Getting the hang of it

I almost titled this post, "So big," to go along with this adorable pic of Hayden at her last dance class, but ended up switching it to "Getting the hang of it" to sum up the whole thing. My "big girl" (please don't refer to her as a baby anymore, although she will always be my baby) is getting the hang of doing so many things herself, while I, too, have been adjusting to her independence.

She was excited to go to her dance class last Tuesday (quite a change from her first lesson), lined up with the rest of the girls and even guided one of the more hesitant ballerinas into the classroom. Her teacher said she participated the whole time and was all smiles. Bravo!

Hayden is quite the artist these days, insisting on doing this Melissa and Doug painting project she received as a gift quite some time ago. She totally took charge of the painting part, but allowed me to use the glitter glue to write her name (although she has made writing her name a goal for herself by the time she starts preschool in the fall. I'll be really impressed it she does it by then, because she is only 2 at the moment).

Then, she went right back to glittering and gluing the embellishments onto her heart-shaped box. She was really proud of herself.

Hayden also said she was proud of me taking pics of my smoothies with her and Jacob's stuffed animals. She is more impressed with the cute pictures than the fact that I've almost made it to the end of Charissa's July Colourful Smoothie Challenge. I only have a handful to go and I'll have had/tweeted all of Charissa's smoothies (you get extra points for making her smoothies); that's a smoothie everyday this month.

In case you missed it, here's what I made and tweeted since my last post, starting with Charissa's Supercharged Green Smoothie. I had my Kermit the Frog puppet pose with it, since he is almost as old as I am. You wouldn't know it, though; must be all those greens :-)

Then, to tackle my case of the Mondays, I veganized Charissa's Mocha Manipulation Smoothie by substituting cashew "cheese" in place of the cottage cheese. I was bouncing off the walls like Elmo.

I was still craving chocolate on Tuesday, so I couldn't resist a vegan version of Charissa's Dark Chocolate Protein Shake (actually it is her cousin's recipe) made with cashew "cheese" and a flax "egg." Our stuffed Otter from a local museum seemed to be after my Gnosis Chocolate garnish. We plan on going to that museum and visiting my grandma next week. Thanks for the reminder Mr. Otter.

Jacob's Shark Boy attacked Charissa's Strawberry Pineapple Smoothie. It was really refreshing after a day of swimming Wednesday.

A dip in the pool really made me crave an extra smoothie, so I whipped up another one. I don't believe it counts as bonus points, but I couldn't resist taking a pic of my PBberry Smoothie (peanut butter, blackberries, almond milk and Perfect Fit protein powder) with this adorable little face.

I thought we'd go swimming again on Thursday, so I made my #colourfulsmoothie early. Charissa's Green Goodness Smoothie veganized with coconut yogurt was really good. Instead of swimming, we went to the movies to see "Ice Age: Continental Drift." The kids loved it.

This morning, I had Charissa's "Beary" Purple Smoothie (obviously, I changed the name a bit, due to the Care Bear in the pic) veganized again with cashew "cheese" and sprinkled with a little flax on top to make it gluten-free (hers has wheatgerm). Harmony Bear is sporting her cute little headband, which looks like she's ready to run a race. I'm in the homestretch. My fingers are still crossed that I meet my goal :-)