No more Nunu

Today was the day! It was time for Lucien to say Goodbye to his good friend(s),the so called nunu. He actually had 3( one in the right, one in the left hand and one in the mouth; that´s how he used to sleep). He usually did not have the nunu during the day, we left them in bed but he had started moving the crib around and pulling his sheets out of the bed just to get a hold of one. He would tell me: `Go away, Mami` and looked at me with his guilty lil eyes just to get one or two minutes of sucking on it.
It was definately time to be a big boy. We had talked about getting rid of the nunu for a while and told him that there are new little babies that need the nunus and he is a big boy know. Rickys cousin Greg and his wife Sarah had a little babygirl Ginny in January and they are just about to move to Minnesota.( Perfect: So we thought it would be sweet to let Lucien give his nunies to Ginny and he would not have too many chances to check if she was getting good use out of them ;) ). When I asked him today if we should pack them up and put them in the mail for Ginny, he was all up for it., ran and got them out of bed. We found a shiny little box....

one last suck....

See Mami, I´m a big boy

Packing his friends in the pretty box

All proud and ready to send them of

Running to the mailbox( Mami whiped a lil tear here, cause it was such a sweet sight)

then one after another went in the mailbox

Goodbye

Done

He turned around and never looked back!!!!! I was very proud of him.
Later, Ricky took him outside in the dark of the night, with their flashlights to check if our`mail-lady`had picked up Ginnys present. It was gone. He was excited
Prepared for a rough night, we got the kids ready for bed.
UPDATE:
What can I say, not a peep. Awesome. I went to bed early expecting several interuptions of my well deserved sleep. Well, he woke up but only due to a dirty diaper and went back to sleep peaceful in our bed for the rest of the night WITHOUT the nunu.
When we woke up in the morning he looked at me and simply said in a pretend deep voice: Mami, I am a big boy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes he is and Mami shed another little tear.

More Greens

Ok, so today we recieved our second weekly batch from Oakland Organics. It looks just as yummy as the first one. But there is a lot more this time that I don´t have a clue what to do/ cook with. Feel free to send me your yummy recipes for collard greens, red mustard and co. Thanks!!!

Oh and by the way, the Kale chips turned out pretty good. Lucien loved them.

I forgot to take a picture of him chowing down those weird green looking things :)

Airport Fieldtrip

Freitag den 18. Februar war ein Bizzy Bunch Schulausflug zum lokalen Flughafen angesagt.
Lu und Stella hatten grossen Spass mit Stellas Schulkameraden und all den tollen Flugzeugen.
Ricky hatte den Tag frei und versuchte unseren kleinen Wildfang in Zaum zu halten.
Lucien fand die Flugzeuge super!

Aus Sicherheitsgründen konnten die Kids nicht überall frei herumrennen. Deswegen folgten die kleinen `Flugzeuge`den gelben Linien auf dem Rollfeld während ein Mitarbeiter ihnen die verschiedenen Flugzeuge, Lichter und Signale erklärte und allerlei Fragen beantwortete.

Flugzeuge Stella und Bella in Warteposition

man kann wirklich kaum glauben, dass diese zwei Süssen nur 8 Tage Leben trennen

Auch Lucien war ganz artig und nahm das gelbe-Linien-Laufen besonders ernst

Hey, wartet auf mich!!!!!!!!

Nach dem Rundgang durften die ´mutigen`auch mal richtiger Pilot sein und in ein Flugzeug einsteigen.

Ungeduldige kleine Beinchen warten auf ihr ´take-off`

Bella hatte sichtlich Spass im Cockpit

Lucien war nicht allzusehr beeindruckt
und Stella...... naja sie hat sich erwartungsgemäss dem Cockpit noch nicht mal genähert, da halfen alle Überredungskünste nichts

Bei der After-Party war sie dann wieder dabei

Wir hatten einen schönen Morgen und einen tollen Start ins Wochenende

Lucien is 2

Happy Birthday Lucien!

Mein süsser Mann ist 2!!!!! Da wir an seinem eigentlichen Geburtstag noch rekonvaleszent mit Grippe waren, waren nur cupcakes, balloons und ein paar wenige Geschenke and diesem Tag angesagt. Aber die grosse Party sollte letzten Sonntag folgen. Luciens Kuchen sollte was besonderes werden.

Was macht man nicht alles. Mutter hat sich voll ins Zeug geschmissen.
Viele Stunden Arbeit, ein Sonntag morgen 7 Uhr Shopping Trip zu Walmart

(ahhh die rote Glasur war pink AHHHHHHH )und 1000 Schweissperlen später, war mein Kuchen fertig

Tataaaaaaa!!!! mein Meisterwerk

Als Lulu von seinem Mittagsschlaf aufwachte, leuchteten die blauen Augen. Er sagte: Mama, Luciens Choo choo train.

Er verstand, dass alles was in Vorbereitung war für ihn und seine Party war.

Die Party began und Lucien war so froh seinen Onkel Rusty nach langer Zeit endlich mal wieder in die Arme schliessen zu können. Auch die anderen Gäste wurden mit grosser Begeisterung begrüsst.

Maw und Paw hatten die Grippe auch gut überstanden und waren wieder ganz die alten, mittendrin im Trubel.
Schon gings los ans Singen und Kerzenausblasen. Zu süss, die kleinen Hände konnten nicht vom Kuchen lassen.

Beim genauen Hinschauen sieht man Glasur schon beim Ausblasen der Kerzen in Mr Luciens Gesicht ;)

Wir hatten alle ein riesen Spass und waren froh alle mal wieder gesehen zu haben.
Update: heute, Freitag den 25. Februar, gings zum Doc für Lu´s 2-jährigen Check up.
Was soll ich sagen: Alles bestens!
Wie immer:
Grösse 36 inches= 91 cm( heisst bei den grossen aber im ´normalen´Bereich( fast gross genug für Disneyland Rides)75-90 percentile
Gewicht 33lbs= 15 kg( bei den schweren aber im normalen Bereich)90 percentile
Naja und dann ist da noch der Kopf mit ahäm 52,5 cm. Dafür gabs dann kein Chart mehr, kein Wunder, dass wir Mützen für 8-12 jährige kaufen.
BMI war 17,5, perfekt!
Lucien entwickelt sich prächtig und hat pünktlich zum 2. Geburtstag die´ terrible two´s ´eingeläutet. Er stellt and und testet an was nur geht und hat dabei das süsseste Lächeln auf den Lippen. Grosse Schwester ärgern ist auch supi( das passiert gerade, während Mami versucht diesen Post zu beenden)
Die letzten Backenzähne sind im Anmarsch . (Dann sind wir komplett minus 1 Zahn( siehe Post in November, der der dem Bus zum Opfer fiel). Backenzähne oben und unten links fehlen noch. Pünktlich am 2. Geburtstag kam der letzte Eckzahn unten rechts. Dann ist das Thema endlich auch abgeschlossen.
Widmen wir uns also nächsten grossen Aufgaben. SCHNULLI!!!!!! in unserem Haushalt auch NUNU genannt. Heute wird die erste Nacht ohne Nunu werden. Ich werde hier an dieser Stelle berichten wie mein Big Boy sich ohne seine 3 Freunde im Bett( einer in der linken, einer in der rechte und natürlich einen im Mund) geschlagen hat.

Healthy Greens

As I mentioned before, healthy food is something very important to me. I try and make sure to feed them kiddos the best I can and try to expose them to a lot of different foods, hoping to stimulate all their little tastebuds.
After we had moved to the States I was quite on a search for good quality foods which led me in the end to buy my meats at Leblancs, my dry products still at Walmart and fruits and veggies at Whole foods. ( talking about spending a fortune for foods) But its worth it !
As I just mentioned in my last post, we are planting a veggie garden this year, planted two pear trees, two blueberry, two raspberry and two blackberry bushes so far. Let´s see if we can lower our costs and get some yummy treats. Til then, me and a friend of mine, Cathy, discovered another way to provide for the family. We found Oakland Organics. An organic farm, located in Gurley, Louisiana.You can go join them to work on the farm but you can also buy your share of the farm and they bring whatever they harvest that week to the market in Baton Rouge and you will recieve a bag of produce enough to feed 4 adults. We thought we would give it a try It costs 200$ for 10 weeks and since Cathy and I decided to share the portion it breaks down to 10 $ a week, which is not bad at all.
Last Thursday was our first pick up. So we called it a little event, brought the older ones to school and set off to the market with our sweet Cate and Lucien. It was a gorgeous day so we decided after our stopover at the market to grab a coffee and let them play for a while at the playground.

My wonderful crew for the day


Lucien was exhausted and Cate a lil champ
We all had such a good time.
But we were eager to see what was waiting for us in our bag.
This is what we found:

In words

In produce
I have to admit I really had to do some homework and find recipes for those interesting ´things´ ;)
I also bought those colorful, delicious, yummy, not long lasting goodies( they were eaten that night )

Salad, not a problem what to do with, the turnips ended up roasted in the oven with potatoes( the kiddos could not tell the difference by their appearance just by their taste), the kale ended up being tasteful chips similar to potatoe chips, the cabbage is still in the fridge and might turn into some asain wok dish tomorrow and the carrots, well, they were the big hit.

Love those little hands proudly holding their carrots

At first he was not a 100% sure why Mama would give him something with the green stuff on, doesn ´t she usually cut that stuff off when I eat my strawberries???????? Hmmmmm I guess it´s worth a try. And then I could hardly stop him from eating them all the way down to the greens

Yum.
All together this experience was a huge success with my crew and I am eager to see what next weeks share holds for us.
If you are interested go to
oaklandorganic.wordpress.com