Back to school

What a fungi!

We keep getting these huge gross mushrooms in our yard. Yuk! They grow in our mulch beds in the front yard. The funny thing is that they never start small and grow to be big. They are just THERE all of a sudden.

Our friend Katerina

Started kindergarten today! When we met her she was still in diapers! Time flies... (She's not even mine and this picture almost made me cry!)

Let there be light!

As some of you may know, Brian is not the most handy guy around. When something needs to be done we go next door to enlist the help of our 85 year old neighbor Bob. Today, Brian decided to change light bulbs all on his own. This is unheard of in our house, as I usually take care of these matters. One bulb got dropped and smashed all over the floor, and one bulb broke at the base of the fixture. Now we do need Bob to come help! Brian also picked out a new trash can today. It is very nice.

Yum!

Traci gave me a great recipe. She's actually talked about this dish for about a year now, but I've never made it until yesterday. I liked it so much I made it again today!

Poppyseed Chicken

2 cans chunk chicken
2 cups cour cream
2 cans condensed cream of chicken soup

Mix together and put in a 9x13 baking dish

2 sleeves Ritx crackers crushed
1 stick of butter, softened
2 tbsp poppyseeds (I only used 1 tbsp today)

Mix together and place on top of chicken mixture

Bake @ 350 degrees for 30 minutes

So good, and I'm pretty sure it is also good for you. Butter, Ritz crackers and sour cream. How could it not be?

See? Babies do come from the stork!

So, tonight was Traci's babyshower. I was determined to get a stork and I finally found a stork costume on the internet. Brian's BFF Scott (yes Scott who a few weeks ago hit a hole in one while golfing with Brian) decided to take one for the team and agreed to show up at the shower dressed as the stork. (For those of you not in the know, BFF is Tessa-speak for Best Friend Forever) Anyway, congratulations to Traci. And Scott, I can't thank you enough! For anyone interested Scott mentioned that he also does birthday parties and Bar Mitzvahs.

Best Block Party Ever!

We had a perfect time from beginning to end. (The end was around 5 a.m. when I finally got to bed.) Brutus was obviously the icing on the cake. Caroline was TERRIFIED of him and sat upstairs on her bed to get away from him. Then she came downstairs and hid under pillows. At one point she told Brian to tell me to tell Brutus to leave. Anyway, it was a total blast. I even let Tessa and her friend Lauren do a little late night neighborhood decorating when we were done. If you are ever having a party and need entertainment the people at Sunshine Pony Farms and Cool Daddy's Italian Ices were both AWESOME!

Italian Ices= myersorient@aol.com

Super Suppers

If you haven't done Super Suppers or Dream Dinners they are pretty good. You go in and basically they have prepared most of the meal for you to take home to your family or freeze for later. You just assemble it in their containers. They provide you with the menus and cooking directions. It seems expensive but if you figure out the cost per serving and the amount of ingredients you would buy to make the meal plus the convenience it's not bad. Anyway, Super Suppers has a deal where if you are a new customer you can go prepare a meal to take home to your family for free. At the Hilliard location it is Wednesday nights but I'm guessing the other locations do it as well.
www.supersuppers.com

So much going on...

Went to one of the best lakes ever last week. Higgins Lake in Northern Michigan. Scott and Sara's family invite us up to visit each summer. It is such a pretty lake. The kids all play, the guys golf, we hang out. A small glitch in the plans: We were fish sitting Katerina's fish Daisy and I forgot we were going to be fish sitting during our trip. Luckily our neighbor Nikki was able to step in and help out. I would not have been looking forward to letting Katerina know that we starved her fish! Then we had all of our neighbor friends over to break in the playhouse and play on the waterslide. Then, I took Tessa to Chicago to visit Janet. Her new apartment is very cool. Tessa got to do a lot of back to school shopping and I got to listen to very loud music in stores like Wet Seal, Abercrombie and other places I can't remember. Then after we got home from that we went to a birthday party for Caroline's friend Stella. Stella's grandma was nice enough to make each of the girls a princess skirt with tulle and little flowers and sequins sewn into it. Next weekends big event: BLOCK PARTY. Whew!