Summer Supper

I feel like I have been talking about food a lot lately.  Which is probably why I need to lose about three pounds before I put on a bathing suit in front of anyone.  But that is a depressing thought, so let's move on...

I made the best dinner the other night.  I had been wanting to try this recipe since seeing it on Designer Bags and Dirty Diapers, and it did not disappoint when I finally got around to it...

Summer Corn Cakes with Tomato Avocado Salsa

(probably I should copy the recipe here, but it's too late, and I'm too tired...just click on the link...)

We, of course, added some fresh blueberries on the side, because no meal is complete at our house these days without fresh blueberries.  AND, I tried my first blueberry cobbler, using my peach cobbler recipe and just substituting blueberries.  It was really good.  I immediately had to take it up to Brad's packing house to get it out of the house so that I wouldn't eat every last bite, which is why I don't have any pictures of it... I would love to know if anyone has a good recipe that is meant for blueberry cobbler.  It's all in the name of research!!

Today's iPhone Pics

Today has been a doozy...just one of those fun, nothing-goes-great days.  But, let's just not dwell on that...instead, here are some pictures I snapped with my phone today:

Hunt and I went walking around the Back Field today, so I checked in on the baby maters, and they are growing like little weeds (although I guess that doesn't really sound good, does it?!?!)

I have started making my own, very delicious, almond butter from a recipe I saw on Tasty Kitchen, or at least that's where I thought it was, but now I can't find it to link up.  It's almonds in the food processor until they turn to paste, sea salt, and honey.  That's it.  And did I mention that it's delicious?

I got my hair done today and decided to go blonde for the summer.  And I ended up with this non-color:

I am trying really hard not to be depressed about it, but I hate it.  It isn't blonde, and it isn't brown.  It is somewhere in between, and it is ugly (hence the ugly faces in the pictures...and we won't even talk about the baggage under my eyes...).  I may just wear a bag over my head until I can go back on June 23rd.  

So...that's my day in a (very small, leave out most of the annoying parts) nutshell.  Hope yours was lovely.

The Usual Catch-Up Post

I never mean to allow three weeks between my posts, but life just seems to go by at warp speed these days -- especially now that it is spring and blueberries are ready and we are getting ready for our season on the tomato farm.  Work has been taking up most of my time lately, and we won't even talk about how much of Brad's time it is taking up already.  You know it's bad when your child (Sanders) says to you "you know how you're always at work, and we are always with Kaitlyn (the babysitter)?"  Talk about a knife through a mommy's heart...and why don't they seem to notice that Daddy is always at work, even longer than Mommy?

Anyway, here's what's been going on, aside from work, since last we spoke.

Tyler got her braces on.  She already had the expander and some sort of contraption in the bottom, but now they have added brackets on her top permanent teeth.  She has been a real trooper through it all, and she has been great about brushing and flossing and all of the fun extra dental hygiene that comes along with a mouth full of metal.  And turning the key in her expander was really no big deal -- I was prepared for the worst, but she was a rock star as far as that went!  I am so proud of her.

I have cooked some good recipes that I wanted to share through some links...

These buffalo chicken rolls were awesome.  And easy.  Two words I love when describing a recipe.  

This Roasted Tomatoes with Shrimp and Feta makes my mouth water when I think about it.  It is easy, too, if you can get past peeling the shrimp.  I am the world's worst shrimp peeler, so it takes me forever.  I try to always have shrimp when Brad will be home to peel them, but I have done it twice for this recipe...it's that good that I will go through the effort! 

This pasta is an old standby, and I love, love, love it.  I could eat it once a week, I think.  

This past weekend I went to the wedding of one of my best guy friends from high school.  If you count the fact that our mothers went to lamaze classes together, I have known Justin since we were in utero, so he is really one of my oldest friends.  Justin married one of my brother's old girlfriends, so it was all of my old friends and Graham's old friends in one place.  It was great to see so many people from high school and to catch up on everyone's lives.  Most of us keep in touch pretty often, and we all know how Facebook makes the world so small, but I hadn't seen some of my friends since college!

Most of the weekend you could find the kids and me here...

We finally got to spend some time at the beach when it was actually warm (last time we went for the afternoon, it was freezing!) -- in fact, it was pretty perfect.  The kids are at an age where I can pretty much sit in a chair, look at a magazine, and relax.  (Of course, I keep my eyes on them, but I don't have to be quite as crazy about it as I was even last year; they just are growing up too fast.)

We also enjoyed our first watermelon of the year, but what do you know, I grabbed a seeded one from Brad's packing house.  But, at least the kids got to practice their seed-spitting skills.

Mmmmm...Muffins!

My sister, Hunter, and her twins came to stay with us Friday night while her husband was away turkey hunting, so Saturday morning I made a couple of batches of muffins using this recipe from Skinnytaste -- one batch with blueberries and one without because my weirdo sister doesn't like blueberries*.  They were absolutely delish and low fat until I added the topping from this recipe!  By the way my kids gobbled up three or so muffins in one sitting, I would say they loved them.  I have made another couple of batches without the topping since then, and we are steadily working our way through those.

Mornings are more fun with company!  We loved having some cousin time while Taylor and Harper were here.  It is definitely a treat to have a house big enough to hold guests, so now we just have to do it more often!

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* My changes to the recipe/notes:

-- With blueberries: I used sweetened almond milk because that's what I had on hand, so I added a little less honey.  I also added in some lemon zest.

-- Without blueberries: Same as above except I added extra lemon zest and a little bit of lemon juice to give the muffins some sort of flavor besides just oatmeal.  

-- Even with the cooking spray, the muffins stuck really badly to the liners.  

Random

I am getting ready to hit the sack for the evening, but I wanted to stop in and bore you with some randomness...

1. We thought we might get to move into the house this weekend (yay!!!), but those dreams were dashed this evening by the carpet people and the inspector (boo!!!).  Our carpet is at the store, but they won't install it until Monday, which means that the inspector won't come until after that to do our final inspection and give us our CO.  I believe we ordered this carpet at least a month ago, so we have been waiting on it for quite a while, and the fact that it is the last thing holding us up is irritating me.

2. Most of our furniture is in and will be delivered Saturday!  Unfortunately, they can't deliver it to our house, but rather, they will have to deliver it to Brad's packing house.  At least our living room won't be bare when we can move in...

3. My blonde roots are growing in big time, and the other day I had a panic attack that I was getting gray hair.  Thankfully it isn't gray, but I can't be going around with roots that are lighter than the rest of my hair, or other people might think it's gray, too -- not cool.  I may have to do like Gibson wants me to do, and go back to "yellow."

4. I decided today that my kids eat too many of the same things for breakfast and lunch, so I wanted to change it up a bit.  I made a batch of egg salad for sandwiches for tomorrow, and I was planning to make this Baked Oatmeal with Blueberries and Bananas from skinnytaste for their breakfast for tomorrow.  I got all of the ingredients out and started chopping up the bananas when I realized that I didn't actually buy the dang oatmeal at the grocery store today.  It is pretty hard to make oatmeal without the actual oats.  So, instead, I made these Baked Bananas.  If you like bananas, I would recommend these -- they taste like dessert but are skinny!

5. Brad didn't know what to do since I was doing all of this extra cooking.  He asked me if I was stressed out about something.  I guess that shows that I am usually pretty lazy with the kids' school lunches; he usually takes care of breakfast!

Y'all have a great night!

Praise the Lord, It's Friday!!!!

Wow, we are only one half-week into school, and I am exhausted. So, today, I just have some random thoughts...

:: Have you read and/or seen The Help yet? Both are really good, so if you haven't done either, read the book, and then go see the movie!

:: 5:45 a.m. comes really early for a non-morning person like me. That is what time I have been waking up these past three school mornings. Ugh. It is especially early when the dang dog has been barking outside our window all night. Sometimes I want to shoot that dog.

:: Our friends Jen and Mark come to visit this weekend! I haven't seen them since I went to New Orleans for Jen's 30th birthday last November -- and now Jen has a baby bump! I can't wait!

:: I know people are really crazy about their coffee, so I might step on some toes here -- I mentioned before that I had made PW's Iced Coffee, and that it is delish. Well, I went to Starbucks while the kids and I were out getting some school shopping done the other day, and I got an iced latte. I don't get to Starbucks much because we don't have one around here, but I have to say that my iced coffee (okaaaaayyyy, PW's iced coffee) that I make at home blew theirs out of the water. Seriously.

:: Listen, don't come messin' around our house at night, trying to get into our stuff...we are armed and dangerous, even in our sleep:

(obviously this is just a toy gun...)

Okay, have a happy weekend!!!