Joy to the World

This video is for the grandparents.  Britton had his first piano recital last night.  His teacher made it a pretty casual one so the kids wouldn't get too nervous, but even so Britton was a ball of nervous energy on our way to the recital.  She didn't have a set order so when she asked who wanted to be first Britton's hand shot up in the air and he marched right up to the piano.  He played 2 songs: "Mr. McGill" and "Joy to the World".  I was only able to film the 2nd song, but he did a great job on both of them.

Last night we went Christmas Caroling to widows (and some others) with several other families in our ward and then had hot chocolate at one of their homes afterward.  Anytime there is service, hot chocolate and a push up contest with all of the guys in attendance you know you are in for a good time.  The guys were throwing around the idea of doing a "Biggest Loser" type contest for all of the guys in the ward who wanted to participate.  One thing lead to another and before we knew it they were all on the ground doing push-ups.  It was hilarious. I just really love where we live, we have some great friends here.

Today Korinne, my assistant chef, went to the grocery store with me.  Whenever we go to the store together we are both prepared with a grocery list.  She enjoys writing her own list, which is a combination of real words and gibberish. Every time I put something in the cart she likes she'll say, "That was on my list, Mom!".  If I put something in she doesn't like she says, "Um, that wasn't on my list."  Today we were almost done when she told me that she had one more thing on her list.  I asked her what it was and she replied with, "I'll know it when I see it."  Last week she told me that a treat for Korinne was definitely on her list.  She cracks me up.

Korinne enjoys cooking with me but understands that she isn't old enough to use real knives yet.  She noticed that I let her use a plastic knife once so now whenever I start chopping things up she runs for her black Halloween plastic knife and dives right in.  Tonight she helped me chop up a green pepper.  Shockingly the black plastic knife is quite adept at chopping.  Last night she helped me cut up tomatoes and did half of them by herself.   Here she is cutting up the pepper.

Tonight Korinne and I made Pepper Shrimp Alfredo over bow tie pasta.  It was awesome and tasted like something I would get at a restaurant.  Britton only ate the sauce and refused to eat the pasta, Jenna only ate the pasta and refused to eat the sauce and Korinne at least tried the sauce but mostly ate the pasta.  All 3 of them filled up on the cut up oranges I put out.  It's frustrating that my kids still prefer bread and water to restaurant quality meals.  They never ask to eat out because they don't like anything.  Fast food does not temp them and anytime Adam and I get take-out and bring it home they aren't the slightest bit upset that we didn't get any for them.  Britton is happy eating toast and Jenna is happy with mac and cheese.

The other night I made 7 layer tortilla pie. It was super yummy.

15 minutes into the meal I took pictures.  Jenna had only eaten the fresh cut-up pineapple.

Britton did what he always does--tells me over and over how good it is but then doesn't eat any of it.  When he saw I was taking pictures he tried to hide his plate so you couldn't see that he didn't have anything on it.

Korinne is my most adventurous eater but even so she sometimes pulls things out of Jenna's playbook.  For example, this week she declared that she no longer likes chicken.  What?! Totally random.

I admit there are times when I feel like Rodney Dangerfield (I get no respect), like last night when I made chicken parmigiana from scratch with homemade marinara sauce.  It was so good but my kids filled up on the plain spaghetti and carrot sticks.  I've learned to just cook for Adam and myself but worry that it may never click for my kids. At our house if they don't eat dinner they can't have anything else to eat for the night, but apparently they don't mind going to bed hungry. I know I said this about 4 years ago, but enough already!!

Ok, I'm done venting.  I know I've blogged about this before but it is something I deal with every single day so it is bound to pop up periodically.