Don't Look Now

Tyler reminded me about the Build and Grow craft at Lowe's this morning, otherwise I would have completely forgot. We had the "curb guy" coming to the house this morning, so I was a little distracted by the action going on in the backyard.

I'm glad we didn't miss the craft today because the kids were building super cute school buses. The timing of the craft was perfect as Tyler will finally be starting school in two weeks.

We've got the bus, now all we need are a few more last minute school supplies. Mainly a lunch box, thermos and some slippers. Apparently the children wear slippers indoors in all Montessori schools.

While I took Tyler over to Lowe's, Rick stayed at home so the curbing guy could finish laying the cement. Finally some progress! We just need to throw down some grass, rocks and call it finished!

Almost Ready To Leave The Nest

Today I finally got a look at the new set of baby birds in the backyard. Their nest is on top of one of the roof support beams at the back corner of the house. I have the perfect view from the kitchen window and I've been watching the Mom and Dad flying in and out for weeks now.

This is the second set of babies to come from the nest this summer. It looks like there are only two this time.

Mom is back with a mouth full of bugs.

If the last set of babies were any indication, then these two probably have less than a week before they'll leave the nest. That doesn't leave much time for my viewing pleasure, does it? It's too bad. Once the birds are finally big enough to stick their heads over the edge of the nest, they are pretty much big enough to leave.

That Time Of Year

The U-Pick blueberry patch near our house finally opened this week to the public. I've been waiting all year for this. I love everything about it...the picking, the super cheap prices, the buckets of super yummy blueberries. Mmmmm.

Tyler's favorite part was having his own bucket. Usually we share a 5 gallon bucket, but this year they have small colorful ones for the kids to use.

I left all the heavy labor for the boys today.

Done! Time to go weigh in.

Tyler picked just over 1 lb of blueberries and his total came to $1.65. He had $2 and some change in his pocket, so he counted out his money and gave the exact change. Rick didn't do bad either, he picked around 2 1/2 lbs of blueberries.

With two bags full of fresh picked blueberries, it was time for me to get to work. Tyler knew what he wanted before we even left the orchard....blueberry muffins. Sounded good to me!

Pure Exhaustion

I'm so tired right now. We've been running around town for the last few days taking care of various appointments and errands. Yesterday we took a tour of a Montessori preschool that we really liked. We're mainly interested in their early Kindergarten program that allows advanced children to do the work at an earlier age and then skip right to 1st grade upon entering the public school system. We're working on filling out the paperwork and should be ready to turn it in and get Tyler all signed up on Monday. It'll be a relief to get that out of the way. Summer is coming to an end faster than I would like.

I also had another appointment with the chiropractor yesterday. I only have a few more visits left before it'll be time to take new x-rays and evaluate my progress. I've been working with the doctor for 3 weeks now and I can definitely see a huge improvement. The numbness in my arm is almost completely gone...I've even had a few numb free nights. However, the secondary problem, the pain in my shoulder blade still remains. I've been forbidden to lift weights for the time being, as it's just aggravating the situation. That means that I quit doing STS, which kills me. I got all the way through the second mesocycle, but could not go on to finish the third. I'm already planning to try the program over again in the Fall, assuming I'm better by then. I'd better be better by then.

Last night we dropped Tyler off at the kid's gym for their Friday Fun Night, which meant that Rick and I were free to go see a movie. We ended up seeing the Time Traveler's Wife. I enjoyed it, although it's not my favorite Rachel McAdams movie. Rick was just stuck trying to make sense of the whole time travel issue. I didn't care about that, I just wondered why the guy had to travel naked. It reminded me of Quantum Leap and I don't remember Scott Bakula arriving anywhere naked. Hmmm.

For dinner tonight I made Green Chile Chicken Casserole, a recipe from Cooking Light. It tastes kind of like green enchiladas without all the work of individual rolling.

I cut the recipe in half to fit an 8x8 baking dish, since that's a more reasonable size for our family. I got some bone-in split chicken breasts on sale last week and this was the perfect recipe to use them up. I poached and shredded the meat ahead of time, so the meal came together in a snap.

The weather has been really nice lately, in the 80's. I hope it stays like that for at least one more day, because I have a hot date with the U-pick blueberry patch tomorrow (unless Rick foils my plan somehow).

Happy Birthday To Me!

It's official...I'm old now, or at least that's what I hear. I thought I'd take it easy today, so as not to tire myself out. Who knows how much excitement an old lady can handle in one day. So I spent the morning doing laundry.

That's boring, so I'll just skip straight to the good part....the presents.

Tyler got me a happy face balloon covered with smooches and a card that unfolded to say, "I love you....Happy Birthday".

From Susan, it was the final gift of the 30 day countdown, a pair of diamond earrings. I'm wearing them right now. Since I've had a few requests, I go ahead and review all 30 gifts. The first 7 from week 1 are here. They included a Starbucks gift card, a handmade bar of soap, scrapbooking rhinestones, a notepad, buttons, a keychain, and some Lindt truffles.

Here are gifts from week 2. A small tin of mints, scrapbooking ribbon (measuring tape), Burt's Bee's lip balm, Toffee Espresso candy, crotchet flowers for scrapbooking, a Starbucks gift card, and tea light candles.

Week 3. A bottle of nail polish, a pouring spout for coffee syrup, hand lotion, a cookie cutter, sipping cocoa, an acrylic stamp, and a Starbucks gift card.

Week 4. A magazine subscription, a Joann's gift card, a pedometer, a bottle of Pampered Chef BBQ rub, toffee almonds, Lemon Mango Tea, a wind chime, and a Gooseberry Patch Pasta cookbook.

From Anni I got some cool kitchen gadgets...a timer and a digital spoon scale.

For dinner, I'm making Beefy Spanish Rice. Rick has to work, so it is just Tyler and I. Don't feel bad that I'm not going out to eat....I'm a good cook and this is one of my favorite meals. Yum. Then for dessert we'll have some of that ice cream cake from Dairy Queen.

Building and Baking

This morning we took Tyler to Lowe's for the Build and Grow project. They were making rubber band operated power boats.

We must have come at the perfect time because it wasn't very busy. It was nice being able to spread out and have a little elbow room. The hammering...now that's another story. Listening to 15 kids hammer at the same time really does a number on your ears! What?

The king of silly smiles is at it again.

Back at the house, I had to hit the cookbooks and try and figure out what the heck I'm going to do for a birthday cake this year. I'm doing my grocery shopping tomorrow, so any extra ingredients need to find their way on the list today. After browsing through 8 or so books, I kind of gave up. I'm not really that motivated. Cake isn't my dessert of choice, especially when I need to be swimsuit ready in a few weeks. How about peach pie...does that say birthday? What if I decorate it with 30 candles? Oh, I don't know.

At least some of my decisions are not so hard. Like what to do with the bananas decomposing on the kitchen counter. Marbled-Chocolate Banana Bread anyone?

Love Those Sales

Even though we aren't shopping for school supplies, I'm in love with the back to school sales this year. All the crayola products were on sale at Toys R Us, so we picked up a few of the color wonder coloring books with the markers included. Tyler loves them!

He tore into the package as soon as we got home and was unable to do anything else for the whole day. We could barely pull him away long enough to eat or get a bath....crazy!

Then at Walmart, I picked up a few new boxes of crayons for .25 cents a piece.

I don't know what it is about a fresh box of crayons, but Tyler has turned into a coloring fool. All the better to keep him occupied while I cook dinner, I guess.

For dinner I made some grilled chicken with a fresh corn and tomato salsa. I used a packet of McCormick Baja Citrus marinade to season the chicken and the salsa recipe is from Rachael Ray. It uses fresh corn off the cob, tomatoes, red onion, basil, a touch of olive oil and some salt and pepper.

Weekend Events

On Saturday we took Tyler to do the monthly craft/building project at Ace Hardware and the Home Depot. First stop...Ace Hardware.

This month, the kids were making sea shell jars. They took an empty canning jar and filled it with sand and shells. Then cut a piece of sand paper to fit on top of the lid and glued more shells on top of that.

At the Home Depot, the kids were making message centers. How ironic is that? Just the other day, Tyler doodled all over the message center hanging in our office at home. We had to have the conversation, for the second time, about how dry erase markers are for the white board only and that they don't come off of the cork board or the wood.

Aaahh, nothing like a clean unmarked message center!

After all the hammering and gluing, we hit the department stores around town looking for some things for our upcoming vacation. We got some new swim trunks for Tyler at TJ Maxx, a handful of new shorts for Rick at Fred Meyer, and a pair of Sketcher sneakers for me at Ross.

For dinner I made a new recipe with the goal of using up the leftover mozzarella cheese and premade pie crust that were hanging out in the fridge. It's called Tomato Basil Torte. The tomatoes are in there, I promise, they're just hiding underneath the cheesy topping.

It was good...different from the usual dinners that I cook. I was glad to use some of the fresh tomatoes and basil from the garden. I don't know how the bacon got in there...I think Rick had something to do with that. Next time, I'll have to shape the torte differently, so that I can prebake the crust a little bit. The bottom ended up getting kind of soggy from the moisture of the tomatoes and fresh mozzarella cheese.