Wordless Wednesday...

Motherhood can be dangerous...

This morning, E and I were having quite a fun time crawling around on the floor building all kinds of things with her mega brick blocks....it is, of course, especially fun to build things and knock them down.

During one such knocking down process, E managed to hit me square in the face with a tower of the blocks, not only stunning me, but splitting my top lip, too....Ow!

And, of course, I had a PR client meeting this afternoon....fortunately, it only feels funny, it didn't really show!

Motherhood is a dangerous job!

Fun with cousins on a Friday night...

We had fun visiting and having dinner with hubby's cousin's family tonight (E ate one and a half pieces of cheese pizza....a record!) The weather was gorgeous and the girls had such a blast playing outside...fun times!

Birds of a feather...

Well, a few days ago, it was bluebirds, today it was red-headed woodpeckers. We had a pair of them in the front yard all afternoon, so I snapped this photo.

A side note: our poor neighbor across the alley (who is incidentally attempting to sell her home) woke up to find a huge tree laying on her house this morning. A big, old tree in her backyard split in half and crashed onto her house last night during the storms. It's been a wild spring!

Bag lady...

I tried something new today.

I took my own canvas bags to the grocery store. I'm not sure why I never did this before....although I will say that I DO use those little plastic bags for diaper trash (when I'm not cloth diapering) or to line the trash cans in the bathrooms....so those little bags always DO get reused. But I have a huge stock pile of them and won't need more for a while.

So I "got green" with the rest of the masses and took my own bags to the store. I had about eight bags in my stash, but since most canvas bags are so much bigger and sturdier than their thin, flimsy plastic counterparts, all of my groceries fit in about five of the bags - I had extras to spare! I did have the checker put my raw meat in a plastic bag...even though I can wash the others, I thought it might be best to contain any "meat juice".

Overall, a very positive experience, and something I'll do again. And it was much easier to carry groceries into the house, as well. Another plus!

Wordless Wednesday...

Mr. Bluebird on my shoulder...

Well, not exactly, but we did have a pair of them in our backyard at lunchtime today. I'd never seen the little beauties in person - wow, they are a vivid blue - so pretty!

(Note: I did not take this pic, I found one on the Web...I couldn't get a good shot through our patio door).

Birthday fun...

We had a fun, family weekend, celebrating my birthday in a variety of ways...

...hubby and I enjoyed a great bottle of wine we'd been saving from our trip to Oregon's wine country several years ago
...hubby gave me a great food processor...now maybe I'll cook like the chefs I like to watch on the TV cooking shows!

...E drew me a beautiful picture in the card she gave me

...on Saturday we ran errands as a family, crossing several things off "the list," but also having some family time together

...Sunday we had a great steak lunch at my parents' house - always a fun treat!

...and just to stretch the celebration out one more day....a dear friend is bringing Chinese over tonight for dinner

When I was little, I always managed to stretch my bday celebration out to about a full week - seems like I am getting close this year, too!

Overheard...

E's been working on learning her numbers and can count to 12....And I love the way she does it...

...one
...two
...free
...pour
...five
...six
...seben
...eight
...nine
...ten
...eleben
...twelve

So cute!

When life gets tough....

...throw your pinwheel in the toilet.

You may be asking "what, in the world?..." I know, I know....yesterday, E was running around the house playing with a pinwheel that we got from Gramma for Easter. Big, fun times. (Note to moms, a pinwheel also makes a great weapon...I can't tell you how many times I was bapped in the head with it...)

At any rate, I was getting dressed and working on getting E dressed so we could go out to lunch on Tuesday, and E raced into our bathroom and threw her pinwheel into our toiletbowl. (of course the lid was up, just this once!)

At least she didn't flush! But that's one toy that won't be seeing the light of day again....

Ah, motherhood!

Wordless Wednesday...

Foodie baby...

Today I had lunch with a gal that I used to work with....we always have such fun catching up and visiting. And I get to revisit the fun, great restaurants that are in walking distance of my hip, urban former office!

Today we visited a great place called Sidewalk Cafe. They have all kinds of great soups, salads and sandwiches, but they also have wonderful Greek food. Leah and I both ordered the Mediterranean platter: dolmas, falafel, tabouleh, hummus, baba ghanoush and pita bread.

I'd brought a separate lunch for E to eat. After she had her yogurt and some of her chicken pieces, she started pointing to my plate....she proceeded to eat almost an entire piece of falafel and a lot of my hummus.

That's my foodie baby! Hubby is so proud!

Variety is the spice of life...

We often buy eggs from our pastor at church - he and his wife have all manner of chickens, goats and other animals on their mini-farm outside of town. We enjoy the fresh, free-range eggs as often as we can get them.

I had to laugh when I opened our latest dozen....check out the variety in the colors of these eggshells! The pale ones are actually a light green!

A little variety is the spice of life, I suppose!

Something fun, something new...

After receiving another wonderful, beautiful tea cup and saucer for an early birthday gift, I decided to search out a new way of storage and display of these beautiful treasures. I remember that a dear girlfriend of mine has a neat cup and saucer display rack that's very similar to a plate rack....so I set out to find a similar one at the same shop where she found her's.....success!






How fun is this? And it's very fitting in my tea themed kitchen...

Call me crazy...

I'm trying to work on a scrapbook of E's "firsts"....first steps, first sips out of a straw, first pizza ... you get the idea. I bought the cutest scrapbook kit on sale (with a coupon) and have been having fun looking at the cute papers, stickers and photo corners and dreaming of how cute the whole thing will turn out.

But when I finally ordered all of the photos I needed for the project, and then tried to lay it all out - on the bedroom floor - I started getting a bit overwhelmed. How do people do this all the time? I can barely get photos into the little albums with sleeves with the tiny lines to write a few notes!

A happy note - after inital panic, this project is going very well....but I have decided that scrapbooking can be very overwhelming....but also very addictive! :-)

Pretty dinner...

Sometimes, when you make dinner, it just looks so pretty on the plate....

This is one of my all-time favorite recipes...and it's so pretty!

APRICOT CHICKEN

1 sm. jar apricot preserves

1 envelope onion soup mix

1 8 oz. bottle French salad dressing

4-8 boneless skinless chicken breasts (depending on size) or chicken tenderloins.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place chicken in shallow pan....bake for 30 minutes, uncovered. Mix apricot preserves, onion soup mix and French dressing in bowl. Mix well. Pour mixture over chicken. Bake in oven for 30 minutes more and serve with hot rice.

The blessings of friendship...

My dear friend Kelli came for a visit this weekend (well, her dad came for the big race, and she and her mom tagged along to enjoy Dallas shopping and visiting with all of us...) It was so fun to catch up with my dear friend of many years and share sweet times and make new memories.

There's nothing like the blessing of close girlfriends. What a gift!

Wordless Wednesday...

Mommy needs a pedicure...

We have been working on all sorts of things with E - her learning is really taking off! She can count to ten, is learning letters and learning all manner of body parts. (Head, shoulders, knees, toes and more!)

Yesterday, I had my feet up on the ottoman in our living room and E was pointing out my feet and toes. Suddenly, she got really close to my feet and studied them quietly for several minutes, then she looked at me and said....

"Yuck!"

Yuck, indeed!....sounds like Mommy needs a pedicure!

Overheard...

The crazy weather has been making my allergies go nuts as of late -- leading to lots of sneezes. This afternoon, after I had a big sneezing fit, I heard E making a funny noise...

Me: E, what are you saying?

E: Aaa-poo, Mama, aaa-poo! (Apparently, that's E-speak for aaaachooo!)

I love that sweet - if somewhat creative -- girl of mine!