I made Zucchini bread today.  I really love zucchini bread.  Yummmmm…

But I was looking over my tried and true (and really, really loved) recipe and noticed WHY I love it so much.  There is a lot of sugar and oil in it so I decided as a challenge I would try and make it healthier.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a good sugar filled bread, so I plan on keeping my old recipe.  But I thought perhaps if I could figure out how to make it healthier I could enjoy more slices without feeling more guilty.  Hehe!

So, I looked over the recipe did the following:

• doubled the amount of grated zucchini
• replaced the oil with unsweetened applesauce
• cut the brown sugar in 1/2
• added 1/4 cup more flour
• and ended up adding 20 min. to the bake time

And guess what?  It turned out delicious!   Yippie!

I like our morning walk to the bus stop.

It might be my favorite part of the day.

We’ve adjusted our morning routine slightly earlier this year in order to accommodate both kids needing to practice piano.  Plus they seem to move slower in the morning, so even just brushing their teeth seems to take an inordinate amount of time.  🙂

Kitchen “closes” at 7:00 so they have to be up and dressed and eating what they want to eat by then.  Then they have a variety of chores/items they have to do before we head to the bus.  Normally the two little ones ride in the double stroller, but you’ll notice in the picture above I let Maddie walk that day–and she was pleased as punch.  We’ve banked in enough time to walk leisurely to the bus stop, so we get to chat and walk.  It’s nice.

Levi is our active 1 year old.  So very active these days.  He’s just about walking and ready to be on the move.  If there is an area off-limits to him that’s where he’ll be.  But then he’ll melt your heart with his coy little grin when you get to him… already working the system.

Oh, and he’s taken to shrieking.  Ear splitting, boil your blood, instant headache shrieking. Not fun.

Here are a few other tidbits of information about Levi:

• He pretty much eats everything we eat these days.
• He’s moved up to regular milk and a sippy cup.
• He really likes going on walks in the stroller.
• If there is a cupboard unlocked he will get into it.
• He still sleeps with his Racoon and Nuk.
• He is SO proud of himself when he finds a “toy” he’s not supposed to have (A.K.A a kitchen utensil).
• He likes taking any toy that Maddie has in her hands.  And then shrieking at her if she doesn’t hand it over.  (Yes, we’re working on it)
• His favorite activity is bath time.  And splashing.
• He doesn’t know how to sit still.
• He can do sign language for:  more, all done, milk, eat and please.
• He loves playing “So Big!”
• He likes eating bread.
• He is quite shy when meeting new people.
• He has the best belly laugh.
• He doesn’t have any shoes that fit him right now because his feet are so chubby.
• He is determined not to be the overlooked 4th child.

Maddie Mae is our spunky 2 year old.  And she is SO MUCH the embodiment of a 2 year old.  She is determined, feisty, curious, lovable and too cute for her own good.

Here are a few tidbits about Madison:

• Tim calls her Mae-Mae.
• She recently went through another bath aversion, so we’ve transitioned to showers.  She enjoys those much more.
• She likes having her hair out of her face.
• She has learned to get up into the swing all by herself.  Although her favorite is still swinging back and forth on her belly.
• She loves puppies/dogs.
• She is having a hard time staying in bed recently.  We’ve been trying a variety of tactics to get this under control…
• She is petrified of Thunder right now.  So much so, that she’s even spooked by the sound of garbage trucks.
• She adores Chloe with a capitol A.
• She also really likes our new neighbor Mabel.  And saying her name over and over…
• She has turned into a major snuggler–which is interesting because she was completely anti-snuggle for the first 18 months.
• She’s recently started taking more of an interest in Levi and sharing toys and helping him.
• She loves singing “I love you, a bushel and a peck” with Auntie Jen.
• Her favorite foods are cheese sticks and Go-gurt.
• She can count to 10.
• She can also sing the A-B-C song.
• She is quite good at cleaning up while singing the “clean up song.”
• She is definitely our climber.

I have a couple other videos too… these are from earlier this summer, but I thought they were equally fun to watch.

Chloe is our 9 year old, creative, first-born leader.  She loves reading and helping with the “Littles” as well as playing with her friends.

Here are a few other tidbits about Chloe:

• Her favorite food are BBQ meatball subs and Tacos.
• She does not like trying new things.
• She loves crafting and drawing and writing stories.
• Her spelling needs work.  A lot of work.
• She is often reading up to three books at once, bouncing back and forth. (This drives me crazy)
• One of her chores to do daily is helping with laundry.  She doesn’t enjoy it, but is really helpful.
• She is getting really into style these days–taking time to pick out outfits.
• She is a mini-me.  In so many ways it’s a little scary.
• She has an elaborate imagination.
• She is petrified of tornadoes right now.
• She thrives off of physical touch–and compliments.
• Though they fight (a lot) she loves Josiah and is sad when he’s gone.
• She is musical but doesn’t like to work at it.
• She’s still really into Legos.
• She loves writing to people (pen pals).
• She still needs a lot of sleep.
• Her favorite snacks are combos, pretzels and apples.

Josiah is our 6 year old energetic, affectionate, boy-boy.  He likes to rough-house and play loudly and hum all the time.

Here are a few other random tidbits about Josiah:

• He is normally eager to try new things (if I give it a positive spin).
• He loves Kindergarten and his teacher SO much.
• He likes having “crunchy” hair like Tim on special occasions.
• He is very easily distracted.
• One of his daily chores is putting away the dishes.  He is not a fan of this chore.
• He loves Levi and Maddie almost too much, if that’s possible.
• He is still plowing through his music books, gobbling up new music weekly.
• He hums celebratory music… actually it’s more like he hums his own theme song all day.
• He loves sharing a room with Levi.
• He still plays with cars a lot.
• He is excited that’s he’s learning how to read.
• He loves playing in water (sprinklers, pools, lakes, buckets, shower, you name it).
• He is a sponge for Bible Stories.
• He doesn’t know how to tie his shoes yet (Whoops!) but we’re working on that this year.
• He likes playing Dominoes with Auntie Jen (and is actually pretty good!).

The beginning of the school year (and let’s face it, most of the summer) have left me in a bit of a posting drought.  So I decided this week that I would take a day and post pictures and give a recap of each kid at this phase of life.  If you’ve seen our kids recently it won’t probably be very interesting or surprising.  But for those of you who live further away you might find this more interesting.  I’ll try and post a video with each one too, just so you can really see the kid up close in all their nuances.  🙂

But before I go, I also want to highlight my wonderful better half, Tim.  We never take pictures together anymore.  I think it’s because I’m almost always the one behind the camera.  But Tim suggested we take one together at Patsy’s wedding (I mean we were all dressed up and everything..) so we actually have a current picture of the two of us!   We are in this exhausting phase of life with little kids right now, but there is absolutely no one I would rather be exhausted with.  He is such an incredibly hard worker and such a great provider for our family.  I am one lucky lady!

We had a lovely Birthday party on Saturday.  We decided on the theme of Mr. ONE-derful, becuase “seriously-guys-this-is-the-last-first-birthday-party-we’re-going-to-have seemed a little too wordy.  Ha!  😉

You’ll notice we let Cloud Guy join the party.  He was dressed up with a bow tie, of course, to match the theme.  The rest of the food was bow tie shaped and mustaches.  My favorite was the blue bowtie pasta salad.  I figure out how to dye the pasta blue!  I see many fun colored pastas in my future…

Levi was less than excited about the cake.  He did eat a little, but wasn’t very interesting to watch at all.  No smearing or gorging, just poking and nibbling.  But we had fun nonetheless.  And now we have a big boy!

Chloe and Levi both had their well child doctor’s appointments this week.  They both are right on track and continue to be tall.  At this rate Chloe is on track to pass me.  And Levi is our 2nd tallest child (at one year, of course).

We have a 1st Birthday party shin-dig planned for Saturday, so I’ll be sure to post pictures of that.  We didn’t really celebrate yesterday since he doesn’t have a clue.  😉  But we did sing Happy Birthday.  Oh, and it was our first day of BSF, so he got to go and have fun there which he seemed to enjoy.

This week has been a bit of a whirl-wind since I started back teaching this week.  That means having to make supper before I start at 1:00, and training in new nannies, and getting the kids on an after school routine.  Oh and this year I have 10 new students which is always a bit more exhausting getting everything started on their first lesson.  So, even though it’s Thursday I feel like this week has been about 9 days long already!  🙂