Are you ready for some football?

Tuesday, September 27

Jack was feeding himself some rice tonight. While he does pretty well with a spoon or fork, he decided it was much easier to just shovel it in by hand. He even managed to get a grain stuck to his nose in the process.

Wednesday, September 28

See Wednesday's post here.

Thursday, September 29

The Girl Scouts changed the books for each level this year. While Mara only has seven months left of being a Daisy, I picked up both the Daisy and Brownie books. They look really neat, and they seem to be much better organized. They even provide a lot of information that we thought was lacking last year as new leaders.

Friday, September 30

We finally made it to a high school football game tonight. It was a perfect night. We didn't stay the entire time, but we did get to see the halftime performance of both high school bands. Mara even got her picture taken with the mascot, Red. And as long as the weather is nice, I think we'll go back for the final home game in a few weeks.

18-month Appointment

I took Jack in for his 18-month appointment today. He's doing really well. He walked down the hall to the room, but then he wouldn't walk into the room since the nurses were there. I had to pick him up and carry him in.

His doctor said he looks good. She got to see how well he is progressing with his walking (finally!). When she heard how many words he says (and even heard him jabbering in his "Jack-inese"), she agreed that he was working more on his verbal skills than his gross motor ones, and the only reason to be concerned is if his walking doesn't keep improving.

Jack's 18-month stats:

Height: 32.5 inches (50th percentile)*
Weight: 21 pounds, 12 ounces (10th percentile)

Jack listened to books on my Nook to help pass the time while we were waiting.

*Like last time, I have a feeling Jack's height may have been a little off because she didn't have me hold him still while she marked the paper, and she even walked around me to get to his feet. I don't know how much he moved, though, so it could be right too. He just seems much taller than he did six months ago. :)

Parmesan-crusted Chicken

It's been a long time since we've made Parmesan-crusted chicken, and I don't know why. It's pretty easy to make, and Mara loved it. I don't know how much she would have liked it if I didn't accidentally dumped twice the amount of Parmesan cheese than the recipe called for. :) However, we'll definitely be making this more in the future because Mara even asked for us to put the leftovers in her lunch.

Here's the recipe from Hellman's with my changes:

1/2 cup mayonnaise or Miracle Whip (I used Miracle Whip)

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (I used at least half a cup, but I'm thinking it was closer to a whole cup)

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves or 8 tenders (about 1-1/4 lbs.)

4 tsp. Italian-seasoned dry bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 425°.

Combine mayonnaise/Miracle Whip with cheese in a bowl.

Arrange chicken on baking sheet. Evenly top with mayonnaise mixture, then sprinkle with bread crumbs. (I used both Italian and Panko bread crumbs to make them a little crunchier. I also added some extra Italian seasoning to make up for the lack of seasoning in the Panko bread crumbs.)

Bake 20 minutes or until chicken is thoroughly cooked. (I kept them in an extra 10, maybe 15, minutes until they were nice and crispy on top.)

Another Missing Tooth

Mara finally got her wish when she lost a tooth at school today. It's been pretty loose for a while, so we're not too surprised it came out today. It's the fifth tooth she's lost overall.

As a reward for losing the tooth at school, she got a little tooth-shaped box to put her tooth in.

Camping, Girl Scout Style

Our Girl Scout troop went on another unofficial camping trip this weekend (unofficial because the moms of most of the girls went with us since Daisies aren't technically allowed to go camping).

This time, we headed out west to Fort Richardson. We met at 6 a.m. so we could get to the state park early and go on a nature hike at 9 a.m. After that, we set up camp, and the girls tried their hand at making hot dogs over the charcoal grill.

The girls then went wading in the lake (or what's left of the lake thanks to the drought) where we found tons of empty clam shells, most of them still whole. They even did a little rock climbing when we were trying to find the official swimming area.

After swimming, the girls rested and colored before learning how to cook on a campfire and even using knives to prepare dinner. The sunset was gorgeous as we roasted marshmallows and made s'mores.

In the morning, we packed up our campsite and headed home, but not before stopping off for lunch at a great hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant.

Mara really enjoyed the trip and is looking forward to going on another one.

Going Strong

Monday, September 19

Before this year, Mara never really wanted to eat sandwiches. Then, she tried one at Sam's and decided she would take them in her lunch sometimes. I found a dolphin sandwich cutter for her, and now she's even more excited about taking sandwiches in her lunch. She even requests them for dinner.

Tuesday, September 20

Almost two and a half years ago, Mara had to have a tooth pulled. Within the last week, her adult tooth has finally broken through. She's gone so long without that tooth, it's going to be kind of strange for that gap to finally be filled.

Wednesday, September 21

We went to Wendy's for dinner tonight because they were donating 10% of all sales to the PTA at Mara's school. There weren't too many kids there when we got there, but then several other first graders showed up, and they all had a good time. Wendy herself even made an appearance.

Thursday, September 22

Jack loves books. Mara has to read at least 15 minutes each night for her homework, and it's rare that you won't find Jack wanting to be read to at that same time.

Friday, September 23

When we moved into our house 10 years ago, we knew we would eventually have to replace the breaker box. It was old, didn't meet code, and there were no more openings left. We knew it was finally time to replace it when our air conditioning started tripping the breaker when the temperatures were over 110 degrees and then kept doing it even though it got cooler. It's a good thing we replaced it because the electrician said there were a couple of burn marks on the back of the old panel. I'm very thankful nothing bad happened because of it.

Moving up!

Jack didn't move up with the rest of his friends last month because he wasn't really walking in time for the move. However, when I went to drop him off at school yesterday, the director asked if he could go ahead and start going to the next class (Preschool 1). Apparently, he was starting to regress and wanted to eat baby food (this from a boy who never really ate baby food.), and they didn't want him to regress any more.

He spent most of the day in his new class yesterday, and today was the first day I dropped him off there. He wasn't too happy about it (as you can see from the picture with his new teacher), but I'm sure he'll get used to the classroom fairly quickly. It just might take some time since he didn't really get the transition that most of them get when moving to a new class with new teachers and leaving the old ones behind.

Happy birthday, John!

Today is John's birthday, and I think it was a pretty good day.

We started off the day going to church and watching Mikey get his third grade bible.

Mara was very excited about the gift we got for John (the second and third seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender) because it is their show. She also made sure to pull her hair back before helping John blow out the candles so it didn't catch on fire like it did at Lani's party. I don't know if John even got to blow out his own candles. :)

Rain, rain, please stay!

Wednesday, September 14

We got a lot of patches at our troop meeting last week, and I finally got them on her uniform. I don't know if there's going to be enough room for all of the patches that she's going to earn this year, so I guess I'll just have to get creative with the placement of them.

Thursday, September 15

While I intend to keep Jack rear facing in the van for a while, we decided it was time to turn him around in John's car since no one can really sit in the passenger seat otherwise. He didn't know what to think at first, but we think he likes facing the same direction as Mara.

Friday, September 16

Mara loves to go to sporting events and has been asking about going to a football game ever since John started working at an area high school. Tonight was the first home game for the team, but about 15 minutes before kickoff, a thunderstorm rolled in. We still went to the stadium and waited for a little bit, but it didn't look like it was going to let up, and we didn't really want to sit in the rain to watch the game. At least we were able to experience the goodness that is Sonic's pumpkin pie shake before attempting to go to the game.

Saturday, September 17

The local balloon festival was this weekend, and we were on the fence about going to it. We decided to go to a parking lot near where the balloons would be launched because we didn't feel like partaking in the festival itself. While waiting for the balloons, Mara, Lani, and Jack ran around and played. Come to find out, it was too windy for the balloons to launch, but at least the kids had fun anyway.