scenes from an 8-year-old's birthday weekend

 Birthday boy's breakfast of choice: Double-dipped berries.

 Birthday boy's gift: A shiny red DS.

 Birthday boy's cake of choice: A cat, of course.

 Birthday boy's dinner of choice: Chuck E. Cheese, with a friend.

 Birthday boy's choice for an evening activity: Cat crafting.

 And Saturday brought another day of fun: Wickham Farms for big pillow bouncing, ice cream cones, pumpkin picking, and a corn maze. Then a visit from cousins, pizza, more birthday cake, and another present. :)

a simple Sunday

...of laundry on the line, and a trip to the farmer's market, and working around the house.

(A humid, breeze-less day means long drying times.)

(Forgot to take pictures at the market, but here's some of what came home with us.)

(We're replacing the shutters because they're faded and cracked and just downright ugly. After Rich took them down, a major scrubbing was in order.)

(It's nice to have such cute little helpers.)
























...of baking dog biscuits, and baking bread, and baking raspberry crumb cake.

(And while Rich had his cute little helper outside, I had my cute little helper with me in the kitchen. In fact, the whole reason we're even baking dog treats is because my little helper wanted to.)

(Italian Herb Bread. By far the best recipe I've made in the bread machine so far...even if the picture is lousy.)

(Again, the picture does not do this justice. This is what became of those purple raspberries from the farmer's market. Mmmmmm.)


...of lesson plans for fall, and crocheting, and a bit of fun reading.

 (Okay, not a lot of progress was made on this front. I just can't seem to get motivated. But every little bit is something...or at least, that's what I keep telling myself.)

(The start of a new bathroom rug.)

(And I even finished a book. I may just meet my summer goal this year.)

bullet point potpouri

*Behind on everything. Again. Or perpetually. Emails. Blog-reading. Heck, I'm nearly a week late mailing a birthday present.

*Really need to do a blame game post. Need to move this stack of books out of here.

*No way I'm going to make my current household goals by Sunday like I'd hoped. But progress is being made, so it's not all bad news.

*I am such a goshdarn wimp...I hate these 90 degree temps! As Rich proclaimed to the weather gods earlier, "We left the South for a reason, you know."

*Is it horrible that I'm so grateful that the family reunion is over for another year? Not that we didn't have a lot of fun, mixed in with the inevitable annoyances. ;)

*Our garden is finally starting to take off. :D  We'll be harvesting the rest of the radishes in the next couple days. And eating lettuce on our sandwiches, too. And I don't think it will be long at all until we're munching on kohlrabi (one of my all-time favorite veggies!). We had an infestation of cabbage moth caterpillars munching on the kohlrabi leaves last week, but Rich picked them all off and moved them to the front yard. And Rich built some little supports for our beans to grow up this morning.

*The guys have been busy in the kitchen as of late...Max with his brownies, Gray with his blueberry smoothies, and Rich with his beer.

*Just a few more weeks of soccer. Not that I'm complaining, honest. I love going to their games...I just wish it didn't take up four nights a week.

*How on earth did I ever live without a bread machine for so long?!! Rich got me one last week, and I'm addicted! I just started a loaf of Italian Herb Bread...it's not even baking yet and it already smells incredible. (Bread machines, however, are not conducive to losing weight.)

*Our flower garden springs to life more and more each day it seems. I'm so in love with it, it even makes up for the rash I got on my arm weeding it this morning.

*When we out running errands yesterday, we hit one of the local thrift stores. Miss Annie made out like a bandit--a whole bunch of shirts/tanks, a few skirts, and her favorite thing of all...these boots! She's never really worn shoes with much of a heel before (these have about 3.5 inch ones), but I think halfway through the day here, she's finally got the hang of them. ;)

cherry-picking time

From tree to tummy. (Though I'll spare you pictures of the inevitable cherry pit wars. :D)

in the kitchen today...

*laundry detergent

Not especially appetizing. But green, and oh so economical. :P

*muesli

Mmmm...now this is appetizing. Though the picture doesn't do it justice. Wish I could make the photo "scratch and sniff"...I swear the aroma is getting me high...heavenly.

*muesli bars

Set aside half the muesli for breakfast and snacking, and turned the rest into these. They better be good, 'cause I burnt the hell out of my thumb getting them out of the oven.

*supper

Slop. Not so much to look at, but tasty.

a long weekend--in photos

Friday evening:

*tennis lessons
(The last for a while. Now that it's done snowing ;) they can just play outside. If they're still interested, we'll probably start them up again in the fall. Pictures are lousy because the court they play on is so far from the bleachers. Okay, my lack of photography skills probably has something to do with it too. Side note: Annie cracks me up--no shedding her style even for a tennis lesson.)

*our little local ice cream joint--first trip of the season

*a trip to B&N
(For the "grown-ups" anyway. Wanted one particular book, but still couldn't find it. So instead I came home with three others. Foiled by Jane Yolen, a graphic novel with fairies and girl who fences--well, I think so anyway. The Stuff of Legend Book 1: The Dark by Mike Raicht and Brian Smith, another graphic novel. [Already read and loved this one, and want the next one to come out *right now*.] Push by Sapphire, and this one comes with a POINT FOR CHRIS.)

Saturday:

*finishing Annie's garden took much of the day (Rich and I fenced it, with a little help from Max. Annie did the bulk of the planting and watering, though she did allow Max to help a bit. She put in three cherry tomato plants and eight strawberry plants.)

*Rich, with a bit of help from Maxidoodle, began digging out a spot for the new family garden

*dinner out at Bill Grays was our reward for a hard day of yard work (The boys refused to have their pictures taken.)

*the first game in the Stanley Cup Finals (We won't talk about who won. But I did finish up a hot pad during the game.)

Sunday:

*Rich made us taco salad for supper...mmmmmm... (Forgot to take many pics for the day, but it was pretty much a work day with Rich working on digging up the new garden while I worked a little on the library and a lot on school stuff.)

*a trip to Borders (Again, just for the "grown-ups." But this time I found the book I've been dying to get my hands on--thanks to Chris. And yes, that would be Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. POINT TO CHRIS. But I also picked up a couple other books that look really good. This Borrowed Earth: Lessons from the 15 Worst Environmental Disasters Around the World by Robert Emmet Hernan. Trickster: Native American Tales A Graphic Collection edited by Matt Dembicki--This looks soooo good--It's a collection of over 20 Native American trickster tales, told by storytellers from various tribes, and each storyteller picked an artist whose style they thought would best match up with their story.)

Monday:

*getting the new garden blocked in and adding lots of lovely composted dirt (Well, that's what Rich did. The boys were in total lounge lizard mode. I spent the day with school stuff. And Annie did homework.)

Overall, while I didn't get everything done that I'd planned, I'm pretty happy with our productivity. And we managed to have a lot of fun, too. :D

Hope everyone else had a lovely weekend, too!