Cooking is a process

I haven't been feeling well for the last couple of days, all I wanted to do was sit and read a book, let Erik watch tv since he was having breathing problems and let Elliot just toddle around. I just wasn't with it. Well today I got my CSA box and instantly felt like cooking and knew that I was definitely feeling better. 

Lately I like to change up lunch a little bit. Instead of doing the typical sandwich or mac and cheese, I like to do a healthier more complicated dish. I was searching through the allrecipes.com list on eggplant and saw this recipe for an eggplant casserole which included a bunch of other veggies I had on hand. It had relatively good review so I decided why not. 

Lunch starts early here. We eat around 11:15 so Elliot can starting to go down for his nap at 11:30 and then Erik at noon. That means I had to start cooking around 10 for this to be ready and 10 is prime playing time. Although I like to cook, I am really not good at it, and it also presents some challenges in my house layout. My kitchen is isolated and I can't see the playroom or living room from where I am working. Also the kids like to be around me all the time in the kitchen so it is definitely a process. 

It started out great. Erik who hadn't eaten for almost a day finally asked for food, FINALLY and had a yogurt snack while I got started on the chopping. I checked on his brother and he was totally content playing with his truck.

 

I got the eggplant chopped and in the boiling water only to find this happening with Elliot. Lately he always wants to finish his brother's leftover food on the table. His brothers food is way better than his for some reason. Unfortunately this process is leading to a lot of climbing.

Finally I got the meat and veggies browning before they go in the oven only to hear this commotion in the background. Elliot and Erik were definitely up to no good here, I think Erik leading his brother in a terrible direction playing with the lamp. Definitely a lot of pauses during the cooking process.

While I was pulling my dish together and getting it oven ready Elliot was in the pantry and dropped an unopened ketchup bottle on his foot. There were a lot of tears and since he is sick he wouldn't let me put him down. Since he was in a mood I had to hold him and mix everything up. Here is what's in my dish: eggplant, onions, green pepper, sweet pepper, radishes, 2 cans of diced tomatoes, 2 small cans of tomato paste, veggie pasta, 1 lbs of ground beef, milk, egg and cheese. Seems pretty good, but I forgot one critical part, the seasoning!! So this dish was pretty bland, but it is the process that counts. In my life I have decided I definitely get more from the process often, than from the end result. Or at least that is what I tell myself as I eat my very bland dish.

Oh and Erik had a peanut butter sandwich because I knew he hadn't eaten since yesterday and even if I offered him this dish when he was at his normal he probably still wouldn't have touched it regardless of it being bland or delicious.

In the end it was a failure of a dish, and a lot of chaos to create something so tasteless, but we learn from every experience and it helps me to push forward and try to create healthy different alternatives for my kids.

Labor Day Weekend with Friends

What a better way to spend a holiday weekend, than with really good friends. Mike and Traci use to live in California, and we would spend almost every weekend with them, but now that they are in Chicago the visits are too long in-between. It is always good fun, but tiring to bring all our kids together. Right now we have four kids under four. A few weeks ago I could have said, four under three!!! So it is chaotic, the parents are always exhausted, but our boys have so much fun.

When we went to Chicago about 6 weeks ago we stayed at Mia and Evan's house so they boys were already familiar with Mike and Traci and their kids. So when I told Erik that Evan was on his way to our house he could hardly contain his excitement. He was running all over, happy and anticipating their arrival.  (Elliot doesn't understand those concepts yet) Around 3 pm they got to Burbank and the fun began.

Mike and Traci were tired from a flight with two very young kids, but troupers. Luckily the boys were all able to entertain themselves with very little help from the adults. Good old iPhone, Erik found it and everyone thought it was the most fascinating thing ever.

The next day was our draft party all the following afternoon. We knew we needed to wear out the kids so we headed to the park early, at 9 am, to burn off some energy and make sure all the boys took long naps. Mike and Traci couldn't stay long, because I think Traci HATED the sand, but also Mia was hungry. Luckily I had invited my friend who lives near the park to join us and Erik and Ella wore each other out that morning.

Naps were definitely super easy for Kate during out Fantasy Football draft. I couldn't believe my sitter agreed to watch all three boys and didn't even break a sweat when I mentioned it. All the kids, except Erik were napping by 11:45!! I didn't get to take many pictures during the draft, except this really cute one of Mike and Mia.

By the evening we were exhausted even though we had a sitter most of the day for our kids. Drinking beer from noon to 3 will do that to you. Especially when you have to sober up to be home for the kids. So that evening we just kind of lazed around the house and let the kids play while we sometimes interacted. Uncle Mike learned the hard way he was laying on the book couch, but he was a good sport and read a lot of books to Elliot.

I am not sure if Evan liked our house because he had constant playmates with Erik and Elliot who seemed to equally enjoy his company or if he just was in LOVE with their train table. You couldn't pull him away from that thing. It was exactly how Erik use to play on his train table at 2 years old, and how he still is on some days.

 

 

This next series of pictures were in the evening, but I made them black and whites. It was dark in the room, but my flash with upstairs in the room where Mia was sleeping. There were too many cute moments to capture so I kept on shooting. The color balance was impossible to control with this light set up, so I changed it to black and white. With the high ISO I thought they look rather good considering I never shoot like that.

Erik kept asking his daddy to sing him all sort of songs. He got sick later that night so I think he just wanted to sit and rest and sing songs. It was cute watching them do that.

The next morning Mike and Traci wanted to see some friends so we headed to Castaways for brunch. My last brunch experience was a disaster with the boys. Elliot fussed the entire time and I had to hold him and couldn't eat and Erik was terrible at the table, we have since taught him better manners, so I was unsure about this brunch I planned. We got there at 9:30 because you save $5 by going before 10 and what do we care, the kids have been up since around 6. I couldn't believe how smoothly brunch went. We were there for 1.5 hours and the kids did fantastic. I think having food ready immediately really helped, and I'll definitely go to brunch there again. Also we let each of the boys bring a car and they were content to play with cars and eat. When they started getting restless we just let them run around the patio and look at the view. A more perfect meal with four kids and 6 adults could not be had.

That afternoon there was a BBQ planned in Orange County so Mike, Traci and Carl could catch up with some old Illini friends. Since Erik was sick and a newborn was going to be at the party we stayed home. Erik took an extra long nap, but when we woke up I tried to do some special stuff since I knew he was going to be confused as to why everyone was gone, but he was still home. He only asked where everyone was about a million times.

Play dough is special to Erik because he can only use it when his brother is sleeping and lately they are always awake at the same time. Perfect time to break it out.

 

Last, but not least, today was suppose to be a big day with their grandparents in Ojai since the Kantowski's left early this morning, but with both boys sick and Grandma leaving on a big cross country trip in a couple days their visit was cancelled, but I did capture one moment from this morning I LOVE. Elliot is starting to eat his snacks at the kids table, and although his feet don't touch he is adorable doing it.

First day alone in preschool

Well preschool is new to me and new to Erik so I like blogging about it. Such a milestone for both of us, that it is capturing my attention right now. So today was Erik's first day of preschool alone. Basically we dropped off the kids in the room at 9 am, said our good-byes then headed to the Chapel to hear all about the preschool and how we are expected to volunteer, the fall activities, etc.

So the morning started off badly. I think I made the mistake of mentioning that daddy was staying home with Elliot and he was just going with me and going to be by himself in the room. He did not like that and refused to get dressed. I had to bribe and threaten him all morning to get dressed, but we finally made it out the door. When we get to our classroom the teacher directed him to his mat, I said a quick good-bye and walked out the door, neither one of us were phased one bit. So Erik gets to be in class for the next 1.5 hours without mommy. This is the first time ever he has been in a program like this without me. Very huge for us.

I go to the Chapel and the pastor of the church is talking to us. I am not religious at all and one of the reasons I choose this preschool is because they said they were associated with the church, but didn't do anything religious in the curriculum. Well it seems to be the attitude of the church. The church is celebrating its 125 year and it is really involved with community whether you choose them for fellowship or not. They asked us to come to a family camp which will have all this fun stuff, but apparently will only have one tiny church thing that we don't even have to attend. They put on a big Halloween festival aimed at kids Elliot and Erik's ages. They have a exercise program with free daycare that I can put the kids into. Basically it is super friendly for parents. I can even volunteer at Erik's school and they have a drop-in day care program where I can put Elliot while I work. It is definitely the right school and the right fit for both of us. I really appreciate the sense of community in this school.

So after this meeting it is time to get the kids. We approach the classroom and all the parents are standing at the window seeing how their children are doing. Erik seems perfectly happy, but when the doors open and parents start rolling in I see this excited happy look as he searches for me. It seriously melted my heart as he made a running hug towards me. I don't get many of those moments since I am home with Erik all the time. So he seemed happy, and told me everything he did at school and then we headed home immediately because I was getting texts from Carl that he needed me home now.

Well today I decided to try a new carpet cleaning company because we have these horrible spots on our downstairs carpet and Erik and Lovey really have messed up our carpets upstairs and downstairs with accidents. They were finishing up when we get home and the carpets are completely soaked and we couldn't walk on them for at least an hour. At the same time I am realizing this, Erik is having an emotional breakdown because his brother dumped all his hot wheels out the dump truck. OK so Erik might have done well in school, but today affected him and this emotional meltdown was only the first of many today. So I was deciding what to do with the carpet situation when I decided to give Erik a "special treat" for his first day of preschool and we headed to Islands. Eating at restaurants is easier for me right now with two kids because I am served food. Serve yourself places are a bit more of a challenge.

So we get to Islands and really that was the best meal with the kids in ages. Erik was behaving, playing with cars, crayons and my iPhone. Elliot was entertained by books, his water and just by me. He is much easier to control at this age than Erik was. The meal arrived promptly and both eat in peace. Simple and no meltdowns. Its funny because I ordered a meal for myself and one for Erik. I gave Elliot half my turkey burger, some broccoli and fries. First off he HATED the mustard on my turkey burger and asked for water every time he got some. He just ate a few of his fries and munched on some broccoli. The fact that he even tried the broccoli is amazing. Erik chowed down on his fries and ate the bun of his burger. He declared that the meat was yucky. No idea, I didn't try it myself.

Then after lunch it was only 11:45 and I couldn't decide if the carpets would be dry enough or if we were cutting it too late for Elliot's nap. He would go down at 11 am if I let him. So I mentioned the word Pinkberry and then tried to lie to Erik that it was not open. Of course in his emotional state it wasn't worth the fight so he got an additional treat today.

Note: All images taken with my iPhone again today.