Sunday Monday Musings!

Good Monday morning to you all :-) I'm here to post my Sunday Musings, just a day late. I really should try to start writing my post on Saturday night! Of course with yesterday being Mother's Day I spent the whole day away from the computer and with my family, which is how it should be on those special days ;-)

There's not much to write about this week, but before I go any further, I want to tell you all about the melons - I know you're dying to find out if they grew . . . .

Ta da!!! You were right, they did grow and . . .

Look at sweet Kiki, she was thrilled when she saw these - watermelon is her most favorite fruit you know!

This is Kristen's hand on the right, the left is the little boy who lived across the street from us, he was about 10. They are showing the size of the melon in comparison to their hands :-)

Now, were the watermelons ripe enough before we had to leave for Texas in July? No, unfortunately they weren't. We had to try one, and I cut in to it the week before we left only to see it still completely white inside! I thought I had taken a picture, but I can't see one on my computer so I must not have.

So, back to Mother's Day.... I was woken yesterday morning by a little girl and a puppy bringing me a 'soggy' bowl of bran flakes for breakfast :-) Hubby followed behind with a lovely hydrangea plant and a card for me. We enjoyed coffee out on the back porch, then I started planning our lunch ready for Grandma and Papa coming over. I was making lasagna from the Pioneer Woman's cook book (I'll be sharing more about that tomorrow when Melanie and I do our 'cooking with PW' post) I also made a fresh salad from lettuce from our garden. It's so much fun going out there and seeing what I can pick. I actually got radishes and peas too!

For dessert Grandma had brought a delicious peanut butter icecream cake.

Yummy!

And here's a couple more pics from yesterday. . . Jason and his Mom

and us 3!

Friday wasn't a good day for Kristen... well it was, THEN it wasn't. She was doing her presentation for QUEST and Jason was off work so he came along with me to watch her.

She did an outstanding job and seems a natural at standing up and talking in front of people. The boy before her just stood and read from a piece of paper all his facts about 'Alcatraz'! The girl after her had her back to the audience the whole time as she read her facts from her tri-fold board (and in such a quiet voice we could hardly hear her), all the kids did a good job though, but I'm proud to say Kristen faced her audience the whole time, spoke loud and clearly and didn't have to read from notes at all. We're so proud of her. Her topic as you may be able to see from the board was Police Dog Training. The little dog on the table is modeling the helmet and shin guards Kristen 'designed' to help protect police dogs when they are working!

The not so fun time came later when we got home :-( I had to tell Kristen that we can not return to her elementary school in the Fall! When we moved to this neighborhood I opted to keep Kristen in the school she was already in. She was just going in to 1st grade that year and I didn't really want her having to start all over again to make friends. I was told I could just fill out a transfer form and we could elect to stay at that school even though we weren't correctly 'zoned' for it. I was able to do that each year until now. This year 200 kids were refused their transfer requests (that was everyone!) because the school is getting too full and new homes are still being built right next to it. We now have to go to the correct elementary school we are zoned for. Kristen cried BIG time when I told her. I felt so bad for her but there's nothing I can do about it. I explained that it's probably a good thing she needs to change schools now because at least this way she can make new friends and will be able to go off to middle school knowing lots of kids already. If we had stayed at the old school she would have to move on to middle school which would be a different school from all of her other friends.

I hope that makes sense. Anyway suffice to say lots of tears and a sad evening but she seems ok about it now. It's just going to be hard once September gets here and I have to take her to school that first day when she probably won't see one familiar face! I know it won't take her long to make friends though, so I'm trying not to worry about it.

Well, I should leave it there for now before this post gets way too long. I hope you all had a lovely day yesterday, do let me know how you spent your day if you drop by and can leave a comment. I always love to read them :-)

Musings tomorrow

Wow! Where did the week go? I can't believe I haven't posted since Wednesday! I was going to post Friday and tell you more about the watermelons... didn't want you all waiting a whole week to find out, but the day got away from me. Then I thought I would post yesterday, but I didn't get on here much at all, just spent the day relaxing with hubby, and of course today was Mother's Day.

I was hoping to post my Sunday Musings tonight (I told my sis I would) but it's a little late and I'm sleepy, so I shall leave you with a sweet photo of me and Kristen today and will definitely post it tomorrow.



Hope all you Mom's had a wonderful day today. I know I did.... I'll share more tomorrow, g'night!

Planting from the Past

I have nothing NEW to show you for Outdoor Wednesday so how about something OLD! I was looking through my photos on my computer and thought it would be fun to share with you some pictures of the very first watermelons we tried to grow.

Awwww, look at that precious princess :-) Kristen was only 3 1/2 at the time. We were renting a house in Maryland after just selling our first home - waiting to move to Texas later that summer. In April that year I decided I would buy some melon seeds and it would be a fun project for me and Kristen to do. I loved being a sahm and was always trying to think of fun educational things for me and Kristen to do. (these pics were taken April 2nd 2004)

The house we rented had a screened in porch on the back. First Kristen filled her little pots with soil.

Then she planted the seeds

And of course next you water them :-)

A few days later one little girl was super excited one morning when she discovered the seeds were sprouting!

a few more days later... even bigger!


Now fast forward a month to May 5th and look at our seedlings now! Oh, I just realized this is exactly 6 years ago today.... Cinco De Mayo!

Our seedlings are ready for planting.

and watering!

The big question now is "will the watermelons ripen before we have to leave for Texas in July - will they even grow at all? I guess that's two questions really. . . . . . . . Stay tuned to find out!

I'm also linking this to Marla's wonderful Woo Hoo Wednesday Feature :-) Drop by and see all the other wonderful participants.

PW's Breakfast Burritos

A few months ago I saw a blog post about breakfast tacos. It was simply sausage and eggs cooked separately then spooned on to small fajita size tortillas with shredded cheese added - fold them in half then freeze them ready for a quick and easy breakfast. I wondered how PW's recipe compared because she cooks her burritos all together, cheese included! So this week that's what I chose from the cookbook.


Here's some of the ingredients. . . . I used diced potatoes with onions (Ree suggests using her homemade breakfast potatoes but I'll leave those for another recipe day!) HERE'S a link to Ree's recipe on her cooking site if you don't have the book and want to try these. Sometimes I find the recipes differ just a tad from the book, for instance her site says use 12 eggs, but the book said only 10. Not sure it makes that much difference, I still found there was plenty of egg in the mixture.

Brown the sausage and add in one red bell pepper

then add the potatoes

mix together the eggs, cheese, chives (which I happily picked from my herb garden!) and seasoned salt, then pour over the sausage mixture.

it looks rather yucky at this point, but that's because the eggs aren't fully cooked yet. Stir gently as the eggs cook so as not to break up the potatoes.

Once cooked spoon the mixture on to large tortillas (top with more cheese if desired says Ree - so I did ;-), fold in the sides and roll the tortilla closed.

Verdict: The sausage mixture is yummy, I love the combination of sausage egg and cheese and I always love potatoes in my breakfast tacos so it was great that they were added too. The bell pepper was a nice addition. I would definitely make them this way again, but in hindsight I would just use small tortillas and fold them in half.

The recipe says this makes 12 burritos but I only got 8 because I overstuffed them. That would have been fine if we were eating them all the same day, but when they are frozen they are pretty thick and you can't just zap them in the microwave for a 1 1/2 minutes like I do with the small tacos. I defrosted 3 of these over the weekend and 2 minutes in the microwave still had the sides piping hot but the inside just warm.

I'll make the mixture again but make small breakfast tacos - definitely a keeper though. I like how it's all made in the same pan instead of cooking the sausage then scrambling the eggs separately like I was previously doing.

What are we making next Mel?

I'm linking to Tasty Tuesday at http://beautyandbedlam.com/
and TMTT at http://blessedwithgrace.blogspot.com/

Sunday Musings . . . . May 2nd

Perhaps I should title these posts Sunday 'Night' Musings as it's nearly the end of the day before I get a chance to get on here! We've had a lovely busy weekend but first let me recap from the beginning of the week.

Look what I bought this week :-) Actually I ordered it last week from Amazon when I saw a blog post about someone making homemade ice cream! I checked Amazon after reading that post and found the same ice cream maker as the blogger mentioned (I can't remember who's blog it was, so if you're reading this and it was you, please let me know) and it was on sale so I had to get it ;-) Of course what I liked about it more than making ice cream (which I'm actually not a huge fan of, although I will eat it) is the fact you can make frozen yogurt. You know I am always trying to eat healthy, this is what I made the second day we got it (the first day I had to make ice cream for Kiki and Jason using heavy whipping cream!)

This is Weight Watchers vanilla yogurt with some frozen berries that I had and a little sugar (the recipe was in the book you get), it was lovely. The only down side to this maker is you have to really freeze the bowl for at least 24 hours each time. It's probably not a problem after you've had it a while and only use it once a week or so, but the first couple of days we were wanting to try a few different recipes but once you've had it out of the freezer for the half hour it takes to make you need to re-freeze it for at least a day before you use again. Still, it was fun and there are lots of different recipes to try, even low fat versions. Oh, and for slushies for kids you simply pour in coca cola or any other soda or juice and turn it on. Kristen loved the 'icy Sprite' I did :-)

This week saw Kristen taking her first TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) tests at school - math and reading. Some kids can get pretty nervous at the mention of tests, I didn't make a big deal out of it and from what Kristen said I think she probably did great.

On Friday my sweet hubby walked through the door with a beautiful bunch of roses for me, and a little bouquet of chrysanths for Kristen. It started our weekend off on a great note ;-)

Tennis! Well, I didn't get to play tennis yesterday after all :-( There was some misunderstanding when Cheryl booked up and it seems a tournament was on so no courts were available? Cheryl will have to call the rec center to find out what happened but we hope to take a class not next weekend (still tournaments) but the next. We might still try and go play one morning this week instead of walking. I'll keep you all posted. Cheryl and I headed off to the farmers market after we found out about the tennis, she hadn't been yet and was excited to see all the local growers when we got there. We bought beets, cauli, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, and spinach and tried a few dips and salsas too. I think we'll be heading there most Saturday mornings now.

Cheryl and I (and Kristen and Connor) painted some mason jars yesterday and wrapped wire and beads around them to put in our trees out front. I saw this idea on a blog this week too, I need to start making a note of who's blogs I see things on! The small jar above is one I bought in Hobby Lobby, and I already had plans to try and paint our own, so I was happy to see a recent post on how to do it. We simply mixed a little paint with Modge Podge and painted the outside of the jar. I like the mason jars better than the one I bought because the tea lights don't get blown out easily. The slightest breeze and the candle just goes out in the smaller jar. We sat out front last night and lit all the candles. The kids love playing out there in the dark while the neighbors sit and chat over a glass of wine (or beer) ;-) We love our cul-de-sac!

So today Jason and I have been busy in the back garden. Things seem to be coming along nicely now, but we're still working on getting more seeds and seedlings planted out to replace the things eaten. We might still have a problem with grubs in the soil for a while too (til we order some beneficial nematodes)! but we'll just keep trying. While we're working out there, Kristen is doing this . . . .

don't look at all those weeds in the flower bed! I'm working on pulling them out soon too ;-) That's our week in review, hope yours has been a good one. Are we all ready for another Monday morning?!

Good Sunday Morning

Good Sunday morning to you all. What have you been up to this weekend? What's your plans for today? It's looking a little overcast here but perfect to be working in the garden, speaking of which I posted week 4 of our garden update today. CHECK IT OUT HERE. We have pea pods :-)

I'll be back later today with Sunday Musings. Have a wonderful blessed Sunday.

Tennis Anyone?

Ha ha, yes I know this is golf. To be more exact this is Kristen trying to play golf at age two when we vacationed in Myrtle Beach with Grandma and Papa (I don't have any pictures of tennis) :-)

My sweet friend Judy has been wondering where I am since Wednesday, perhaps some of you have wondered too? I'm still here, I just couldn't think of something to post about on Thursday, nothing much been going on this week and I hadn't set a table for 'Tablescape Thursday', so I let the day pass by without a post. Then Friday came and I didn't join in with Fertilizer Friday because I didn't really have anything new to show - the flowers out front all look the same as they did last week. And here we are Saturday already and can you believe it's MAY!!! Wow, if we're not careful this year will be over with before we know it (I think I say that every year actually)!

So, what's with the title of the post? Tennis? Well I'm off for a quick tennis lesson with Cheryl this morning! Cheryl's idea not mine. We've been walking around the neighborhood together this week, trying to get a couple of miles in a day. Cheryl wants to start getting more active and suggested we try and play tennis. Then she found that the local rec center (where she just started taking her son for 'fencing' lessons) holds an adult tennis lesson each week. That's where we're off to today. It's just a one off lesson (for now) to give us the basic instructions on how to hit the ball (and other simple stuff like that I assume) ;-)

I'm headed out in about 20 minutes, and after that we may stop off at the farmers market :-) I'll be posting my Sunday Musings tomorrow (hopefully with pics of tennis?) so until then, enjoy the day . . . and happy May Day!