Thursday, 4/7/2011

We're on VACATION!!!  This morning we flew to California to spend four days at Disneyland.  We flew down with Ben's brother, Spencer, and met Spencer's fiance, Kate, and their mom, Jennifer, there.  We are going to be in the parks today through Saturday, and then spend Sunday morning shopping and playing in Downtown Disney.

Within a few minutes of passing through the Disneyland entrance gates, we found Snow White.  After a short wait, Katie went right up to Snow White with no obvious sign of fear.  We were worried she would be afraid of the characters, like she's been of Santa Claus the past two years. It was wonderful to see her interact with a princess, talking and hugging.  I hope she'll be at ease with the others too:) 

We had dinner at the River Belle Terrace, in Frontierland.  All of the adults in our group had the BBQ pork sandwiches.  I think they were as good as the pork sandwiches we make at home.  Katie had a peanut butter and jam sandwich with apple slices.  I'm glad she was hungry, because she ate well and didn't waste any time.

The best part of the meal was when Katie reached for a bottle of Diet Coke and ended up spilling it all over the table.  It took several seconds for us all to realize what had happened.  By the time we picked up the bottle of coke, it was pooled under each of our trays and took a lot of napkins to clean up.  What made it really funny to us, was that we had just talked about the following video.  Enjoy:)

Wednesday, 2/9/2011

Katie and I had a little bit of everything for dinner tonight.  She had some left over stir-fried steak, gold fish crackers, pears, and peanut butter.  I had the left over pizza, some pear, and a few bites of steak.  The steak continues to be delicious, but the snow peas didn't hold up as well. 

Wednesday, 12/15/2010

I shredded some of the left over rotisserie chicken from Monday and made chicken burritos tonight.  Katie wasn't interested in a burrito and opted for a pb&j sandwich instead.  About halfway through her half sandwich, she declared that she wanted a cookie.  We told her she could have a cookie when she finished her sandwich.  It took AN HOUR for her to finish that half sandwich.  I think Ben and I finished eating in 10 minutes.  After a half hour, Ben left the table to get some other things done while I waited with Katie.  Finally, the sandwich was gone and she got her cookie.  You would think that she would eat it quickly given how long she had been sitting and waiting for it.  But no, it was another 25 minutes before she finished that dang sugar cookie. My goodness, that was a long and boring meal.

Thursday, 7/29/2010

My mom, Katie and I went out to dinner and shopping with our good friend Sydney tonight. We chose Eats Market Cafe for dinner and were not disappointed. I had the "crazy good grilled cheese" sandwich with cheddar, swiss, a little stilton, apples, and bacon on rosemary bread. My mom had the curry chicken wrap, and Sydney had the "simply b.l.t." sandwich. I ordered a pb&j sandwich tower and apples for Katie. Like at home, she separated the pieces of bread and ate only the pb&j, no bread. At least she was entertained:) I just can't say enough about how accommodating this restaurant is for kids. The servers are kind and easy going and seem to anticipate what parents need for their kids. Sure wish they could help us with dinner every night:)

Monday, 6/28/2010

Tonight's meal was simple--beef burritos. Standard use of taco seasoning with lean ground beef, shredded cheddar cheese, and low carb wheat burrito tortillas. Ben's burrito had some hot sauce in it. I left it off of mine due to my sore throat.

Katie was the wild card in tonight's meal. About a 1/2 hour before we ate, she was whining for food. I told her we were going to wait so that we could eat together with Daddy. When we finally sat down, she barely touched her food. Then she started to pull off her bib. We won't let her continue without a bib on. Either the bib stays on or she is done with the meal. But, she wouldn't tell us that she was all done. Each time we went to try to clean her up, she would reach back towards the food. What's a momma to do?!? Well, this momma decided to clean her up and get her down from her high chair.

Not long after that, we went upstairs so that she could take a bath. We were just about to put her down for the night when she started signing for food. Milk. Cheese. Bread. Peanut butter. Thinking that she was still hungry, we went back downstairs. She went right to the fridge and started pointing to the jar of jam. At this point, we think that she means jam when she signs for bread. Anyway, we made her a small pb&j sandwich. Seated back in her high chair, she proceeded to pull the two pieces of bread apart to lick off the pb&j. She only took a few small bits out of the bread. The kicker was when she rubbed her jam covered hand through her clean hair. ARGH! That was the end of her second dinner. Her hands and hair were cleaned up, despite her loud objections, and we took her upstairs to bed. It's been about a 1/2 hour and I haven't heard a peep from her. I guess she was just plain tired.

Wednesday, 6/23/2010

Tonight was another night that didn't happen quite like we expected it to. It all started at 1:30. That's when I took the car in for replacement tires. I thought it would be about an hour, but I learned it was an hour for the tire replacement, then another hour for the alignment, and then the clean up, payment, etc. And then, the tires, which were promised to be in stock, were not. The tires were supposedly 1/2 hour away. I agreed to take a loaner car when I was told my car would not be available until 5pm. Ok, fine. The car dealership is in Renton, so I decided to kill some time at Southcenter mall. Katie and I shopped, snacked, and played at the mall.

At 4:45pm I called the dealership for an update. The care was NOT done and wouldn't be done until 6pm. I was asked if I would be ok picking up my car tomorrow morning instead. What was I going to do? I explained very nicely how we had been promised the tires were in stock when the appointment was made. I politely shared my expectation that I would not be paying for any gas the loaner car consumed during my drive back and forth to the dealership. How nice that the gas will be comped.

Since I hadn't been at home all afternoon, I didn't have anything ready for dinner. No problem. We decided to go out for dinner. I left Southcenter Mall at 4:49 and headed downtown to pick up Ben from work. We had plans to attend a concert at our church with Katie at 7pm and thought we would have plenty of time to eat dinner and swing by the house to get Katie into her pajamas. Nope, not enough time.

There was an immigration protest happening downtown that neither Ben nor I knew about. It was happening directly in between the exit I decided to take off of I-5 and Ben's office. An hour later, I finally had Ben in the car and we were headed back to West Seattle. Goodness! There was definitely not enough time to go home and go out to eat. Without any good dinner options ready at home, we chose "out to eat." Thankfully, our first choice for dinner was not busy at all.

We were seated immediately at Eats Market Cafe. Although I didn't catch all the details for sure, Katie's kids meal of pb&j sticks and apple slices was free tonight. Good deal! Ben and I both thoroughly enjoyed their bbq pull pork sandwiches. I must tell you, if you have kids, this is a great place to eat. The staff is very accomodating and aware of the needs of kids and parents. As soon as Katie was in the highchair, the server was giving her a spoon to play with. And, her food came out as soon as it was ready, rather than waiting until our plates were ready too. We were asked if we needed a small cup of water or extra napkins for Katie. I just really appreciate having no stress about having a toddler eating there. AND, there is a changing table in the bathroom! That makes me a very happy momma. KUDOS to Eats Market Cafe!

Sunday, 5/23/2010

We spent today at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. What an AWESOME place to be! I can't begin to name the amazing things/creatures we saw. Ok, how about just a few:

Penguins (Katie now has a stuffed penguin named Penny.)
Hammerhead sharks
Sea horses and dragons (And sticking with the LOST theme, Katie also has a stuffed seahorse named Sawyer.)
Otters
Jellies

I even touched a bat ray! After a pretty big lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and a late afternoon ice cream snack at the Nestle Cafe, we didn't need much for dinner. At about 7:30, while getting ready to watch the series finale of LOST, I had an apple with peanut butter and wine for dinner. The end of LOST was not as satisfying as my simple dinner.

I must say that my ice cream sandwich snack (yes, it was huge) was delicious! It was made of two peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips, fresh out of the oven,with dark chocolate ice cream. OMG...so good.