try, try, try again

hudson has thankfully been a pretty food eater so far. he is willing to try most anything and as long as he is hungry will eat what is on his plate. i can’t say this is the case everyday, but for the most part i can’t complain. he has gone through a couple comical food preferences such as only willing to eat cheese that was shredded, yogurt with cereal mixed in, and deli meat that was wrapped around a cracker. i think the biggest lesson i have learned from training a toddler to eat what he is offered (for the most part) is persistence, patience, and a little peer pressure. it is easy to give up and assume hudson doesn’t like whatever food he is refusing to eat. i’ve learned instead to sometimes give up for the day but to offer the food again (and again) on a future date.  i made a big batch of pureed beets last fall and ended up throwing all my hard work away after two very unsuccessful dinners. brad and i made beets for ourselves a couple weeks ago. i made hudson a separate vegetable thinking he would dislike our beets. well i was wrong. he LOVED them. he ate a whole plate of them. similar thing happened with tomatoes. he has been trying tomatoes all summer long from our garden. he made a funny face each time he bit into a tomato and spit it out. reagan on the other hand loves tomatoes. she would eat  an entire bowl of cheery tomatoes during lunch at our house. this past weekend while eating dinner at her house hudson ate half of a huge tomato and requested more. not sure if it was the innocent pressure from his bff sitting next to him happily eating her tomato or because he realized he really liked tomatoes. either way he now likes tomatoes. when research says it can take up to 12 times to taste a new food before liking it, i believe it!

hudson giving us a cheer for his beets!

do you know the muffin man?

nesting stage has hit full force. yesterday i found myself deep cleaning the fridge, cabinets, microwave, and kitchen floor all without planning on it. i’m a bit of a nester naturally so this stage can be a little intense. part of my planned nesting was to clear out our pantry. i planned last week’s meals to include at least one item from our pantry. one item i was stuck with (still not sure what recipe i bought this for) was millet. this is a pretty bland tasting grain that is easy to cook, but doesn’t add much to a good meal. after some research i found a recipe for pumpkin muffins that included millet! i decided to try it out this weekend for our saturday morning family breakfast. it was a huge hit! i had to share the recipe in the case you are also trying to use up this odd grain.

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/937

i also wanted to share the recipe for hudson’s favorite muffins that are baked on a very regular basis at our house. they are made with whole wheat flour, oat bran, flaxseed, very little sugar, veggies, and fruit! a very healthy breakfast or snack that tastes quite delicious. we started with a recipe on the back of bob red mill flaxseed meal and tweaked it each time we made the muffins until we reached this…

bran flax muffins

1 1/2 c whole wheat flour

1/4 c flaxseed meal

3/4 c oat bran

1/2 c brown sugar

2 t baking soda

1 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

2 t cinnamon

1 large carrot shredded

2 apples peeled & shredded

1 c spinach shredded

1/2 c raisins

3/4 c milk

2 eggs

1 t vanilla

mix together first 8 ingredients. stir in carrots, apples, spinach and raisins. combine milk, eggs, & vanilla. mix all ingredients together until moistened. fill muffin cups. bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes. makes about 15 medium muffins.

hudson’s field trip

we made our last weekend get-a-way until baby comes this weekend to the amazing town of grand forks. we have been unable to attend the annual TAG art benefit for the past several years and i was determined to make it this year. even after a doctor’s recommendation to stay within an hour of the hospital we took the risk. it was worth it! the benefit was a huge success, selling close to $70,000 in art! we were so excited to support sally and katie in their amazing effort to raise support for the grand forks autism screening clinic. well worth the trip.

hudson has a different highlight from our weekend away. a field trip to sally’s work, opp construction. he saw more tractors, trucks, and construction equipment in one area than he ever has in his life. he also was given the opportunity to operate a pave loader with the help from sally’s boyfriend. it was a dream come true for my tractor loving boy. it’s just going to be hard to impress him now…..

a weekend of settlers

brad has an extreme love for the board game settler’s of catan. i believe he could play this game for an entire day straight and still be aching to play again. if you have never played or heard of this board game it can be described as a strategy game where players collect resources and use them to build roads, settlements and cities on their way to victory. there are several different variations of the game now that make it a new challenge each time you play. our good friends eric and andrew share the same passion for this game (and board gaming in general). so, when andrew and his amazing wife emily, who happens to be one of my very best friends, invited us to their cabin up north to enjoy the outdoors and play as many games of settler’s of catan that brad’s heart desired we were in! eric and his sweet girlfriend rabecka also joined us for the festivities.

i could explain the weekend in two words, games and food. the boys played boardgames for about 8-10 hours on saturday while us girls played with hudson and lydia (andrew & emily’s baby girl), cooked some pretty yummy meals, and enjoyed relaxing in our sweats all day. it was wonderful. since we barley got out of our pjs all weekend and skipped showering (other than a quick dip in the lake) pictures were not taken of the adults. but, emily never misses an opportunity to do a photo session of hudson when we hang out. i know, i am beyond blessed! below is a collage of a few of my favorites.

thanks for a super fun, relaxing, game filled weekend friends! xoxo

 

late summer in minnesota

you know it’s the end of summer in minnesota when the state fair comes to town. i didn’t realize how big of a deal this fair was until my third or fourth year living here. more than 100,000 people attend the minnesota state fair each day! it is the largest fair in the country. well i am not a big fan of huge crowds, animals or fair rides but somehow i have been convinced to attend the “great minnesota get together” a few times during the 9 years that i have lived here. i was quite sure that i would not be going this year, but after my sweet sister asked to take hudson i started to think about what i would miss out on witnessing him see for the first time so we were suckered in once again. brad, michelle, her boyfriend aaron, hudson and i took on the fair together. we ate the state fair favorites……cheese curds, french fries, snow cone, sweet martha’s cookies, mini donuts, and caramel apples. we checked out all the farm animals and michelle took hudson on the big slide. i was sure he would be at least slightly afraid of this adult ride, but sure enough he asked for more and more when the slide was over. he is such a little daredevil. we spent the most time looking at all the tractors though. it was hudson’s dream world. i never realized how many tractors the state farm shows off until my obsessive son came with us. it was such a joy to see him in awe of this world. so, even though i don’t usually like the state fair it was worth it this time.

the other indication of the end of summer is the opening of apple orchards. this is my preferred activity! brad’s friend from his hockey league runs an orchard in buffalo, mn. it is a bit of a drive from minneapolis, but so worth it! deer lake orchard is the sweetest family run orchard and farm in the world. the setting looks as if from a movie and the service is hard to beat. yuri (brad’s friend), his wife and their 6 adorable children make you feel right at home. i am such a city girl, but seeing this sweet family run their little farm and apple picking business makes me wonder if i would enjoy country living. hudson would sure love it. he once again obsessed over the tractors most of all. he also enjoyed chasing the chickens, petting the goats, and eating apples right from the tree. it was my favorite way to kick off the fall.