Family – Page 7 – Pure Sugar

the “awkward” stage

Posted on February 26, 2011 by Carol — No Comments ↓

Jake is so funny. He’s getting to that stage where you can tell he’s curious about girls. He gets all giggly and silly when you ask if he has a “girlfriend.” It cracks me up! He admits to nothing, but I’m sure he’ll have a crush in no time. Even though you hear it over and over again, it’s true: they grow up fast. One minute he’s asking you to change the channel to “Blue’s Clues” and the next he wants to know how to remove pimples. Well… at least we’re still a few years from that!

At any rate, Noah has no trouble admitting who in his Kindergarten he thinks is cute. That one is totally going to be the ladies’ man. I can already tell 😉

gloomy day

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Carol — 1 Comment ↓

I should be happy it isn’t snow, but this cold, rainy day is not doing much to inspire a good mood! In fact, it has me feeling a little grouchy. And hungry. Why is it on days like this I want to do nothing but eat? I should be worrying about how to burn belly fat, not how to make blondies without eggs (since I really don’t feel like heading out in this weather to get them). Maybe I should make something yummy, but warm and nourishing, like a big pot of red lentil soup. (I love this recipe… but still not as exciting as blondies!)

Anyway, I do have to come up with something for dinner tonight. Suddenly the boys don’t like tacos (what???), so I think the turkey tacos are off the menu. Maybe they’ve just forgotten how good they are! Worse comes to worse… there’s always peanut butter & jelly 😉

raising adventurous eaters

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Carol — No Comments ↓

I feel very lucky to have children that are not particularly picky. Don’t get me wrong — they’ve gone through some seriously picky stages, but I’ve continued to request they try three bites of whatever-it-is. Jake has been a great eater for a while (though not always — there was a time when eating a plain piece of grilled chicken was the equivalent to torture). Noah has also started to come around and lately they’ve been especially receptive to new foods.

Drew’s mom offered to take Laura for some grandma-time and who was I to say no to that? So we thought that perhaps we could convince Jake and Noah to go to try Indian food since our local restaurant offers a buffet on Sunday nights. Jake was really excited about it, and Noah needed a little convincing (but not much). So we headed down to the Red Hook Curry House for dinner, hopeful that they would at least find something they’d enjoy. We’d explained that sometimes Indian food looks a little… well, let’s face it — it doesn’t always look all that appetizing. I could eat it every day of my life, but some of the dishes aren’t so pleasing to the eye.

At any rate, they enthusiastically took a spoonful of this and a spoonful of that. We all sat down and I nervously watched them take their first bites of what was for them an exotic new cuisine. Although I cook a lot of Indian-inspired dishes at home, they’ve never been interested in trying any of them. Until now… Although they didn’t love everything they tried, they certainly had their favorites. Noah couldn’t get enough of the Tandoori chicken and the chana masala (chickpea curry). He also ate his weight in Nan, I think. Jake loved the shag aloo (spinach with potatoes), the vegetable biryani, and the eggplant fritters. He also like the chana masala a lot. (Squee!!! Guess what’s going on next week’s menu?)

Noah wanted to be called “Tandoori Noah” and after sucking the bones dry, I think that nickname is fitting!

Jake loved just about everything he tried (except… go figure… the Tandoori chicken). Mulligatawny was another of his favorites.

For dessert they enjoyed some glob jaman and a cup of chai. I was thrilled that the night was such a huge success! There were no scrunched up faces and no resistance to try new foods. It’s taken a little encouragement and persistence, but I’m happy to see my boy expanding their culinary horizons and not fearing the unknown.

thanksgiving 2010

Posted on November 27, 2010 by Carol — 1 Comment ↓

What a Thanksgiving this year! Our day started out early… a little too early even for me. Just before 3 a.m. Laura woke up crying. We’d heard her cough strangely, but hoped it wasn’t what we thought it sounded like. Unfortunately, it was exactly that. The poor girl was throwing up every 20-30 minutes. After the second changing of bed linens and pajamas, Drew and I decided to just head downstairs, make a pot of coffee, and start the day. So around 4 he dragged the Christmas tree up from the basement, we put a movie on Netflix Instant, and I rocked Laura who alternated between sleeping and being sick and D. put up the tree. (I sure could have used advise on how to remove dark circles under eyes… it was a looooong day.)

Despite Laura not feeling well, she was a real trooper. She slept on one of us for most of the morning, woke up as our family arrived, and then took a long nap while we ate dinner, so in a strange way it all kind of worked out. My parents, Drew’s mom, his aunt, and his brother all came over and it was a really nice time! The day before I’d made a centerpiece for the table:

It was pretty cheap to put together, considering how expensive floral arrangements are! The boys painted grocery bags and we cut out the leaves. (This craft was in a recent issue of Family Fun.)

I love any excuse to use our dining room and pull out my good china! I think the table looked really pretty and there was plenty of room for the nine of us. I think this is the first time we ever used both table leaves, but it made a huge difference!

While I was cooking, Noah took it upon himself to decorate the Christmas tree. Ahem…

Finally it was time for dinner. My timeline was off by about 30 minutes, but considering the sick baby girl, I didn’t think that was so bad. We had roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, baked sweet potatoes with cinnamon butter, green beans, roasted butternut squash and apple with cranberries and pecans, cranberry sauce, cranberry-citrus relish, green salad, corn bread, and wheat rolls. (I think that’s everything.) Dessert was apple pie and pumpkin cheesecake. Everyone was pretty hungry when I made them smile for this photo:

And finally the princess woke up, feeling a little better, but still not quite herself:

All in all, it was a pretty stress-free Thanksgiving. I loved hosting it and everyone wants us to do it again next year, so I was thankful for that! I don’t mind the cooking, especially when the kids are much better behaved because they have all their toys. So now it’s time to decorate for Christmas and plan my Christmas Day menu!

what a week

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Carol — 1 Comment ↓

Oh man, it’s that time of year when everyone starts getting sick, isn’t it? With all the coughs and sniffles it makes me wish I pursued a healthcare career. Last week Drew was out with an upper respiratory infection. Then Noah started up with a nasty cough. Yesterday morning I took him to the doctor and the good news was that it’s not bronchitis or pneumonia, just a cold. But we also discovered that he has strep throat! I was very surprised because he didn’t have a fever and he hadn’t been complaining about a sore throat. I guess we nipped it in the bud. And today I’m feeling a little under the weather. It never ends! But hopefully once we get through this round of illness, we’ll be good for a few months. I am so sick of doctor’s offices and copayments and prescriptions. Ugh, it’s just depressing!

halloween recap

Posted on November 1, 2010 by Carol — 1 Comment ↓

Can you believe that it’s November 1st? Goodness, it’s hard to believe that we’re at the tail end of the year. This morning I actually got out my Christmas cards and labels. In the past I’ve done photo Christmas cards, but this year I’m just going to get photo reprints made. I’ll probably work on those shortly after Thanksgiving, though I’d love to get the photo taken this week if possible. But onto this weekend…

I hope you all had fun yesterday for Halloween! The boys have been counting down to Halloween since mid-month. It’s one of their favorite holidays. We spread it out over the weekend. Saturday afternoon we headed over to the Town Hall where three great local organizations, the library, the Clinton Business Alliance and the Rec Committee put on a very nice trick-or-treat. Here we are, LOL:

Laura was feeling very shy:

Sunday morning the boys had to dress for the Saints Party at religion class. This is something we never did as kids, so the first couple years I skipped it, but… I guess I can’t avoid it every year. This year the boys went as St. Michael and St. George. Both, conveniently, were knights 😉 Naturally, they had to pose for their photo:

In the afternoon it was time to get the candy! Our town is quite rural and on our street, the houses are spaced much too far apart for the kids to walk around. So, we go to the mall. It’s easy. It’s warm. It’s safe. And they get loaded up with candy. The Clone Trooper and Darth Vader were ready to rock!

Laura could not have cared less, really. But she looked cute all dressed up. I made the tutu and let me tell you — I now understand why people charge so much for them on Etsy. They are relatively easy to made, but cutting the tulle is a pain and the whole process gets tiresome after a while. But it worked out in the end

Originally I wanted to dress up as a witch, but the dress I wanted was gone by the time I got around to shopping for it. So Drew and I came up with the idea to go as Sara Pezzini from Witchblade! For a last-minute costume, it all came together pretty well. I’m sure nobody got it (well, except at the comic store), but that’s fine. It was for my own amusement anyway!

And I did a fun manicure, too. The half-moon is one of my favorites and I like how the black glitter and shiny silver looked together:

Everyone had fun and now we have a huge bowl full of candy. Not a bad way to wrap up October 🙂

on another note

Posted on October 27, 2010 by Carol — No Comments ↓

I know it’s ironic to blog about candy after that last entry, but… I can’t really think of a good segue.

Today the kids got a little surprise in the mail from Drew’s dad and stepmom. They live in Miami so we don’t get to see them all that often. They send up treats for the holidays, though and it’s very thoughtful. Valentine cards, Easter gifts, you name it. Drew’s stepmom is a stamper and always packages stuff in such creative ways. For Halloween she filled cellophane bags with candy for the boys and with Cheerios for Laura, tied it all up with a pretty ribbon and added a cute hand-stamped tag along with a plastic spider. The kids were delighted! I wish I had the time and energy to make gifts look as cute as she does!

it’s always something

Posted on October 13, 2010 by Carol — No Comments ↓

Having kids always keeps you on your toes, doesn’t it? Jake was complaining of a sore throat for the last day or two, but it didn’t seem like anything more than post-nasal drip. It’s that time of year when everyone has the sniffles, after all. Well, yesterday around 3 I got a call from the school nurse. Poor kid’s throat was killing him and he had a fever. Fan-tastic!

Luckily we were able to get an evening appointment at the doctor’s office and sure enough, it was strep. So now we have a prescription for some antibiotic. I’m too lazy to look up the name and unless I read up on it, I really don’t know the difference between the pink stuff in the bottle and something like l-dopa. Our kids are not sick that often (thank goodness), so I am just not familiar with most of the brands. At any rate, it seemed to work right away. He got a good night’s sleep and feel much better today. We’re keeping him home from school tomorrow, too, just to be sure he is past the “contagious” phase.

While he was at the pediatrician’s, the doctor urged us to make an appointment in a few weeks to have our regular physician examine Jake’s tonsils again. A while back we had them examined, but they are still quite large, so it’s time to take another look. So we’ll see what he says. At least the meds are working quick. Strep throat is the worst!

a tale of two birthdays

Posted on August 18, 2010 by Carol — 5 Comments ↓

Over the last few days we celebrated two big birthdays: Jake turned 8 and Noah turned 5! Because their birthdays are just a couple days apart, it’s easy to lump them together, but this year we made a real effort to make them to very separate days. We celebrated Jake’s birthday in WMass at my parents’ house. But before we left we had to have our annual special birthday breakfast, complete with sugar cereal and presents!

It’s just a fun way to begin the day. 🙂 Jake requested a pizza party and that made it easy for me. We just ordered a couple pizzas and that was that. Instead of a cake he wanted me to make a cookie pizza. It might not have come out perfect, but he was thrilled with it and that’s all that mattered!

He got so many great gifts: lots of clothes, books and toys. Enough to keep him busy for a while (at least I hope so!). Yesterday was Noah’s birthday and we started the day the same as Jake’s: special fun cereal and birthday gifts:

Then it was off to swimming lessons at the pond. The boys had a good time splashing around and playing with the other kids. They played around at home all day and Noah requested breakfast for dinner, so we made eggs, bacon, homefries, and fruit salad. Noah wanted “Dirt Cake” — again I got off easy! I threw it together in the morning and my little guy was so excited.

Noah’s such a happy-go-lucky kid. The simplest things make his day! I think they both had fun birthdays. I sure hope so because I tried to make them great!

eight is great!

Posted on August 14, 2010 by Carol — 1 Comment ↓

It’s hard to believe we have an eight-year-old little boy today! He woke up to confetti, his favorite cereal, and a bunch of presents, including a custom t-shirt. He had drawn a really cool picture that was supposed to be the cover of a comic book he’s working on, and he desprately wanted to make a shirt of it. So the other day while I was out shopping I bought some ink jet transfer paper. It’s so neat — you just need scanning software, a printer, and a dry iron to make your own iron-ons. Why haven’t I done this before? Drew doctored up Jake picture to really look like a comic book cover and we made the shirt. Jake was totally thrilled with it! I’ll be sure to post a pic later; right now I’m just taking a quick break from the birthday festivities. We’re having a pizza party tonight and the “pizza cookie” I made (in lieu of a cake) came out pretty well. Jake gave a big thumbs-up and that’s all that matters, even if it’s not as perfect as I’d like it to be. OK, back to doting on my birthday guy!