Making Juice

This is not normally an acceptable behavior.

Mommy & Reid morning

Harper had a play date this morning so Reid and I went to the indoor area at the zoo to have our own fun. Since Reid is often napping or has a sitter and am off working while Harper is in school, I feel like we don't get much one on one time. She's so sweet and inquisitive, we had a blast.

painting her face like a tiger

Putting the star on the tree

Reading a book with Papa

Last night's dinner

Snowman pizzas (Harper's has no cheese, of course) on homemade quinoa-flax pizza crust with homemade multi-vegetable pizza sauce. Sometimes I get to feel like supermom, but the feeling usually fades shortly after my children start screaming and beating on each other.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

 Enjoying a pre-show performance by a local youth symphony group.

 Looking out over the Art Institute towards Lake Michigan.

We took the girls to the CSO over the weekend for a special children's performance, which included a 45 minute show in the theater and many pre-performance activities, including an instrument "petting zoo." It was a lot of fun and such a great experience for them. We will be back for their next children's day.

A few stories about the girls.

I have been working on potty-training Reid, with basically no success. Despite the fact that she is our genius baby, like her sister before her, speaks in full sentences and even competes with Harper to name sight words during one of our "lunch time letter quizzes," potty-training does not seem to be on her to-do list. Harper was the same way and it didn't take until she was just over 2 1/2. A mama can dream about having a potty-trained pre-2 year old, right? In any case, I heard Harper tell Reid this morning: "I'm going to call you stinky bottoms until Mommy changes your diaper, and then I will call you Reid again." and in her usual, obedient to sister way, Reid said, "Okay, Harper."

The girls have been taking full-immersion Spanish classes now for almost a year. They also had a Spanish manny for 9 months. Sadly, Fredy left to go back Spain two weeks ago. It's interesting to watch them exposed to a foreign language at such a young age, we've noticed that Reid sometimes speaks in a Spanish-English hybrid and tends to mix many Spanish words in with English. I'm very grateful that they get the opportunity to learn another language at such a young age.

I'm not really a fan of Santa. In fact, some, like my husband, might call me a Grinch - although he doesn't want the kids sitting on Santa's lap either. The holiday spirit since is so commercialized and diluted now, it just takes a lot for me to get into it. I want the focus to be on giving to others, particularly because we have more than enough. I'm also hyper-vigilant about the girls' health and the idea of them sitting on a dirty mall Santa's lap kind of makes me ill ... or makes me want to take a lot of Chinese herbs ... I should invent a Santa lap pad ... my momtreprenuer idea! Back to the story: I pulled out the Christmas decorations and among them was an "Elf on the Shelf" from last year. I have never been a fan of this idea, I would rather the kids behave because that's how they are, not because they are performing for an elf! But we got it as a present last year and it's been sitting in the box ever since and apparently even made it into the Christmas boxes in the basement! Harper immediately recognized it for what it is and said, "Mom, we got that last year from Anna! All my friends at school have an elf, I can't wait to tell them that my elf came!" So that was that, now we have an elf on the shelf. Needless to say, "Brunus" definitely isn't worth the price my mom paid for him, he doesn't seem to inspire obedience in the girls, all they are concerned with is whether or not he moved during the night.

Harper and Cora

We didn't plan for them to wear identical tops!

Trying to do one post a day until the end of the year.

I've noticed that number of annual posts I've made have declined each year. I want to change that pattern this year so I'm going to try to make a post a day for the rest of the year! We'll see how it goes.

Classic Reid face. Inquisitive. Skeptical. And certain she knows more than you.