ScrumpyDaddy

It’s official, a friend of my daughters this morning said, “Our house isn’t this much fun.” Yes! We’ve done it. We’ve become that cool house that the kids want to come visit and never leave.

Today we had neighbors of ours over for play time and lunch. They have 3 children. Their oldest is a year older than Abby, middle child is Abby’s age, and the youngest is a couple months older than Zach.

Abby loved showing them all her toys and her room. Abby has never before showed interest in playing in her room before today. They would go up and down the stairs and at times just stay up in her room for a while playing. On a winter day like this when it is only 26 degrees outside it is nice to have people over and let the kids run around and play while the adults talk. Abby is finally to the age where she doesn’t need mom or dad to play with her and can go off with other kids to play.

We had a great lunch of chicken tortellini soup with bread sticks and pumpkin pie for dessert. All homemade. We made the soup and pumpkin pie and our friends supplied the bread sticks. Yum all around!

Chicken Tortellini Soup (Recipe given to us by our best friends from Kentucky,thanks Candra):

Take a raw whole chicken with skin on and season with salt, garlic powder and poultry seasoning. Put in large stock pot with onions and celery and cover with water (we also put in a few shallots). Cover pot and boil for about 2 hours or until the chicken falls off the bones. Remove all chicken, bones, onions, and celery and put in separate bowl. Remove the chicken from the bones and discard bones along with the onions and celery (the boiling takes away all their flavor and puts it in the broth). Then saute onions and carrots together. Put the chicken, onions, carrots, and one can (with all juice) of diced tomatoes back in the broth. Cook up tortellini separate from the soup and do not put in the soup (if you do the tortellini will get too soft and break apart). To serve put tortellini in bowls and pour the soup over top. Serve with grated parmesan to top.

Try and enjoy with your friends!

That’s right folks, Zach’s vocabulary is growing. When I picked him up tonight from day care Zach started going la, la, la to me. Then while Dave and Zach were playing we swear he was saying Da da to Dave. The other day Dave was looking at pictures on his computer with Zach sitting on his lap and Dave pulled up a picture of Abby and Zach said Abba. We are waiting to see if he does it again to see if he is trying to say Abby.

So now Zach makes m, b, l, and d sounds. Keep it up big guy!

Zach is also doing well eating solid foods. Zach has solid foods once a day for dinner except on weekends when we usually try to give him something around lunch time too. He has been on rice cereal for several weeks now and we have started other food. He has had sweet potatoes and squash. Sweet potatoes were a bust, but so far he is really liking the squash. We will see if he ends up liking sweet potatoes later after trying some other things.

Today I wanted to take some time after writing so much about what Zach is doing to write an update on Abby. She is growing so much and becoming so independent and yet loves to play with Daddy and I. She can take out her own toys and play with what she wants while Dave and I are doing our own thing. Like right now she is getting out her cars while Dave is browsing the internet and I am writing this blog post.

She is really starting to play with imagination. She loves to play with dolls now especially in her new doll house that Dave and I made her for Christmas. She also plays with her baby dolls and stuffed animals (especially during nap time and bed time in her bed). She likes to make the dolls talk to each other and asks will you play with me (doll to doll). She also likes to get them undressed and have them go swimming or taking baths. She then needs help to get their clothes back on. Oh why do they make it so difficult for a 3 year old to put skin tight clothing on a Barbie or princess doll.

Today she got out one of her “baby” toys. A puppy that you press different parts of its body and it says different things. I really love it when she presses it and it sneezes. She always says bless you to it. She will also answer its questions or do what it tells her to, like giving it a hug when it says, “Hug me”. She can follow directions very well when she wants to. Though, since she is a typical 3 year old, she seems to have trouble listening to Mommy and Daddy and doing what we ask like, brushing her teeth, getting her pajamas on, getting her coat on to go outside, and other important stuff that we need her to do. Sometimes it can be such a fight for her to do some things that she does everyday.

Anyways, Abby loves arts and crafts. She plays with play dough and loves using the cut outs and presses that she has gotten from previous birthdays. Abby also loves to draw and color and is getting very good at making circles and trying to draw objects instead of just scribbling. She also concentrates when she colors in coloring books to try and stay in the lines. She is getting much better at that. She also can spend a long time painting. Yesterday she spent about 45 minutes painting with her easel after making valentine hearts to hang up on the windows.

Abby is very much into the Disney movies, especially the princesses. I think her favorite is Ariel. She likes to sing like Ariel and loves to watch the movie or listen to the tape of the songs.

I know this was a long post and there are so many other things I can say about her because she does something new and wonderful every day. It is hard to pick what exactly to write about.

I know you are probably wondering how I am posting on this when Valentines Day is not for another couple weeks. Well, I am posting about decorating for Valentines Day. Dave and I don’t really celebrate the holiday, at least not more than saying to each other happy Valentines Day. We just figure why spend the money when everything is over priced and we can show each other how much we love each other on any other day that is not over commercialized. Anyways, it is still fun to decorate for all holidays especially with a 3 year old.

Abby, Dave and I made heart decorations to hang on the windows out of construction paper. We let Abby use for the first time my die cutter. She did a great job pushing the handle down all the way to cut the paper into heart shapes. These are small hearts so we used some of them to decorate big hearts that I cut out of pink, red, and white paper.

Abby and I then used a glue to stick to put the small hearts on the big ones and to put glitter on them too. I attempted to have her use letter stamps to spell out Happy Valentines Day, but that did not go so well. Either she didn’t push hard enough so the letter barely showed up or she put them on top of each or upside down. Oh well, maybe next year. I ended up doing it myself instead.

The hearts are now all on the windows. Sorry no pictures of us actually making the hearts.