Friends, Food, Fun, and Fashion

Dear Hannah and Nathan, 

I'm making a change to the schedule and I'll be posting a day earlier, starting from next week. With that out of the way, let's go over the highlights of this week. 

This will probably be my last sneaky attempt at getting you guys to eat more green veggies, because you both are doing pretty good eating solid, cooked veggies! Yay! Let's see, over the years, we've made spinach smoothies, green muffins, spinach pancakes, spinach jello, and my proudest, spinach ice cream, which you guys really liked, surprisingly. And this latest attempt was simply green smoothie poured into popsicle molds. Nathan even ate 2! 

 As if we didn't get enough corn in Illinois, here, Hannah shows how she sneaked 2 extra cobs of corn after dinner.

 So, I saw this video on youtube, it shows you how to make zucchini tots. I thought I'd give it a try because this is one of the few veggies that both of you won't eat. It looked easy enough, so I simply grated the zucchini and you guys did the rest. Nathan even watched the video through to see what we needed to do next.

 Hannah mastered the pepper mill...

 And didn't spill too much when mixing.

 And then, to shape the tots, I pulled out a few of those medicine dosing cups and had you guys smash the mixture into the cups and then tap them on the baking sheet.

 And then we watched them bake

 Voila!

 The verdict, Nathan loves them and Hannah took a few bites and didn't eat anymore. There was just too much salt. We'll have to make them again soon, and I'll make sure to monitor the salt measuring.

On Mondays and Wednesdays, we are having a friend come over to play after school. For the most part, you guys play pretty well. Nathan is a bit possessive over toys sometimes, and suddenly does not want to take turns. You've also started to be purposefully mean with your words and actions when it comes to taking turns. Not sure what's going on, but I sure hope that this is a phase that will pass soon.

 You two are getting better at Dancing, thanks to the Michael Jackson Dancing Experience for the Wii. Good thing, because you guys sure aren't picking up any good moves from either me or Daddy. Nathan's favorite song is "I'm Bad." Hannah just likes to dance along during the choruses. The rest of the time, you are just watching the TV, or laughing at Nathan.

 This Sunday, we put Hannah in Sunday school for the first time. You seemed to really enjoy it. During Children's church, you even got on stage to dance with the big kids. And the youth pastor even told me that you were running around with the big kids.

 And then we had a birthday party after Chinese school on Sunday. Lots of fun there.

 Since the weather is now a bit cooler (not by too much), we've gone out in the afternoons to do some exploring. This week, we've been finding different types of seeds that have dropped on the ground. Nathan, you even got to use your new explorers vest to collect all the different seeds. I think we counted over 10 pockets on that thing. Thanks grandma!

Hannah, you are getting pretty good at communicating what you want to say. "Choppee chip!" is chocolate chip. Golden grahams is your favorite cereal. And you are hardly seen anywhere without your little baby. We try not to take her to the table, but we've caught you a few times after you sneaked her up and start feeding her corn and milk...

You also have developed an interesting fashion sense. Wore this around for a good 2 hours this morning. 

Both of you are starting to get so independent. Just today, as we were at HEB, Nathan, you pretty much insisted that you go potty in the men's bathroom. I let you go, but afterwards, you couldn't reach the sink to wash your hands, so a nice old man helped you up. I'm not sure if you are quite ready for this, but you are almost getting there.

It feels pretty good to be back in the routine. And the free time on Monday and Wednesdays have been nice in that I can pop in and out of the car to run errands without having to load and unload you two up. But I miss the silence. This morning, I was reminded of it again as we pulled up to a stop light.
"Mommy, what's making that noise." I point to the big dump truck beside us. "Is that a dump truck or a trash truck?"
"A dump truck."
"How do you know? Where's the lever that you pull to dump the dirt?"
"It's in the front, with the driver."
"They need to let kids climb in there, so I can try it out for myself."
"That would be pretty amazing."
"Why does it have two smoke stacks?
... and it just goes on and on.

For the most part, you are now asking pretty reasonable questions as opposed to the not so good questions like "Why?" after I said aything in the past. I really don't mind answering questions because you are really soaking them in and trying to understand the complicated world around you.

I love you two so much. Until next week!

Love,
Mommy