What's For Dinner? Week 3

We had a really nice evening out for Casey's birthday back on the 13th that I forgot to mention in my last dinner post.  Drinks and appetizers at Bar Louie and dinner at Nagoya.  Good food.  Good times.  Craig met a new friend at dinner (the husband of one of Casey's friends) who happens to be a police officer and they had a nice long chat about guns.  You know.  Boy stuff.  I heard about nothing but guns all weekend.  ;-)

Saturday morning brought a pancake breakfast as usual.  Weelicious whole wheat oatmeal pancakes.  I like mine with peanut butter, maple syrup and bananas on the side.

I made pumpkin pie-sicles again after such a long hiatus without them!  Kids were pleased.

In the evening, we had friends over for dinner.  It was potluck.  I made a spinach salad with strawberries, pecans and that awesome poppy seed dressing that Julie brought over for Jill's birthday.

Poppy Seed Dressing

1/3 cup cider vinegar

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup sugar

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 small onion

**Process until smooth.

**Then stir in 2 tsp poppy seeds.

I really think it's the onion that makes this dressing so freakin' good.  So use a small one but don't skimp!

Sunday was a baking day for me.  Breads specifically.  I wanted to prepare a couple kinds for Sophie's party menu and pop them in the freezer:  pumpkin chocolate chip bread and banana tea bread.  But then I figured, while I was at it, I'd try another bread recipe from Pinterest that sounded reeeally good to me:  snickerdoodle bread!  Once you've got the basic bread ingredients all out on the counter, it's really not that much more work to try out multiple recipes.

Mmm!  I froze all but one snickerdoodle loaf and, oh my goodness, was it ever good!!  Cinnamon sugar "crust" on top and cinnamon chips baked into the bread.

After baking, I made dinner.  Despite how it sounds, I wasn't in the kitchen the entire day.  ;)  Just nap time and a little after.

It's asparagus season again!

And with that, I made my friend Sarah's lemon chicken and asparagus pasta.  (Recipe previously on my blog.)  Delicious!

On Monday, we were having burgers on the grill.  So I tried salt and vinegar broiled fingerling potatoes from Pinterest to go along side.  I would have liked them a smidge crispier, but they were good!

Another night this week, I prepared the homemade strawberry ice cream for Sophie's birthday party.  Anything to get prepped in advance!  This was the first time I'd ever made homemade strawberry before.  (Recipe came from the Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker booklet.)  It required washing, pureeing and straining the strawberries; boiling the cream, tempering the egg yolks; combining, cooling and finally churning the mixture in the ice cream maker.  Because it had to cool, this was a two-day process.  I got a double batch of the mixture made on one night and then churned it the next day.  Totally worth the effort!!!  Amazing flavor.  Though I actually liked it a little better when it was just soft and cold right out of the machine, instead of days later when it had hardened into typical "ice" cream.

On Thursday night (?) this week, I tried crispy southwest chicken wraps from Pinterest.  Craig and I loved them!  Kids... not so much.  ;)

And then Thursday night, I spent making Sophie's birthday cake for her actual birthday (banana bread cake with brown butter frosting - picture to come later) and French breakfast muffins for her birthday morning breakfast.  Both recipes from Pinterest.  Sophie's really been digging bananas lately, so when I asked her if she'd like a banana cake for her birthday, the answer was an emphatic "YES!"

And these little muffins were sweet and crispy on the outside and soft and crumbly in the middle.  I had the batter scooped into the muffin cups the night before and then baked them that morning so they were warm and crispy.  When they're warm out of the oven, you dunk them in melted butter and then in cinnamon-sugar.  Soooo good.  The blogger recommended perhaps leaving the extra butter and cinnamon mixture on the table for extra dunking.  That was dangerously delicious!  I might recommend letting them cool a bit longer than I did.  The cinnamon-sugar looked better as a topping when you could see the crystals on the latter bunch of muffins I did, as opposed to dark and wet-looking on the really warm muffins.  Make sense?  You can see the difference in the pictures.

For Sophie's birthday dinner, I asked Craig what he thought Sophie really ate well and would like for dinner and he said, of course, pizza.  We had a busy day planned and I decided that not cooking a meal was fine with me!  Sophie loved it!

An Evening Bike Ride

I've been so anxious to get back out to the trail at Maumee Bay since Will learned to ride without training wheels.  The trail is perfect for a family bike ride (especially a new rider) because it's a wide paved path with no concern for traffic and no need to start and stop.  We did stop a couple of times when Will requested (I think he just liked the novelty of sitting on a bench) because it's a lot longer ride when you don't have the training wheels to let your legs "rest" and his tiny, little tire circumference required SO MANY more revolutions and faster pedaling to keep a decent pace with us.  His legs were pumping really hard to keep up.  I think the 16" bike will make these rides so much easier on him.  :) 

The path affords a pretty view through the trees and beside the lake and it's not far from home.  So nice!

Ahem, Craig!  You're not setting a very good example of rule following, mister! 

We always love to make a few trips (on foot) up and down the big sledding hill when we hit up this bike path.  But bikes are not welcome on the hill and Craig really wanted to take a down hill ride.  Shame, shame.

Running down and back up the hill.

Did you know that FIFTEEN YEARS ago (on April 15th), a cute boy on the track team asked me to be his girlfriend after the bus ride home from a dual meet?  Hard to believe how quickly the time passes.  Next year, I will have been with Craig for half my life!

Heading back to the Jeep and home for dinner.

So proud of Will and his first, long, training-wheel-free, bike ride!

Kindergarten Screening

Doesn't this boy look so big and yet so small in front of this great big school?

I didn't cry last Wednesday morning when we arrived for Kindergarten Screening, but it was sort of a life-has-come-full-circle moment as we walked hand-in-hand up to the entrance of the elementary school doors.  How did we get here already?  To this age, I mean.  And how strange it is that I remember my years in this school system so well (including my first day of Kindergarten!) and now I am the parent of one of the upcoming students!  It's a weird feeling.  My siblings and I went to school here.  My parents went to school here.  Same with Craig and his sister and dad.  This, however, is a brand new elementary school building and our children are lucky enough to be some of the first students to attend!  But we've all grown up in this community and it feels natural and comfortable that our kids will grow up here too.  I know many of the staff members throughout the school system and they all greet us like family and have the same feeling of time flying to see me return as a parent.  :-)

When Will and I walked into the building and approached the check-in for screening, Will showed zero apprehension (as I expected).  After some hugs and greetings, we were given name tags and Will was whisked away to begin the screening process while I was ushered into the library to fill out some paperwork and listen to some orientation information with the other parents.  I was a little sad at how quickly we were separated because I would have liked to give him a hug and wish him luck... but I know that was probably an effort to help the timid students avoid having extra time to think about being away from mom or dad.  And Will had no qualms about it.  He adapts so easily and has never feared new people or experiences.  [Tear.]

The current Kindergarten students all had the days off during screening week, while the rest of the grades were still in session.  So we were able to see students and teachers moving about their normal day and the Kindergarten teachers were able to be active participants in the orientation and screening processes.  We were introduced to all of the Kindergarten teachers, specialists, guidance counselor, nurse, etc.  And of course the principal, who's extremely warm and comforting, did most of the talking to parents.  We filled out lots of paperwork, listened to details of school practices and routines, watched a nice video of new school footage and each teacher in her classroom and students milling about (we got to take this video home, which will be nice to show Will before school starts!), listened to volunteer opportunities, wandered the building, etc.

While we were engaged with all the minutia of Kindergarten life, our kids were in the classrooms working with the teachers and non-teaching staff on various screening criteria:  motor, concepts, language, etc.

Finally, the staff returned to the library and talked one-on-one with each parent (or one-on-two if both parents attended) about the things they measured with the children.  As I sort of anticipated, Will scored lower on motor skills and hand-eye-coordination (cutting with scissors, writing, coloring in the lines, catching a ball, skipping, etc.) though his cutting and coloring were slightly better than I would have imagined.  I heard from several of the teachers and the principal before even listening to Will's results, that this is extremely common with boys.  They tend to have less of an interest in fine motor work with their hands and usually catch up to the girls in that regard by about 2nd grade.  Will did well with concepts (problem solving, knowledge of letters and their sounds, body parts, colors, numbers, etc.)  My favorite response was to their question of "What do you do if something is broken?"  The teachers said the most common response was that "Mom buys a new one."  Will's response was very matter-of-factly "You fix it!"  That's definitely his father's son.  And finally, in language he scored excellent.  He enunciates well and has a pretty large vocabulary.

Following the review of screening results, we walked down to the classrooms to collect the kids who were happily playing and left with our information packets and a small to-do list of medical and dental exams, etc.

Also, before leaving, I was asked by the principal and nurse if I might meet with their small committee regarding the school lunch program.  I kind of knew this was coming because I'd heard through the grapevine (small town!) that they were looking to make some changes/improvements and wanted a dietitians input.  I'm excited and yet fearful about the opportunity.  I would love to be involved in helping with the menu planning at my childrens' school.  And yet I know the problems we hear about with government food commodities and lack of funding and cooperation is nationwide.  Our school is certainly not exempt and I fear it will feel like beating your head against a wall.  :(  But some of their goals/plans sound very exciting, so hopefully I'm able to help!

Kissy Kissy

Just a cute series of pictures after bath and teeth brushing one night.  

Good thing Will found this whole thing hilarious 'cause she almost poked his eye out and choked him in her efforts to plant one on him.  Haha!