I'm Still an A Student

I don't often find myself with nothing to do these days. I got a promotion at work and am pretty much working full-time now. But I like my job so that's cool. I finished another semester of college; got an A in my African American History class. Thank goodness I planned a June Vegas trip back in January--I ended up needing it more than I thought I would! We just got back from Vegas a few days ago after spending 3 days there with friends from different states. I don't gamble but I still feel like I won.
My sister came to visit us from Virginia. She also took care of our kids while we were in Vegas. How great is that?! My sister and I went rollerskating together and we also did some karaoke. I think she had a good time.
I am not taking any summer classes this year. I remember taking a class last summer, having homework 4 nights a week and a research paper to write, all while planning my husband's birthday and our kids' birthday party...NO THANKS!
Raquel has finished Kindergarten. She starts 1st grade September 14th. She learned so much from her teacher this year, it is AMAZING. We loved her teacher so much, we gave her a nice gift on the last day of school. How a teacher can teach a 5-year-old how to read is beyond me. And I'm proud of Raquel for being the young lady she is--she's outgoing, smart, friendly, funny and creative. She's everything a mother could want in a daughter. She'll be 6 years old July 7th. :)
I'm currently dealing with a toddler full of temper...Maxine. She'll be two on July 25th. She's sooo sweet when she's happy but when she doesn't get her way, she's red-faced-angry. Raquel was never this way. Maxine is a very different child, though, and I'm learning as I go.
Thanks for checking in :)
(The picture above is a bento box I made for Raquel recently)

Change of Taste

The four of us went to the birthday party of a 1-year-old boy yesterday at a place called My Gym. Raquel and Maxine got to play with several kids their age and romp around on the play equipment--they even had a zip line for kids to try. Maxine's favorite activity was the trampoline and, surprisingly, she was really good at it!
The sun shone this weekend, which put me in an instantly-good mood yesterday morning, playing loud, happy music while sweeping the house.
I'm getting really bored of eating the typical healthy groceries I've been eating since January 4th but I haven't had a chance to do any grocery shopping so I have eaten some not-so-healthy things, like cereal. What a disappointing experience this has been--eating cereal, that is. My taste buds must be refining themselves! I used to be a cereal fanatic, all my life, and now? Not even my old favorite, Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch, does anything for me. What else has been a disappointment? Cheeseburgers. I haven't had a really good one in a year or more. I feel like I'm on a quest for one worthy of my sacrifice [of calories], because to waste calories on mediocre would-be delicious food doesn't even reach the point of satisfaction. It rather leaves me seeking that taste I long for after eating brown rice and veggies day after day to "make my tummy smaller" as I explain to Raquel (who keeps me on my toes about what I eat, now, mind you).
Where have all the good cheeseburgers gone?

Weather-Induced Cabin Fever

(Photo taken yesterday by my friend Nick Romero. I told him I had to steal it.)
Southern California is having some type of El Niño revival and I'm not enjoying it. Fortunately, our house is above ground by about 4+ feet and we haven't incurred any flood damage, NOT that the water is that high but it has been raining nonstop since about Sunday (I think). The lack of sunshine really gets to me. I have been cooking and reading recipes out of boredom. That's not such a bad thing--better than drinking up everything in the booze cabinet!
Actually, my kitchen fun started Friday night when we had "Maki Night". I made several different nonfish maki rolls for Jose and the girls. After that I fried up some banana fritters. It was really fun for me to make this fun meal for them. They all liked it very much and even pretended they were at a sushi restaurant and I was the slow waitress/chef. And yesterday I made two simple but unusual potato salads: teriyaki was one and curry was the other. Raquel liked the teriyaki one. I put the curry one in Jose's lunch today and have yet to hear his opinion. I do not care for potato salad so I have not tried either one. I'm glad I have two guinea pigs to try my funky recipes.
Raquel has been home sick for two days. She will most likely go back to school tomorrow. Maxine only got a mild version of Raquel's flu. Jose and I are fine, so far. We have a couple of plans this weekend so I hope we stay healthy.
Thanks for reading.

Christmas Pictures. Enjoy!

Thanks to all our friends and family for the thoughtful gifts we received and for making it such a great holiday season with lots of happy memories. I'm very grateful to have such a delightful family to be with at this special time of year. I just wish more of us lived closer together so we could share all the fun with everyone.
As a reward for making it this far, please click here to watch a short, funny video from Christmas Day at my dad's house; just a sample of the goings-on.

Christmas Potluck Last Night

That picture is my new favorite snapshot of the girls. Those dresses were given to them by my dad's wife, aka, Grandma Debbie :)
Our friends a few blocks away threw a fantastic Christmas party last night, complete with games for the children, a table full of potluck goodies, craft activities, cookie and cupcake decorating station and even Santa himself paid a visit. Raquel was thrilled to see Santa. Maxine was frightened of him. He gave presents to all the children and eventually made an exit through the sliding glass door at the back of the house.
I made two trays of different open face sandwiches inspired by Smørrebrød or smörgås of Scandinavia and one tray of shortbread topped with cream cheese and sweet things. It took several hours of work and my neck is killing me today because of it!

Good Griddlecakes Recipe

Jose and I woke up before the girls this morning, strangely enough, and he requested pancakes for breakfast. That was when I realized we hadn't had breakfast together in a long time, I'm talking about several months. How sad?! He made a pot of coffee and I got out my cookbooks to find my little penned notes next to the recipes I had liked in the past. I made this one from an old Country Cookbook (I modified it just a little by adding vanilla):
2 C flour
5 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
3 tblsp sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 eggs, beaten
2 C milk
6 tblsp oil
1/2 to 1 tsp vanilla extract (to your liking)

1. Combine dry ingredients with a whisk in a large bowl.
2. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla to flour mixture. Mix well. It will be kinda lumpy.
3. Cook on a greased griddle and flip when bubbles pop open on top, as usual for pancakes.
4. While cooking the rest of the batter, keep griddlecakes warm in a 170 degree oven on a cookie sheet, adding butter to each cake on the sheet. This keeps them from drying out while staying warm and of course butter tastes good.
5. Serve with your favorite syrup.

These were so fluffy and filling! Jose only ate two before he got full. I have made many pancake recipes this year. This one was my favorite so far.
********
Raquel and Maxine have been sick this week. Maxine has been sick for one week now and Raquel just came down with it on Thursday. She is faring much better than Maxine, who seems to really be miserable. To put it frankly, she's pissed off. That girl has a temper. Raquel is just the opposite--very pleasant and sweet, even though she, too, has a fever. My sanity thanks goodness for having at least one child with a calm attitude about being sick. The mad child is driving Mommy a little crazy. I have found that giving Maxine a nice, warm, playful bath helps calm her down significantly. But that's the only trick I have.

The Short of Our Day

• Raquel said, "Mommy, you go to college. You know EVERYTHING!"
• Maxine had a little turd in her mouth.
• I put a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup in my oatmeal.
• Yes, Maxine actually had poop in her mouth for a minute.
• The oatmeal was good.
• Maxine is my gross child. She tried to eat her own puke once, too.
  
• Raquel still likes hats, jewelry, make-up and other non-gross things.
  

Saturday Doings

We spent a lovely evening with in-law's yesterday. This is a picture of Maxine walking away from me, toward Guapo who is behind the wooden fence where lies his dog house. In the background you can see Raquel and my nephew Ricky talking to Guapo. Guapo is still a puppy (a pretty Boxer) but he's just about full-grown and very hyper. He would knock over any of these kids with his happy love if he were let out. Maxine isn't afraid of him one bit--she even knows how to say his name.

Also, I made homemade gnocchi yesterday. This is something one must make when the baby takes a nap. It's a bit time-consuming with lots of repetition but the process is extremely peaceful and simple and yields a beautiful thing you don't see in many restaurants here in Southern California.

School Lunch Dilemma

At Raquel's school, the cafeteria can only accomodate so many students, so each grade goes into lunch at different times and each group is ushered out to make room for the next group. This is a problem for me because Raquel is a SLOW eater. At first, the lunch lady was tossing Raquel's uneaten food in the trash, so I enclosed a little note requesting that any leftovers be kept in the lunch box--this is so I could see what Raquel had eaten. Turns out she's not eating that much. There is nobody around to make sure she eats enough. Jose wants me to give up on making her lunch and just let her eat school food. I don't want to resort to this, even if it is just one meal a day. All they serve is pizza, chicken nuggets and hamburgers. Making her lunch myself gives me a sense of accomplishment--that's me being selfish, I know. But I would feel like I'm not doing my part if I let Raquel eat the crappy food her school serves.

There aren't many things I have control over. I don't have much say in what happens to my kid at school. I trust she is getting a good education but I don't trust the school's way of doing lunch. Do I relinquish what little control I have on this issue until Raquel is a little older (and hungrier)? (that is a picture of Raquel's lunch today. I packed less food.)

When I was a kid I got white bread, white rice, processed cheese, lunch meat---these were everyday parts of my diet. My mom made dinner for us every night, including some kind of vegetable or salad but we ate a lot of unhealthy stuff. This was in the 1980s. Back then we didn't have as much information available to us about nutrition as we do now. My children are pretty much damned to have pot bellies or huge asses, not to mention high blood pressure, because of heredity. I would like to do whatever I can to prevent this. Right now, that means feeding them a well-balanced and varied diet to get them started out right. When they're older they will eat what they want but I will have done my part.

About her education, I know she has a good teacher. Raquel has learned the days of the week already and she's only been in school for 5 days. She goes around the house singing the songs her teacher has taught the class. I enjoy hearing her sing these songs.

Daddy Bento #3

Other than this beautiful bento box lunch I made for Jose today, I am feeling like a failure. This whole post could be a spewage of negative thoughts so ttfn.

p.s. my camera does no justice to the things it photographs. Sorry!

What I Did With Quail Eggs

Tonight I made Scotch Eggs with quail eggs instead of chicken eggs. They were pretty good but next time I'll cut out about half the onions, skip the nutmeg, add Worchestershire and wrap them in bacon. These were fun and easy to make. I will make them again some day but my way. I got this recipe from justbento.com (thanks!). I was going to put one in Raquel's lunch if she enjoyed them at dinner tonight but I could tell it was a food she needed to be encouraged to finish. So her lunch won't include a Scotch Egg tomorrow since I won't be in the cafeteria with her to make sure she eats it.

Cooking For Kindergarten

Raquel has "three more sleeps" until she gets to start kindergarten. She is VERY excited. Her school hours will be the same as the big kids, which is about 7 hours a day with each Monday being a short day, only about 5 hours. Wednesday night we are going to a kindergarten orientation. I'm looking forward to that. I am also looking forward to sending Raquel to school with some good stuff for lunch-- stuff I tested on her this weekend after our totally fun shopping spree at the Asian Supermarket. She loved everything!


I have prepared/cooked/assembled/portioned-out and stored in the freezer the following:

• onigiri
• spring rolls
• banana coconut muffins
• swirl cookies
• purple satoimo noodle nests with slices of pink fish cake (so girly!)
• brown rice
• fried poached tofu cutlets

And there is more where that came from. Her lunches will not always be of the Asian kind. But if you've ever been to an Asian market you know there are so many cute and fun things to buy and make--just perfect for creating bento meals. And the prices are right, especially for produce.

Look how cute Raquel looks in bowling shoes! We bowled this afternoon at the fancy 300 Pasadena bowling alley. We had never been there before and will probably not be going back until we're rich. That is the most expensive 2 games of bowling I have ever seen. And the service sucked. I don't think management planned on having such a busy day on this Labor Day (hello?!) and only one server/lane assistant was working the entire 24 occupied lanes while the bartender stood alone behind her bar without a thing to do. Something not right there.
P.S. Raquel bowled better than me.

Today's "Daddy Bento"

A "Daddy Bento" is a lunch I make for Jose to take to work on Saturdays (and sometimes Sundays) when he has an open house to do for a house he is selling. He has been trying to sell a really nice house in Arcadia for about two months now and it is having a very hard time catching an interested buyer. The problem? Feng shui, believe it or not. It is situated on a "T", meaning the cross street is directly in front of the house. Jose doesn't know the first thing about feng shui--all he knows is that people who come to view the house always mention it's bad feng shui. I read a book on feng shui 5 years ago, just for fun. I thought is was quite fascinating. I retained some of the knowledge and have tried to explain briefly to Jose the problem people have with the house. It doesn't matter if feng shui is "real" or not, if someone believes in it, it is real to them. Anywho...
In this bento, there is a tuna sandwich on whole wheat, some pickle slices, cheddar cheese slices, homemade swirl cookies you saw in yesterday's post, a hardboiled egg with salt and pepper, and some green "spinach flavour" noodles stirfried with asparagus and teriyaki sauce. I think he's really going to like this. I was just thinking about how much it costed to make this meal. I'm guessing less than a dollar. Wow!

Baking in This Heat?!

Yes, it is still summer and I baked today. What a weirdo. It's nice to get back into the swing of things in the kitchen after not having baked since early June. This recipe came from an old Farm Journal cookie cookbook. I have had great results with some of the recipes while others, like this one, are far more effort than they're worth. These are pretty bland as far as flavor and texture. But they're good enough to keep in the freezer and use to pack Raquel's lunchbox. P.S. Raquel made one of those on that cookie sheet ;)

Our Baby at 12 Months

12 months is such an exciting age. Maxine does something new everyday. And she is so sweet. Here is an update on what she is like now.

She still takes two regular naps a day, usually 2 hours at a time. Her bedtime lately has been 10pm and she wakes up at 8am. Sometimes she wakes up at about 3am and cries but more often than not she will go back to sleep without us having to do anything. Raquel sleeps through everything!

Maxine is a fantastic little eater. She eats everything I put on her tray. Grandma Emma had given us a bunch of tomatoes from her garden and Maxine LOVED them, I mean, she kept shoveling them into her mouth this one time and that night, she vomitted in her crib--we think she probably had too many 'maters. I can't help but compare my two kids--When Raquel was this age she scared me because it looked like she wasn't eating anything. That worried me so much!

Maxine is showing a sudden interest in walking. This is big news. She has been so happy crawling for so long now. For some reason she loves to be up on her tip-toes--I think she's going to have to learn how to flatten her feet before she can walk unassisted. It's funny though because I see her up on the balls of her feet constantly and it makes me think she was made to wear high heels.

We still have Maxine on formula instead of Cow's milk. Her stomach is sensitive and the cow's milk was making her get car sick. Poor thing: both of her parents were car sick kiddos long ago and now we've passed it onto her.

As you know, she LOVES to dance!

A couple of days ago, Maxine and I were playing quietly in my room when suddenly she pointed to my eyeball and said, "Eye" clear as day. It really took me by surprise. This is not a body part we have practiced very often, like tummy and teeth. So for the past two days now we have been having fun saying "Eye" and pointing to eyes.

Maxine adores Raquel. And Raquel knows exactly how to make her baby sister crack up. When Maxine cracks up, we all crack up. She has such a funky laugh! It's definitely not a dainty or pretty laugh!

If you saw Jose playing with Maxine you might be frightened for her. He plays kinda rough and talks in a gruff voice with her, but guess what--she digs it. She is all smiles and giggles with Daddy. When I hear him drive into our driveway, I say, "Daddy's home!" and she stops what she's doing to look out a window or go towards the front door.

I have probably forgotten to mention something but the stuff I've told you is pretty cool, right?

Oh by the way, in the picture up top she had just eaten her dinner of teriyaki brocolli and chicken and I gave her a whole strawberry to try for the first time (they say a baby has to be 12 months old before they can have strawberries). At first she looked at it and didn't know if it was food or not. Then she sunk her teeth into and I think the juice she tasted surprised her, that's what she's doing in the second picture. She ended up loving it and ate the whole thing.

The end.

Onion Breath

Grandma Emma gave me some of these really good onions that she received from a friend. I forget the name of them. Anyways, they're really good and sweet! I have had onion breath since she gave them to me yesterday :P Thanks a lot Granny Grunt!

Last night, Maxine astounded us. I got it on video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96zHBQBfDUs

Today after I did some early morning cleaning, I spent the afternoon catching up on other peoples' blogs. I would hate them to think I've been ignoring them. It's really nice to have time to do these sorts of things. Raquel went with Jose to his open house--from what I hear she was really a hands-on helper, showing people the rooms or entertaining children while parents looked around. I filled up a couple of lunch boxes for them and Jose sent me a text message that said, "What a great lunch!". That made my day.

Thanks for reading.

Updates Grab Bag

This is Westminster Presbyterian Church-- the back of it, anyways. Maxine and I were walking last Friday and took several pictures of it. It looks best in sepia, I think.

*****

Raquel stayed at her great-grandparents' house last week from Monday to Saturday. Poor Grandma! Not only is Raquel relentless with activity and conversation, which is more than enough for a great-grandma to handle, but also Grandpa was feeling ill the entire time Raquel was there. So Grandma had no help at all with Raquel and no time to herself either. Wow! She did say that Raquel was very well-behaved and of course taking care of a well-behaved child is tons easier than the alternative. This was Raquel's first time spending that many nights away from home and not to my surprise, she never got homesick. Jose, Maxine and I had a nice quiet week. To me, the peace was very refreshing. Thank you SO much, Grandma Emma.

*****

I found these sweet potato fries in the frozen food section at Target a few weeks ago and I'm hooked. They are healthy enough for me to eat and stay on my diet and I'm so glad because they are delicious. Maxine really enjoys them, too. It has to be this particular brand though because the other sweet potato fries are covered in an evil batter. These are innocent and plain.

*****

This is my second week of school and I'm so glad this class is only five weeks long. I highly prefer to do my own work but in this class we "pair up" or get into groups of three DAILY. I am against compromising the level of work I do for a grade but in groups you cannot avoid this. Being paired with people who cannot write in complete sentences quietly frustrates me. But the teacher did say last week that she does not grade on spelling and grammar and that she is only concerned with our critical reading skills. So, technically, it doesn't matter but it still REALLY GETS TO ME.

*****

How do you throw a party for your kids' birthdays, invite everyone you know and not get caught up in the stress of planning? If you know how, I am seriously asking! I feel like if things aren't perfect then I might as well not do them at all. There is no changing that about me. So I guess I'm probably doomed to feel this way every year around this time! And then when the party's over, I'll be fine.

*****

And here is a snapshot of Maxine dancing to her new favorite dvd, Rufus Wainwright at the Fillmore. Yep, she's got taste. I'm telling you she stares at him singing and it even calms her down when she's cranky.

Sudden Improvement!

Yesterday I made something that required egg whites which left me with a couple of homeless yolks. So, remembering that egg yolks are something a baby Maxine's age can try to eat, I made her scrambled yolks with a tiny bit of salt, pepper and chili powder. I tasted first. They were notably delicious. She tried them. She liked them. And she did not choke on them. So I put several tiny pieces on her tray and let her feed herself. She did this successfully for about 20 minutes while I finished what I was baking. I was thrilled. She really liked egg yolks!

So, suddenly I have hope that Maxine is going to get pretty good at eating semi-solid foods. Something I can't quite control yet is the way she feeds herself a bottle. Her new game is this: I hand her a bottle, she sips it for about a minute, then she pulls it out of her mouth, turns it upside down and bounces it on her tray, like a bingo marker, getting milk all over the tray and her clothes. I tell her not to do it, she giggles. I give her another chance, she does it again. I put the bottle away and say, "All done baba." She giggles and goes on with her life. It seems she only drinks a bottle when she's really super hungry or wants comfort from falling and bumping her head (but she only gets a post-injury bottle if I know it's been a while since she's had one. The typical post-injury comfort is lots of snuggles). I know this is the age to introduce a sippy cup but I tried that when she turned 9 months and she was obviously not ready for it. Now that she is 10 months+ I could introduce it again but I see how she plays with her bottles now and I don't think I should. I don't know.

Raquel was with me in the kitchen for a while yesterday while Maxine ate her egg yolks. She was helping me make cookies. I think she looks very mature here in this picture, scraping ingredients off the mixer attachment...

I Love Taking Pictures

These are some of my favorite shots from the past couple of weeks.

Cherimoya

It's a fruit. Supposedly Mark Twain's most favorite. I bought one yesterday to make some baby food and I am glad I did. It has a creamy texture and very light taste which is perfect for mixing with about any other fruit. They are ugly on the outside with a pretty pail whitish yellow flesh on the inside. The seeds are large and black so they are easily found and removed.
I made a small batch of plain cherimoya, a batch of kiwi cherimoya and a batch of banana kiwi. I made several batches of other types of foods yesterday, too. We have a market nearby that has an EXCELLENT selection of produce at very low prices. Many of their items are specialties in cultures other than my own, I guess. I almost bought these miniature eggplant called Indian Eggplant. They are the size of a golf ball but obviously egg-shaped. Cute! I will buy them when I find a good recipe for them.
*****
Raquel is doing fine. She is still her silly self but I bet you she really misses jumping on her bed and playing with the kids at school. Next week is Spring Break so she'll have a good amount of time to heal more before she goes back to school.
Thanks for reading.