Supermarket Sweep

Do you remember the game show Supermarket Sweep, where the contestants are set loose in the grocery store to fill their carts with whatever they choose in a set amount of time? Well, The Simpson Six set out on our own version of this game yesterday afternoon!

Ian with a full shopping cart!

Jason's sister, "Aunt Shannon", gave the 4 kids each a $5 gift card to Trader Joe's as part of their Christmas gift. Well, our kids LOVE to play market and each have a growing collection of "credit cards" (empty gift cards) that they regularly use when they play store or restaurant, so to have their own gift card to their favorite grocery store with real money on it was about all the excitement that they could handle!

One of our favorite things about Trader Joe's is the kid-size shopping carts!

The caveat to this gift, however, is that they were to purchase only items that they had never tried before and to send a picture to Aunt Shannon of the items that they chose. Also, she gave them each a picture of an item to look for while in the store: Caroline was to look for a "Carolima Bean", Lydia was on the hunt for "Lydiasagna", Ian was searching for a "Kianiwi Fruit" and Eliza was trying to find a "Weliza Melon"!

The kids with the papers with their respective "exotic foods" that they were searching for.

While we didn't have any luck finding these exotic foods, we did have a lot of fun looking for new and exciting foods to taste--some new for all of us and some that those of us who have tried it before were finally able to convince others that it's time to try.

Hmmm...are there any dried fruits that we haven't tried?

Caroline decides that she wants to try eggplant.

Looking through the dairy shelves for a new food to try.

Eliza is along for the ride as we search for new produce to try.

Another one of the fun things about shopping at Trader Joe's with the kids is that they get to search for the monkey who hides somewhere in the store. If they find him and go to the coffee counter, an employee gives them a "monkey treat" for finding the monkey! 

Today he was hiding near the cat food--and ready for New Year's Eve!

The four kids even chose something new to try for their monkey treat this trip--fig cereal bars.

The spread of new food items that the kids picked with their gift cards.

When it was all said and done, they picked out a total of 9 new food items to try with a grand total of $21.61:

• Snapea Crisps
• Baked Lentil Chips with sea salt and black pepper
• Unsulphured sweetened and dried mango
• Pomegranate
• Asian pear
• Eggplant
• Potato Gnocchi with Gorgonzola
• Sweet potato gnocchi with butter and sage
• Feta cheese with caramelized onion pastry bites

Last night they tried the Asian pear with dinner and the snapea crisps for a snack--both earning rave reviews! Dinner tonight will include the Potato Gnocchi with Gorgonzola and pomegranate. Perhaps this will be a game that we play every couple of months to experiment with new foods of the season. Thanks for such a fun, creative gift, Aunt Shannon!

Kids and gadgets

Recently the Indianapolis Star published an article (link here) (and text only here) about parents using electronic gadgets, such as an iPhone or iPad, to entertain and keep their children busy.  I have witnessed this phenomenon, mostly at restaurants while dining with my family.


I have a problem with this, and ultimately, my children will have to deal with this problem.

Photo credit within Indy Star article

For the record, I am not against children having access to technology to stay with the times.  What I am against is giving it to them to 'buy their silence'.  Let them learn how to keep themselves occupied, let them participate in the conversation, let them learn some table manners, let them learn to be social.  I admit that I am not without fault, in that I, too, find myself seeking solitude with my portable device when in a public situation.  But I am an adult and I know better, and at times have the conscious thought to put it away and strike up a conversation with the people around me. I even had an adult today muse about how we don't talk to each other anymore, that it is all email, Facebook and texting.  



Admittedly, each parent knows what works for their child.  I seek to offer examples from my experiences.  A recent experience places my family of 6 at Cracker Barrel, where the family sitting at the table next to us had 2 children.  One looked to be about 3-4 and the other was bound to their pumpkin seat.  The elder child sat at the table the whole time we were there watching movies on an iPad.  It was still used even after Grandpa and Grandma showed up to have dinner with the family.  I would be more than miffed if my child did not acknowledge their grandparents sitting at the same table with them.


More often than not, when talking about our Volkswagen Routan with people, they are amazed that we do not have an entertainment system installed.  Following these comments are frequently stories about how they could never survive with out their DVD player, and how it is a God send to get to the grocery store 10 minutes from their house.
Really...?


And these are the same people who compliment us on how well behaved our children are and able to entertain themselves.  Do you think that there is a correlation?  


We intentionally did not get the DVD player.  It was a hard decision, because there were features that we would really like to have had that were included in the package and we were not able to have installed separately.  I enjoyed playing the alphabet game growing up and would like to afford my children the same opportunity. I also enjoy having conversations with them about their day or what they see as we drive past.


My greater goals are for my children to learn how to entertain themselves, to foster and grow their imagination and their interpersonal skills.  I don't totally cut them off from any type of electronic entertainment.  They do get to watch a 30 minute show each day, if they choose to.  They are starting to learn how to use a computer.  
We are just being intentional with our children in how we choose to incorporate technology into their lives, with these long-term goals in mind.

Ahhh, Meat.

Humans are omnivores. My family definitely leans on the carnivore side of omnivore. We like meat.


I've been enjoying hitting up the bbq out back this summer. Each year I seem to get more adventurous in my cooking, and I am really enjoying the results (and so are our digestive tracts). I know that this year has seen me take a leap or two, and I do attribute that to having purchased most of an animal instead of the usual cut at a time. It has put some items in my chilly box that I normally would not get, thus stretching my cooking repertoire. It has been fun learning to wait.


and wait some more.










Check the meat.




Wait. Baste it. Wait.








Check it one last time, and......

ENJOY!

(Country style ribs, rubbed, smoked and sauced)

I'm not one to follow a recipe. I'll look them up to get ideas, mesh a few together and see what happens. Tweak the next time if needed. So you can see why slow cooking some meat over a fire and some hunks of wood would appeal to me. Not only does it hearken back to the primitive and carnal nature of man, but it is also an art form. There is no exact a+b+c leads to d,e and f. Let the meat rest, season it, build and maintain the fire, check at the right moments, guess, feel. That's cooking.


Where the fun comes in is the kids asking what kind of animal I just put on their plate. No, silly, not because it is in such an unrecognizable form on the plate, but because they are curious and still learning. Usually an answer of pig, cow or chicken suffices, but occasionally we will get into the more exact cut. Our answer will prompt an affirmative response from the kids; I believe that they would eat anything that I have pulled off of the grill.


So, now that we have established the joy of cooking and the kids' curiosity and response, here is a tale from the summer.


Steph is at the State Fair with the kids. This usually involves going over two different days to see the various exhibits for the kids and also tour the animal showings. So as they are walking through the barns and passing some prize winning swine, Ian looks up and exclaims, "I like pig!". I'm sure the farmer thought this cute kid likes the animal and is sharing this with his mother. Reality: he's hungry.


Pork chop, anyone?

The swirling gene pool

So I want to know where in the recessive gene pool the cheerleader gene was hiding.  We have always known that Caroline had it in her, but with tonight's junior cheerleader time at the football game, this fact has pretty much been cemented.  Don't get me wrong, it was cute watching her run around with 83 other elementary age young ladies.  Yet, she takes it seriously.  As in she has been practicing for the past few days.  And talking about it non stop.  And went to bed still saying the cheers.

Meanwhile Lydia just sat down with some friends and hung out.  Ian wouldn't leave my side, and due to having a loud mouth Dad, he was able to score an adult XL t shirt and a mini football.  And by loud mouth, I mean shouting all of the cheers with the varsity squad and rooting the home team on to victory. 

So, yeah, I will understand where the musical interest would come from.  I get the creative artsy side.  I get the mischievous nature.  I get the dedication and passion.

...BUT WHERE ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH did I get a cheerleader from?

I'm on a roll!!!

Ok, so for the person demanding an update, I'm making it a trifecta evening.

It was a beautiful sunny evening, the kids were playing, and I with camera in hand...

Enjoy.

'I say yep!'

So, we all have experiences with the silly/funny/crazy things that kids say.  Nothing new here.  But what I love is how the kids develop their personality, and even though they move on linguistically, somethings just stick.  Like my #2 child and the way that she says chocolate.  It comes out more like schloclate.  Still says it that way.  A part of me never wants that to change.  And #1, with her 'Spanish', which really is just babble talk, but it is just fun how she goes around the house speaking a foreign language in her head (quite convincingly, since Lydia follows along with it).  While I know that having Spanish class this year will increase her vocabulary, I know that I will miss the babbling gibberish.

So now #3 is getting quite the vocabulary.  Which I know that he always has had, but now that his body is catching up to his brain, he is becoming the cutest little bug.  Wait, that wasn't real manly of me. 

Try again:  He is becoming quite the dapper fellow. (best I could do under pressure).  In the midst of clarity coming to his words and sentences flowing from his mouth (much to his mother, his therapist, and my elation), he is adding the final hard sound/syllable to words.  And he likes it.  The way it feels, sounds, comes across...

So we have him saying nope instead of no, and he seems to prefer yep to yes.  We know that he can say the proper words, but when the question was asked of him if he could say yes, his response, clear and to the point was, "I say yep!".

Enough said, if you ask me.