Checking in...

We've been busy around our house.

There are two crawlers.

11 teeth.

We are saying goodbye to another size of clothes and moving into 9 month and 9-12 month sizes.

Ana likes to pull herself to stand anywhere there is something to hold onto...whether it is safe or not.

Grace can say "da" "ba" and "ma" over and over again.

They eat mostly whole foods like fruit, bread and meat; they only eat purees with the babysitters.

They love the dog.

Their smiles keep getting bigger and their sense of exploration and adventure is growing.

I love them.

Easy margaritas

Ladies and gentlemen I am going to share with you the easiest and most delightful summer margarita recipe.* This is amazingly delicious. Go make it. Right now.

Ingredients: 1 can of limeade (I think it tastes best with Minute Maid), 1 can of lemon-lime soda, 1 can of beer and tequila. Mix equal parts of each (use the Minute Maid can to measure tequila. Warning: it is a LOT of tequila. Sometimes I don't put a full can because it is too much!)

Stir. Because of the beer it is going to be yellowish-brown. Don't worry about the color. It is delicious.

Serve and enjoy!

And because I know I have a lot of underage readers, I present you with an equally awesome non-alcoholic alternative:
Limeade. Enjoy.

 *This is not my own recipe; it was from a friend of my mom's, so I am giving credit to that person, even though I don't actually know who that person is.

Video killed the radio star

Want to know something weird about a twenty-something living in the digital age?

I HATE VIDEO.

I don't hate movies or anything. And I don't care if everyone else wants to record their lives. But I don't really "get" it. I didn't really "get" it before YouTube even existed. I just don't like videos of my life.

Maybe it's because my grandma was obsessed with her video camera and carried it to every family function and trip around the world.  Then I spent hours of my formative years watching her fast-forward through 93 minutes of the sidewalk in Prague.

I know there are some videos of my childhood. One rare occasion we tried to watch one and it was 20 minutes of us playing in mud by the lake: riveting stuff people. Then there are the many, many clips of my dad's shaky hand recording the wrong kid at swim meets (in his defense, it can be hard to distinguish little people in the water).

My mother-in-law was shocked when I said there would be no videographer at our wedding. Her kids used to love to plop down on the couch and watch their wedding video. I really didn't see much use. I was pretty confident I would never watch it. In my defense, it's been four years and I have never once regretted not having a video. (There is ONE thing I wish had been videotaped-- when all the guys at the wedding got down on their knees and sang "You've Lost That Lovin Feeling." It.was.awesome. Totally YouTube material)

Now I have my own kids and sometimes they do something cool and I think to myself, "shoot, I should probably video tape that." And then I wonder why, because I really don't have much intention of ever watching it.

It's not that I don't want to remember. Quite the opposite actually-- I am a huge lover of nostalgia and I value my experiences with people and in life above most things. But I am happy with a beautiful picture and the memories of those moments.

Oh, and I hate the way I sound on video. Maybe that's it.

Making baby food

This is not revolutionary or very exciting... so many of you probably will want to skip this post! But I have a few friends who have asked me about making baby food lately, so here we go...

I decided to make my own baby food because I wanted to know exactly what was going into my kids' bodies. I was nervous that I was going to do something "wrong" when making the food but it turns out that it is VERY easy to do and I have fun making it now!

We started with bananas (success!) and avocado (failure) which do not require any cooking. The first cooked food I made was sweet potato. Since then I have made green beans, yams, acorn squash, butternut squash, carrots, lamb, peas, zucchini and broccoli.

The sweet potatoes, yams, carrots and green beans were all steamed first. The squash are best cooked in the oven in about an inch of water. I cook them at 400 degrees for about 35 minutes. This is acorn squash and butternut squash (get your mind out of the gutter).

This weekend I tried making peas for the first time. Since I have been buying only fresh ingredients, I hadn't gotten to peas yet (you can usually only find frozen in the store). I bought some at the farmer's market the other day so after a long time shucking them, I got this small amount of peas:

Not sure it was worth all that work for such a small return on the peas.

I break down the food using my trusty Cuisinart! In the beginning I added milk or formula to make it the right consistency. Now I reserve the water from cooking the vegetable and then add it until I get the consistency I want. Warning: when the food is defrosted they tend to be a little more watery than they are before you freeze the food!

And voila! I scoop them into ice trays. Two of these are the fancy baby ones that have a lid (which are fantastic! I love them!) but the other two are $.99 cube trays from Target. Whatever you have will work!

I just put these in the freezer and then take them out as necessary!

Trying meat really freaked me out. I boiled lamb and then pureed it in the food processor. But the consistency of that was just strange. So I ended up mixing the lamb with sweet potato. If anyone has better ideas on how to prepare the meat, let me know!

Happy cooking my friends!

Grab a beer!

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Well I tried to post with Kim last week but blogger hated me and now my pictures are lost in the internets. Aren't you sad you will never those pictures?!

Let's start with a little special series entitled "Ana falls asleep wherever she wants." She is officially CRAWLING and basically getting into all sorts of trouble. So I assume that all this movement makes her super tired.

Asleep in her high chair.

Asleep in her jumperoo.

Asleep in the backpack. And those pictures are all from this week.

I made these chocolate dipped strawberries for Brandon for our 4th anniversary (traditional gift: fruits and flowers)

We celebrated at a fabulous restaurant. Wine for BG, Cosmo for me!

Brandon wrote this really nice blog about me and all he got is this picture from my phone. I love you babe!

I am all about reading, but I do have to wonder what we are teaching our children when the books have made up words like "table," "chair," and "sofa."

Brandon loves to bring the girls to bed on the weekends.

I skipped lunch one day this week for a much needed pedicure...

Us girls pre-shopped the Anniversary Sale at Nordstrom. The girls got balloons (and shoes and legwarmers!) (Sorry Aunt Cristina that we didn't come visit you in SF!) (if anyone wants to shop in Roseville or San Francisco I will set you up with great people to shop with!)

My mom bought the girls these adorable rompers with little watermelon butts. So cute!

Pretty sure this isn't safe.

I was nursing Ana in bed and looked over the edge to see only Grace's arm.

I pulled up the ruffle and there she was, smiling big! Apparently she likes it under the bed!

Ana took this picture for you. The end.

if you buy this we can't be friends

I went to Disneyland  Costco last week and as always I checked out all of the unnecessary items I could buy in bulk. And then I came across this gem:

That is one year emergency food supply in the form of freeze-dried and dehydrated food. 17,586 servings of food in 336 cans.

In event of emergency, I will be eating from the 336 cans of tomato paste that I keep forgetting I already have in the back of my pantry.