the sidlingers

Since I skipped posting on Saturday and Sunday, I will now post a  photo essay of last week to make up for it.

Grandma modeling her new scarf, fresh off my needles.  She picked out the yarn, it’s a pretty purple boucle.

When I posted about telling Daniel his eyes would stick, this is what inspired that.

The beginnings of Last-Place Chili.

Daniel’s lunch for Friday.  He’s on a big bologna kick right now and he likes it when I draw faces on his sandwiches.

Remember how I said I was getting the urge to paint again?  Well, it’s not a wall this time…these used to be downstairs holding David’s rear speakers, but he got some proper speaker stands for them and I painted these dark blue and removed the bun feet to use as nightstands in Daniel’s room.  This was just the first coat, and it’s not as bright when it dries.  I will try to remember to post some pictures of the finished product tomorrow.

Sunday night’s dinner.  A whole chicken and root vegetables braised in white wine.  It was yummy!  (Is it weird that I have so many food pictures?)

And technically not last week, but today.  I walked around the island to find Daniel relaxing on the kitchen floor, watching TV.

Another from today.   This is a trap that Daniel built from the removed bun feet from my painting project and the paper towel holder to capture Mr. Incredible.  I thought it was pretty good!

One last one, also from today.  Daniel was playing with a rubber band (all those toys from Christmas and birthday and he plays with a rubber band?) and I told him we should see if his hair was long enough to make a ponytail (ala Pebbles Flintstone).  So, if Daniel was a Danielle* maybe this is what she would look like?

*Speaking of Danielle**, Daniel is going to be playing soccer again in the Spring, we signed him up last week.  We will post schedules and of course pictures as soon as the practices start (David might be an assistant coach this season too!)

**Daniel’s coach is foreign (Turkish maybe?) and pronounces Daniel as Danielle.

David’s office had a chili cook-off today.  After much research and thought, I decided to go with a Chili Verde recipe that would hopefully stand out from the other standard chilis. 

It stood out a little too much…it came in last place.

So, if you want some good, bad chili that will, from now on be referred to in this house as ‘last place chili’:

1 1/2 pounds boneless pork, trimmed, 3/4 inch dice

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 green pepper, seeded and chopped (optional)

1 15 ounce can tomatillos, (available in Mexican section of larger supermarkets), drained

1/4 Cup La Victoria green taco sauce

2 Cups chicken broth

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon prepared garlic, chopped

1 teaspoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon coriander (optional)

1/4 teaspoon thyme

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 to 3 teaspoons chili powder*

1/2 Cup water

2 Tablespoons cornstarch

You have your choice of using a low or high setting on your slow cooker. You can prepare this recipe in a 2 to 4 quart cooker.

Combine broth and pork in crock pot and cook on high setting for one hour, or low setting for 2 hours. Combine tomatillos, onions, green pepper if desired and remainder of seasonings in cooker and cook on low setting another hour.

Occasionally check the fluids in stew. You are looking for a chowder-like consistency at this point. Add more water if needed.

Combine reserved water and cornstarch to form a thin paste. Return crock pot to high setting and stir in cornstarch mix, stirring until stew reaches a thickened consistency.

Just so you know, I’m not bitter or anything…I won’t be making anymore food for his department, but I’m not bitter…at all.   ;)

Iron Chef Daniel.

Daniel stole this bell pepper from the kitchen and came into the living room and said he wanted to play Iron Chef. 

We watch alot of Food Network at our house.

When we were eating dinner tonight and Daniel kept crossing his eyes (his new trick) to look at this food, I actually uttered the phrase "If you don’t stop that, your eyes will stick like that."

It just happened, it rolled off my tongue like I had been saying it my whole life.  I really didn’t even want to say it, it just came out.

Luckily he was too busy looking at the two dinners in front of him to hear me.

Hair is vitally personal to children.  They weep vigorously when it is cut for the first time; no matter how it grows, bushy, straight or curly, they feel they are being shorn of a part of their personality.  ~Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography, 1964

He didn’t get a haircut, but his hair is definitely part of his personality.

Our wireless router decided that it didn’t like my computer today, so I wasn’t able to get online until late this evening.  Since it’s getting late and I’m sleepy, here is a quick picture of Daniel I took yesterday.  Have a good night!

Here is the big dirt/rock pile in front of our house.

While is was more snow than was expected, it was not enough to impress Daniel.  I kept getting excited and was telling Daniel to look at all the snow and he said (in the most sarcastic tone a four year old can pull off) "Wow, snow."

The poor kid has never seen enough snow to really get excited about it.  I think in his four years it’s only snowed enough for schools to close two or three times, and now that he’s in preschool he has no idea what Snowbird is for.

Maybe this years vacation should be somewhere snowy?

One of my favorite things that Daniel says:

Me: "Be good for Ms. Sheryl at school tomorrow."
Him: "Be good for your friends at work tomorrow."

I’m getting the urge to paint again.

We only have 2 unpainted rooms left, Daniel’s bathroom and ours.

I’ll probably let Daniel pick the color(s) for his bathroom, but I’m not sure what color I want to look at for our bathroom.

Any suggestions?

I wouldn’t call Daniel a picky eater, but he has his favorites and it’s hard to get him to deviate from those.  Introducing new foods takes patience, but once in his food repertoire, it can be counted on as something he will always like.

Taking this and the fact that there are only so many things you can put in a lunchbox of a preschooler into consideration, he normally takes a banana or applesauce in his lunch on his school days.

Today we had both options, but the bananas were quickly getting spots and I didn’t want to risk a mushy banana that he wouldn’t eat, so I opted for applesauce for him.

When I pack applesauce (the little pre-packaged cups), I always make sure to include a spoon for him because I’m not sure that he would remember to ask for one at school (lunchtime is right after playtime and his lunch table is full of the boys he plays with and we all know how Daniel is about focusing his attention).

If we have them, I pack a plastic disposable spoon.  The past few times however, we haven’t had any so I’ve been packing some extra spoons from some old flatware sets we have.  Now these spoons aren’t special or expensive or anything, but they are my extra spoons.  Should we mysteriously run out of spoons, these are my back-ups.

I’ve noticed lately that these spoons aren’t making it home with Daniel. I figured that maybe his teacher was saving them to give to me at a later date.  Today after picking him up and noticing that his lunchbox was once again completely empty, I asked him.

He’s been throwing them away.

A large box of plastic spoons is on my next shopping list.