Dressed in the Night

The azaleas in front of my house have made an appearance. Finally.  They are always the last to bloom out of all the other azaleas that I have scattered about our property.  They're also such a pretty soft pink.  I trimmed the hedges, and a couple of days later, boom! azaleas everywhere.  Just look at how they fill up the bushes in the below picture.

While out admiring God's handiwork, and also the hard work that went into trimming the bushes, the kids came around with the dog.  Peamite Alpha loves his Wolverine costume.  He asks if he can wear it all the time.

 Comet smiling with the kids

Comet giving Peamite Alpha kisses

Last night, Peamite Alpha asked if he could sleep in his costume, so David put him to bed in it.  When David went into his room this morning to get him up for school, he was in the bed with a t-shirt and jeans on.  At some point during the night, he got up, dressed in school clothes, and then went back to sleep.  

Yes, what a strange child I have, but that's ok, it makes life interesting, and therefore, I have something to tell you about here. :)

Comet said OK

Comet likes to bark.  It's what dogs do; their way of communication.  Our dog likes to talk, so I guess he fits in just fine with our family.

This morning, he was justa barking.  I looked out the window to see if I could see what it might be, and it was a truck way down the road that had parked on the side of the road.  I'm guessing they're doing some sort of work, since people have been working up and down our road lately.  He's so far away, there's really no reason for Comet to be making such a fuss.

I stood at the living room window and called out to him.  I figured he would hear me just fine since dogs have super hearing, and he did.  I told him to stop barking at the people down the road.  When he realized I was having a conversation with him, he walked over to the window and looked up at me.

"Comet, don't bark at those people way down there, they aren't bothering anyone.  If they come to our house, then you can bark, but while they're down there, please be quiet!"

And I kid you not, he looked right at me, and gave a short bark as if saying, "Ok."  and went on his merry way.  I haven't heard a peep from him since.

 

Katie petting Comet

Gardening Little Homemaker

So, I just wanted to say, I'm so proud of myself.  Since we can't afford to hire someone to keep up our landscaping, it's my duty.  David said if it was up to him, he'd dig it all up so he wouldn't have to fool with it.  But, Crazy Me would rather have a nicely landscaped home, so like I said, it's my responsibility.

I invested in a cordless hedge trimmer...much like the one in the picture below.

And let me tell you, it makes all the difference in the world.  Going from hand shears to that, made the job so much easier and quicker. We have bushes and trees all around our house, and I have trimmed and cut and pulled for 3 hours at them.  I felt empowered using a power tool.  I am woman, hear me roar...or meow. 

I was surprised at how many little oak trees were trying to sprout up right next to the house among the bushes.  Since I don't exactly want a towering oak right next to my house one day, I cut them down while they were easy to get at with a lopper.  Which is also one of my favorite gardening investments shown in the picture below.

I think I spent most of my time cutting down little oak trees than anything else.  They were literally popping up all over the place.

Today was a great day to get all this yard work done.  It's not very warm today, and a nice breeze from time to time.  Since it was such a beautiful day, the kids were out with me the whole time running around, swinging, riding bikes, and occasionally helping me pick up limbs to put on the burn pile.

I had to stop before I was completely finished because I knew I needed to go in to get Peamite Bravo down for a nap.  She had worn herself slap out playing that much!

The landscaping will be a work in progress for quite a while until I can get to the maintenance stage.  The house we bought hadn't been lived in for a while before we moved in, so the landscaping had been neglected a lot.  There are briers and weeds everywhere.  I'm holding off on pulling up the briers this Spring until I can harvest the dew berries.  They'll be done soon...I noticed they're already turning green.

In addition to the dew berries, we bought a hanging strawberry plant, and my parents gave me a cutting from their blueberry bush.

The kids are great about taking care of them.  We make sure they have plenty of water almost every day.  Mom said her blueberry bush has lots of blueberries on it that'll be ready soon, but unfortunately, my new plant is too young to have fruit this year.  We have that to look forward to next year!

So this little homemaker is going to rest up before Bible study and revel in all the hard work accomplished today.

Peamite Bravo's 2nd Birthday

My little Peamite Bravo is getting to be such a big girl.  She's starting to talk in more complete sentences, and is very expressive of her feelings.  She also knows what a party is, and that we were having one for HER.  She would say, "my cake" and "my party."  Except it sounded like Eddie Murphy when he sings "Party All the Time."  Yeah, potty.  

We had a "nandy" (candy) birthday party for her.  Candy everywhere.  On the cake, on the cupcakes, and scattered about.  Even her dress had candy on it.  Her Aunt Emmy is the best shopper and finds the cutest outfits.  Look how adorable it is! 

Even the invitations were lollipops!  Kimberly Davion of www.gluepaperscissors.net designed the invites, favor tags, and cupcake wrappers.  Just look how adorable these are!  (Sorry, everything's adorable right now.)

 

Lollipop Invitation

The invitation swung open to show the party details!

cupcake wrappers gave extra color!

Sweet favor tags!

I looked and looked for inspiration for the birthday cake, but all of them were huge.  We didn't need a lot of cake.  Although, we did end up with way more than needed because half the people invited couldn't make it, but that's another rant.

I finally came up with this idea, and ran with it.  I was really pleased with how it turned out.  You can't really tell in the picture, but the whole cake was shimmery.  I airbrushed it with lustre dust.

Cake I made for Peamite Bravo's 2nd birthday

Lemon Cake with Vanilla Buttercream and Fondant

I also made cupcakes.  Kids love cupcakes.  It could be the same exact flavor as the cake (these were not) and they would still go for the cupcake.  I thought this to be true anyway, until we went to a friend's birthday party the next day, and one of the kids insisted on having a slice of cake instead of the cupcakes, which indeed was the same exact recipe for both.  I think she's a grown up in a 7 or 8 year old's body. 

Anyway...I made some cupcake toppers and used real candy as well for toppers and decoration.  Dressed in Kim's beautiful cupcake wrappers, the cupcakes were perfect.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream

I even made sugar cookies to look like pieces of wrapped candy for the party favors.  

 Sugar Cookie Party Favors

Everything was very colorful and happy.  I couldn't find plates and napkins with a candy theme, so I just went for more color.  I think you can see them well enough in the picture.  Colorful dots!

  Party set up!

Peamite Bravo had a great time.  She was very excited to play with all her new toys, and couldn't wait to wear her new clothes and shoes.  I loved seeing her reaction to everything.  Like I said earlier, she's very expressive now.

Now I'll leave you with us singing "Happy Birthday" to her, and how she tries to blow out the candles.

At the end you can hear my mom tell Katie that she can blow them out now.  That's because we had to keep her from blowing out the candles as I was trying to light them before we sang! :) 

Chicken Dorito Casserole

I tell people about this casserole, and they look at me like, really?  Yes. Really.  It's delicious.  I have converted two non-casserole-eating-people with this recipe. My husband will get very excited when he finds out this is for dinner.  Even Peamite Alpha requests it by name.

My mom's been making this casserole for years now.  I have no idea where she got the recipe, but I'm sure glad she did.

So, get your ingredients together, or a grocery list started so we can make this deliciousness.

Chicken Dorito Casserole

4 chicken breasts

1 medium onion

1 regular size bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos

2 cups grated cheddar cheese

1 can whole kernal corn

1 3/4 cup chicken broth (made from boiling chicken) 

1 can Cream of Chicken Soup

1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup

1 can Ro-Tel tomatoes (I use Original, but put in whatever hotness you can stand!)

Boil the chicken until tender with the onion, salt, and pepper.  Cool.  Skin and debone (if necessary) and cut into bite size pieces.  Spread the chicken in the bottom of 11x13 in baking dish.  Crush the Doritos and spread over the chicken.  Next, spread the onions, corn, and cheese.

Heat the soups with the chicken broth and tomatoes.  Pour the mixture over the casserole.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 - 40 minutes.

If there's any left, be glad, because it's even better the next day when all the flavors have melded together.  Enjoy!  Here's a picture of my little Peamite Bravo enjoying it:

How Do You Say?

How little kids say things are just so cute. The above video is of Peamite Bravo saying "lemonade."  I think she really likes the 'L' part of the word since she lalalalas every 'L' word she says.

We taught our kids from a very young age to say please and thank you.  In the next one, you can hear how PB says, "thank you" and "I love you, Dad."

Did you notice how she curled her tongue into a U shape at the beginning of the video?  Did you know that was genetic?  Yup, learned that in Biology - Thanks, Mrs. Webb!

Now, if there ever was a kid that loved popcorn, that would be mine.  She could eat the whole bag with no help.  You can even see how excited she gets about just at the mention of the word, as she calls it, "ca-corn"  I just noticed today that she pronounces a lot of 'P' words with a 'C'.  She loves pickles or "cickle".  She also loves black olives...which I discovered when I was picking the olives off of my Chicken Fajita pizza at Pizza Inn one day.  She was eating them off my plate as fast as I could get them to her.  When we go to the Inn now, we're sure to get her a little pile off of the salad bar to go along with her pizza.  Can you tell I don't have a picky eater?  Yay for that.

Think I'm gonna go pop some "ca-corn" now.

Living Room Tent

Peamite Alpha and Peamite Bravo were wanting to camp today.  PA had his backpack and a snack all ready to go.  PB was on his heels ready, too, although I'm sure she didn't have a clue as to what was going on, just wanted to play with brother.

While the kids were occupied, I set up a sheet tent for them.  It reminded me of my "fort" days with all the couch cushions, blankets and sheets arranged to make a fort for us to hide in.

It's been up all day, with the kids going in and out of it.  Here are the kids "camping" in their tent.

Peamite Alpha is telling me that he can see the TV through a little gap in the tent.  Peamite Bravo refuses to drink out of a sippy cup the correct way.  Notice how it's upside-down?  Yeah, that's my kid.

 

Peamite Alpha is saying "cheese" while holding a piece of cheese.  Peamite Bravo cutely scrunching up her face as she loudly cries, "CHEEEEESE."  

At least they're happy and occupied while I work on cakes for this week!