Boho Chic Hannah

Meghan got this outfit for Hannah for David and Elle's wedding, and I really love it.  It's a crazy outfit, but it's my favorite winter outfit of hers.  She wore it the other day, and I thought she was looking extra cute with her pigtails, so I wanted to take some pictures.  Only now do I notice that she must have done the buttons wrong, because one side is lower than the other.  It would have been nice to have fixed that before the pictures, but that' a product of her current stage of wanting to do everything related to her clothes all the time, so I think it's appropriate.  Anyway, here are six cute pictures of our beautiful little girl.

Our Newest Daredevil

Today we went to the park as it was a super nice day and some AT&T guys are digging in our backyard. Joshua was here and had a great time, but for whatever reason I didn't get a picture of him. Well the reason was mainly Hannah. Clara conquered her fear of the high level today and was super proud of herself. However, she is still Clara so she didn't go up there that many times because she doesn't have the drive to always go higher and faster that the other two have. However, Hannah has recently realized that she is basically just as able as Joshua to go anywhere and do anything (unfortunately that isn't in any way true, but she believes it). So she decided she wanted to go down the big slides. Hannah on the yellow climber is great. If she falls, it's not that high, she probably won't fall, and it's totally age-appropriate. Hannah on this ladder going up high, I am less on board with. So I spotted her and thus didn't get as many pictures as normal. She did completely fine and she does have some common sense so I felt reasonably sure she wouldn't just jump off the 10 ft platform. So she got up there and really loved the big slides. So she did it over and over again. I am not sure there could ever be a slide too big for her. She had a great time, though I think maybe this is the beginning of the end of her being the easy kid who just sits down while the other kids play. Which is good and bad. Mostly good because independence is one of the traits I value most in my kids. Somewhat bad because she isn't as good as she thinks she is and I don't want her to get hurt.

New Sand, For Now

We bought this turtle sandbox for the kids a couple years ago (used, off Craigslist, like 80% of the kids stuff we buy), and it's been growing in popularity.  Last summer Joshua was a huge fan, and Clara and Hannah kind of liked it at times.  This year, all three love it.  I recently brought it up from the basement and filled it with some sand I had leftover from last year.  I have a rule that they cannot remove any sand from the sandbox.  I'd hate to see how quickly we'd lose sand without that rule, because as it is, it gets depleted pretty quickly.  I think most of it is just lost due to careles sifting and shoveling, and that's okay, but I'm trying to eradicate things like filling a watering can with sand and then pouring it elsewhere in the yard.  The first batch of sand was pretty much gone as of yesterday.  That sand was good because it was the wetter kind that is more conducive to building sand castles and whatnot.  Today I filled the turtle up with new sand, but this is the drier kind that is not clumpy but is really easy to sift and pour, which I think they enjoy more.  Here they are enjoying their new sand, which I look forward to replenishing in a few weeks. :(

Books and Shopping

 Today I had a date day with Hannah. I originally thought we might go do an Easter event, but then I thought she probably wouldn't enjoy something with a suspicious giant bunny. Instead I took her to story time at Barnes and Noble. I was really glad I didn't take her to an Easter thing because she was really intimidated by the three other kids there and insisted I hold her the entire time and pretty much refused to interact with anyone despite the lack of huge bunnies.

After story time, we moved on to activities that were more her speed. I let her pick a book (I rarely go to physical book stores, but I love books, including children's books. I could have happily spent a long time there) and then we want to the cafe where I let her choose a snack while we read our new book. She is a girl who knows what she wants. I thought she would pick a cookie, but as soon as she saw the chocolate mousse, she said she wanted that and chocolate milk. She was a happy girl.

After the bookstore, I took her on some errands I had to run. With the other kids, I feel guilty if I have to take them on errands on a date day, but very few days go by that Hannah does not ask to go shopping so she was pretty pumped. We started at Beauty Brands, which Hannah did appreciate the array of colorful nail polishes, but she was extremely disappointed in the lack of shopping carts. Apparently carts are key to her shopping experience. So then we went to Target and she was really happy. She also likes Target because of their decor. They have these neon light arches on their walls. She thinks they are rainbows. Except she calls rainbows sunsets. So she is always talking about how great it is that they have all the sunsets.

After Target, I needed to go to the liquor store real quick, which they did have shopping carts, but I was just buying one tiny thing so we didn't use a cart and that was again a disappointment. However, the guy at the checkout gave her a sucker, so that pretty much made her day.

After that, we really only had time for one thing before lunch. I gave her a choice of going to buy clothes for baby Steven or going to the park. She chose the park, which surprised me. So we went to Indian Creek park, which is a great 'little kid' park. She has definitely gotten way more independent all of the sudden. She created this circuit where she would climb over the arch, take the zip line across the structure, take the ladder to the slide, go down the slide, and do it all over again. I don't have pictures of most of that because she is still not super steady on some of those things, or doesn't totally realize how to do it. For example, she just lets go of the zipline when she is almost to the end. She wouldn't be seriously injured since it's not that high, but it definitely would be a fall, so I spot her on the things she is less steady on, which makes it impossible to get photos. After that, we decided to get some lunch. I had planned to take her to McDonalds on the way home and have her eat at home, but she was very insistent she wanted to eat at a restaurant. But I haven't been able to stomach McDonalds since getting a flu bug after eating it on our Thanksgiving road trip, so instead we got Mexican. Luckily she is not yet insistent that she wants a toy with her meal and almost every place has chicken fingers or nuggets, so we were both able to enjoy our lunches. We had a fun date day and I think she really enjoyed our activities. Except maybe story time.

Belgium: Good Waffles, Bad Vegetables

When I was a kid, I remember my dad would eat anything.  If there was something no one else would eat, he'd eat it.  If there was a variety of things available, and if someone asked him which one he wanted, he would say, "Just give me the one that no one else wants."  There were also some specific things I remember that he liked, that I thought were either weird or gross.  Specifically, if he would eat an apple, he would do it with a salt shaker and shake a little bit of salt on the apple before taking a bite.  I've never tried it, so I guess I shouldn't knock it, but it seems gross.  He also was always (along with my Grandpa Hall) interested in eating gizzards (like they two of them would specifically order a bucket of them from KFC and chow down together!), pickled pig's feet, and cow's tongue.  That's right.  I'm pretty sure those don't even count as foods.  At that point, they're just random animal parts that aren't meant for human consumption.  He would eat anything.  It's like that old phrase "Human garbage disposal".  If there was some toast that one of the rest of us accidentally burned, instead of letting us throw it away, he would volunteer to eat it. "It's perfectly good toast!", he would say.  He was seemingly omnivorous, and I always kind of admired that about him.  But... there was one exception.  One very notable exception.  Even a man who would happily eat a cow's tongue or a pig's foot apparently has his limits.  And that limit was Brussels sprouts.  It's literally the only thing I know of that he will not eat.  Now, perhaps there are more, or maybe he's developed a more refined palate in later years, but for the rest of my life, whenever I think of Brussels sprouts, I'll think of them as the one thing my dad won't eat.

Because of that, we didn't have them growing up.  So the first time I had them in my life was when Meghan made them for us.  I was not a fan.  She's made them a couple more times since then, and they're just not good.  Some people say they're good if you make them with maple syrup and bacon or massive amounts of cheese, but I'm not sure that counts, because you're just overriding the grossness with enough goodness that you can't taste the grossness anymore.  But recently Meghan found a new recipe that she wanted to try.  I'm trying to cook at least on rare occasions, and tonight happened to be one of those times.  So I made them, but I'm not taking credit, because all I did was not mess up the recipe.  But they were good!  It's a relatively light recipe, which is good, but that's why it's all the more surprising that it was tasty.  So we now have a go-to recipe for Brussels sprouts.  But like Reading Rainbow, you don't have to take my word for it (although Meghan also really liked them and would vouch for them).  You can take the word of a super-picky two-year-old.  Little Hannah, who's approved food list isn't much more than chicken nuggets and ice cream, approved of them.  And as proof, here's a picture of Hannah eating an entire sprout, asking for another bite after each one she eats.  I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say my dad would like them, because I'm not sure how extreme his distaste of them is, but they are definitely now an acceptable vegetable in our family, so long as they're prepared the way we had them tonight.

Just Between Friends: Redux

Like I mentioned previously, I shopped a 'Just Between Friends' consignment sale for the first time recently. I wasn't overly impressed, but it was fine. These sales are franchised and the Johnson County franchisee has two sales each season: one for Overland Park and one for Shawnee, though they are in the exact same location on different weekends so it's a little weird. I generally get rid of my old kids clothes that are better brands in good condition on craigslist. I could make more on ebay, but it's such a pain to deal with selling each item and shipping it, that I choose not to. Likewise, I won't split my lots on craigslist because I don't want to deal with people buying a single shirt. I don't sell at garage sales because I feel I make more with the charitable deduction on my taxes. This season I wasn't having luck selling my spring lots on craigslist for what I wanted to sell them for so I decided to sell at the Shawnee JBF sale, which started today.

It was way more work than I anticipated. Mostly because I decided to sell about two days before drop off day so I didn't have long to get things ready and they are very particular on how to prepare your clothes. If I sell again, I will definitely plan ahead. They charge $10 to sell and then you make 65% of your sale prices. You can make more if you volunteer, but I so have zero interest in that. I would have to be selling a lot of clothes to feel like 5% was worth 4 hours of my time. If I feel I make enough this time, I will probably sell every other year going forward so I can sell larger groups of clothes to make that $10 fee worth it. This year I might not make as much because girls clothes make more than boys, but very small sizes make way less because the market is so saturated with those sizes and this time I am selling mostly girls 18 months clothes, which is a pretty small size.

One of the benefits of volunteering and selling is you get to shop earlier than the general public when the selection is presumably better. But I spent yesterday dropping off my clothes and getting them inspected so I didn't really want to go back over there (I am spoiled. Driving to Overland Park is a real trek to me) to shop when I only needed a very few things to round out spring wardrobes.  So I sent Jason, who works very close to the sale. I knew it was a little risky because I am incredibly picky on quality and style for my children. He definitely came home with a few questionable items and bought more than I would have, but overall he did really well and got the rest of the things I needed for Spring for the kids.

Wednesdays Just Got Artier

Recently Mom and Ron added some new activities to their collection of supplies to use with the grandkids.  The latest additions, which Aunt Josie helped contribute to during her time here, are largely arts and craft-related, and the grandkids couldn't be happier.  Here they are enjoying their new supplies, and also having some reading time with Aunt Julie.

Best Friend Breakfast

My friend Jeff lives in Topeka.  And he has six kids.  Due to my work travel and family, I have very little free time.  Combining all of that, and I don't get to see him very often.  But he was in town this morning because he was taking his mom to the airport, and he called me to ask if I was free to meet him for breakfast.  I didn't want to waste the opportunity, so I was able to shuffle a few things around in my schedule and meet up with him at Starbucks for breakfast.  We talk frequently, so it wasn't like we needed the time to catch up on things, but it was fun to hang out for a bit, even if it was just for part of a morning.

Our Little British Girl

About a month ago, we noticed that sometimes when Clara would ask questions, she would do so with a British intonation.  Not necessarily a British accent, but a British intonation.  This is hard to describe, but the best way I can describe it is the change in intonation within a single syllable of a single word.  The British intonation (or at least in some cases, for all I know this is not consistent across the language) often will have the pitch of the voice slide from high to low on the same syllable.  Like Clara might say, "Mama, can we have a snack", but it'll sound like "Mama, can we have a sna-ack" but with the "sna" a higher pitch before dropping to a lower pitch for the "ack".  I pulled up a Peppa Pig (A British children's show) episode on YouTube to try to find an example, and in this clip you can hear this character say "Don't go inside."  Notice how he says "side".  He does the pitch-shift thing from high to low.  That's what Clara has been doing.  She doesn't always do it, but usually several times a day.  We have no idea how this happened.  Our best guess is that it is, in fact, from Peppa Pig.  Although, that doesn't seem terribly likely, because we don't have that on our DVR at our house, so they only see it at Mom and Ron's, so it's not like she's exposed to it that much.  But maybe it's just enough to stick in her mind.  The first time I heard it, I said to Meghan, "Wait...  Did I just hear her say that with a British intonation?"  and Meghan said, "Yeah, that's what I heard too."  It's pretty cute, but we've noticed recently that she's doing it with less frequency, so it's probably a short phase that will totally fade away soon, so I wanted to make sure we were able to capture this funny little phase in our blog.  Because I can't have a picture of an intonation, I took the opportunity to just take some cute pictures of our little Clara.

Family of Five and a Patio Set for Four

I'm finally fairly confident that winter has died for this year.  Not that we won't still have some chilly days, but I think we're done with any snow or very cold days.  So we're solidly into spring, and we're even officially in the season, though that's a lot less relevant to me.  But the days are really nice right now, often a little chilly in the morning, but usually pretty great during the day.  So we're trying to take better advantage of that this year than we did last year.  Sunday lunches are a good opportunity for this.  However, it's becoming more and more of a problem that we only have four chairs for this set.  One option is to have the girls sit in the same chair, but that won't last for long.  Even though it was pretty cheap, we actually really like this patio set, because the chairs recline/bounce and are reasonably comfortable, but it can be outside all year round.  We could try to replace it with a bigger set that seats six, but so many of those require cushions and things to be brought inside when it's raining or snowing (or probably just stored inside and brought outside when needed), and that's kind of a pain.  Maybe we can find a single chair to add to our set, but it probably won't match.  So we're not sure how we'll solve that problem yet, but for now, a lot of times we'll just let the kids eat outside and Meghan and I will stay inside.  For dinners we'll keep putting both girls in the same chair for now, as that still works at the moment.

Playing with Neighborly Neighbors

When Meghan and I picked up the kids at Mom and Ron's today after our date night, we found that they were all playing in the back yard with their neighbors.  The Katsmans' yard backs up to theirs, and they have a nice playset in their yard, and the parents invited our kids to play on the playset with their kids, Aidan and Mason.  We were in no rush, so we all hung out back there for awhile while the kids played.  Although Clara and Hannah really liked the swinging things, Joshua was enamored with a new toy he'd never before encountered: a motorized bubble gun.  It was out of liquid by the time we got there, but that didn't stop him from still trying to find a way to make it work.

Jazz with the Hansons

Although most of our date nights are just the two of us, sometimes we use the opportunity to meet up with another couple.  We used to have many opportunities to see the Hansons outside of date nights, but they have added 7(!) kids to their family in the past three years so it is hard to figure out a time that works with everyone's schedule and, no matter what time we choose, it ends up being a lot of kid management for all parties so it makes it difficult to have time for just the adults to talk.  So we decided to use our date night tonight to go on a double date with Jason and Callie.  We went to Jazz, which was a place they'd never been, and in fact they'd never really been to a Cajun restaurant.  They were anxious to try some different Cajun foods, so they got an assortment of options.  Meghan and I are pretty set in our ways there, and she got her normal Shrimp Czarina, and I got one of my favorites, the Shrimp and Scallops Pontchartrain.  The only problem was the live music was too loud (it always is), but we all loved our food and enjoyed our chance to catch up on everything, as it had been awhile since we'd been able to get together.

Old Shawnee Town and March Madness with Hadley

Today is still spring break for the kids, though it was kind of a rainy day. Halie decided to take the kids on a little tour of Shawnee. None of us had been to the Johnson County Museum so they started there. They enjoyed the post office, but there isn't a ton of kid stuff there, so they soon moved on to to Old Shawnee Town.

They liked this a lot, especially because they got to walk between buildings in the rain. They love rain. Meghan is working on getting them so rain gear so they can be out in it more. They tried out a one-room school house. I am sure Joshua is not looking at the clock, waiting for the time to be over, but it kind of looks like it (did they even have clocks in school back then?).

The big hit of Old Shawnee Town was laundry. They loved the laundry. They got to scrub clothes.

And then wring them and hang them. They loved this. Pretty much anything involving water in any way is going to be a big hit with them. It was a fun day and a great way to get out despite the rain.

The first two days of the NCAA tournament are always two of my favorite sports days of the year.  It's fun to watch the barrage of games and match up the results against my bracket.  This year I met Jason Keeler out for the afternoon.  We watched the first few games at Sully's Pub, but then relocated to Saints.  On the way, he stopped by his house and picked up his daughter Hadley, who watched the rest of the games in the afternoon before they had to head home for dinner and bathtime.  Later I joined them so I could hang out with Hudson and Hadley before bedtime.  Here Hadley and I pose for a picture at Saints,

Death by Crackers

Meghan is on a list where sometimes she gets invited to do taste tests through the K-State Olathe campus.  Recently one came up for kids four and over.  It turns out we have one of those.  It consists of three one-hour sessions any time this week and pays $125.  I had time yesterday morning, so I took Joshua for the first session, with Meghan planning to take him today and then also tomorrow.  But when I got there, we found out it's for the parents too, so the same parent has to be at all three sessions.  This was a problem, because I knew I was going to be out of town today (I'm in Chicago), and Meghan wasn't really able to go yesterday, and plus I was already there with him.  So we talked with the organizers, and they said it would be okay if we did all three sessions in the same day.  So Joshua and I stayed there for our original 10:00 session, then we also did the noon session.

The tasting consisted of the child tasting five small cups each full of a different types of cheesy crackers and then I would ask him questions from the iPad app about how he liked different aspects of it (taste, crunchiness, appearance, cheesiness, etc.) and I'd then enter the responses on the iPad at our station.  For the second half of the hour session, the kids got to go play and do crafts at a table manned by an adult, and then I went through the same process with five different types of crackers, but with more detailed and in-depth questions. The end result is we would each try 15 types of crackers over the course of the three sessions.  The crackers were various versions of GoldFish crackers, Ritz Bits, and Cheez-Its and others,  Some were currently for sale, and some were test versions which the companies were evaluating (which of course is the whole point of the taste test.  They pay K-State, and K-State pays us, and then they have consumer feedback.  Everyone wins.)  After our second session, I dropped him off at home and went to work.  I didn't feel the greatest after have tons of crackers in place of my lunch, but it wasn't too bad.

Our third session was scheduled for 5:30.  By the time I got home to pick up Joshua to take him back, I was about sick.  Not really sick, but the thought of having any more cheesy crackers made me want to barf.  That's probably why they normally don't want people to do all three in the same day.  I just wanted to stay home and eat real food and never look at a Goldfish cracker again.  But you don't get paid unless you do all three sessions, and for $125, I was determined to power through it, even if it meant I would actually throw up at the end.  So we went back, and we each had five more small cups of crackers.  At the end, I felt pretty blah, but I wasn't going to actually vomit, so that was good.   It was definitely not something I would have done for free, but for $125, I was more than willing to suffer through it.  We collected our cash, went home, and celebrated St. Patrick's Day.  I was really glad to get some actual real food in me for dinner.

Three Little Leprechauns

Today is St. Patrick's Day.  We usually get the kids themed clothes for bigger holidays, and St. Patrick's Day is no exception.  Like last year, we were able to get some pictures of all three kids together.

Halie did a St. Patrick's Day craft project with the kids, and they were excited to model their hats.

For dinner we had our traditional Irish meal of Irish Stew, and the kids had special drinks, which they loved.

Christine couldn't take her balloons back with her that received from Eric for the anniversary, and they've been very popular.  Here Joshua was able to collect them into a balloon bouquet, which made him very happy.