Our Favorite Salad (otherwise known as "Even Hannah will eat it")

Thought I'd do a posting looking at the lighter side of life this evening. I made our family's favorite salad tonight. I got it from my WarmLine cookbook - it's called "Patty's Famous Garlic Salad," from Patty Reis, a good friend and mentor from Bakersfield. It couldn't be easier, I usually have the ingredients on hand, and (gasp!) even 3-year-old Hannah will eat it. (This is especially a big deal, because pretty much the only thing she won't eat is any other kind of salad. This one - she asks for second and third helpings!) Here goes:

Finely mince 4 cloves of garlic (I use my Pampered Chef chopper). Put them in the bottom of your salad bowl and add 4 tablespoons olive oil and about 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Use a fork to mash them all together as best you can. Add a whole head of romaine (clean, dry, and torn into pieces). Mix it all up with your hands, kind of smushing it all together as you go. Shake on a few ounces of shredded Parmesan cheese (2-4?) remix, and serve. That's it! Between the 3 of us, we easily finished the entire salad tonight with our stabecki spaghetti. Of course, you have to be willing to smell like garlic, but hey, garlic is good for you right?

In other light news, both Don and I have joined Facebook. It's been fun to reconnect with college and high school friends, see pictures, and find out what people have been up to. So if you're on Facebook and haven't found us yet, we'd love to have you look us up and connect!

Let's see...Elizabeth has 8 teeth now and is working on her first molar. Her 9-month doctor appointment was Monday. She's 28" long and weighs 20 pounds. She's in the 75th percentile for everything. She got one shot and seems to be doing okay. The erupting molar seems to be causing the most problems at the moment. Today her lunch was cut up canned sweet potatoes and finely chopped chicken breast. She ate the whole thing and I happened to look up at her and see her grinning broadly and signing "more"! It was her first totally self-fed meal. Definitely a milestone.

Hannah is getting more verbal and expressive. She loves telling us about her dreams in the morning. It's hard to tell whether these are real dreams or just things she imagines while awake. The other morning she said that she was playing a game with her friends at school and some of the friends sneezed and their faces got stuck together. She thought this was pretty hilarious. Also, we've recently learned from Hannah that armpits are a delicacy in California; they’re served in fancy restaurants for $13 and are served with marshmallows. When Hannah hears Elizabeth crying through the baby “remonitor” she often begins singing “Jesus Loves Me” to Bethie – through the “wrong” side of the monitor. (I've tried to explain that it doesn't go both ways and that Bethie can't hear her, but she persists.) She sometimes asks for the “humidityfier” to be placed in her room and she likes playing with magnets to see what things in the house are "magdedified." Another time, she graced us with this important command:
H (eating peppermints and interrupting): Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.
D: Hannah, I’m talking to Mommy. Is it something you need now?
H: Yeah.
D: Okay, what is it?
H: Smell my mouth.

And on that note, I think I'll call it a night. God bless!