Minnesota LoveBugs

My niece and nephew went camping this weekend in their back yard. Here are some sweet pics they sent me!! I really miss these two!!!

Donovan
Kaleigh

the hats

Kate and I took a workshop on Friday with our coworkers on the Jr. Master Gardener program. One of the activities we had to do was to make hats out of embellishments, newspaper and tape. I of course saw this as a fabulous opportunity to add a little something to my already established collection.....

BUTTONS!!! I tried not to be greedy, but sometimes, I just can't help myself. Kate said in my sideways world (LOST reference) buttons are used as currency.
Anyway, her we are in our fabulous hats!! I can tell it's going to the be best summer I have had in a LONG time!!!

LOVE this!!!

We are not sure what kind of adoption is in the plans for us, but I just loved this posting and wanted to share it with you.
Mothers

lemonade -- attempt #1

As you know, one of my summer goals is to master the making of lemonade. It is something we both love, but I have never made any lemonade that made us say WOW! So, here is the story of attempt number one. For my first attempt, I decided to pull out the big guns- Paula Deen's recipe. It called for 2 cups of sugar (dissolved into one cup of hot water) 1 cup of fresh lemon juice and water to make the gallon. It sounded good- take out the cup of fresh lemon juice and replace it with seeped tea and you have my ice tea recipe. I made it. Mr. D. said it was more ade than lemon and I agreed. I tried to salvage it by adding another 3/4 cups (or all I had) of fresh lemon juice- but that didn't seem to help. Oh well, another week- another recipe. Stay tuned. I have an interesting one to try next week.

a clever idea from Ruby

Friday evening we went to Andrew's graduation party. Andrew is the son of our friends Randy and Ruby. As you know, Ruby is one of the best cooks and party planners that I know. We looked forward to this event all week long. One of the clever ideas for the party was a station called "tacos in a bag". This area was a HUGE hit at the party. They were delicious and it was a super fun idea. Mr. D. suggested it would be fun on a family vacation because there is very little clean up after. I chose a bag of Fritos and added sour cream, cheese, tomatoes, onions (yellow and green) and lettuce. That's it, you just grab a fork and enjoy your taco straight from the bag. It was so good that I wish I had another right now. In addition to this station, we also enjoyed a barbecue with all of the trimmings station, a cold pizza station and a dessert station. The main dessert was a red velvet cakes that was INCREDIBLE!! The icing was SO yummy!! I can't say enough about how wonderful the evening was with our good friends. We are so proud of Andrew. When we met the family, Andrew was a 3rd grader! He has really grown into a handsome and funny young man. Andrew will be heading off to college in the fall.

newest additions

I suspected this was about to happen. I came home Wednesday and most all of the old baby fish had been killed. I saved the lone survivor and took him to my tank in my classroom. These fish become very territorial over their new fry. Looks like we are in the baby fish business again.

Thursday 13: Thirteen pictures I was emailed, texted or took with my phone this week

my little attempt at humor today

We had a baby shower for one of the ladies that I work with. I made black eyed pea dip. I had the following picture in a frame next to my crock pot. It was my little attempt at humor today.

Shane and Maggie's little attempt at humor---
I like to believe she was reading my blog!!

LOST party recap... plus second summer goal accomplished.

I met Betsy tonight which means I have accomplished a second Summer goal!! I am moving right along. Betsy is a great cook. Tonight, she made us baked spaghetti and some amazing bread. She is an friend of Maggie's. Maggie and Shane had a LOST finale party. I made cupcakes.
Charlie had rice cereal, squash and formula. It was fun going to Maggie and Shane's house. Here are pics from Charlie's room.




As usual, I had a great time with the Lee Family. I just LOVE Charlie.
And Charlie LOVES her some Sandy too!!!

a little LOST humor

so...

I'm baking cupcakes- but I can't tell you why just yet. Instead of loading the dishwasher, I am sitting at my kitchen table. This is becoming one of my favorite places in the house. I love sitting and enjoying all of the work I have put into the back yard. Brady and I are currently discussing what we are going to do about the pesky chipmunk that has come to live by the goldfish pond. Anyway, I published about 100 comments on the blog. I can't easily do this from my phone and I have gotten incredible lazy about doing it once I have access to the laptop. Please don't think that I am not enjoying your comments and please keep them coming! OK- back to the work on the cupcakes... more later!!!
Happy LOST day!

catcing up on a Friday night

This week has been a crazy one. Since we got home from the wedding, our lives seem to be on fast forward. But first, speaking of weddings....Our sweet Kate has set the date of her wedding as May 7, 2011. It's going to be a fun one!

This is the last full week of regular school. That means I have spent a great deal of time this week tying up loose ends and typing up end of the year reports. On Wednesday night, my class has a big end of the year party.

It was great! We had a moonwalk, pizza, cookies, cupcakes, chips and a pinata. It was the perfect weather and with the perfect people.

Brady and I have also been busy working in the yard and garden. This afternoon we started relocating a little overgrown monkey grass in the yard. Then I hooked up a new water hose to us over by the pond. Brady was not sure what to think which made for a VERY funny time.

After this movie, we cleaned the pond pump out. Brady played in a few mud puddles and then he got to come in for a shower. Brady is shedding his winter coat and it has been really bad this year. Hopefully the shower helped. See how nice and shiny he looks after his bath!


Mr. D. has a dinner outing with his friends tonight. After that he stopped at the sports store and they happened to have dog beds on clearance. He brought this home for Brady.
Finally!! We have a bed big enough for Brady to stretch out and be comfortable on. Of course, as I type this Brady is no where near his bed. He is just lying in the floor between Mr. D. and me. Funny guy!

I put my gold table cloth on the table tonight, but I kind of swirled it just for fun. I think it looks great!


Another thing I wanted to share is that I tried the potato soft taco at Taco Bell and it's actually very good! I highly recommend trying it!

first summer goal accomplished

Four leaf clover found on 5/15/2010.

more on the wedding....

This weekend was the wedding of Scott and Erica. Scott is Mr. D.'s brother. I have always adored Scott and Erica is just the icing on the cake! I loved every second of their wedding. They had so many amazing little details that I just loved. I can tell a LOT of hard work went into this day.

The outdoor lanterns.
I really love how these lanterns look both in the day and at night. I am thinking of getting some for the SSDC this year.

The china on the head table. I loved how this looked. It's very classy.

The tables.
I love the combination of green, brown and white. This looks like something right out
of Southern Living.

I loved the tiki torches.

Another things I just loved was the homemade wooden alter in the natural setting. It was a great place for a wedding. The trees and grass were so lush and green.

Of course I also just loved the cute happy little couple.

I thought the bouquet was one of the most beautiful that I have ever seen.

I love this picture that Mr. D. captured of the happy bride. Erica rounds out my nice set of 4 awesome sisters-in-law. I am quite the lucky girl to have each and every one of them. Erica is one spunky girl that we always have fun with!!

Haha... I bet you thought I was about to forget to talk about my favorite part of all weddings... the cake.

Scott and Erica had a variety of desserts available. We enjoyed white chocolate cake with a banana filing. We also enjoyed peanut butter/chocolate cake as well as tiramisu. Good stuff!!