Growing up before our eyes!

Jeremy and I were just talking this morning over coffee about how fast Harper is growing up. She is already 16 months old, trying to talk, climbing on everything and extremely independent. Right now she is all about feeding herself, "reading" to herself, walking by herself and if she could she'd probably change her diaper by herself... Before we know it, Jeremy is going to be walking her down the aisle!

We love, love, love the spirit and love for life that Harper has! There is never a dull moment with her, whether she's laughing or crying. We are reminding ourselves to cherish every day and every change we experience with her as this time is precious. Here are a few pictures of what Harper's been up to lately.

Yes, that's our daughter with ALL of my credit cards in hand. Shopping spree anyone??
Harper has adopted the Rice Krispies box as her own "possession"... We don't dare try to join in. She walks all over the house with it, leaving her mommy sweeping quite often!
Since we don't have a swimming pool, we make up our own water fun for Harps.
Harper LOVES to pretend to drink coffee like mama and dada. Don't worry folks, it's empty!
Harper is into wearing whatever clothes of mama's that she can find within reach.
Hats were the old obsession... now on to wearing sunglasses!

Here's Harper about a month ago, wearing mama's sunglasses and trying to talk. We have found that she isn't shy to "try" to say whatever we suggest to her - for good or bad ;)

Sweet Family Time

Over the past few weeks, we have been blessed to have both my cousin and my mom come to visit us. Family means so much to me, so to get a double-dose over two weeks was wonderful!

My cousin Kelly took her sacred vacation time and stayed with us for a week. It was wonderful to spend time with her and get to know her sweet heart even more. Harper especially LOVED Kelly and even said her name by the middle of the week! I took her around to see different parts of San Diego, we went running often, cooked together, and had many great conversations!

One of our favorite nights... we took Kelly out to the hotel Del in Coronado for drinks, yummy food and a gorgeous sunset.
Love this girl ;)
We had lunch up in La Jolla and walked around seal beach. So much fun!

My mom came the following weekend for a few days while Jeremy was away, which gave us an all girls weekend! It was a special time for Harper to spend some quality time with her Mimi and for me to get some much needed "mama time" too. My mom means the world to me - she is my best girlfriend, easy to spend time with and always an encouragement. Thank you mom for loving Harper and I so much on this memorable trip!

Harper gave her Mimi lots of sweet kisses, which Mimi says was her favorite part.
The three of us girls enjoyed going to the park to eat lunch and play before Mimi had to fly home.
Harper and Mimi shared a "baba" moment, which are becoming few and far between.
Mimi made Harper laugh harder all weekend than I had heard in a while...

Trying out Specialty Produce

These past couple of weeks, I have tried buying some of our produce through a local company called Specialty Produce: www.specialtyproduce.com. For the everyday consumer they offer something called the "farmer's market bag". Each week it contains an assortment of fresh, seasonal produce from multiple California farms and farmers. The cost is only $20. For many, it poses a challenge and excitement as you don't know what your bag will contain until the day before it's ready for pickup. So... creativity and spontaneity is a must.

Since we had heard from a few others that it was a lot of produce to get in one week, we decided to share the bag with our friends Brad and Kristy Heinrichs. Here are a few of things I made using recipes from http://allrecipes.com. If you haven't used this site, it's great for finding recipes according to the ingredients you have.

I forgot to take a picture, but with a bunch of arugula we received we made a homemade arugula pesto sauce and put it over pasta. It was beautiful and had a nice spicy bite to it from the arugula.

This is a salad I threw together with a number of greens we received in our "bag" that I can't even begin to name. We added tangerine slices from our yard as well as some dried cranberries and walnuts (for their omega-3's).
Zuppa Toscana. This soup reminded me of something you'd find in Eastern Europe. The ingredient I was trying to use was kale. It was a yummy combo of potatoes, kale, onion, chicken sausage, broth, and a bit of cream.
Radish spread. This picture doesn't do it justice. It's a mixture of cream cheese with lots of radishes, garlic, salt and pepper. Wonderful on sandwiches and broiled bread.
Roasted beets. They were supposed to have goat cheese crumbles, but I forgot to pick it up. It was still delicious!

I can't say that we'll always buy our produce this way, but I highly enjoyed the challenge of trying new recipes and eating LOTS of greens and things I might not otherwise purchase. If you're up for an eating adventure... go ahead and give it a try!