Sunday, 8/8/2010

I went to church with Katie this morning, but we turned right back around after only 5 minutes of worship, because she puked in the nursery.  Dang!  She wasn't sick--just really upset when I left and ended up gagging while crying intensely.  We are pretty sure teething pain was involved too.  Anyway, it made today a "stay at home and get stuff done" kind of day.

We finished off our package of Costco tamales tonight.  I keep thinking that Katie is going to want to eat some, but she consistently turns down our offers to share with her.  PB&J with grapes for her.  Ben and I added hot sauce to our tamales for extra kick:)  For a side dish, I put together a fruit salad of raspberries from my parent's yard, bananas, and grapes.  I tossed mine in a honey and lime dressing.  Yum!  Ben isn't a honey fan; so, he went with the natural fruit sweetness.   

I keep looking at the blackberries on the vines coming over our fence.  I want to pick them.  I want to eat them.  BUT, the vines are FULL of spiders this year.  I don't know why there are soo many.  If you didn't know, I have a terrible phobia of spiders.  Just typing the word and thinking about them is giving me chills from head to toe.  Anyway, this is either God's way of saying "Get over your phobia" or "You don't need any more cobbler".  Either way, those berries are staying put.  

Tuesday, 7/27/2010

First thing this morning, Katie and I picked up my mom at the airport. I have a department retreat tomorrow and Mom is going to take care of Katie for us. Mom and Dad were planning on visiting this coming weekend already; so, it was easy to fly Mom over early to spend the week with us. Poor Dad got the short end of the stick this time. I'm sorry that he will have to drive over by himself.

After a day of grocery shopping, swimming lessons, work, and play, it was time for a simple dinner. We steamed tamales and made a caesar salad.

Sunday, 7/18/2010

We took a trip to Costco today. We didn't really need anything, but ended up getting a few things anyway--halibut, ground beef, eggs, foil, and pork tamales. The tamales were super easy to prepare and were delicious for our dinner. The pork was wonderfully seasoned to be a bit spicy. They were all prepared in corn husks. All we had to do was steam them for 10-12 minutes. Piece of cake! Plus, it gave Ben a chance to use our All-Clad steamer basket:) We've used the pasta insert numerous times, but this was the first time we used the steamer basket.

Katie threw a most spectacular tantrum after her nap this afternoon when we wouldn't give her a cookie before dinner. I made a double batch of chocolate chip cookies while she was napping, to take over to our neighbors. They welcomed their first son, Oliver, into the world over the weekend. When she came downstairs after her nap, she spotted the cooling racks full of cookies. She immediately began chanting "cracka, cracka, cracka", which is her way of saying cracker. We did our best to explain that she could have one after dinner. That didn't work.

There were huge alligator tears rolling down her cheeks. She flung herself onto the floor over and over again. She hit her diaper bag and pulled stuff out of it kind of violently. For a little while, we thought she might be having serious teething pain based on her irrational behavior. But no, she only wanted cookies. To be fair, I must note that we had a very busy morning and that her nap didn't start until after 2pm--about 4 hours later than normal. Anyway, she woke up on the wrong side of the crib without the patience to wait for a cookie. The funniest part of the story is that, when she finally finished dinner and got her cookie, she barely ate any of it. She was more interested in sharing it with daddy than actually eating it. Worked out fine for daddy:)