Project 365: 147-155

May 27- My SIL and I spent the morning in the fabric district.  I friggin' love LA.  That yellow on the bottom is muslin, like the Aden and Anais swaddle blankets.  It was $2.50 a pound.  I think I got 6 yards for 3 dollars.

May 28- Parking lot safety.  She won't let me help her, but she always lets Garrett.  I'm usually next to Garrett, holding his other hand.  But when I shut the door and looked up to see this, I had to take a quick picture.

May 29- We had a do-nothing day.  And by 'do-nothing', I mean, two weeks worth of laundry and a lot of reading in between.  This is the first stack Garrett brought me.  And I have no idea what Addie's doing.

May 30- We call her Lulu, which has nothing to do with her real name, but we say it's short for Lu-nami.  Also, I haven't given her goldfish crackers in days, maybe weeks.  And I couldn't find a bag or container anywhere in the room.  Mystery fish/snack hoarder.

May 31- Just a typical pool party with Paul's extended family.

June 1- Harvest!  2.5 months ago these were all seeds being planted.  Gardening is so rewarding!

June 2- At the Long Beach Farmers/Street Market.  My MIL was in a spending mood, but Addie wasn't having it.  Since the kids are about the same size, Garrett stood in as a body double.

June 3- Paul worked a 12 hour shift so the kids and I went wandering around IKEA.  Garrett saw the big hot dog sign on our way out and I gave in.  two hot dogs, chips and a drink for $2.50 is easy to give into when it's 6 o'clock and you haven't thought about making dinner yet.

June 4- An evening with Cafe Rio at the beach.  Sand in my salad.  Sandy diapers.  Sand in the car seats.  So much stuff.  Ending with a trail of sand to the bathtub.  I hope I always think it's worth it, because it always is.

Project 365: 134-146

May 14- We made it to Salty Zion.  I dropped Paul off in St. George kinda last minute to work on Taylor's car and drive it up later.  So for the last five hours it was just me and the kids.  Addie would only not cry if I was singing and Garrett would only unplug his ears if I was not singing.  He finally yelled "no more sing-a-song!"

May 15- In the PICU at Primary's.  I waited as long as I could to tell Garrett that his cousin was there but that he was too sick to be able to see him.  When I told him he started crying.  He cried out, "Me go see Baby Willlll!"  I picked him up.  And for the first time while in a public place I didn't shush him or try to quiet him down.  I just let him cry.  He needed to cry.  I let him be sad.  He gets it.  I love his heart.

May 16- I realized how much had to be done before Saturday.  Around the clock makin' and bakin' has begun!

May 17- A cupcake is the perfect way to end a 5K.  Finally ready for Great Strides.  Rain or shine!

May 18- Great Strides was a soggy event but it didn't stop the supporters.  There were more than double the people this year and we made more than double our investment.  We were happy about it and had so much fun!

May 19- My mom turns 60 tomorrow and Garrett wanted her to have a beach party.  I added a little luau touch, and even with the rain we had a great time.

May 20- Paul and I had ice cream for dinner.  And also, I noticed, and missed the mountains more on this trip to Utah than I have before.

May 21- We stopped in St. George for lunch.  Garrett wouldn't eat because there was a baby frog jumping in Uncle Taylor's grass and that's way better than food.

May 22- I always takes us a couple days to bounce back from a busy trip and a full day in the car.  Today was pajamas, sidewalk chalk, naps...and we called it a day.

May 23- You know it's been a while since you've had one on one time with your spouse when a Funeral Directors/Hospice Caregivers Transitional Care Task Force meeting feels like a date.  But I did learn all about helping families seamlessly transition their loved ones from the care of hospice to the care of the funeral home.

May 24- Sister can think of about a million things she'd rather do than go to the doctor.  "It's ok Lu."

May 25- We went to a Cars themed birthday party.  The kids could hardly control their excitement when I made them stop playing and come try out the cars I made for them.

May 26- The in-laws have been building a huge fairy garden in a section of their yard and the kids love it.  So I told Garrett we could make a mini version at home.  We picked up some plants and miniatures and last night and today we worked on them.  This is the gnome one. We also made a fairy one and a dragon/castle one.  Garrett is so proud.  And I'm kinda loving them too.

The one about Wheat Grass.

I had a friend ask for more info about our new found wheat grass growing hobby.  I'd had the idea to start one new container a day for a week, just because I'm a nerd and I love how fast this stuff grows and I thought it would be cool to see what it actually looked like each day for a week and compare it too the others.  Anyway, the request just made me decide to do the one a day idea.

I first learned about wheat grass from a guy I used to work with.  He and his fiance grew buckets of it to use as decor at their wedding.  It looked awesome so I decided I was going to copy their idea at my wedding, even though I hadn't even met Paul yet.  But when Paul and I got engaged and he suggested Green and White as our wedding colors because of our last names, it reminded me of the wheat grass.  So we did it and I really liked how it looked.  I'd always only thought of it as ornamental, like a house plant, but not to eat.  It wasn't until a month or so ago that I thought of buying it again.  We were planning to plant a garden so I thought it would be fun to let Garrett grow some just to introduce the garden idea to him.  This stuff grows so fast, I figured it would keep his attention and he'd enjoy watering it everyday.  It only needs to be watered with a squirt bottle which made it even more fun for Garrett.

When I got online to order it I started to read all about it's health benefits.  It's so good for you!  I've never seen it before in stores.  There's a guy at our little friday farmers market that sells it but it's already sprouted and pretty expensive.  I happened to remember where I ordered it for our wedding so I got it at the same place again.  It's a Utah based company, and if I remember right, Paul went and picked it up for our wedding, but they ship.  The website is wheatgrasskits.com.  I just order the seeds.  No trays or kit items.  This stuff will grow anywhere (left in a bowl, on a damp paper towel) so I see no need to buy their growing trays. Click HERE for the seeds we order.  We started with the 5lb. pre-measured for $7.50.

It doesn't taste great, but it's not bad.  It tastes like a fresh cut lawn smells.  I ate a couple blades of it, but knew that wouldn't be a good long term plan, and I knew the kids wouldn't eat it like that.  So I decided to add it to our smoothies and it worked great.  It's not as tasteless as spinach is in fruit smoothies, but it wasn't bad at all and Garrett still liked it.  It gave it almost a mild cucumber taste.  I've since started pureeing it and freezing it in cubes and I can hardly taste it in the smoothie when its been pre-pureed and frozen.  In fact, Paul made me a smoothie a few days ago and I drank some and then asked, "why didn't you use wheat grass this time?" and he said, "I did."  I know it probably loses some nutritional value when it's been frozen, but the fact that I can say "my kids eat spinach and wheat grass like it's ice cream" is good enough for me right now.

I posted my basic smoothie recipe a couple of weeks ago, but I've since tweaked it a bit.  (It changes everyday really)  I was using mostly frozen strawberries and then a little peach or a little banana.  Last week I found frozen mango chunks and frozen pineapple tidbits at Trader Joe's and adding these two and cutting back on strawberries makes it so much better!  I don't like pineapple fresh, but these frozen pieces add the best flavor, make it smoother, and in my opinion, masks the greens even better.  I've bought frozen mango before, really I've probably tried every fruit that's ever been sold frozen, but TJ's tastes the best and is equally priced or cheaper.

It's easy to plant and doesn't need a drain hole, in fact I think you're not supposed to use containers with drain holes.  I just use soup cans, mason jars, tins from the Target dollar section.  Next week we're going to plant some in plastic Easter egg halves in an egg carton, just for fun.

I won't go into the planting instruction because it'll come with the seeds, but it's simple and fool-proof.  Just soak them for twelve hours.  Sprinkle them on top of the dirt, and water 2-3 times a day with a squirt bottle.  The first couple of days you keep them covered with a wet newspaper or something.  I usually use TJ paper bags or just paper towels.  There you go, I just gave you all the instructions.

On to the pictures.  You may not think these week-of-wheat-grass pictures are cool, but I thought I'd share.

Planted 7 days ago.

Here it is out of the can.  Look how long and thick the roots are.  On about day 10, (the grass stops growing around that time and kinda gets limp.  We cup ours to puree on day 7 or 8) there will be about an inch of root along the bottom and it will have completely pushed the dirt up to fill in with roots.

 Planted 6 days ago.

 Planted 5 days ago.

 Planted 4 days ago.

 Planted 3 days ago.

 Can't see it well through the glass with the reflection, but notice the roots only 3 days in.

 Planted 2 days ago.

 And here it is under the damp towel.

 Planted yesterday.

 Yesterday's are just barely sprouting.

And here is the whole week shot so you can see the height difference in the first couple of days.

We've been at this for about 3 weeks and Garrett still loves helping with the squirt bottle.  And he loves touching it at about day 4 because it's kinda pokey.  And after day 4 it's just fun to run your hands over it because it's soft.  If you weren't convinced I was a nerd before, you probably are now.  But I promise if you have cans of wheat grass all over your kitchen, you'll play with it too.

My birthday party, Annie's birthday party, a little in between.

We celebrated at the in-laws a few days after my birthday.  It wasn't anything big, and because of Lent, I didn't eat any of that cheesecake, and Garrett blew out my candle and the kids opened my gift from Phil and Bekah.  (They got me a KitchenAid mixer.)  So aside from loving my gift, it felt more like Garrett's birthday, which was fine with me, and him.

We also picked a lot of fruit that day because Paul and I are getting into juicing and gardening.

Someone asked at Cafe Rio if these two were identical twins...

First time trying Nutella.

She's a very active sleeper!

Easily entertained kids... Garrett loves to paint!...

 Paul gave me a pancake pen for Christmas and we finally got around to trying it out.

We love warm days in February/March.  Can't beat California weather.

One evening after Addie was in bed, I was dozing off on the couch when I heard something in the kitchen.  I looked back to find Garrett had pulled the milk and the chocolate syrup out of the fridge and was digging for a cup.

Our wheat grass growing was a huge success, and we're even eating it!

For Annie's birthday, we had a gnome party and garden planting day.

I made her this board book from the kids at pintsizeproductions.com.