Totally Your Grandma's Italian Food

We were supposed to have date night last weekend, but Ron was sick so we weren't able to. Ron and Peg were nice enough to reschedule for this weekend, so we went out to dinner tonight. We decided to go to Garozzo's. Garozzo's is the type of place where, if your Grandma went out on a nice date to a then-new Italian (which she may have pronounced "Eye-talian" and then went and bought Kraft Spaghetti at the grocery store to try to replicate the experience) restaurant in the '60s, it was probably something like this. We really like it for what it is, but you can't really go in expecting a modern or authentic dining experience. There is definitely not any kind of fusion. But we really enjoyed our meals. Chicken Spiedini is their thing so we stuck with that and mine was super great and Jason's was quite good as well.  After dinner we also enjoyed dessert and just time to talk without being interrupted, which was the best part because with the kids it sometimes takes us an entire evening to have a short conversation due to the constant and varying interruptions.

Trying to Spring into Spring

This has been the winter that will not end. But we are making every effort to head into spring and are finally seeing some real hope of that actually happening. Today the kids made St. Patrick's Day hats with Halie (Clara and Joshua did anyway. Hannah was napping. It's better that way. She doesn't like art yet. But she hates being left out more. So she demands to do art and then throws it when she thinks it's boring. So paint isn't the best fit for her). Tomorrow it's a high of 58. It makes us really excited that we actually might be able to go outside and have some fun soon.

A Bad Influence

You might think, "It's weird Clara is totally naked except for her diaper when it's cold outside". But it's not. Lately this has been her preferred state more and more. Part of it is that she has gotten old enough to be able to remove all her clothes on her own, and she is very proud of that skill and likes to show it off. But I really think it's mainly the fact that Joshua hates clothes. She now thinks the cool kids don't wear clothes. She almost always keeps her pajamas on at night so I feel like that means she doesn't truly prefer nudity as Joshua definitely does. For her it's more of her environment. So I am hopeful this will be a short-lived phase for her rather than a way of life as it is for Joshua. I guess it doesn't really matter because neither of them have sensory issues so they will wear clothes without complaint anytime we leave the house which is the main thing. But since I pay for their clothes and choose ones I think are cute, I like to see them worn.

National Pancake Day

At this point in our lives, Mardi Gras is not a big celebration for us. I do like to celebrate minor holidays, though, so I certainly would have planned something except I totally forgot about it. My main calendar doesn't have a lot of holidays on it and I keep meaning to find a way to overlay a holiday calendar onto it that includes things like Mardi Gras and Arbor Day, but I haven't done that yet. But luckily, Halie, our nanny, also likes celebrating minor holidays and today is not only Mardi Gras, but also Shrove Tuesday. This is pretty much the same as Mardi Gras, but a British thing rather than French. In Britain, pancakes are the tradition because it is a way to use up milk, butter, eggs, and any other rich or sweet foods you may be giving up for lent. So Halie made pancakes with the kids today to celebrate Shrove Tuesday, which has also become National Pancake Day. This was great also because the kids love pancakes, but Jason and I much prefer waffles so we only have pancakes a few times a year so it was a special treat for the kids.

Independent Play

In a recent series on marriage at a church, our pastor mentioned that the most stressful time in a marriage is generally when you have kids between birth and kindergarten. I don't think this is necessarily because the parenting is harder because every age brings its own challenges and rewards, but because the kids at this age are so needy so it is very hard to spend time on yourself or your marriage or anything else. Jason and I stay very very busy because of this since someone always needs something. However, we are definitely seeing some improvement of late. Not that the kids are ready to be unsupervised anytime soon (sidenote, our pediatrician says some kids as young as 6 can be okay staying home alone for say a trip to get milk real quick. That seems crazy. I can already tell you Joshua will be in no way ready to be alone at 6. He's a "Whoah, I wonder what these matches do. They must have been locked in this cabinet because that's where we keep the most fun stuff" type of kid), but today they all played for awhile just entertaining themselves. Since the ability to play independently is a core value in our family, it made me really happy.

Snow Day. Again.

I'd like to apologize for whatever I said or did to offend this winter. It refuses to give up and continues to punish us with cold, ice, cold, snow, and cold. And then more cold. It may not be the snowiest, though it's had plenty of snow, but it definitely had the coldest day I've ever experienced in Kansas, and it seems like it hasn't been above freezing more than a couple times since Christmas. Point is, I'm ready for spring.  Anyway, today brought what we'd like to think is the final snowstorm of the winter, though the temperature is supposed to drop down to -8 over the next couple days, which sounds lovely.  I would have loved to have taken the kids out to play in the snow, but it was something like 10 degrees or so, and that doesn't work for kids.  They did watch from the inside, though, and were impressed with all the snow and especially with the snow plow that came by our house.

This picture is not really of anything in particular, but I really like the perspective and depth it has, so it gets to be part of this post.

We spent our time doing various indoor activities, including this one where the kids would try to pour blocks into a cup that I was shaking, causing the blocks to shake their way out of the cup, only to have the kids pour them back in.  It doesn't sound very exciting, but I am pretty good with making up games out of nothing that are highly entertaining to the kids, and this was one of them.  So it was a fun day overall, as we found lots of different ways to occupy ourselves while we were snowed in thanks to the storm.

A New Note

Thought it's hard to imagine living without a smart phone for most people nowadays, including me, I am not what you would call a power user either. I don't do facebook. I barely do instagram and pinterest. I don't talk or text a ton. However, I still expect my phone to work and do what I want when I want it. I cannot imagine my life without google docs, evernote, and remember the milk. Recently that had become a big problem with my old phone. There were numerous small issues such that virtually everything I use my phone for was a mild inconvenience, but I could live with that, particularly since I am not eligible for a new subsidized phone until this summer. What I could no longer live with was the very small memory. I only have a few apps, but I was constantly having to uninstall more and more and even though I had a memory card, it did not help because android does not allow you to store apps on a card (super annoying). I really had nothing else to remove from my phone that wouldn't be a serious problem for me so I decided it was time for a new phone. Because I loathe looking at phones, I asked Jason to find me one and he thought a Samsung Note would be the best one. We looked on craigslist and ebay (when I say we I mean he) and he found this one on craigslist in excellent condition for only slightly more than one would cost from Sprint if I waited until summer. So far I really love it and it has tons more space so I can have all the apps I want (which is like five for the record) and I am really happy without it. Not only can I live my life without the constant annoyance of an out-of-memory error, but several other things that were wrong with my old phone are now no longer an issue, so it has been really great. Plus, I like the larger size. I used to use a tablet for cooking, but Joshua has pretty much co-opted that for himself. So now I use my phone and the larger screen is really nice in reading recipes.