Outdoor fun

 Day 3 of summer break passed in busy and lazy fashion:) The boys spend hours outside with neighborhood friends. Literally hours. Like 8.

Seriously, 8! Of course, I remember being a kid long, long ago and spending just as much time out with neighbor buddies: riding bikes, playing hide and seek, playing on our swingset, having picnics, etc.

And I also remember my mom making us go to bed by 7:30, even on those light, summer nights and watching the other kids run by laughing and having a good time from my lonely bedroom window.

And now I understand why my mom did such a cruel thing! Because she needed some peace and quiet for herself before she went to bed. Ah, life comes full circle!!

Missy was a doll in her little cherry dress today! She is such a happy little creature with her books and puzzles and stuffed animals:)

She loves to climb up right next to me anytime I sit down so I snatched a minute to get a picture. She's just getting so big, so quickly.

There's a smile! I cheated and tickled her:) She has really been connecting dots with communication lately, understanding so much more, following directions and of course, learning tons of new words! Today she learned "Cow" "Bubbew" (Bubble) "Haiw" (Hair) and "Tai" (Tail) at least! She shakes her head no when she doesn't want what you are offering (or her other favorite method is to shove it away!) Eliana loves to point out body parts: Eyes, nose, teeth, ears, and the most important...belly buttons!

She is such a little joy!

The boys got soaking wet playing with the hose this afternoon and while Zakkai was taking a long bath to clean off, Samuel begged to start his dinner with his buddy Mikey. Mikey ran home to grab his dinner of 2 hotdogs and grapes (which he didn't eat) and I heard him say, as he was chewing happily, "My mom makes the best hotdogs!" ha!

Samuel enjoyed his salad so much that he asked for seconds! Go figure! Apparently we have a new appreciation for salads in this house:)

We got our apartment inspected today, which apparently is a yearly thing with our landlords. Yet another point in their favor!! Their contractor came over and spent an hour WD-40ing doors, fixing leaky faucets, sealing the toilet, replacing a smoke detector, cleaning the refrigerator coils and more. Wow. It was a good excuse to make sure everything was clean, which I always like. I have much more motivation when someone else is coming over:)

I'm thinking of taking the kiddos to a museum tomorrow (and I didn't tell them so if it doesn't work out...no sadness!) and the boys start soccer on Friday. I could get used to this summer thing.....

Pictures!

Look! I still have children and here's proof!

My cuties with their new haircuts:)

Little Miss is getting faster and faster these days! She's practicing her football:)

She's getting so big!

Enjoying her favorite pastime:)

Ok, Zakkai, show me your scariest pirate face....

Ahhh! That's pretty scary!

Alright, Samuel the Pirate, your turn...

Hmmm. Maybe "pirate's" not in his future:)

Happy Tuesday!

Summer Goods!

Monday:

*This is my 961st post on this blog. Wow! It's been 4 years now since I started; having no clue what I was doing! I've worked up from about 3 posts a week to 6. Sometimes silly posts, sometimes meaningful posts, sometimes memory posts and a lot of times nonsensical posts. Thanks for sticking with me!

*Today, our first day of summer break, we walked to a park and had a picnic! It was really nice sitting with my 3 blondies, eating fresh berries and other light luncheon foods. Watching the boys play hide-and-seek, with a little cheating from each of them;) Sliding with Eliana down the slide and just enjoying a gorgeous not-too-hot, not-too-cool kind of day.

*During E's nap and while the boys were busy outside, I scrubbed the floors on my hands and knees. We finally had to toss our mop after many, many times of having to reattach the mop/sponge head every 10 seconds. Plus, apparently they don't make the sponges anymore. Sigh. So we have resorted to the good old-fashioned method of scrubbing with a bucket, hot water, sponges and a scrubber. I got volleyball knee pads to help the old knees but even with that protection, my knees are still red 5 1/2 hours later! Ouch! Maybe this is one of the chores I should deligate to someone else.....:)

*We enjoyed a Grilled Chicken Salad with homemade baguettes tonight. Great summer meal! I'm still so impressed that the boys chow down on salad with minimal complaining. Let me tell you, it was a LOT of work to get to this point!!!

*Ben took the boys out to the park to play some baseball after dinner. I almost opened my mouth to disagree, thinking that it is getting late and we have school in the morning....but we don't! So it's after their bedtime, they're still out playing and they're enjoying time with Daddy. Definitely more important!

*We received a "new-to-us" camera in the mail tonight from a friend! Can't wait to figure it out and start taking pictures. I've missed capturing moments of sibling love, berry-stained faces, shining eyes after hours of playing with friends, going to parks and so many more picture-perfect memories. Pictures here we come!

Hope you're off to a great start this week, too!

Grilled Chicken Salad

*  1 lb skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

*   1/2 cup pecans

*   1/3 cup red wine vinegar or raspberry blush vinegar (that's what I used!)

*   1/2 cup white sugar

*   1 cup vegetable oil (I used half canola/half olive oil)

*   1/2 onion, minced

*   1 teaspoon ground mustard

*   1 teaspoon salt

*   1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper

*   Iceberg lettuce, romaine lettuce and/or spinach leaves

*   1 cup sliced fresh strawberries, blueberries and/or oranges, depending on season

Directions

1. Preheat the grill for high heat.
2. Lightly oil the grill grate. Grill chicken 8 minutes on each side, or until juices run clear. Remove from heat, cool, and slice.
3. Meanwhile, place pecans in a dry skillet over medium-high heat. Cook pecans until fragrant, stirring frequently, about 8 minutes. Remove from heat, and set aside.
4. In a blender, combine the red wine vinegar, sugar, vegetable oil, onion, mustard, salt, and pepper. Process until smooth.
5. Arrange lettuce on serving plates. Top with grilled chicken slices, strawberries, and pecans. Drizzle with the dressing to serve.               

* I added cucumbers and carrots to our salad and used a mixture of iceberg and romaine lettuces. I'm not a fan of vinegar-y salad dressings but this one was actually very good on this salad! The raspberry vinegar added a really good flavor.

And here is the recipe I used for French Baguettes. I've made these several times and they always turn out great! I use part white and part white-wheat flour in mine. Definitely try!

                           

Nutritional Information

Grilled Chicken Salad with Seasonal Fruit

Servings Per Recipe: 6
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 567

• Total Fat: 46g
• Cholesterol: 43mg
• Sodium: 428mg
• Total Carbs: 23.2g
• Dietary Fiber: 2.3g
• Protein: 17.8g

VIEW DETAILED NUTRITION
About: Nutrition Info

Day of Fun!

Today was such a great day!! We went to church this morning and Eliana did really well in with Zakkai's class! She cried at first, which was hard but then she got so into playing that she didn't want to leave. She greeted me with a smile which warmed my old heart right up because usually she would greet us with a red, blotchy, snot-smeared face and burst into tears and be totally off for the rest of the day.

I'm hoping that things will continue to go well! It was almost a new experience to actually sit in the sanctuary and listen to an entire sermon without interruption:)

After church we made an emergency gas and diaper run and then changed into comfy clothes for the best part of our day!! We spent the whole rest of the day with our wonderful friends, Mr B and Ms E! They so kindly treated us to lunch at a fun train restaurant. There's nothing like getting your food delivered to you on a train:) Zakkai became instant buddies with them right away, which I love to see.

After lunch we headed over to a nearby festival to walk around and enjoy the sights. We saw lots of carnival rides that scared most of us to pieces:) The food part of the festival was closed but we made even better plans! Our friend Mr B. works close by as a chemistry professor and he took us to his work to show off.

He put on some REALLY cool experiments for the boys, which we thoroughly enjoyed, too! You can't go wrong with liquid nitrogen, balloons, hydrogen and matches. We learned what liquid nitrogen does to objects, the difference between and air-filled balloon and a hydrogen filled one (one sinks, one floats really high really fast!). We got to cover our ears and watch a match explode the hydrogen-filled balloon which was really cool.

We saw Menthos make pop fizz out of a bottle and even cheered on our friend as he shattered a nitrogen-frozen rubber tube on the floor!

But my favorite part was watching him dump out the rest of the liquid nitrogen on the floor and seeing the "steam" and bubbles racing around, almost like live little creatures. And 2 minutes later, the floor was dry like nothing had ever touched it at all. So cool! And thankfully, no one burned their fingers off....

We had so much fun exploring the science building with our very knowledgeable and esteemed Dr Chemist:) The boys really had a blast and when asked if they'd had a good time, answered with an enthusiastic "YES!!"

But our great day wasn't finished yet! We finished with sorbet treats at a beeeeeeeeauuuuutiful park by a lake and a high school that looks exactly like Hogwarts:)

So thank you so much, dear friends, for making our day so very wonderful and filling it with excitement, your kindness and so many blessings!! Can't wait to see you again soon!

Weekend highlights

Howdy. It's been such a busy weekend so far and while I have only one picture to show you (Thanks to a friend!), sadly, I will spell it out for you! (Thankfully pictures should be coming again next week!!)

On Friday, Samuel had his very last hour of school. He was SO sad about not seeing his teacher again and most of his friends for the summe that he broke down and cried a little while later:(

This is his very sweet and wonderful teacher, Mrs S! She, as you can see, was very teary, too, and told me that it was a really special group of kids this year and she will miss them all. She said Samuel was so sweet and she was so glad to have him this year. We will miss having her as our teacher and pray we get just as good of one next year!

After school, I dragged the kiddos grocery shopping which they were soooo thrilled to be a part of....n.o.t.  We were all pretty tired and thankful for a rest after lunch. The boys and I had some good quiet time reading new library books and coloring.

Then we got recharged for our slumber party! We all played outside with neighbors (or chatted, in my case;) and then enjoyed some deeeeelicious homemade pizza (reg and Hawaiian!). After we got Miss Moose tucked away, we all climbed onto the pull-out couch, cozy in our jammies with bowls of sundaes! Mmmm. We enjoyed our ice cream treat while watching a "new" (to us) movie called "Oliver and Company." It was fun to hear the boys giggle and enjoy it:)

Daddy and Zakkai nestled down in sleeping bags on the floor and Samuel and I got the whole couch bed to ourselves! I was woken up only a couple of hours later by Ben, who marched upstairs with pillow in hand, citing irreconcilable differences with the floor:) Just before 5 this morning, Zakkai climbed over Samuel and I and wiggled and wormed his way between us, breathing heavily. Thankfully we were able to fall back asleep for a little while:) It was a fun night for us!
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This morning we got up and went to an annual local parade called the Pet Parade! Last year we were moving in on the same day so we didn't get to go but we made it this year. It's a normal parade with fire engines, marching bands and clowns but with a lot of dogs, a few horses and a llama thrown in! The boys got lots of candy and little treasures and Missy got to see lots of her very favorite animal:)

This afternoon, while E was napping and the boys were having fun playing with neighbor kids, I went to the memorial service for my neighbor, who passed away this week. It was really sad. He was a really nice man, who made a point to come meet us right away after we moved here, brought popsicles for the boys over the summer and had special treats just for our kiddos on Halloween night. We've been trying to reach out to his wife this week, to show her we care and I was glad to see that there were a few close neighbors at the service today. She held herself together so well, despite it being an incredibly long and hard week but towards the end, my heart broke into pieces to see her folded over just sobbing:( If you have a moment, please lift up my neighbor in her grief and also that we would know how to reach out to her.

So it was a mixed day today, happy and sad. And tomorrow, we hope to get a chance to spend some time with some friends of ours, which will be a great end to our weekend. And then?

Summer begins!