One Handsome Boy

This weekend I finally replaced our old Vidal Sassoon hair trimmer with a nice Wahl trimmer. The difference is huge, the new trimmer is less noisy and it cuts much cleaner. That makes Tyler happy, he was really starting to complain a lot about how the old trimmer was hurting his hair. I was also excited that the new trimmer came with a blending tool, because that is one of the hardest parts for me, blending the long top layer of hair with the shorter hair on the back and sides of the head.

Here is Tyler after his haircut last night. Now I certainly won't be opening a salon anytime...ever, but at least I can continue saving a little money by cutting Tyler's hair at home, that is until he gets big enough to have a say in the matter.

With such a handsome boy on my hands, there was only one thing left to do. Get out and enjoy National Pancake Day with some free pancakes at IHOP.

Yum, a free short stack of pancakes for every customer. I was expecting a line out the door, like they had at Denny's for the free Grand Slam last month. We didn't go to that one, but I saw pictures in the newspaper the next day. Anyway, the restaurant wasn't crowded at all, and we were seated right away.

With such a huge plate of pancakes, Tyler and I were able to sample all of the flavored syrups. I liked the boysenberry and butterpecan, while Tyler thought strawberry was the best. Mmmm, Mmmm, Mmmm!

Although donations were completely optional, IHOP had an ulterior motive behind giving away free pancakes, which was to raise money for the Miracle Children's Network. With such a happy, full belly, I was more than willing to oblige and left a small donation on our way out the door.

Red Beans and Rice

For dinner tonight I made a recipe for Red Beans and Rice that I saw while watching the Food Network. I thought it was crazy delicious. I mean it actually boggled my mind how good it was. Apparently, it's not the real deal from New Orleans, using canned beans and all, but it was certainly better than any Red Beans and Rice I've ever cooked before.

Yummy, doesn't it look so good? Even Rick the big onion-phobe ate it without a single complaint. Tyler said it was too spicy, but he still ate every bite. The recipe is here.

Then for dessert I made a cookie recipe right off the back of a bag of Hershey's Cinnamon Chips, called Oatmeal Cinnamon Chips Cookies. I was paranoid about the cookies spreading, so I ended up making the bar cookie variation. They turned out very tasty indeed.

On my way to the grocery store today, I stopped at The Craft Warehouse for a single sheet of cardstock. Well that's all I needed anyway, but somehow I stumbled across the clearance section and ended up with a couple of seriously good deals. All of the VersaMagic ink pads were marked down to $2, which is a great price for a full sized ink pad, so I got a handful of those. Then I found a K&Co tin of words, phrases and tags that was marked from $12 down to $3. I also found a few acrylic stamps that were marked down to $1 and some Cropper Hopper storage folders for $2. But all of my great finds were almost for naught because the cashier accidentally rung up a $10 item that I wasn't even buying. They have a list of barcodes by the register and instead of scanning the one for the cardstock, she scanned the one for some braided bamboo. Good thing I caught that one!

Saturday Roundup

Rick got home from Los Angeles late...late on Thursday night, well technically Friday morning. It was all thanks to another missed flight, but to be honest, I kinda saw this one coming. He had been working overnight the night before and then came back to the hotel to try and sneak in a few hours of sleep before his flight. Well you can see where I'm going with this....he slept in a little too late.

On the phone he said he was coming bearing gifts, so I tore into his luggage before he even had a chance to wake up. He bought a really cool top set at a toy store in the Santa Monica promenade as well as a few summer clothes for him and Tyler. He also cashed in my coupon for a free perfume at Sephora. I ended up choosing LaVanila, because out of my favorites, it was the best value. I really wanted Euphoria too though, maybe next time.

Here Tyler is playing with his new tops. The set comes with a handheld device that you can use to wind up and release the tops, it kind of makes getting a good "spin" foolproof.

Yesterday was our bowling day and we cranked out our usual two games. Tyler had I had the same scores for both games...him a 73 and mine was 110. Rick improved from a 96 on his first game to a 116 on his second game. Our scores are decent enough, but Rick and I are trying to work on our consistency. I'm trying to figure out how to aim better, because half the time I have no idea where my ball is going to end up once it leaves my hand.

We also stopped by the fitness store yesterday and took a look at some PowerBlock dumbbells. They have a set of adjustable dumbbells that goes from 5 lbs to 55 lbs in 2.5 lb increments....just what I'm looking for. The local store sells the PowerBlock for the same price you would find online, but with the additon of sales tax instead of shipping, it comes out to a lower total cost. I tried to wheel and deal directly with the PowerBlock company, I asked if they would match Bowflex's current offer, which is a free stand with any dumbbell purchase. Well, they said no to that, and now they are "out of stock" of the dumbbells I was looking at. Grrrr, I'm just trying to get a good deal!

I'm Not Seeing This....

....again! I know she knows better, I know she does! Of course that is Caramel who likes to sit on top of Max's cage, the more pesky of our two cats. Max doesn't seem to mind all that much though, he never even says anything about it. Maybe they are friends?!?

All Quiet

We dropped Rick off at the airport yesterday, so it's going to be a little bit more quiet around here this week. I say this as Tyler is running around the office bouncing a balloon in the air and shouting nonsense the whole time, maybe not so quiet after all! Anyway, Rick is helping out with the switch to the digital signal at the Los Angeles facility, where they are keeping with the original date of Februrary 17th. So he'll be back in a quick few days if everything goes as planned.

It's been raining for the last few days, which for once, I actually don't mind. It's a light rain, so it hasn't really stopped me from going out and getting my errands done. Today Tyler and I hit the stores to check out the President's Day Sales...the craft stores that is, The Craft Warehouse and Joann's.

I picked up these border punches at Joann's. They were 40% off and I had an additional 10% off coupon, so they were a good deal. I was deciding between these and some basic shape Sizzix dies, like hearts and stars, that I could use to cut felt embellishments for my scrapbooking pages.

Speaking of scrapbooking, this is my latest layout. I used a Page Map by Becky Fleck for the layout design. The title font is from the Cuttin' Up Cricit Cartridge and the bookplate is from the Fabulous Finds cartridge.

Valentine's Day

We went to Lowe's this morning for the Build and Grow Clinic, but we got there way too late and they had already run out of kits. It's too bad too, because it was a jewelry box and I was actually looking forward to that one. Oh well, next time Tyler and I will leave "Mr. Sleepy Head" at home so that we won't be late.

Surprisingly, Tyler didn't mind too much about missing the craft. But then again, he did have much bigger plans on his mind. We had tickets to see the PlayHouse Disney Live Show in Kennewick. It's the perfect show for him too, because he loves watching PlayHouse Disney cartoons. The funny thing is that is was originally a one day only, one show event. The first time we tried to get tickets to the show, they were already sold out. There must have been a lot of interest though, because they finally added a second show and that's the one we were able to get tickets for....but not just any tickets, front row seats!

Here we are in Kennewick, standing in front of the river for our annual Valentine picture.

We have taken Tyler to see the Live Diego show, Sesame Street Live and now PlayHouse Disney, and this was by far my favorite of the three. It incorporated all the main characters from the Little Einsteins, My Friends Tigger and Pooh, Handy Manny, and of course, Mickey Mouse ClubHouse.

Intermission Time! Tyler was checking out the little baby girl that was sitting next to us, who happened to be a major Little Einsteins fan.

The show ended around 6:00 p.m, so we stopped to eat before heading back home to Yakima. Our new groovy GPS system showed us all the restaurants nearby and we decided to eat at Applebee's. When we put our name on the list, we were told that it would be an hour wait, but we were actually seated in about 10 minutes. I had the Quesadilla burger and fries and Rick had the Margherita Chicken. Not Bad. Tyler had the normal junk from the kid's menu...Blegh.

Bowling Day

We have made Fridays our regular bowling day and have gone consistently for the last 4 or 5 weeks. None of us are terrific players, but we still have a great time and look forward to the next "match". I don't know that our scores have improved that much over the weeks (even with the use of bumpers), but Rick and I sure have improved out technique. That is to say, if we didn't have to play with bumpers, Rick and I would be throwing a few less, what would otherwise be gutter balls. Here are our scores from our two games today....

Tyler 89, Me 99, Rick 90....that's right, I kicked butt (well, kind of).

Rick won the second game with a score of 104, but he totally cheated a couple of times, bouncing his ball off the bumpers. But hey, I guess we were all guilty of that one! I came in second with a score of 93 and Tyler came in third with 88 points.

I'm all ready to go back next week...apparently, Rick informed me today that I was holding the ball the wrong way. I was using my thumb, index, and middle fingers instead of my thumb, middle, and ring fingers. I'm such a geek! We'll see if correcting my fingers makes any change in my score.