A Day in Pictures

Lucy and I had a particularly satisfying day of fun on Wednesday.  Three big fun projects, a little impromptu gardening, three different outfits and a lot of water!

Dyeing Ice Cubes

Sidewalk Painting

Watering the Garden and Puddle Jumping

Ice Eggs

Mrs. Worm

Lucy and I have been digging for worms in the garden.  Really, it is a tactic to get her to help me pull rocks out of the garden while I turn the soil for planting.  She quickly tired of getting the rocks for me, but WORMS.  My God, the WORMS!  Lucy spent 20 minutes running back and forth from the garden to the gate playing TAG with her WORM.  I heard her yelling "Tagerit!  Tagerit!" over and over and couldn't figure it out.  So I asked her what she was doing and lo and behold, "I'm playing tag with my worm Mama!  Tag your're it!"  And then "Want to play hide and seek with me, worm?"  Something tells me the worm doesn't stand a fighting chance in this scenario.

I tried to tell her that worms like to cool, dark dirt and they are happier in the ground, but she just said "My worm likes me, Mama."  And then "Oh, she really loves me!"  Yes, "she" - they are all girl worms.  I love listening to her worm conversations.  "I'm Mrs. Worm and these are my baby worms.  You want a snack, baby worm?  Time for your nap!"

When I noticed a worm looking limp and defeated, I'd tell her it was time to find a new one.  So she'd tuck the worm into its little dirt bed with a "I'm can not gonna kill the worm," and start over with a new one.  Though in retrospect that was a little more cruel than kind; like spreading the torture around I guess.  She was literally loving them to death.  

As I continued turning the garden, Kevin was out pushing Malcolm in the swing.  I was sort of tuning things out and just trying to get the dirty work done so I could plant my garden, but I heard "Look at my worm Malcolm!  Oh, worm, I LOVE you!"

Kevin (loudly): WHOA!  Is worm kissing allowed??
Me: Only blown kisses! (We'd covered worm kissing protocol the day before)
Kevin: That's what I thought.  Yeah, there was some actual lip contact going on!
Lucy (looking pucker-faced and disgusted): I need to wash my mouth.

That's my girl. 

Worm kisses!

They contemplate each other.  Or the worm contemplates its doom while
Lucy wonders if it wants a strawberry for a snack.

Are you smiling, worm?  I'll smile if you do...

Notice the smear of dirt on her face.  This is from worm snuggles.

"WOOK AT THE WORM!

"I am not going to kill it, Mama"

Bring on the REAL FOOD, Mama!

At Malcolm's 6 month check-up, I told the doctor that he wasn't really interested in solids so we weren't trying very hard.  She said "he really needs to be eating"...um...because my 20 lb, 6 oz six-month-old is clearly malnourished?  I take what most doctors say with a grain of salt, but because I don't know everything, I kept trying, thinking maybe he really should be eating.  Malcolm gave me this face, every time I tried to feed him something other than boob:

"Err...what do you think you are trying to do?"  

Sometimes it was this face:

"Uh huh.  I don't think so, lady."  He look even looks slightly disappointed in me.

One time he actually looked at the spoon, looked at me and then sighed deeply as if to say "Seriously?  I thought I'd made my wishes on this subject known."

So pediatrician be damned, I gave up and left him to his booby juice.  Then two days ago, I offered him a smooshed pea off of my finger, just for giggles.  He looked at it, grabbed my finger and ate it.  I did it again...same result.  Then I pulled a mama bird trick and chewed up a little carrot and gave it to him.. He LUNGED at my finger to get at it!  So apparently, he wanted texture.  Or at least not moosh.  This morning he ate a huge bowl of oatmeal (the real stuff, not baby cereal), carrots and cinnamon.  He's a eatin' boy now!  Though it is possible he is using me to get at the spoons... 

Whole Wheat Applesauce Cupcakes

For the moment, I shall ignore my sad blog-neglect.  I wanted to pin this recipe, since it was such a huge hit with Lucy, but there was no picture of the scrumptious cupcakes it created.  So here it is - a healthy (ish - no eggs, no butter, no milk, no added salt - just a wee heavy on the sugar to be truly healthy) cupcake.


Whole Wheat Applesauce Cake or Cupcakes


1/2 cup oil
3/4 cup granulated sugar or granulated brown sugar 
1 cup applesauce
1 1/2 cup unsifted whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg (optional for a spicier cupcake)
1/2 tsp allspice (optional for a spicier cupcake)
1/2 cup raisins


Oil and flour an 8 inch round or square baking pan or muffin tins. Cream the oil and sugar together and mix in the applesauce and baking soda. Add flour and cinnamon, blending thoroughly. Pour the batter into pan or make individual cakes in muffin tins. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes for an 8 inch cake; about 20 minutes for cupcakes.


I used a mini cupcake maker and baked them for about 7 minutes.  To ruin the health factor, I smeared them with some leftover butter cream frosting.  Yum!  And I took the picture with Hipstamatic to camouflage the crappy frosting job I did. 

A Glorious Mess: The Final Chapter

Our many-part Valentine's Day creations are done!  The last part was to cut up some of Lucy's finger paintings into hearts and have her glue them on the cards we made earlier.  She fingerpainted with her usual relish, but the gluing quickly became dull.  Alas.  Regardless, they turned out truly beautiful.

For some reason the photo uploader keeps turning my pictures the wrong way!