Recipe for Success

I have two fun things to report this evening ... Elaina found a new love and I just wrapped up work on successful luncheon.

To begin with, I had a discussion with Elaina's babysitter this morning that left the both of us scratching our heads over what to feed Picky Pickerson ( a.k.a. Elaina). It seems as though her eating habits aren't quite as bad there because Nancy feeds her all of her favorites which I supply to her. She consistently loves her yogurt, applesauce and bananas. And this girl hasn't ever been known to turn down a snack ! That leaves the bulk of her lunch to just be hit or miss.

I stopped at the grocery store on my way home from work tonight and a package of Little Smokies sausage links caught my eye. Elaina would surely love them. I cut them into Elaina sized bites, warmed them and watched them disappear from my very eyes ! My little carnivore begged for "mo !" ( Elaina speak for "more.") The good and the bad about this latest discovery is that we have another meat to keep stocked in our refrigerator, yet the down side being that Elaina could be the only 15 month old whose cholesterol levels are off the charts !

On a different note, I have to do a little boasting upon myself for a change. For this blog, my intention is to brag and journalize everything about our beautiful daughter, however, from time to time, I actually do something noteworthy. Yeah ... it's true !

I happen to belong to a committee at work that organizes our bi-annual Christmas party. Throughout the year, we do various fundraisers to earn money for our party. Last year, I had made a suggestion to hold a chili cook-off using our Family Court judges and administrators as contestants. It turned out to be a huge success with everyone sampling 5 various types of chili and casting their secret vote for their favorite chili. This year, I suggested that we expand our little contest to the chief county prosecutor, the clerk of courts, the head of the public defender's office and the head of the social services agency to compete against our winning judge contestant last year. With only a few weeks of preparation, our event took place today with an amazing turnout ! We knew we were going to go big, yet had no idea that by the end of the day, we would have served over 150 bowls of chili to our hungry voters ! Leading up to today's cook-off, we no longer regarded our efforts as "fundraising," it more or less became about building unity and fellowship between so many intertwined departments on a whole new level. It was awesome ! In the end, we made out very well financially, with some of the proceeds going to our Christmas party fund and a portion of the money sponsoring a family in the "Adopt-a-Family" program at Christmastime in the winning contestant and department's name.

What an incredibly busy day ... make that --- busy week --- but so rewarding !