Jewel's perfect soup

My sister=in=law got married last August. We went to MI for a week, and several of those days were spent at Scott and Nettie's house. While we were there I looked through some of her Clean Eating magazines. Nettie has always been a healthy eater. She, and my sister are the ones that are always in the know about the healthy trends and diets. So Nettie gave me one of the Clean Eating magazines to take home. I pulled several recipes out, including one by someone named "Jewel" (no relation to the singer). This Jewel is a proponent of clean, healthful eating, and of cooking at home. She has worked with the stars, including Jennifer Aniston (one of my faves). Supposedly Jewel inspired Jennifer to give up her diet of powerbars, and restock her kitchen with healthful foods and start cooking again. So I decided to give the cannellini bean recipe a go last night. Used the homemade chicken stock, the beans, the garlic, the organic tomatoes (that the boys eat like candy, btw), and the onions. I was out of celery but I thought it would be ok. Well the soup simmered, the boys (all 3) hovered, and then we tasted. Let's just say that this was a long way of saying I ruined dinner last night and we ate pizza instead.

I hear voices

The other night we were cuddled up in the big bed and I was reading "George and Martha" to the boys. I started using "voices" while reading the story, one for George and one for Martha. I thought about the kind of voice each character would have, they are hippos so they're pretty big which meant their voices would be on the deeper side. I raised Martha's voice by a couple of octaves and, I thought I was sounding good. Then Owen says "Mommy why are you talking in that funny voice? Just read it the right way." So I go back to my regular voice, but slip into George and Martha's voices a few pages later. Cue Owen, "Mommy, read normal! No more weird reading!"
So much for doing voices while reading. I guess I shouldn't complain, it certainly makes it easier for me.
PS: I forgot to include "I Love You, Stinky Face" to the list of our current favorite books. It's an adorable bedtime story.

my favorite kid's books #382

It's probably not part 382 but I think I've written about this subject before, I'm just too lazy to go back and look. Anyway, this is a partial list that I hope to add to continuously. These are my current favorite children's books, in no particular order and not exhaustive - just some of the books we are reading and loving right now:

A Good Day by Kevin Henkes. Super sweet with illustrations I really like. I love Kevin Henkes. We first started reading him with my sister-in-law gave us Owen. We've read most of his books, and Owen has enjoyed all of them. This is a bit simpler than Henkes' other books (Lily and the Purple Plastic Purse, Sheila Ray the Brave, Chrysanthemum, etc) but it's perfect for Liam, and Owen enjoys it too.

George and Martha by James Marshall. I picked this book randomly at the library and it is the cutest book! It's funny for kids and parents, and just whimsical. It's five stories but they are only a few pages long each. Owen and Liam both laugh out loud when they/we read this book.

Leonardo the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems. I think this book is funny and sweet. We like Mo in our house, the Pigeon books are in high rotation at bedtime. I didn't really like Knuffle Bunny all that much but I think that's the exception. Tonight at dinner we were talking about George and Martha and Owen was recounting his favorite (i.e. silly) parts. The bathtub scene was first, followed by the mirror scene, and then the gold tooth scene. That led to a discussion on gold teeth and Owen said that George had a gold tooth "just like Tony". Hunh? Who? Ohhh, Tony, of "1,642 teeth like Tony" - from the Leonardo book. I guess it's never too early for the literary allusions right? It's enough to make an English Lit major/English teacher/mother's heart proud.

Since this is a "we" and a list of "our" favorite books I have to include the Scooby Doo paperbacks that Owen loves. If Scooby and the gang investigated it, then we have read it - the Tiki Curse, the Zombie Rock star, the Gruesome Ghoulie/Gorilla/Giant (they all start to run into each other). I have to say, the stories written by Jesse Leon McCann are the best ones. There is another writer who pens some of the Scooby stories and her writing just doesn't flow like Jesse's stories.

Any of your faves that we should be reading?