Argyle

Dallin: "What's that?"



Uncle Mikey: "It's an argyle sweater"



Dallin: "It's your gyle?"



Uncle Mikey: "No, ARgyle. A bunch of diamond shaped patterns."



Dallin: "My gyle sweater at home."

strawberries

dear strawberries,

you are yummy.

i like to eat you.

i like to cover you in chocolate.

i like to pour sugar all over you.

i like to put you on bread.

i like you indeed.

i really like it when you go on sale because you feel lonely and threaten to grow mold.

i like to make jam with you.

love, me

p.s. making jam with a 3 year old boy requires a lot of patience and a lot more clean up.

vinaigrette

Hard word to spell, isn't it? Thank goodness for spell check!

Paul is not a fan. I, on the other hand, am a ceiling fan.

Lame joke, please feel free to roll your eyes.

In the last month, I have been fortunate enough to receive 2 great recipes for vinaigrettes.

One from scratch, the other from a mix.

Both delicious!

First-- Balsamic Vinaigrette (I had this amazing salad dressing on an amazing salad at our Relief Society B-day party last month.)
Buy an Italian Dressing packet at the store and follow all of the directions exactly, except substitute Balsamic vinegar for your regular vinegar. Delish!

Second-- Honey Mustard Dressing (A long two years ago, I had lunch with friends. Renee served this super salad. Then Renee moved and I thought I had lost this salad forever. I am so glad I have the recipe now! Thanks! Maybe she will post her lasagna recipe...;))

Here is the whole salad recipe, thank me (and Renee) later:

Renee's Salad is a Meal:


1 bag mixed salad greens
crumbled blue cheese or feta
2 handfuls of craisins (Ocean Spray is the best)
3-4 chopped green onions
sweet and spicy walnuts
honey mustard dressing

-Layer and enjoy.


Sugared walnuts:

-Make a simple syrup (water and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat) and add a pinch of dried red pepper. Stir in walnuts and stir until the liquid is gone and the walnuts are coated with white sugar. Then put them on a cookie sheet and bake for just a few minutes at 350. Cool.

Honey Mustard Dressing:

1/2 C apple cider vinegar
2 TBSP of coarse ground Dijon mustard
5 TBSP of honey
2 cloves of garlic, crushed and minced
1 green onion minced
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 C extra virgin olive oil

-Shake it up really well or put it in a food processor. Chill and pour over your salad. This is really good served with crispy chicken strips too! I hope you all try it and like it.

Old and Responsible

I just finished writing my very first letter of recommendation.

It was easy to write, seeing as the person who I was writing it for is pretty darn cool in my book.

(I did look up a template. It was my first, after all.)

It made me feel old and responsible.

It made me feel like I should start acting my actual age.

Appreciation

We try hard to teach our kids at an early age to appreciate the finer things in life.

Rendezvous

Today I got a babysitter
I went to a secret lunch
With my not-so-secret lover
To a sort-of-secret place

It was adventurous
And romantic
Just because no one knew
But the two of us

fat/sugar free double chocolate mint brownies

Edit: Okay---lame April Fool's Joke--I struggle sometimes!

I am not sure that a brownie of this caliber exists in a fat free/sugar free form! I would really like to share with you my recipe for fat/sugar free double chocolate mint brownies

...BUT...

It's a top secret formula that I just can't bare to leak.

Tigger and Pooh

Spring Break: Day 1 Dress ups, rip art and lots of play dough.

Salsa--oh soo good!

This (canned tomato!) salsa recipe will hold you off until the garden tomatoes are ready, I guarantee it!

You will love it, love it!

I got this recipe from A sister-in-law....Heather A? Jordan? Jenny? Heather J? (who by-the-way, has an awesome guacamole-salsa recipe that I need her to give me...hint...hint. I tried to duplicate it at home, by memory, to no avail)

I can't remember/don't know who is the original source of this yumminess!

Here is how I make it (I don't have the actual recipe , I never measure when I cook, and I add a lot of extras):

2 whole cans (about 14 oz) petite diced tomatoes

2 green onions

1/2 jalapeno

3? Tablespoons cilantro (about a 1/4 of the bunch)

1-2 Tablespoons lime juice

shake of garlic powder

shake of ground cumin

shake of chili powder

salt to taste

ground black pepper to taste

In a medium bowl combine everything but one can of tomatoes. I use my immersion hand blender to chop everything up because I melted my real blender in the oven about four years ago and I haven't got a new one since. (I some times to experiment with heat and plastic.) Once there are no large chunks left, add the remaining can of tomatoes and pulse your blender a couple times (I like to leave the second can of tomatoes almost intact). Taste and add more salt/lime/spices/herbs if necessary.

Does this make sense? I am not very good at writing down recipes...

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

We love Eric Carle books!

Happy Birthday Caterpillar!

St. Patty's Day is...

a great excuse to wear a LOT of green

my favorite color

Green eggs

How fun are these? Just in time for St. Patty's Day!

um...okay?

There are times in my life when an "um...okay?" is in order.

Like today, when I was talking to my diagonal back yard neighbor and my next store neighbor (NSN) at the same time. It turns out they are kin (kentucky vocabulary for related). Then, NSN's mom shows up. NSN immediately throws her cigarette behind her and mutters, "I'm not smoking."

As the catching up between kin continues, NSN notices that she has slowly wondered upon her stray, still-smoking butt. She picks it up with a look of disgust on her face and throws it past the nearby property stake onto our lawn. While this is happening, I look at her mom, she looks at me, and NSN avoids all of our looks. (this all happened in slow motion, by the way). And the conversation resumes.

This is when I think to myself, "Um...okay?"

Submarines

Paul says THE funniest things when he is half asleep. Last night, at 1 AM, we got up to go to the bathroom. While there, he asked me,

"So, do we have enough lint to build the submarine?"

Outside-In

Desperate for some warmth we had a picnic in the family room the other day.

Then, continuing on with the "outside-in" theme as I am in the kitchen cleaning up, I hear something (a lot of things) crashing to the floor as Dallin shouts, "Snowing, Mom! Snowing!"
I walk in to find Dallin making a SNOW ANGEL (devil) on top of the "snow".