Our Suburban Farm

I Heart Technology

2012-01-22T17:06:00.000-06:00

I wasn't supposed to be taking pictures, because she told me not to, but I did take a few because....that is how I roll.

I like to have pictures of things.

So when my sister, Erin, left for Rwanda, I took this picture at the airport.

It was pretty much a terrible evening.
Ugly crying.
Sad goodbyes.
Snot.
Tears.
You get it.

But do you know what is AWESOME?

Technology.

It is no surprise that I heart technology.
But I especially heart technology because it means I can chat with my sister easily halfway across the world.

See? Halfway across.

Are you thinking, "So....exactly WHERE IS Rwanda?"
Because I was.
So here it is:

I didn't know it was so little!

Back to the main point:
I heart technology.

Because we have Blackberries, I am able to BBM (Blackberry Message -- like IM) with her any time of the day or night. Well...not anytime because she is 8 hours ahead. But you get the idea. Also because of Apple we are able to Facetime too! She got an iPod Touch for graduation and Adam got an iPad for Christmas (from his super awesome wife) so we can Facetime on there when she is somewhere where there is WiFi! Because of technology she can Facebook and email too!

I feel SO lucky to be able to have all of these modes of communication right at our fingertips. It is so much easier even than when she went to the Peace Corps in 2008 (2008, right?) .

So, YAY TECHNOLOGY!

Being a Landlord

2012-01-20T18:51:00.001-06:00

Unfortunately we own three townhouses.

We do not live in a townhouse.

That means we are (also unfortunately) landlords of three townhouses.

Only one of them is my fault though.

I bought my townhouse in 2006 when it was still a good idea to invest by buying a house. I lived at home for a year after college and then bought and moved into my townhouses. Adam bought his several years before that (with a friend) as investment properties. Adam purposefully was a landlord.

"Not I", said the fly.

Since the same townhouse is currently selling for 1/3 of the price I bought mine for....selling isn't an option. It is even half of what Adam bought his for years before that.

Anyway....we currently have two empty townhouses. Which is definitely no fun.

But one of Adam's is a serious disaster. After the tenants were evicted by the court for not paying rent in months and months, we went over to check out the place.

The destruction,

the damage.

the disgustingness (yes, that's now a word)

is incredible.

I would NEVER have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself.

NEVER.

And this isn't a case of being angry about being evicted so they destroyed the place before they left.

They cleaned the kitchen and bathroom.

This is just. how. they. lived.

I don't even have any more words to say.

I'll let you see for yourself.

Yeah.

That is all I have to say.

Felt Board Fun

2012-01-17T05:00:00.000-06:00

When I was thinking of Christmas ideas for some of the kiddos in my life Kristin mentioned that Layla (3.5) has been loving her felt board lately and would love a set related to family or home. I looked around at different options but nothing completely sold me so I started thinking about making my own set for her!

Then it got me thinking that Zander (2) (my friend Katie's son) might like a felt board of his own! So I went to the University of Google and Pinterest and got some great ideas! Kristin also helped with ideas for making the feltboard. I wanted to try making a felt board that folded up because I thought it might be nice to tuck away or for travel.

Making the Felt Board

I used:

foam board and cut it to 30 by 15

blue felt for the front

boat fabric for the back (he likes boats)

spray adhesive

tacky glue

staple gun

button

-I used spray adhesive to attach the fabric to the back (I just did this to make it cute on the back). It actually did not work at all. I am not sure if I didn't use enough? But I used a lot. Or maybe my glue is old? Either way it didn't stick it down really at all.

-I also used some spray adhesive to try to get the felt to stick to the front.

-Then I folded the back up tightly and used a staple gun on the corners. My problem was that I borrowed my dad's staple gun and he only had long staples so I couldn't use it all over.

-Lastly I used tacky glue all around the edge to hold it down even better.

-I had the idea to make a flap to hold the edges together and glued a button on one side and glued a felt strip on one side with a slit cut into it to hold the button.

I also decided to make a book to hold all of the felt pieces for both kids. I had this grand plan of 2 hard pieces of felt as the cover with regular pieces of felt inside as the pages. Well the all the felt pieces wouldn't stick and just fell off when the pages turned. SO back to the drawing board. I had already "bound" the books with ribbon, so I just folded up the edges and hot glued the sides to make pouches to stick their pieces of felt into. You can see it better in the third to last picture.

Zander's Felt Board folded up and his book

Zander's set of shapes

Zander's set of fish on the felt board opened up

Zander's set of ice cream

For Layla I made people, clothes, a house, and furniture. The people represent all of the people in her family. A mom, dad, little girl, and baby boy.

Let me tell you that making the baby boy was NOT the easiest task in the world. I am not really the best artist in the world and I kept making blobs that looked nothing like babies! For the mommy (Kristin) I used the template from this website as a base. For the daddy, I took the mommy and modified him. He ended up looking a little....umm...."shape-ly". You'd never know he has envious hips under those felt clothes.

I made a couple outfits, winter attire, and a bathing suit for each of them. Layla also got a ballet outfit and ballet slippers! I only made one pair of shoes for each of them because I figured they were so tiny and would be easily lost.

I went back and forth about putting faces on them but after much thought (and help from my sister) we decided that they looked better without and just help imagination grow! (Also...again...I'm a terrible artist).

Layla's family and clothes

I also made a house to fit on her board (it was too big for this one because hers is bigger than the one I made for Zander). I decided to make a few pieces of furniture, but I soon discovered my lack of artistic skills severely impaired my ability to create felt furniture. So I stopped with 3 beds, a couch, a table, and a fridge. Which also are clearly not to scale.

The kiddos playing with their presents!

I think making felt board sets is a great way to encourage imagination and there are so many ways to personalize them just for the kids they are for!

Update on the House-Working on the Tile

2012-01-11T05:00:00.001-06:00

Well this is really sad.

I posted about our bathroom progress on April 5th. Until December we hadn't really made ANY more progress on the master bath since then. And absolutely no work has been done on the downstairs bathroom to date. For several days in December Adam worked really had on the shower walls. Then the holidays forced a break. This weekend Adam was back to work. In our defense, May to October we practically live outside taking care of the gardens....but still it is crazy.

The walls in the shower are done except for the last section on top. We put that on hold because we are going to see which size tile is left and use that on top. I'd prefer the 9x12 (larger) tiles, but if we have a lot of 6x6 left we might need to use that. The other part of the shower not finished is the shelving. That is done last....apparently.

The main bathroom area. We still don't have mirrors either. Well. We bought mirrors and then a year later realized they didn't fit. Oops.

From the main bathroom area into the walk in shower.

The back of the shower (to the left of the picture above) with the bench

Facing the bench-to the left- shelves for shampoo bottles etc

The front of the shower (that's the handle area under the mosaic) and to the right there will be two shelves and mosaic in the middle.

The "water closet" on Saturday night.

Sunday night (Adam has been working hard!)

And....the master bedroom is still uninhabitable! As soon as the bathroom is finished it will be cleaned up and no longer a work zone. Then one more coat of paint and some molding and we can move in!

I CANNOT wait to be able to post final pictures of the bathroom when we are in it and using it! THEN I won't have to get ready in 3 different bedrooms! My bed, clothes, hamper, and makeup will be all in one room!

Accident

2012-01-08T18:45:00.004-06:00

Well that was an accident: posting the Felt Board Fun post without any words.

If you read in a reader you know what I mean.

If you don't, then you are more confused by this post than anything.

You are just going to have to sit around and wait on pins on needles to see what I have to say about those pictures!

Etching Glass

2012-01-07T22:24:00.001-06:00

This story starts because I tried to get an engagement gift for my sister from Etsy and it was a major fail. My first Etsy fail actually and I am pretty bummed about it. Long story short, I ordered a special personalized engagement ornament from a well established Etsy shop with hundreds of sales and a feedback rating in the high 90s. As of today the feedback is 69% and drops everyday. Since December 15 there have been 87 negative feedbacks left from people who paid and never received their orders. In there have been a smattering of positive feedbacks. Did some people get their orders? Are those old positive feedbacks? Who knows. It is very sad and from the feedback it is clear that there were a lot of sad Christmases with missing presents. I kept hoping that if I stayed positive and didn't leave negative feedback it would show up in the mail one day. I ordered December 4th and paid by Google Checkout December 5th. I started an official report with Etsy, but one negative feedbacker reported that there is nothing Etsy can do.

ANYWAY....(I guess that wasn't a short story)

It did, however, give me the chance to try out a new craft! Kristin told me about a neat new craft she tried. As always she was very generous with the tips and ideas! I decided to try to make personalized etched glass champagne toasting flutes for Erin and Wael for their wedding. I figured thought I should practice first so I got two wine glasses as practice and two champagne flutes as the real deal.

In addition to great tips from Kristin, I used this video to get me started.

Supplies:
glass you want to etch (Kristin says don't use Pyrex)
Glass etching cream found in the glass section of the craft store (bring your coupon!)
vinyl found in the Cricut section of the craft store or online (coupon doesn't work on Cricut stuff)
Cricut or machine to cut with
small paint brush or foam paint brush (I used the foam ones I got 20/$1 at Michaels)
sink (to wash off cream later)
gloves (The cream is some serious stuff, you will want gloves when you touch it to wash it off)
Patience (this cannot be hurried, so don't do it in a rush!)

It was overall a fairly low complexity project, but it does require time and patience.

LUCKILY a super awesome daughter (read: me) got my mom a Cricut for Christmas. So I was able to cut the vinyl for the stencils with it. It was great because I could try out a variety of sizes. Note: We did realize her Big Kick would cut vinyl too (afterwards) but the Cricut was nice for playing with sizes.

1. Practice cutting out your shapes so you can see what shapes and sizes you like. We played with different fonts and sizes. Originally I was going to spell out their names but I didn't think it looked as nice on the small champagne flutes. We also played with different flourishes to put on the opposite side of the initial. I tried the wedding date, but it just took up too much room at the smallest size the Cricut would cut.

This is the font I decided on.

Mom seeing what it looks like on the glass.

2. Cut out your shapes or letters. You are going to use the "negative" space as your stencil. So you want to cut your vinyl big enough that there is a blank area around the letter or shape.

3. Peel back the backside of the vinyl. VERY carefully and slowly place it on your glass so there aren't bubbles or creases. (This was actually pretty hard on the glasses as they are curved and the vinyl was hard to lay flat).

4. Take your time to use your fingernail to work out any air bubbles. Especially around the edges. Any air bubbles means your etching cream will leak and etch where you don't want it to! Kristin's tip was to look through the opposite side so you can see where there are air pockets. That definitely helped.

5. Take some more time to work out the air bubbles.

6. Use your paint brush or foam brush to paint on (rather thickly) the etching cream. I put it on a piece of foil to dip my paint brush.

7. Let it sit for about 15 minutes. The bottle says 10, but Kristin advised that 15 gave a better etch and I agreed.

8. Bring your glass to the sink (with your gloves on) and wash off the cream. Then peel off your vinyl and continue to rinse it until it is all off. Dry off your glass.

9.Voila! You have beautifully etched glass!

The practice wine glasses turned out very well too! So I did give them both sets (wine and champagne). When I gave the gift to them, they used the wine glasses right away! All the glasses have the same initials, but the wine and champagne glasses have different flourish designs.

This was a really fun project and I am excited about all of the possibilities for the future! It also felt really good to give them a handmade gift that they can use at their wedding!

Happy New Year and Evolution of the Hair

2012-01-01T18:27:00.000-06:00

I thought I'd do a bit of a different New Years post this year.

I am looking forward to 2012, though I enjoyed 2011 as well. It was a busy year as usual, but it mostly treated me well. I am looking forward to continuing much of the same love and friendship in 2012!

I am beginning 2012 with a new hair cut! On December 23rd I went to get my hair trimmed and on a whim decided to chop it and donate it to Locks of Love. I had a fleeting thought about it a couple nights before and wondered if it was long enough. On the way to get my hair cut I brought up the idea to my mom on the phone, but wasn't really sure I would do it. I asked my hair lady (she's been cutting my hair since I was a kid!) and she thought I should go for it. So I did! (After texting Adam to warn him because he is a fan of long hair!).

I have thought about chopping my hair recently, but haven't had the guts because:

1). It took a long time to grow my hair this long

2). I love being able to throw it in a ponytail

3). It is a huge change

After I started thinking about it, however, I just couldn't stop thinking about little kids who could use it a whole lot more than I need it and felt some holiday spirit that helped me along.

The main stipulations for donating hair is that it is at least 10 inches and it isn't bleached. I haven't hilighted or dyed my hair in years....maybe since college even? And it was long enough! I didn't want to chop it TOO short, so I was happy to see it would be a decent length even with the 10 inches.

So here ya go:

Before

After chopping off the ponytails

And styled!

To follow with the theme of hair cuts for the new year, I thought I'd show you the evolution of my hair since 2001. I tried to pick a picture as close to January 31 as possible, though in the older years there definitely aren't as many to choose from!

2001-college freshman (that is some rockin' orange skin I was sportin' back then)

2002 - this is a bonus photo for you because it is in the summer and not near new years, but I thought you might appreciate the super awesome dye job I had back then. Can you say "straw hair"??

2002-college sophomore

2003-college junior

2004-college senior

2005

2006 (just a few months after meeting Adam)

2007

2008

2009 (not sure why this photo won't go any closer to the one above it. Whatevs)

2010 (last year-not sure why my face looks so BIG in these NYE pics)

2011-this year!

Looks like my hair has been long, short, very long and short again! I wonder what the next 10 years will have in store for my hair?? How about you? Any big hair changes planned?

30 Days of Thankfulness-Part 2 (Too Late)

2011-12-31T05:00:00.000-06:00

Look what I found! A post I never posted. I totally meant to do this, but you know...life go in the way. But I am still super thankful for SO many things!

So....here ya go!

I am thankful for....

November 2
the opportunity to be a grad student even if sometimes I don't love the homework.

November 3
awesome parents who invite me over for yummy dinner just for me!

November 4
hanging out with adorable twinlets who crawl in your lap and give big smiles and giggles.

November 5
movie nights with awesome friends.

November 6
my religion. I feel so lucky to have the faith that I do and always have something I can lean on.

November 7
cheese. It is so delicious.

See previous posts:
Part 1

My New Role

2011-12-29T22:45:00.000-06:00

My sister is getting married! Well, that isn't new news. It happened while we were in Las Vegas in July.

But it is still exciting!

I was doing this:

when her fiance called to ask for my blessing.

Then we were doing this:

(walking along the strip) when she called to tell us he asked her! I squealed!

They took beautiful, amazing engagement photos like this:

Doesn't everyone take engagement photos in front of the pyramids? In case you didn't know, her fiance is Egyptian (like really Egypitan, lives in Egypt) and she met him while visiting there back when she was in the Peace Corps. She spent most of the summer in Cairo and that is when they got engaged. And took these amazing photos!

Oh yeah, and they got engaged while taking a boat ride on the Nile. Totally ordinary.

She was in town in the fall for a friend's wedding and we got to spend some time doing wedding stuff like looking at reception halls and trying on dresses.

While we were doing this, she gave me this adorable black and white box:

So my new role in life is officially her Matron of Honor. And boy am I honored! I am so looking forward to helping plan her wedding and being there for her for whatever she needs. She was the best Maid of Honor ever for me and I hope to return the favor. (It is OK I posted those photos because she isn't going to wear that dress. It was just one she tried on!).

P.S. The cookie was delicious.

P.S.S. If I am going to be completely honest, those photos were staged. She actually asked me while she was wearing the wedding dress bra and slip. But those aren't really appropriate to put on the internet!

Christmas Craftiness

2011-12-24T11:58:00.003-06:00

Well hello there! Did you think I forgot about you?

As I rush around finishing up getting ready for Christmas Eve, I had some motivation to post about my recent Christmas craftiness!

The first idea I found on Pinterest a couple weeks ago and really wanted to try it. I have SO much wrapping paper and so many wrapping supplies, so I didn't do it for ALL the presents, but I did pretty much one for every person like this. Unfortunately the first person who pinned it, didn't pin it directly from the site so I cannot give credit to the original user! Here is the link to my board.

The photo on pinterest:

My presents:

This next idea was inspired by Gina at NamastebyDay. Before Thanksgiving she was tweeting about ribbon wreaths, so I decided to go out and get some ribbon at the awesome Thanksgiving and Black Friday sales! She sent me a couple pictures to get an idea of the type of ribbon to buy and I went crazy. I've continued going crazy buying ribbon until I actually made the wreath this week!

It is pretty easy, just time consuming. I used a wreath shape from The Dollar Tree (the wicker like one) so I needed to cut longer pieces of ribbon (a lot of the tutorials call for a wire wreath and shorter pieces of ribbon). I actually have no idea how many rolls I went through, but at least 5 I think. I got 1.5 to 2.5 inch ribbon in a variety of colors. I randomly started cutting and tying ribbon until it was full. When you think you have enough, shove the pieces together, and start tying more! One of the most time consuming parts of it was going back and cutting little "v's" into all the ribbons. But it really does make a difference!

After starting the tied ribbon wreath, I got excited about another idea. Actually, I put the tied ribbon wreath on hold to finish this one. Then went back to it!

I wrapped a Styrofoam wreath in 4 different ribbons. The thing I didn't think of was that some of my ribbon was "see through" so I had to wrap the first layer with more solid ribbon. Then I went back and added a few smaller accent pieces throughout. I decided it needed something else, so I added some of my felt flowers to the side. I love how it turned out! I used sparkly white and red felt that I had leftover from some project and made a bunch of random flowers and then glued them on the wreath! I rolled the rosettes so the sparkly part would be on the "inside" of the rosette so you could see it better. The other issue I encountered was that I ended up covering up almost the whole red and green striped section because of where I put the flowers. Lack of planning. I just kind of went forward without long term planning when I was making it!

These were some of my inspirations for the wrapped ribbon wreath:
http://create.northridgepublishing.com/departments/holidays/boo-wreath/

http://cuttopieces.blogspot.com/2011/12/felt-flower-wreath.html

So those are my recent projects! I only have one front door so currently the wrapped ribbon wreath is on the front door and the tied ribbon wreath is in the living room. I just bought a curly cue H to possibly hang from the middle of one of the wreaths after I paint it red. We'll see if and when I get around to that!

Birthday Guitar Cake

2011-11-08T05:00:00.000-06:00

I realized that I never posted about the guitar cake I made for Chase (my nephew). This is the 4th year I have made his birthday cake. I started in 2008 because I took a cake decorating class that summer. He requested Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I made two the first year because he had a friends party and a family party. In 2009 he requested TMNT again, but a different one. I don't even know which one is which. In 2010 he requested a football helmet because he played on a football team last year. Looking back, my black icing was much better in 2010 than 2011. Can't remember the difference. My brother-in-law helped ice the symbol on the helmet because I am not the greatest artist in the world. You can definitely tell which one was my first cake ever! I hope I've improved over time!

2010

2009

2008

Cake decorating this year. I made a guitar cake because he loves to play the guitar and sing with his dad. I saw an idea to use the cake mold to mold chocolate for parts of the cake. It turned out great. It was the first time I did anything like that. I know now to use less chocolate. I was afraid of it breaking, so I made it too think. It made it a bit hard to frost around it when it was so high.

Here is a picture of my disaster of a kitchen *gasp*! And the best part? I left right after finishing the cake to run to the store and my super amazing husband cleaned it all up!

The finished cake! I am super proud of this one!!

The only thing that I would do differently is figure out a way to do the strings so they don't dip down in that hole are in the middle.

The actual birthday party was a surprise. Chase was so excited when he arrived home and everyone was there!

Haveing fun with Amy (Amy is an honorary family member with Adam's family now too!) and my niece.

Chase loved his cake!

And Adam tried using Zowie's skateboard when we left. We enjoyed watching him!

I really wish I had more time to bake and learn new techniques because I really really enjoy it! Maybe I just need to make more time and start saying "no" to other things I do.

30 Days of Thankfulness

2011-11-01T21:40:00.003-05:00

I have seen the twitter hashtag #30daysofthankfulness today and I thought it would make a great blog series for this November. I will post once a week about my list of thankfuless for that week.

Starting with today:

I am thankful for.....
...big hugs from preschool students when they see me at a family night at school. It feels really good to have a smile spread across their face and have them run up to me. Makes coming back on a night when I have a paper to write worthwhile.

Speaking of that paper....

Back to the grindstone.

Pumpkin Carving and Halloween Fun

2011-10-31T18:19:00.002-05:00

Adam and I have been talking about carving pumpkins for a couple weeks. We even picked our very favorite pumpkins from the pumpkin patch to carve ourselves. Of course...when did we actually carve? The night before Halloween when we said, "If we don't carve them now, we never will!". But it was fun anyway. Adam did the carving of the tops and I did the carving of the designs.

Neither of us are artistic at all, so for the first one, we found a cat template online. We tried to get a picture of Fudgie inside the pumpkin, but she was having none of it.

Then we busted into our ginormous 50 lb pumpkin! Not the easiest to get up on the counter let alone carve! It was so thick in some areas, you couldn't even see the knife when I stuck it all the way through!

When I picked it off the vine, I accidentally broke the stem off. I decided it was resourceful to use a hot glue gun to put it back together.

We decided to try and save some of the seeds from our favorite pumpkins and grow them next year. They are kind of a pain to clean off. But we are going to dry and save seeds from these two pumpkins we carved.

I ruined my nailpolish during our pumpkin carving!

Our pumpkins on the porch!

We added a few more pumpkins for Halloween today!

I love to see pumpkins all over the place! It has been fun to have different pumpkins on our porch this year. Especially throughout the season. Any pumpkins that had issues we couldn't sell I put on the porch! You'll notice the blue crate on the porch. We gave out leftover gourds with our Halloween candy!

I'm a...Godmother!

2011-10-28T05:00:00.000-05:00

At the end of September, I became a Godmother for the first time. I am little Grady's Godmother. When Kristin and Ryan asked me, I was so honored. I definitely wasn't expecting it and I am so touched. I look forward to being a special part of his life for many years to come! When I read Kristin's blog post about it, I cried! I was so touched about the nice things she said. Like she said, it is also fun because Grady and I share a birthday! The Godfather is a friend of Ryan's from high school. He also went to college with us!

I really enjoyed picking out special Bibles just for him to use now and also for him to have for a long time. I also created a print for Grady with a space for a photo from the day. I included this prayer because I had it embroidered and framed large above my bed growing up. I said it before bed every night and I often still do! It wasn't until I was much older that I learned the other (more used) version which reads "If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take" as the last two lines. I never heard that one as a kid! That would probably have freaked me out a bit. I much prefer the guiding me safely. While making this I also learned another version, "Angels watch me through the night, wake me with the morning light", which I also thought was nice. But I really wanted to include the prayer that was so important to me growing up!

My Godson!

Pumpkin Hats

2011-10-25T05:00:00.000-05:00

Kristin recently told me about an Etsy Shop, that had adorable inexpensive pumpkin hats. I knew I had to get them for my favorite twins! I brought them over recently to give them their pumpkin hats in time for fun fall activities. They were so funny with them!

They loved pulling them off and throwing them over their shoulders to try to get them back on. They also said "hat" about 5 million times! I am so happy I was able to get them something that made them so happy....and made them look crazy adorable. When they arrived I couldn't believe how huge they were! It looks like they will be able to wear them at least another year. I'm lovin' these adorable knit hats!

Pumpkin Day

2011-10-21T05:00:00.000-05:00

Our Pumpkin Day turned out great! We definitely plan on making it an annual event. We loved seeing all of our family and friends there having so much fun. We love to have people over and it was great to see all the kids running around outside!

My mom helping set up the activities in the barn.

Adam putting the finishing touches on the hay wagon.

Our niece and nephew were so awesome at helping to set up!

The pickle table

The painting and craft table

The gourd table

The pumpkins! My favorite twins came to visit the pumpkin patch too!

The kids could jump in the leaves and find prizes. My niece, nephew, and mother-in-law had fun doing it too!

The kids loved making their crafts!

Most of our favorite kids made it and loved the rides!

The hay rides were a blast!

Sitting on the tractors and taking rides around were also a huge hit! Layla loved driving the tractor herself!

New Blog Address

2011-10-19T05:00:00.001-05:00

So I just realized that I never posted about changing my blog name and address! Oops!

It was quite the process and a decision I have been thinking about for quite some time.

My original blog "Call it a Clan" came from a quote that I found a long time ago:

Oh....around....2004ish.....I decided to start a family website. My family lives all over the country and I thought it would be a great way to keep in touch. Family members sent me pictures of what was happening in their lives and I posted them to the website. The website was called Family Happenings. In 2006 my dad told me about Blogger and we switched the host of the website. He started the new blog and he picked CallitaClan as the name based on the quote I had on the previous website. For the first year, 2006, I continued to use it the same way. It wasn't until 2008 that I started to use it more as my personal blog. I still do love the quote, but have been thinking of picking a new title that better fits me and my blog.

After talking over it quite a bit with my mom, Erin-sister, and Erin-friend, I decided on Our Suburban Farm. As my About Me page explains, I am often amazed by my new life on this "farm". And our farm is right in the middle of the suburbs! I am not simply a farm girl now (which I NEVER was before!) nor a suburban girl (which I totally still am too!). I threw around the tag line a million times with some of my favorite people. I have never been the best decision maker in the world. But finally decided that this best describes what my life is all about now!

After discovering my choice of blog title was taken on blogger, and anything even close, I decided to bite the bullet and just buy the domain!

I can now be found at:

OurSuburbanFarm.com

Go ahead and change your reader!

If you go to callitaclan.blogspot.com you will still get redirected. But check out my fancy new domain!

Getting Ready for Pumpkin Day

2011-10-17T17:18:00.000-05:00

Yesterday (Sunday) We had our first annual Pumpkin Day! We have been talking about doing it for 2 years now. We didn't do pumpkins last year because we were a little busy...getting married. And two years ago we had a ton of GREEN pumpkins. Not a year time to do a big Pumpkin Day. We were getting a little worried this year (well I was really getting worried) because so many were still green recently. I will post about Pumpkin Day in a few days, but first I wanted to post about all of the preparations for it.

What is Pumpkin Day? A day for friends and family to come over, get pumpkins, gourds, and pickles, and also have lots of fun together!

In order to get ready for Pumpkin Day, we had a lot of pumpkin preparations to do such as picking and washing. But also the hay wagon sides had to be built! And the yard cleaned up. Then, at the last minute, the weather wasn't looking good, so late Saturday night we were cleaning out a section of the barn so we could have some of it inside.

Here are the pumpkins on our hay wagon ready to be picked on Pumpkin Day!

The pumpkins this year needed some more sun. The animals, however, think they are there for their consumption. We set up the hay wagon in the field with the prime sun exposure. We cover them with a tarp at night. Then in the morning one of us uncovers them so they get sun during the day!

Over the last couple of weekends Adam has been working hard to take back control of some of the areas around the buildings. There are majorly overgrown areas near the barn and chicken coop. Adam went at it with a chainsaw, gloves, and a tractor. I can't wait until it is cleaned up. It will be way easier to keep it maintained once it is all cleared out.

Last weekend Adam had the idea for me to sit in the bucket of the tractor to get an aerial view of the pumpkin patch. He lifted me way up high and it was scary!

This is one of our imperfect favorite pumpkins! Amy and Adam are going to fight over it!

This is the huge pumpkin in our field! I want to know how much it weighs!

Getting the pumpkins ready!

Pumpkins have to be cleaned and bleached. Well, it makes them last longer. And we want to sell pumpkins that last a long time! If they are bleached it kills any bacteria growing on the skin or stem that could cause it to mold quickly.

Picking pumpkins and some of the novelty variety the day before Pumpkin Day. I also picked some birdhouse gourds. Then I learned it is best to let them dry on the vine in the field. Oops.

Adam and his dad built sides on the hay wagon! At first we talked about building sides to keep the pumpkins from rolling off when we move them. Then we realized that if we built higher sides we could give hay rides to the kiddos in our life. It ended up being a blast! I am so impressed with the sides they built. They look great!

The other problem Saturday was when I bent over to put a pumpkin on the ground and my pants split down my behind and leg! Unfortunately my rear was facing the neighbor's yard. Hi neighbors! Adam was dying of laughter because he heard the sound and then I turned around and made this face. I had to walk sideways into the house to change into new pants. We are going to go with the idea that sitting in bleach last weekend weakened my pants. Not that my butt is too big. Mmmmkay?

Stay turned for pictures from Pumpkin Day! Sorry this was such a photo heavy post, but I love seeing progress around the farm. And my pumpkins are my babies!

Riding a Camel With The Man Without Pants

2011-10-09T16:56:00.000-05:00

Over spring break in 2009, Adam and I visited my sister in Morocco. I posted about that leg of the trip here shortly thereafter. In the last couple days I have been going through videos on my computer and importing videos that I have had sitting on mini-DV tapes for quite a while. Doing so, I found our Morocco videos and the clip of us riding camels. It was such a fun experience. Except the part where Adam said "Boys shouldn't ride camels".

Browsing through the video, I came across our guide with no pants. That is right. Our guide took off his pants. We were dying of laughter. In such a conservative country, we we so shocked by being led by a men without pants! He took them off to go through water. But then he decided not to go through water. The pants stayed off anyway.

You can see our guide without pants at the 2:34 marker in the video! Also at 1:43 you can catch me taking a self portrait.

Riding a camel on the beach might be one of the most exotic things I have ever done. That and swimming with dolphins in the open ocean (in the Bahamas in 2007). But riding camels may be more exotic because fewer people have done that...in my experience at least. I think I still list swimming with dolphins in the open ocean as the neatest experience ever though!

What is the most exotic thing you have ever done?

Random Weekend I'm a Poet and Didn't Know It

2011-10-03T21:46:00.001-05:00

We spent a good part of Saturday working on the pumpkin patch. By "we" I mean Amy and me because Adam has been working crazy hours. Our neighbors, however, may think that Amy and I are a "we" because while I was talking to new neighbors and giving their little daughter some mini pumpkins, Amy was walking up to us, and I said "We got married last summer". Later I was thinking in my head, "Wait! By WE I mean that dude that drives around on the tractor and me! Not Amy and me!" I love Amy and all, but now I don't know what the neighbors think.

Ah well.....

Anyway, after picking many a pumpkin and having them around the patch Amy said, "Can we use the John Deere to pick them up and bring them to the barn?" I said, ".......Um. Sure. But I don't know how to start it. Can you??" Sure I have driven it around many times, but not in two years! I called Adam and he talked me through it. We picked up all our pumpkins, Amy made sure they didn't fall off the back of the wagon like this book I read to my preschoolers (Sixteen Runaway Pumpkins)...

and we got them up to the barn and washed/bleached. On top of all those pumpkins, we also picked TONS of gourds. They look awesome. I decided the bumpy ones are my very favorite.

On Sunday Adam and I were working outside. He was raking apples because we have two very old apple trees that don't produce good apples. But they drop a million bad apples everywhere. Adam said to me randomly, "If anything happens to me. This is how you rake apples." I looked pretty horrified. He wanted to make sure I knew to rake them with the metal rake points pointing up not down like a rake usually works.

Then we got the pumpkins loaded on the hay wagon and brought into the barn for the night. Some of them need just a little more sun (there are many more in the pumpkin patch) so we want them out during the day, but covered and safe from destructive critters at night.

Also on Sunday Adam was burning more wood we have leftover from when we tore the garage down. He was burning it in a metal bin. I was a little nervous because some of the burning pieces fell on the ground. He told me not to worry. Until we looked over and it was starting to grow bigger. Then he worried. He can move quickly.

This is a random flower at church that I think is beautiful. What is it?

This morning in the pitch black before work, Adam pulled the hay wagon out of the barn. On the way walking to work, I walked past it to make sure they were all facing the sun the right way. While doing that I was inspired and wrote a poem and texted it to Amy with a photo.

All the green pumpkins facing the sun.

They all need to turn orange, please not just one.

All the green pumpkins facing the sun.

At least they didn't roll off the wagon 1 by 1.

On the way home from work I stopped by again and was inspired again!

5 little pumpkins sitting on a wagon.

Their rate of turning orange is a little laggin'.

5 little pumpkins waiting on the weather.

If they change color we'll be happy together

So that was our pumpkin weekend and my foray into poetry. Do you know the name of that flower? Do you think I could be a world famous poet? Or does it mean I read too many preschool books?

Wedding Dresses Revisited

2011-10-01T13:59:00.000-05:00

After going dress shopping with my sister, I was feeling wedding nostalgia and went back and looked at some of the wedding dresses that I tried on while wedding dress shopping. It was such a blast! I went with my mom and my friend Bridget. Of course I tried on all kinds of dresses I thought I'd be interested in. But also some just for fun! The consultant we worked with was a blast and we enjoyed working with her so much!

Simple

Beautiful back

Very similar to the one I ended up with

We thought this one looked silly on me. But actually now it doesn't look as terrible as I thought it did. But totally not my style.

I seriously considered this one with the color black instead of red. I was IN LOVE with the back. But I wanted something with a little more pizzazz in front.

Not the best neckline on me.

Loved the gathering on this one.

Apparently I was very angry about this dress????

Clearly this is my style.

And the dress I ended up with!

I did try on the dress that first day dress shopping, but didn't buy it right away. When I went back later with my girlfriends bridesmaid dress shopping they wanted me to try it on. I did and then just couldn't turn it down. I ended up buying it that day. I love my dress! I felt so good in it all day. It just worked with my body, I loved the style, and it just felt right. And I loved the beading!

What is your wedding dress story if you are married? If you aren't, do you have a style you imagine? I had no idea what I wanted going into it!

Pretty Sunflower, Edible Sunflower Seeds

2011-09-25T18:53:00.002-05:00

On a whim, while at the store in the spring, I decided to buy some Mammoth Sunflower seeds. I thought they would look cool. I planted them near the pumphouse because at the time we didn't have much going on there.

They started growing slowly and I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. Now? They are HUGE! I had no idea the stalks were so thick. They are at least 2.5 inches in diameter and they are at least 12 feet tall! I love walking past them every day on the way to work and seeing their progress. They were all as tall as the pumphouse before they even started to grow flowers. Now most of them have flowers.

One day one of the stalks started really leaning. I am not sure what happened because it started out of no where. The other day I decided to cut off the flower and bring it to my mom because she used to really like sunflowers. (It was the only one I could reach too!) It wasn't a well thought out plan because it wasn't really easy to cut (thick stalk!) and it was really heavy! Once we got it there, we also had to figure out how to put it in a vase because it is so top heavy. We finally got it figured out and it looks great on her counter!

(Sorry for the bad cell phone photo)

After inspecting the sunflower close up and checking out the seed packet again I realized these were edible seed sunflowers. I decided it would be pretty cool to figure out how to harvest the seeds. Neither Adam nor I are into eating sunflower seeds, but some people like to!

Funny story about eating sunflower seeds....
The other day at school one of my preschoolers said her tooth hurt her a lot. To appease her I looked inside her mouth and there was a little piece of something hard sticking out of her gums! I reached in and pulled it out because that had to hurt (oops, forget the gloves, but I did wash my hands right away) and it looked like a little piece of wood. I asked if she had been chewing on a toothpick or something else and she insisted she hadn't. I let it drop. Later that day during snack time she said she brought a snack to share with her friends. She went to her backpack and came back with...a bag of sunflower seeds! (I still didn't get it). After explaining to her that it was nice for her to want to share, but that probably wasn't a snack we should share with our friends, she went to put them back. My assistant said, "THAT'S what was stuck in her gums!". Duh!

Anyway....
I have now decided to harvest the sunflower seeds from our flowers. Maybe Kristin's husband Ryan would like some? He always loved them in college.

I found some websites like this one and this one and this one to help me figure out what I need to do. What I learned is that right now I just need to wait, enjoy, and let them dry out. After the heads are dry and dead, I can cut them off and hang them upside down to dry some more. A really good tip I read was to cover the heads with a paper bag if the squirrels or birds try to eat the seeds before I harvest them. Amy was just telling me that we could collect the seeds and use them to plant new flowers next year too!

I'd love any additional sunflower tips you may have!

The "Last" Wedding

2011-09-14T05:00:00.000-05:00

After college, when I was single, I spent quite a bit of time with a group of also single friends. We spent our time enjoying the bars in the area and making sure that they stayed in business. (Just to help the economy you know.) A few of us called ourselves the "Sex and the City Girls", but there was a larger very fun group that spent those weekends together. As of last Saturday night, all of us are now married. It is crazy to think about! We realized there has been a wedding every year for the last 4 years, until the last 14 months when we had 3! We have spent quite a bit of time recently, reminiscing and making plans for faux weddings so we can get together, drink and dance!

Saturday night was Kim's wedding and of course it was a blast.

I have so many friends in my life that I feel so lucky to have. I have friends from different facets of my life and I am grateful for all of them every day. Saturday night was a celebration of Kim and Phil's love, but also another great night with some great friends!

I made a card for them that was inspired by their wedding invitation. I was pretty proud of it!

Cute tissue paper flowers on the aisle rows. I think these were great decorations!

The beautiful couple!

In between the ceremony and reception our "Wedding Group" went to a bar to hang out.

The beautiful cake. I love wedding cakes!

The wedding girls! (Minus the bride)

The wedding boys

Lovin' thinking back on memories from our wedding.

We made clay turtles at the bachelorette party and we got them at the wedding. We had fun making them the new centerpiece at our table. We were totally the trouble making table and it was great. Just means we were having fun!

I woke up Sunday morning sore. It may have had to do with dancing all night without a break.

Or it may have had to do with Bridget's idea to leap across the dance floor to Lady Gaga. It caught on and even the bride and groom joined in. After the song was over the DJ stopped and said, "What ARE you doing??" We don't really know.

There were also plans made for other silly plans in the future. At Bridget's 30th birthday party we sucked helium, at Kim's wedding we leapt.....what is next???

The boys were sitting at our table wondering, "Who did we marry???"

After the wedding we just didn't want the fun to end, so we had after hours at another bar!

We were out until 2:00 am and boy was I tired Sunday morning. It was a blast and totally worth it! From those years after college when we were regularly out until 4:00 am til now there have been many changes in our lives. Staying out until 2:00 was something that hasn't happened in a long time. In the last couple years, it only happens for bachelorette parties and weddings. But that is fun as well. Getting older means changes, but doesn't mean the fun has to stop! We also realized last night that we have just as much fun dancing to G-rated Twist and Shout and The Chicken Dance as to Ke$ha and Eminem! Friends are the common denominator and good friends can have fun no matter what they are doing!

*Obviously this isn't the LAST important wedding in my life! My sister gets married next summer and so does my BIL and I anticipate a great deal of fun. There will be many other important weddings in the coming years. However, this was the "last" wedding of my girlfriends and marks a point in our lives that means baby showers not bachelorette parties!

Last Week's Farm Update

2011-09-11T13:04:00.003-05:00

I am about a week behind in posting my updated pictures of our gardens, but it has been a busy week! Our vegetable garden is winding down for the season, but the pumpkins are just starting to show off their stuff! We have had a very successful year in the garden this year. Though we were really behind planting our vegetable garden because I was taking 2 classes in the spring, we had some great success with most of our vegetables.

One of our varieties of tomato plants has produced many yummy tomatoes. One still only has green tomatoes on it. Hm. Not sure what happened there.

Our yellow onions are our other not as successful plant. They seemed to be slow growing, but they still do have some time.

We had NO problems growing zucchini (or squash) this year! Here are two crazy huge zucchinis that are over ripe, but they are the length of a tall baby!

We had great cucumbers this year. We planted 3 varieties and 2 of them were wonderful. I am figuring out which ones I like better for slicing, pickling and which are better for dill and sweet pickles!

Our cantaloupe are pretty sad. We had a TON, but animals got to most of them. I think we only got 2!

After the school year started, we started losing a lot of vegetables that got overripe. There just wasn't enough time to go pick them! I would walk by in the morning and after school and realize I needed to do something....but did not feel like heading into the buggy garden after leaving school at 8:00 at night!

But the pumpkins are looking good! It is almost their turn to shine!

gourds

Baby Boo Gourds (mini pumpkins)

Lumina (white pumpkins)

I look forward to seeing the pumpkins ripen over the next couple weeks. Then comes the time to pick, bleach, and store them until pumpkin selling season in October. We also have an idea in the works to have a weekend day for people to come pick a pumpkin, maybe carve them, and get a ride on the John Deere. I hope it works out because I think it will be a fun gathering for our friends and family!

View from the back of the pumpkin patch

Pickled Pickles and Zucchini?

2011-09-03T21:43:00.000-05:00

In addition to canning pickles this year, I decided to trying pickling zucchini and squash. I read about it on the Internet. I figure if you read it on the Internet, it has got to be OK, right?

Here are all my chopped vegetables. The squash and zucchini are so big I couldn't just slice them.

Lots o garlic for the dill pickles! I heart garlic.

My stove is too small for canning! The big pot in the back left is where I boil the brine. The medium pot in the front left is where I sterilize the lids. The humongous pot in the right front is where I sterilize the jars and then give the jars a hot water bath. It gets SO hot there, with all those big pots, that the tiles started falling off the backsplash! Yikes! It was starting to fall apart anyway, so we weren't too freaked out.

Clean and sterilized jars!

Bread and Butter pickled zucchini and squash

One of my many batches of pickles!

Another batch!

I canned about 130 jars of pickles this year! Well....pickles and....squash and zucchini.

I have tried the bread and butter squash and zucchini and actually I think they are yummy! I wonder if they are a little better for you?

I canned a lot more jars this year than the last two years I did pickles. I am hoping that it is worthwhile! I enjoy doing it. But I also am doing it to make money. We have sold quite a few jars so far. But there are many more to go! I sold out 2 years ago so quickly that I knew I had to make more. Canning is quite the laborious process, but at least I have the availability in the summer to do it. I am considering buying one of those padded chef mats for the kitchen because standing there in the kitchen for 9 hours at a time kills my feet!

We have sold only bread and butter pickles so far because the dill won't be ready until October. They take about 2 months to be their yummiest!

Let's hope people keep wanting to buy pickles this year! Otherwise that is all we will be eating all winter.

You gotta love the Internet. How else would this suburban girl ever learn how to can???

Visitors and "When Are You Having Kids?"

2011-08-12T05:00:00.002-05:00

2 weeks ago my college girlfriends came over with their families. It was a great get together as it always is. They are really the best friends. We are all in various stages of our lives. Kristin is married with 2 kids. Katie is married with little Zander. Adam and I are (obviously) married. And Amanda is dating a great guy.

We met for dinner and then came back to our house for hanging out and dessert!

Layla and Zander wanted to go outside to pick some veggies. Along the way, we encountered Adam's snowmobile and Zander was in love. Doesn't everyone keep their snowmobile outside with weeds growing around it???

After coming back in, the kids really wanted to find the outside cats! Unfortunately the outside cats were not cooperating!

The Grady enjoyed himself as well (I think)! I enjoyed getting to hold him!

It was so fun to see the kids running around the house. It was seriously a blast. I loved hanging out with my girlfriends while the kids were running around and playing. It just seemed so natural and comfortable (if that makes sense???).

It ties in with the question that everyone asks a married couple, about 60 minutes after getting married, "When are you having kids?". Maybe about 5 minutes after you get married. Well it actually starts when you even think about getting married. Dude! We want to be married for a bit before kids! It is OK to ask. But some people are all shocked when you say you want to wait!

Sometimes, like when the kids were running around the house and it felt so natural, I think, "Maybe this is a good time!" But really, we want to enjoy our time married first. We know that your life changes completely (in a good way!) when you have kids, but for now, we want to enjoy our time the two of us. Also? I'd really like to have more of the house finished before we start a family. For two reasons. It stinks to have 2 bathrooms and 2 rooms under construction. Obviously we aren't going to wait for the house to be DONE. There are never ending huge projects that we need to do. But I'd really like to have main rooms not under construction! We had said we'd redo the kitchen before we had kids. But I'm thinking that is not going to happen. It is fine enough for now! While we are doing these huge projects all the time, it is like we are wringing our paychecks out into the house. I know everyone says there is no good time to have kids. You never have enough money. You never at at the perfect time. But right now? It is a bad time. So for now we will enjoy our time together and love on our friends' kids (and I will pin adorable baby stuff on Pinterest!) And don't worry, if you ask when we are having kids, I won't get mad!

Veggie Update-Death From Weeding

2011-08-09T10:42:00.005-05:00

With Vacation Bible School taking up all my time and taking a 6 week class in 2 weeks, I had been neglecting my poor vegetable garden. I had been harvesting some vegetables, but on the weeding front? Nada.

Oops.

So it was like a jungle in there. It was getting harder and harder to harvest the veggies when I had to climb through waist tall weeds to get what I needed. So last Saturday Adam and I tackled the gardens. We started at one end of the garden and worked our way through the jungle. Pulling and throwing. And dying of heat and sweat! It was so hot and humid, and we had to wear long pants and long shirts because of the bugs and plants.

Do you see the middle? That is weeds. Squash on one side and cucumbers on the other.

The weed overrun garden. You can't even see any dirt!

And after!!
Look! It looks like a garden!

I have been loving our herb garden. The basil is my very favorite. I have decided that everything tastes better with basil! I am hoping to be able to keep it alive through some of the winter. Any tips about an indoor herb garden?

This plant I brought back from visiting my grandparents in Palm Springs. My Poppop clipped it from his plant and we stuck it in a gatorade bottle to bring home on the plane. It seems like it is actually rooting! I am hoping this plant thrives so I can have one of Poppop's plants here!

Here are my calla plants! The raccoons have been attacking them about once a week. The plants used to be right by the back steps on either side of the steps. The raccoons would knock them over, pull the bulbs out, lay the bulbs on the ground. And dump the dirt everywhere. Finally this week I moved the plants to the other back step. They have been left alone so far. The next step is moving them inside, but they love being outside! (The picture above was the ONE time they didn't pull all of the bulbs out)

I am excited about all of the sun flowers we have growing by the pumphouse! Aren't they huge?? I hope they actually bloom soon (I planted them late). I also have some call bulbs growing off to the left. There are some other plants coming up that we didn't plant. They seem like bulbs, but we aren't sure what they are!

Besides the 130 cucumbers we have harvested from the garden so far, we have many other vegetables and fruits growing too!!

Tons of cantaloupe

Maybe a watermelon???
We had only ONE watermelon plant grow out of the whole row. We are really hoping to get a fruit out of it!

We have a bumper crop of summer squash. Does anyone have any good summer squash recipes?

After coming inside, dying a slow death for a bit and drinking a gallon of water, we went back out to tackle the pumpkin patch. Though I'd been neglecting my veggies for a couple of weeks, the pumpkins haven't been weeded since they were planted. Talk about a jungle!!! Weeding the pumpkin patch is harder than the vegetable garden because it is so big. You have to pull bunches of weeds and then walk to the edge to throw them out. At least in the vegetable garden, with a good throw you can toss the weeds from the center of the garden. Weeding. Walking. Weeding. Walking. Sweating. Weeding. Bug bites. Bug bites. Bug bites.

The good news is that the pumpkin plants are growing and are super healthy. Adam said he even found a pumpkin fruit growing. There are cucumber beetles all over the garden and Adam needs to spray. But hopefully that will take care of the issue and we will have bumper pumpkin crop!

Where are the pumpkin plants???

Look! We can see pumpkin plants!!

When we came in the house, I thought I was dying. It was so hot. And I was covered in bug bites. And my allergies were SO terrible. I could barely breath. It is hard to work outside in the heat and the humidity with allergies like this. THANK GOODNESS we have our air conditioning now! I came in and laid on the vent in the dining room. It felt amazing!! I was also COVERED in mosquito bites. Long sleeves. Long pants. Deep Woods Off. MILLIONS of bug bites. Whatev!

Though it was terrible, I recovered! And went back out the next day with Amy to harvest more veggies and take care of some of the veggies: staking up sugar snap peas and tying up heavy tomato plant branches. However, since the weeds were mostly gone, I could actually wear shorts and a tank top.

My parents constantly say they cannot believe their daughter is out there working in the garden like that. Because I fought tooth and nail to not weed for them when I was growing up. But when I work in the garden now, it is so fulfilling to see the end result. I LOVE harvesting my vegetables. I LOVE seeing them grow and seeing a product of my hard work. I want to grow everything! I just wish I had more time to tend to the garden. When I work on the garden, it means I am not cleaning my house. Ah well.

Pinterest is My New Cookbook

2011-07-27T05:00:00.000-05:00

Pinterest is seriously awesome for finding new recipes. I have always been a photo cookbook type of gal. I like cookbooks, but I am very unlikely to choose a recipe unless I see a picture. Or the title sounds scrumptious. But I'm much more likely when there is a photo.

In the last several years, I have most oft turned to the Internet when I want to find a recipe. Usually I come up with some sort of idea of something to cook and I google the best recipes.

But Pinterest...

Oh Pinterest...

You have changed my life.

When I see these awesome looking photos, I can't help but pinning them and adding the ingredients to my grocery list. I have pinned several recipes that I have found on my own. But more often I have repinned something that I someone else pinned on Pinterest. Thanks to all the people that have pinned so many delicious recipes!

This week I have made several recipes from Pinterest. It is so easy to find something to make before I go to the grocery store because I just click on my "In the Kitchen" board and check out what looks good!

Now I will share with you what I have made this week:

Actually I made this Lemon-Garlic Spaghetti 2 weeks ago, but I thought it would fit here.

I followed the recipe pretty exactly. Did you know pine nuts are uber expensive. For serious.

We both enjoyed it and would definitely make it again.

I made these Parmesan Roasted Potatoes on Wednesday night.

Target didn't have the right potatoes so I used smallish Yukon gold potatoes instead. But since they were bigger than the ones the recipe called for, boiling them for such a short time didn't quite cook them enough. So they were a little hard.

Other than that I followed the recipe and they were delicious (minus the hardness of course). Reheated they were really good too and they softened after being put in the microwave.

I made these Easy Parmesan Knots along with the potatoes on Wednesday night.

They were actually VERY easy and SO yummy. I highly recommend them as an easy yummy addition to a meal. Though knotting them was no harder than rolling croissants from the tube, they look all fancy!

I made these White Chicken Enchiladas on Saturday night. I have been eyeing them for a while, but wasn't sure how Adam would react. But he really liked them!

I made half with chicken and half with black beans and garbanzo beans.

Obviously the beans were for me.

I didn't find green chilies at Target (as you have probably noticed I don't make multiple grocery trips) so I bought the tomatoes with green chilies Rotelle. It gave a slightly different flavor, but I liked it.

Also, I added some mozzarella cheese because 2 cups of cheese for the whole thing just didn't seem like enough to me.

The sauce calls for chicken broth, but I make an easy vegetable broth with warm water and a bunch of seasonings. But for the life of me I can't find the website where I found the recipe.

The enchiladas were yummy! The sour cream gives the sauce a different taste, but it was really good!

So Pinterest,

Thank You.

Vacation Food Needs its Own Post

2011-07-23T21:43:00.000-05:00

I figured that the our vacation food deserved its own post. I love taking pictures of yummy food. Another thing that Adam is used to now!

We went to the Grand Wok at MGM one night for dinner. There was nothing without meat so I asked the waitress. She made me tofu pad thai and it was great! We mentioned it was our anniversary and she brought us out some sort of mango dessert. It was very different, but yummy!

The night we went to Lion King we went to T&T (Tacos and Tequila) at the Luxor. I had AMAZING cheese enchiladas. They were truly yummy!

The next day while walking the strip we stopped for some self-serve frozen yogurt. I have never been to a place like that, but it was great! You picked your frozen yogurt and whatever toppings you wanted. They just weigh it and that's how much you get charged! I loved my vanilla with fruit tasty treat!

Our last night for dinner we went to the steakhouse in the Luxor, Tender. We normally would not hit up such an extravagant restaurant (I can be more than a little frugal), but because we sat through a timeshare presentation (we said no) we got $150 in dining and gambling vouchers (also how we got the cheap tickets to terrible Criss Angel).

I started with a spinach and arugula salad that also had feta and craisins with toasted almonds. Yum!

Adam had a sirloin steak. he also got mashed potatoes and asparagus (you know, $10 each extra). The potatoes and asparagus were yummy too!

But the coup de gras of the evening (possibly the whole trip) was my cheese platter.

Oh the cheese platter....

When we decided to try out the restuarant we looked at the menu to see if there was anything I could eat. A cheese platter? I have always wanted to try a cheese platter! I was excited about it for days!

I got to pick out 5 kinds of cheese out of about 8 chocies. The waiter helped me make my choices. I have never met a cheese I don't like, so I was pretty confident I would like anything I choose!

My choices:

-Purple Moon Cheddar: Fiscalini farms, San Joaquin Valley, California – cabernet sauvignon soaked and moderately sharp sweetnes

-Mine Shafts Blue: Cedar Ridge, Rocklin, California – savory, full flavored, gold-mine aged Roquefort style bleu-vein

-Bermuda Triangle Goat: Cypress Grove Chevre, McKinleyville, California – soft-ripened, double-rinded with earthy yet mild truffle-like finish

-Marieke Gouda: Holland’s Family Farm, Thorpe, Wisconsin – slightly nutty and creamy

-Mouco Colorouge Camembert-style:Mouco Cheese Company, Fort Collins, Colorado – washed rind, soft interior with complex flavors

As you can see I enjoyed my cheese platter quite a bit! I would definitely do that again. I loved every single one of them.

I didn't mean to post this yet, but I hit post, so I guess here it goes!

I loved everything we tried in Las Vegas! Even if it is a bit pricey, we got some yummy foods. And I love yummy food!

My New Best Friend

2011-07-22T14:15:00.003-05:00

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter or have hung out with me anytime recently, you are well aware that my house had no air conditioning. Had you ask? Yes. Had. As in the past. Which is the whole point of this post because I HAVE AIR NOW AND MY LIFE IS NOW COMPLETE. (Yes, caps were completely necessary).

Until this week, we had no AC at our house. It was pretty much miserable.

See that guy above? That is how I felt all the time.

We couldn't even have a bunch of window units because our electrical service was so old and couldn't support them. But that is where having an electrician for a husband comes in handy. He has been working all summer to make it compatible.

We are also very lucky that Adam's great-grandpa, back in the 30s, decided to put in forced air heat instead of the standard radiator heat that is usually in old houses. If he hadn't done that with all the duct work, etc, we never would be able to even consider central air now. Glad he took on that remodel project. Thanks Great-Grandpa T!

How do you know when your house is the hottest ever?

When the heat index is over 100 and it feels better to go OUTSIDE than it does to walk INSIDE.

When you look at your garden that makes you money and say, "Sorry little plants" because there is no way you are going outside and watering them.

When you hate to have air movement on your skin and you have a fan blowing straight on you from about 6 inches away.

When you don't sleep for 3 nights straight because it is too hot to do anything and the 1 window unit you have sounds like a cross between a bad refrigerator and a motorcycle.

When it is pointless to put makeup on because it melts off within 5 seconds.

When you look across your dining room and this is the mirage you see...

This week, however, my every dream came true! WE GOT CENTRAL AIR! It was Wednesday morning. I had just woken up from the 3rd night in a row of oh about.....3 hours of sleep. I was crabby and hot and had a project to work on. But then this wonderful man came and knocked and the door and said his work was finished. He pushed a button....

...and it was magical.

Cold air was coming out of my vents! I literally stood on top of one for a few minutes.

It was truly glorious.

This is my new best friend:

Along with the man who installed it. I texted Adam and told him I might have to kiss the man on the mouth and he'd just have to be OK with it.

This is how I feel now:

Yes, when it is 115 with the heat index, it only gets down to about 82 upstairs. But 82 feels glorious to me!

Las Vegas Part #2

2011-07-18T05:00:00.002-05:00

Here is the second part of our Las Vegas trip!

The night we went to go see Lion King, we also walked around the casinos and hit up Excalibur. Throughout the trip Adam told me about the "inclinator". I thought it was a made up word. I kept laughing at him. But then we saw this sign:

It is an inclined moving walkway! Hence...an inclinator!

I also wanted to show you the very creative stand I made to take pictures of us before we headed out for the evening. I needed just a little more height than I was getting from the overturned garbage can, so the book helped!

We aren't huge gamblers, but we enjoyed throwing $10 or $20 in the slot machines here and there throughout the week. I don't mind losing so much if I actually get a good amount of play time out of it. When you lose it all right away, then it is sad.

We like those penny and quarter slots because you get that much more play time out of it!

On our last day there, we walked all the way from the Luxor to the Mirage. Quite the walk! When we walked past the Bellagio we were bummed to find out the fountains weren't working. So I made Adam make a sad face since he was excited to see them.

I also made Adam take this picture of hanging out with a naked woman woman in Vegas!

When we were walking around that day I got a call from my sister in Cairo! Wael had proposed! They were on a boat on the Nile and he got down on one knee and asked her. Doesn't everyone get asked on a boat on the Nile?? SO EXCITED for them!

We really did enjoy staying at the Luxor. It is at the very end of the strip, but we didn't mind. We were really close to several casinos and the walk really wasn't so bad. It was the best hotel for the best deal we found and we were really happy with it. We also thought it was cool that my sister Erin is in Cairo right now and we were both near pyramids!

Enjoying the sun while reading my Baby-sitters Club book for my twitter discussion!

We went to go to Criss Angel Believe on our last night there. It was honestly one of the most terrible shows I have ever seen. We both agreed. Adam really wanted to see it because he likes illusions/magic. It was absolutely ridiculous with how stupid it was. No one should ever waste their money on it. The effects were amazing: lights, smoke, pyrotechnics! But illusions? None! There was not ONE point during the show that we said, "Ohhhh.....how did he do that?"

Also, our last night we had $20 to play for my Grandpa in the dollar slots. He sent me with $20 and instructions to stop at $5 and take the money for our troubles or stop at $60 if we are up. So I was playing and was down to about $11 when suddenly I hit something! I don't know what it was but the numbers were flying. The LED read 103 and I was doing math in my head to see how many dollars that it was (I thought we were still doing quarter slots!). Adam saw me cocking my head to the side doing math and he said, "THAT IS DOLLARS!". So Grandpa won $100 and we won nothing all week!

On the way up to our room the last night I was still in amazement about the terrible Criss Angel show and Grandpa winning $100 and Adam stopped at a pop machine and was excited he put in $2 and won a pop!

We really had a blast in Las Vegas! Though it is expensive with everything you do, it really was a blast. We enjoyed doing a variety of activities being busy with shows and walking around and also just relaxing by the pool and drinking frozen drinks in a huge glass in the casino!

Las Vegas Part #1

2011-07-16T19:22:00.006-05:00

For our first anniversary we decided to take a trip to Las Vegas. I have only been once before. My parents took me for my 21st birthday that summer. But Adam had never been. We also thought it would be neat to go to LV because we could also go to the Grand Canyon.

Our flights in were pretty difficult. I was NOT feeling well at all. In fact on the last flight from our layover at LAX to LV, I even got to make use of the air sick bag. It was totally awesome. Probably ranks up there with one of my most embarrassing moments. Adam was totally awesome grabbing the bag for me and making me feel better. Yuck.

Anyway...

When we finally arrived it was pretty cool to see the Luxor from the runway!

When we got all checked in to our hotel, we walked around a bit and checked out the hote and casinol. We were also very hungry! We also got a fun surprise in our room that night, but I will show you pictures of what it was later!

The next morning we decided to exchange gifts for our first anniversary.

I got Adam a certificate to go on a hot air balloon ride. It is something he has been talking about for a long time. He talks about it every day. I tried to think of something more personal, but then decided this is what he really wants! What he really wants is to own one, but we'll see about that. For now the two of us are going to go on a ride. (Check out who is in the basket of the balloon on the picture).

Adam got me tickets to go see Lion King! I have been wanting to go for AGES! He also made a card for me with photos from our wedding. I love the thought he put into it! Also can't believe he was able to find the CD of our photos in my desk and figure out how to upload them online to make the card (this type of thing usually isn't him!).

The first day walking down the strip, suddenly we were caught in a quick rainstorm. We were out on a sidewalk no where near anything and we were SOAKED! We ran for it and then finally made it under an overhang.

We walked around to several casinos the first day, threw a few dollars in and enjoyed the sights.

I enjoy taking pictures with statues. I also make myself last!

One of my prerequisites for going on vacation is time in the sun. Looking online I loved pictures of the pool! We enjoyed laying by the pool with our big frozen daiquiri!

Though I got a little annoyed because....see that cool column thing in the back? It has water shooting out of the columns and it is a neat pool. But.....you have to pay for access!!! $25 a chair. No WAY! They should really say that on the Luxor website. So we used the free pool.

I always like to take pictures before we go out for the night and Adam is totally easy going about it....now. When we went on our first trip together to NYC Adam wasn't so thrilled about my nightly photo. Now, he knows he anticipates it!

When we got back to our room we celebrated with the surprise Mom and Dad sent us. Champagne to our room. And it was a really yummy champagne!!!

Back at the pool! When we were at the pool this day, that is when I got the call from Wael my sister's boyfriend to ask for my blessing to ask her to marry him. I was so excited! I, of course, spent the next 45 minutes on the phone with my mom making wedding plans....even though she didn't know she was going to be getting married yet.

That night we went to go see Lion King! I was just giddy with excitement!

Our first seats were in the first row of the second section. They were really good...except for the railing blocking our view! So we said something to the usher and he got us new seats on the aisle. It was SO awesome. When the "animals" were parading in, they came RIGHT by us. It was super awesome. Neat-o!

The rest of our trip will be coming in a few days!

Tempermental Clouds

2011-07-01T05:00:00.000-05:00

The other day I was driving (to pick up my second prescription actually) and saw the neatest clouds. On one side of the road the sky was beautiful and blue with fluffy white clouds. The other side had very ominous dark scary clouds!

At one point the two sets of clouds even met and it was really neat.

I was trying to continue driving safely while snapping pictures of the neat clouds with one hand!

And the two sets of clouds meet in the middle of the road:

That's Chicago weather for ya!

My Crazy Week in Pictures

2011-06-28T20:48:00.007-05:00

So.....last week was insane.

I thought I'd review it for you in pictures!

Well I need to back up for a minute to start with the fact that a couple weeks ago I burned myself with the hair dryer. Because I was drying my hair while reading my book. Because that is the one of the few times I have to read! I was taking care of it....but it wasn't healing. So after a few weeks I finally went to the doctor. That was an ordeal in itself but I finally made an appointment with the office where my mom's doc is because they could get me in and I had a good recommendation. It was painful...and itchy...and just gross.

I saw a doctor who I didn't so much like. So we will pretend this is her picture:

She diagnosed me with Cellulitis (a bad skin infection) and put me on really strong antibiotics.

But because the farm calls, that night Amy and I planted our whole vegetable garden. We are a little late this year with the veggies because of my two classes but it will be OK. We will just have lots of veggies in the fall not the summer! We planted: two types of carrots, two types of tomatoes, green onions, sugar snap peas, 3 types of cucumbers, yellow onions, zucchini, yellow squash, watermelon and cantaloupe.

Also that night was the start of "Antpocalypse". Random ants showing up in our living room! One at a time every few minutes in different places. WTH???

The vegetables started growing a few days later:

(Update: as of today, everything is coming in!)

Meanwhile....

My dad was out of town for the week and my mom had the idea to redo his office as a Father's Day surprise for him. We were really excited about the idea! It has had a bad paint job for years and my dad has a lot of neat Chicago and sailboat pictures that weren't really being displayed to their best potential.

So that Saturday as soon as he left for the airport my uncle and cousins came over and we moved furniture and started painting! The next day was Father's Day so we didn't get anything done because we hung out with Adam's family and worked outside at our house.

Adam had also planned to help all week with the project, but he's been crazy at work and had to work both Saturdays and late every night during the week.

Monday started preparations/set-up for the annual fair at my church! Amy and I co-chair the ice cream/smoothie booth. I have been chairing the booth for over 11 years now! Monday and Tuesday we set up and the fair is Wednesday through Sunday. During that time we practically live there. We are there until 11:30 or 12:30 every night!

Oh yeah...and that week I was still teaching summer school to my preschoolers!

Tuesday night during the last night of set-up, we were working hard to get everything ready and then a bunch of family drama happened that made me focus on that instead of getting ready. Luckily Amy is awesome and she got everything ready.

As we were finishing up setting up and dealing with family drama the tornado sirens started going off! PSA: I HATE tornados!!! Because we were outside on the church grounds, we decided to drive to my parents house across the street instead. Luckily they didn't last TOO long. But they still freaked me out.

This is a picture I took during storms happening during the day that week:

While waiting at my parents' house for the tornado sirens to stop, Adam and my mom were conferring because my infection wasn't getting better even on those super strong antibiotics. It was even spreading. They decided, after reading Cellulitis should clear up after 3 days, I should go to the ER. I agreed to call the doctor on call and he agreed I needed to go then....at 10:30 at night....instead of waiting until my appointment the next day. I didn't FEEL like I was dying of a terrible infection that could go in my blood, but they were very worried. So I went.

At the ER, when I finally got seen, the nurse and the doctor both immediately said it was shingles. Shingles?!?!? Not a terrible skin infection?!?! After learning what shingles is all about (you can't catch them from someone else, they can just come out if you've had chicken pox before, you can't give shingles to someone, you can give chicken pox to someone who hasn't had them), I got a new prescription and went home and slept for a few hours before waking up for school.

Wednesday was school, nap and the fair! (And of course working on Dad's office every day!)

Thursday was school and then a call from our tenants (we rent out my townhouse since it is worth half of what I bought it for now). Sewage was backing up in the sinks and overflowing onto the floor. This is not the first sewage problem there. The builders were ridiculous and the sewage pipes from another unit are connected to the sinks in my townhouse. In November they backed up because the people there were flushing baby wipes. STUPID! This time they were flushing womanly products that apparently got stuck. YUCK! GROSS! EWWW!!! I went over there Thursday to help them clean up and get the situation taken care of. Thursday night was of course...the fair!

Friday I also went there to meet a cleaning lady to get it all cleaned and disinfected. We also had a restoration service come out to assess damage. LUCKILY, they said if we put a dehumidifier in there it would dry it out enough.

After that I went to a follow up appointment with my doctor. But I was stupid and confused the time. So I had to see another DIFFERENT doctor. This doctor asked me about stress. I said when the burn happened it was the last week of school and since I am a teacher it was crazy. He said, "A lot of alcohol and partying?". Ummm....no. Like burning CDs and DVDs and finishing portfolios and parent/teacher conferences! Another doc on my "do not see" list.

Throughout the week we also had to keep up watering the veggies. But it was super exciting they kept growing. Especially so soon!

Saturday we busted our butts to finish the painting. My thoughts on painting? I would like to never paint trim ever again. Ever. Ever ever ever. It is so monotonous! But we did finish up the painting!! And I have to say....I did a kick butt job.

Then I was like the graduation party fly-by guest. I stopped at 2 graduation parties and spent about 15 minutes at each one before running back to the fair to see my brother-in-law perform. He did really well!

After a really late night at the fair, we got up Sunday morning to finish up the office! We were super excited about it!!!!!! Here is the almost finished room (blinds weren't up yet). Sunday we got new outlets put in, and hung all of the artwork that we got framed during the week. We also put everything back.

Sunday morning I woke up and had hives all over my body! WHAT?!?!?!?! I called the doc and got a different one. He said, "You should go to the ER" and I said, "I don't have time for that." So he said to stop taking my medicine and take some Benadryl. I went to the fair and when it was getting worse, I took the Benadryl and went to my parents house for 2 hours to take a nap. It didn't get any better.

But.....Sunday was an AMAZING day at the fair. Amy and I realized we didn't take ANY pictures. We usually do some sort of photoshoot of pouring smoothies, getting ice cream, hanging out, etc. Erin and her family did stop by though and I got a picture of them!

My dad came home Sunday evening and LOVED the office! It was an awesome surprise!!!

We stayed at church until 12:30 tearing down the entire fair and woke up again for school early Monday morning!

So...that was my crazy week in pictures! Overall through work, fair, cellulitis, shingles, sewage, family drama, doctors, hives, vegetables and tornados.....we had good sales at the fair and my dad was really excited about the surprise!! So it made it all OK!

Brownie Cake Balls

2011-06-24T05:00:00.000-05:00

At school we celebrate "0" birthdays with cake (30, 40, 50, 60, etc). It seemed like a really good idea at the beginning of the year in order to boost morale and have some fun. Now that I have gained a bunch of weight, it doesn't seem like such a good idea! I do think we had an overabundance of 0 birthdays this year, so I hope next year is lighter on big birthdays!

The point? Since I had made cupcake cake pops for another co-workers birthday and a Salted Caramel Chocolate cake for Erin's 30 and half birthday (she was on maternity leave on her 30th) when it was my good friend Bridget's 30th I figured I should do something special.

She is a huge Chicago White Sox fan so I decided to go with the black and white theme. I thought I would try Brownie Cake Balls dipped in black and white candy melts. Inspired by Inside BruCrew Life, I figured if she can make cookie/brownie balls, I could totally make brownie/cake balls! I thought the brownie/white cake combination would fit in perfectly with the black and white theme!

Things I learned:

-Don't make the brownies the night before. They cool too much and don't smush well.

-Don't try to dip dark brownies in white chocolate. You have to do it several times to cover up the brownie.

-Don't try to use the Wilton frosting food coloring to color Wilton Candy Melts. They have a different kind of food coloring for a reason (not just to sell you something else like I thought). It makes the candy melts hard and not good for dipping. As you can see they are a bit chunky.

-They are delicious!

How did I do it?

-I used my regular cake pops recipe and also made up a brownie mix.

-I made the cake balls smaller than usual and then put them in the freezer.

-Then I tried to smush the brownies around the cake balls. It wasn't working so well so I put them in the oven a bit to try to make them mushier. That did help a little.

-Then I put the big brownie/cake balls in the freezer again.

-After that I dipped half of them in black chocolate and the other half in white.

-Lastly, I write "SOX" on some, the SOX logo on others, and colored some "socks" on others.

They turned out super yummy. They just weren't my prettiest baking project ever!

Welcome Grady and Happy Birthday Layla!

2011-06-22T05:00:00.002-05:00

Not only did I have a fun birthday week because my sister was in town, but my friend Kristin welcomed her new bundle of joy on my birthday!

I was very lucky to be able to visit him on his second day on in this world. I visited them in the hospital and got to hold the incredibly sweet baby Grady. I just wanted to eat him up! Holding a tiny baby like that is just pure joy!

And of course it was wonderful to see big sister Layla as well! She was pretty proud of her new little brother.

Welcome to the world Grady! I am happy I got to meet you!

In other news, big sister Layla turned 3 at the beginning of the month! Her party was last weekend and it was a wonderful Pinkalicious celebration!

Kristin, ever the hostess and party planner, had all kinds of adorable and cute touches. Unfortunately I don't have ANY pictures of the party! I helped Kristin out by taking pictures on her camera so she could enjoy the party with her new big girl 3 year old while also worrying about her tiny little guy. I didn't mind because I LOVE playing with her fancy camera.

I would love to have me a nice camera like that. Our plan is to get one when we have kids so that we have the latest and greatest technology for a camera crazy girl like me! For now, I will "help" Kristin by taking pictures when she needs it while enjoying the fancy camera myself!

Birthday Week and Missing My Sister

2011-06-20T05:00:00.000-05:00

During my birthday week in May, my sister and her boyfriend were in town. She was home for a few days after she finished her semester. Then she flew to CA to visit our grandparents and her boyfriend Wael (who lives in Egypt) met her there. They spent a week there and then came back here together for a few days before heading back to Egypt for the summer. She is there all summer and then goes back to NYC to finish her last semester of Grad School. After that? Who knows! Somewhere abroad I am sure.

Since my sister will be gone all summer for her birthday, we decided to have a birthday celebration together. It was hard to pick a place we both agreed on. Indian was her choice. Italian was mine. So we compromised on Japanese! We also thought it would be neat for Wael to experience a Japanese "chop chop restaurant" during his second visit to the US (his first being our wedding).

Our Chef

The Family

We also went to a Cubs game that week because we wanted to give Wael that experience as well! After much arranging and planning of transportation and meeting spots, all 6 of us ended up in Chicago for the Cubs game.

It was a REALLY warm day and I ended up being COMPLETELY underdressed for the cold evening. I just had a lightweight sweatshirt and super thin rain coat. I was one chilly girl. Luckily my mom had a heavier sweatshirt and a winter jacket, so she shared the sweatshirt with me.

The *drunk* guy next to us really wanted me to take a picture of his nachos

Unfortunately....or fortunately....

The game got rained out. It ended up raining for several innings, but in the top of the 7th they put the game on hold. We didn't even get to sing the 7th Inning Stretch! Poor Wael....he missed a fun tradition. Don't be too worried though. My mom, dad, and sister sang it for him. We had quite the debate about how long to wait to see if the game resumed. But considering it was already after 9:00 and an employee said it takes 30 minutes to roll up the tarp IF they decide to resume it....we decided to head home.

It was a fun game and a fun night with family even if it did get rained out. I was lucky enough to see my sister one more time before she headed to Africa for the summer. The night before she left I had parent/teacher conference until 8:00 and was just beat. She and Wael stopped by for about 30 minutes after my conferences just to hang out and see them one last time.

Rumor is he may come back for a visit for Christmas so I am excited to have an opportunity to spend more time with him. She won't be back in the country until school starts in August. And we won't see her until September. Insert sad face here. But the awesome thing is that she got a Blackberry to carry with her abroad and we can BBM any time we want. Well...not so much ANY time we want because there is a 7 hour time difference. But it is super awesome!

Our New Neighbors

2011-06-19T18:35:00.002-05:00

I'm back! Though I am slowly attacking my Reader.

I opened it up 2 days ago and it said....

"1,000+".

So I quickly hit the red X and logged onto Twitter.

But I am going to try to start attacking it little by little. Sorry for any "Marked as Read" that I just have to do!

I started putting these photos and videos into a slideshow about a month ago, but then got distracted by the craziness of the end of the school year and taking two classes at once. Which by the way are done. YAY! But I still don't have grades for 3 projects or the final grade. They better all be A's!

Anyway...this post is about our new neighbors.

We came home after a friends birthday party about 2:00 am one night in May to find a Mama raccoon and 3 babies scurrying up our Oak tree in front of the house. They were obviously frightened by us. The babies were really little! It was neat to see the Mama Raccoon come down the tree and carry her babies up one by one. The video, however, is too dark to make out.

The next day I was doing homework at home when I heard something on the front porch. There was the Mama! It was still light out and yet she was out scouting for food. I was intrigued by watching her interact with her babies. I took far too many pictures and way too much video....hence the 3 minute slideshow below. But I do think it is something neat for my preschoolers to see and I am going to show them this week at summer school.

If you are interested in watching a Mama raccoon interact with and protect her babies, enjoy the slideshow!

The raccoons are bold! I thought raccoons were supposed to be nocturnal? Maybe it gets late too late for them now. Because they wander around long before the sun goes down. They are pesky and destructive...but the babies are oh so cute!

So for now our new neighbors are the raccoons living in the tree right in front of our house. Until Adam gets fed up and decides to put them in a better place....I'd prefer the trap them and drive them 50 miles away method myself. But we shall see....

As long as they stay out of our attic, I'm not too upset!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The Squirrels Have Gone Crazy!

2011-05-13T05:00:00.001-05:00

Recently I posted about all of the fun we had on a nice weekend and included our bird feeder issues.

We realized we couldn't hang the bird feeder from the pump house, because it was WAY too easy for the squirrels to get to it. They literally emptied it in a day. So not cool.

We decided to try to help the situation by putting them on a shepherds crook in the middle of the yard. A really skinny pole. In the middle of nothing.

The bird seed (over a week later) has about 1/4 left. Way better than before.

But still....

The crazy squirrels got to it.

Well....

One crazy squirrel.

I have a theory that all of the squirrels in the neighborhood had a contest to see who could get to it.

Only one red-tailed squirrel won.

The others hang out. Wait underneath. And reap the rewards of this crazy teenage squirrel who has no fear.

Here is a video of the super talented and crazy squirrel!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Here are some photos:

The poor bird is wondering why he doesn't get a chance at the food!

I guess a real squirrel proof feeder is in my future! We had dinner with my in-laws for Mother's Day and they have several bird feeders. They talked about different options. My birthday is coming soon, so I am crossing my fingers!

Cinco De Mayo and Fudgie in a Bakset

2011-05-11T05:00:00.000-05:00

Fitting in with all of the dress-up fun over the last week, at school we celebrated Cinco de Mayo!

We dressed up wearing red and green and of course I busted out a sombrero I borrowed from my cousin!

We had yummy chips and salsa in the lounge and DELICIOUS food cooked by our bilingual staff for lunch. Seriously. AMAZING lunch. I tried to convince them that this should happen once a month, but I don't know if my attempts convinced anyone.

It has also been a while since I posted any pictures of our crazy cat. I think I have mentioned before how she loves anything that is different. If a package comes, she has to sit on the box. If I put a piece of paper or a bag down, she has to sit on that. A couple weekends ago, we bought these baskets to hang from shepherds crooks outside. Of course, what did she do? She sat in them!

Crazy cat!

Wiggin' Out!

2011-05-07T05:00:00.000-05:00

My friend Kristina turned 30 recently and for her birthday she had a "Kristina's Turning 30 and She's Wiggin' Out" party! Everyone was invited to wear a wig. At first I was a little skeptical. Because....well. I don't have a wig. But I borrowed a wonderful blue wig from a friend, sucked it up, and it was a blast! It was fun to see the other wigs people were wearing and Kristina and her husband both had wig changes throughout the night!

Kristina and her husband

My girls!

I'm not usually hugely into dressing up, but I dressed up that Friday for the Royal Wedding and then the next day for the wig party! I was more nervous about the wig party and my friend Bridget asked me how I could be nervous about that when I wore a bridesmaid dress to school. But school is kids. And co-workers that know me. And mostly kids. Going to a party with a wig with people I don't know if intimidating. What if other people didn't wear a wig? That would be sad. I didn't need to be worried at all. It was a blast and though it was itchy and pressed behind my ears like a headband (ow!) I still had a blast!

Royal Wedding Preschool Style

2011-05-06T05:00:00.000-05:00

So did you see some of these hats in the Royal Wedding footage?

Well at school last Friday we had our own Royal Wedding celebration! At first we invited everyone to wear a hat. Then we decided jewelry would be fun. Then we thought fancy dresses would be even better!

Our staff dressed up in their Royal Wedding attire!

Erin and I dressed up for the wedding! We decided this was a replacement for our nonexistent picture from my wedding!

Aren't we fancy ladies-in-waiting!

I could totally have been a Royal Wedding attendant!

We had a blast celebrating the day and Erin and I are on Operation: Make Work Fun and this was a great start to the operation!

Easter 2011

2011-05-04T05:00:00.001-05:00

Easter was at our house this year because my mom was not really up for hosting. It was OK with me, because I love to have people over!

I have been dying to try the Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls for quite some time now and because we were hosting brunch, I decided this was the perfect time! I didn't, however, need 70 of them, so I used this recipe to make a smaller batch (I actually doubled this to have about 24).

I spent 10.5 hours the day before standing on my feet in the kitchen; but it was totally worth it! Everything turned out great and we had a fun day.

In addition to the Cinnamon Rolls, I also made the Pioneer Woman's crumb cake. I didn't have fresh blueberries laying around, but I did have a frozen berry mix and it was delicious.

As I said, I doubled the small batch recipe of the Cinnamon Rolls. Which was easy. Until I was a dork. I had been looking at both recipes: one for the measurements and doubling them and then the other for the instructions. Well at one point I looked at the recipe and saw I needed 8 cups of flour. Times two? 16 cups! I didn't have that much flour! So after making the base for the dough, I ran out to the store and bought more flour. I got home and added 16 cups. Well. That didn't look right. Then I checked the recipe again. The ORIGINAL recipe called for 8 cups. The small batch called for 2 1/8. So really? I needed 4 1/4. Not 16.

So I had to dump the whole thing in the garbage.

And start all over.

But I went with it and kept on baking and cooking! I set up my laptop on the counter (to the left of the photo below) and watched TV and movies the whole day and night. You can also see my disaster of a kitchen with all my ingredients and dishes everywhere. I much prefer when my sister is over to help before cooking for a family party because the ingredients and dishes don't pile up as much when there's two people working to cook and put away and clean together!

For brunch we had ham, a spinach/broccoli/cheese egg casserole and a sausage/cheese and egg casserole.

But I finally finished everything! Easter morning we went to church and then hurried back to finish getting the food ready. My uncle helped make the skillet potatoes. They were yummy!

After we all ate a ton of food, the kids opened Easter baskets and then we had an Easter egg hunt in the backyard. It was Adam's idea and I was so excited about it! Another brilliant idea of Adam's was to give each kid a different egg color that they were supposed to find all of the same. And I call myself a preschool teacher! It went really well and I think we found all of the eggs. If not, the lawn mower sure will!

What am I doing?? Climbing up on the dumpster (still there from tearing down the garage) to drop those parachute guys down so their parachutes open up better. Don't worry, my freshman in HS tiny cousin spotted me!

Everyone enjoyed lots of snacks, Easter candy and Christian (my cousin's son) ate candy for about 6 hours straight. Check him out sneaking another piece of crumb cake below:

A family party wouldn't be complete without playing some Wii. We didn't Just Dance this time. We Wii Party-ed! We really had fun with the hide and seek game!

We celebrated Easter with just my parents and my sister the Monday after Easter. What? My mom still makes Easter baskets. So what? My mom is awesome. And my sis and I snuck some things in her basket as a surprise for her.

Those are my 5 thousand pictures for my Easter 2011 post. It was another great holiday with family and yummy food!

Cupcake Pops

2011-05-02T16:56:00.006-05:00

A couple weeks ago I decided that I wanted to try making cupcake cake pops. It had been seeing them pop up around the Internet and I thought they would be really cute! I found some instructions here and used that in conjunction with what I learned about when I made my first cake pops for new years.

I thought they were actually a little easier to decorate than cake pops!

My main problem was shape. I thought I was going to shape them by using a Wilton candy mold, but alas, that was not going to happen (too sticky to hold its shape when I pulled them out). I will definitely get one of these cookie cutters Bakerella recommends for next time. Instead, I molded them by hand into a row of little mushrooms (sorry no picture).

The part that made them easier than the cake pops was the decorating. Cake pops you have to be really carefull that when you put the candy coating on, they don't fall off the stick. That means you have to spoon it on and that is pretty time consuming. With these, you dip them by hand first to make the bottom of the cupcakes and put the sticks in. After they have dried for a few minutes, holding the stick, you dip the top in. And they stay on the stick because the bottom candy coating is holding it on there. Much easier than trying to spoon it over the top!

The problem I had was dipping them so the top and bottom were both covered. A lot of them had a bare midriff in between. And no body likes to see a muffin top...er....cupcake top?! I think that problem would be solved by having more evenly shaped cupcakes. Also, I would dip the top in further if I did it again.

They are a work in progress and I will definitely have to try them again sometime. Even if they weren't perfect, they were yummy

Chocolate Tour in the City

2011-04-21T05:00:00.000-05:00

Last summer I bought a Groupon for a Chicago Chocolate Tours. We scheduled it for December because that was the deadline. But then something came up. I don't remember what now. But then we were able to reschedule it before the deadline for sometime in the future. So we randomly picked April 16th! If it had been last weekend, it would have been the most beautiful day ever. Instead, it was rainy and CRAZY windy and just plain yucky. But we still had a blast! I would totally recommend it to someone as a fun, different thing to do on a weekend. I am not usually a HUGE sweets person, but the things we tried were really yummy.

A view of the "awesome" weather we had

Our first stop was Teuscher Chocolates of Switzerland. We tried A-MAZ-ING champagne truffles. They are made with real Dom Perignon and shipped from Switzerland every week. But they were quite expensive. We bought a few, but they were way beyond our normal sweet budget!

Our next stop was More Cupcakes. YUM! We all know cupcakes all still all the rage. And these were totally drool worthy. We tried a chocolate/chocolate cupcake and then Adam and I left with a sample pack of a few mini cupcakes because we couldn't decide which ones we would like! Also, as you can see, I wore my coat the whole time. Don't you hate when you wear cute clothes and then you can't tell because you are wearing your ugly waterproof coat? No?

Next we stopped at Hendrickx Belgian Bread Crafters. Oh. My. Goodness. The smell. The taste. The bread. The chocolate croissant we ate was yummy. But. The. Bread. Wow. It didn't have chocolate so it technically didn't belong on the tour, but they gave us a sample. Just Wow. Their bread is baked with 4 ingredients-salt, water, flour and yeast. No sugar. No preservatives. Just those 4 ingredients. Yum! We also tried a Liège waffle, which is more like a pastry than what we consider a Belgian waffle. Also super yummy! Oh yeah. And we also tried a dark chocolate Belgian cake. Super rich. This place just threw the samples at us!

After that we went to Sarah's Pastries & Candies. Adam loved the peanut butter crunch bar thing we had. I am not really a huge fan of crunch in my chocolate in the form of crisped rice. But I did like the "delight" which is pictures above. Nuts and chocolate. Yum! The amazing thing at this place? Sarah the owner is just 30!

Our last stop was at Argo Tea. We had warm red velvet tea and a dark chocolate cake. The tea was yummy. Adam said it wasn't really his cup of tea. Ha! But I enjoyed it. It didn't really taste much like tea. It was more like a hot chocolate.

Throughout the tour we also learned a lot about the history of chocolate and fun facts about chocolate. It was pretty interesting! Again, I would recommend this to anyone looking for something fun to do in the city. But definitely better using some sort of coupon, because I love a deal!

It Was Spring!

2011-04-19T05:00:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, when the weather was amazing, I also did some fun outside stuff! Not only did I do my reading for school outside, LOVE the sun! I also was able to repot some of my inside plants outside and enjoy the sun. For my birthday last year, Kristin, got me a calla plant. It was so pretty, but then it died in the fall. I watered it all winter because I was sad it died. But then...suddenly 2 months ago....it started sprouting. It was so healthy and beautiful. But then all of the stems fell over. They wouldn't stand up. And SO many were growing. After consulting Amy, I realized I needed to repot it deeper and split it so they had more room to grow. I also staked them up to help them from breaking off from leaning over. The one in the green pot still doesn't look so hot. But the others look like they are getting stronger! I want them to be beautiful and healthy again! We also hung up the birdhouse we got from my dad's cousin Doris and family for our wedding. I hope some birds make their home in there! We had put up a bird feeder a couple days before, but the squirrels attacked it and bent it and took ALL of the seeds. So no more using that bird feeder. I need a new, squirrel proof bird feeder!