Happenings...

Can you believe this squishy ball is 10 months? I sure can't!

She decided 10 months was old enough to get some top teeth... those babies are SHARP!

And really there was only one bad day of this!

One tooth was farther through than the other, she looked like a snaggle tooth.

Jeff...

9 years ago today we got married... what a ride it has been! Not sure about you, but it has gone so fast for me.
Lots of moves & even more jobs between us in those years. I am still trying to figure out how we got to 3 kids & 9 years, but I'm loving the journey!
Thanks for being so fabulous -- I love you!!

School is Out!

YIPPEE... School is out! 

Hannah finished on Friday and we are looking forward to a fun summer, before I have to send of off for all day Kindergarten.

They had a little awards assembly for her class, where they read this cute little book they had made about the state of Oklahoma.

They were all given a little booklet containing a number of awards they had earned throughout the year for various things. Most of the awards were the same, but some kids earned one for memorizing the school creed, or some Oklahoma facts. And Miss Stevens also gave each child a personal award (no duplicates) for some characteristic they had, Hannah received one for best penmanship.

All in all it was a great school year, Hannah loved her teachers and her classmates. I have to admit the school year went by so fast, but I am scared to send her all day!

This is a picture from her first day of school! Her cheeks were so round and cute!!

Oh Hail, What Did We Do Now?

I've decided God hates Oklahoma. First we have a series of damaging tornadoes, now we have an onslaught of hail.
At our house, we got hail the size of a 1/2 dollar. Other parts of the city had softball-sized hail. Needless to say, the hail made for some awkward/impossible driving. Our street now looks like a war zone, and our garden got demolished.

I took this video about 5 minutes into the hail storm. Fortunately, there were only dents on the hood of the truck. Tomorrow, we'll fully assess the damage.

Welcome to Summer!

I love May. It's not the deathly heat of summer, and it's not the dreary cold of winter.

This week the kids felt it was finally hot enough they needed to turn on the water. So we turned on the sprinklers, and snapped these photos.

Not Your Political Tea Party

Megan & the kids had a tea party this past week. The first thing I heard when I came home from work was how much fun it was, and how they wanted to do it again. The "tea" was especially delicious, and from the crumbs on the cutting board, the cupcake didn't last.

Notice "Sir Milo" has his "royal" cape on.

A Mother's Day with Beignets & Croque Monsieur

I think Mother's Day ended up being pretty good for Megan. The kids let her sleep in, we actually bought presents and a real card, and tried to let her have "her day," as best you can with 3 attention-loving kids. (It really was a great day & I did realize that having 3 children make it pretty hard to get away with doing nothing all day... but Jeff was fabulous!)

One of the things we decided to do was use our new cookbook, and try something different. Today's dishes included beignets (much better than our previous attempt) and a new entry into the category of delectable goodness, the croque monsieur and tomato soup. (Our cookbook? I had a feeling that gift was for more than me! Although I have benefited from lots of breads... luckily Jeff is being good about using a lot or all fresh wheat in this carb filled gems.)

Since I don't like the cheese on the outside, I modified the traditional recipe slightly (you'd never know), and we used a less pungent cheese than the more pungent grueyer.

I love Mother's Day... not so much because it's all about me, (It's so close to my birthday that I tend to feel bad that Jeff has to do another day for me.) But I love having a day to reflect on Motherhood & all of its challenges & blessings. I feel so blessed to be the mother of 3 little monkeys.

You Gotta Get This

Megan got this book for her birthday (Go to Amazon here). Ever since then, I've been the one experimenting with the recipes and making different artisan breads. Hopefully, some of you have had some, because it's good. (Yes, they are good. Hey, you made the first dough, but I made the first loaf! Jeff just takes over in the bread department, because he loves all the praise.. hehe!)

Our favorite: brioche dough turned into simple and easy cinnamon rolls. They melt in your mouth! (Oh so very good! Hey, that was my doing, remember? So it's not all you here, my darling! )


It's an absolutely fantastic concept that lets you have homemade bread with little effort.

P.S. Jeff hates when I go in & add all my thoughts to his posts... so I make sure to do it as often as I can!

Spicy Chipotle Ranch Tacos

Today's dinner consisted of a ranch/chipotle sauce covered with steak, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese and avacado.

To make the chipotle ranch:

1/4 c. Ranch Dressing
2 tsp Tabasco Chipotle hot sauce

Mix to taste. Obviously, use more Tabasco for greater spice.

The chipotle ranch works well as a dressing, or in this case, an added flavor depth to the tacos. If you want more unique flavor, use fresh (uncooked) tortilla shells, lightly toasted in an iron skillet.

Village Fair

Today we attended the Village Fair. It's an annual event that strives to raise money for The Village library. Hannah was one of the children selected to go up on stage with Chester the Clown (I know, he's kind of creepy, but it was DANG funny).

Since I'm kind of stupid when it comes to uploading video to Blogger, I've created this link for you to view a portion of the video (2 minutes). Have fun!