Chet and Ashley and Four Little Admirals: Because I know you've been wondering...

...what we ended up eating for dinner last night.

But first, a long, rambling story.

I was able to go to the store with Lorelei and Ford after dropping Sydney off at K Prep Thursday morning. We went to Trader Joe's, because I hadn't been there in a while, I was curious about their prices on certain items, and it was threatening rain (you park in a covered garage at our TJ's). Our Trader Joe's is pretty small (I guess they all are?), and the cheese aisle especially stresses me out because it always seems the most crowded and it's not an easy feat fitting two buggies in the aisle at once, especially when your buggy has children swinging from it/trying to leap out of it.

Anyway, our Trader Joe's trip was made even more adventurous when the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the store (I will confess that no one, me included, felt any sense of urgency to exit the store when the alarm sounded; we all just stood around for a couple of minutes, certain there was no danger...not smart). I felt less guilty about my lack of urgency when the fire truck rolled up 15 minutes later and two firemen sauntered (literally sauntered) out of the truck and into the building to investigate. (It turns out that the fire alarm goes off on this particular city block at least twice a month. It seems someone should investigate the reason. In my humble opinion.)

Anyway, the coast was cleared, and we went back into the store to finish our shopping.

I bought the ingredients for the slow cooker chicken teriyaki. It only needs four hours in the slow cooker, so I started the crockpot right before I picked up Sydney from K Prep and it was ready by 5 p.m.

I had some jasmine rice on hand (raise your hand if you love jasmine rice as much as I do), but I was lacking a vegetable for the kids. I did some quick Pinterest-ing, and whipped up this veggie dip to go with a (raw) sliced up tomato and zucchini.

Here are the dinner verdicts:

Sydney

She cleaned her plate, as she usually does, because she is a rule follower by nature. She liked, but didn't love, the chicken. She loved the jasmine rice. She always loves tomatoes. She loved the zucchini and dip.

Lorelei

She's our most picky eater, although she'll eat more strange foods, like pickles, black olives, and plain Greek yogurt by the vat (Chet and I love plain Green yogurt as a substitute for sour cream, but simply cannot enjoy it as yogurt). She did not care for the chicken, "WUVED" (loved) the jasmine rice, didn't care for the tomatoes, and tolerated the zucchini and dip.

Ford (Bubby)

He had a snack not too long before dinner, so I didn't expect him to eat much. He ate all of the chicken I gave him, threw his rice on the floor, and ate all all of the veggie dip, with as many zucchini slices as it took to consume said dip. I was surprised. That just goes to show that you have to give kids the chance to try foods you don't think they'll like it, because they may love it you (or decide they like it after not liking it the first 20 times.) Then they'll throw you for a loop and refuse to eat something they've always loved/every kid loves, like chicken nuggets.

Chet

Eats anything.

The girls were acting a little wild at dinner, so they couldn't have any dessert (except for fruit). We bought apples at Trader Joe's, which they requested for "dessert." Since Lorelei had almost no protein at dinner, I did "ants on a log," but with the apple instead of celery. (You know what "ants on a log" are, right? Usually celery spread with peanut butter, and raisins on top.)

All in all, dinner was a success. And it isn't always, so I'm glad when it is.

Here are a few unrelated pictures:

The girls at the bus stop Monday morning, when we though Syd was going to be able to ride the bus:

She makes me so nervous when she climbs this at the park:

Lorelei asked (about the people playing basketball in the background), "Are they having a baseball party?" Apparently we're doing nothing to teach our kids about sports: