Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Finally Something Garden Oriented

Ok, not really, but it's the best I can do right now.

For Christmas, my sister-in-law always makes chili. Not your standard Christmas fare, but having just glutted ourselves on Thanksgiving, chili is a wonderful alternative on a cold evening, even better so this year because it was snowing. She always makes two pots because my other sister-in-law doesn't eat red meat, but this year instead of a standard red chili with turkey, she made a white chili with chicken.

I couldn't wait to make it again, so last night we made the chicken chili but with the salsa I made from the garden - hence the gardenesque quality behind this post.
It was crazy good and I can't wait to try it again.

Kids and I have been enjoying our vacation, especially when I realize they've gotten too quiet, go to find them, and discover this:
They were hunkered down in the boy's room reading books for over an hour. The boy just got a new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book today and was engrossed. The girl pretended to read The Pigeon Wants a Puppy. Seriously, if you know kids, you need to find the pigeon books or anything, for that matter, by Mo Willems. By far, he's the kids' favorite author. We love the books also. Also, if I could draw your attention to the picture on the boy's wall of the train...my dad drew that. It's beyond fantastic, isn't it.
The day-o-reading as the boy put it continued after the man got home. This picture was taken on the cell phone and it wouldn't let me rotate it, but you get the idea.
Two kids reading (well, one pretending to) and I couldn't be happier. Gave me the chance today to finish reading Pope Joan. It was a very good read and well worth it. Highly recommended.
The morning comes early, or rather earlier for me recently than the kids as they're sleeping a bit later now that it's vacation time. Sweet semi-gardening dreams.


9 comments:

  1. Two kids reading! What more could a mother ask for? Fantastic!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I used to love reading as a kid. I even read Shakespeare for fun! Now look at me!

    Take those books off them, and give them some tools.

    ReplyDelete
  3. meemsnyc, my girlfriend just emailed me and said those books were for a 5th grade level and the boy's only in 1st. I downloaded a test for it and he got 90% right, so I'll let him keep going, I suppose.

    IG, that kid's got the coordination of a Japanese beetle. There's a reason we keep power tools away from him.

    ReplyDelete
  4. When I was a child I couldn't get my mom to keep me out of the local library. It was a daily trek for us and she read all kinds of things to me. That while chili chicken looks really good! I hope you guys enjoyed the snow! We here in the Metro Atlanta area were so stunned. I must have witnessed 20 car accidents within several miles of each other.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dang, don't The Man and The Children find it difficult to read on their sides? I got a stiff neck trying to look at that last photo ;-)

    You made me hungry for chili, but all I get is ham and beans.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Greetings from rainy Southern California.

    I added myself to follow your blog. You are more than welcome to visit mine and become a follower if you want to :-)

    May God bless you and your family in 2011 ~Ron

    And always remember: Smiles don't have to be saved for a rainy day. It's good to waste them :-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Gotta love having readers in the family! This past week my son (13) was up til 4AM finishing up a book, and I didn't even go to bed at all one night since I finished mine at 5:30 AM LOL.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Finally catching up on your posts! Wow, look at all that snow! Lovely photos, and I'm sure the kids loved it. Thing 1 got the Diary of a Wimpy Kid Journal this year... I found it amusing that while Thing 2 asks for toy guns, etc, Thing 1 wanted a journal LOL!

    ReplyDelete
  9. ERin, that's what the boy wants, too, but I told him he had to read them all first!

    ReplyDelete