yum-tastic!

A few years ago, my mother-in-law gave me The Mom's Guide to Meal Makeovers. Which is a cookbook improving the way your family eats, one meal at a time! I don't fancy myself as a chef by any means, but lately I've been finding my way around the kitchen and if I do say so myself, doing a top notch job at cooking family meals. I made the Kitchen Sink Pasta tonight to go with our teriyaki chicken. It was delish!!















And wouldn't you know, they have a blog too. Yipee!! Check out the meal make over moms!

lovin me some bloggin

I love stumbling across great blogs. Sometimes I will click on the comment box of very popular blogs (aka Dooce) and just click on the links left by commenters. Recently I've discovered some new favs:

house on hill road - mommy, crafting, sewing, cooking goodness!

London Southern Belle - lately I have been fascinated by Americans living across the pond.

petite anglaise - discovered via London Southern Belle, who knew your blog could be turned into a book!

whoorl - Hair Thursdays, what fun!!

Enjoy!!

it's getting hot in here

Summer has finally arrived. This weekend was so very hot. I spent most of my time as a big sweat ball of uncomfortable crabbiness. J drug out the portable AC unit and we have it in our bedroom so we can cool it off at night to sleep. Which is not very "Al Gore" of us. But it's friggin' hot. I am a born and raised Washingtonian and I don't do heat well. It is like Mother Nature is PMSing. As if she is ranting about how we whining North Westerners are always complaining about the rain and never seeing the sun. To that, her response: "You're never happy! You never appreciate the green grass and all the trees." "You want summer??? You want sunshine do ya??? Well I'll just GIVE YOU SUMMER!!!!" As she turns up the heat to 95 degrees and in two days time all our lawns turn brown and our flowers wilt. It's a cruel, cruel joke she is playing on us. Some say 95 is not too bad. Try being in Utah or Arizona right now. But you must understand it is very hard for people living in the Pacific Northwest to go from 40 degree days filled with rain and overcast weather to sweaty, hot temps overnight. It is dreadful. I would apologize to Mother Nature myself and ask for a nice breeze perhaps. But I hear she is off telling her husband, Father Time, to get off his duff and help her clean up this earth. She's probably rambling on about how "He only works one night a year and everyone throws him a party." "Happy New Year, my ass!"

she couldn't be happier if Edgar Degas had painted this himself

I have to admit, I do love to hit up garage sales especially when we find "treasures" like this. We were driving around yesterday, mostly driving by garage sales and looking at houses, enjoying the morning sunlight. As we came around a corner, I saw a lady pick up pile of pink lace and turn it around a couple times. I started to giggle and J pulled over. As soon as I picked up this little number I could hear Miss O gasp as if the sugar plum fairies had just dropped a bucket full of pixie dust upon her head. She squealed "I WANT DAT!!!" with a twinkle in her eye. I asked the man, who had basically dumped a ton of crap on his driveway, how much he was asking for the recital costume. He replied "Oh I don't know . . . . . a buck? . . . . 50 cents? . . . . whatever, I just want to get rid of it all." I scrounged up some change and decided to meet him half way, handing him a whopping 75 cents. He was happy, I was happy and Miss O was and still is completely over the moon. She has not taken it off in two days. She's been bouncing and twirling and hopping and humming and standing on her tip toes and dancing around non-stop. She fluffs up the skirt, filling her arms with pink lace and tulle constantly. She sits on the floor on one hip, with her knees bended behind her and her hands folded in her lap. She would sleep in it if we let her. I had to convince her it would be too hot and scratchy if she wore it bed. And that even fairies put their jammies on for bed.

yum-o!

I made avocado pizza for dinner tonight. It was pretty good and super duper easy to make. What's more, the kids ate it too. Next time I think I'll use more garlic and less or no onion. It needed a little more flavor and the taste of the onion sort of killed it for me. Chicken would be good too but I wanted to try a vegetarian meal.

*SwooN*

I recently came across these adorable berry bowls from Bridgman Pottery via one of my favorite mama blogs. Being an Etsy lover, I ordered three; one for each kid. They came last week and I was instantly in love with the craftsmanship and handmade sweetness. Today we ate some most delicious strawberries using our one of kind berry bowl and the kids loved it.

when good puppies happen to five year old girls

I've had my fair share of emergency offices these last two weekends because of dog related instances. The first, Frieda got into the garbage and ate a bunch of chocolate birthday cake after The Divine Miss O's birthday party. She woke me up at 2:30 am throwing up and doubled in size. She was so bloated, she looked like she ate a small child. Knowing chocolate is very bad for dogs, I rushed her off to the emergency vet office. Two hours, some gas x and pain meds later we were home again with leaking diarrhea and the inability to move. The dog that is, not me. Luckily Frieda lived to tell the 'tail'.

Today, Miss O was alone with Angus while I was upstairs. (I have to tell you ahead of time, Miss O has a thing about teasing Angus. She finds it humorous to bug him. What she doesn't understand is that Angus is a puppy and not Frieda. Frieda, who would let children roll all over her without budging. However, Angus hasn't learned this lesson yet. Children to him are tall annoying things he is forced to put up with.) I could hear her teasing him but before I could get downstairs to remind her "to not tease the dog because he will hurt you!" he bit her. I wasn't too surprised to hear her come upstairs crying and I figured he nipped her, but I wasn't expecting a bite on the face. So I took her to the ER. She got two stitches and was a complete trooper. Lesson learned? Hopefully.

the museum of flight

It was firefighter day at The Museum of Flight today. My friend, Julie, called me this morning and invited us along. It was a hard choice between heading out with her or cleaning house. She didn't have to ask me twice. And it turned out to be a lovely day. After we saw the fire engines and Wonder Boy quizzed all the firefighters about how to turn on the trucks and how to use the equipment we headed inside the museum. It was a lot of fun!

school's out for summer

happy father's day

the birthday girl

Happy birthday Miss O!
We love you!!
Love Mom, Dad, Wonder Boy and Baby Love.

the party

a special guest

A great big thank you to my dear friend for dressing up in her Alice costume. It was perfect!!

the spread

The party goers dined on tarts, tea and confections to their hearts delight. And no one was late for this very important date.































































Thank you Julie for letting us borrow your table and rounding up chairs for us . . . . we couldn't have done this without you!

the decorations

Our backyard was transformed into Wonderland this afternoon for the Divine Miss O's fifth birthday party. We popped the gazebo, set out a table, hung some paper lanterns and set the table for tea.































Croquet anyone?















Tea for 12














I must have red roses or Off With Your Head!!
(Actually these are silk roses stuffed in our boxwoods. Don't tell the Queen.)

the loot

We are gearing up for Miss O's fifth birthday bash tomorrow afternoon. (Alice in Wonderland theme.) Today I have been running last minute errands, prepping the goodie bags and trying to clean the house.

happy 5th birthday Miss O

The Divine Miss O turned five years old yesterday. It's hard to believe. Another year gone in a blink of an eye. She is an amazing and beautiful little girl. And we love her so!















The girls and I picked the boys up early from work and school and headed to the zoo. We spent four hours walking around and saw everything. Fun!! We stopped at Red Robin for dinner and came home to open gifts and eat cake. It was a great day.















Miss O loved the flamingos . . . . . amazingly we got out of the zoo without buying any souvenirs including the adorable pink, stuffed flamingos.















These three crazy monkeys belong in the zoo.















The hippos were fun to watch. I think they've introduced a new little guy. He is restless and kept getting in and out of the water, bugging the two older hippos.















Two cubs . . .















We got to see the baby gorilla. So sweet.















My favorite . . .






























It was fun to walk through the butterfly exhibit. I tried out the macro setting on my camera . . . worked great!















We were just in time to see the brown bears and otters get their dinner. It was a hoot to watch.















Here is a rare siting . . . . ME!

J with the kids.