Eye Contact

Maybe if I stare at her real hard, she won't notice I'm eating a leaf.

Life Lessons

So today Bart thought it would be a good idea to teach Addison how to dial 911 in case of an emergency. The conversation went something like this:

Bart: Addison, if you ever need help, you dial 911.

Addison: Yeah, like if there's a dragon and he lights our house on fire!

Bart: Well, dragons aren't real, but like if mommy or daddy fall down and don't get up, that's when you call 911.

Addison: Yeah, and like I need a friend to play with.

Bart:::::reflective pause::::::

Maybe we introduced this topic too soon.

Prepare to be Amazed!

Seriously, this is amazing, you have to watch this video

And in the spirit of honesty, this probably reflects more on her memorization skills than her spatial skills because she always wants me to play this puzzle with her.

Mudslides Destroy Homes In La Canada Flintridge

So remember how there were fires burning the hills behind my parents' house last August. Well, those fires destroyed all the vegetation that was holding the hillside in place. They've been getting tons of rain, so now they're getting terrible mudslides.

One of the members of their stake presidency called them this morning to make sure everyone in their ward was okay. And then later my parents saw his house on the news! Mud had come in one side and out the other early this morning. He must have been calling from a remote location.

So far my parents' house is okay, but the streets are literally rivers. My mom was taking my sister to take the ACT and they had to cross Oceanview to get her friend that they were giving a ride to. Most of the pictures of cars crashed or on top of other cars are from Oceanview. As they got to the college where they were taking it, there was an 18 inch river in front of the school. My mom thought, "I can't let them walk through this, they'll be swept away." So she had to drive through it! Prayers for everyone back in my hometown would be appreciated. You can see some pictures here. Stupid arsonists.

She's Eating!

Bart and I love to cook. And we love to try new recipes. We have never really adapted our menus to specifically include kid friendly food. And we don't really want to.

So whenever we eat, we make Addison at least taste what we're having. We tell her that if she doesn't like it, we'll get her something else, but she has to at least taste it. This has really been a struggle at times. Sometimes she really doesn't want to taste it. Sometimes she'll take a bite and then refuse to swallow until we give in and let her spit it out. We have done our best to not make it a bad experience, but it really can be frustrating at times. And sometimes it is a pain to warm up a hot dog, or chicken nuggets, or macaroni and cheese.

However, I think all our patience has finally paid off. We have not had to get Addison anything else to eat in over a week. She has eaten everything we've eaten. These are some of the things we've had:

Pork Chops Primavera

Southwestern Pinto Bean and Pork Stew

Sweet Potato and black bean burritos

Roast

Sloppy Joes

Sweet Corn Tamales and pulled pork salad

LOL, now that I write that out,we've had a lot of pork. But seriously, she's eaten it all! I'll admit, we had to do a lot of encouraging on the sweet potato and black bean burritos, but she ate them. And we've had a couple nights of leftovers and she's eaten them again! It's been AWESOME! My little girl is eating like an adult. It's great.

Hannah's dietary preference is also expanding. She now likes peas, pumpkin, butternut squash, rice cereal, and bananas. Okay, so the peas are debatable. She liked them when I first gave them to her, but since then we have not had a lot of success. I think it's the texture. We haven't bought any baby food (except the rice cereal). I've made them all, and when I did the peas I didn't blend it as well as the others, so there are some chunks in it. And since we've given her other things, she no longer will eat rice cereal unless it's mixed with something else, but we get it down her.

I plan on adding sweet potatoes and carrots to that repertoire with in the next few weeks. After that, maybe chicken cordon bleu. ;o)