Nikki and Troye's Sewing Extravaganza

While we were in Birmingham last weekend, Nikki and I each made an apron together. We had so much fun working, laughing, stitching, creating, staying up late, and laughing some more.

Blake even had to save the day and preform a few repairs on Nikki's sewing machine. I must say that I was super impressed with his willingness to even attempt to repair a machine that he knew nothing about. And he was successful. You da Man, B!

The finished product...
A reversible Emmeline apron. How cute is that? All manner of cuteness.Barefoot in aprons on the front porch.

Flag of Our Fathers

We spent the Fourth in Birmingham with Nikki, Blake, Caden, and Ethan. Nikki had the fabulous idea to make these t-shirts...This is what the kiddos' hands looked like.
And they all turned out well- amazing, huh?
Even Baby Ethan!
They were all very proud of their painted hands.
And, here's the finished product!

Works for me Recipes

Shannon over at Rocks in My Dryer is hosting a five ingredient or less recipe swap today. I am always eager to share a recipe, especially in the toddler sense of the word, "share" (meaning you share with me).

Greek Style Tomatoes

a fabulous summer side dish

3-5 tomatoes, sliced

4 oz. feta, crumbled

2 oz capers, drained

salt and pepper to taste

Slice tomatoes and arrange on plate in a single layer. Salt and pepper to taste and then scatter the feta and capers on top.

Fresh basil is a fab addition to this dish as well.



And I did not intend to make this a feta themed post, but here is a main dish made with feta. Easy, inexpensive, and yummy. This is a great entertaining dish as well.



Feta Chicken Bake

3-4 Boneless Skinless Chicken breasts

4-6 oz. Sundried tomato or mediteranean style crumbled feta

salt, pepper, and lemon or lime



Place chicken in single layer in baking dish. Sqeeze with fresh lemon or lime, and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Dump feta all over top, and bake at 350 for 3 to 45 min, depending on the thickness of your chicken breasts. Somtimes I have to cover with foil midway through cooking if the feta begins to turn brown. Enjoy!



Now, head on over to Rocks in My Dryer for more Works for Me Wednesday Recipes.


For anyone who is still reading, I have a question. i made crystalized ginger yesterday, which was very easy, but it took me forever to peel the fresh ginger. Is there a trick to peeling ginger that I don't know about? Please help me...

Visual DNA

This was a fun little personality profile. You choose photos that most describe you. It did not hit my personality dead on, but there were parts that are definitely accurate. What do you think?

Here She Comes to Save the Day

I'm not one to brag, BUT I got a new stand mixer, and I love it. Don't hate me for my Kitchenaid. I have been looking for any excuse to use it, so I decided to make Cream Feta Puff Pastries for an appetizer. No reason- just an excuse to use the mixer (twice).Since I have never made puff pastries, I did not think about that fact that it might be easier if I had a pastry bag and tip set. I thought I could just use a spoon.

Fortunately, I know Martha Macgyver, so she engineered a pastry bag using scissors, tape, a baggie and a straw.
Another day, another Super Hero...
Here she comes to save the day.
And they turned out beautifully! And Mmm Mmm Good!

Super Heroes

Living in a house full of boys, I always have some super hero or another showing up. You never know what size they will be either. The caped wonder Jaxon showed up yesterday. His super power is his cuteness. He absolutely knows that he can get away with anything. Who could say no to that face?
And, we also had a visit from the Roller Blade Hero. He attempted to go back down the basement stairs, which is where he found the source of his super power in the first place. Not a good idea.

Lake Lanier

We went to Lake Lanier today with some of the families from Chris' accountability group. We had a blast. I didn't take too many photos because I spent most of the day in the water. We took three boats out to this sand bar, and played in the sand and water for several hours. Our family rode with Mr. Joe and Mrs. Debbie in the super fast boat that you see on the far left. We spent most of our day swimming out to Mr. Corey and Mrs. Bethany's boat in the center, and the boys jumped off the back of the boat and swam around to the opposite ladder at least 100 times. Mr. Corey also took Jonah around the lake on his tube. While the boys were jumping off of Mr. Corey's boat, I overheard Jonah tell Daniel, "This is Mr. Corey's boat, but that boat over there is mine." You go, Jonah. Name it, and claim it!!! Sorry Mr. Joe.

Karate Kick-a-thon

Jonah was able to participate in a St. Jude Kick-a-thon with karate today. The goal was for the kids to complete 1000 kicks. Jonah was one of the youngest and least experienced kiddos there, but he did great. After 500 kicks, his instructor asked him if he wanted to take a break, and he told him that he wanted to keep going.

Daniel had to sit and watch the entire time, and he was a trooper as well. See him in the bottom of this photo... Jonah is in the white uniform in the center of the group- facing the wrong direction.

I didn't get great pictures, but here is an action shot. This time he was standing in the direction that the rest of the group was facing at least.

And another action shot- back in the wrong direction. Check out that heighth though (and the man's foot that I didn't even notice).

Jonah made it to 600 kicks. At which point, he will want me to let you know that I made him stop. He also raised $60 for St. Jude Children's hospital. Great job, Jonah!!!

Talking to Jesus

My morning routine is that I get up, get a cup of coffee, and have some quiet time before I get the boys out of bed. They are often awake during this time, but they know that they can't come out of thier room until I come to get them. This morning they were especially unruly, and fighting- with lots of crying involved- so I went to intervene. I told them that it was not time to get up, and that I was downstairs trying to talk to Jesus. They needed to be on their best behavior for a few more minutes.
When I went to get them out of bed, Jonah started to run out of the room, and I called him back to make his bed. And he said, "But, Mommy, I need to check and see if Jesus is still here. I need to talk to Him too!"

Yo Ho! Yo Ho! A Pirate's Life for Me

If you ask Jonah what his favorite thing on vacation was, he will tell you it was the pirate ship. We went on a REALLY REAL pirate cruise, and Jonah and Daniel got to be pirates for a couple of hours. It was a blast. No pun intended even though they did fire a cannon. Never mind that the cannon was about 18 inches long.

The adventure was complete with pirate hats...

A water gun fight (Doesn't he look ready to conquer the high seas?)...

Face painting for little boys and their daddys...

And even some limbo time! How low can you go? What a gnarly looking pirate!

This was so much fun, and a bit of marketing genious. We took the "cruise" on Tuesday and discussed going again on Thursday. What could be better than keeping your children contained (I mean entertained) while you chill on a boat for two hours?
Those pirates are smarter than they let on.

Jungle Gardens

We drove over to Sarasota Jungle Gardens for the day. It is basically an outdoor tropical animal petting zoo.The boys each got to hold exotic birds on their arms.We had to show the totum pole some love!The ducks literally walked up and ate out of our hands.
Jonah fed the koi.
And we were warned to watch after our own snacks. We snacked at our own risk. How funny is that?
And, although it is difficult to tell in this photo, we rode over the largest suspension bridge in Florida. It looks very tiny in the background, but it is over 4 miles long.

'That's not a Duck...That's a Pelican!!!"

For those of you who don't recognize the title, it is a quote from Finding Nemo, and we have quoted it often this week. In fact the boys are a little obsessed with pelicans. I must say that Chris and I are as well. It is so fun to watch them dive for their breakfast early in the morning. We had to get a photo of the boys next to the pelican statue. And here is Daniel riding the trolley, which he insisted was a bus, and loving it. You can see the St. Petersburg pier in the background.
The pier was a bit of a disappointment because of the time of day- there was nothing going on- but the trolley ride was well worth the trip.
Then we played games with Daddy's crab legs at dinner.
Daddy only eats the dead crabs, not the live ones- just in case you were wondering. In the pool today, Jonah pretended to be a crab. He would alternate between being a LIVE crab that pinches you, and a dead crab that Daddy could eat. J also got a net to try to capture fish in the ocean. We were not successful with the fish in the afternoon. We will try again tomorrow morning, but Jonah decided to attempt to catch a seagull with our net since the fish were too elusive. I will leave it up to the imagination how successful he was. Here is a hint- we are not sleeping with a seagull in our room tonight.

A Day at the Beach

Tan before we even started... This was prior to our first time on the beach.

The boys are loving the beach. Jonah has learned to body surf, and we have found all sorts of sea creatures and shells. The seagulls and pelicans are plentiful. Sadly, we have no photos of us on the beach because we are too nervous to take our camera out with the water, salt, and sand.
Jonah's new snorkle and mask set. Let's just say that it works better on land than in the sea.
Check out Daniel's choice of footwear. He is such a trendsetter. He's ready for the ocean.

Lazy mornings

Lazy mornings at the beach. Daniel tries to sleep after Jonah is already awake. Good Luck D!

Trail Mix Recipes

A long car trip is only as successful as the food you eat along the way. Of course, anything you do is only as good as the food and company you have available. On our way down to the beach yesterday, we decided to take some of our own snacks to minimize pit stops. Our snack bag included two new trail mixes. Yum, yum! Here are the recipes:

Savory Seed Trail Mix:
1 cup raw pumpkin seeds
1 cup raw shelled sunflower seeds
6 tbsp soy sauce, separated
1/3 cup dark raisins
1/3 cup golden raisins

Toast pumpkin seeds in a non stick skillet until they begin to pop and turn golden brown. Remove from heat and add three tbsp soysauce and toss. Toast sunflower seeds in same skillet until golden brown. Add sunflower seeds to pumpkin seeds and toss with other three tbsp of soy sauce. Add raisins, and return to hot skillet (with heat turned off) to plump raisins and dry the soy sauce. Enjoy!!!
This recipe is even better the second day.

Toasted Coconut Trail Mix:
1 bag flake coconut
1 cup dried cranberries
3/4 cup slivered almonds

Toast coconut in oven or toaster oven until golden brown (approx 10 minutes at 350 degrees). Be careful because coconut quickly goes from perfect to burnt. As soon as you smell the coconut, it is time to remove from heat. Toss with the cranberries and almonds and enjoy!!!

Hide and Go Seek

This morning was our first morning to wake up at the beach. It's a hard life, isn't it? Jonah woke up before Daniel, so to allow D to keep resting, we pulled J into our bed. To entertain himself (and us), he made up a new version of hide and go seek.

With his hand.

We took turns counting to ten and looking for one another's hands hidden under the covers. Quite the challenge!!!

Vacation Bible School

Jonah went to VBS this week, and had a blast.
He sang me songs in the evening, told me the Bible stories that they learned, and showed me his crafts each day. Today was the final day, and he told me the story of Jesus dying on the cross. Apparantly when he died on the cross, they put a really big rock on top of Him. Then when they moved the rock, Jesus wasn't there. He was alive, and then He went to heaven. At least he got the important details right.

Happy Anniversary

The Man and I celebrated 9 wonderful years of marraige yesterday.

He surprised me and came home from work early with so many yellow roses that they wouldn't even all fit in one vase.
He walked in the front door and the first thing he saw was Susannah sitting in the kitchen. We were baking to get ready for vacation next week. So romantic. Fortunately, he is used to it by now. A house is not a home unless it is full and shared often!

Happy Anniversary, Baby! I love you!

Washington Farms

We traipsed off to Watkinsville yesterday to strawberry pick. The berries were small, but delicious. I had help for about the first half gallon, and then I was on my own.
How about the cutest little strawberry harvester you have ever seen? I think that he consumed more than he placed in the bucket even with my constant reminders that they were not washed yet. Papa even joined us for some reinforcements, which was fabulous when all the boys deserted me to play on the nearby playground.
Jonah and Grant's favorite was the super high tree swing.
When I went to pay for my strawberries (only $8 a gallon by the way), the dude at the checkout was going to give me a discount because my buckets were not completely full. I told him that was to make up for the berries that were eaten along the way. After we finished at the berry patch, we had a picnic lunch, and came home for some R&R. Here is what three little boys look like after a long day on the farm.