Rejoicing In The Warm Weather

I'm so excited.....I actually left the house this morning without a jacket or a sweater and I wasn't even cold! You know what that means folks....Spring has finally arrived here in good ol' Washington State. It's 66 degrees outside right now and hopefully it will just keep getting warmer. I love it!

Yesterday I took Tyler to Ace Hardware to do the monthly craft, they were making Easter Bunny Jars.

Cute huh? They took a canning jar, filled it with cotton balls and then decorated the outside to look like a bunny face.

Speaking of Easter, I'm so glad that it's in April again this year. I don't know why it happened last year, but it kind of stunk that Easter was in March. It was super cold outside and having an egg hunt on our crispy yellow lawn was a joke! At least it's a little warmer this year and the grass is a little greener.

Tyler has been getting a lot of use out of the Disney digital camera that we got him for his birthday. Or maybe I should say that he has been using up the battery taking tons of pictures of crazy nonsense like random toys and the bananas sitting in the kitchen. Oh well, at least he's having fun with it.

The camera allows you to insert different Disney characters into the picture...so this is me and Pluto.

.... don't forget Rick and Pluto.

The worst part about the camera is the flash...it's blindingly bright! Ugh, two pictures and I'm done! It completely reminded me of those old flash cubes you had to use in the 80's. I tried to take Rick down memory lane, but he claims to have no knowledge of the things.

Me: Remember flash cubes? Remember when you had to pick up a package of flash cubes in the grocery store along with your roll of film? And how there was only a few cubes in a box, not equal to the number of pictures on a roll of film, and you had to be stingy about using the flash?

Rick: Huh?

Me: What! You don't remember!

Rick: Nope, never heard of them.

Me: Remember those old top loading VCRs with the wood grain finish?

Rick: Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!

Me: What about those old microwaves with the dial that went "Ding" when the food was done?

Rick: (laughs) Yeah, I remember those....that ding was loud!

Me: Flash cubes ?!?

Rick: Nope!

It was too funny, he must not have taken many pictures when he was a kid!

New Recipes

For dinner last night I finally made a recipe that I've had flagged in one of my cookbooks for years. The reason it took me so long to get around to is that I always forgot about it by the time Spring came around and asparagus was available in the stores. It's called Asparagus Ham Dinner and it is from a Light & Tasty Annual Cookbook.

My favorite part about it was all the fresh vegetables....asparagus, sweet yellow pepper, and roma tomatoes. However, I wasn't completely sold on the seasonings, which was basically just dried basil and oregano. Maybe some garlic would have helped out in the flavor department, although I thought the leftovers tasted better the next day anyway.

This week I was planning on making a Rachael Ray lasagna, but I couldn't find the right ingredients at the store....simple as they were (fresh basil). So I switched at the last minute and decided on a Cooking Light Lasagna called Tomato Basil Lasagna with Prosciutto. I already had all the ingredients on hand except for the Prosciutto, so I guess it was just a Tomato Basil Lasagna.

I thought it tasted okay for a light lasagna, but to be honest, I don't think it tasted quite as good as it smelled in the oven. Maybe the prosciutto would have improved the flavor a bit. The cheese filling was super delicious though...a mixture of cottage cheese, cream cheese, garlic and dried basil pureed in the food processor. Yum!

Birthday Boy

Today was Tyler's 4th birthday and he really had a great time. Last night Rick and I decorated the living room with balloons, so Tyler was pleasantly surprised when he got out of bed this morning. Equally as exciting as the balloons, which he loves, was the pile of presents he found awaiting him. He couldn't wait to dig in.

Here are a few of the goodies from Aunt Anni and Grandma...gardening gloves and clogs, rain boots and a new board game.

A few more things....

This was my gift to him....the 2009 Weekly Reader collection of books from QVC. They're great because they each come with a CD so he can listen to them anytime he wants.

After unwrapping all the presents and spending a few hours playing with all the new loot, we headed over to the Family Fun Center for a game of miniature golf and some arcade games. I was hoping it was going to be a little warmer today...it was cold and windy out there.

Next, we went to eat Dinner at Abby's Pizza. By that time Tyler was fading fast...I guess that's what happens when he wakes up crazy early, like he did today. He only ate 1 tiny slice of pizza! So we got out of there fairly quickly and went back to the house for cake and ice cream. I mean, we couldn't let him fall asleep without any cake!

Happy Birthday to Tyler......Happy Birthday to you!

Dessert Before Dinner

This past week was beyond boring, nothing much to comment on there. Granted, I was sick for the first half of the week, but even when I got better, Tyler and I still stayed home and did nothing. Can I blame it on the gloomy Spring we have here in Yakima? I just cannot get motivated to get out of the house. It's cold, windy and kind of ugly outside. All the grass is yellow and all of the trees and shrubs remain bare...not a bloom in sight. Ughh, what would I give for a nice California Spring!

Well, leave it up to Rick to finally drag me out of the house. We went to the bowling alley, as we normally try to do on Friday afternoons. And I'm glad to admit that our scores are gradually improving as our technique gets a little better. Tyler's score, on the other hand, got progressively worse as the game wore on today. He was too tired for words...he won't admit it, but he could still benefit from naps, even if he is a "big boy" now.

One trick I've discovered to zapping a tired child back to life is to give them a mega dose of sugar. So how lucky is it that Baskin Robbins is right across the street from the bowling alley? I'm kidding...it's not that great. Tyler begs to go every Friday and I just don't like to make a habit of going out for Ice cream. Rick's arm, though, is very easy to twist.

Rick and Tyler both got some disgusting chocolate flavors, but I chose a scoop of Icing on the Cake. It has bits of cake and sprinkles mixed in with the ice cream. I thought it tasted good at first, but the sweetness of it all really started to add up fast. It smelled really good at least.

For dinner tonight I made a recipe from an old Taste of Home magazine I had lying around. It's called Greek Style Supper and was super delicious. The recipe uses 1/4 tsp cinnamon, which is easily detected in both smell and taste, but I thought it worked nicely. I'll be adding this one into my rotation.

Busy Like A Bee

Victory at last! I finally got my hands on some girl scout cookies....which I promptly hid on the top shelf of the pantry. I would have put them in the freezer, but our freezer is already jam-packed, thanks to a bunch of random nonsense from Costco. I heard that the manufacturer of the cookies decreased the size of the packages this year in order to deal with the rising cost of production. So basically, you're getting less cookies for the same price you paid last year. Hopefully I'm not too disappointed when I open up the boxes!


Mmmm, don't they look good! I'm completely over the Caramel Delites, my favorite cookie since I was a kid. Now I'm all about the Do-Si-Do's...see how I bought two boxes?

I tried a new muffin recipe from the Quick Cooking 2008 annual, called Carrot Bran Muffins. I haven't tried them yet, because bran muffins usually taste better the day after baking, at least that's what I think. They look good at least, for the most part anyway. I opened up the oven a little too early and about half of the muffins started to cave in. Arggh, I hate it when I do that!

Rick and Tyler were out in the garage this afternoon putting together the industrial shelving units we picked up from Costco. Well, dragged home is more like it...those things weigh 180 lbs each! (We have 3 sets hooked end to end) Doesn't it look nice though? I should have taken a "before" picture, so you could really see the difference. The shelves we were using before were small, plastic and just a terrible use of space. Now I'll have to get busy and help sort all of our "junk" into the blue bins...sounds like fun.

The Hunt Continues

We had an appointment today to take a tour of a preschool in the area to see if it was something we would be interested in for Tyler. Rick had made the call last week to get the basic information like pricing, hours...things like that. So we get there today and the woman at the front desk tells us that they are not giving tours right now or collecting applications because they are considering ending the program. What!? This is news! You'd think someone over there could have called and informed us, since we had an appointment for a tour and all....what a waste of time! Rick had taken the afternoon off of work and everything.

It's too bad that things might not work out with that preschool, but secretly I was glad to get out of there fast. I've been sick this past week with a minor cold and when I woke up this morning, I had no voice....I mean NO voice! I was worried how I was going to talk and ask questions, turns out I didn't even need to!

So now we keep looking I guess, for another preschool. There was an article in the newspaper earlier this week about how 5 local coop preschools (coop meaning that parents volunteer) might be shutting down due to lack of funding. Things aren't looking that great. Tyler might just have to wait until Kindergarten, which is bad because he is super excited about going to school.

After we finished with the preschool this afternoon, we headed across town to Safeway where there was supposedly going to be Girl Scouts selling cookies. Well, you know me and my luck with Girl Scouts in this town, they weren't there. Big surprise! The joke's on me, right? But don't worry, I'll find those cookies. Tomorrow the girls are supposed to be out in front of Wray's, Fred Meyer and Albertson's. If I still come back empty handed, then maybe I'll give up. It really shouldn't be this hard to get a simple box of Do-Si-Do's.

Don't Pinch Me

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Tyler and I wore our best green for the occasion and some fancy beads too. Rick had to work during the day today, so I had to pull out the tripod in order to document our fabulous attire. Our house is like a cave inside, so it was practically impossible to get a good picture indoors. That's why we ended up outside on our front porch.


The tripod and timer were not my friends today....first I had it set up too low, then too high, then I had the camera zoomed in too far, then it was out of focus...you get the idea. Finally we ended up with a decent picture, but I'm not telling you how long that took!

For dinner, we had the usual suspects...oven baked corned beef and cabbage. I promise you, corned beef tastes 100 times better when you prepare it in the oven. My only problem was buying too small of a brisket. Tyler is quite the meat eater, so the 3-1/4 lb brisket I bought didn't go that far, especially after the shrinkage in the oven.

Another favorite of ours is Oven Roasted Red Potatoes. Again, way better than boiled potatoes.

Don't forget about the Irish Soda Muffins. Mmmmm, I love those. For dessert, I completely flaked out and bought a package of shortbread cookies from the grocery store. I was planning on making Green Tea Cupcakes like I did last year, but the oven was just too busy with all of the other food. I also came across a recipe for Irish Cream Brownies from Cooking Light that I'll have to try. I see some yummy desserts in our near future!