Have Kids That Don't Like Veggies? TRICK THEM!

I received a book awhile back... back when my toddler ate anything I put in front of her. At the time I thought, "My kid's a good eater. I may not need this." So I set the book aside and forgot about it... until my little angel-eater developed an opinion of food to rival the likes of the most angry food critic!
So, here I sit with that book... The Sneaky Chef by Missy Chase Lapine. This is a great book... no, really, I mean it's a GREAT book. A skim reading through it was my approach. The book provides recipes for the core purees that you use to hide veggies and fruits in your kids' foods. I keep page 96 marked at all times... that's the beginning of the purees section... She also provides specific food recipes that you can use the purees in, but I found that after my skim over her recipes, I could do my own "hiding" in my own recipes using her key tips.
This has taken so much pressure off of our meals. I no longer have to fret whether or not Grace eats her broccoli or peas... I still put veggies on her plate (I've heard the statistics that it takes an exposure of up to 20 times for a kid to eat a new food!). But if she doesn't eat the "real" veggie, I don't freak out... I know there's a couple of servings of veggies hidden in her: spaghetti, meatloaf, mac n cheese, cupcake!, you name it!! That's right, my little picky eater has heartily consumed such "nasty, disgusting" veggies as broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, collard greens, all kinds of legumes (beans), etc. He he he...
Seriously though, I'm glad to get our garden going again so that I can start sneaking my own veggies into her foods. Let the food battles begin! ...because I know I'll win... ;-)

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Work to be Done and More to Come

Another blog post on the Goff farm... I continue to prep the seedlings for planting in a few weeks. I recently transplanted them from their tiny little peat pots to a larger cup with Miracle Gro soil for an added boost. I usually don't put plants in the ground until Mother's Day weekend, but our beloved meteorologists keep telling us we're done with frosts for the year... but that doesn't mean we're done with cooler nighttime temps. Therefore, my not-so-cold tolerant plants will wait for the day on stage in the garden... tomatoes, peppers, that kind of thing. I do plan to go ahead and plant my greens bed (lettuces, spinach, etc.) and the squashes (butterstick, spaghetti, and zucchini) and cucumbers. I think the broccoli & collards are supposed to do great with cool temps as well. I still haven't found spaghetti squash seeds, lemon boy tomato seeds, and starts for sweet potato in the stores. I may just harvest my own spaghetti squash seeds. And they have lemon boy plants at the STUFFmart... i.e. Walmart. As for sweet potatoes... I've been reading up on that one. I guess you can be quite successful at making your own starts by clipping and soaking sweet potato pieces... worth looking into!

And ever since Easter and the bunny leaving a dress up kit for Grace, we've been having a big time. Grace continues to enjoy getting all dolled up and we've even donned our labrador Zelda as Princess with a tiara a few times... poor dog.

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Easter 2009

We had a fun Easter! We got up early and went to church for a sunrise breakfast before services. We also had a church cantata that morning. Mommy wore a MATERNITY dress since she's 6 months preggo now! Geez!!
Both Grandpa and Papa were out for the day. Grace got her Easter basket all full of goodies after nap time when the bunny came hopping through. Her basket had candies, bunnies, books, and Princess dress-up stuff... how GIRLY!

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Madame Blueberry

We spent the evening Thursday chasing chickens and planting blueberry bushes.
Grace did most of the chicken chasing that is... she has a ball chasing the Ladies around.


The funny thing is, they don't really seem to mind her as much as one would think they would (or should if they were smart!).



We bought four blueberry bushes to put in the ground... 2 Blueray and 2 Brigette Blueberries. Both are high bushes - that means they ground like a regular bush - not a woody vine like a blackberry bush. It will take a few years for them to start fruiting, but it will be worth it!

Most berry bushes do require a little prep time before fruiting... I know strawberries usually do (at least the larger fruiters do) as well as many raspberries... so, if you want berries anytime soon, get to planting them pronto! Next year, we plan to add strawberries and raspberries (if I can even wait that long to add them!

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Forgot to include Grace's dress-up pics...

I would be in soooooo much trouble for not posting these pictures... these are of her playing dress up and dancing in the living room upstairs... and we also painted our toenails for the first time... yep, 2 1/2 yrs old and pink toenails.
It doesn't get much girlier than these pictures... fair warning!!

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Tiny little green faces of spring...

We've been prepping the garden for planting this spring... and starting some of our plants indoors from seed... we have tiny little green faces of spring all over my kitchen. They're such happy little things... and they make me happy to see them coming up through the soil in the trays!

We've also had a lot of egg cleaning on the farm lately. "The ladies" have started laying more due to the warmer temperatures and the growing greens and abundance of bugs. That all makes for VERY happy "ladies". Grace really does help with the whole process... she helps collect the eggs, brings them in to the fridge, and helps clean and package the eggs. Yeah, we've had a few broken eggs in the process (Daddy's guilty of this as well...), but it's a great lesson for Grace - especially since all the proceeds from the egg farm go to a savings account for her (and the little one on the way). Sometimes we work her so hard that she's ready for some rest after all that cleaning and packaging!
Hope we're not breaking any child labor laws! HA!!

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Making up for time lost

...time lost to a lack of DSL!!!! Well, lightening and DSL don't like one another too well... but I'm back online, and boy do I have pictures to post!

We recently picked up our latest round of chicks for the chicken farm. We now have a dozen more little peeps on the farm... some Red Sex-Links, Aruacanas, and Golden-Laced Wyandottes. The Aruacanas will be interesting - they are called the "Easter Egg" chickens - they lay eggs that can be blue, pink, green, or shades thereof. Courtney already has his favorite chick - she's an Aruacana - her name is Greta - she has a little bit of a crooked beak. Yeah, he dotes on her... ha ha!

Spring has also arrived here in the Ozarks. Grace got a real kick out of helping me hang laundry on the line the other day. She really gets into it... it's so cute.

We also did a trial run at our blackberry smoothies - no, our blackberries aren't fruiting yet (that's a July thing), but we had some frozen from last year that we decided to get out. It was a nice reminder of the wonderful tastes of summer soon to come to the Goff farm! Yummmmmm!!

Grace has also really embraced the idea of being a cowgirl... she came out of her room the other day with hat on and riding her pony! I guess Daddy will have to get her a REAL pony someday - fat chance. (He's not a horse guy - seriously.)

And the last of the updates, Grace apparently has a new sleeping buddy. Our female cat, Stormy, has apparently gotten past all of Grace's flipping and flailing in bed, and has decided it's an A-OK place to sleep at night. How sweet...

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