holiday recap

This week has been busy for us here in Llama land. We decided that holiday traveling with a two year old just was not a good idea, so we couldn't go back up north to visit family, which made all of us sad. But to make up for it my parents came down here to visit for the day. They brought presents from the rest of the family, and we had a nice time visiting. This year, including birthday presents (last week was his birthday), the Llama received several puzzles, wooden blocks, a Melissa & Doug Shape, Model and Mold kit for play dough, new crayons, markers, stickers, coloring books, and drawing paper, as well as new clothes, a xylophone, and a corn popper push toy, and of course tons of books. The Llama Poppa got new boots, I got a new stick blender, and we all got Amazon gift cards; happiness all around.

Then it was The Llama's two-year Pediatrician visit. He weighs 37 lbs and is 37 inches tall! Unfortunately it was not a happy visit for him; the nurses were scary, this was his first time on the big kid's scale and it was wobbly and scary, he didn't like being examined one bit, and then they had to give him the flu vaccine (we got the nose drops, which was better than a shot, but still scary) and then his two-year finger pick to check for lead. Everything came out perfectly, the doctor said he was awesome. But he was NOT happy, my poor little guy. Thankfully he seemed to calm down best when we gave him a pen and let him draw on the flu vax info sheet. I'm glad that he has discovered such an easy method of calming himself, and that it's making art. When we got home we played with play dough and some of his other new toys, then after dinner we had a nice long bath time with lots of splashing and he was good as new, and most definitely ready for bed!

Hopefully now everything will calm down a little bit and we can get ourselves back to normal. After the new year I'll be taking down the decorations (which the Llama LOVED). And we can start getting back into our routine, but with more time for drawing and art, because the Llama obviously loves it.

Mock Tuna Salad

When I was a kid, one of the few fishes I would eat was tuna, and then only in surprise or in sandwiches. I've been craving tuna sandwiches lately, so I went looking for Vegetarian recipes, then I smashed them all together and came up with this:



Chickpea “Tuna” Salad

3 C cooked chickpeas
1/4 C mayo
1/4 C nutritional yeast
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp powdered nori (just take a sheet or two of nori and run it through the spice grinder)**
1/4 C celery, diced small
3 Tbsp sweet pickle relish

Run the chickpeas through the food processor until they are roughly chopped and crumbly, or alternately mash them with a fork and your hands.
Stir the rest of the ingredients together in a bowl, then add the chickpeas and stir until everything is coated evenly. This will make about 5 sandwiches.

(This recipe is similar to how I used to make it as a kid, but a lot of recipes left out the relish and added dijon mustard, some had scallions added in, and some left out the celery. Essentially the main parts of the recipe are the first 4-5 ingredients**, after that you can pretty much just add what you did as a kid.)

**the reason I didn't eat a lot of fish as a kid was I hated that 'fishy' taste, so I didn't add the nori and it was great!



(needs lettuce and tomato, but we were out, ah well.)