Still here

I'm still here. Haven't gone anywhere, really. Just kind of stalled out. Sort of like life right now. We moved almost a year and a half ago and I think I've hung about two or three things on the walls. I've tried to decorate but I'm just not feeling it.

I am going to try and post a bit more about this and that. I'd like to share more about us so here I am again.

One of the good things is that we are not going backwards.

Easter 2013

four times twelve - April

Happy Easter!

Halloween

After a long day of parades and parties at school, the children dressed up and went trick or treating with Dave. Ryan was Optimus Prime from the Transformers cartoon and Ashleigh went with a Cleopatra costume.

The day before Halloween we carved pumpkins. Dave really got into the spirit and brought out his machete.

 

Ryan's pumpkin.

 

Ashleigh's pumpkin.

Fourth of July... start to finish

Our patriotic breakfast.



Downtown Clayton and the start of the July 4th parade.



A festive display of our flag.

Clayton has a little general store and the children cooled down with an ICEE.  It was so good they didn't want to stop sipping their liquid sugar for a photo.

For dinner, we went to Napa, enjoyed champagne and then later ate a traditional BBQ of ribs and potato salad.

From my mom's front lawn in Napa, we can see the fireworks.  FYI: Shooting photos of fireworks is hard.

Patriotic Dessert

Our easy and patriotic (and you probably have all the ingredients and who doesn't love food on a stick?) dessert.

Ingredients:
1 Ice cream sandwich
1 Popsicle stick
White, blue and red sprinkles

Mix sprinkles in flat dish. Place popsicle stick in one end of ice cream sandwich. Dip ice cream sandwich in sprinkles. Enjoy!

Operation: School's Out Ambush

I've seen some ideas around the blog world about how parents surprise their children on the last day of school with a water balloon fight.  Total fun.  With the help of my neighbor, we totally pulled off our very own 'Welcome to Summer' party.

On the morning of the last day of school, I made 3 posters.  I wrote "School is Done," "Let's have some fun" and "Welcome to Summer" and taped them up on the fences and door.  Then I went to work on filling lots and lots of water balloons.  We poked around in our outdoor toy bin and found our water blasters so we could totally drench them.  My neighbor set up a Slip-N-Slide in his front yard and I set up this water sprinkler hose dealie. Also, I threw in the oven some hot dogs to keep them warm, put some chips in a bowl, and mixed together cherry lemonade with some sparkling mineral water so the kids could have an easy lunch after all the running around.

The arsenal

My neighbor and I plus Ryan hid behind our fences and when the kids came home we totally soaked those kids to the bone with a huge water balloon bombing!  Alas, I don't have any photos of the drenching as I didn't want to totally drench my camera too in the process.  The kids didn't even bother to change into their bathing suits and ran right over to the Slip-N-Slide and sprinklers in their school clothes! We had such a good time and I overheard them saying later, "I wish we could replay it!"  There's always next year.

My co-conspirator

Drenched and lovin' it!

At the end of it all, Ashleigh ran through the banner declaring "Welcome to Summer!"

A simple mother's day haiku & photos

Breakfast in my bed.

My family and I hike.

Dinner with my mom.

****

And now the photos from our hike at Castle Rock.

Cinqo de Mayo

We don't normally celebrate Cinqo de Mayo but who can resist a get together with good friends?  And when they bring dinner (a yummy taco salad), too?  Totally irresistable!  We hosted the party at our house and I offered to make dessert.  A quick search for cupcakes that matched the occasion and I found Margartia cupcakes.  Considering I made Guinness cupcakes on St. Patrick's Day (another holiday we don't really get into), I thought, why not?

They turned out awesome!  I changed the original recipe and added whole milk to the cake and butter to the frosting.  The flavor of the lime really comes through.  Next time (and there will be a next time soon with these little ones) I probably will make the frosting a little stiffer although I think the presentation is pretty cute with the addition of the strawberry.  Also, I'm going to use green decorating sugar that's a bit coarser or chunkier to make it really look like I rimmed the edge just like a real margarita. Salud!

Easter Day

"For I remember it is Easter morn,
And life and love and peace are all new born."

- Alice Freeman Palmer

Our Easter morning started early with a little girl tip toeing into our room at, oh, around 6:20 am... at least she whispered, "Happy Easter!  Happy Spring!"

After a relaxing morning, we traveled up to my mother's house in Napa for a traditional ham dinner along with asparagus and delicious fried potatoes in romesco sauce and aioli.

Hunting and Dyeing

We were invited to a local neighborhood pool's egg hunt and party this weekend.  Lots of fun!  There was face painting, sugar cookie decorating, donuts and juice and an Easter bunny.  We even won some gift certificates at the raffle!

Later that day we dyed our Easter eggs using natural dyes. The colors weren't as bright as the regular egg dyeing kits however the colors have a subtle beauty. 

Clockwise starting at the top (yellow onion skins, red cabbage, beet juice, turmeric and grape juice)

Our eggs weren't all white.  I had about 5 white, 3 slight blue and 4 that were a tinge of brown.

Top row: the 1st two are yellow onion skins, turmeric, grape juice, grape juice and turmeric, beet juice on a light brown egg
Bottom row: beet juice and turmeric, purple cabbage, beet juice on a white egg, turmeric, beet juice on a light brown egg, plain brown egg not dyed