Hello, Summer!

We were so excited for the arrival of summer yesterday and what a day it was for us!  The first day of summer greeted us with temperatures in the 90s (with a heat index well over 100 degrees).  We have spent most of our first two days of summer the way it should be -- in the water or at the beach.  We celebrated the first day of summer yesterday at Deering Oaks Park and spent most of our time splashing in the ravine there.  Today, we went to Higgins Beach to play and cool off.  Welcome, summer!

Color Walk

Every year around this time we go on daily "color walks."  First, we paint the inside of empty egg cartons the colors of the rainbow.  We take our colored cartons outside with us on long walks or hikes to try to find items in nature that match the colors of those painted inside of our egg cartons.  It is a very simple activity but it is one that has brought about so many thoughtful and insightful conversations!  Grace, Jack and Eve have learned so much through the years about flowers, leaves, rocks, grass, fruits, trees, weather and the seasons from this activity.  I especially love how these colored egg cartons go everywhere with us  -- from our hikes in the woods to trips to the beach and even into the city of Portland!  Below are a few pictures from a color walk that we did around our yard last week.  By the way, we are always searching high and low for blue -- we always enjoy looking at the blue sky and the blue ocean water but it is hard to find tangible items to put inside of our blue compartment!

"Everything is a color in our world."

 During breakfast one morning in late April Grace said the following:

"Everything is a color in our world."

Graces' words are ones that I think about every day and they have inspired me to slow down to admire all of the beautiful colors of nature that surround us, especially this time of year.

I took these pictures at our local Farmer's Market two weeks ago with Grace's words in mind.  It is also her words that have inspired us to start going on daily "color walks," as we so call them.  I will post pictures of one of our color walks soon.

Biking the Eastern Trail on Father's Day

We spent every moment outside yesterday to celebrate Father's Day (I just love this time of year!).  Part of our morning was spent biking the Eastern Trail.  A portion of this trail crosses through the Scarborough Marsh, which we are so fortunate to live very near!  The marsh is filled with so much wildlife and is full of such beautiful views of Maine's largest saltwater marsh.  Grace and Jack took turns riding a bike along the trail and they both shared some time with Eve in a bike carrier that Daddy pulled behind his bike!

Grace riding next to Daddy with Eve and Jack in the bike carrier

Eve loves going on bike rides! 

Jack riding along the the trail 

Happy Father's Day

*daisy flowers hand picked by Grace, Jack and Eve in our backyard for Father's Day*

Happy Father's Day to Bob who is the world's best Daddy to our three beautiful children!  

Happy Father's Day to Poppy & Pepere who are both amazing fathers and grandfathers.  

...all of our love goes out to these three wonderful Dad's today and always! 

Flag Day

It is an extra, extra, extra special day today because it is Poppy and Uncle Adam's birthday and it is also Flag Day.  I think there is the same amount of excitement in our house today as there was Christmas morning (or maybe even more!) -- for those of you who know my children you know that this is really true!  I absolutely love, love, love how Grace, Jack and Eve get just so excited by everything in life.  We have been talking about the birthday boys all week as well as the meaning behind Flag Day.  Earlier this week Grace, Jack and Eve made these American flags to celebrate today.  I really love how unique each of their flags turned out.

Here is a brief history behind Flag Day:

On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress proposed that the United States have a national flag instead of the British Union Jack.  The 13 stars of the flag represented the 13 new states.  There were few public ceremonies honoring the Stars and Stripes until 1877, when on June 14, it was flown from every government building in honor of the centennial adoption of a national flag.  Schools had unfurled American flags over their doors or outside the buildings long before this; but in 1890, North Dakota and New Jersey made a law that required their schools to fly the flag daily.  The first official Flag Day was observed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1893.  New York also proclaimed June 14 as Flag day in 1897.  Other states were slow to follow.  Some people thought the day was too close to Memorial Day and Independence Day.

In August 1949, President Harry S. Truman proclaimed June 14 as Flag Day.  Since then the President proclaims the commemoration yearly, and encourages all Americans in the country to display the Stars and Stripes outside their homes and businesses!

Happy Birthday Dad & Uncle Adam!

We are thinking of you both today and wish you the happiest birthday.  We love you both so very much.  Happy Flag Day too!

Eve's Hard Working Hands...

Eve loves fine motor activities or any activity that involves using the small muscles in her hands.  Eve has a special basket that is filled with a variety of items to keep her tiny fingers busy and strong.  Some of Eve's favorite fine motor activities are pictured here.  In the picture above, is is working on her sewing block.  Eve enjoys carefully threading the wooden needle through the holes in her block.

This fine motor activity has always been a favorite for Grace, Jack and now Eve.  Eve works so hard to put toothpicks through the tiny holes of an empty spice container.  This is Eve's favorite activity and she often sits for ten minutes or more working on this fine motor task.

There are several containers inside of Eve's fine motor basket that she loves to open and close.  In the picture above Eve is working on opening and closing the tiny doors on a pill container.  I often hide little treasures inside of the containers for Eve to find like bells, balls or stickers.

Since the first time Eve pulled to stand to reach the piano keys, she has expressed an interest in playing the piano and singing.  Eve loves using her fingers to press the piano keys.  I also love how she sings, "la la la" while she plays (or any time she hears the words "sing" or "song").  

Natural Foods

It is such a joy for me to have Eve, Grace and Jack work with me and with each other in our kitchen (or outside on our deck in this case!).  We have always enjoyed preparing our own foods and cooking together.  It is extremely important for me to feed my children the healthiest and freshest foods that are organic, free of artificial ingredients, minimally processed and without refined sugars. It is also important that they learn where our food comes from.  One of my  favorite cookbooks that I often use to support my goal is Rodale's Basic Natural Foods Cookbook. This cookbook has become a staple item in our kitchen.

Over the years I have loved watching Grace, then Jack and now Eve join me in the kitchen.  We all learn from each other and enjoy the process of preparing our food together.  We make a great team!  Right now we are so happy that strawberry season is in full swing.  This week we made a strawberry banana pie (the recipe from Rodale's cookbook is shown below).  Eve is currently working on using a knife to cut her food and she did a great cutting up (and eating!) several strawberries for our pie.        

Ever since Grace was a teeny tiny baby she has always enjoyed helping me in the kitchen.  Grace reads all of the recipes for us and she is excellent at measuring out all of the ingredients.

Jack cut the bananas into slices for the bottom of our pie.  He loves to cut with knives and he is always a very willing participant to try all of our recipes!

Here is the recipe that we used for our Strawberry Banana Pie --

Ingredients:
2-3 cups of fresh strawberries quartered
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup honey (we used much less)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large banana (we used 2 bananas)
Whole wheat piecrust

In a medium-size saucepan simmer strawberries, 1/2 cup water, and honey for 5 minutes.  Shake cornstarch and 1/4 cup water in a jar with a tight-fitting lid until smooth.  Slowly add to strawberries, cooking until mixture thickens.  Stir in cinnamon and vanilla.  When the strawberry mixture has cooled slightly, thinly slice banana(s) into piecrust.   Pour strawberries over bananas.  Refrigerate until set.

Florida

Click here and here to see what a fun week our sweet little Eve had with Maddy and Poppy.  We missed our Eve SO much when we were in Florida but we knew that she would be happier in her own home spending the best time with her Maddy and Poppy.

Fort Lauderdale Beach

I am going through our Florida pictures and I will be posting many more soon.

 

Update

I am taking just a few more days off from blogging but I promise that I will be back to regular postings after that!  I have  so much to catch up on but so much has happened since we returned home from Florida including two emergency room visits within five days of each other -- one for myself shortly after getting off our our plane on Saturday (what a long plane trip home that was!) and the other was for Jack today.  Our sweet Jack fell head first off of a climbing structure this morning.  Jack is okay now but he is very sore.  :(   We also returned home to a huge rain storm which dropped over 7 inches of rain over the weekend and also filled our basement with 18+ inches of water.  We woke up on Sunday to find our freezer floating at the bottom of our basement stairs.  Oh my!