over the moon

  saturday morning 9am                                          saturday afternoon 1pm 

no joke.

now THAT'S a utah spring!!!

and we know how to take advantage of it.

brennan drew a whale with sidewalk chalk.
that actually looked like a whale.
i was SO excited.
over the moon excited.
he never wants to draw.
and if he does want to draw it's snakes.
squiggly lines.
which are great.
snakes are great!
just nothing that really takes much form.
but saturday he grabbed the chalk.
drew something.
looked up and said,
"mom, i drew a whale."
i thought i would be doing the whole,
"oh yeah, great job"
{really thinking it looked like nothing} routine,
but instead i looked down and saw
A
WHALE.
i got embarrassingly excited.
squealing,
jumping,
pointing,
and running into the house to yell for sean to "get outside and hurry about it!!!" were all involved.
then remembered ART 220 at chico state.
developing art in children,
i could hear my teacher in my head.
so i gathered myself,
and asked him to tell me about his picture.
he pointed out the eye.
mouth,
body,
and tail.
proud parent moment.
b/c i didn't do anything to get him to do it.
he just sat down and decided to draw a whale.
with his own creativity.
and i absolutely loved it.

.............................

last night i made an 8 veggie stir fry.

thought it was 7.

but then counted again and found 8.

if you count the two different types of onions.

do you count the two different types of onions?

i'm not talking sweet and yellow.

that wouldn't count.

i'm talking green onions.

and sweet onions.

i think that should count.

would have made jamie oliver proud.

except for the cup of soy sauce i added.

at least i used non GMO brown rice.

go to the store.

buy your veggies,

cook your rice.

vwallah.

dinner

is

served.

Veg:

 {varies every time, but always includes eggplant}

eggplant,

mushroom,

green onion,

sweet onion,

red bell pepper,

broccoli,

zucchini,

celery,

and shrimp*

*Sometimes I'll do chicken or tofu, although sean requested beef chunks. i told him that sounded gross. mainly b/c the word chunk reminded me of unappetizing things. we'll see if i give in.

DIRECTIONS: put the eggplant in first, add soy sauce and extra virgin olive oil with sesame seeds. Then I pile on the other veggies loosely on top. I cook the meat separately and add it to the veggies as I'm cooking so it can be all warmed up together. You want enough soy sauce and oil to steam the veggies covered for about 15 min {and to have extra sauce to drizzle when plating}, stirring every 5min or so. Serve over rice or noodles. Even my kids eat the entire bowl. It's so good! Never turns out the same.