Superbowl...Kid Style!

When the guys play, so do us moms and kids. Faith, Eli, and Sophie came over to play and have dinner.

Johnny loves Baby Sophie, and here you can see him laying a big kiss on her.

In honor of the Superbowl, I made a football-shaped chocolate cake.

I also made Ree's chicken spaghetti casserole.

As you can see, happy kids!

Rest of the pics are here.

Fancy Cooking

After a fun day at the park, Joey and I were hungry for some good food. We made PW's Chicken Legs and PW's Cobbler #2. Yum! No go cook you some!!!

Rest of the cooking pics are at the end of this album.

Yates Mill Pond

The boys and I spent about 4 hours at Yates Mill Pond yesterday. We walked the Creekside Trail which is a deep forest trail and then the Mill Pond trail which circles the pond and goes to the mill. Those trails amounted to about 4 miles of hiking. The Mill and falls were just gorgeous as was everything else about this park. I took tons of pics. But the Best Of pics are here.

It's free, and it's good exercise. If you haven't been, I'd recommend it.

More information on Yates Mill Pond is here.

We're off to Lake Wheeler today...

Eye of a Hawk

Debbie and I were out the door with the boys very early Saturday to go yard saling. However, it's a little early in the year for there to be many sales, and mostly we just enjoyed spending the morning together talking, taking the boys to Dunkin Donuts, and taking pictures of the sunrise and other interesting thing going on in nature.

We started off getting some nice shots of the sunrise. This is a tree behind Porter Farms produce stand.

Debbie saw an interesting 'long road' shot as we drove down Rock Service Station road and suggested that I go back and shoot it.


At the intersection of Old Stage Road and Rock Service Station Road, I turned around to go back and shoot this lovely reflection in the farm pond. The horse, white and red barns, and tree are great. The dog houses and blue tarp not so hot. Still, an interesting photo.

But, the crown jewel of the morning was this shot of a hawk that I took on John Adams Road. Unfortunately, it's a tad blurry, but still just awesome to catch a picture of him. As we pulled up to the spot where I previously saw a blue heron, I went real slow. Before anyone else saw him, I saw him. I told everyone to hush. Debbie was franticlaly looking for what it was I was so excited about. I carefully adjusted the camera and rolled down the window and got off about 9 shots before he flew. I was relieved but also wishing I'd had more chances...like to change the camera to spot focus. Oh well, still thankful for catching him at all.

The best of pics of the morning are here.

The entire morning album is here.

Wrestling...Brother Style

The boys were a bit fiesty after they ate dinner... Joey was a really good big brother today, and you can tell he was having fun making Johnny happy here.

My Attempt at PW Cobbler #1

I was on a cooking roll tonight. And, I was in the mood for cobbler after inspiration from the Pioneer Woman and Patricia.

The original Pioneer Woman's version is here.

Patricia's version is here.

The ingredients are simple.

Johnny just wanted to eat the plain still slightly frozen berries...

Joey never used a whisk before. COOL!

Wait a minute! Are we cooking or eating?

I don't really care...

On his own, Joey decided that Johnny's mouth needed wiping. Very sweet...



Ready for the oven.



Cooking...


Done!



Good, but too many berries?

Rest of pics are here.

A good night for a stir fry...

Here's my proud chef!

I felt like cooking tonight. What a concept! It's so much fun with two enthusiastic helpers. I was in Wal-Mart earlier, so I had what we needed to make a chicken broccoli stir fry.

Stir fry is a great meal to get the kids involved with because there are quite a few steps to do and therefore lots of opportunities to help.

Here's what we used plus a jar of mushrooms.

To start, both boys took turns chopping onions with my Pampered Chef chopper. We all love this tool. If I make the onions small enough, Joey won't refuse to eat his meal;-)

Joey set to work right away stirring the stir fry. He loves to get out that wooden spoon and go to town. He quickly donned the sunglasses to avoid the onion smell and steam. TOO CUTE!

Mom chopped the broccoli and added it for Joey to stir. (He liked chopping it small.)

Time to cut up and added the chicken.

Now time for the sauce.

Ready! Just serve over rice!!!

YUM!!!

Rest of pics are here.