the monitor at night as she yammers endlessly before falling asleep. She was caught marching around Gran and Grandpa's coffee table just last week, chanting "Organize your life! Organize your life!", which is a perfect example of her charismatic personality - she listens to everything around her and we are so entertained by her selective use of certain bits she's heard. I am happy to report that Anna's back-seat driving has subsided... while I thought I was enriching her world with colors and information, little did I know that tuning her into stoplights would result in nonstop directives from the backseat: "Mom, it's green. GO!"... "There's a green arrow. YOUR TURN!"..."It's RED! You can't go on RED!". The latter was the most difficult - toddlers don't seem to quickly grasp "right on red". Sigh... Over the holidays, the official "first movie" was enjoyed and, if you've been with me for awhile, you might remember that Abby and Elise's first movie was "Mary Poppins". While I continue to hold steady on limited to no screen time, Anna's first movie was "Elf". Yes, Will Ferrell. She loved it and told everyone after "Buddy - that's a good name for an elf". At least it followed the real-people rule instead of animation, right?

We took a road trip in October - first stop in St. Louis to see Crazy Uncle Cousin Scotty, Traci, and Uncle Bob. A and E LOVED the apartment John booked for our night there - bunk beds and all... which I think made up for the fact that they had to endure a carsick little sister in St. Louis rush hour traffic shortly before arriving. It was a one-and-done incident, probably thanks to the help of Dramamine thereafter. We hit Fitz's for the world's biggest root beer floats and then spent a good portion of the next day at the zoo. My cousin Scott was a wonderful tour guide and provided unlimited laughter and entertainment.

From there we headed to Indianapolis to see Cousin Mark and Lisa. This was our third trip with Abby and Elise and Anna's first. It is always a weekend of relaxation, wonderful company, fun outings, and 5-star treatment. We went to the Children's Museum, found a couple wonderful playgrounds, and carved/decorated pumpkins.

Halloween brought us Hermione Granger, a Dark Fairy, and a Cat Ghost - how can you argue with those choices????

We are fortunate during the holidays to have ample time free of commitments - with family nearby, we don't travel... John's job allows him to have at least a week off... and we just roll at a steady and slow pace. Anna loved the lighting the "benorah" each night of Hanukkah, she STILL asks to see Christmas lights when we're out after dark, and the taking-down of our tree triggered a meltdown of epic proportion. I think she actually went through each stage of grief over the course of her hour-long episode: sadness, denial, anger... as she was finally calming, I said "I love you", to which she replied "I love you too but I can't talk right now". Tree-trauma aside, 2016 ended quite peacefully.