Monday, November 30, 2009

Nicknames

I'm stupid with nicknames. It started with my parents' cats. I began calling them dumb nicknames (Winnie went by Supermergantroy and Motley was Halaroo). Then it moved on to my cats. Moe is Schmoo, Schmozly, Schmoopie-Poo, Moo, and the list goes on and on. Artemis is Buttface, Smartemis, Bartemis Fowl, etc. Kendrick was always afraid of what I'd call our kids. He was right to be scared.

Amelia:
Monkey
Babycakes (when she was a baby)
Monkeyface
Monkeypants
Monk
Bunky
Bunny

Heidi:
Bear
Barely bear
Heidelberg
Ditty (usually preceded by a "hey")
Dittles (see above)
Professor Ditty Von Bear
Ditty-ditty Dumpling Head
Billy-Bong

They're going to hate me when they're older. But then again, my mom used to call me Chrissywitch...

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Holy shrimp, my kids are cute!

Amelia makes me laugh every day. Here are a few snippets of life with my three year old:

Today at Farm Boy we noticed their Christmas decorations. Amelia's exclamation upon noticing the giant wreath: "Holy shrimp, that's a huge wreath!".

When something is not going her way she stamps her foot and says: "Tartar sauce!". I love SpongeBob.

We used to be concerned about her social skills. Kendrick is convinced that her school experience will be as bad as his was. I'm not so worried anymore. She's only been taking swimming lessons alone since September and she has grown so much. She would barely open her mouth at the beginning but now she's always talking to the instructor and conversing with the other children. She's the most out-going child in the class, and the youngest to boot. Now to get Heidi to detach herself from me a little and we're all set.

Speaking of Heidi... man, she's a troublemaker. She throws a fit when her demands are not immediately met and she throws it with gusto. Looks like she's just like her sister in respect to her terrible twos starting early. Hopefully, unlike her sister, they'll end early too.

The two of them do get along very well though. I have been really busy with work the past couple of weeks, usually putting in a couple of hours a day, and Amelia "takes care" of her little sister for me. She gets her water and snacks and plays really nicely. Yesterday they were playing in Amelia's room while I was working and I heard Amelia very gently asking Heidi to sit on her bum in the chair. "No Heidi. Bum or knees. Look at Amelia, Heidi, bum or knees. No standing. ... Good girl." They grow up so fast. I can't believe this is my last year with Amelia full-time. I will definitely miss her when she starts school, but also be very thankful for the time I'll get with Heidi.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Mushroom Ragout

I made a delicious mushroom ragout for dinner tonight. I roasted tomatoes with a couple cloves of garlic and olive oil for about an hour. Then I simmered the lot on the stove with a big pile of coarsely chopped mushrooms and a dollop of red wine. Served on pasta with fresh grated Parmesan. Yummy! Kendrick would have preferred meat in it, but I'm sticking with what's good.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Where does the time go?

I'm a terrible blogger. I can't believe it's been so long since I've updated this thing. I'm going to try to be a better blogger, I promise.

This was a good weekend. I actually got to sleep in this morning (well, until 8:45, but that's a huge deal around here). We had an impromptu family gathering here on Saturday: slow-cooked ribs, fried rice, and butter tarts. Yummy. Then today we had went to get a family portrait taken. I can't believe it's taken this long for us to do it. Amelia picked out identical dresses for her and Heidi. They looked positively princess-like. Of course Heidi smashed her face on the edge of a table 5 minutes before getting in the car so she had a nice bruise on her cheek for the photos. Yay for photoshop! Now hopefully Kendrick didn't "Chandler smile" for every picture...

Heidi spent some time at the in-laws house without us there today too. I look forward to that becoming a regular occurrence. An kid-free afternoon every weekend. Bliss!

I also finished my Christmas cards, watched "Serenity" (now can David Milch give "Deadwood" the same send-off?!), and made a roasted tomato and mushroom ragout for tomorrow. All-in-all, a successful weekend.