A glimpse into our three year old’s creative thinking…

Some recent toddler art with her descriptions:

A portrait of Mama (in black) and daughter (in blue)

Purple mountains with orange and brown soil

All photos in this post were taken on my evening walks with my camera phone.

In an effort to be more healthy, I am trying to become more fit and lose some weight.

The internet is a wonderful place for all types of inspiration and encouragement. I like this post of Nicole’s talking about how she aimed to lose two pounds a week and used this graph to keep track of her progress (and dictate how much she ate). I like this idea of Cathy’s to move more and eat less. Doesn’t her phrasing make it sound easy? No grand gestures are required. Anyone can move more and eat less.

Last summer after our daughter weaned herself and I saw the numbers creep up on the scale, I focused on eating better, watched my calories, walked more, and I lost fifteen pounds in three months. For the past seven months I haven’t exercised as much, yet I have managed to keep that weight off. But I haven’t lost any more and I really need to. Plus, I haven’t been as active as I’d like to be. I need to set a good example for our daughter.

A few weeks ago I had this realization that if I want to lose 22 more pounds and could lose two pounds a week, then I would be at my goal weight in eleven weeks. After that I could focus on maintaining. Eleven weeks?! I can do just about anything for eleven weeks.

Here’s the graph I created:

After a week and a half, I have lost three and a half pounds.

May this downward weight trend continue… I’m gonna need your support.

We have two weeks until April when the spring gardening really begins here in Northern California.

Time to say goodbye to the winter garden:

And get ready to plant for spring.

In that vein, we’ve started reading a number of fantastic gardening books. Here’s a glimpse of some of our favorites from this week:

Shown above:
+ Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert (vibrant illustrations and a simple story depicting the process of planning, planting, and picking flowers in a garden that children can easily relate to)
+ My Garden by Kevin Henkes (an imaginative tale about what a little girl would have in her very own garden, such as morning glories that stayed open all night, jellybean trees, flowers that grew back as soon as you picked them (above), and all carrots would be invisible because “I don’t like carrots.”)
+ Gardening with Children by Brooklyn Botanic Garden (a must-read book for family gardeners, full of gardening activities introducing nature’s cycles and earth’s ecology)
+ Eating the Alphabet: Fruits & Vegetables from A to Z (not directly about gardening per se but a beautifully illustrated alphabet book about fruits and vegetables; great inspiration for deciding what to plant in the garden!)

Ah, life with a toddler.

Our three year old refused to try these delicious apple and cottage cheese pancakes from Mollie Katzen’s classic Moosewood Cookbook that’s she’s eaten and loved before, just because she knows I want her to eat them.

So I said, “Don’t eat them! Don’t take a bite! Don’t even think about it!”

And sure enough she gobbled them up!

Sigh.

Hey, at least I know it (sometimes) works, right?!

I’ve been on the lookout for non-toxic, smell-free, affordable nail polish for a while now. There are several good, expensive non-toxic polishes out there that I’ve tried in the past, but could we find a cheaper one?

I looked for less-toxic suggestions on Skin Deep, a database that lists and evaluates toxins in cosmetics, and found WaterColors by Honeybee Gardens, a water-based polish with no fumes. What I love best? You can remove it with rubbing alcohol or their less toxic nail polish remover. Perfect for using with kids!

At around five dollars a pop, they aren’t too pricey, plus they come in a variety of fun colors.

We bought two: Valentine, a bright bubble gum pink, and Tuscany, a metallic purple.

The perfect product for our daughter’s first manicure!

Talk about little girl heaven… plus, mama gave herself a pedicure! We’re both happy girls today.

We went into World Market looking for large stainless steel canisters for our organization project (no luck — everything was too small!) and somehow walked out with this adorable, two dollar mini strainer. It was just too cute to pass up. Look, it’s kid-sized!

The little miss picked this turquoise color.

I love all those reds and blue together. Delightful!

My daughter and I then arm wrestled over whether the strainer was destined for her play kitchen or my real kitchen.

I won with the condition that she could borrow it occasionally.

When I ordered this clever alphabet poster from Nerdy Babies I took a risk. The site didn’t list its dimensions and I rather foolishly thought, “how big can it be? I’ll just order it and it will be fine. I don’t have time to email the artist and wait for a response right now.”

Two days later it arrived. Enter the worlds largest poster that my daughter ADORES and won’t let me return.

It’s clever, creative, nerdy… and gigantic!

The space where I had originally planned to hang it (above the photo banner over the bed) was too small, so we decided to hang it above her desk instead.

She LOVES it!

I think I would love it more if it were smaller and framed, but she’s three years old and that clearly doesn’t matter to her, so I’m letting it go. We’re enjoying both its beauty and brilliance. Besides, it’s the perfect size for this space. The end.