Claire on a Kayak?

It's a bird, no it's a plane, no it's a kayak?!

Pop Pop you seemed to have found a rather large, pink fish? :) Who is clearly not pulling her weight...

Learning fun things at the lake house!

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Belgian Waffles with Pop Pop

Pop Pop has a 'UGE saturday morning belgian waffle following and it looks something like this:

Pop Pop throws out all the stops for this fan club, he serves the waffles with organic mixed berries, whipped cream, and multiple syrups. Cutie girls will do that.

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LakeHouse

Going to the lake house is so much different than it used to be... there's a lot more puffs, bibs, frozen watching, and diapers involved. And I wouldn't have it any other way :) we had a great weekend.

FYI, Blog posts will be sporadic this week because I'm traveling for work.

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(Root) Beer

I took the girls to Steel City Pops a couple weekends ago to a) enjoy a popsicle 3 ways and b) buy lots of popsicles to bring home. There's cream based pops, fruit based pops, and drum roll.... cookie pops (cookie inside the cream pops). It's so hard to choose just 1, but when you get a box of 12 to take home you get to choose half the menu.

Anyway flash forward to a few days ago and Claire is helping me choose a popsicle to share:
Claire- "Mom what kind is this one?"
E- "That's Root Beer. Do you wanna have that one?
Claire looks at me with the most incredulous face...
Claire- "Mom I can't have beer! that's only for grown ups"
:)

And then tonight at dinner:
E- "Should we share a popsicle for dessert?"
Claire- "Sure! Dad, do you want beer?"
R- "I like beer"
Claire- "I picked it for you!"

If I hadn't remembered the previous conversation and also told Ross about it, we literally would have had no idea how she made the jump from popsicle to beer. So cute.

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Roasted Grapes is a Thing?

I didn't know you could roast grapes up until last weekend when I took a Sur la Table cooking class with my friend Katrina. I mean who would've thought? They add a delicious sweetness to a savory dish without being over powering. And the pork tenderloin itself was quite tasty too; the longer the herbs sit on the meat the more intense the flavor is. Rosemary has been my herb of choice lately (thanks to Ross's newfound hobby of homemade popcorn and toppings) and this recipe really highlights the herbs.

Very unprofessional photo of Ross's plate, but you get the idea.

And here's how to re-purpose your meal for kids. Add some cheese to the plate, pull avocado and oranges out of the salad and wellla!

I used red and green grapes...

Try it out next time you want to make pork!

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Purday Nails!

Claire has kicked her habit of sucking her fingers! I had low expectations for the reward chart system we instated, but it really struck a chord with her. There was only a handful of "hiccups" and I attribute them to muscle memory of putting her fingers in her mouth while she was half asleep. So that's where the bitter nail polish comes in. I told Claire we could start to paint her nails when she was done sucking her fingers and on her favorite two fingers I add a coat of the bitter stuff as a reminder, in case they find their way into her mouth.

Letting nails dry is always the hardest part!

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P is a Walker!

Big news in our house, Paige is a walker now!

Don't mind all the underwear in the video :)

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Real Parenting

Weekend sound bytes:

Ross, while we were at a pool party: "If you stick your ears under the water it's almost like you're not in a pool full of screaming children"

Claire: "Mom, did the bad men put Jesus in jail? Did they stuck the bad men?"
E: "Stuck what does that mean?"
Claire: "Yah mom, stuck. Stuck them with a knife"
E: (OMG! what do I say?) Do you mean stab? Knives are for cooking and that's it.
Claire: Well then they could put the bad men in the fire and they get burned really bad. Then they will become an angry bird and we don't like angry birds.
E: (WHAT?!!, where did she learn this??) Ok time for bed.


We're good parents I promise!

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Same baby, same Cake

But with an outfit change :)

Puffs Monster

I think purple is her color!

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July 4th Festivities

Celebrating July 4th in years past usually included fireworks, but this year we were in bed by 9. Guess that's what happens when you're in the 7:30 bed time zone with the littles?? I'm not complaining, I'm exhausted and not much of a night owl.

We had so much fun hanging out with cousins and family. Here's some highlights:

*Claire had her first slumber party with cousins at Granna's house. Except there was not much of the "slumber" part so Claire had to go into her own bed/room. Next time...

*Ross made Thomas Keller's fried chicken

*Paige took 12 steps all by herself!

*I drank wine and didn't have to worry about feeding a baby
*Claire can jump into the pool with her feet first now (not a belly flop!) and put her head under
*Paige has been waving and saying "bye"

Some Sound Bytes (aka eavesdropping) :

*Claire- "I'm a big girl", Madison- "But I'm older than you Claire", Claire- "But we're BOTH older than Ali"

*"I'm not your cousin anymore"

*"Granna when is the slumber party?" -says Claire while she's in the dark with Granna and cousins during the slumber party
*"You're my best friend"
*"Good job Gigi, I like this dinner"
*"I'm not your friend mom. I'm not going to dream about volleyball"
*"Ok I'm going to ask my mom"- says Claire after Daddy says no to something
*"Mommy...Daddy... there's a snake in my bed!!!!" -Claire woke up screaming from bad dream coincidently she had just watched Pet movie with mean snake

July 4th Holiday weekend iphone pictures:

And July 4th from years past, via Timehop:

At the lakehouse

Talkeetna

Claire's first boat ride

Couple that hikes together...

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