I finally completed a pinterest project.....

I am someone of grand intentions and sometimes not-so-great follow-through.

{Please tell me I am not the only one with a storage room full of supplies and half-completed projects???}

I have had a variety of conversations with Chad that go something like this:
C (standing in our storage/laundry room):  "What IS this stuff here in this plastic bag?"
Me:  "Oh yeah, I bought that at Michael's so I could make this, um, thing that I saw, well, yeah, it never got made, here I'll just put it over here"  (in the Island of Misfit Projects....) 

So I am proud of myself because I finally finished a pinterest project and even hung it up.....after weeks of working on it!  I like how it turned out, but I feel like it needs a little something to make it pop.  What do you think?

I love that it has my Chloe's hand and foot prints, and I also love the message!

Now off to find another half done project to complete.  Or perhaps I should just deal with the dishes for now? :) 

In case you were wondering whether Carter's love for planets has waned....

.... I went to use my camera the other day, and this is what I found:

And yes, the pictures were taken in exactly this order.....

 

Yup, that's my boy. :)

Tea for Two (& a Doll)

This afternoon Chloe hosted a tea party.  I thought today was a beautiful day for one, don't  you?

 

On the menu:  Tea (water), grapes & "chocolate chip cookies"

 

Chloe carefully poured tea for us

And distributed the grapes

MMM!!

This is fun!

 

Here's some tea for you, Cassidy.

Okay, enough pictures, Mom!

Best part of the tea party:  When Chloe called me "Best Mommy Ever"!  So sweet!

Easter Fun. Better Late than Never!

So much for my resolution about blogging more often. Pfft!
Anyhow, I thought I would post some photos from our Easter happenings. 
First up:  We hosted a neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt on Palm Sunday.  When Audrey was younger, our street would have an egg hunt every year but the past few years it has been abandoned!  Guess all the kids were getting too big for it.  Well, Chloe is still a little kid and I decided to revive it, since there is a whole new crop of little ones on other nearby streets.  It was a great time, and a great chance to get to know some of our neighbors better!

 A view of part of our yard before the kids descended on the eggs!

 Our kids before the hunt began. 

Carter showing off his stash.  He kept saying "I'm the first one done!"....yes, however he was by far the oldest kid at this egg hunt (well, besides Audrey).

This was the view in our yard the VERY. NEXT. DAY.  No lie.  It snowed the day after the egg hunt.  Hey, at least the snow waited til our festivities were over.

 On the day before Easter, the kids opened Easter baskets that came in the mail from Grandma & Grandpa!

 We also dyed our Easter eggs that day.  Carter spent the whole day asking "Can we dye Easter eggs now?"

 Chloe had a great time trying out all the colors.

 Audrey enjoys making fancy rainbow eggs....(shh, so does Daddy!)

On Easter morning, the kids go on a treasure hunt to find their baskets.  This year they were hidden in the downstairs toy closet!

 Happy kids. :)

The kids before church.  This Easter was not a nice sunny day, so all pictures were inside.  I told Carter he had to wear a "button shirt" so this was what he ended up choosing.

After church we went to Mom-Mom & Pop-Pop's house for dinner and an egg hunt!  Notice Carter has covered up his button shirt with a hoodie by now....

My parents gave Chloe this lovely little chickie holding an umbrella.  It sings "Raindrops are Fallin' on my Head".  I think she played it approximately 256, 432 times on the way home in the van.  Thanks Mom & Dad! :)

Easter was so early this year, it's hard to believe that it has come and gone already.  And the other day Carter was talking about what he would ask Santa for this Christmas.  I love Christmas, but wowzer, I am not ready for that holiday to be back already.....but it's only 8 months away! 

Chloe at 3 1/2

I thought I would do a blog post about Chloe. 

I said to my mom the other day, "I wish I could just freeze her right now."  We are just in such a fun stage!  Chloe is delightful and funny and sweet and loving and helpful and obedient and such fun to be around.  

Tierra thinks she has a "sparkle"?  She's got nothin' on this girl.  (Sorry, Bachelor reference!)

 

This girl could spend hours a day coloring.  And she has some mad coloring skills for a 3 year old!  She walks around with what I call "artist hands"....markers are her medium of choice so her hands are constantly covered in markers.  Even if I just wiped them 10 minutes ago. 

Last weekend, Chloe, Audrey & I went to the middle school performance of The Little Mermaid. I was a little concerned about how she would sit still for a whole musical but she sat entranced the whole time! 

Chloe loves to play with her dolls Marley, Cassidy & Avery.  She got a double stroller for her dolls for Christmas, so often a few of her "kids" will come with us as we walk to the bus stop to pick up Audrey & Carter. 
Chloe gets brought along to many play dates and coffee meet-ups and apparently she has been listening in as the moms talk.  Lately when I'm talking with friends, Chloe will chime in, roll her eyes and say "Marley & Cassidy always poop in their diapers!" or she'll come up to me while I'm in the kitchen and report (hands on hips) "Mom, Marley & Cassidy are in time out because they weren't listening!"  Sure enough, I'll go peek in her room and they will be sitting on the bed. :)  She also tenderly wraps them up and reads them stories.  Such a good mommy.  :)

Last week  I made my first trip to urgent care.  And it was with Chloe.  (Honestly, I am amazed that we've made it this far without a trip to urgent care or the ER.)  I was afraid she might need stitches but we got off easy with a butterfly bandage.  Chloe appears to be so prim and docile to people who don't know her but at home she is wild child....climbing chairs, jumping off beds and sofas, tackling her 50+ lb. brother, trying to wrestle Daddy....

Chloe loves school and is now a proud member of the "zipper upper club" - which means she can zip up her coat all by herself!  She has made many friends in her class but she has one friend that is her favorite buddy.  When I come to pick her up, I often see them sitting and giggling in the hall together.

A few months ago we went to Chloe's school conference.  Her teacher told me that she asked Chloe (mostly out of curiosity) to point in a book to something that started with the letter A, B, C, etc.  She said she was surprised because Chloe could do it with every letter she asked her about, and many kids her age are just learning to identify letters.  Now it has kind of become a game we play where I ask her "what is something that starts with N?"  And she will go "nn, nnn.....nose!"  She is a little sponge.  It probably doesn't hurt that her big brother has always been obsessed with letters. :)

Well, I'm sure I'm leaving something out but it's getting late and I'm losing steam!  

Chloe girl, we sure love you and are glad you're a part of our family!  Keep being the sweet and spunky girl you are!

Old School

When I read this, I laughed my head off.  I got it from someone's facebook status, who had copied it from somewhere else, who had copied it from somewhere else....in any case, I don't know who I should "credit" with this but it is super funny.  Well, super funny if you are my age..... here goes:

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... Barefoot... BOTH ways...yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way  I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of forty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

1) I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the darn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

2) There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

3) Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our butts! Nowhere was safe!

4) There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

6) We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

7) There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOSH !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

8) And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

9) We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen.. Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

10) You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your butt and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

11) There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little brats!

12) And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

13) And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

14) And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1970 or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 40 Crowd

Pinterest Greatest Hits, Dinner Edition

One of my favorite things about Pinterest is the RECIPES.  I probably have hundreds of recipe pins.  And I actually try a lot of them!  Some have been great additions to my recipe rotation.  Others have been total duds!  (I was going to include those in this post, and then I thought - let's just keep it positive!)

I have included a link to each website and all  pictures are courtesy of the blogs they came from - NOT ME!  Just want to make sure credit goes where credit is due.

So here goes.  My own personal favorites!

Chicken Cordon Bleu with Creamy Parmesan Sauce

I made this for my mom's birthday last year and even my picky brother loved it (and asked for it for his birthday dinner!)

It takes a little more time to cook so I don't make it often, but it is delicious and nice for a special occasion.

Cheddar Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta

Believe it or not this is a weight watchers  "low-fat" recipe but I honestly don't do it completely low fat....fat free cheese is not part of my cooking repertoire.  

This is easy to throw together and full of flavor!

 Baked Sweet & Sour Chicken

 This one surprised me.  I have tried all kinds of knock-off Chinese food recipes and none of them ever tastes remotely like what I expect.  This one was actually REALLY good.

Baked Parmesan Garlic Chicken

Super easy.  4 ingredients.

Tastes good.  Palatable to children's taste buds.

And did I mention EASY?

 Tomato-Basil Parmesan Soup

 This is an easy slow cooker recipe.  MMMMM....

The kids didn't love it.  But they LOOOOVE Campbell's Scooby Doo chicken noodle soup so who's asking their opinion?? lol

 One of my favorite surprises has been finding recipes for homemade bread that don't involve lots of kneading or preparation time.  I have two favorites - one is for an artisan bread , and the other is for your more traditional crusty french loaves.  

Seriously, I now make homemade bread at least 2x a week!

 

 Dutch Oven Artisan Bread

You start this the night before (or in the morning), mix it together, let it hang out, bake it in a dutch oven.

It's kind of a chewy, denser bread - great with soup!

 

 Crusty French Baguettes

You can get these on the table in under an hour, start to finish.

And it is the most delicious bread.  100x better than store bought!

So there you have a few of my favorites.  Maybe I'll do another post on my favorite pinterest DESSERTS next!