E was a fire fighter for Halloween this year but if you asked him what he was, he would say “fighter fighter”
Grandma brought E to my work Halloween Carnival. He got lots of candy and toys and even got to lick icing off a Popsicle stick. Thanks Grandma!
We also went trick or treating at Daddy’s work on Halloween.
If you know me very well, you know that I do not enjoy Halloween. I never have. I do not decorate my house for the holiday. I do not carve pumpkins and I do not dress up. Well….unless my friends invite me to “Witches Tea” then I might buy at $2 hat and celebrate
French Kids Eat Everything: How our family moved to France, cured picky eating, banned snacking and discovered 10 simple rules for raising happy, healthy eaters.
I am not sure how I heard about this book but I was very interested to read it when saw the words “cured picky eating”. I work with a lot of families that struggle with a picky eater so I was curious to read a book about it that wasn’t from a therapist point of view but from a parents point of view.
I LOVED this book. I learned so much about France and kind of wish I was French. Food is a big part of their culture and they teach their children from a young age to eat a variety of foods and enjoy them. A meal is always eaten with someone else and the table is always set with a tablecloth. When they get together with friends (or strangers on the street) they almost always talk about food.
In the book, Karen reviews 10 French Food Rules mixed in with stories and examples of how she learned them. Sometimes when I was reading in a hurry I kind of wished she would just list the rules and how/why they work (she does in the last chapter) but I started to enjoy the stories she was telling about the food rules.
I learned a lot reading this book and now have a few ideas to try with my only family and also the families I work with. I totally recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn about France or learn ideas of how to teach your child to enjoy/love new foods.
I found a trailer for the book on YouTube (it explains the book better than I am explaining it):
This has been the first book in a long time that I have read cover to cover, enjoyed it and am actually returning it to the library before it is due (instead of renewing it over and over). I don’t read books for pleasure very often but I am very glad I picked this book up!
One day E climbed into one of the bins that holds all his cars and he asked me for a hat. I quickly realized that he was remembering the last time he sat in the bin and he had a hat on.
How does he do that?
And then it happened again today. This morning Joey put on jeans, a long sleeve shirt and tie. When he went to get E dressed. E said he wanted to wear a tie. As we were getting him dressed he said “Stand by the closet and look handsome” and we both laughed thinking “why would he say that?”. As soon as he was dressed he walked over and stood in front of the closet and said “cheese”. I laughed as I remembered doing that months ago when he was wearing the same shirt and tie.
Putting those pictures side by side really shows how much he’s grown over the past 9 months. It also shows that 9 months ago he did know how to look at the camera and say cheese. Lately he doesn’t seem to look at the camera very well.
E continues to amaze me all the time. We are so blessed to have such a happy, healthy, SMART little boy.
Here’s one more picture for fun. A before church picture (shirts tucked in, ties straight) and after church picture (shirts untucked, crooked tie and sleeves rolled up) of my boys:
We went on a weekend long camping trip with our church and stayed at the Trefoil Girl Scout Ranch. It was a lot of fun. It brought back a lot of memories from when I used to stay there as a girl scout.
Here is a picture of the lodge where we ate our meals and had devotionals and worship services.
It was a beautiful building and a lot bigger than the old lodge I remember as a kid.
We stayed in the bunkhouse and I was nervous about E sleeping in the same room as us but he did great. The beds weren’t very comfortable and I was a little cold the first night but it wasn’t too bad.
On our free time we got to go on a few walks/hikes
It was beautiful in the mountains. A few kids on the hike wanted a “walking stick” so E wanted one too. He just ended up dragging it behind him but it made a really fun sound on the bridges when he crossed them
He enjoyed drinking hot chocolate but cried once because it was too hot. Then he asked for “warm” chocolate.
He really had fun climbing these steps and throwing the small rocks
The man’s voice you can hearing talking in the video is Pastor Tim and E loves him. On Saturday we were eating lunch and Pastor Tim was sitting at the table next to us and E says “That’s my friend Pastor Tim”. If you ask E, “Whose your buddy?” he will usually respond “Pastor Tim”. I wish I would have gotten a picture of the two of them hanging out.
I asked Joey to take a picture of us when we went on a hike and this is what we got
Too bad I couldn’t seem to look good for the picture. I noticed E’s nose was running and I didn’t have any tissues so I used the leaves on the ground. It worked great and apparently Joey got a picture of it
Overall it was a great weekend and I wish we could go camping more often (as long as somebody packs for us and does all the laundry when we get back. Haha).