Good eats - January

It seems a bit shameful to post an entry titled "Good eats - January" on the 7th day of February, but that's a clue as to the insane pace of life I have been experiencing in the Wilson household lately. Combine my teaching a challenging new graduate-level course for the first time this semester, with commuting 80+ miles to work 2X a week, with being a solo parent 90% of the time because it is Scott's busy season, with John playing several sports, with Amelia's ballet and her DI team practices and all of the work that comes from maintaining a household with active kids in the mix and the days just fly by. I know I try hard and I try to be as productive and efficient as I know how to be, but sometimes it's just really hard to manage it all. And then I get behind and wonder where the month went.

A great thing - John turned 7 yesterday! I am happy to say that we celebrated properly and with lots of love. Photos and details of John's birthday event to come.

But to pick up where I started off over a week ago with this draft post, let me tell you about some of the fabulous meals we cooked in our household during January. Scott and I both express our (modest amounts of) creativity through cooking. Our professions are relatively square and straight-laced so cooking is where the love and fun is for us. For Scott it's the grill. Boy, can Scott grill like no other! Anyone who has been a guest in our house for a meal knows this. Scott specializes in grilled meat, and ever since he acquired his beloved Green Egg Scott has been in grilling heaven. I am more of a savory side dish and sometimes baker type of girl. I love to read cooking blogs and I regularly peruse my beloved Cooking Light magazine and blogs to tag ideas for side dishes to accompany Scott's grilled items. Because of our crazy during the week schedules, we tend to cook primarily on weekends and use leftovers and crock-pot soups and stews cooked on the weekends as supplements for meals during the week.

Here are some of our favorites from January. I neglected to take photos of our creations and instead am using links to each recipe source below.

We loved this amazing Asian slaw salad: "Lawn Mower Salad" from allrecipes.com (link: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/lawn-mower-salad/detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Title&e11=asian%20slaw&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e13=A%3aSearch%20Results-List%28control%29&e7=Recipe))

The salad was made with steamed broccoli, sautéed Asian vegetables such as carrots, onion, broccoli slaw and ginger, marinated with a rice vinegar, olive oil, garlic and ginger dressing. We served it with grilled shrimp that had been marinated in a ginger/lime marinade and teriyaki grilled salmon. Perfect! I enjoyed the salad leftovers with leftover grilled chicken from a different meal and this was a perfect take to work lunch.

Other amazing side dishes included: "Braised Broccoli with Orange and Parmesan" from 101cookbooks.com (link:http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/braised-broccoli-with-orange-and-parmesan-recipe.html). I know it sounds strange to combine these ingredients, but let me tell you this was just fantastic. We both loved the sweet citrus flavor and aroma with the broccoli veggie flavor combined with the salty but subtle parmesan. We served this with orange/jalapeño marinated grilled chicken. Wonderful! Try it - you will be amazed.

From Southern Living magazine: "Roasted Sweet Potato and Onion Tart"
(link: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/sweet-potato-onion-tart-50400000123967/).

So amazing and lovely. The recipe calls for melted gruyere cheese baked in the tart! What more is there to say? I think this was served originally alongside grilled steak, though I can attest that the leftover tart was eaten alone for my (solo) dinner several times later that week. Yummy!

Besides the exploration into new side dishes to accompany Scott's grilled items, I have been enjoying trying out new breakfast foods as well. Breakfast has traditionally been a packaged cereal meal for me (I love the 'boring' cereals such as Rice Krispies, Wheaties, Grape Nuts, Rice Chex), though due to a new fitness regimen I have been trying during January I have been experimenting with non-cereal breakfasts as well. Incorporating non-cereal options this month has been surprisingly fun and a big success for me!

The recipe stand-outs from my experiment? I have two.

First up: Morning Glory muffins from Cooking Light. (link: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/morning-glory-muffins-10000001634764/)  Isn't that muffin in the photo below just gorgeous?

I followed the recipe closely but substituted dried apricots for the dates. I LOVE these muffins and plan on making them a regular part of my diet. I ate half during the first week and have the other half stashed in the freezer for take-to-work breakfast items. I eat a muffin with a large bowl of fresh citrus fruit that I prep on the weekends: grapefruit (love the Texas grapefruit this winter!), fresh Navel orange segments, and blueberries or blackberries (depending on what our market allows).

Last but not least: Peanut butter no bake bars. Oh. WOW! These are a great breakfast item or late afternoon snack. I absolutely cannot believe I made my own granola bars (from scratch!), and I almost cannot believe I even wanted to try them. I didn't know how to find some of the seeds on the recipe list, nor could I understand that they would even be tasty. It was all foreign to me, but I gave it a try and am glad I did. I am loving eating these bars this week as an afternoon snack! They help to make the 40+ mile commute home @ 4:00 p.m. more tolerable. :-) (Link: http://www.fannetasticfood.com/recipes/no-bake-peanut-butter-granola-bars/).

Please give me more side dish and breakfast recipe ideas! I love to experiment in the kitchen. Bring it on!

Make a Wish Fundraiser

This year Amelia is participating in a group activity called Destination Imagination (DI). DI is organized through the elementary school where students of the same grade can self-select to participate as a team in a city-wide competition. Amelia's school is sponsoring three fourth grade DI teams this year, each comprised of about 7 or 8 students. Amelia's group has held weekly meetings since November to improve their ability to work together as a team and to plan their final challenge project that they will present at the city-wide competition. The kids like Amelia who choose to be a part of DI are (from my observations) independent and strong-minded, out-of-the-box thinkers, who are creative and like to solve puzzles. 

Amelia's DI team was provided with six challenge outlines to choose from for their city-wide competition. I can't remember what all of the challenges were, but some involved building robots with limited materials, analyzing the speed of wind using homemade balloons, and performing an impromptu skit based on hints provided by a live audience. Amelia's team voted on their favorite and finally selected the challenge called "Project Outreach" where they were called upon to plan and execute a fundraiser to raise money for a community organization. They had to conduct the fundraising activity themselves, film and document their work, and prepare a 15 minute presentation on what they did to share at the city-wide competition. Nearly all decisions were to be made by the DI team, and parents of the team members and the DI team director were not permitted to provide many solutions to obstacles faced in executing the challenge.

Amelia's group selected the Make A Wish Foundation as their charitable organization. In January the group had a meeting with one of the directors of the local Make A Wish chapter, where they learned first-hand about what the charity does and how their DI group could help to raise money and awareness of the organization. After this meeting Amelia's group decided to hold a carnival as a fundraising event for Make A Wish. The kids advertised their fundraising event at school (with posters and skits they performed on the morning news TV broadcast in each classroom) and executed it last Sunday in a city park across the street from the elementary school. Most of the carnival patrons ended up being siblings and family members of the DI team and other 4th graders who came to support their friends. Below two members of the group are waving signs at cars passing by, and you can see the park was decorated with balloons and a Make A Wish banner.

The carnival had three stations: "Guess How Many" (guess the number of candies in a jar and if the guesser was within 5 of the number of items he got to keep the candy jar), "Beanbag Toss" (pictured below), and "Pie in the Face". The kids decided on the price participants would pay for each station and they (and their parents) brought all of the supplies. Below John (wearing #9 from his soccer game earlier that afternoon) is paying to participate in the beanbag toss.

Amelia manned the "Guess How Many" station for awhile and she had so much fun with this. We brought the container of Valentine Sweetheart candies on the right and another child brought a huge jar of jellybeans. No one guessed the number of hearts so we now have this gigantic container of sugar in our kitchen, which Amelia and John are happy to enjoy. Can you believe there were 1,300+ hearts in the container?

"Pie in the Face" was by far the most popular station. The kids loved this! Members of the DI group volunteered to be the recipients of the whipped cream pies (each in 20-minute shifts). Note that Amelia did NOT volunteer for this station because she thought it would be "gross" to be covered in whipped cream. Below William is getting pied by his older brother.

John enjoyed placing the whipped cream pie on Isabel's face.

The thing about DI is that the focus is on kids making the decisions and executing their project. I really appreciate this and at the same time realize that I don't think I could ever be the parent team leader because of how hands-off you have to be. When Amelia came home from her weekly meetings and shared the group's ideas for the carnival, I would think things like why on earth would kids pay $2 to pie a DI kid in the face? Or how can those three carnival stations be fun to attract people for the fundraiser? I doubted some of their choices and wanted to offer suggestions that I thought would improve the event, but hesitated because I knew that wasn't permitted. If I were the leader I would have a hard time biting my tongue all the time.

All in all the event was a smashing success. The carnival raised $301, which the kids were absolutely thrilled with! Most of the money raised came from the prices charged for participating in each station though one person driving by the park stopped and offered $30 as a flat donation. The kids were screaming with joy when the woman did that and overall they were so proud of their efforts. The team also set up a website (through the Make A Wish fundraising platform) where they are soliciting flat donations from family members, and the online fundraising total will be added to the $301 for the face value of the large check they present to Make A Wish next month.

Now the DI group is meeting to make decisions about how they will edit their video and construct their presentation for the city-wide challenge event that will be held at the end of February. I'll report back on how that event goes and how Amelia's DI group executed the rest of the work involved. It is so much fun watching Amelia get excited about the DI challenges and to see how animated she is when she comes back from spending a couple of hours each Sunday afternoon with this amazing group of kids.

Odds and ends

Remember how John lost a tooth last Wednesday evening and I forgot to play tooth fairy that evening? Well, wouldn't you know that John lost another tooth on Friday evening. It went down like this.

John accidentally hit the tooth against furniture in the living room Friday night and it started bleeding immediately. John was complaining of pain, and when I asked him how wiggly the bleeding tooth was he answered "very". Scott then told him that the tooth would need to be removed before his Saturday morning basketball game because "he didn't want a loose tooth to distract him from playing his best game". So then Scott ordered me to pull the tooth. I said "no way, basketball is not going to dictate when John loses his tooth. Let's let this come out on its own." And then John reached his hand in his mouth, yanked hard on the tooth, and said, "I'll just get it myself. Done."

Wow. And now John looks like this.

Lovely! John looks like he is growling but really this was an attempt at a very wide smile that would show off the gaping hole in his mouth. And so did I remember to play tooth fairy? Yes, but with a second chance at 4:00 a.m. when I woke in the middle of the night to use the restroom early Saturday morning. I can't believe I almost forgot again before going to bed but am so thankful I could make it happen in time. All I want for Christmas next year is a working memory.

Amelia wrote the most adorable story last week. Amelia loves to write short stories but she doesn't share them with me often. Last week Amelia shared with me that she was starting to use a website called "quizilla" where kids can write stories and quizzes for other people to read or take and then comment on them. This website looks innocent enough but I'll continue to watch over her shoulder when she is sites like this to make sure she isn't getting into trouble.

The first photo is a screen shot of the story with the text typed as she wrote it below blown up to a larger font size.

Leo

Created by StarMoon4529

Based on my kitten, Leo.

Created by StarMoon4529 on Saturday, January 12, 2013

"Merrow!"Leo sprang onto my bed with his powerful hind legs. Wow, I thought to myself. I had no idea my kitten could do such a thing. I snached the laser-pointer off my dresser and shone the light on the carpeted floor. Leo immidiatly fell into its trance. He chased after it, tail high in the air. I laughed. "You silly boy!" I cooed. He sprang into m lap. When I started to pet him, he purred as if he had a signal to. He acted so young, just llike I did. I'm nine years old, but acted like I was five. Leo is 3 1/2 and acted like, well, his age. Loe's purring interupted my thoughts. "You've got a loud moter, don't you?" I asked. He mewed in response. Again, his eyes transfixed on the dot. I waved it, and Leo's head followed it. Just a typicail Saterday with my cat, I thought.

Tooth Fairy Drama

I made some major mom-mistakes in the last 24 hours. Actually one mistake was very recent and one occurred long ago, but both have been brought to my attention in the last 12 hours so I am very sensitive to my faults right now.

Yesterday John lost one of his two upper front teeth. Finally! This tooth had been wiggly for over a month and was hanging on by a dear thread. This tooth was so loose that the outer enamel actually turned a mild shade of blue/brown in the past few days, presumably from the dead nerve fibers that had severed between the gums and the tooth.

I have no idea if that last sentence above is true or not (the part about the nerve fibers being dead causing the colors), but the slightly blue/brown color was not appealing at all and I refuse to accept John's claim that the color was due to a cavity inside the tooth. John passed a dentist's check-up with flying colors about a month ago, so I don't think it was a cavity.

Anyway, John eagerly left his tooth next to his bed last night and when I tucked him in and turned out the light I mentally made a note, "come back in about an hour and half and play tooth fairy".

This is where the mom-mistake part comes in. I am sure you can guess. I completely forgot to play tooth fairy last night. This was my first time missing this fun opportunity in about 10 teeth's time.

I left John's room and immediately became involved in dealing with work-related issues that were causing me stress, and then gave up and retired to bed after about an hour of that. The thought to go back in to John's room and deliver the tooth fairy's reward never crossed my mind once after I closed the door.

So of course I felt like such a bad momma this morning when John declared, "mom, would you believe this? The tooth fairy never even came to my room last night!" immediately upon this morning's wake-up call. I tried to save face and state that perhaps the tooth fairy was too overwhelmed to visit every kid that lost a tooth on Wednesday that very night, and that maybe he should just leave it by his bed another night to see if she would come again.

John didn't seem to mind too much that his reward wasn't there, which was somewhat comforting to me. Though he did check for the $$ immediately upon coming home from school today, and the lack of tooth fairy reward was mentioned again during dinner. I swear I am getting up from this computer in about five minutes to deliver the reward. No way I am forgetting tonight!

So what is the second mom-mistake, you may wonder? Well, after talking about the lack of tooth fairy reward in the car this afternoon on the way home from school, once we arrived home Amelia immediately asked if she could please talk with me privately in the guest room, away from John. I obviously said sure, and then heard the following.

"Mom, remember when I lost that last tooth, the one on the top? Well, I was trying to fall asleep that night and I woke up when you walked down the hall and came into my room. I mean, I heard you coming and that is what woke me up, and I was sleepy but I know that you were the one to put the money in my pillow late in the night. So what I am trying to tell you is that I know you left me the money. I know that you are the tooth fairy. And that is OK, I just didn't want for John to hear this."

Such a mixture of sting and pride as Amelia proudly declared these words to me! I mean, on one hand, Amelia looked so proud that she could just tell me in a normal conversation that she was all grown up and didn't believe in the tooth fairy anymore, but that she was glad that she did believe at some point. I told her first that I was sorry for being loud in her room that evening, and then I asked her if she understood why parents play pretend with the tooth fairy idea, stating that it was to be exciting for young children and really magical and fun. Amelia said that yes she understood, and then she gave me a hug and said something like, "don't worry, mom, I understand and I think it's great". Before we left the room we both promised to keep up the gig for John, which Amelia was immediately on board with.

I kind-of felt a little sad that Amelia doesn't believe anymore, but I know that this was probably overdue and just a matter of time. She probably doesn't believe in Santa either, but is just playing along so as no to spoil the fun for the rest of the family. The mom-mistake is not in Amelia knowing the truth, but was in my lack of being discreet in my tooth fairy role so that she would believe for a longer time.

Now...off to deliver the tooth fairy's reward (five dollars!) and to dispose of the ugly brown/blue tooth for good.

Amazing films

Due to a random set of events, I am happy to say that this year I have seen two of the films nominated for the Academy Award's Best Picture Award. I don't have the chance to see films that often in the movie theater (or I suppose I should say that I choose not to shell out $50+ for a sitter to attend a movie in the theater that often), so when I have the rare opportunity to see a movie in the theater I want it to be an intense, high-quality film. I want it to be an amazing experience that completely transforms my mind and takes me out the normal day-to-day element for two+ hours.

I am so content with the two Academy Award-nominated films I was able to see in the theater this year. Both were extraordinary and went way beyond my expectations for enjoyment.

First up was Life of Pi. Scott and I saw this together on a date night back in early December.

I had not read the book beforehand and all I knew of the plot was what the media was reporting of the story in the few weeks after the film was released. Most "reviews" I read before we saw this film were that it was about an Indian boy on a lifeboat with a tiger, and that the film had extraordinary scenery and cinematography. I was prepared to enjoy the movie itself but wasn't entrenched in the story at all.

So I didn't know about the surprise ending, or the multiple story-line parallels that were revealed at the end of the film. This film was stunning, both visually and mentally, and Scott and I both agreed that is was quite fantastic. I thought about this movie for weeks on end afterwards and plan to read the book someday soon (Scott gave it to me as a Christmas gift because we both enjoyed the movie so much). Definitely a must-see in the theater because of the stunning visual elements on the big screen. 

Perhaps more surprising - because it was so enjoyable - was Silver Linings Playbook. I saw this movie alone tonight. I am on a trip for work and decided to treat myself to a movie tonight after the conference was over before I fly home early tomorrow morning.

A girlfriend of mine had told me that this movie was good, but after I watched the trailer online I wasn't convinced that it sounded that interesting. Boy was I wrong. I LOVED this film!

Silver Linings Playbook is a fantastic story with an intricate plot that is interwoven on multiple dimensions. I have seen some media outlets advertise it as a "date move", which is kind-of is, it's also a comedy and a drama and a romance all rolled into one. I laughed out loud over a dozen times, nearly cried twice, and didn't want the movie to end. It was a two hour film and I didn't want the movie to end, it was that good. The acting was phenomenal. Probably not necessary to see this one on the big screen, but it is definitely a fantastic film that will blow your mind away.

Have you seen any of the Academy Award-nominated films? Any recommendations for other movies I should see - in the theaters or not - in the near future?

Leo's story

As I mentioned before, it was John's idea to make the kitten that Scott had approved for Amelia his gift to her. Though I initially thought that John should give Amelia a real live kitten on Christmas morning, my mom talked me out of that idea and suggested that perhaps instead John should give Amelia toys for the kitten and a "certificate" that she could use to select her own pet.

Turns out my mom was spot on with this recommendation. John had a blast selecting the toys and Amelia loved selecting Leo, who is just the right pet for her. What on earth would I have done with a kitten for two days in my house (hiding it from the children) before Christmas anyway?

So this is how things played out on Christmas morning. John had created a package of four wrapped items for Amelia, which were labelled with #1-4. The first three packages contained cat toys and the fourth was an envelope that contained a message from John.

Below Amelia is about to open the first package. John is overseeing the opening, clearly interested in how she interprets the first packages that would be opened before the note.

And...Amelia realizes that she has just opened a toy for a cat. It is a green felt mouse attached to a plastic pole (which coincidentally is one of Leo's favorite toys). I think she looks puzzled yet intrigued here.

Next Amelia opens another cat toy. This time it is another felt mouse, this one with feathers and filled with cat nip.

The third package contained a package of plastic balls filled with bells. From Amelia's smile below I bet she knew what was going on!

 The letter ("certificate") from John was in the fourth envelope and I typed the text below the photo since the photo is blurry.

Dear Amelia, This note is good for a kitten. You get to pick it out! Merry Christmas! Love,
John.

So. cute. And Amelia absolutely loved it!

And the kids still adore Leo and all is good.

This last photo is from Christmas day hours after the gift opening was complete. I forgot to post it earlier. Can you believe that we had that much snow, when the weathermen were predicting a flurry, if we were lucky?

It wasn't much (1-2 inches), but I am impressed that after living in Dallas for seven Christmas days we have experienced two white Christmases. Statistically they do not come often, but we have sure enjoyed each one!

Happy New Year...time to meet Leo!

Greetings and Happy New Year to all!

Before I write this post I feel like I want to first make an apology to my cousin Kim, who is the mom to the most adorable toddler named Leo. Kim (and other Grimes relatives who are reading this), please be assured that the naming of Leo is completely a coincidence.

Now...meet Leo!

Leo is a three month-old kitten that we adopted from the SPCA the day after Christmas. Leo was actually John's Christmas gift to Amelia, which was permitted as a gift to Amelia after John received the blessing from Scott that our family was ready for a new pet. John remembered that Amelia had asked for a new pet in her letter to Santa, and he repeated time and time again that if he was allowed to select a gift for Amelia that it should be a kitten. (I loved hearing John say this...so cute!)

Rest assured that adopting Leo was a VERY serious deliberation for our family. Scott is not a cat person at all and he endured a lot with Heine before she passed this year. (Background: Heine was my 17 year-old cat that I adopted during my last year of college and that Scott had a love/hate relationship with ever since he and I first met). I really give huge kudos to Scott for being open-minded to move forward and realize that the children are ready for a new pet, despite his disinterest in the discomforts that come with having pets in the home (having the potential for hair everywhere, removing the cat from the kitchen counter during food prep, etc.).

In all honesty, Leo is a good little cat. He immediately bonded with Amelia during our visit at the SPCA and he has been great in our home since he first arrived. Leo consistently uses the litter box (Scott is so happy with this!) and hasn't been a nuisance in our home life. While he is a typical playful and spunky kitten, he is also very cuddly and sweet. Having had both older cats and younger kittens, I hadn't realized the impact each type of cat would have on kids that only knew one or the other. Amelia and John are constantly surprised by the silly playfulness of Leo, which is something that I completely take for granted.

So where did his name come from? The name the SPCA had on record for Leo was "Lion-O", which (deservedly) Amelia was not crazy about. We told her that she was free to choose any name she wanted for the cat, reminding her that Leo was not old enough to have bonded with a particular name yet. But before we left the shelter, Amelia had decided that she liked the name Leo because it was "cute, yet appropriate for a boy kitten, and close enough to his old name that he wouldn't be confused".

Expect to see much more of Leo in the future! He is a great addition to our family!