4th of July feast

Scallop Stuffed Mushrooms

 

Fresh scallops, garlic, ginger, scallions, salt, soy, bread crumbs and parma inside a portabello

 

Dave's lamb kebobs (getting better every time)

 

Garden radishes (just about the only thing coming from our garden this year)

 

The first garden strawberry of the summer

Amber's response.... "I want more" ... To bad we have a light crop this year and this is the only one for a few more days.

RIP Michael Jackson ( and FF )

With the sad news of MJ I decided we needed to watch some YouTube so I first went for thriller, not having watched it in like 20 years, I forgot that it was scary..... Six min. Into it I had to stop, Amber didn't like it,.,,,, same with Beat It , so much violence. We are the world, on the other hand, pure family entertainment. If WATW was being recorded today, I wonder who the lead voices would be?

This post is a test of my iPhone blogger tool.

Messy Mondays: painting the wall

Today was a very rainy Monday, made worse by the fact that we have had non-stop rain (aside from like 3hrs on Saturday) for as long as anyone can remember. By late afternoon I somehow mustered up enough motivation to paint the wall that has been waiting to be painted for 2 years.

I started by letting Amber have her turn at painting...

It actually ended up not being very messy at all, but it sure had the potential to be!

Chicken Monkies

This morning while we were eating breakfast, Amber exclaims: "Look Mommy, there's a Chicken Monkey eating the birdseed!!" It took me a second, but then I realized that a Chicken Monkey is a chipmunk :-)

Who's Aaron/Erin?

Recently bedtime has been a breeze.... as long as I follow the routine, carefully laid out by Amber. Around two weeks have passed since our last crying episode which resulted in a new step in the routine. Today I was just thinking how nice it was to just be able to get her to bed without all the stress and tears (starting the whole process each night is another story). Tonight as I am walking up the stairs after closing her door, I hear the dreaded wails from her room. I waited for a few min, but decided to go talk to her rather than risking that she get out of bed to come to me. I stood at the door and told her that we are not playing games and it was time for bed. She then said "Mommy, you have push the green button and text message Aaron!" I said, "What?" "you have to text message Erin". "Who's Aaron?" "You have to say I love you". "Uh, Ok, to Erin?" "Yes" ... "Is Aaron your imaginary friend?" "uh-huh". After I agreed, she let me leave and went to bed. ... tomorrow night, I had better not forget to promise to text Erin on my way out of the room!

my little world traveler

so not only is Amber an actual world traveler, but her play is beginning to globe trot.

Multiple times today Amber mentioned something about having to go away to Beijing tomorrow.... often for (insert number) of weeks. One time, I decided to ask some questions, and this is how it went:

Amber: "I have to go away really quick... to Beijing tomorrow"
Me: Oh really... how are you going to get there?
Amber: On the plane.
Me: Wow, that's a really long flight, what are you going to do all by yourself for so long?
Amber: Play with toys.
Me: And how are you going to get to the airport tomorrow?
Amber: um, in the car.
Me: How are you going to get there in the car?
Amber: I'm going to drive....
Me: And how are you going to drive? The peddles are so far from your feet?
Amber: with the key! (as she holds up the old front door key on the key ring that she happens to be playing with)
Me: And once the plane lands, how will you get to Beijing?
Amber: I'm going to walk, with my feet.
Me: And then what?
Amber: And then i have to go to Munich.
Me: And what's in Munich?
Amber: My house!
Me: really? I didn't know you had a house in Munich, how long will you stay there?
Amber: 30 weeks
Me: that's a very long time, do you know anyone in Munich
Amber: Well NaiNai YehYeh are in Beijing and then I have to go back to Beijing.
Me: oh yeah why?
Amber: I have to go to NaiNai and YehYeh's apartment.
Me: How long will you be in Beijing?
Amber: 3 minutes!
Me: Oh that's not long, do you have to just pick something up from the apartment?
Amber: Yeah, I have to get the mail.

after that i just could not stop laughing any more :-)

another awesome word from today was "Ponycorn" meaning unicorn

Menu please, oh and where's the mean ladies office?

This week my friend Jen and her son Nathan who is a couple months older than Amber are visiting us at the cape. Tonight is the first night Amber has slept in the same bed for more than 5 nights in a month. Most of the nights and sometimes lunches in this month have been out at restaurants. Amber has been in heaven having Nathan here to play with her all day, BUT after not playing with kids much at all for 7 months, it is a bit overwhelming. Also, not having cottage cheese on a regular basis for 7 months was far too much for her.... Since we have been back at the cape (5 days now) Amber has eaten 3 containers of cottage cheese and could have easily polished off 3 or 4 more. Tonight at dinner Amber not only refused to eat what we were having, but she asked for cottage cheese at least 100 times. After bath I was doing the dishes and she asked again, I told her she needed to stop asking and she was welcome to have some of our dinner if she was hungry. She sat down at her little table and I handed her her plate. I turned around to do dishes and i hear a crash... she tossed the breakable dish onto the floor. Straight to her room she went, while I cleaned up the mess. After vacuuming to screams, I got her out and she wanted milk. She sat down at her table while I was getting the milk and said "I want a menu please". While cracking up with laughter I asked her why she wanted a menu and she said "I want to order cottage cheese".

Poor kid. She thinks you can just order whatever you want and you can have it... she sure has a lot of hard lessons to learn.

Later as we were brushing teeth, I was telling her about our pre-school interview/meeting tomorrow. In the meeting she will be taken into the "big playroom" with all the other kids and teachers and I have to stay with the admissions director. She used to be ok with this (been talking about it for a while), but today she is not... says that she wants to stay with me. So I cleverly told her that the principal lady i have to stay with in her office, is mean, so she would have a much better time going into the playroom. (similar to how i tell her that a chocolate bar is really spicy so she would not like it). As I am tucking her in she asks "where's the mean lady office?"

Poor mom, I sure am going to be in for it tomorrow when we meet the director and Amber asks "Are you the mean lady?"