Eating Out

I am sorry I gave the impression that there was only going to be one post about our trip to Houston. I actually uploaded 45 pictures, so there will be a few more! The post is about what we ate. What we ate was NOT VEGAN, but most of it was very good. Sunday for lunch Aunt K and Uncle B were nice enough to agree to stay home and feed all the kids lunch so Mark and I could go to our favorite place - Pei Wei! Pei Wei is the little brother restaurant of PF Changs and we miss it sooooo much. We got our old stand bys there: My favorite Pad Thai



I used to get it with chicken, but this one is vegatarian style. Wish I had stuck with the chicked just cause that is what I was used to. Mark got the Mongolian Beef:



I am not sure why I never get this cause it is delicious delicious! Unlike the Pad Thai, they go make this at the PF Changs in Greenville.

We also got brave enough to take all the kids out for dinner one night. Aunt K suggested Rainforest Cafe. Now personally, I am against rainforest cafe and everything they stand for. I had been there once or twice, but I really did want to take my kids there. They had a great time! They kept looking around at all the trees and animals and just STUFF! Aunt K got the kids sweet souveneir cups!



And I was trying to be nice by getting "VOLCANOS!" for everyone, but Aunt K was mad I showed her up.



Here is the whole table:



And just the kids outside:



Now, this is probably really good that we did something like this in Texas on a visit, or else the kids would nag me about going all the time!

5 under 6 - 2011 edition

No cute name this year. I guess that is my fault, but it ain't gonna happen!

It is March and that means spring break. Spring Break means that we go to Houston for a visit. Usually, we fly. However, this year, Andy is over 2. That means, we would have to pay for him. Also, we wanted to bring Mark. We would also have to pay for him. Now we are going from 2 seats to 4...you can say that would double our airplane costs. So, we decided to drive. Mapquest put it at about a 15 hour drive, but we were up to the task. We had a few new DVDs, WaterWow, sticker charts, Trio Blocks, snacks, activity and coloring books, reading books, sticker books, tag books, leapster explorer, ipod apps. We were well prepared. The drive there and back wasn't all that bad.



And now matter what is looks like in that picture, we really didn't watch that many shows.

We left SC at 5:15 in the morning. Did hit some Atlanta rush hour, but made it to Houston at 7pm local time. Yep, made it in time for dinner. Here is dinner:



The kids were really excited to see each other and got along pretty much the whole time. Now, last year, was pretty much the Worse Trip Ever. By Worst Trip Ever, for those of you too lazy to click the link, I mean that James developed a fever as soon as we got there and kept it, Andy got pink eye and was cranky and then, AND THEN, Andy totally threw up on me on the flight home. It was awesome. This year, was really the best trip ever. There are probably several reasons: better sleep, no fevers, and less allergies all I need to keep in mind for next year. At any rate, the kids got along GREAT. Andy loved his girl cousins! Playing light sabers with AC...



and AM...



Don't get me wrong, they also played barbie jeep, and cooking, and house. Andy loves that stuff!

C and James played boy stuff: Wii and watched Power Rangers.



Ok, James also played Barbie Jeep.

Within 24 hours of arrive, Mark and I found ourselves in charge of all 5 kids. Here is how they fit in the car:



We took everyone to the park so Aunt K and Uncle B could get some stuff done. I am sure that all the other people at the park just thought we were breeders!



At the park, the tallest butt on top is Mark's!

Vegan Power!

Perhaps you are wondering where I am with the whole vegan thing. Perhaps not. I feel like I am addressed a lot of the issues here and am ready to move on. I still eat vegan at home. I like it, I will continue it, but the main reason is that it is a lot cheaper. We will continue to eat vegan at home. However, when I go out, I am a "flexitarian". I eat meat and dairy, and I am ok with that. I probably won't go into the vegan thing on this blog any more, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

One last thing I wanted to post were my vegan power bars. These are similar to a Lara Bar. The inspiration was from this recipe and then some changes inspired by this site.

Here is how I do it:

Process 1 cup of almonds in the food processor until "resembles wet sand" ie when it starts to clump up. Dump into bowl.

Process 1 cup dates, a pinch of salt and a splash of vanilla. Process until it all clumps on one side of the processor and is finely choppped.

Add almonds back in with a handful of chocolate chips and a spoonful of peanut butter. Process.

Line a toaster oven pan with cling wrap and press mixture into pan. Refrigerate for at least an hour and cut into bars. YUM! I have eaten these before a race with good results. Vegan Power!

The Big Race 2011

I know I went into this last year, but James, like many young boys, loves to run. Like many young boys, James loves to race, and like many young boys (ok, all people all ages) James loves to win. Because of this love of running/racing/winning, I signed James up for his first race a year ago. He had a great time, and, I kid you not, has been talking about his race since then. As in a year ago. Every so often he would ask, "mommy, is my race coming up?" We would explain to him, "after Halloween, after Christmas, after winter is your race." Then it would be "after new years, after valentine's day, after June's birthday is your race". Then it was, "your race is in two weeks" then "five days", "four days", "tomorrow" and finally, "James, your race is after quiet time/nap time".

I guess you could say he was excited.

Last night he started asking, "mom, do you think I can win?" and "mom, do you think I will win?" Turns out, those are two totally different questions. Again, we just tried to emphasize that winning would be nice, but as long as he did his best and had fun, that was all that really mattered. This race was affiliated with the Reedy River Run in Greenville and was a 400m fun run for kids 3-6. It was suppose to start about 5:45, but it actually started about 5:40. We got there about 5:30. There was a big rush to check in and get shirts/numbers on. Before I post this first picture, let me say again that this race was for kids 3-6. Andy is 2.5, but we figured he would not want to be left out this year. We were so right. Ms. Juliet let us borrow John's race shirt from last year and I pinned on James's old bib number and he was happy:


The blue shirts were this years shirts and they were tech shirts, super cool, unfortuately they only had size XL for the adult races, but whatever. When the boys put on their shirts and their numbers they were pumped. This was my favorite part of the evening:


Then we made our way to the starting line. Do some of these kids look older than 6 to you? That is James with his hands on his hips moving his way to the front:


Looks like he made it to the front:


James was ready to go:


And again unlike last year, the kids were just pumped, not nervous at all. The organizer was great. He counted down from 10 to 1 and said go, and they went!

The plan was to have Ms. Juliet at the finish, have me float between James and John, and Mark stayed with Andy. This worked out pretty well. Here is John making the first turn:


Sorry it is blurry, you will just have to trust that is John. At this point, John said, "I'm tired, I want to walk." True to Coach Kerri fashion I said, "John, we will walk until that second balloon, but then we are going to run!" and we did.

At this point I was to apologize for being one of those parents who takes pictures like this during an event. I know it is annoying, and I know I am getting in peoples way, but it is just so cute I have to take a record of it!

This is James leaving us in his dust. I am pretty sure he ran the whole way:


John and I finished about 2:50, so James probably finished 2:20-2:30. James didn't win, but he says he did and we will go with that. Here is James with his medal:


Right after this picture was taken, James said, "Mom, I want to run another race!" Um, ok.

As for Andy, I don't think we have any pictures while he was running, but Mark said he did great. He ran the whole time, may have come in last, as James and John said "we won, but Andy did NOT win!", but his time was about 4 min. Look at this guy with his stolen medal:


We did bring a back up medal, but well, they just gave him one, so we will go with it. Here are all three of our champions:


And finally our celebratory dinner also with Ms. Mattie, who I believe was chip timed:


This dinner was not necessarily a raging success, nor was it vegan, but it was still a good time.

See you next year!

Mulch-day

Mulch is a big deal here. Probably because we have lots of bed so need a lot of mulch. We order our mulch and have it delivered. It is actually quite awesome. They back a big ole dump truck into our driveway and dump it out. I wish I had gotten a picture of that, but I just got a picture of the aftermath. It is funny, they knew just what they were suppose to do with the mulch! Shovel-wheelbarrow-dump!





Then they switched rolls:





Somehow, I got in charge of the raking step:



Eventually they dropped the shovel and wheerbarrow, and started using trucks:





And then there was jumping:



By the time they were done playing, they went directly into the bath.



This was a real bummer, because we had gotten a babysitter this night, and really part of the reason we get a babysitter is so we don't have to do things like give them baths...oh well!

Vegan Day 21: Got Milk?

When I was mulling over my vegan conversion, the milk issue was one of the biggest things to deal with. I have two growing boys and the milk they drink (a cup and a half in the morning and a cup and a half in the evening) in a week equals about about two gallons. If Mark drinks any or if I use any for cooking, now we are up to three gallons a week. Wasn't other types a milk expensive? How could I get my kids to switch when they obviously really liked cow's milk? I finally decided to try some in a baking recipe. Soy milk just sounded really gross, so I decided to start with almond milk. There were so many choices! Regular, regular unsweetened, vanilla, chocolate...yikes! I think I started out with unsweetened and it was fine. I have since branched out (see picture above). Almond milk is pretty mild, but does taste like almonds. Soy milk isn't bad. It is actually thicker and richer than almond milk, but it does have a distinct taste. The problem is if you use soy milk in coffee, and oatmeal, and corn bread, etc, etc I tend to get soy-ed out. What I figured out is that I like to have different kinds. I get chocolate soy milk for the boys. For me, I get unsweetened almond to use in baking and vanilla sweetened almond to use in coffee and smoothies. If you are wondering is this milk expensive, the answer is, well, yes. A gallon of regular milk is around $3.39 ish and a half gallon of the non-dairy is about $2.50. The good thing is that you do tend to use less, it goes on sale, and there are coupons.

Vegan Day 16: Kids adapting

I really feel the need to address everyone and say that my kids are NOT vegan.

If you don't know me, food has been very important in my life. However, growing up I was a VERY picky eater. I know my mom is about to come on here and back me up on this. At lot of foods that I did not like, it was a texture issue, not a taste issue, and I had this issues even when I was in college. Somehow after I graduated, I realized that I finally had grown out of these issues, but I still do remember what is was like when I didn't like a lot of foods. Because of this, how I would feed my kids is the one of the only things that I decided how we were going to deal with before we had them and we still deal with it the same way. For eating, I use "Child of Mine" (There is a book, "child of mine" we follow what is says in regards to eating. I have it if you would like to borrow it). What it says is, your kids eat what the parents eat, make sure there is one thing you know they like, and if they don't eat, they don't eat. We were really lucky with James. Andy is less Open Minded, but still, he eats. But these are the rules we follow. Eating in our house is a Non Issue.

When I say I am a vegan, what that means for the rest of the family, is that dinners are vegan. The kids, gulp, still have some sugary cerals, but Saturday morning breakfasts are vegan waffles or vegan pancakes. Lunches (gulp) are PBJ for James, and dinosaur soup (Chef BoyRDee) for Andy. Snacks are fruit snacks, pretzels, and pink smoothies. Dinners are whatever I make. James LOVE vegtables. Eats the up. He is going through a grown spurt right now and I know he isn't getting enough calories with just veggies. He won't eat beans. Andy eats beans and no veggies. He misses the meat. A lot of times I will give them an apple sauce or yogurt with their meal. They sometimes drink chocolate soy milk, and had regular soy milk last night. They liked it, but still drink regalar cow milk every day.

I have gone into a lot about this, mostly to say that I have tried with Andy. Andy loves to cook, he helps me make dinner. Won't eat it. I put dinner on fun fish plates. Won't eat it. I set the table with chopsticks. Nothing. I made banana soft serve which looks just like ice cream, and Andy takes one bite. He falls for it for that one bite, and he knows.

Banana soft serve is like banana ice cream. I loathe bananas so I wouldn't touch it, the rest of my boys were all over it.

Featuring banana soft serve.


All it is, is frozen bananas blended in a food processor for about 5 minutes. I recommend peeling the bananas before you freeze them, but don't they turn brown? Again, I loathe bananas, I don't know. I ended up adding a bit of vanilla almond milk.

Andy was so excited about his first bite:


Then he just played with it the rest of the time:


James was all into it:


He is my Good Eater:


Mark liked it too, but said it reminded him more of pudding. He liked pineapple whip better: