Rockin' the Guac!

I looooooooooooove guacamole! Before I lived in Mexico, I'd never even tried it. I had heard of it but it didn't sound or look very appetizing so I never bothered.

It's practically a staple down there and eventually I hazarded a bite. That's all it took & I was hooked!! I thought I'd get some pictures of this tasty treat & share the recipe. My mum says no one will want to read about this so if she's right, skip this post. However, if you'd like to help prove my mum wrong, please leave a comment :))) *ahem* if you know what's good for you & would like to continue to get future kid updates, you know what to do :)))

Ok, so the first picture shows the ingredients (minus salt, forgot that til later) and my favourite tortilla chips to eat it with. Other than one small deviation, this is la receta autentica for Mexican guacamole (or at least in the part of Mexico I lived in).

First things first, slice open the aguacate (avocado). For easy pit removal, press the knife blade into it just far enough so it sticks. Then give a gentle twist of the knife it will pop right out. Strangely enough, I learned this trick in Canada from my mumma!
Next, scoop out all the halves (I use 2 avocadoes) and dice up into chunks and put in a bowl.
If you're really keen, you can juice a real lime, but I use the lime juicer in the bottle. Then add salt to taste. I warn you, it's more than any health organization will deem safe but what do they know about Mexican food???
Now here's the deviation. I hate onions, especially raw ones. The taste and texture are excellent diet mechanisms! However, guac without onions is lacking a little something. I've found a couple teaspoons of garlic can bridge the gap nicely. If you're an onion fan, dice some up and throw them in. You will have Kelly-proofed your appetizer :)

Stir everything together and then dice up a tomato (1 tomato to 2 avocadoes if you want to increase the batch, that's the ratio). I usually use plum tomatoes because that's what is used down there, plus they're usually the cheapest to buy.
Stir the tomato into the avocado mix and begin taste testing! If it tastes off, add a splash of lime or a dash of salt until it seems right.

Buen provecho amigos!

Yay Lovey!

On Thursday night we had supper...... without a fuss!!!!!! Lovey sat at the table & just started eating. She ate and ate and had her meat and vegetables done before I even noticed. We didn't have to nag at her to sit in her seat. Not a word was said about starting her meal. She just went to it! I was so impressed that I told her I'd do something with her alone after supper.
We went for a little walk & dropped in on the lady who lost her husband last summer. We told her all about Lovey's mermaid chart & what we'd been up to lately. She was happy to have company and we had a nice visit :)

Night Skiing :)

The other night we had a full moon and I asked if anyone wanted to go skiing in the moonlight. They were all keen to go and although it took quite awhile to get outdoors, we were bundled up warmly. We finally got over to the field and were about 20 feet off the road when Lovey & Honey changed their minds.
Sweetie was still keen so Murray took the other two home and we kept going. We had to make our own trail as the rain & snow storms we'd had got rid of our old tracks. We fell down a bit but had a good time and came home after awhile.
I'm not sure they're going to develop the love of this activity that I'd hoped! We've had several outings and each time someone has ended up quitting and giving up! After chasing them around, getting them ready, helping them to dress, getting the gear out and lugging it to the starting point, we spend at least an hour on the getting ready part. When the skiing part is 10 minutes or less, it's pretty frustrating!
The next day we went to my parents and again spent a ridiculous amount of time getting ready for a ski & Murray loaded everything into the car. There's a trail near my parents and we thought we'd ski for a bit & then go there for our weekly family dinner.
When we were almost there, Murray asked them if they wanted to ski or just go straight to Grammie & Grandad's. Their enthusiastic response was very flattering..... to the grandparents. Not a single one had the least bit of interest in our "family togetherness" plans! They dropped us like a hot potato. We didn't bother to fight it and left them at the house & Murray & I went back & spent an hour exploring the woods! Pretty cheap date and scream/whine free! :)))

Mermaid Progress Report

Well we've been doing the mermaid race for a few weeks now, and some people are doing well and some are a bit hit or miss. Sweetie has had a few days that she didn't get to advance and Honey hasn't missed a single one and is in the lead. These pictures were taken earlier this week so Honey is now up to #23 and only has to curb her saucy tendencies for another 7 days. She is very confident that she will be opening her prize next Sunday night. She says it's not that hard anymore and assures us she's got it all wrapped up.

Sweetie still struggles and has had many outbursts but usually cuts it right off as soon as we say "merrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmaid!".

That brings us to Lovey. *sigh* The supper thing is driving me around the bend. Out of 23 suppers, she has eaten 10. It's not that she isn't cleaning her plate, she has actually refused to eat ANY supper 13 out of 23 nights. Last night I held her in my lap and shovelled bits of rice & salmon in while her sisters got out their pompoms and cheered "Go Lovey GO! Go Lovey GO!!!". Tonight she didn't want the baked ham, cheesy potatoes and corn niblets that were on her plate. She was so sure she wasn't going to even try a bite that she smeared mustard and the sugary ham dripping stuff all over the food. Then, Grammie brought out the cut up fruit & chocolate dipping sauce. I braced myself for the fit as she realized her contaminated supper was her only option. Imagine my absolute shock and wonder when she grabs her fork and starts digging in to her condiment smeared vittles. She didn't say a word in complaint and only had one question. "how many pieces do I have to eat?" She ate every scrap that I told her to and didn't gag, cough or puke up anything (unlike the salmon the night before)

I think this ratio, as pathetic as it is, is at least a slight improvement but it's still worrisome and discouraging. One day she didn't really like the hot lunch at school so I don't know if she ate much of that. Other than her breakfast that morning and whatever she managed to eat at school, she had nothing else all day. The next morning, she was crying in the bathroom because her stomach hurt so much. I'm now semi fearful that my 5 year old has some sort of junior anorexia going on! She can eat when she wants to but prefers to starve herself rather than have a piece of chicken and some potato!?!?!?!? We've tried just ignoring her, not making a big deal out of whether she eats or not but she'll go a week without having any meat or vegetables at all! I've tried making her favourite suppers and she'll sometimes eat and sometimes violently shove the plate away, making her grossed out face and say YUCK!!!!!! (which makes ME feel like a million bucks of course!). We've let her pick the meals and will still get the same thing sometimes. It's so random, I can't figure it out except that she's just playing around and messing with our minds, enjoying her little control game....

Anyway, we do have one superstar achiever who's right on track and this chart thing is right up her alley and so we'll be happy that our experiment worked on 1½ kids :)