This photo was taken last year, just before Christmas. I can't believe how they have changed. Ellie (on the right) looks like the "heavy" in the mob. :)

Today it is snowing and we are all stir crazy. The kids are recovering from colds, teething and are very demanding in wanting to be close AT ALL TIMES to me. Right now, I'm hiding in the kitchen and they are contained in the playroom.

Here's a cookbook recommendation for all of you with young kids: "Superfoods for Babies and Children," by Annabel Karmel. It has great recipes for starting at 6 months and going up to 3+ years. She has a bunch of info in the front on what kids need to grow and how each nutrient helps. Each of her recipes focuses on one ingredient and gives some nutritional information on the side as to how the meal will benefit your child. She also makes food interesting and fun for older kids.

My kids love her chicken balls and I like it because I'm able to sneak some veggies in them. Here's the recipe:

Finger-Picking Chicken Balls

1 TBS light olive oil
1 med. onion, finely chopped
1/2 c grated carrot
1 lg. Granny Smith apple, peeled and grated
2 6-oz boneless skinless chicken breasts (uncooked), cut into chunks
1 TBS chopped fresh parsley
1 tsp chopped fresh thyme or 1/2 dried (optional)
1/2 c fresh white break crumbs
1 chicken bouillon cube, crumbled
salt and freshly ground pepper
all-purpose flour for coating chicken balls
vegetable oil for frying

1. Heat the olive oil in a pan and saute 1/2 the onion and the grated carrot for 3 minutes,
stirring occasionally
2. Using your hands, squeeze out a little excess liquid from the grated apple.
3. Mix together the grated apple, chicken and sauteed onion and carrot along with the raw
chopped onion, parsley, thyme, bread crumbs and stock cube and chop for a few seconds in a
food processor.
4. Season with a little salt and pepper.
5. With your hands, form the mixture into about 20 balls, roll them in flour and fry in a little oil
until lightly golden and cooked through, about 4-5 minutes.

To get a little "extra" calories in them, I add some sour cream on top and they go for it! Jack even likes them and had some for dinner last night. Can't go wrong with a dinner for everyone! I also end up with more than 20 so I freeze half the batch and can pull them out as I need to.

Update

I think that both Lily and Liam will be proficient walkers by Christmas. Liam is doing great! I watched them all walking around the play room this morning and had a vision of the trouble that is about to ensue. Ellie has also figured out how to move obejcts near other objects in order to climb higher. Uh oh!

Little People with Personalities

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We stayed at home and had some great friends over. John and Stephanie, from church, came as well as our nanny extraodinaire, Ginny, and her boyfriend, Jeff. We had lots to eat and drink and even squeezed in a game before calling it a night.

The babies ate it all...turkey, stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and bread. They had to go to bed before dessert was brought out, but the next day, they had some pie and LOVED it! Who doesn't like pumpkin pie, expecially when it is made from a real pumpkin and not Libby's from a can?

Ellie, Lily and Liam are growing in leaps and bounds. I recently looked up online where to get toddler leashes. I know...I always looked down on people who "tied up" their children that way. Well, I'm all about contianing them, especially when we are around a lot of people. Ellie is very much a walker and is working on running. Lily will be walking most of the time by Christmas and Liam will follow soon after. If I take them all out somwhere and they want to walk, not sit in their stroller ( I can't blame them for that!), then I'm not having all 3 toddlers running in different directions? Who to chase after first?

They love kissing each other as well as fighting over toys. I don't buy in 3's anymore, because whether I have one spoon or 30 spoons that are exactly the same, the desirable spoon is always in the hands of another. As you can imagine, that gets old really quickly.

Their personalities are becoming more and more apparent. Ellie is sweet as pie, but will throw a glorious tantrum if things don't go her way. Case in point...I was dressing them for church yesterday. Trying to get out the door. I put on her shoes that matched her dress. She saw her other, worn and ragged sneakers on the table and pointed and yelled. I told her that those shoes are for outside, not church. Well, I guess she isn't able to reason and think logically yet :) and she threw a fit. Yes, she laid on her stomach on the floor and cried and cried and ecen got in a kick or two. Shoe selection, if appropriate for the season, isn't a battle that is worth it for me, so she won that one. She also gives the sweetest hugs and kisses.

Lily is definitely boss-girl of the household. She takes and takes and will yell and scream if an obejct is taken from her. It doesn't have to be an object in her hand. If it is within a 5 foot radius of her, she considers it hers. She is also sweet and knows what "lovie object" belongs to whom. Today, I was looking for Ellie's doggie for naptime and came downstairs to look. Lily crawled into the toybin repeating "da da da." Lo and behold, Lily popped her head out of the toybin with Doggie in her hands. She's a love.

Liam, Mr. Handsome, is the mellowest of the crew. He definitely has his limits, but he has already learned that what a girl wants, a girl gets. For the most part, he allows his sisters to take something from him and he then goes and looks for something else to play with. He rarely gets to play with an obejct for too long, with his two sisters milling around. He is trying to walk, presumably to keep up with his sisters. He loves to be held for a while after he wakes up from a nap...I love it!!!! The others usually just want down to play.

We are headed out to California for Christmas. I'm so excited to take the kids on a walk by the beach in the early morning hours when it is still cold. My mom and I dress them up warmly, drive to the beach, get ourselves a nice hot cup of coffee and stroll around the island in the bay. There are always lots of animals...birds, dogs, cats, seals as well as lots of Christmas decorations up for the kids to look at. It will not be a white Christmas, but it is the next best thing.