K'NEX All The Way

Tyler loves to build...we all know that. That's why it's no surprise that he's been consumed with building his new K'NEX sets for two days straight. He got 4 new kits for his birthday and he's already blazed his way through half of them.

This one's my favorite. It's a microbot named Scooter. Isn't he cute....and you haven't even seen him walk!

And the Ferris wheel. Actually, maybe this one's my favorite. Oh heck....they're all cute. This one is motorized too, so it really moves forward and backward.

It's even full of happily riding K'NEX men.

This guy hopped over from Tyler's new race car kit.

One of the semi-truck drivers.

Another semi-truck driver.

Wait a minute.....isn't that a Lego man!? K'Nex only buddy....K'Nex only.

One Year Older

We've been rounding up for awhile, but it's official now....Tyler is 5 years old. Wow! I can't even believe it sometimes, how big he's getting.

This morning I dropped him off to school, and then got to work putting everything together for his birthday. I really wanted him to open a present or two before school, but if he had, I never would have been able to get him out the door. So once he was gone....

....I pulled out the balloons.

And the presents.

And made the cake.

And then when he came home from school, I let him have at it.

Here is a look at some of his gifts.

A lego shirt, a monopoly matchbox car, and some brain-teasing puzzles by ThinkFun (the same brand as his castle logix puzzle game).

Lots of K'nex.

A science kit, a space encyclopedia, some jigsaw puzzles and a cribbage game.

For dinner, we went to El Mirador, Tyler's favorite Mexican restaurant. Then back at the house, it was time to make a wish and blow out some candles.

Mmmmm, I wish for a K'nex speed coaster and drop 'n swing kit.

Kid's Castle

Tyler's wish is my command. Well not really. We did go to the kid's castle like he wanted....just not on his actual birthday. It's better to go on the weekends anyway. Trust me.

The kid's castle is located within a gymnastics facility, so if you go on the weekend, they give you access to all the trampolines and other fun stuff.

They have two smaller trampolines along the side of the gymnastic floor and another long one for tumbling.

They also inflate a huge jumper on the weekends.

And let you swing into the foam pit.

Nice landing!

The castle itself is basically just a giant play gym like you'd find at McDonald's...only much bigger.

Wheeeee!

Oh yeah, and they have a climbing wall.

Would've, Should've, But We Didn't

This weekend had so much potential, it was just bursting at the seams. If it wasn't the weekend before Tyler's birthday and if I had a genie granting my wishes, I would be in San Diego for Cathe Friedrich's road trip. Yes, I'm a workout nerd and I ♥ Cathe Friedrich.

But since a road trip was kind of out of the question, I could have stayed right here and ran the Yakima marathon today instead. Okay, so I haven't ran outside since college gym class, but I do have 378 miles logged on the treadmill. I know it's not the same, but a girl can dream, can't she? First I'd better find myself a 5K or half marathon or something semi-reasonable. I figure that if the people on The Biggest Loser can do it, then maybe I can too? Maybe not.

Those are just dreams anyway. Today we were supposed to be working in the backyard. You know, transplanting the shrubs before it starts raining tomorrow. But guess what? We didn't do that either.

We did what we normally do every other weekend....we went to Lowe's to build the craft.

Today the kids were making a super cool kaleidoscope.

Oooooh, look at the pretty colors.

After that, we stopped at the Home Depot and picked up a few more plants for the backyard.

We'll be putting them in the ground soon...just not today.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the Family Expo at the Convention Center. They had over 50 different booths with information, give-aways, or activities for the kids. There was also a batting cage, jumpers, and a putting green. Overall it was fun, but super crowded, which made it hard to visit all the booths. Tyler really wanted a balloon sculpture from the clowns, but the lines were always so long that he ended up missing out. He did, however, get a turn at the batting cage and you know what? He's got a good swing! Geez, maybe we should look into getting him into a t-ball program.

A Whole Bunch of Cooking Light

A few weeks ago I found a couple of Cooking Light Annuals at TJ Maxx for an absolute steal....they were cheap! I also have a subscription to the magazine, so I've been making quite a few of their recipes lately.

From the April issue I made Toasted Coconut Chocolate Chunk Cookies.

These were a hit all the way around. Rick especially appreciated the dark chocolate and I loved that the recipe makes a small batch. I can't have these cookies hanging around for long....I've got a birthday cake to make.

For the breakfast scene, I made a batch of Oat-Topped Fig Muffins. Yum! I love these muffins. I'll be making these again for sure!

For dinner I made Lamb Kofta with Saffron Rice.

I actually found some lamb this time, so I was able to stay true to the recipe. The meat is seasoned heavily with turmeric, cumin, and coriander and it tastes fabulous. I have to admit though, that the lamb tasted a lot like ground beef, so I'm not sure I'd spend the extra money on the lamb next time.

Random Thoughts

Last week I finished up a few more scrapbooking pages, so I'm pretty much caught up (minus the fact that I completely skipped over our trip to Hawaii last year). But I'm sure nobody will notice that tiny omission.

For this I used some new Love Struck paper from Making Memories.

Here I used nothing but a bunch of my older paper. Phew, it feels good to use some of that up!

On the subject of pictures, I went to Walgreens today to pick up the picture of Tyler and his lego alien that we're submitting to the contest in his Lego magazine.

Grrrr... I'm so fed up with this particular Walgreens. Their photos always come out grainy. It's hard to tell without seeing the photo in person, but it's a poor quality print. It doesn't happen with the other Walgreens, just the one closest to our house. Figures! Guess I'll be driving across town to get a reprint somewhere else.

In other events, I found a "notice" today in Tyler's cubby at school among his papers to bring home.

Period. End of Story. I think we're going to the kid's castle on Tyler's birthday. Never mind that he has school that day and Rick has to work until dinner time and that we already had plans to go out to eat. The child has spoken and so shall it be.

Almost Party Time

Whoa!

It looks like Tyler's birthday is getting close now...all his presents are coming in all at once! Thank you UPS man for dumping them in a big heap in the doorway. Not really. Now I've got to put on my gift wrapping hat and get to work, because those brown boxes aren't so pretty to look at, or very festive for that matter.

On the subject of birthdays, here comes a "worst mom on the year" alert.

Today Tyler received his first birthday party invitation from one of his friends at school. When I showed it to him, he said, "I wanna have a birthday party at the kid's castle too!". Oops, it's a little late to start thinking about a birthday party for him now. We have no time to get invitations out and his birthday falls during Spring Break anyway. In the past, we didn't know enough kids his age to have a party, but this year the thought never even crossed my mind. So there you go....worst mom of the year, right here.

Also this week, Rick and I have been working on a stack of papers we have to complete in order to enroll Tyler in the public school system next year.

I seriously cannot believe it is that time already!

Recipe Review

Over the weekend, I made yet another recipe out of the March issue of Everyday with Rachael Ray. It's called Chicken with Tarragon Cream and Green Bean Rice Pilaf.

I really liked the rice pilaf...it's nice not having to use a boxed mix. I thought the chicken was so-so, but my sauce didn't turn out that great, so that's probably why. It came out runny. I think I didn't add enough flour to thicken the sauce or maybe I should have held back on the chicken broth. I also used greek yogurt instead of sour cream (which I used up making Irish Soda Muffins last week) and it didn't blend very well into the sauce. Oh well.

Last night I made Chicken Enchilada Casserole from a Cooking Light Annual.

I liked this one, although it was slightly spicy from the salsa verde. I used some leftover frozen shredded chicken, so it was a breeze to put together.

Tonight we had Spinach Beef Macaroni Bake.

I found this recipe in the potluck section of a Taste of Home Annual, so I only made 1/4 of the recipe and it was still plenty. It's something I tend to make when I need to use up the spinach I have sitting in the fridge, which was the case tonight. With all the hidden veggies, I can feel good about serving this one.

Today's Finds

I spent most of the afternoon today running around town taking care of a few errands. While I was at Target, I browsed the clearance racks and found a few shirts for me and Tyler.

I found a few short sleeved sweaters for myself and some striped t-shirts for Tyler. I love finding deals in the clearance section.

Then I stopped at the new Dollar Store that just opened near our house and found some red and blue storage bins.

I've been looking for something to organize all the little knick-knacks on Tyler's shelves and these bins seemed to do the trick. A little less clutter is always a good thing.

Green Thumbs At Work

Our irrigation water was turned on the other day and our average highs have been near 60 degrees, so it was time to get back to work on our backyard. We stopped at the nursery this morning and picked up several shrubs.

We got some ornamental grass and a few yews.

Another yew shrub, but taller and skinnier.

A flowering currant.

We also bought several bags of bulbs from Costco to start a small flower garden. So that's what we did today....planted a bunch of bulbs. Tomorrow we'll get to work transplanting the shrubs. Sounds like fun, huh?

All Mine

It's finally Girl Scout cookie season here in Yakima. I'm so excited! I've been waiting to replenish my supply. And thanks to the cookie locator on the Girl Scout website, I was able to find the exact location of the nearest booth sale. So on the way home from picking Tyler up from school, we stopped at Rosauers and picked up a few boxes.

I got a box of Thin Mints, Tagalongs, Dulce de Leche, and the new Thank U Berry Much. At $4 a box, that was enough for me, but Rick slipped Tyler a few dollars and we also ended up with a box of the Lemon Cremes. Really, Tyler......lemon!? How about some good old fashioned Do-si-dos.

Anyway, now that I have a fresh stash of cookies, I just need to hide them.

I like to keep a box in the fridge behind the coconut syrup, next to my soy milk. Yeah, no one ever looks there. In fact, that box of cookies is from last year. There's only 3 cookies in it though. That's why I needed a fresh supply.

Did You Know?

A few months ago we bought Tyler a Children's Encyclopedia from Costco. They had a whole bunch of topics to choose from, but we ended up getting the one about the planet earth.

It's a great book with beautiful color photos. We've already read it cover to cover...Tyler can't seem to get enough of it. He reads it all the time. In the morning, after school, before bedtime. You name it.

For the last several days, he's been reading it out loud to me while I'm cooking dinner. Sometimes he'll just read it to himself, but spout out bits of information. "Mommy, did you know there are different types of soil? That's why you need the right kind in your garden to make the plants grow". "Mommy, did you know that coal is made out of squished dead plants?".

Tonight he was reading all about cone-shaped and shield volcanoes. I tried to test him, so I asked him what a dormant volcano is, but he immediately knew that a dormant volcano is a sleeping volcano. Hmmm, he's not so easy to stump. I'll have to come up with a harder question next time.