Recipe for disaster

Take one part adoring Grandmother (Queenie)

Add pint sized toddler (V)

Mix in rain for 2 days straight after a long, dry summer and what do you get?

MUD PIES and PERMANENT STAINS

Goin' on a twip!

We headed to Virginia this weekend for some Bruce family time and V was just beside herself about the "twip" to see her Grandma and Paw Paw!

We had a great time with T's parents and attended his cousin Erin's wedding. V danced the night away and impressed everyone with her skills. Her favorite move was a modified "centipede" move that I shall call the backward snake. She went all the way across the (luckily empty) dance floor several times like this.

She ate 2 cupcakes (well, mostly frosting) with her cousin Myles (Erin's son, 2 months older than V)

And of course, she had a great time with her Grandma and Paw Paw!

This morning we went with T's parents to have brunch with T's brother Ash, his girlfriend Amanda and our nephew Jaedon. We went to a cool little restaurant in the Jackson Ward area of Richmond called The Black Sheep. I was ecstatic to see they served Community Coffee, a New Orleans coffee that I normally only get to drink at campmeeting. (Good call, Amanda!)

When the CC came out in a Florida mug, I knew I had to take a picture for my brother Malcolm who lives with his wife Sarah in Tallahassee and is a huge coffee fan. I drank 2 1/2 cups in your honor, bro!

V loved playing with her cousin Jaedon in the restaurant. He has 2 younger brothers so he is skilled in the ways of making babies laugh. We waited for what seemed like forever for our food (in toddler time) and they decided to take a nap.

After we got our food Ash dared Jaedon to clean his plate, which had enough food on it to feed our whole table, much less fill an almost 9-year-old's stomach. He, of course, ate every bit of his food (for $1) and this was the result:

All in all, a great trip!

Great minds think alike!

I'd like to introduce you to someone very special to the VeggieBruce family, Kristy, V's nanny.
She's so special, she and V are beginning to dress alike.

Today I arrived home to find them both wearing yellow and white striped shirts. And they have matching dimples. Are they cute or what?

What V does for F-U-N in the afternoon

Hitches a Ride



Slides

Swings & Sings

Some girls have all the fun.

Alert the talent agencies

So you've all seen her talent as a singer (see my July 2 post for the soon-to-be-released-on-a-major-label rendition of "The Cheese Song") - well now, it's time to reveal V's acting chops to the outside world.

She can sneeze:


She can cough:


She can even cry:


And ALL on CUE. Broadway, here she comes.

Note: She does NOT normally walk around wearing a bib all day. She was eating blueberries; we were about to go to Queenie's house; I was avoiding having to change her shirt for the 3rd time today.

We heart summer veggies

So T & I signed up for a thing called Papaspuds. Once a week we get a delivery of fresh, NC grown (mostly) organic produce. It has been great for inspiring me to cook after a couple of months of not wanting to cook at all.

Here's a recent delivery I thought was especially pretty:

Corn, rainbow chard, peppers, slicing tomatoes and plums

I am really enjoying having to search for recipes for things like rainbow chard. I am also enjoying the fact that this service lets me switch out items so I am not on my 8th week of cucumbers. :)

In addition to Papaspuds I have been making a concerted effort to go to the downtown farmers' market where the organic farmers gather once a week. Although some of them are a little scary, I do enjoy chatting with the farmers about heirloom tomatoes or weird things called sprite melons.

Here's a recent supper I prepared that we thought was delicious.

Butternut squash stuffed with faux-sausage and rice, oven roasted rosemary potatoes and an arugula, heirloom yellow tomatoes and goat cheese salad.

We are really working toward becoming total locavore nerds, mostly because it sounds hip and just being vegetarian is so 90s. We're so dedicated that we even bought greenish blueish eggs at the farmers' market from a man with a wonky eye and dirty fingernails. Now that says LOCAVORE! Bon appetit!

Happy Monday

Let's hear it for Kristy!

So our darling, wonderful summer babysitter DD had to go back to work as a teacher at the elementary school in our back yard. The nerve! I almost cried as she drove away last week and I think my extended hug before she got in the car might have freaked her out a bit.

Luckily God, fate and co-worker Staci brought Kristy into our lives. She came over last weekend to meet V and within 5 minutes V had her crawling back and forth through the tunnel on the playground in 94 degree weather. Kristy passed the following important nanny tests:

1. V could immediately say her name and thus began bossing her around with "Kristy coming" (meaning follow me Kristy!), "Kristy sit dere" (meaning sit exactly where I'm pointing) and "Kristy monkey house" (meaning come and sit in the monkey house with me). Kristy followed direction well.
2. V pinched her finger on the playground and did her famous cry, hold breath for 20 seconds, scream really loud routine. Kristy didn't even flinch and comforted V quite well in the hot sun while I watched from the bench in the shade.
3. You read the tunnel thing already. Allow me to reiterate that it was 94 degrees outside.

So, on top of her very impressive resume (Oldest of 6 children, including 4 brothers. I have 2 brothers and I know how warped that made me, so I can't imagine how warped she must be. In a good way of course.) she is also cute as a button so V is in heaven.

Final bit of testimonial from V herself.

Me: Did you have fun with Kristy today?
V: YES!
Me: What did you do?
V: We made a MESS!

Yet the house was spotless. Who could ask for more?

5 ounces down, 11 to go!

V was running a bit of a fever on Thursday so I took her to the doctor on Friday afternoon when she was still feeling a little puny. (I thought she had just hit an annoying stage, turns out she had a virus.)

Good news! She has gained 5 ounces in the last month- now she's a whopping 20 pounds, 12 ounces. Just 11 more ounces and she will have gained that pound the doctor asked for at her 18 month check up. With all the snacks, ice cream and popsicles we've been feeding her I'm surprised she hasn't made it past the 21 pound mark, but then again, she is in constant motion so she's got to be burning an incredible number of calories all day long.

Oh, and her illness was just a mild virus that made her irritable for a couple of days. She's back to her old self today. Squealing at the top of her lungs like a champ and singing "Daddy, where are you?" whenever the poor man tries to go to the bathroom.