Kellybean

The picture on the left was taken in June 2007 and the one on the right a few weeks ago!

neighborhood watch

Santa We kicked off the weekend with a holiday party at Madison’s day care. Parents were invited for dinner at 5p - the owner cooked for all of us, yummy Peruvian fare, including a delicious rice pudding concoction. We enjoyed our food, child-free, while watching videos the caretakers had put together of all the kids - it was nice to finally see what Mads is or isn’t up to during the day!

At about 6.30 we met the kids in the main room, shortly before Santa made his appearance. Now, Mads hadn’t been too thrilled about strange old men in red suits and big beards and this night was no exception. Even though she saw that everyone was getting presents when they went up to Santa, she refused. REFUSED. to go collect her gift. Once the gifts were handed out and Santa left, the kids just about ripped into their gifts. Being one of 3 girls at day care, Mads received a nice lavender tulle tutu and matching headband. The mom that bought it for her was so excited to shop for a little girl. “It’s so much fun!” she exclaimed. Unfotch, Mads wanted nothing to do with it once she saw that another girl had received a princess dress and was already wearing hers. Mads went to drawer where the dress-up clothes are kept and proceeded to pull out the blue princess dress and asked to put it on. (Oy! I was so not looking forward to a princess phase so early.)

don't touch me

Macy’s We got a late start to our Saturday, we ventured downtown at about noon, grabbed some lunch, did some shopping and went to see the holiday windows at Macy’s. Together, with the SFSPCA, Macy’s produces some great storefronts with some awfully cute animals in the windows. Mads was excited to see a black kitten responding to her window taps, a cute little puppy just sitting nicely, and even a sleeping black cat!

She wasn’t too thrilled about the SFSPCA mascot, as you can see.

(Yes, we managed to take advantage of some of the sales most of the stores were holding.)

Slumdog Later that night, S & I made our way to the Embarcadero to see Slumdog Millionaire. Please go see this movie if you haven’t already! It tells the story of a young boy growing up in the slums of Mumbai (Bombay). Though the conditions are absolutely heartbreaking, it’s still my feel good movie of the year.

And here’s a clip f/M.I.A.

Happy Holidays!

Mads’ latest craze, other than driving us all (Lucie included) ragged and tired, is Miyazaki’s anime classic, My Neighbor Totoro.

This movie has been mentioned on so many parenting blogs I read, I figured we give it a try. At first, I thought Mads would be scared, but she wasn’t. (It helps that the girls in the movie don’t seem scared at all.) Also to note: This is the first movie that she sat still for a majority of the time (more so than Nemo AND Shrek)!

I’m also happy to read that Totoro is the Winnie-the-Pooh equivalent in Japan. I can see why!

(this is not to be confused with the dude that delivers the presents on Christmas Eve)

To begin, though I went to catholic school for oh-so many years, I can’t recall ever celebrating a saint day (S always gives me a difficult time if I forget to wish him a happy saint day).

At this age, I’m finding Mads a bit more understanding of Christmas - at least the material part of it. She’s starting to notice the holiday lights around the neighborhood (”pretty”) and fully understands the concept of presents (”presents”, specifically, “my presents”)! I figure we can instill the moral teaching of Christmas when she’s a bit more receptive.

So, this year Aunt “Keety” and Uncle “Mac” introduced Mads to St. Nicholas. They started telling her a story of St. Nick traveling around with his horses and leaving presents for good little boys and girls. Though Mads seemed more interested in the horses, she ran to her room, grabbed her fancy shoes and two baby carrots. She placed the shoes and carrots outside and listened carefully for the horses.

When it got dark enough outside, we asked her if we should check if the horses and St. Nick came by. Mads seemed happy to see a present, but a bit cautious as to where the carrots went.

And so begins our St. Nick holiday tradition…

It’s elitist, actually.

According to this piece, we’ve been inundated with incorrect grammar the past eight years, Obama’s use of correct grammar is “alienating”.

The last paragraph of the article just sums it all up.

Luckily, when I looked in the fridge we had enough eggs to make an omelet for dinner.

went a bit nuts with the cheese

Despite all the cheese I loaded on and the mere fact that it was made with eggs, Mads only had one bite. Having her eat most of her dinner has been challenging lately. But, when S breaks out the brie and bread, she’s all over it. Hmm…oh, well, that just means green chard & sausage omelet for another day.

Green Chard & Sausage Omelet

2 - 4 tablespoons olive oil, 1/2 yellow onion, chopped, 1/2 pound uncooked chicken sausage, 1 bunch green chard (or other leafy green vegetable, I think I’ll try kale next time), stems removed, chopped, 6 eggs, Salt & Pepper, to taste, 1/2 - 3/4 cup shredded cheese (I used a mix of parmesan & mozzarella, but cheddar, jack or swiss would be tasty, too!)

Preheat the broiler. Saute the onions in half the olive oil until cooked, crumble the sausage into the pan and saute until cooked. Add the chopped greens and saute until the greens are cooked. (The chard will turn dark green.)

While the greens are cooking, whisk the eggs with salt & pepper. Once the greens are cooked, add the greens to the egg mixture.

Heat the rest of the olive oil in a small, oven-safe, non-stick pan on med-high. Add the egg mixture to the pan and reduce heat to low. Push the egg away from the edges of the pan and at the same time tipping the pan so that the uncooked egg will flow over and cook. Once the eggs look mostly cooked and not too runny, sprinkle the cheese on top and place the pan under the broiler until the cheese is slightly browned.

Let sit for a few minutes to cool and serve with french bread and a simple green salad.

Base recipe from M. Canner, SF

So, this week we received some yummy things from the farm:

Cranberries I think I’ll freeze these for later use. I make a mean upside down cranberry spice cake that my uncle requests every holiday season.

Sweet Potatoes Hmm, sweet potatoes. Homemade sweet potato fries? Possibly.

Pink Lady Apples We’ll leave the apples for snackin’. Mads is starting to really enjoy apples and even biting into them. She leaves cute little bite marks behind.

Green Chard A recipe for a greens omelet accompanied our fruits and veggies, so I think I’ll make that for dinner this week. It includes loads of cheese, so I am pretty sure that Mads will eat it.

Broccoli Am not quite sure what to do with the broccoli just yet. Maybe a broccoli-cheddar quiche? Oh wait, no we’re doing the chard omelet. A broccoli gratin, perhaps?

Thoughts? Ideas?

From last night’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

His special comment in response to last week’s vote, most aptly put.

I don’t know about you, but I’m still reeling from last Tuesday.

will.i.am also posted his new music video, it’s a new day, here.

Yup, it’s the return of the 3 word weekend…

Halloween

Last Friday, as you know, was Halloween. And, as expected miss Mads…um, preferred not try on her costume at home. So I packed it up, brought it to day care with us and wished them luck. And, as expected, she went willingly into her costume.

only candy could keep her in this costume

After picking her up, our attempt to go trick-or-treating didn’t go well. Don’t get me wrong, she wanted the candy - badly - just didn’t want to work for it. Which is fine for me, since I probably would’ve eaten most of it. :o(

Reunion (kind of)

Thanks to the wonder that is Facebook, I’ve re-connected with a bunch of my college friends and found myself at my friend’s birthday party/housewarming. I haven’t seen S in, like, 6 years, and it was so good to see her and other college friends. It’s funny to see us all grown up with families, homes, husbands - thinking back to Spring Break in Vegas, Wednesday nights in Tijuana or parties at the EX house in DelMar. Sigh. Anyways, it was worth the drive to SanJo in the rain to see my dear college friends.

Madonna

Madge was back in town. Mind you, I was about 6 months preggers when I saw her last. This time around, S was spared, and I accompanied my friend L, who is about 6 months pregnant. Before we arrived, I told her my theory: if the baby is moving around a lot during the concert it’s a girl (or gay boy). She and her husband, B, are also waiting to find out the sex of their child. Anyways, I digress. We had pretty kick a** seats - floor seats, probably 20 - 25 feet away from the stage. Sweet! So we’re sitting around, chatting with the people next to us, Madge is running late, as usual, I’m looking around, OMG! John Legend is, I kid you not, 6 feet away from us! At this point I was cursing myself for not bringing my camera. But then the show started and I forgot all about it (kind of). As you can imagine, Madge (I wonder if she’ll still be called this now that she’s hightailing it out of London) puts on a pretty darn good show. She performed the bulk of her new album Hard Candy, which, imho would’ve been better if Britney had done it. The show was fabulous and am happy to say that I got my week’s cardio in that one night - so fun!