Sunday, March 18, 2007

St. Patrick's Day in the "Mc" Durall Household :)

St. Patrick's Day was yesterday and if you know me you know that it's ranked up there with Christmas as being one of my favorite holidays! I have Irish roots on both sides as was taught at a young age that eing Irish was something to be proud of and most definitely should be celebrated on St. Patrick's Day.

In my house that means that the day after Valentine's day decor comes down and my shamrock and other green/Irish goodies make their appearance. My entire family was decked out in green yesterday. Jamie (whose name is really Jameson) wore his Jameson Irish Whiskey t-shirt, Kian wore a I ♣ You t-shirt and I wore my green TREASU(RED) shirt (fyi, the (RED) is an organization headed by Bono that helps pregnant mothers in Africa who have AIDS receive meds to help them live longer and not pass the disease to their unborn child). Even our dog Toby was wearing a green, shamrock bandanna :)

For our little shindig we invited our couple friend Steve and Lisa over for an Irish Feast. I made corned beef, cabbage, a cabbage salad one of my Irish Grandmas (Grandma Kesler) always made, smashed potatoes, and a trifle. Everyone thought everything tasted so good - I was most concerned about my trifle as it was my first go at something like that it turned out amazing (thanks to good ole Betty Crocker hehe). We also bought some Harp Beer (made by the same people that make Guiness just not dark) and of course we always have Bailey's on hand :)

We all had a great time! I was sad to see the day end but of course as any one who knows me pretty much everyday I celebrate being Irish :)

Monday, March 12, 2007

My Meat Eater, Detective Work and TJ's

Meat Eater

Kian has become more of a meat eater! In the past I would cut up the meat we were eating and hide it in his mashed potatoes or rice or whatever side dish we were having. In the past, Kian has been odd about different textures in food and meat is definitely one of them. Well, last week for dinner I make a turkey breast in the crock pot. I hide his meat in his mashed potatoes and gravy and sat down with my plate of food. He asked for a bit of my meat so I gave him one – I think that by the time we were done eating he had at about one fourth of the meat I had on my plate for myself! The next time we had that meal I gave him his own slices of turkey cut up into pieces he could manage and he ate it all! I am so happy he’s finally putting aside that texture deal in the meat category :)

Speaking of food, Kian has really been packing it away lately! He normally will leave something left on his plate – eating most but leaving some. Since this past week he’s surprised me at the amount he has consumed and left me wondering where the heck it all goes! For example, for lunch one day last week he ate a half package of Easy Mac and Cheese, three Gerber hotdogs, a cup of green beans AND an entire can of mandarin oranges! This has honestly left me wondering how I will keep food in my house once he gets into this teen years hehe

Detective Joe Speaking!

Blue’s Clues has been kind of replaced by a show called Blue’s Room. The show stars Blue has a puppet with her brother Sprinkles. Joe is also in the episodes as well as some other puppet friends, but Blue and Sprinkles are definitely in the spotlight. Anyway, to my knowledge there are no more episodes being created of Blue’s Clues (although Nick Jr. still airs them and Kian asks to watch them often).

Well, Blue’s Room is a pretty good show too in my opinion. Kian has liked them so much that he has requested only one show from Blue’s Room when he asks to watch a show. One episode is based only on shapes and is called The Shape Detectives. The premise is that one of the other character’s paintings has lost all of it’s shapes and the Shape Detectives have to help him find them. Blue, her brother Sprinkles and Joe are all detectives and the slogan for their company is “Shapes, shapes all around. Shapes are lost and then they’re found.” Well, at one point in the show Joe gets a hot tip on the phone about the missing pentagon and he answers the phone, “Shapes, shapes all around. Shapes are lost and then they’re found. Detective Joe speaking.” Kian has learned this phrase from watching (or listening to) this episode countless times. He goes to his toy box, finds his play phone and will say exactly what Joe says. He even has asked me to do it with him but I say “Detective Mommy speaking.” So, naturally that’s what Kian says now too. The CUTEST thing is how he says Speaking. I will have to try to get some video of him saying it because really there is no way for me to do justice with it by trying to type it out :)

Kian is becoming such a little man :)

Trader Joe’s coming to Livermore!

I am SO excited that Trader Joe’s is FINALLY coming to Livermore! For those of you who don’t know you can check out this link: www.traderjoes.com This store has some amazing prices on most of the thing that you would buy in your normal super market. They also sell a lot of organic and vegetarian things as well. It’s seriously my favorite place to shop, so much so that I drive on the 580 for about 10-15 mins (if there is no traffic) to get there! I buy most of our food there and shopping there every two weeks for all of us I spend about $60 each time…that’s unreal for a family of three and the FULL cart of items I walk out with.

Anyway, Trader Joe’s is going to be opening up in Livermore next week! It will still mean I have to drive a bit of a way to get there because of it’s location, but I don’t have to take the freeway (which means I can go late or early in the day and not worry about sitting in my car for a half hour there or back from the store.) Next week is my Trader Joe’s shopping week and I hope to be doing it at their new store! WOOT!