What's for Dinner?

It has been raining all week, Christopher is out of town, baby is sick...did I mention that it has been raining all week?!? I have loved the rain, now, I'm just wanting the sun to come out for a day or two. What...do I live in the Northwest again? I thought I escaped that once I had moved from there! OK. Enough of that. What I'm trying to say, it that all this spells depressed moods and bad habits begin to resurface. Like....EATING ALL DAY LONG!! So, today has been a day of eating yummy foods. I like to try a new recipe at least once a week, and today we found this little ditty for breakfast!

Peanut Butter & Jelly French Toast Sticks
Everyday with Rachel Ray – April 2007

½ cup peanut butter
½ cup jelly
8 slices sandwich bread
5 large eggs
1/3 cup milk
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
4 Tbsp butter
½ cup maple syrup, warmed

Spread the peanut butter on 4 bread slices and the jelly on the other 4 slices and combine to make 4 sammies.

In a wide, medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk and vanilla.
In a large, nonstick skillet, heat 2 Tbsp butter over medium heat. When the butter is almost melted, dunk 2 of the sammies into the French toast batter and let the excess drip off. Place in the pan and cook until golden brown, 3-4 minutes on each side. Repeat with the remaining 2 Tbsp butter and 2 sammies. Let cool slightly and cut into sticks; serve with the warm maple syrup.

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What a concept! PB & J and french toast all in one. It's like Reese's dream meal. I was loving the melted peanut butter...yummy. Made a half batch (gotta TRY to stick to a diet) and used our Sara Lee low calorie wheat bread, 1% Low Fat Milk, Can't Believe it's Not Butter and sugar-free syrup. Oh, it was so delicious!

Now, I gotta come up with dinner plans. Which are never much with Christopher out of town. What are y'all cookin' up in the kitchen tonight?

Woobies

"Woobies" is the name I have given to my "brand" of baby rag quilting blankets that I make. When a friend is about to have a baby (whether it is their first or eighth, yes eighth) I make one of these blankies as a gift. Usually part of a "welcome home" package. Anywho. This is the latest blanket I made. One down, four more to go!! I also started making burp rags to match!

I thought I would start to take some pictures finally of those I make and make a little portfolio of them. People are starting to get interested in actually buying them. So, if you have been a recipient of one of these blankets...will you please send me a photo of it? Pretty please? Thanks a bunch.

Summer Time Fun

Ok, I know I put WAY too many pictures on my blog with each post, but I just love them all so much! Believe me, I have over 100 from just this one day, so cut me a little slack. Besides, how often do I get to put pictures of Caden smiling up? He was SO jammin' on the karaoke machine. I know I need to get more serious about digital scrapbooking so that I can mesh these babies together, am I'm working on that.

Like my last post suggested, summer is in full bloom and we have begun the "get out of the house for at least 4 hours everyday or mommy will lose her mind" fun time! Of course, everyday is pool day at our house. We are not fortunate enough to have our very own mack daddy of them all pools (I envy you Cherie!) but we do have fun with this this little ditty. I love that we got it on "inventory blow out" at Wal-Mart for $74 bucks! That's right ladies and gents, about 800 bucks of retail price! I always knew there was something special about Wal-Mart...even if I really don't like to shop there. However, we are experiencing unseasonal rain this past month (no complaints here, we are in DIRE need to moisture!) so, we have had to take our party indoors. Granna (Christopher's mom) bought us Zoo passes for the year (THANK YOU AGAIN) and we bought our annual Dallas Nature and Science Museum (formally known as the Dallas Children's Museum) passes and we have already gotten great use from them all. We particularly enjoy the reciprocity with these passes to over 260 other Zoo's and Nature and Science Museums around the world. This came in handy as we went with friends to the Discovery Science Place in Tyler this past week. And will come in handy on our vacations to WA and UT this summer. Check out the photos above.

Baby's hungry, so, stay tuned for more summer fun!

End of the School Year...WHAHOOOO!

The end of the school year has come and gone. May 17th was Gavin's last day of school. These are pictures from his Spring Program and awards ceremony. He's a pre-school graduate. We have some great video of Gavin singing. I'm sure Christopher will add it to this post whenever he gets around to it. Gavin didn't leave us disappointed with his animation during the songs. He is such a character. Gavin says the part he will miss most about school for the summer is playing with his friends. Reese will miss naming all the colors on the wall (see pic) walking up and down the stairs each day dropping off Gavin at school. And I will miss carrying Caden up those long, painful stairs while dragging along a toddler!! Ok, not really, but it was a great work out!

This marks the end of the school year and beginning of summer! Never a dull moment in the summer and we are well on our way!

Field Day Spring 2007

Click To Play

Remember way back when you were in school and it was getting close to the end of the school year and your teachers planned lots of field trips and fun stuff? It was always the last few weeks of school. I remember the one day loved by all...FIELD DAY!! Today was such a day for Gavin. It was Field Day 2007 at MDS and we came along for the ride. Reese had fun following her brother around who was the class "leader" for the day! (Leader of the day is the child that is in the front of the lines and helps the teacher with whatever she needs, etc....basically "teachers pet" for a day.)
I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I will however comment on this last picture with Gavin riding and holding a silver trophy (there is another on the top somewhere with Reese). I guess he had it in the seat of his (sister's) bike and right when the time was right (right before crossing the finish line) he pulled it out and started pedaling real fast and screaming, "watch out everybody, Lightning McQueen (Car's) coming through!" "And he's gonna win the trophy..right here!" He pretty much had everyone peeing their pants with laughter. What a nutcake!

Father/Son Camp Out & More

This last Friday and Saturday was the Annual Father/Son Camp Out for our Stake (Church). It was also the first year that Christopher has taken Gavin. There was lots of fun times had by both. I gave Christopher my camera and had him promise to take some great shots. He took about 70 pictures in the last few hours of camping! So, not too much variety, however, there were lots of interesting stories from Gavin and his take on camping out with Daddy. (The last time we went camping was when he was a year old.) He really enjoyed himself and can't wait to go camping again sometime.

"Gavin, I say, what were some of your favorite things you remember about camping?"

• "Oh, I liked to jump on our air bed with Sam and Kaleb...it was like a bouncy house."
• "Putting marshmallows on a stick and burning them!" (S'mores)
• "Feeding the dog my crumbled up donuts."
• "Sleeping in the tent with daddy on our high bed."
• "The lake, catching butterflies, sleeping, peeing outside...just the whole thing...will you stop asking me that stuff now?!?"

While the boys were away, Reese and I (ok, Caden was there too) had a little Mommy and Me date night. We went out with our friends Marni, Madison and Blakeley to play in the sandbox at Sonic and then to Cold Stone Creamery for some ice cream. I got the Sans Fat Sweet Cream mixed with raspberries and Reese had pink bubble gum flavored ice cream with sprinkles on top. We then went home and stayed up to watch Monsters Inc. (her pick) on the projector wall TV and made popcorn and had popsicles! We were feelin' the love all night (ok, so my scale isn't feelin' it!) as we made our tent bed on my bed and slept all night. Wish I would have had the camera that night with us as Reese was just as cute as can be makin' memories with her Mommy. Caden also did a first, he stood all by himself for a few seconds for the first time. Too bad I didn't have the camera and so sad that DVR is not functioning at the moment.

Christopher will hate that his picture is on this post. But, that's what happens when he doesn't take any pictures until the last moment and allows a 4 year old to take the shots. Mmmmmwahahaha! Love ya, hottie even in your doofus picture!