Friday, March 28, 2008

Straw-nana-go Smoothies

There is nothing better after a hot walk home from school then to walk into the house to a cool Straw-nana-go smoothie.  I love making smoothies and I am always mixing up my ingredients.  This was 2 cups frozen strawberries, 1 banana (not too ripe), and one RIPE mango.  A little orange juice, frozen vanilla yogurt and a shot of milk to make it straw friendly.  The kids loved it and it got rave reviews!  

Spring has sprung

Now that the temperatures have reached the mid 80's I thought I would post some pictures of my newly potted plants.  Here is my disclaimer:  I am not so good at gardening.  I have tried for 3 years now to grow tomatoes and I haven't had any luck.  I am going to give it one more go.  This time I did a little research on line and found that if you plant Marigold, Thyme and Sage it helps them grow.  These flowers are pretty new.  I am hoping they will still look pretty and bright when Bill's folks come to visit in May.  

So far so good.  I have two little tomatoes growing. Yeah Me!  

My little cluster of plants.  Two tomatoes and a marigold. 
Doesn't this just say Welcome.  I found the pot on clearance last year and I just love it!  
Snap Dragons and Marigolds.  Supposed to be desert hardy. Lets see if they are Lexi hardy! (the big tall plant is a bouganvilla...In the summer it has bright pink flowers.  When they drop it is a mess, but I love the bright colors and so far I haven't killed it yet!)

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Happy Easter!




Happy Easter!  Today is my day to go back to work after being home with the kids all week.  So I thought I would update this before my week gets away from me.  We had a good morning.  The kids are so excited and didn't want to wait while I changed the batteries in the camera.  We had a small easter egg hunt in the back yard.  The easter bunny left us with awesome automatic nerf guns and a ribbon craft kit for Billie.  The dogs were more confused why the kids were running around the yard shouting gleefully!  This week has made me appreciate my children even more.  As we go back to school and back to work I am so blessed as their mother and I appreciate all the things they are willing to help out with at our home.  They are the best kids.  

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

It's Tuesday

I joked with everyone at work that I would be ready to come back to work by Tuesday.  HeeHee!  We had a pretty good day.  Billie was up to her good ole shenanigans again.  She spend some time on her bed and also some time in a chair for time out.  Bill keeps telling me it is because we are sooo much a like.  This afternoon we went out to work on our bike riding.  Grant is a total expert and he is a little daredevil.  James and Billie are such another story.  Grandma and Grandpa gave them bikes like 3 years ago and they did great until we took the training wheels off last year. 

 ***Well, truth be told Billie was terrible even with her training wheels on.  But I was terrible on my bike when I was a kid.  My folks can probably remember how many bikes i went through and I am sure my mom's hand is still cramping from all the thistles that she pulled out of my body when I rode down the hill into the thistle patch. ***

So we went into the back yard first because it is fairly flat and the grass is a much softer landing than on the hard sidewalk.  I worked and worked with Billie and James until I was quite confident we could go down to the park to ride (where Grant could have more fun)  without a trip to the emergency room.  After about 20 minutes Billie got the hang of it and she actually rode around the circle 3 times.  I was so proud of her.  She is still not so sure of the start up and get going part, but we have a couple of more days to get the hang of it.  James is a whole other story and he "really really wants his training wheels back on because this is hard." 
My list of things to do hasn't really gotten done, but I have spent loads of time with the kids, I managed to get a run in today and I am caught up on the laundry.  I guess that's not to shabby for Tuesday.  

Friday, March 14, 2008

Happy Birthday Bill


This is totally belated, but I wanted to make note for posterity that I actually  made Bill a birthday cake this year after taking a hiatus last year.  Coconut Cream Pie Cake! Yumm-O!  If you want the recipe just zip me a note! Oh and do you like how we improvised the candles.  I didn't have 32 cake candles, but you know a 3 and then two stick candles. That works right!

Two Weeks ago guess who got wet?

I am slow in posting this.  We got these awesome solar pool rings for the pool.  They are supposed to extend your swimming season by a month on either end.  At this point they were so worth the money.  The water was a balmy 77 degrees.  (Still too cold for mom, but not for kids.) I took the next week off to be home with the kids during spring break.  I plan on taking them to the Library Monday morning, stocking up on books and hanging out by the pool most of the week working on my tan!  :-)  Enjoy the show.  Wish you were here!