the crisp connection

Hannah loves school, and enjoys practicing writing. she used her nifty white board to draw some numbers the other day.

we inherited a tiger costume the other day, which the kids love. one of the things i really want to have is a good dress up box. so much fun!

 no, we don't actually let her mow the lawn. but anything and everything patrick does, especially outside, she wants to help. it we can have the patience to let them "help", we'll have some great real helpers as they get older!

 we enjoyed a surprise visit from Sorani, our old midwife, who attended me with charlie's birth. she happens to be good friends with our current midwife. small world. smaller, actually, because the midwife i'm seeing right now is from the small town where my mom lives, in canada. anyways, sorani was in town visiting, so got to see her. it's part of what makes it so special to me, they really care how we're doing, how the kids are growing, and that she made the effort to stop by. i occasionally talk to my first one, too.

 any guesses as to what my son is begging for in this picture?

 red peppers. he had a fistful of red pepper strips, and just kept shoving them in. its strange, they'll eat nearly anything if its off the counter, while i'm cooking. put him in the highchair and put it in a bowl and he'll throw it on the floor! he's definitely a very picky eater these days. the other day i left him screaming in his highchair for 45 min, because he refused to eat his carrots. i finally just put him to bed (he fell asleep in the rocking chair :-), and then he ate the carrots happily when he woke up. soooooo stubborn!

but oh so cute! honestly!

 

the other day, Mom hannah and i headed up to another town for a special girls day. (this is where i go to the orthodontist. also has a starbucks, target, hobby lobby, bookstore, sprinkler park, and a really cute downtown with a few boutique shops and restaurants. alas, we don't live there.) there is also a family children's theatre, and we went to a play on the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Hannah really enjoyed it, keeps asking to go back. she sat still so well. We also visited Patricks Grandpa Alvin in the hospital, where he had to stay for 2 wks, after a throat surgery. but he's home now, and healing.

 

 we topped off our day with special dinner out at chilis. you should have seen hannah's face when she saw the desert we split. that girl loves her chocolate. and that's definitely nature, not nurture! i guess some things get passed down wether you want them to or not. right, mom? :-)

 yes, more food. on Good Friday we went up to another town that had an outdoor good friday service. we were a little early, so we got lunch. Its primarily an Amish/Mennonite community, so the restaurant had alot of pie. hannah got her own piece. (it came home in a takeout box and i threw it away yesterday :-)

 one of patricks relatives had this overgrown go cart deal in haviland, and he drove the kids around in it. charlie was very serious and cautious the whole time, but then when i took him out he threw a fit and tried to climb back in. he's going to be all boy!

we had fried chicken at grandma jans this weekend, finished off with cherry cobbler. of course charlie would eat nothing but rolls, so he was all about dessert.

i like fried chicken and pie, i really do. but sometimes my tongue wants something different, too :-). i'm getting the inkling that many people think Asian food = soy sauce. i'd like to debunk that myth, as even in my very basic chinese food, i find the above items essential. sesame oil, chili garlic sauce, hoisin, rice vinegar, and ponzu. and yes, i can get all of them here! and that's just chinese food. thai is a whole nother set of flavours. but patrick said we've had enough asian for awhile :-).

i did manage to squeeze in some lettuce wraps, though. messy, but soooooo good. made me want the cheesecake factory. they have the best lettuce wraps there.

i was the only one in the family to enjoy this one, my quinoa broccoli chickpea salad.  oh well.

i fnally tried tagine, or my version of it. i made it once with apricots, and once with raisins. pretty good.

charlie's on a cow kick right now. any animal is a cow. i wish i could upload video, so you could hear him emphatically contradict me when i say, no, horse. COW. horse. COW. its pretty funny.

so, tomorrow i start babysitting fulltime. we'll have 2 extra girls all day, and one little boy in the mornings. we'll get into a routine, then i'm taking 6 wks maternity leave. Next year i'll be doing preschool with Hannah and the other big sister. I read a letter to the editor, or a send us your questions thing, in cooking light the other day. The person said, I am a mother of a 2yr old, and i dont have time to make supper. A 2yr old, as in only one child. When i think about two 4yr olds (who i'm trying to homeschool), two 2yr olds, and a nursing infant, i start to hyperventilate just a little. soooo, if you think the bloggings been sporadic thus far, expect it to get worse! we'll see how things go. i'm going to be super duper organized. at least that's the plan :-)