New Favorite Lunch

I have a hard time convincing the girls there is other food to eat for lunch other than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Sometimes I make them grilled cheese and I have to beg them to eat it. I can get them to eat other things, sometimes. They just really love peanut butter and jelly. And fruit.

Anyway.

I found a new lunch that they love. Bagels with blueberry cream cheese. They might like regular cream cheese too, I don't know. I just know that they love blueberry cream cheese. Berlin likes to just lick it right off her bagel.






And Berlin is such a funny eater. Tryn is clean and precise and holds her food carefully. This cream cheese mustache is one of the only foods that ever makes it onto her face. Berlin, on the other hand, doesn't just eat food, she experiences food. It's hilarious. I love to watch her eat. And I love that we get to eat something besides peanut butter and jelly everyday.

What do you feed your kids for lunch that they love? I need some new ideas...

An Unfortunate Accomplishment

Some mornings, when we all get up early enough and aren't totally running behind, I take time to make some eggs and toast for breakfast. (A lot of mornings, when we are really in a hurry, we eat cereal quick or breakfast bars and fruit in the car.)

So, I am standing at the stove and I heard the girls bedroom door creak open. Tryn comes out, stands in the hallway for a minute (I can see her from the stove this whole time, but she doesn't notice me), and then goes back into her room.

Then I hear, "Oh, Berli! Oh, come on!! You can do it!! Look at you!" really nice words of encouragement from Tryn. And I start to get a sinking feeling.

A second later I hear Berlin's little voice pipe in, with the pride of accomplishment fully present, "I did it!" Further sinking feeling.

Just then, Steve walked out of the bathroom and Tryn yells, "DAD!!! LOOK! LOOK WHAT BERLI DID!! She climbed out of her crib ALL BY HERSELF! She's such a big girl!"

Dang it.

Home

I just got home from a two day retreat with all the 8th graders and staff from our Student Ministries department at work. It has been a really long time since I have spent that much time with teenagers, I kind of forgot how tired it used to make me...and still does. I mean, I spent every summer for several years doing what I did these past two days, but mostly when I think of my days at SRBC I don't remember how tiring it was. I remember now.

I had a really great time, although I don't really have the energy to say anything meaningful about it right now. Really, I just got home people. A few things to note though:

1. This is the first time in four years I have spent time away from Steve AND the girls and been "all on my own". I have had vacations with Steve without the girls and have had weekends and weeks alone with the girls without Steve, but I have not been without some member of my immediate family for more than like a work day period of time. It was weird.

2. Berlin saw me in a tank top for the first time out of the house this season and when I got in the car to drive them home she asked me, "Mom, are you nakie?" I told her no, that I was wearing a tank top. Then I realized that all she could see of me while I was driving was my arm. She told me, "Lemme see!" so that she could make sure I was not being inappropriate in public.

3. I asked Tryn if she missed me and she said, "No, not really. I only loved you while you were gone. I missed you a teeny little bit *and used her hands to show me just how small, like the size of a pea* and then I loved you." Hm. Maybe I should be gone longer next time?

4. I love coming home. Being home is like...well, it's just true that there is no place like home.

Too Cool

This might be the coolest princess I have ever seen:

The Model

Tryn has become a total ham in front of the camera lately! Anytime we get the camera out she says, "Me! Me!" and wants us to take pictures of whatever she is doing. And then she will tell me that I should put it on my blog. Sometimes I do.

She is also into posing and making funny faces for the camera. The other day she found her old sunglasses and put them on and wanted a picture. And since I sort of have this disease where it's hard to say no if someone asks me to take pictures of them, and because I thought she looked especially cute and colorful, I obliged. I asked her to pose for me and this is what happened:







I love her so much.

The other day I cleaned out the diaper bag in the bathroom (so I could shake it out over the tub and get rid of the multitude of crumbs that kept getting under my fingernails every time I reached in the bag). I threw a handful of things into the bathroom trash can, including some crumb covered raisins that I am sure have been in the diaper bag for months. Apparently one didn't make it into the garbage and Tryn found it on the floor of the bathroom tonight and ate it.

I love her so much. :)

A Vegetable!!

On Wednesday, my first night this week as a single parent, I was trying to make a healthy but quick dinner. I made myself a salad and pulled out some fresh veggies. One of my favorite things is to eat raw bell peppers, just cut them in half and eat them like an apple. Red, orange, or yellow, not really green so much. I laid half of the pepper I was going to eat on the counter and turned to the stove to work on the rest of dinner. When I turned around I found Berlin like this:

Tryn gave her the pepper for some reason and so she decided to eat it, like an apple. I convinced her to let me removed the seeds and the sticker, and the she proceeded to eat the entire thing!




I couldn't believe it. I have handed the girls slices of bell pepper before, Tryn will eat one thin slice at the most. Berlin will eat a couple slices, sometimes. And, yes, I realize the pictures are slightly blurry, but I felt like if I asked Berlin to move to better lighting I would jinx the whole thing and she would stop eating the vegetable, so I just left her alone.

She ate a vegetable! The end.

The Easter Dresses

Every year for Easter I have gotten the girls a new dress. Partly because I remember getting new dresses for Easter when I was little, partly because I just like to buy them clothes, partly because they love dresses, and partly because it takes up a LOT of room in an Easter basket and therefore I don't have to give them as much candy.

This year, however, we went to church in the evening on Easter and so they didn't put their dresses on early in the morning. In fact, they both took a nap that afternoon and I had to wake them both up so that we wouldn't be late for church. Unfortunately, getting woken up combined with the fact that they had to eat their dinner in the car, Berlin especially was not super keen on the idea of getting her picture take once we got to church. Berlin was downright PO'ed.

Berlin wouldn't even look at me. See?

I tried adding more color to see if it would make her seem happier. It didn't.

Bored. Mad. Dumb Easter dresses.

I got several pictures of each of the girls backs, basically because they didn't want to look at me. Only I think this one is kind of pretty.

I did get them to smell some dead flowers (Haha! Suckers!).


But hugs? Absolutely not. No way. Don't touch me.

Of course, after church when it was too dark to take pictures Berlin was in a perfectly wonderful mood. She would have let me take 100 pictures of her...only I couldn't. These are the only two slightly redeemable, although slightly blurry, after church pictures.


Oh well. Maybe next year.

Happy Easter

Here are both of the girls standing around saying, "I don't see any eggs!" Do you see an egg in this picture? I do :)

But they soon got the hang of it.

Well, Berlin maybe not quite so fast as Tryn. Here she is, still saying, "I don't seen any eggs, Momma, no eggs!"

Little girls getting help from their Daddy makes my heart a little melty.

Berlin found her fair share of eggs. That's a great thing about our girls, sometimes, especially if they are both excited, they are really good at sharing and encouraging each other. Tryn was walking around helping Berlin find eggs and telling her, "Good job Berlin! You found one!" It was so cute.

Tryn was obviously floored that there was so much candy in her basket :)

I hate Easter grass. I didn't like it much when I was little and have never bought it before. However, this year I thought, "Well, this is the stuff that you are supposed to buy at Easter. Right?" And it's only like .99 cents, so I figured why not. I know why not. Berlin proceeded to rip it out of her basket like it was wrapping paper and I have been picking it up off my floor ever since. I will never buy it again.

P.S. Aren't these braids just about the cutest thing you have ever seen?

P.P.S. We celebrated Easter as a family yesterday since Steve had to work all today. So stay tuned to see pictures of the Easter dresses!