Last day of Preschool

Wednesday, 24 May 2006

Today was Emily's very last day of preschool. In the fall she'll be a big kid, going to Elementary School as a kindergartner. Here she is with her teachers:

The evolution of the tea towel

Tuesday, 23 May 2006

Tomorrow is the last day of preschool and it's taken me forever to think of a nice, simple gift to give all of Emily's teachers. They have truely been wonderful women who I she and I have come to love and cherrish!

Back in 2004, Better Homes and Garden put out a magazine called "Creative Kids," filled with a lot of really cute things kids to could make or that you could make for kids (parties, summer fun, etc.). One of their projects for Mother's Day was to make a Helping Hand kitchen towel using a flour sack cloth. Using acrylic craft paints, I sent to work making one for each Grandma and my Grandmother. What resulted was a really cute little gift that documented the kids hand prints, and have amazingly held up quite nicely in the wash.

Since that project, I've modified it a few times... I really love Rudolf... Emily's foot is his face, Sam's hands made the antlers, and Rebecca and Emily's handprints made the Christmas Trees. Their finger prints did the decorations on the trees.



The latter two are what I've made for the preschool teachers... her classroom teachers will get one of each, the director and the art/music teachers will get the stars (I ended up with a pounding headache tonight that refused to go away, so after 5 star towels, I called it quits and headed to bed.) I'm also including a small jar of last summers wild blackberry jam - yum!

Ben & Jerry's

Tuesday, 25 April 2006

My sibblings and I got the following email from Mom today at 12:38pm:

April 25 is "free scoop day" at Ben and Jerry's. (advertized on Martha Stewart's TV show--so it's nation-wide)
St. Louis locations include:
17408 Chesterfield Airport Road 636-530-7633
10909 Olive Blvd (Creve Coeur?) 314-997-3663
200 South Kirkwood Road 314-965-3331
6380 Delmar 314-721-8887

FREE ice cream ALL day long - noon - 8pm - at Ben & Jerry's ... really? After checking Ben & Jerry's website and watching the show at our house (which doesn't come on until 3pm), I decided this was a legitimate offer and started making plans to go, as soon as GR got home and the kids ate their dinner.

We made it there about 20 minutes before 7pm. The line snaked out the door a good 15 feet and then inside it snaked around a few times before you actaully got to the counter - something you didn't really find out until you got in the front doors.

The line moved surprisingly fast - not having to stop and pay someone at the cash register really speeds up the process! Sam and the girls had so much fun smiling and waving and talking to EVERYONE as we moved along the line. Most of the people in line were college kids, who just got a kick out of these three really cute and very talkative kids asking all kinds of questions about their ice cream and what they where doing at the ice cream shop.

Once at the counter everyone made their selections quickly - Sam and Rebecca once again choose mint chocolate Chip and Emily, plain chocolate. And sadly I can't remember what flavors GR and I choose.

It's an amazing little "customer appreciation/anniversary" day for Ben and Jerry's to sponsor. If you think that for our family of five to eat cones there would cost atleast $15, and they easily served 60+ cones in the 20+ minutes we waited in line, that's a lot of ice cream moving out their door in one day, all across the country! And the line was just as big when we left as when we arrived. They were raising money for the Boys and Girls club, so GR and I let the kids put what $1s and $5s we had in our pockets into the buckets and went for the car to eat our cones. I wonder how much they made for their charity?

So mark April 25, 2007 on your calendars, and plan on getting your free scoop! We definately are! As you can see the kids had a great time, and even GR said "this was a lot of fun, I'm glad we did it!" once we got everyone strapped in the car - one handed!

A quick visit

Tuesday & Wednesday, 18-19 April 2006



Tuesday afternoon Aunt Barbara and Grandma Mutti drove through town for a quick visit on their way to SLC. Barb needs a car for her last yearish of school, and Mom and Dad found a gem of a car - 95 Toyota Camry - for a fair price and purchased it. The big debate was what of the three cars my parents now own, to send with Barbara... The '95 won, and Barb flew in late Easter Sunday to drive it back with Mom.

We had a great visit - short but fun and full of lots of good conversation. Barb read Rebecca's library books to her and Emily while Sam finished a nap. And later that night Mom and I assembled 80 handouts for a workshop I'm teaching Saturday for our Stake HFPE Women's Conference. I'm no where near where I need to be preparation wise - everything still in my head and NOTHING is on paper yet. I've known what I wanted to do for my handout since day one of this assignment 2 weeks ago, but I knew if I didn't make it while Mom and Barb where around to help me assemble it, it'd never happen! We got 65 of the 80 assembled, and I can handle putting 15 more together.

The girls headed off for Denver about noon, taking Emily to preschool on their way. Emily was so excited to be able to show her teachers AUNT BARB! She could hardly contain herself!

Easter Festivities

Saturday 15 April 2006

• Picnic lunch in the park of chicken nuggets, fries and salad
  
• Emily, Rebecca and Sam chase Robins through the grass... Emily got very good at walking up to them very quietly... she could get the closest before they'd fly out of reach.
  
• Spend a good 30 minutes at the park swinging, swinging and more swinging with an occasional trip down the slide waiting to cross the street and participate in the HyVee sponsored Easter Egg Hunt to start at 1pm.
  
• GR and I, along with other parents and grandparent, quietly watch large, thick, dark, moisture rich rain clouds slowly cover the sky above us.
  
• 12:30 cross the street to see what activities, if any, they are starting early.
  
• The kids are some of the first in line for a huge blow up slide and take 2-3 trips down the slide before going to collect their 5 eggs - one of each color scattered across the park.
  
• Stand in line for 25 minutes to get the kids faces painted by two incredibly talented women who cared more about each child having a fabulous time and feeling like they were the center of the world, than how long the line was or how much time it took to paint something beautiful and unique on each child's face.
  
• In a mere 15 minutes, Rebecca had a sparkly heart balloon on her cheek, Emily had two sparkly pink butterflies - one on each cheek, and Sam had Nemo (her first ever!) ... each were on cloud nine and so pleased with their face painting!
  
• Convinced the children that an additional 25 minutes in each line was not worth a balloon animal/hat/etc. from the balloon clown, nor was it worth, the 2 minutes of fun, jumping in another blown-up thingy.
  
• Used the Toy Store as a bribe... found our own game of Pick-Up-Sticks for $4.99
• Opted to purchase three 1/2 gallons of ice cream ... mint chocolate chip (Rebecca and Sam), Vanilla and Chocolate checkerboard (Emily), Fudge Brownie Sundae (GR) ... and eat cones at home.
  

Sunday 16 April 2006

• More beautiful weather!
  
• Easter Egg Hunt after church at Grandma Mum and Grandpa Bob's
• Each child found and collected 13 eggs spread throughout the entire front yard and play set area.
  
• Side Note: Realizing that 13 eggs each would provide the children with a lifetime supply of every type of sugar know to man, GR and I sent the 39 eggs we had planned on also hiding for the kids to the Pharmacy on Monday. GR arrived very early Monday morning, hid the eggs and then let the pharmacists and techs find them throughout the day. They had just as much fun as the kids did on Sunday and I was happy my eggs got used and enjoyed.
• Dyed a dozen Easter eggs - something GR loves doing. One of these days we hope to have a Easter Egg Dying party where everyone brings a half dozen hard boiled eggs and we provide all the decorating supplies.
  
• Learned when you use vinegar in your dye to make the color more intense it doesn't work to put a yellow egg in red dye to make orange, or to get a marbled cool duel color effect ... all the yellow dye comes off and you end up with a plain, boring red egg.
• Spent a quiet, peaceful afternoon, enjoying the beautiful weather and the kids having a blast eating jelly beans and chocolate and playing with different toys found in their Easter baskets.
  
• Enjoyed a fun and traditional family dinner of ham, homemade macaroni and cheese, and asparagus.
  

Good Morning Mr. Sam

This is where GR found Samuel this morning ... he'd taken the laundry basket from our room, moved it to the girls room, put in his pillow and found his little blankie to lay over himself, where he quietly closed his eyes and waited for the girls to wake up.

A change in duties

Sam has been "potty training" for what seems like forever.

Just shy of his 2nd birthday he would poop on the potty, but not pee. Then we somehow lost all interest... and periodically I would test his interest ... we would try again, sometimes for a few hours, other times all day, until he'd lose interest and we would have accident, after accident, after accident.

Back in January, we had a fairly successful weekend of underpants, going potty every 45 minutes, but then Sunday and church happened, and by the end of nursery we’d had an accident, he lost interest and was back to pull-ups and diapers.

With boys (and girls too, I guess), I've always heard, “don't push them, when they're ready, they're ready.” And that was what I was trying to do with Sam. In the mornings, I'd ask, “Do you want to wear big boy underpants, a Spiderman pull-up, or diaper today,” and let him pick. Making it clear that if he chose one of the first two, he'd have to sit on the potty when Mommy said it was time to. Again, we'd have some successes, and lots of messy failures. And unless he was naked or in Sacrament meeting, he'd NEVER tell us he needed to go potty, we were always the ones telling him when it was time to go.

Finally last Monday, May 1st, I decided it was time to simply put him in big boy underpants and see what would happen. Preparing myself for weeks of accidents, vowing to be consistent and not give up, no matter what, we started.

Sam did pretty well all week, averaging only 2 accidents a day. I count myself lucky we only had one public accident (we had a week full of errands, etc. getting ready for Rebecca's 6th birthday and all girl party!). It happened at preschool and was only pee - a lot of pee, but only pee - that I can deal with in public. Thankfully, I had a change of pants and underpants in the car and had just purchased wipes at the store!

I think Sam's finally starting to figure out when his body needs to go potty. We've been accident free since Saturday afternoon! AND he's been waking up dry! Tonight GR is experimenting by putting Sam to bed with big boy underpants on, not a pull-up. We'll see what happens in the morning.

I'm comfortable taking Sam anywhere in underpants, but not confident. I still drive around town with a couple pairs of underpants, a pair of jeans, some wipes and a pull-up - in the front seat of the car! I'm not sure we'd be accident free if I didn't remind him every couple of hours to go potty. But today - for the first time in underpants - Sam said, "Need to go potty!" So off we rushed to the bathroom where Rebecca was just finishing, poor thing had to wipe standing up so her brother could go, such a good sport!

So it looks like for the first time in 6 years, I will have a short three month break from changing dirty diapers!

Side tracked

Thursday, 13 April 2006

Today was the deadline for the local Parks and Recreational sign-up forms to be turn in. So Emily, Sam and I went to make sure Rebecca got enrolled in t-ball with other girls from her elementary school, and get both girls enrolled in a little 6 week cheerleading class. T-ball will start once school lets out and cheerleading will start a few weeks later. Hopefully, we won't have a scheduling conflict with practices/games falling on the same night.

The office is next to a great little park, and the weather today was sunny and beautiful! The kids persuaded me to stop for a while to let them swing and slide and have some good old fashioned fun. Afterwards we drove through Wendy's drive thru to get a glass of ice cold lemonade.

My two boys

Tuesday, 28 March 2006

Off we go again

Wednesday, 12 April 2006

Today for lunch Emily and Sam had peanut butter and honey sandwiches and a huge bowl of strawberries. After cutting up half the carton of strawberries and making sure everyone was settled, happily eating their lunch, I went to respond to a quick email before loading everyone in the car for the preschool run. I might have been in front of the computer 60 second before hearing Samuel scream, and come running into the front room with blood dripping down his hand.

Turns out he and Emily inhaled the strawberries and he decided he could cut them up himself. Our new kitchen knives were no match for his little finger.

(This picture is terribly out of focus and a bit misleading but it's all I've got. We took two pictures, and they both turned out this way ... the cut was straight and very clean and was about 3/4" long.)

It's 11:50... 40 minutes before preschool starts. I get Sam's finger cleaned up, asses that it's not going to stop bleeding for a while, wrap a wash cloth around the finger, make a phone call to a friend in our neighborhood who also goes to preschool in the afternoon who might be able to give Emily a ride (she's not home, leave an odd disjointed message), and discover Sam has a poopie diaper. Use a large claw clip to hold the washcloth around Sam's finger and apply light pressure, but won't cut off circulation, and change his diaper, and call another Mom who lives up the street and whose daughter also attends preschool with Emily - she's able to take Emily to school, I call GR get his cell phone and warn him we're coming, and off we go.

We get to the ER about 12:30 where GR meets us. They aren't quiet as fast this time, but we still get seen within 10 minutes. Sam won't let anyone, including GR look at his cut. I finally get the wash cloth off his finger (everyone was rather impressed with the claw clip solution to applying pressure and keeping the wound covered) so the nurse and the doctor could look at it. It's stopped bleeding, but he still isn't keen about anyone touching it.

GR and I learn that finger tips don't have much blood circulation, so they don't use numbing agents when dealing with cuts on the fingertip. Numbing of the area could cause permanent damage to the finger tip because it reduces the circulation of blood to the area. Instead of stitches, they glued the cut closed with Derma bond, put two Band-Aids on it to keep Sam from bending his finger, give him a green popsicle for being brave and off we went to race back home to pick Emily up from school. (Thankfully, Wednesday's are Rebecca's afternoon with Grandma, so I didn't have to worry about who was going to pick her up!)


"Strawberry Cut" update:
Sam will still tell you how he got his scar, which has healed very nicely. And he will also tell you that he isn't supposed to cut strawberries by himself, that's Mommy's job. And we haven't had any major injuries since, knock on wood!

PE Night for the Kindergartners

Tuesday, 11 April 2006

I really like our Physical Education teacher at the Elementary School. He challenges the kids, encourages them to be physically active, and makes physical education fun. For each of the grade levels he has a family night at the Gym where all the children in that grade level can bring their family and show them what they've been doing and learning in class.

The Kindergartners are the last class to go - that way they have all year to learn the rules and become more familiar with the different stations set up around the gym. They had jump rope, ball and glove tosses, monkey bars, balance beam, hula-hoops, rock wall, rope climb and swing, tumbling, and more.

The weather was beautiful so the girls road their bikes while GR and I walked pushing Sam in the stroller. We had a great time for the short hour we were there. And the kids got a chance to do most of the different stations. Here are some pictures of our night.

Let's go fly a kite

Sunday, 9 April 2006

Grandpa Bob's birthday was last month and for his birthday we got him a kite. We got a big kite for Grandpa, three smaller kites for the kids. Spiderman for Sam, Strawberry Shortcake for Rebecca, Barbie for Emily.

When we got home from church, I started working dinner (homemade bread and lasagna). The weather was beautiful - lots of warm sunshine with temperatures in the low 70s - and I really wanted to spend some time outside with the kids. Our neighborhood isn't really conducive to this, once my three go out, all the neighborhood children come out ... a great thing M-S, but on Sunday, that's our family day - no neighborhood friends. Bob and Diane’s is a great place to "escape to" because we can spend time with the children outside, and spend time together as a family without distraction.

So we called to see if we could go to Bob and Diane's and fly kites in the big field behind their house, and took dinner with us. We had a really, really good time. The kids are learning what it takes to keep a kite high in the air. We could have used a more consistent breeze, and we needed all four adults outside to help keep the kites up in the air. But once GR helped them get their kites above the tree line - with all of their string extended - they stayed up without any problem.

Blocks of Service

I'm still playing catch up... I'm a month behind in posting things, so bear with me... I realize you really don't care about the sequence of events, but I'm feeling a little dumb that April is nearly to a close and I haven't closed out my posts for the month of March!

Thursday, 20 April 2006

GR was in charge of this months combined YM/YW activity and they really wanted to do a service project of some kind. One of the things he and I brainstormed in the car weeks ago was the idea of doing some kind of humanitarian aid project that the kids to assemble on Wednesday night.

All the toy patterns we saw were too involved - not in assembling, but in cutting and since we were limited on the people we could ask to cut wood - not that many people have access to the necessary equipment - and had 20-25 youth to keep busy for 90 minutes, we X'd that idea.

GR spent a lot of time looking online for patterns and ideas and found patterns for wood blocks. He talked to Bob about the feasibility of the project and the two of them agreed it would be do-able. Bob had enough scrap MDF to cut 300 blocks. The YM went over a week before and helped sand all the rough edges and corners and smooth out the curved arches. And I purchased the paint and brushes.

The youth did a fine job on painting them and they look amazing. The children quickly discovered the box of painted blocks and have had hours of fun playing with them. The way they've been playing, you'd think they'd never seen blocks before! They have built quilt patterns, houses, towers, castles, anything and everything you can imagine - they've built it.

GR still needs to decide where to send these blocks, and there are a couple blocks that need a little touch up painting, but other than that, they are ready for needy children to play with!

Golf Balls, Marbles and Ice Cubes

Sunday, 23 April 2006, 10-10:30pm.

This evening starting at 10pm we experienced the worst hail storm GR and I have ever experienced. All during Grays Anatomy, the Kansas City weather guy kept giving us updates during commercial breaks on the conditions just north of our county. On a different station, the Topeka weather guy was doing the same (only he wouldn't let them go back to the normal programs). For most of the hour, the storm hovered northeast of us, not wanting to cross over the highway. By about 9:45 it started to cross the highway and by 9:55 it was hitting downtown and heading southeast at about 10mph... straight for our neck of the woods. That's when I headed for the garage to clear a spot for the Cadillac ... no sooner had GR pulled in to the garage, did the rain start with the hail quickly (just seconds later) following.

We had pure hail for a straight 20 minutes, then a break of just hard rain, and then another 10 minutes or so of hail. We are both amazed that the children didn't wake up - the hail and strong winds were coming from the east, and their windows all face east; no windows were broken; and GR's Civic sustained NO damage (it sat unprotected in the driveway). As you can see from the pictures, the hail ranged in size from golf ball and shooter size down to marble size... 1/2" - 1-1/4" in diameter. GR risked a concussion, and got three of the larger ice pellets and stuck them in the freezer so we could show the kids and you what happened during the storm.

Thankfully my flowers and plants seem to have survived the pelting they received. They are a little beaten down and the tulip and hosta leaves are shredded in spots, but other than that, they are going to survive. We've desperately needed the rain. And they are expecting more on Monday and Tuesday.

"Easy to Sew"

Thursday, 24 March 2006

One of the projects I took with me while at my parents was a dress pattern I wanted to test out for perspective Easter dresses. Mom has about 10 yards of a blue floral from 15+ years ago that we'd like to turn into dresses for all the granddaughters - if we can find just the right pattern and coordinating "do-da's" as we like to call them to update the fabric and minimize the homemade look.

It was supposedly "Easy to Sew" ... I don't think so ... To me "Easy to Sew" should also mean "goes together quickly" and this didn't go together quickly. I admit it's a relatively simple pattern, but you end up sewing the collar and sleeves into the dress three times, after doing all the basting, stitching and top stitching it calls for. I did a little bit of it Sunday night before realizing I'd forgotten to cut out half the collar (the underside). Having brought none of the scraps with me, Emily and I made a trip to the fabric store Mom and I have been going to for nearly 22 years, and found a subtle bright yellow to use as a coordinating contrast fabric on the underside of the collar and then as a peek out from the hem. Despite the trauma and frequent trips to the fabric shop because I was missing this, or forgot about that, the end result is really cute and will more than likely work for the Easter Dresses we envision, as well as a few other dresses for this summer.

Here's a picture of the pattern cover, and Emily in my version (picture taken 4-23-06).

A Saturday Morning in the Captial City

Saturday, 27 March 2006

With the purchase of GR's coat last month, I think I mentioned he purchased a new suit. His last new suit was the one he got the day my sister got married 6 years ago... it's been looking really sad for over a year, and a few weeks ago it developed a hole. Anyway he picked up his new suit eariler this week and we decided to spend our Saturday morning shoe shopping in Topeka.

Some friends who use to live on my parents street and now live in Kansas, help run a shoe store in downtown Topeka. They have fabulous shoes for incredible prices – most around $30 – and we wanted to see if they had anything GR and I both liked. He wears through shoes so quickly – it doesn’t matter if he’s spent $30 at Target or $100 at the mall – they last less than 6 months. For a mear $60 we purchased a brown pair and a black pair and they are nice high quality shoes.

After purchasing shoes, our friend Sondra (who happened to be helping out that morning) suggested we walked down the street and check out a few of the shops. We stopped in the handmade candle shop where each child picked a votive candle in their favorite scent/color to take home, we looked in the candy shop and purchased chocolate dipped pretzels and then went to Jersey Mike’s – a sub shop that came highly recommended from another friend – for lunch. Here we are enjoying our sub sandwiches before heading for home.

St. Louis Magic House

Wednesday, 22 March 2006

We spent hours at the Magic House this afternoon... arriving shortly after lunch and staying until they started to lock the doors. Here are pictures of the kids doing some favorite old things...


And some favorite new things...
They have a special Clifford the Big Red Dog Exhibit where they have set up all the important parts of Birdwell Island. They had a great time doing each of the different activities and visiting their favorite Clifford characters.

Then while Sam and Grandma changed a diaper and played in the water exhibit, Rebecca and Emily road the three story slide as many times as they wanted. They've ridden the slide before, but when we went over Thanksgiving, the lines were SO long it wasn't practical to ride it as many times as they wanted. Today they got to ride it for 15-20 minutes, nearly non-stop - great exercise when you're climbing the stairs back to the top!

Our New Favorite Game

Sunday, 19 March 2006

On a shopping trip to find fun, small, flat Easter things to send my nieces in Lebanon, Samuel found a can of Pick-Up Sticks in Targets $1 bins and insisted on taking them home with us. Grandpa taught the children the finer points of the game, and with minimal lenience, they became VERY good players!

Here Sam and Grandpa discuss strategy:


And in this later game, Sam has just successfully rolled a stick off the pile, for yet another point.

Turning 20-something

Saturday, 18 March 2006

Yesterday after getting everyone from school we packed up the car and headed for old homestead in StL. My sisters was going to be home for the weekend to celebrate her birthday and with the upcoming week being Spring Break for the girls, GR and I both felt it was a great time to head to see the other grandparents. The kids haven't been to see my parents at their house since Thanksgiving, which seems unforgivable. The drive went beautifully - we only had to stop once at my favorite gas station (which let me down this time... Columbia was a good $.10 cheaper/gallon) where we filled up on gasoline and Wendy's, allowing us to pull into the drive way shortly before 9pm... we made excellent time.

Today was filled with preparations for Suzanne's birthday celebrations. Daddy took Rebecca and Sam to the grocery store to purchase supplies for weekend meals and a birthday cake. Rebecca went around the store with her clipboard, paper and pen and wrote down all the different items Grandpa put into the shopping cart, and helped him purchase just the right kind of bagels. Emily, Mom and I went present shopping, I'd seen some clothes that I thought Suz would like... Mom and I purchased three skirts, a shirt, and blazer ... and .... Suz liked all of them! This is a definite first. Sadly we'll have to rely on her blog for a photo showing of the purchases.

Suz asked for a chocolate cake ... Mom and I didn't find exactly what we were looking for by way of a recipe, but the recipe we did use from an old Sothern Living cookbook was really, really yummy (I’ll include the recipe at the bottom)! The kids helped Grandpa decorate the breakfast room with balloons and a Barb inspired "Happy Birthday Suz" sign. And we went to Longhorn for dinner - double yum!

Here are pictures of the festivities:




Milk Chocolate Bar Cake

1 (18.25 oz.) pkg Swiss Chocolate cake mix
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
10 (1.5 oz.) milk chocolate candy bars with almonds*, divided
1 (12oz.) container frozen whipped topping, thawed

Prepare cake batter according to package directions. Pour batter into three greased and floured 8-inch round cake pans. Bake at 325°F for 20-25 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool layers in pans on wire racks 10 minutes. Remove from pans, and cool completely on wire racks.

Beat cream cheese, powdered sugar and granulated sugar at medium speed with an electric mixer until mixture is creamy. Chop 8 candy bars (*we used plan chocolate bars) finely, Fold cream cheese mixture and chopped candy into whipped topping.

Spread icing between layers and on top and sides of cake. Chop remaning 2 candy bars. Sprinkle half on chopped candy bars over cake. Press reamining chopped candy along bottom edge of cake. Store in refridgerator.

*Everyone loved the cake, but we discovered we liked it a bit more the second day, once the chocolate bar pieces had a chance to soften a bit in the icing.

St. Pat's Day

Friday, 17 March 2006

This morning everyone dressed in their greenest green. Sam wore his green Jayhawk t-shirt, Emily wore her mint green pants with coordinating shirt, and Rebecca wore jeans and her green t-shirt. Emily and Rebecca both wore their shamrock, green charm bracelets.

After taking Emily to preschool, Sam and I went downtown to experience 20 minutes of the parade... by a stroke of amazing luck we actually found a parking spot just as the parade was starting... Sam sat on my shoulder so he could see - and enjoyed every bit of it.

We then raced to the Elementary school to take Becca her green fruit ... kiwi, green grapes, honey dew melon chuncks, the greenist golden delicious apples I could find, and green fruit dip.