In the Nick of Time

Mama decided to run to pick CJ up from school today. We hung out for a bit and then ran home. After a few minutes we heard some strange noises and looked outside to this crazy hail storm we had luckily missed.

Something Out Of Nothing

CJ loves to take things and use them for other purposes when playing. She can keep herself busy for hours making her animals/dolls/etc. talk and act things out. Here she pulled the old crib bolsters off her bed and was playing with some of her stuffed animals. She always asks me to take pictures of her and I am happy to oblige.

Cheetah Run 2010

Practicing her stride:

(notice the MJ tongue sticking out)

On the muddy course with Mama:

(no, the bumpy, muddy off-leash dog park at PIR was not as nice as last year's run at the zoo)

Showing off her medal and second face painting in as many days:

Her favorite part? One of the radio stations had a tent set up and they were giving away little notebooks and pens. She was busy writing and drawing all the way home.

Hop, Hop

The weather was nice so we walked down to the Pearl District for their annual Bunny Hop. On the way, we stopped at both a lemonade stand and a yard sale - where CJ was given a sparkly purple necklace. The hop seemed more crowded this year, but we were lucky enough to score the second to the last pair of bunny ears, face paint, some candy, a bunny pinwheel, etc. CJ's friend and her family joined us for a bit. Of course, CJ's favorite part was likely the ice cream stop.

Deadlines

Apparently all Mama needs is a deadline to push her to get something done. Well a deadline and the threat of increased costs. Turbo Tax said they were going to raise rates at midnight tonight so after deferring it all week, Mama finally got everything together and finished the taxes up late this afternoon. Thanks to the Flubber, CJ was happy and entertained next to Mama at the table for most of the process.

Flubber

We finally gathered all the ingredients we needed to make flubber. We just made a half batch, but it was pretty easy and not as messy as we had thought it might be.

It kept CJ busy for quite a while as she squeezed it and cut it with her cookie cutters. Gave Mama a bit of time for the taxes.

Oldie, But Goodie

Tonight Mama made this pasta recipe for dinner. It's one Daddy found in a cookbook many years ago. It's so easy and good and doesn't take long to put together. We'll have to remember this.

Checklist

Here's the checklist CJ created for the dog walk. We need the key, leashes, poop sacks, 2 girls (CJ and Mama), 1 boy (Daddy), and 2 puppies.

Spring Has Sprung

Lots of outside time. We spent the morning at a park with friends and the afternoon in the yard. CJ shedded her long sleeved shirt and tights. We even needed sunscreen. We love this weather (although it kept us from hitting the zoo this morning since we couldn't even get off the freeway at that exit due to the crowds!). We tried to have dinner outside with the neighbors, but the restaurant we chose wasn't serving outside yet. Soon...

Fairy

Today a fairy sock doll came home from puppet camp. This one has pipe cleaner arms so you can bend them and it allows her to hold her magic wand. She has a skirt and wings and crazy hair.

Here's Fairy and Lovey together.

Once again, CJ had a great day. It was warm and sunny and they walked over to a park for a break. She wanted to take Mama there this afternoon to show her something "dangerous".

Puzzle Girl

We picked up this fairy puzzle, complete with a nice tin for the pieces, at a garage sale on our way home from downtown Saturday. Mama had been meaning to get some puzzles with more pieces and this one has 100 pieces. CJ and Daddy put it together while Mama fixed dinner.

Lovey

Today CJ attended a Spring Break Puppet Camp at this cute little school inside the Childrens Theatre. She made "Lovey", this sock puppy. The teachers said they were impressed with her sewing abilities, but we are sure that they were inherited from both of her Grandmas. She wanted to make a leash for Lovey and when she came home she spent a few more hours drawing and cutting and stapling. Hence the markers all over her face. When I asked her about the camp she said she loved it!

Pinkalicious Goes Hiking

We spent the day in the mountains, visiting the beautiful cabin some friends have remodeled. They showed us their favorite hike (where we took the pictures), got the kids out for a quick bike ride, treated us to yummy lunch and dinner and even had a movie for the kiddos before we headed home. It wasn't quite as warm and sunny as yesterday, but we all had a great time. We can see why they wanted to have this special place for time away from home. CJ was so exhausted, she crashed as soon as we got in the car.

Do They Like Each Other?

The dogs generally avoid each other. Unless one is getting attention and the other wants some. Even in the car, they tend to get as far from each other as possible, but today they were side by side as we headed out.

Bike Season

With a warm day ahead of us, we decided to bike downtown. We hit the end of the farmers market, grabbed a bite of pizza and visited the Saturday Market, where we watched some street dancers and CJ enjoyed an ice cream in front of the fountain. CJ loves downtown. Everywhere was packed. It was like we haven't had a warm, sunny day here before.

We Groupon - Do You?

We'd heard of Groupon and then when we went to pizza last week there was a form on the counter instructing customers to show their "groupons" when ordering. So when Mama checked it out the next day and saw that they had a deal for a local restaurant we'd been meaning to try again, we signed up.

We tried it last night. The place was just so-so - crowded and loud and the waitress tried to discourage us from waiting for a table, but it was only a few minutes before we got a place. Lots of beers on tap and the food was good, but service was poor. All in all, it was better to find this out with a coupon - a pretty good deal that gave us $25 worth of food/beverages for $10 so we just had to pay the difference and the tip.

Would we do it again? Yes on the Groupon. Maybe on this place.

If you want to sign up for Groupon, let me know as I can refer you.

The White Swan

Today was CJ's first dance recital. We've been in a Swan Lake class for 10 weeks and the last day is the performance. She's been excited since we signed up for this class. Daddy was able to join us and she wore her new tutu for the occasion. Each week a child gets to be a leader of the group for several activities and today was CJ's turn. She did great. This photo is before the performance. We have some videos we'll add in a bit so check back to see her in action.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy

Ok. That's a quote CJ learned in music class, when their teacher tries to trick them as they use fun methods to learn music and how to write it.

But Mama came across this easy risotto recipe on a box of veggie broth last week and tonight we tried it. It was really easy and pretty tasty. I love one pot, one bowl meals. I used portabella mushrooms and also added some olives (kalamata and the salty black oil cured ones), sundried tomatoes, and pine nuts. Then I subbed cilantro for the parsley. Easy to make, easy to clean up. It's a keeper.

She is Learning to S-P-E-L-L

Yup. That's right. She's been writing her name for a long time. Now she is experimenting with upper and lower case letters (the future kindergarten teachers told us she should know how to write it with just a capital C and everything else lower case to be ready for K next year). She's also experimenting with a new name, Clare. Apparently a schoolmate changed her name to Clare and CJ followed that lead. It's not unusual to have her hand you a piece of art, signed by Clare. She's even claiming that she isn't going to listen to the teacher at school if he doesn't call her Clare. And it is definitely her "home name".

But, back to spelling. Sometime around Valentine's Day she really took to making cards and almost every day there is a card "To Mom" and/or "To Dad". So all those words are known. And then she was in hysterics when she called Grandma R for her birthday the other day and reported all the other words she knows how to spell including c-a-t and "n-o - it's so easy because it is only two letters!"

St. Paddy's Day Parade

It was a busy morning. When we were out for our morning run, we saw the weinermobile at a local school.

We figured something was up and we heard there was going to be a St. Paddy's Day parade in the neighborhood. We ran home and hopped on our bikes and made it down to the end of the block just in time to catch the festivities. It was a pretty short parade with lots of dogs, bagpipes and people throwing all sorts of candy and necklaces and pencils at the crowds. We actually got to see it twice as we were positioned right near the turnaround.

Here's her lucky necklace:

Since we were out we stopped at the bakery for a bit and also a park to play before heading home.

And here's the loot - almost as good as Halloween:

Is Mama Falling Apart?

It started with the eye infection and 3-4 related appointments, then Mama had an annual exam, a physical and that fun visit to urgent care on Super Bowl Sunday. Add in a renewal of my one measly prescription and I'm looking at a stack of papers almost an inch thick. And still waiting for some of the bills. Yikes. I thought I was fairly healthy.

Explorer Girl

Here's CJ showing off her work from the dog walk last night. She brought her drawing board along with us and documented the nature items we saw - leopard spot leaf, pebbles, daffodils, etc.

Healthy Eating

Mama was a little embarrassed when we went to a friend's house one day for a play date and the other mom pulled some gourmet leftovers out of the fridge for lunch. Mama's been meaning to cook a little better since we got the new kitchen done, but there's always something else vying for her time. Then every blog I visit started talking about food and recipes, so here we go on our latest kitchen creations.

Ever since we got the crock pot, we've been making this veggie chili. It's mostly canned food so only takes a few minutes to throw together and when we get home, dinner is done. Plus it makes enough to feed Mama and Daddy for a few days (yes, CJ is too picky to eat anything). With a quick trip to Trader Joe's you can make it mostly organic and pretty flavorful. We use their canned organic roasted tomatoes, organic veggie broth, organic beans, skip the lima beans and use a cup of their roasted corn (freezer section), add some fresh pepper, but also a scoop of TJ's frozen fire-roasted onions and veggies. We even skip the jalapeno, but it still tastes great. Tomorrow we are making a batch to take to a schoolmate's family as they just had a new baby. Hope they like it.

Since time is always an issue and cookbooks can be overwhelming with too many recipes, Mama ended up grabbing copies of the Whole Deal from Whole Foods. Initially we just used them for the coupons and recycled the rest, but lately Mama's found some intriguing recipes to try. First we tried the Cashew Noodles with Broccoli and Tofu and the Winter Greens with Carrots and Feta Cheese. The Greens were actually a bit tastier than the noodles. Although we do still have some greens to use up on something else.

Then we tried the Quinoa Loaf with Mushrooms and Peas this week, along with the Spring Salad with Strawberries and Creamy Orange-Avocado Dressing. They were both pretty good, but time consuming to prepare and used quite a few dishes. Peeling asparagus for the salad was a bit of a process. And Mama loves avocados, but the dressing was a bit overwhelmed by the orange juice.

In between we made Jamie Oliver's pasta with some paprika roasted cauliflower on the side. Both were very good. I wish I'd thought of putting a pan below the melting cheese in the oven as the oil ran over and made quite a bit of smoke.

And last night we made the cottage cheese and egg custards that started the whole thing. We finally bought the ramekins we needed. Mama added rosemary, green onion and fresh spinach to hers and Daddy's and they were yummy. CJ tried to resist, but ended up eating a few bites of hers, proclaiming it was good. And this was one of the easiest of all the recipes, with just a few ingredients.

For dessert, we found a secret recipe for some of our favorite chocolate chip cookies. Yum. Ok, that's not too healthy - but they do have oatmeal.

After all that cooking, we headed over to Bella tonight for pizza, salad and, of course, gelato. Guess whose turn it was to pick?

More Bunnies

She really loves these things!

It's A Rumor

That story about dogs sleeping at the foot of your bed. Little B's favorite spot is a warm piece of sheet, just vacated by her human. If the bed has already been made, she won't let that keep her from the fuzzy fleece sheets. She just digs herself a spot between the pillows and the comforter until she gets under the soft stuff. Like this:

Gummies

What is it with the gummy stuff? The other day the grocery store was giving out samples of bunny gummies. CJ couldn't wait for me to take a picture of her creation of a few bunnies smooshed together. At least these are healthy, right?

Four Minutes

That's how long CJ usually lasts awake in the car when heading home after a trip to visit Grandma W and her cousins. This time she spied a pack of lightning bugs at Grandma's and twisted her arm enough to call them her own. She stayed awake long enough for us to get gas and get on the freeway while she finished the pack of bugs. Maybe a whole six minutes.

Cousin O's Birthday

After a very sunny drive North, we headed to cousin O's birthday party. CJ had a great time at the bouncy place and enjoyed the pizza and cake before we headed over to visit with the family. Good to see everyone again.

Careers

Somehow we got on the topic of careers and what CJ might want to be when she grows up.

Mama explained that she still doesn't know what she wants to do when she grows up.

CJ replied "Well, when I grow up you're going to have to find something else to do!"

Hula Girl

OK, not the best video (Mama needs some work on her editing skills), but you can see how CJ is improving her hula skills. She made the hula hoop at the party on Sunday and it was actually sunny enough that they got to give them a spin outside. In February. Nice.

Sharing

CJ is generally pretty good about sharing. Tonight she took the great smelling daphne sample from her nature box and, along with one we found on the dog walk, she left them on the porch by her fairy house with a note she composed "For any fairy - choose one". Mama helped her spell the words, but she wrote it all by herself. She's getting pretty good at her lower case e's, don't you think?

The Crystals

CJ loves to collect things from nature. Over the weekend she and Daddy spent some time making boxes to store her nature items and her rocks. Here she is showing off some of her special crystals.