All That Fruity Goodness

Katelyn took this amazingly blurry picture of me, about to experience my first taste of Star Fruit. Don't look at it too long or you will start to get a headache. So what did this little beauty taste like? Well, I'm not sure if it was exactly ripe yet, but I can only describe it as a watered-down combination of apple, pear, grape and new sneakers. No, I'm not joking. It really tasted the same way that a new pair of sneakers smells, fresh out of the box...with a hint of fruity-ness. Like I said, it probably wasn't ripe yet. But all flavors aside, there's just something cool about eating a star-shaped fruit.

Want to Hear Some Good News?

Last time I was at the store I bought some Star Fruit. I've never had it before, but it reminded me of Adam. He used to eat it on his mission in Miami and the Florida Keys. He talks about it sometimes, and I thought it'd be fun to finally get some. We ended up eating it for an impromptu weeknight celebration. It seemed fitting since we were celebrating a major achievement of one of the "stars" in my life: Adam. Or should I say DOCTOR Adam...becaue his license number finally came in the mail! Now it is official and the whole world can call him "Doctor". That is our good news. Way to go Babe! We are all VERY proud of you! Today and every day.

Now lets all head on over to the cutest little Chiropractic blog you ever did see! Lovingly maintained by Dr. Adam himself. Check it out HERE.

The L.A. Zoo

It was a beautiful day at the LA Zoo last weekend. Not too sunny, but not too cold. We went with our friends Adam and Marlene. Katelyn was excited to be able to call someone "Adam" because we always make her say "Daddy" to our Adam. She thinks they must be twins since they have the same name. Anyway, Adam and Marlene will be leaving us in just a few short months. Sad but true. They will be moving on to bigger and better things. Oh well...just as long as they come back for Disneyland every once in a while.

And now...on with the zoo.

Here is Zachy with the sea lions...or are they seals? Look closely and you can see one of them swimming out from behind Zach's right ear.

That didn't sound quite right...but I think you know what I mean. Me: "Which were your favorite animals?"

Kate: "The ZEBRAS!!"Me: "What was the best part about the zoo?"

Kate: "BRADEN!!" Getting crazy in the photo booth.Goodbye giraffe! It was fun hanging out with you!

Happy 9 Months LittleMan!

This month you finally learned to say "mama",

Got two new teeth (without even crying),

Learned to crawl up on your hands and knees,

Learned to wave bye-bye,

And said your first sentence (while waving): "Bu-bu, Da-da."

You say this every morning while daddy is getting ready for work.

You are too cute.

We love you Zachy!

P.S. Did you notice that we had a piano key casualty since last month?

:(

Every Rose Has Its Thorns

A crazy lady has my cell phone and all my contact information. She has been calling people on my contact list and is trying to get information out of them. Or just asking random, bizarre questions that are none of her bizzness. She doesn't want to return my phone or anything. Just trying to live my life, I guess. Creepy!

Anyway, the list is about 2 1/2-5 years old, so if you think you might have been in my contacts during that time, be on the look out. She's been identifying herself as "Rose" and calling from a (562) are code. She has information ranging from phone #s, home addresses, Email addresses and birthdays. Sorry!

I have no idea what she wants and the phone company and police can't do much about it unless she continues to harrass people or tries doing anything else otherwise illegal.

So, if you get a call from Crazy Rose, please let me know. Thanks!

Hide and Go Seek

*These two look like they're up to no good.*

We have a little car. After baby #3 we may consider upgrading, but for now we remain a close-knit family. Literally. Kate and Zach are like two little sardines in the back seat. Their car seats are right next to each other, and they face each other since Zach's seat is still backwards.

Here are a few examples of how close they are: 1. They like to hold hands while riding in the car. They make each other laugh, and that makes me laugh, too. 2. If Katelyn has her hand resting on her armrest while we snap Zach's seat into the base, she gets her fingers smashed. It's pretty sad, so we try to make sure it never happens.

Here is an example of how close they are to me: If Katelyn puts her feet up she can push them into my seat, and it is really annoying because of how much it pushes on my back.

So why all the background info? Because it makes the following conversation seem even funnier. Here is a bit of what I heard coming from the back seat of my car today. Keep in mind that both sardines are strapped in their seats as all this takes place.

Katelyn: "What should we do? Hmmm...I know! Let's play Hide-and-Seek in the car! Okay, I'll count. One...Two...Three...Four...FIVE! Hmmm...I wonder where Zachy is...?(pause)...There's Zachary! I found you!"

Zachary: (squeals with delight)

Kate: "Okay. Now Zach, you hide again. One, two, three, four, five! Hmmm. Where's Zach? Oh, there he is! I found you!"

Zach: (squeals with delight)

I heard this whole dialogue repeat, with all the original surprise and enthusiasm, about 12 more times. A few times she was seeking me instead of ZachMan, but somehow she managed to find me every time. What clever kids I am raising!

Katelyn, I love you oodles!

Happy Heart Day!

Do you have a Valentine today?

Here are mine:

Enjoy your Valentine's Day!

I Do Hair

Katelyn's hair had been getting so long I didn't know what to do with it. I was this close to chopping it all off. But just in the knick of time, a friend told me about BlackEyedSue over at She Does Hair. Not to mention, she blogs about it. I love this excerpt from her blog.

"Why I Do My Daughters Hair: For as long as I remember, I have loved pretty hair. Hair that had been combed and smoothed and placed in just the right way. I love going to church and seeing little girls looking pretty.

Then I had daughters of my own. I enjoy doing their hair. It is five to ten minutes just us. I lovingly comb out their hair and play with it and we talk. It is very intimate to me. I have had some of the best conversations with my daughters while styling their hair in the mornings."

I am all for anything that can strengthen my relationship with my daughter. And she loves to be girly and have "princess" hair, so I think I've found us a win/win situation. If you have a daughter, a niece, whatever...click here and check it out. She posts pictures and easy instructions for all her girly/fun hair creations. I love it!

Posting Confessions and the Waiting Game

It's been a long week. And I've been too lazy to post for a while. But even when I'm not posting anything, my mind is still running, trying to come up with anything blog-worthy. And then all I am left with is a bunch of cool pictures (at least I think they're cool), and a jumble of ideas.

But I don't like to post more than once a day, for fear of being excessive, so I try to limit myself. Sometimes, though, if I haven't posted for a while and I have a lot of ideas, I'll post a whole bunch of stuff all at once and back-date it so that it looks like I never missed a day. That's my post secret...so now you know.

Please excuse me while I go aspirate my son's nose...

Okay, I'm back.

And sometimes if I'm posting embarrassingly late at night, I'll even tamper with the time stamp so it looks like I posted at a more decent hour. And sometimes, if I'm scheduling a post to publish the next day, I'll time stamp it to publish really early in the morning. That way if anyone happens to notice the time stamp they will think, Wow, she was up early. She must be really organized. My dream is to be organized. But sometimes I just fake it. These are my confessions.Anyway, we spent a lot of our day waiting. In these pictures we were waiting in the doctor's office. We were goofing off just a little. The doctor was really nice, but Zachy didn't seem to like her. I wonder why...

...and after a lot of prodding, poking and tears...

Here's the verdict: Zachary has two moderate ear infections (that means one in each ear, for those of you keeping count).

Here's the prognosis: Good.Here's the treatment plan: Saline nose drops. Aspirate, aspirate, aspirate. Antibiotics. I hate being prescribed antibiotics because I'm one of those "hippies" who believe that antibiotics are over prescribed. So then I stress over making the judgement call of whether to give my kids the medicine, or whether to let their immune system fight it off alone. In the end I usually don't have the guts to go against the doctor, and this time was no different. So Zachy will be enjoying (seriously, he devours the stuff) pink raspberry/strawberry-flavored Amoxicillin for the next 10 mornings and evenings. Mmmmm...!

Is it just me, or does this post seem like it's missing something? I think I'll top it off with a cherry. But since I don't have a cherry, this poster will have to do. Is this the weirdest breast feeding poster you've ever seen? Now I'll just choose my time stamp, and voila, this post is complete.

The OC Symphony Rach-ed my Manin Off!!

I know, that joke is almost as lame as the old..."Are you going to the store? Don't forget your Chopin-Liszt (shopping list. haha...)," But in Classical music there's just not a lot of funny material to work with. Beethoven went deaf, Mozart was always poor and underappreciated, Shumann went crazy, etc, etc...

But seriously, Rachmaninoff's 3rd concerto was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! It is supposedly the most difficult piano work ever. In the movie Shine, the main character goes crazy learning it (Remember the scene? Jumping on a trampoline in a trench coat--naked?) and he passes out on stage in the middle of his performance. But the pianist last night was incredible, and thankfully he didn't pass out. His name is Nikolai Lugansky. He looks a bit Darcy-esque if you ask me.

Sorry mom, there are no photos of me. It was raining too hard outside for us to stick around for any photo ops, but I wore the dress on the top right (see yesterday's post) with black leggings to protect against the cold.

After the concert we went to Fashion Island for a little Cheesecake Factory with Ryan and Genette and talked about how wonderful the concert was. The big question of the night (other than: How in the world did he memorize all that music?) was: Do you think he enjoys playing the music as much as we enjoy hearing it? But I guess for the answer we'd have to ask Mr. Lugansky himself.

What Not to Wear?

We scored some comp tickets to the symphony tonight. They're performing Rachmaninoff's 3rd concerto and Brahms' 3rd symphony. I'm so excited! But I don't know what to wear. The last time I went to the symphony (okay, besides Chico State) was in San Francisco, and I wore the same outfit I'm wearing below.

(This picture was from High School. The guy I'm linking arms with was high and I had to support him the whole time so he could walk in a straight line and not stumble. By the look on my face you'd think I adored him, but in reality I was pretty bugged!)

Anyway, that is what I wore to the symphony and the guy I was with was in a tux. We took it really seriously. And most of the other people there were dressed even nicer than us. It must have been a season opener or something.

But I don't own anything fancy anymore. So after reading about how to dress for the symphony, here are some photos of the best I could come up with (see below). My clothes aren't all that great, but at least I have some really nice purses. (Thanks Genette!) One is actually a diaper bag trying to pass for a purse. Can you guess which one?

As usual, thanks for listening.

Any suggestions?

The Difference Between Girls and Boys

Kate: Mommy, this cow is a boy cow.

Me: Oh. How do you know that?

Kate: Because it doesn't have eyelashes.

Works of Art

Sometimes I think kids' art looks kind of creepy.
But sometimes I think it looks pretty cool.Katelyn drew/painted these for me while I was getting ready this morning. On one side was the finger-faces, and the other side was the watercolor. She did it all on her own. She even set up her own paints. I am proud of her.

Three-Bean Soup

Katelyn chose our dinner tonight. And when she decided that she only wanted to eat the garlic bread and not the soup, we used last week's nail polish trick again. And it worked like a charm...again. I'll post the recipe, but first I'll post the reasons why it is a good one.

1. yummy
2. cheap
3. healthy
4. filling
5. easy
6. fast

Are you sold on it yet? Here it is:

Three-Bean Soup

1 tbsp EVOO
1 small onion (yellow is good), chopped
2 (or more) carrots, diced
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes, including liquid
salt and pepper
1 15.5 oz can chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained
1 15.5 oz can cannelloni beans (aka white beans), rinsed and drained
1 15.5 oz can kidney beans, rinsed and drained

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over med-high heat. Add the onion and carrots and cook until tender, about 5 min.

Stir in the tomatoes and their liquid, 2 cups water, 1 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp pepper and bring to a boil. Add the chickpeas and beans and cook until heated through, about 3 min.

Done.

We like to eat it with garlic french bread.

Modern Day Miracles

For anyone who refuses to believe in modern day miracles, get a load of this. Last week Zachary cut two new teeth in one night...And he didn't even wake up! If that's not a miracle then I don't know what is.

I Think I'll Pass