Local Veggies

Last entry was about Hayden's birthday - July 12th. This one will take us back to June 13th. So get your time machine started up and come along! :)

I think I've mentioned previously that we are part of a farm share (CSA) program this summer with Mandy and Scott. (for those of you unfamiliar with a CSA or farm share, basically we pay a set amount at the beginning of the summer, and then we are provided with seasonal veggies on a weekly basis for a certain amount of time. Ours goes from late May to early November. What's available varies according to the time of year. Our most recent box (which we got yesterday) had cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce, eggplant, a melon, hot peppers, basil, parsley, onions and kale. Quite the assortment!

Back in June, we were invited to their Strawberry Festival, where anyone who's a member can come, participate in a potluck dinner, pick strawberries, and get to know the farm a little better. Never one to pass up an opportunity to pick strawberries (or a potluck for that matter), I signed us up and got Mandy and Scott to join us too. We weren't quite sure what to expect going in to the event - having never been to the farm, seeing their instructions about what to bring (a hot AND cold dish, your own plates/utensils!, shoes for mud, etc). And there was a bit of a worry about to bring to the potluck of a farm share.

• Can you use non-local ingredients that are out of season?
• Would bringing Cheetos or KFC be completely inappropriate?
• How do you bring a hot and cold dish but the meal time wasn't scheduled till 2 hours after the 'start' of the festival?
• What if it's rainy? The weather the week before was SO wet.

Despite all these questions, we managed to pack up all appropriate supplies, including chocolate banana bread and asian pasta salad as our food contributions, and follow the directions to the farm.

Views of the farm

It turned out to be a lot of fun and I'm glad we didn't chicken out. We didn't make it in time for the offical strawberry picking - toddler naps just don't end according to other people's plans. :) But we got there in time to set up a blanket for eating, walk around and check out the creek and then participate in the eating. It was the most healthy potluck I've ever seen! So many homemade dishes with fresh veggies. Jason and Hayden especially enjoyed the strawberry rhubarb ice cream sundae option. After dinner, we went on a hayride tour of the farm and learned so much about our little veggie farm. After the hayride, we wandered over to pick some strawberries (each family got a free pint), and then packed up and headed home. A busy afternoon/evening but we had a good time. We took lots of pictures, which I'll narrate below.

Hayden making a silly face in front of the offical farm truck.

Hayden and Jason enjoying the ice cream sundae dessert option.

The farm had someone come around taking pictures of everyone. Hayden and I were exploring the creek when they first came around, hence the picture of Jason alone. (no wonder he's smiling!) But they got me and Hayden too. And what's funny, is when I clicked on their website shortly after the festival, there was the picture of me and Hayden smiling at me!

Hayden throwing a rock into the creek.
She thinks tossing rocks (and hearing the kerplunk sound) is great!

Hayden and the tractor that took us on a hayride farm tour. Strangely, neither Hayden or Noah wanted to get on the hayride. It was a bit embarassing having both of them fuss as we tried to sit down and get settled, but once it got going, I think they liked it!

The tour! We took lots of pictures, but since they aren't quite the same as actually being there, I'll try to just share a few highlights. :) We got to see the asparagus fields - some were already being let go, others were still growing asparagus. It really is just stalks sticking up out of the ground - crazy!

heading out on the hayride, notice how Hayden and Noah are still pretty serious looking

the asparagus...

the asparagus field - the feathery stuff is the asparagus that has been let growmy favorite part - the blueberry bushes!
Though it turns out, our CSA gets their blueberries from another farm. Because they are organic, they can sell their organic blueberries at ridiculous prices (like $70/flat!) in other markets like DC.

Jason's favorite part - the raspberry bushes. Hopefully we'll be getting some soon!A family photo on the hayride! Hayden and I being silly on the hayride. She's making her "cheese!" face.
Hayden bringing her bucket for strawberry picking after the hayride.

Noah and Hayden get a daddy-ride back to the cars after strawberry picking.
I don't know if they liked the hayride or daddyride better! I'm just happy that after several hours outside in a new place, everyone is still smiling!

So one of the coolest things (as long as I don't think about it too much) is that we got to see some chickens on the hayride. They are kept in this moveable pen, that they rotate around the field to let the chickens live in a pasture and to fertilize the field. These chickens were actually pointed out to us as ones that would be available for purchase in a couple weeks. That's right - fresh pasture-raised chickens for eating. Can't get more fresh and local than that! (another cool thing about our farm is the 'extras' you can order and purchase each week - local meat, additional blueberries, cheese, olive oil, etc ). So we bought one, and roasted it. and it was DELISH! I can't say for sure that it was that much better than a regular chicken since we don't roast chickens all that often. But it was tasty. Even Hayden, who hasn't been eating too much meat lately, kept asking for more chicken. And ate leftovers the next day! Yum!

The moveable chicken coop (it's on wheels!)

Our chicken, prior to roasting.
(Check out our new roasting pan - it might be a little bit big for our cute little chicken.
Thanks Granddad and Grammy for the pan!) The finished product! It really was delicious!

Well, that's my introduction to our CSA. We really enjoy doing it. Thanks Mandy and Scott for splitting with us. (there's no way we could eat all the veggies in a share by ourself). You can tell we had a good time at the strawberry festival, since this family photo was taken right before we headed home. Eat fresh, eat local! :)

Happy Birthday #2!

In keeping with my recent tradition of non-linear blogging, I will backtrack just a bit to write about Hayden's birthday. She turned 2 on July 12th with plenty of toddler friendly fanfare. There were balloons...
and presents....
and cupcakes.
I think she had a great time! Despite still preferring to fill in the blanks of the Happy Birthday song with Poppop, she did learn to fill in Hayden, after we had talked about her birthday. (for the record, she still likes to sing Happy Birthday Hayden randomly, even two weeks after her birthday!) Grammy, Granddad and Grandma were all in attendance for her party - a lovely treat to have so much family around. Our friends, Sarah and Brad, Brittany and Mandy, Scott and Noah, all came to her low-key afternoon grilling party. In honor of Hayden, we had hot dogs and corn on the cob, two of her favorite foods these days. There was also pasta salad, chips, fruit salad and plenty of beverages. Hayden and Noah both had a good time eating together at their special kid-sized table.

One of the big hits of the day was the new sandbox from Grammy and Granddad. We assembled it sometime late morning. Hayden was ready to go in right away, even before we were done pouring the sand in. She quickly adapted to the "shoes off" rule, telling anyone who came near the sandbox to take their shoes off. (and yes, she's in her pajamas - getting dressed in a real clothes was not a birthday necessity till party time.)

During the party, Hayden had a good time. She even managed to work in an "it's my party and I'll cry if I want to" moment when she didn't want to share her chalk with Noah. (actually there was an earlier one when she introduced Noah to her new sandbox. I think she would have preferred he stand on the edge and watch her enjoy it, rather than jumping in and using her toys. But she did manage to share... eventually, after some time spent in her happy place rubbing her belly and sucking her thumb.) I can't remember quite how the chalk incident went; I think Noah went after a color that Hayden considered off-limits. Luckily Noah is really good at appeasing Hayden and handed it back. He even followed up with a hug to help her feel better! (Notice her tears!)
But again, she still needed some happy place time, while carefully clutching the chalk. :)

Hayden had a blast opening all her presents. She even seemed excited about all her new clothes (and she got some really cute new clothes! Thanks everyone!). She would pull them out and lay them flat, in a pile, very neatly.
She also was quite tickled (literally?) by the "tickle me elmo" that Sarah and Brad got her. I'm not sure she quite knew what to make of him (Blizzard was a bit confused too!) but she laughed at him a lot.
After each present opening, we encouraged her to give the giver(s) a hug. Noah got a particularly big one. (yes, it's just SO cute when they hug, we have to document every single one!)
After presents, we did cupcakes with sprinkles as Hayden had requested. (When asked what kind of cake she wanted, all she would say was sprinkles - I threw on some mini-marshmallows too, because she likes those too!) We even did candles this year and Hayden did a good job blowing them out, although I'm not sure she understood our instructions of make a wish! She also really enjoyed (as did everyone else!) the homemade blueberry ice cream that Mandy brought along. And of course, she tried to mooch more from others - as usual Sarah was a target, and let her have a bite of her cupcake.

Once dessert was done, we let her open the present from us, a baby stroller and I'm proud to report that we knew what she would like! She wanted it out immediately and pushed it all around the patio at a rapid pace, laughing when she'd run into things or accidently (on purpose) make it fall over. First Elmo got a ride, and then when we went out front to say goodbye, baby doll got to take a turn. I think Noah really wanted to try it out, but Hayden wasn't ready to share quite yet.
But even if she wouldn't share the baby stroller, she did give him one more BIG hug to say good bye and thank you for coming. This time there were even kisses on cheeks!
What a great birthday!! A big thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate! Can you believe she's two already? Check out how much she's grown from about 2 months to 2 years!

Toddler Idiosyncracies

I still have a backlog of blogs to write about various activities and trips, but I am going to interrupt getting those out in order to write about how much Hayden makes me laugh these days. This is not "make me laugh" because she's intentionally being silly (which definitely is happening more and more!) - instead it's make me laugh, because being almost two is such a funny age. I know she's not being atypical developmentally in the least, but there are just so many times during the day when she cracks me up because things have to be a certain way, just because. I can't wait until she can actually tell me why things have to be a certain way. For now, I just make up reasons to myself and try to accommodate her preferences when I can.

For example, she is in love with oatmeal. I think she would eat it for any meal anytime (had leftovers for snack yesterday) but she pretty much always requests it for breakfast. We let her have oatmeal fairly often, but not always with varying success about getting her interested in cereal with milk, yogurt, muffins, etc as other options. While her preference for oatmeal is funny on its own (I don't even eat oatmeal, so she's not copying me), it's the oatmeal-raisin interaction that's funny. She sees Jason adding raisins to his cereal, and asks for some for herself. After getting "yelled at" in toddler terms for daring to add raisins to her cereal ourselves, we have learned to simply give some raisins to her in a bowl, or just on her tray. She then puts them into her oatmeal, and sometimes even mixes them around. BUT the idiosyncracy is that then she doesn't even eat them!!! She just picks around them. Which makes me laugh since she was so adamant about getting raisins. And it's not that she doesn't like raisins ever - she did eat the whole concoction when she had the leftover oatmeal, raisins and all. But it does make me laugh to watch her scoop a bite of oatmeal and then pick off the raisin she got inadvertently. Oh well.

Let's see other silly things... She likes to sleep with her polka-dot fleece pajamas. Not wearing them; it's too hot for fleece and since they are one-piece zip ups, they don't really fit anymore, but she likes to have them as a snuggle object. Along with her "soft" blanket. And she likes her animals and such in her crib to be down by her feet, not next to her head. And she likes to have a book in her crib, as she goes to bed. I haven't seen her read the book, especially at night time, but she does sometimes snuggle in on top of it.

She will tell Jason and me what we can and cannot wear. Jason had to change shirts this morning because she didn't like the one he first chose. I was told to wear certain flip flops the other day and she has told me to wear a specific shirt. For the record, we don't always give in to her. When she selected a shirt for me, I told her it didn't match and I'd wear it tomorrow. She found that an acceptable explanation.

She doesn't like new shoes. But if we force her to put on a pair and then distract her, she'll forget and then be perfectly fine with them. This also happens with clothes. She doesn't really like to pick out her clothes, but she does always request her ice cream shirt. (a tank top with ice cream cones on it.) She did tell me today, when she asked for it, that she couldn't wear it because it was dirty. Which is true, I've been telling her that since Sunday, when she did wear it - guess I need to do some laundry!

Okay, so I'm blanking on anything else especially funny, except for her obsession with ice. First, ice has joined the list of things you can't eat in front of her without getting a request to share. Which is unfortunate since one of my pregnancy things is eating ice cubes that have melted a certain amount. If she sees me crunching, she'll ask for a "baby ice" so she can have one too. But in general, we have somehow created an ice monster. Every drink has to have ice in it, milk included. It's gotten to the point where I think she simply checks to see if there is ice, even if she's not interested in drinking! During our bed time routine, she often takes a few drinks of water, and the cup we keep in her bedroom must have ice in it. The other day, before nap, she asked for her water, asked for ice (I had to tell her it was itty-bitty ice since there wasn't any and I didn't feel like getting up to get some), and after staring at the cup for a bit, she said okay, and gave it back to me without drinking. Our solution to this ice situation, besides ALWAYS putting ice in her cup before we give it to her, is to put in the plastic reusable ice cubes. Since she's not concerned about the drink actually being cold, she's satisfied if there's just something in her glass. It works out well for all!

Well, just so you don't think I've actually posted a blog without pictures, here are a couple cute ones. And I'll see if I can think of any more funny Hayden idiosyncracies. She does make us laugh every day. It's great!

Saying "CHEESE" yesterday morning. This face cracks me up everytime she does it.

Being silly outside on the front stoop on day recently. Such a goofball.

7-08-09

Seven-eight-nine. Such a cool date, I just had to write, even though I will be writing about something from over a month ago! Time sure flies in the summer. I think in honor of today, everyone should listen to the BNL's song "7-8-9"!

Anyway, like I said, I'm not even going to write about today, or yesterday, or even anything from June. Instead, I'm going to take you ALL the way back to the end of May, when we made a trip to Ohio for our 10 year college reunion and for my in-laws 40th wedding anniversary. This trip also coincided with the first time I had been away from Hayden overnight, so it was a pretty big occasion. I left Tues of that week to go to DC for a conference and arrived in Columbus on Friday morning via airplane. Jason had Hayden to himself Tues thru Thurs, then drove from State College to Columbus in the evening on Thursday. From what he's told me, he and Hayden made it thru the Mommy-free time just fine. While a small part of me wanted to hear that there was a little bit more chaos and distress without me around, I also recognize how awesome it is that we've set up a great routine with daycare and Jason does spend such a good amount of time with Hayden, that my time away went smoothly for them. I myself had a nice time in DC. I think the best part was having dinner outside one evening where the food was good but the service was terrible. Rather than getting angry about the poor service, and having my anxiety levels increase exponentially as each minute of being unattended passed, I was able to sit, relax, enjoy the company and the scenery and not worry about Hayden. It was great!

All that being said, it was great to reunite with Jason and Hayden on Friday in the airport, pick up Carrie and Adie and then head to Kenyon to check out our old stomping grounds. Unfortunately we forgot our camera in Columbus at Jason's parents' house, so I have no pictures to share of Hayden at Kenyon. (Carrie - you need to send me the ones you took!!). But even without picture-proof, we had a great time exploring the new buildings, especially the newly renovated Pierce Hall, walking around campus, and eating at the all years campus picnic for dinner.

After dinner, we headed back to Columbus to see Jason's parents and.... surprise! Jen and Aaron and Hayden's cousins, Lucy, Will and Liesl! They had flown in to surprise Grammy and Grandad for their 40th wedding anniversary! Hayden LOVED her cousins, especially Will, and had a blast playing with them.

On Saturday, Jason and I headed back up to Kenyon for more reunion, leaving Hayden to play with Grammy, Granddad, Aunt Jen, Uncle Aaron, Lucy, Will, Liesl and Blizzard. Despite being worried about leaving her again (we were staying at Kenyon overnight without her), I think she had plenty of fun people to play with. :) I won't bore you with too many details about the reunion; after all, it's Hayden's blog and she wasn't even there. But I will say that we had a great time. The weather was gorgeous which made walking around campus just wonderful. It had the perfect amount of nostalgia where I could remember back to fun times without feeling too sad that they were in the past. The new Kenyon Athletic Center was absolutely amazing; I can't even describe it. I got to swim in the new pool with Erin, Amelia and Adie and I wasn't too horrible slow for being the only pregnant lady! The dining hall was also quite cool and Jason and I had a great lunch trying out all the options (there is nothing like college tater tots...). We even managed to show up for our class picture. We didn't order a copy or anything, but we did pose for our own after the big group shot was done.
We also managed to have a birthday party for Adie in the dorm room (Kenyon opens up the dorms for great rates for the reunion) complete with cupcakes, Fritos and maragaritas. And we went to the "fancy" class dinner where we took another group shot.
Jason and I even managed to enjoy our first night away from Hayden. Well, as much as we could enjoy it seeing as how we were in a dorm room, complete with twin beds, while outside people getting drunk and being loud and running the "naked mile" late into the night (we went to bed around 1:30 am). We did manage to sleep in a little bit which was the main goal, and then we walked around campus taking pictures before meeting up with Amelia for brunch.

Us in front of Old Kenyon,
where Jason lived junior year and we spent the night at this reunion.

The signpost at the bottom of the hill, directing you to Kenyon

The Gates of Hell on Middle Path.
After brunch, we headed back to Columbus to see how Hayden had fared in our absence. For those of you concerned, she was just fine. Quite happy in fact! Cousins are GREAT! That afternoon, after lots of fun playing with cousins in water, there was another surprise - a party for Grammy and Granddad for their anniversary! All their nearest and dearest friends came by, and a good time was had by all eating pizza and cake and sharing adult beverages. The kids did just great with all the commotion, and had fun playing with even more cousins - Josh, Noah and Ethan - kids of Jen and Jason's cousin. I still didn't take all that many pictures for the festivities but again, that doesn't mean we didn't have a good time. Everyone was just too busy to capture on camera!

Hayden and Will work on scooping out the water, pre-party...

Hayden in her super cute party dress. I almost gave away the surprise, since Hayden was supposed to be changing out of wet clothes to go the park, and instead she came down in a dress. Since I almost never put in her a dress, Grammy kind of suspected something was weird but luckily guests started arriving before she could really think about it! Me and baby Liesl hanging out on the back patio, watching the kids play in the water. She can't wait to join in the crazy cousin fun!

The cousins posing together on the front porch, after the party.

Grammy, Granddad and the grandkids.
Almost everyone is looking at the camera!

Granddad and baby Liesl. For the record, almost all pictures of babies get identified by Hayden as baby Liesl these days, even ones of Hayden!
Once in the car on Monday head home, I think Hayden passed out within seconds of leaving the driveway.
It's tiring keeping up with all those West Coast cousins!

And one final picture. I just love this one. The smile definitely shows how much fun she had seeing family. Even though we can't get together all that frequently, Hayden is definitely able to identify family in pictures now and delights in doing so. And she can't wait to see Grammy and Granddad this weekend for her party!