Today's Harvest

One of B's favorite activities is picking flowers and vegetables from the garden.  So far this year, we've harvested:

4 Zucchinis
2 Yellow Squash
7 Cucumbers
Lots of Yellow Wax Beans
Lots and lots of Cherry Tomatoes & SunSugar Tomatoes
Some Snap Peas
Lettuce, Spinach, Arugula, other salad greens, and Swiss Chard
and every couple of days we get a handful of Strawberries (which are B's favorite)

Veggies from the garden

Our garden is really starting to produce veggies for us.  I don't have to purchase many veggies on my weekly shopping trips anymore - now they're coming fresh picked from the garden!  So far, this summer, we've eaten yellow wax beans, swiss chard, tomatoes, toy choi (baby bok choi), strawberries, and zucchini all from our garden here.

Our beans are growing!

The bean seeds that L and I planted last week have now sprouted.  We planted green string beans and yellow wax bush beans.

And the pea seeds that V planted are just beginning to sprout too.

Conversations about food

Kids love stickers.  I bought a Melissa And Doug Make-A-Meal Sticker Pad from Amazon.  With a variety of table settings and lots and lots of food stickers, kids get to design their own meals.  My daycare kids loved it!

It was fun and also a great way to start a conversation with young kids about food.  We talked about which foods they liked best, what a balanced meal looks like, and about which are healthy foods and which are unhealthy food choices.

To the left are some of the first meals that L created using the stickers.

Package from California

Last Thursday we received our state culture swap package from California.  It contained a map of California, wildflower seeds, chop sticks, fool's gold, Sees chocolates, pepitas, a mexican bingo game, a California magazine, a Bay City guide, a map of San Francisco, a SF Giants magnet, seaweed chips, information about Redwood trees and a specimen, a California mobile activity, other activity pages, brochures, and postcards.

The kids went to work on the chocolates immediately and L applied the Giants magnet to the refrigerator.  Today we got a chance to go through everything in more detail.

The kids all tried the roasted seasoned seaweed.  L said it was "interesting", but stopped declined a second piece.  V really liked it and would have continued to eat it, but I cut her off after her third piece.  S made her scrunched up face, but ate her whole piece anyway.

L liked the idea of the California mobile activity, but we tried to do it twice and it just wasn't happening.  So I finished it by myself.  S enjoys examining it when I stand under it while holding her.

Books we read this week

These are most of the books that we read this week (plus Keeley who decided to lay on them right as I was taking this picture).

D and I were planning on learning about South Africa, but we only got around to reading 2 books about it and watching one travel DVD.  There was just too much going on now with more kids.


But Friday was just me and D and it was our last full day together for a while.  We did all of D's favorite things.  We played ball outside, we played Barbies, we had tacos for lunch, we baked a cake and decorated it, we played some games, we talked about the meanings of different words, we looked for Halloween costume ideas, we drew with window crayons, and we discussed how things would be next week with school starting.  It was a rough week for her with the new little kids so I hope she had a good day.

Beans from the garden

Today we picked some yellow beans from the garden to go with our lunch.  We steamed the beans and also made mashed potatoes and mini-meat loaves.  D likes to pick vegetables and she loves cooking... but eating, that's another story.  I figure that she is my payback for being such a picky eater myself, when I was a kid.  Hey, at least she drank all her milk!  Sometimes I've got to count the small victories.

Vegetable Garden Update

Here's what the beans we planted last month look like now!

The yellow bush beans have lots of buds that will soon start growing into beans.

The green pole beans just got to the top of the bean tower, but I expect them to fill-in all the way over the next few weeks.

D can't wait to pick beans and asks to check on them daily.

And she likes to pick the cherry tomatoes that we are growing in containers in the backyard.  

Unfortunately, she still refuses to eat them.

Picking Strawberries

Picked this whole basket of strawberries from our garden this morning.

It's great for kids to learn where food really comes from.

Kids are more likely to try different foods if they had a hand in growing, picking, and preparing the meal.  Real concrete experiences!  It gives them a sense of pride and accomplishment.