I’ve been showing Zoe how to write her name in cursive and she’s been practicing on the family’s white board in the kitchen. There are several examples of swirly, twirly “Zoe”s written at all times, done in several colors of dry erase markers.

Last night Zoe’s friend, Ashlynn, came over to play. Zoe was proudly showing off her cursive to her friend. Ashlynn was impressed, and wanted to jump on the cursive bandwagon. She sighed. “I wish I could curse.”

Jon wasted no time. “Zoe’s mom can teach you how to curse.”

And yeah, I totally could.

We had family pictures taken yesterday morning… and I would have blogged about it yesterday, but the picture-taking process completely drained me. I am so excited though because it was the first time we had ever gotten family pictures taken. In our whole nine years of marriage. Sure, I’ve taken the kids to Kiddie Kandids a few times and had theirs done; and sure, we had some fellow tourist take a picture of the four of us standing in front of the Mickey Mouse flower beds in front of Disneyland; and Jon did a mean job of doing a Christmas picture last year with the tripod all set up in the entry way while we perched ourselves precariously on the piano bench… But yesterday was the first time the four of us all walked into a real picture studio and sat down together and had a bona fide family photo taken.

The kids did well, considering… We bribed them with lunch at Red Robin if they sat still and smiled nicely. Jachin was worried that he didn’t brush well enough before we left the house to warrant a huge, cheesy grin. But the photographer’s assistant got a few out of him with the help of a chipmunk puppet (which Jon thought was a badger puppet, and that made me laugh). I felt myself blink about 20 times, but the photographer took about 100 pictures. So — fingers crossed — at least a few of them turned out.

And while we were there and looking spiffy, Jon and I had a few taken of just us. With any luck, we’ll finally have something to hang on the huge, empty wall over our bed.

I love cheese and chocolate. And yes, I even love them together. For me, it’s really tough to find something yummier than a grilled cheese sandwich dipped in chocolate milk. And no, I’m not kidding. It’s delicious. I’ve eaten grilled cheese that way since I was a kid, and I’ve converted my kids to the dark side as well (much to my husband’s chagrin… he’s a “grilled cheese dipped in ketchup” kind of guy). The most awesome part — when the melted cheese drips from your sandwich into the glass, and mingles at the bottom with the residual chocolate power. Yum. Don’t believe me? Try it now. Go.

Has no one else ever heard of this crazy cuisine? Did my mom make it up?

By the way, I also love peanut butter and seafood… and if I can ever figure out how to meld all of those flavors together, you better believe I’ll do it. Maybe I could pull it off with fondue…