Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Holy zucchini...

Almost everyday the kids and I will head down to our garden and check out the status of our fruits and vegetables. Yesterday I was treating the garden with fertilizer because little bugs (not exactly sure what) are feasting on our strawberries and eating at the leaves of our pumpkin and zucchini plants. As I was spraying each plant I discovered that our zucchini plants were producing after all. (Apparently I wasn't looking close enough...really my eyes had to be completely shut to miss these three suckers!)

The kids were so excited! They each were running around the yard with their zucchini shouting, "Our zucchinis are growing!"...it was quite humorous.

For dinner I decided to cook up one of the zucchinis. I quickly found out that none of my kids like zucchini...which kind of stinks because I put about 20 zucchini plants in the garden, so we're going to have a lot of zucchinis to eat. (Maybe zucchinis will be the party favor for the Beer Olympics this year...hahaha!) Anyway...I completely enjoyed it! Here's my own little creation I did...

  • Heat one tablespoon of Canola oil in a skillet
  • Slice zucchini and add to skillet
  • Add one clove of garlic (I use the minced garlic in the jar)
  • Saute until tender
  • Remove and coat with Sweet Italian dressing (Marzetti's)

Look out Rachel Ray...hahaha! Like I said, I enjoyed it...but is this just the pregnancy talking??? My true test will be when I make this for Jeff...you know him, he says it like it is:)

I skipped the dressing for the kids...but maybe they would have like it better with it. So, if anyone has some recipes for zucchini, feel free to pass them along. My ultimate goal is to have my kids loving zucchini by the end of the summer.

Well, that's all for now...

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Retirement party, marathon, Father's Day, and a Mohawk...

Retirement Party
On Friday night my dad, my sister, my brother, a couple of my mom's coworkers, and myself put together a surprise retirement party for my mom at Great Scott. After 30 years at the Cincinnati Area Board of Realtors my mom will be retiring on June 30.

The immediate family arrived at Great Scott at 6:30...letting my mom think the entire time that it was just the family taking her out to dinner to celebrate her retirement. Then at 7:00 friends, family, and coworkers began arriving. Our theme for the party was "This is your life..." The guests stood behind a wall with a microphone and gave my mom a few clues as to who they were. She was completely surprised! We ended up with about 50 guests who enjoyed appetizers, drinks, and talking with (and about) my mom.

It was great to see my mom being celebrated! She is one of those very giving people that thinks of everyone else first and herself last. I know the people that she works with will greatly miss her. However, if you know my mom...this isn't the end completely. They already have her contracted to come back and work some of the bigger events that she ran while she worked at the Board. I think that will give her a perfect balance.
Marathon

Jeff is on a life mission to run a marathon in every state. So, this past Saturday he ran the Grandma's Marathon (I have no idea why it is called this) in Duluth, Minnesota. His hotel accommodations for the event was a dorm room on a college campus...needless to say he didn't get the best night of sleep one might hope for before running a marathon. However he finished in 3 hours and 57 minutes...not a personal best, but still keeping his time under 4 hours...not bad. So, he has 6 states down, 44 more to go.

Father's Day

Jeff running the marathon was what he wanted for Father's Day...crazy??...I know. In addition to the marathon the kids bought him two University of Cincinnati dry fit shirts for him to run the big race in. Once Jeff established this life goal, he decided that with each marathon he ran he wanted to do it in a UC shirt.

Unfortunately I did not get to see my dad on Father's Day. When I called they were out...but I wished him well and hoped that he was having a great day....because without him I wouldn't be here:) Dad if you read this...again, Happy Father's Day!

The rest of the Father's Day we spent at my sister in law's house swimming with all of Jeff's brothers, sisters, and their kids. It was the perfect way to spend a very hot day. The kids had a great time and it was fun to catch up with the family.

A Mohawk

(Rewind a little...) After church and lunch I needed to run to the grocery store to pick up a few things for my sister in law's house. Next to the grocery store is a Great Clips...and the boys needed a haircut. So the plan was Jeff would take the boys to get their haircut while I took the girls to the grocery with me...and we'd meet up after each of us was done.

As I'm coming out of the store Jeff is coming out of Great Clips with the boys....(great timing!) When the boys get closer this is what I see...

As Frank is beaming ear to ear (clearly loving his new cut) I look at Jeff and say, "What did you do?" OK, probably not the best reaction since Frank was very excited to show me his new hair-do...but I couldn't believe my eyes. Jeff said that when they walked into the place Frank asked him if he could get a Mohawk. In the past...a Mohawk to Frank was when the stylist put gel in his hair after his (normal) haircut to shape it into a Mohawk. Jeff took Frank's request to mean a literal Mohawk. Although I'm not thrilled with the cut (things will be back to normal in 4 weeks when this grows out) I have to admit he still looks pretty darn cute. And really...when I said Mohawk...did you haven any doubt Frank was the one who would end up with it?

Well, that's all for now...sorry for such a long post...but it was a very busy weekend!

Friday, June 11, 2010

Welcome to the neighborhood...

Recently we've had new neighbors move into our neighborhood. We've met them in passing and they seem very nice. I've been wanting to stop by their house with cookies to officially say hello and introduce myself, but I couldn't drop off cookies without a card...haha! So, I came up with this....


Here is the outside of the card...
and this is the inside.

Inside the card I plan on welcoming them to the neighborhood, giving them our phone number (I think it's always nice to have a neighbors number...especially when you're new to the neighborhood), and invite them over to our house where I plan to invite a few other neighbors over for them to meet.

Also...this card has a duel purpose because I also submitted it for another publication. The call for this card was finishing a card inside and out.

So, we shall see if this card succeeds with our neighbor and the magazine...I'll keep you posted:)

Well, that's all for now...

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Cards for neighbors...

A couple of my neighbors have been keeping me busy with few card orders.

This first card I made for my neighbor Melissa. Her husband's co-worker passed away and they wanted to send the family a card. I made this card using one of my new Hero Arts Cling stamps...but if you check out an earlier post on my blog I used the same stamp (and style of card) for teacher gifts...I just changed the message along the bottom.
This second card is an invitation I made for my neighbor Jenny. She is hosting a baby shower for her cousin. This invitation isn't your typical pepto-pink invitation you might receive for a shower when the arriving baby is a girl. Jenny explained that her cousin (and her husband) are photographers and they have more of an artistic taste. (Hopefully I'm making sense...) So, when I designed this invitation I wanted to make sure that I got across the idea that the shower was for a baby girl, but instead of pastel pinks and purples I used bolder colors with the raspberry and chocolate papers. Jenny (and her cousin) liked the invitation...so I guess I succeeded!

Well, that's all for now...

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Camping out...

This past Saturday Jeff decided to camp out in the backyard with Logan, Frank, and Claire. At first I wasn't sure this was such a great idea, but as things progressed, there was no turning back.

In the afternoon, Jeff took the boys out to get all the supplies they would need for their camp out. They bought a tent, a flashlight, firewood, sparklers (more a Jeff thing than a necessity for camping out)...and of course marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers for the smores.

After dinner Jeff and the kids began setting up the tent. After the tent was ready the kids quickly ran inside and got all of their things they needed for sleeping.


Next on the agenda was making smores. I thought this would be a bigger hit with the kids than it was. They were more about just eating the marshmallows minus roasting them and even the chocolate. However Jeff and I thoroughly enjoyed a smores or two...or three. (Hey, don't judge me...it's for the baby:)

Cute pic of Frank and Jeff...

Cute pic of Logan and Frank...the first picture in this series Logan decided to lick Frank...boys!

After smores Jeff pulled out the sparklers. Because I was worried about one of the kids burning a body part...there are no pictures of this event. (Just being the standard mother who worries:)

At about nine o'clock the crew that was sleeping outside headed into the tent. Jeff brought his laptop into the tent so the kids could watch a movie before bed. (Wow...times have changed! When we camped out in my backyard as little kids we ran an extension chord from the house so that we could watch Threes Company on our little 9'x9' black and white.)

I'm happy to say that all three kids made it the whole night in the tent. Jeff reported that Frank and Claire woke up twice a little unsure about where they were and if they wanted to stay, but they survived...and even talked about doing it again.

Well, that's all for now...