She makes people smile

Today we walked in the rain to dance class. Hannah lagged behind most of the time because she couldn't resist puddle jumping and playing with her umbrella. At one point, she stopped in the middle of a group of commuters that were waiting at a bus stop, and she yelled ahead to me, "Hey, Mom!"
I turned around, and she put down her umbrella and spun it while she danced around it several times. She called everyone to attention, and suddenly people started to smile. It was very pleasing to see the transformation on their faces.
Hannah finished her show, and ran to catch up with me. She was so happy and so proud of her performance. I asked her about it, and she said she was like Singing in the Rain, which is her new favorite movie. She continued to use her umbrella and boots as props throughout our journey. We were at least a half hour late to class, but it was worth it to see Hannah have so much fun.

Girls here and there

I am so happy to be in Park City with the other Dyer girls. So far, we have shopped until we literally dropped, we've eaten out where I ate a real beef hamburger (gasp!), we've had foot treatment (starting with 10 feet in a jetted tub), we've had pro haircuts (I love my new haircut!), and we've had a book group discussion. So girly, right? Pics to be shown later.
We have more to do here but you can see what my Dyer girls are doing across the country here.

Home and off again

I've been home for less than two days, and now I am off to the airport to fly solo to Salt Lake City.
Dan's mom has arranged a weekend retreat for us women in Park City. I'm looking forward to some me time.

Boston at it's best

We have never been to Boston's Patriot's Day Weekend with such beautiful weather. We walked leisurely through the city on the Freedom Trail, taking in more than the history. Hannah loved following the red "trail" and watching street performers.

Dan beat me to blogging about much of our Boston trip. I feel no need to be repetitive. You can see what Dan has to say here.

Another culinary critique~ Pickity Place

This is the cottage that the first Golden Books story of Little Red Riding Hood was illustrated after. It is fitting that it lies in the middle of the woods out in the no-man's land of New Hampshire. No wonder Red had such a frightful time.There is a room in the house that is dedicated to the tale.



It so happens that this charming home was made into a restaurant named Pickity Place. An herb farm makes up the majority of the surrounding grounds.


The restaurant only seats at three different times for lunch. They serve the same courses to everyone, with the exception of the main entree, of which two choices are given. The menu changes monthly. All of the food was made with one or more of the herbs from their garden. Even the chocolate crumble cake was garnished with a fresh sprig of sweet mint. My favorites were the veggie herb dip on crackers, the cardamom butter on Portuguese sweet bread, the Chicken Saltimbocca and yes, the cake.

Oh, and how could I forget the lavender lemonade. It was divine!

Thanks, Suzanne, for taking me to such a memorable place. I had a great time eating and talking with you.

Play in New Hampshire

Hannah and Jane couldn't get enough of the outdoors while we visited the Bates in New Hampshire. Our friends have a big backyard with loads of entertainment and more than enough...

DIRT! (Yes, that is a rock in Jane's mouth)
Dirt was in, on, under, through and between every little nook and cranny of these little girls' bodies. They didn't care as much as I did, of course. I had to remember that when I was a kid, the dirt I played in was in the form of mud. C'est la vie!

The girls played with more than dirt. They were reunited with their good friends, Joey and Thomas, and had a great time.

Boston is wicked!

We are having too much fun in New England to blog.
We'll update soon!

Two per box

The girls were a little too quiet, so I went to check on them. This is what I found.

They were discretely sharing chapstick in a Costco diapers box. They must have been very comfortable because they were in there for quite some time.

Published

I didn't realize how important our family blog would become when Dan started it a little over three years ago. What was once a medium through which our cross-continental friends and family could stay acquainted with our first-born daughter has become a family record of adventures, haps, mishaps, thoughts, ideas, likes, dislikes, and so much more. Recording these memories has been invaluable, and keeping them updated for our posterity has been our motivation behind maintaining a blog.
Last year, we published our first blog book for 2005. I was so happy to have a hard copy, being the non-scrapbooker that I am (let me reiterate- I am such a non-scrapbooker!), and will be happier still in the future when our recent past becomes far too distant.
We have just published our second book for the year 2006. This is the photo on the front.

See the excitement in our faces? We are just about as excited to get our new book.
You can get your blog published here.

100 Days Update, and W.O.W.

It's been 50 days since I started my 100 Day Challenge. At the end of February, I challenged myself to eat healthy and train for a 10k trail run for the Next 100 Days. I wish I could say I have been so far successful.
Exercise is not a problem- I love to do it. It's sweets that seem to be my nemesis. Since our sugar strike only a couple of weeks ago, I have made a new resolve to make more salubrious* choices in my eating. I don't keep junk in the house, but I consider too many occasions to be "special". Usually, those "special occasions" involve less-than-healthy refreshments, of which I rarely decline.

With the next 50 days, I am going to recommit and do my utmost to eat well and train for the 10k. I haven't made it easy on myself, however. In the coming weeks, I will be traveling A LOT. I will be without the safeguards of my own home, leaving myself vulnerable to the cuisine of the chosen locale. I will not completely deprive myself, mind you, but I will practice more self-control and make wise choices that won't leave me feeling like I need to be pardoned.

*salubrious \suh-loo-bree-uhs\ adj,
favorable to or promoting health; healthful.
dictionary.com

Hannah's Sunday quotes

Hannah kept us laughing yesterday...

We were driving home from church and I asked Hannah about Primary.

Me: How was Sunbeams?
Hannah: Good
Dan: All of the girls took their shoes off in class.
Me: That's funny.
Hannah: That's not funny, mama. That's cool!

******
Later, Dan and I were working on dinner in the kitchen. Out of the blue, Hannah calls out from the living room,

Hannah: Mama, get the gate.
Me: What gate?
Hannah: The gate for the kitchen. (We used to put up a child gate when Jane was younger)
Me: Why should I get the gate?
Hannah: So I won't bug you in there.

******
Even later, we were out visiting friends and as we were leaving Hannah said "good-bye" but not "thank you" for the many DVDs our friends let us borrow. Lately she will not say thank you to anyone. We've been trying to teach her good manners. We even have a Dora book about manners hoping that she would at least listen to Dora if not to us. Nothing doing. When it comes time to say thank you, she averts her eyes and buries her head.
On our walk home, a woman stopped us to ask us for directions. After we helped her, she thanked us and I said to Hannah,

Me: See Hannah? We did something nice for that woman and she said thank you. That's good manners. Can you say thank you when someone does something nice for you?
Hannah: No, I don't have good manners.

She said it so matter-of-fact that I'm not sure there's hope...

t.g.i.f.

Dan had yesterday off so we took our buddy-pass-winning friends, the Williams family, to the wildly popular and outrageously exciting Queens Zoo. Actually, it was quite dead (figuratively speaking) and it felt like we were the only ones there. We weren't complaining. We had a very leisurely zoo experience, and the kids enjoyed the few animals that reside there.
You can see much more zoo fun here.

No-name breakfast (or brunch)

I'm so grateful for all of those red-eye flights I take, because I always get such great recipes from late night TV.
I picked up this idea from the "JetBlue station".
I'm not sure what it is called. We definitely need a name for it because I will make it again. It was delicious and easy.

Per serving, you need:
1 6-oz. ramekin
1 large tomato slice
1 piece of prosciutto
1 large basil leaf
1 egg
butter or spray to coat ramekin

Butter or spray ramekin. Layer in order, the tomato, prosciutto, and basil leaf. Crack an egg over the top, allowing all the egg white to cover the top. Sprinkle with fresh ground pepper. It will look like this before you bake it.

Bake at 375° for about 14 minutes.

You can either dig in while it is in the hot little ramekin, or you can do what Dan did and pop it out upside down.
(I ate it too fast to take a picture. Sorry.)

Note: If you don't like any bit of a runny egg, this probably isn't for you. I like how the yolk coats everything like a sauce. Mmm...

There is probably a name for this type of dish, but until we know better, we'll call it No-name Italian breakfast.

Sleep Talking

Hannah was running a high fever last night so we brought her in our room to monitor and comfort her. It turns out Hannah is quite garrulous in a feverish state. I had never heard her talk in her sleep before, but maybe that's because I am rarely within ear shot of her ramblings.
Her outbursts were logical in the beginning,
"Where are the goldfish?"

to which I responded logically,
"We'll get some in the morning."
(I assumed she was referring to the edible variety)

Then, she exclaimed,
"I want to go to Sunbeams!"
I looked at her closely to find she was in fact sleeping.

A little while later, I heard,
"Horses need dirt."
and that was the end. She was silent until morning.

********************************

After breakfast, Hannah did bring up the goldfish by announcing,
"There's a monster in the goldfish."
I concluded that she must have had a nightmare about goldfish. How frightening!

I still wonder about Sunbeams and the horses...

Sugar Strike Success

We did it! We went an entire week without eating refined sugar. To us that meant no cookies, cakes, pastries, candies, sugar cereal, hot chocolate or anything else we felt fit under that category.
The first few days were hard for me but by Thursday my cravings were nonexistent. I felt really good. I had all the energy I needed to do everything I had set out to do, including work out. We found we ate better overall. It was easy once we had set our minds to eating healthier. The positive attitude helped me to not feel so deprived.
Dan was tempted on more than one occasion this week.
I'm not sure how he feels about the experience.
Let's ask him:
Dan, how do feel after going a week without sugar?

I think my sugar ups and down were less dramatic, and I had a good amount of energy. But it wasn't easy, because at work there were all sorts of cookies and candy this week.

Thanks Dan.

The girls seemed fine without sugar also. Hannah asked for treats when she used the bathroom by herself, but she was pacified with grape tomatoes or snap peas.

I previously theorized that once the sugar was out of my system, I wouldn't want it anymore. From this experience, I would say that my theory has been proven.
Now, what to have for dessert to celebrate...

Winners

We have had a great time reading all of the writing entries for our Buddy Pass Give-Away. They were all so varied and we liked them all for different reasons. In the end, there was one that just kept us laughing. The testimony experience written by Rachel won the prize, much to the chagrin, I'm sure, of the couple in the said story.
Our runner up was xhart (a.k.a. Alex). He wrote "Mayonnaise: An Epic Haiku". If you haven't read it, you should. It's genius!
We would like to award Alex, I mean xhart, with a complimentary family photo session.

Other favorites were a psychoanalysis on Barbie written by Kerianne (not in the comments) and Bracan's The Story of My Sax Life.
You can read most of the writings in the comments section from this post.

Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to all participants!

My favorite part

We've had a long and worthwhile family weekend. We have spent practically every moment together, which doesn't happen that often.
We have enjoyed watching General Conference, as always. Our spirits have been lifted, our minds have been enlightened and our hearts have been filled.
Other than Conference, I would have to say my favorite part about today was listening to the laughter of Hannah in response to our impromptu puppet show. We have started a tradition of showing puppets on Sundays and I think it is a worthy one.

Jane likes the puppets but doesn't understand their purpose and she tries to take them off of our hands. Hannah likes the puppets too, but she really loves the stories and "gets" them. She laughed so hard today at our puppetry that we laughed at her in response. Genuine, hearty laughter from kids is so contagious.

Dan's favorite part about today was being able (and willing) to stay in his pajama bottoms all day long.

Hannah said her favorite part was "dancing like a ballerina" after dinner.
Hannah would now like the opportunity to make her debut in the blogging world by typing out her name.
HHHHHHHHHHHAANNNNNNAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
And that was shorter than it usually is.

Jane's favorite part must have been the short amount of time she wasn't screaming. Or maybe screaming was her favorite part...

Cheering up the flowers

One of Jane's favorite books is about Dora and a Valentine adventure. At one point in the book, the flowers in Isa's garden are sad because they didn't get their Valentine's Day mail. Dora asks her reader to cheer up the flowers by making funny faces. Jane delivers...

Click Here

NOTE: The box above doesn't seem to work in Gmail Reader. Sorry. You'll just have to visit our actual blog if you want to see it.

Trash or Treasure

Yesterday, I heard the girls screaming at each other at an inexcusable level. I turned to see Jane tearing across the room as fast as her short little legs could take her with a white piece of something in her hand. Hannah then chased after her yelling,

"Hey, that's MY garbage!!!"

It turns out that Jane had ripped off a piece of Hannah's used paper towel that had become a prized possession of hers (again with the towels).
Later, I found the torn garbage in Hannah's little purse.

She truly values all things.

Towel Fetish

I wash my hands at the kitchen sink, and when I'm finished, I reach down to where the towel normally hangs. There is nothing to be found. I am not surprised. I just call for Hannah.

************

We're not sure why, but Hannah seems to have a fascination for towels. If they are within her reach, she will take them.
Sometimes she lays them down neatly across the entry hallway...


sometimes she uses them as a blanket...


and sometimes she puts them in packages for us to open.


I have yet to find the hand towel that's been missing from the bathroom for two days.

Want some buddy passes?

UPDATE TO ORIGINAL POST:
The buddy passes do not reserve a seat. They are used as stand-by passes. Do not let that discourage you, however. Stand-by is the only way we fly and we fly all the time!
***********************************************************************************
We have 2 round-trip buddy passes on JetBlue that will expire at the end of April. The relatives who were going to use them will be unable to use them, so we are going to give them away.

We are having an essay contest. The best writing wins the passes. Judging is by Minna and myself. Here are the rules:

• Please write 500 words or less (if it is 501 words, that's ok).
  
• You must use the buddy passes before April 30th (if you can't, you can still enter, you just can't win). Please estimate when you would be able to use the passes in your entry.
  
• You have to pay buddy pass fees (from $15-$45, plus taxes each way) based on the length of the flight you end up taking.
• You don't have to come to NY to see us, but it would be nice to see you. JetBlue flies to these locations.
  
• The passes are only good on JetBlue.
• Please post your essay in the comments of this post. There is no limit to number of entries.
  
• Contest ends Sunday, April 6th, at midnight, PST. We will announce the winner Monday.
  

Were looking for something entertaining and fun. The essay topic is your choice but here are some ideas.

• An argument for or against any of these topics: Barbie, socks with sandals, reality TV, mayonnaise, white sheets.
• Why gourmet food is good.
• Getting up in the middle of the night.
• Getting your parents to use a computer.
• Embarrassment
• Email

Please don't write anything with a negative message, or political. Anyway, I think you get the message.

Treasures

We took a little nature walk today. It started off as a mere walk to the car, but when the car is a block and a half away it becomes an adventurous outing for the girls. Here are some of Hannah's treasures:

I especially like the pecan in the mix. Hannah found it interesting. Jane knew exactly what to do and tried to eat it.
We talked about nature, about what is natural and what is not. Apparently, we haven't been able to instill the meaning of the term because Hannah thinks that anything she deems beautiful is of nature... like her princess dress.

I am grateful we have bits of nature to enjoy in this massive concrete jungle we call home.