Cooking...BAH!

I am so sick of my standard recipes and limited cooking repertoire. I've been trying lately to get some new recipes to try out. Rachel Ray's stuff lends herself to my style because it's simple, quick, and comforting. So, tonight, I tried her french onion soup. I felt very fancy with my french bread, gouda cheese, white wine and beef boullion (you must pronounce that as I did--with a snotty french accent). I only made servings for myself and Rad since Aiden would rather slit his throat than try something new and Ava would burn herself being too impatient to delve into onions to wait for it to cool (polar opposites, those two). They got chicken soup to fit the soup theme, which they love and that's fine with me. Anyway, I would say it turned out phenomenal with maybe a teensy bit too much thyme and bread (not really soupy, but I don't mind that). Radley with his onion phobic self, left a pile of tender onion loops in his bowl. He tried to be positive, but he clearly wasn't satisfied and I was bummed. I never imagined it would be so difficult to cook for 2--let alone 4--individuals to satisfy, well, even two of them! Well, I guess I will fight the urge to be discouraged and try again. This time, it'll be something even Aiden may put a bite of in his mouth--cheesburger meatloaf with mashed potatoes! Yeah...wish me luck.

Off the bottle

I decided that Ava needed to go cold-turkey off the bottle. She only gets it at night now but with infant formula that is costly and does her no good. Plus, most of the time in the middle of the night, she'll wake, take a couple sips, and go back to bed. Why would I want to mess up such a predictable, smooth thing? Like I said, formula is NOT cheap (she rejected the toddler kind and refuses milk) and it just bothers me that she's 17 months old and still drinking from a bottle. Plus, she has lately gotten really attached to it and started requesting "mih" [milk] about 2 hrs. before bedtime and I refuse to give it to her until it's time for bed and thus the battle begins. That girl is nothing if not persistent. I can forget about trying to sit down and relax for 1 minute if she is on a mission to get something--especially that dang bottle. Anyway, tonight is the second night of mission "Ditch the bottle". She cries for a while, but eventually goes to sleep. Not that bad. Still, I feel bad like I've cut off something valuable to her. Or maybe it's just me realizing that she's more a toddler than a baby now. How did that happen?!? Growing pains...We all have them but for different reasons. So my victory is tempered with a bit of sadness. Until I think of all the bottles I don't have to wash anymore--hallelujah!!!

A witch and a ninja

Trick or treat! We headed over to Baumholder last night with Aiden's friend, Devin, for some Halloween fun! We did the trick or treating thing and got a boat-load of candy. The kids tired out after an hour, so then we went over to the bowling alley for pizza (they've got the best American-style around here). Devin was fascinated by the game of bowling and sat down with some nice strangers to watch their game and cheer them on :) All night that boy kept talking to me in German (imagine!) and for some reason I have a hard time understanding his speech (he's 5), so I kept just saying, "ya..." and that caused a little confusion when he thought I was giving him permission for some stuff. He'd run off to play games and I'd realize he thinks he can play for free and I'd have to call him back to tell him we have no money (the lame ol' parent trick--but hey, those games are expensive!) He surely thinks I'm a nut. Anyway, we got home sort of late and even I was exhausted after a long week. A couple German kids were suess and saur-ing ("sweet and sour" is their version of "trick or treat") and I was a bad American representative of our holiday and didn't buy candy, but had tons on hand anyway. No, I didn't give Aiden and Ava's away :) Not that it wasn't tempting. But now they've got permission to devour candy all day. I'm going to try to get them to get rid of it this weekend so it's gone and we're not dragging out the "I WANT CANDY"s for months.

Yummy guts

It's the holiday season and I'm all abuzz with kid-like excitement! I got especially giddy when I went outside this morning to go to work and realized that the drizzle was actually wet snow--woohoo! Yes, I know many of you are raising your eyebrows at this and saying "woopdeedoo". All I can say is this is my favorite time of year and I love when it snows for so many reasons (i.e., beauty, peaceful images, sledding, snowmen...no school, perhaps?) and it just added a little excitement to the morning. Anyway, tomorrow, we're going trick or treating!! Aiden is a ninja, Ava is a witch (perfectly appropriate, trust me), I will be my best Sarah Palin (I think it'll be hysterical), and Rad will be his usual stick in the mud. I tried to get him to be Obama thinking that with me being Palin and him as a Filipino Obama we'd, well...we'd confuse people, but I sure as heck would be rolling with fits of laughter all night at how clever we were! Anyway, I'll let you know how that turns out. We're taking Aiden's BFF, Devin, for his first American trick or treating night, so that'll be fun, too. Tonight, we did our jackolantern and thank goodness we got it on tape because we have the unbelievable evidence of Ava eating the pumpkin guts and mmm-ing, then offering some to Aiden who just about gagged! HA HA!! Yeah, I'm sure that'll be on UTube. We'll let you know when Rad gets around to that!

Vote

I am excited to report that I've cast my vote for the President and I'll be sending my absentee ballot in tomorrow! I'm so anxious to find out who it'll be and I'm so happy the time is soon!

The case of the missing shoe

The other day, I found these nikes for 25% off at the Px for Aiden. He wore them for about 3 days when one of them went missing. We immediately suspected the smallest member of the household due to her shoe fetish and the fact that I once found one of my shoes--quite by accident--in the decorative terracota fireplace in our dining room. Well, we've looked everywhere we can think of for a week now and can't find it anywhere. We tried all the typical interrogation techniques with her and nada. We cringe to think she may have put it in the trash, thinking she was helping out somehow, and now it's gone. What to do with one nice shoe and that sinking feeling in your stomach knowing you just threw money in the trash--literally?

Did it!

Woohoo! I ran my first 5K yesterday for breast cancer awareness. Me and my friend, Saundra, stuck together and broke the pink tape at 34 minutes! So we did a little over 11-minute miles, which is good for me! It was super-fun having all those people lined up and cheering you on! I was really just excited about the personal challenge of running a 5K without stopping, but having such general positivity and good-willed people around was a nice switch from the week I'd been having. I needed that! So it was a great experience in more than one way. Then, to cap off a great day, Rad and I drove to Luxembourg with some friends to hit up our fave Portuguese restaurant for some garlicy prawns swimming in butter (balanced with plenty of white wine) and lots of laughs with old friends. Great day!