In the kitchen with Sara

Now that we're eating at home more often, I've been branching out in my selection of dinner food. My gallbladder issue is requiring that I eat low-fat, so I went on a search for some dinner ideas that were easy and low-fat. We've made several really good things, and some- not so much.

This is what I made last night- it was called Coconut Shrimp though there weren't any coconut flakes involved- just the milk. Randy loved it, I just thought it was ok. I liked the spinach, cilantro and ginger (I'd never used fresh ginger before!), but it was too creamy for me.

I thought it was so pretty right after I added the green stuff.

This is where it went downhill for me.

The finished product, served with jasmine rice.

Now, tonight, we had a yummy meal. Jerk chicken salad with Carribbean Vinaigrette. I made the marinade last night, so the chicken had overnight to soak. I've never worked with a habanero pepper before, and a lot of the reviews suggested using only a half of one- I'm glad I followed that advice. I actually got to use my little food processor, too! I cut the chicken into strips and put them on skewers, and we grilled them. I was going to serve the chicken with a side salad and sweet potatoes (from the box, of course), but I forgot we didn't HAVE any sweet potatoes, so I suggested we just put the chicken ON a salad. Randy suggested using the leftover marinade as a dressing, so I boiled it and turned it into a vinaigrette with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar. It was EXCELLENT. We will definitely be making it often.

My salad

Randy (and eventually me) topped his with shredded cheese

Toddler Fashions

A couple weeks ago, when the weather was so nice, I found the most adorable pair of sandals at Target. And they actually fit on Gracie's fat little feet, so of course I bought them. Now, the girl already has a shoe fetish- shoe is one of her favorite words, and she loves to tote anyone's shoes around the house with her. So imagine her delight at a brand new pair of her very own shoes!

She's only gotten to wear them once or twice, but she just loves them- she'll walk around then stop to admire the little butterflies!

She also got the cutest jean skirt from her Grandmama for Valentine's day. I've been wanting her to wear it, but I didn't have any tights for her (she's not much of a dressy kid). Well, I finally got some tights the other day in the dollar section at Target- I figured for a dollar, if they shredded, no big deal. I also wasn't sure if she would tolerate them- I can't STAND to wear tights or pantyhose. But she didn't seem to mind them, and is absolutely precious in the skirt! She's also wearing a shirt my friend Michelle got her from babyGap for her birthday. It says "Life's so sweet and happy". Indeed!

I also posted this pic so you can see the color of her eyes. They are a very weird color- grayish/goldish/greenish. In the sun they look more green (Randy's and my eyes are green). I don't even know how to classify them if I had to write down somewhere what color they are- I always think of hazel as green/brown. They're very unique!

Talky, talky

Gracie has become SO vocal these days. She just babbles and carries on little conversations with herself. I can't understand a word when she does it, but it is so cute! She says "Hey!" to everything in this precious singsong voice, and she'll get stuck on a word and say it over and over. Like this afternoon she got ahold of one of my shoes and carried it around saying "shoe" constantly. She also says "uh-oh" now, but not usually at the appropriate time (she'll copy us on it though). She was saying "go" repeatedly earlier, because I kept saying it trying to encourage her to climb up the stairs a bit faster.
Of course, she still won't say mama. She'll make the sound, but only when she's upset, and it's more of a ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma. I'll say "mama" to her, and she usually replies "dada!". Uh, no.
She's also taken to hugging things recently. She'll hug things on command "Can you give Wubby a hug?" and spontaneously (especially the cats). She'll even hug ME sometimes! The other night at dinner she grabbed ahold of my arm and kept hugging it to her- she holds whatever object up by her shoulder and bends her head over- and even sways back and forth sometimes! It is so cute- I gotta get it on tape. She has also figured out how to carry more than 2 things at once by gathering them up in her arms, and plays peekaboo by herself (putting a blanket over her face).
She is very into books right now, too. She loves to flip through the pages of her board books, and I can sometimes get her to sit with me voluntarily and read an entire book! She "reads" to herself, too.
That's about it for now. No more bragging on the baby for tonight. =)

An Awesome Valentine's Day

Prepare to be very jealous. I have the best husband EVER! Randy managed to completely (well, almost completely) surprise me with a fantastic V day. He made me an appointment to get a pedicure (this was the non-surprise- they called me to confirm the appointment a couple days before. Oops) on Saturday morning which was awesome. He made boarding reservations for Shelby, so I knew we were going somewhere and Gracie stayed with Grandma. We had dinner reservations at 5:30 and they ended up being at a Tuscan grill called Posta at the new Marriott hotel in downtown Raleigh. We spend the night at the hotel, too, and went to see STOMP! at the Raleigh Memorial Auditorium across the street. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed STOMP! It was a fantastic show, and I highly recommend you go see it if you ever get the chance. I didn't realize it had a comedy aspect to it, but it surely did, and this was heightened by the fact that there was a precious little kid near the front who had the most adorable giggle- the audience was laughing just because we could hear HER laugh! And the performers really responded to the audience, too. Randy also had arranged to have flowers delivered and they were in our room when we got there, and there was champagne chilling in a bucket, too! We ordered breakfast to our room this morning and spend today hanging with Gracie at the mall. It has been a fantastic weekend, but I am worn out! I need another weekend to recuperate!

Bye, bye bottles!

I need to be in the bed as I have to get up early and take G to Grandma's then get to work for an early staff meeting... yet here I am. I thought I'd share our latest accomplishment- no more bottles!
Maybe 6 weeks or so ago we did away with all of G's bottles except for the before bed one. We probably could have given it up sooner, but *I* just wasn't ready. About the only time the kid will hold still and sit in my lap is with a bottle, so I wanted to enjoy that a bit longer. However, I ran out of drop-ins yesterday and decided, enough. So last night I gave her a sippy of warm milk (she still doesn't like it freezing cold) as I held her and rocked, as we always did with the bottle- no problemo. Then I started reading up on the subject, and everything recommended to give the milk a little before bed, and to brush teeth afterward (and of course the threat of rotted teeth will promptly change a mom's mind). So tonight I made her a sippy and let her have it as she was getting her last bit of playing done. When she finished it, we went upstairs, brushed teeth, struggled into jommies (the kid HATES to get dressed for bed!), read a couple books, then out went the light and baby into bed. And she went to sleep. (insert Hallelujah chorus here) Actually, I didn't think it would really be difficult, as she was rarely asleep when I would lay her down even after a bottle. And she still has her Wubby- we'll save THAT battle for a couple months down the road. But I'm happy that she was never really that attached to her bottles (we never let her carry one around with her or have it in bed, or gave her anything but milk in it, so I think that worked to our advantage). I hope she doesn't start protesting, but I really think it was easy for her to let go. The wubby, however, will probably require surgical removal, I'm afraid to say.
Next I think I'm going to try to get her to use a spoon and drink from a cup without a sippy lid- maybe we should start in the bathtub? =)

Curls and cats

In these photos you can actually tell that Gracie IS the daughter of two curly-headed parents! This is what she looks like right after a bath. Too bad I can't get them to stay!

This is another one of Grace's new favorite pasttimes- hugging the poor cats. She tackles them, then oh, so sweetly lays her head on them. It is so cute! Look- she even got ahold of Jonah!

Meh

I haven't blogged in a week, and I'm really having to force myself to do so tonight. I should probably share that my "student teaching" seems to be on track for now- no majors snafus *yet*. I will be getting observed a couple times this week by my supervisor at HC and one of the assistant principals. I want to make sure I get a bunch of evaluations done, since I have a feeling NCCU won't do many. CYA, you know?

G is well. We think she's working on some big-time teeth. I ended up giving her some Tylenol tonight, which seemed to help. She gets smarter everyday. She has now added "juice" to her list of words- she also signs it reliably. As of last count, she says dada, shoe, doggie, juice (shoosh), fish (ish) and she tries to say Shelby (shelshy) and Domo. STILL no mama. Sigh.

We bought her some rubber blocks today- at lunch I was stacking her little cheesy poofs and she was trying to do it, too, so we figured she might enjoy some blocks. She can stack 2, but prefers to knock them down, of course.

Not much else going on.

Here's a cute pic, anyway