Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

After trying to stop the delivery of our Midweek numerous times to no avail, i have finally found another use for it!

Movie Monday

just another day around the house

Sicky Baby

We had a sicky baby this past week... you know your wiggly, wired, never misses a thing baby doesn't feel good when she lays herself on the couch and falls asleep while brother is eating dinner. Isn't it just pitiful? No worries though, she's feeling much better and back into everything. I must selfishly admit, my first sweet cuddles with a sick child who just wants to be held by mommy was one of the sweetest moments i've ever experienced.

Siblings

they.love.each.other.

We are the Music Makers, We are the Dreamers of Dreams

After previewing a few classes, I decided to sign the babies up for Gymboree's music class. The babies seem to have a good time--they respond well to the songs and are very interested in the instruments. It's a 45 minute class and by the end of it they are very tired, which to me means they are really paying attention, being stimulated and hopefully learning something.

The past 2 weeks have been Elvis themed, so we went ahead and "popped" HRB's collar so he would fit right in.
All the parents sit in a circle with their babies and follow what the instructor tells us to do. They instructor uses a big clown, Gymbo, as her make believe child, to demonstrate for us. The babies get to play with a variety of instuments and toys--like drums, egg shakers, maracas, bouncy balls, scarves, etc. If you look in the upper left hand corner of the picture you can see Gymbo the clown sitting on the counter. All the kids seem to like Gymbo, but it is a little funny to watch the instructor dance seriously with him in her arms. No worries, i play it cool and keep my chuckles on the inside!

Here we are dancing to "Can't Help Falling in Love" and "All Shook Up"

Holden loves the dancing part...notice Instructor and Gymbo...hehe

here's a quick video of our first class...they're trying to figure out those drums

Movie Monday

smoochie smooch.

Making Mush

Cooking has always been something that i enjoy doing. I have slipped the past 2 years or so, between deployments, pregnancy, and then taking care of the twins and hardly ever cook anymore. So when the babies started eating solids I was excited about putting my cooking interests to good use again. Of course in the beginning, while preparing healthy and natural food for the babies was ultimately satisfying, making simple purees isn't exactly hard or a fun creative outlet, although I did try to pick some fruits and vegetables that were not readily available in pre-made baby food. Here's the process in a nutshell.

Go shopping!

Cook. There are a variety of ways--bake, poach or steam...my personal favorite is steaming, made oh so easy by this sweet vegetable steamer i have Puree.

Freeze.

and that's it.

The fun part has come lately. I made a vegetable stock from scratch--with sweet potatoes, asparagus and leeks. This can be used to moisten other purees, put in a sippy cup with water for flavor or used in other recipes. One of these recipes I made tonight and it turned out GREAT! Jenn and I even ate some for dinner.

Mommy's out there, write this one down! Also, anyone else who is looking for something new this could be a great fall recipe to use in the place of mashed potatoes. The consistency is the same, it's just as easy to prepare, but its flavored naturally by the apples and butternut squash, therefore not needing all the cream and butter and salt that we put in regular mashed potatoes.

Potato and Butternut Squash Stew

Ingredients

butternut squash, 1/2 small, peeled and seeded

yellow potatoes, 6 small, peeled

fuji apple, 1 medium, peeled, halved, cored

extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp

vegetable stock, or water, 1 1/2 cups

Directions

Cut squash, potatoes and apple into 1 inch chunks

Heat oil in saucepan over med-high heat. Add squash, potatoes and apple and cook, stirring occasionally, 8-10 minutes. Apples will begin to turn golden. Add stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to maintain a gentle simmer, cover and simmer until vegetables are soft, 30-35 minutes.

Mash and combine with a wooden spoon, potato masher or food processor to a consistency that you prefer.

To Brighten Our Day

Nora and I received a fun surprise a few weeks ago. Flowers! and the card inscription read:

To my two favorite girls! Love, Daddy

We love you too!

A Couple Months of Pictures

I've been a little behind on posting, but if you want to catch up on tons of pictures from the past 2 months, check out our pics page!

www.picasaweb.google.com/jessi.burns

A Windy Windward Day

We had a Tourist Thursday today and we decided to go over to the windward side of the island. Jenn's been here for a month now, and although we have done some fun things, its been a lot of day-to-day work and baby stuff too. I couldn't believe we hadn't even been over to the east side yet. It was a great day...sunny, clear and super duper windy.



First we went to the Pali Lookout. Its the site of a famous Hawaiian battle under King Kamehameha and its a really pretty place for a great view of the island. We had hardly walked up to the lookout when a Chinese tour guide/translator asked if we would mind one of the older ladies taking pictures with us...why you ask? Well because of our blond hair/blue eyed babies of course. Although this is the first time it has happened to me personally, i have had friends who have had similar experiences. It's weird for sure, but i guess no different than when we go to other countries (especially third-world or other culturally different places) and take pictures of the people who live there. Heck i have upwards of a thousand pictures of the people in Sri Lanka from just my 2 weeks there. I guess its my turn!

It was SO WINDY that we had a hard time keeping our skirts from flying up. Embarrassingly enough, a old man (joking, i hope) commented on our nice "underpants". Eh. what do you do?

and this was the best picture we could come up with.

After reading the history board about the Nu'uanu battle and how all of the warriors fell off the cliff, we decided it must not have been windy like today or we were sure those bodies would have just been thrown back on cliff like a boom-a-rang.

here's a drawing depicting the famous battle

We had lunch at The Shack in Kailua. Jenn and I had both been craving some fish and chips. Once again the babies did great. They got to try some fish and Holden got to "study" all the people sitting around. Gonna have to teach that kid about staring one day!

After lunch, we headed to the beach. We didn't bring suits and stuff this time, we just sat in the sand and enjoyed the beautiful day. Since Nora is all but crawling, she really enjoyed getting all in the sand...well at least she was enjoying it until she got sand all in her eyes.

Bellows Beach

just eating a little sand for dessert

so happy to be at the beach
and here's the "face plant"

"close-up"
he's just so handsome!
they are on one of prettiest beaches in the world and they don't even know it

looking at the ocean with Auntie

standing makes H happy

playing with mommy

i love this one

this is a lot like my life .... always trying to get them to smile

Love this...Nora kept wanting to eat the pokey tree nut... i have no idea what they really are, but definitely not something that would feel good to swallow since they hurt to walk on...notice Holden jumping in to save sister as well. *Note she kept crying because i was taking them away, not because they hurt her*
so sad...mommy's so mean

a good day, but exhausting. We were hardly out of the parking lot before she was out and snoring