Lillian busts a move

Thanksgiving

Lillian's had a great time for Thanksgiving this year. She really loves turkey and cranberries. I think she ate more than anyone else at Thanksgiving dinner. Her Granny Elaine came to visit, and got to see lots of new tricks. Lillian now sings Twinkle Twinkle, the Alphabet Song, and Itsy Bitsy Spider (at least you can recognize that's what she's going for...). She also counts, sometimes getting all the way to 10. As you can see here, she's not really looking like a baby any more. She's moving on to being a full-fledged little girl.

Granny gave Lillian these sunglasses last time we were in Phoenix. Elaine's been hanging on to these since the 80's. As you can see, they're a big hit with future superstars.

Lillian is into everything, and developing a strong independent streak. All day long she's telling us, "self," meaning she wants to do it herself. Here she's digging our junk mail out of the waste paper basket, and turning an envelope into a hat.

We'll end this update with a few videos. Here's everyone sitting on the couch, while Lillian laughs hysterically at Nash.

And here we see a little display of counting skills. Those sick-days watching Sesame Street seem to be good for something after all!

A year of food

This past spring we subscribed to the Two Small Farms CSA hopeful that we could find a use for all the fresh picked organic vegetables delivered to us each week. With the year almost over, we celebrated the end of our CSA season this past week. Even with the warm California climate our farm can only provide us with fresh produce from March through November. We've declared the project a success, we were able to use all (or almost all) of our vegetables each week. Eric and I, being the misers that we are, could not stand to see vegetable go to waste so we had to figure out some creative ways to use some unusual vegetables. Here are some suggestions:

Beets - Beet Rosti with Rosemary
Cabbage - Braised Cabbage with Apples
Swiss Chard - Fettuccine with Swiss Chard, Currants, Walnuts, and Brown Butter
Kale - Pasta with Kale and Sausage
Dill - Dill and Mustard Sauce (for Fish)
Sorrel - Sorrel and Goat Cheese Quiche
Arugula - Arugula and Walnut Pesto
Agretti - Agretti with Bacon and Onions
Tomatillos - Roasted Tomatillo Salsa
Leeks - Potato Leek Soup
Scallions - Green Onion Pancakes
Turnips - We never found a good use for the Turnips, maybe next year.
Celery - Eric and I agree that any recipe that calls for celery is just as good without it.

Lillian enjoyed the vegetables as well. She has a particular fondness for the orange and red ones like, carrots, beets, peppers, tomatoes and winter squash. Of course her very favorite CSA vegetable, strawberries, aren't a vegetable at all.

The good little helper

Lillian loves helping out, so when she saw her Great Grandma Nora sweeping off the patio she grabbed her very own baby-sized broom and joined in.

Lillian and Nora make quite the pair. Their both like to keep very busy. Without the reinforcements, Lillian's kept us so busy that we forgot to pull all the pictures off our camera after our trip a few weeks back.

I don't think this patio has ever looked so clean! Now if only we could trust Lillian to wash our dishes, we'd be set.