I made these muffins the other day on a whim and boy am I glad we gave them a whirl.  GOOD!  They are Millet Muffins courtesy of 101 Cookbooks - a fabulous blog.  She has a new cookbook that just came out and this recipe is in the book.  I hope the rest of the recipes are just as good!

The kids ADORED them!  Even with no butter on top!

We were seriously fighting over every last one of them.

I snuck the last 2 for myself!  Don't worry - I plan on making more this week sometime so I'm not THAT mean of a mom.  ; )

The weather has been lame the past few days and from what I hear - the trend is going to continue.  So the kids spent some time outside today even though it was NOT warm.  Looks can be deceiving!

Ok, THIS has to be the last of it!  I know I said this last week (and most likely I jinxed it) but this time it has to be true!  It just has to!

For those keeping score, Eric's prediction of ice out TODAY was wrong.  I might have a shot with my guess of tomorrow (April 18th).  It is looking really, really thin this evening.  I will be gloat-y gloater-son if I win!  Woohoo!

I love how intense he looks!

He wasn't liking the sun in his eyes.  Apparently the sunglasses didn't help though cuz he wanted to stop playing right after this.

And this brings us to tonight's dinner.  I had bought a ham from Cub this past week for a pretty sweet deal - 89 cents a pound!  So it fed us for 4 days now - and there's still some left!  Score!  So tonight I decided to veer away from the ever popular sandwich route.  This was pretty good!  Its a Broccoli, Ham and Pasta Salad from Eating Well.

I didn't use all the things the recipe called for, but only cuz I didn't have it all on hand.  I used brown rice fusilli from Trader Joes instead of whole wheat pasta.  I also didn't use any plain yogurt, but only because we didn't have any and it was just fine without it.  This is definitely a keeper!  It will be a great summer time salad for sure!   I was the only one who ate it with spinach - its definitely not a necessity, but I like spinach - so there!

Well, Dylan's movie night feature film (Toy Story) is nearly over, so must go wrangle him into bed.  Tomorrow is picture day at school, so he's gotta get his beauty sleep! : )

Later!

Gettin' Springy...

Ahhh, spring.  It sure is lovely isn't it?  This lone flower always pops up first amongst the tulips.  Every year, it is the first riser.

I LOVE when our furniture and grill come out.  Makes summer feel all that closer.  The kids are always happy to see the toys they had forgotten they owned.

Avery is still working on her sharing skills.  In her defense, the car was stolen out from under her, so she had a right to be mad.

As you can see, Dylan really cares.

Ha!  This totally isn't a posed picture.  It just looks that way.  They both happened to look at me at the same time for once.

These are her "play" sunglasses, so they don't really do anything to protect her eyes.  You'll recall that her other shades are no more, so these were the next best thing or risk a tantrum.

If/ when we move, I sure hope our next yard is just as big as this.

What?!  Do you think I was gonna let her go more than a day without proper sunglasses?  She IS a girl, you know.  We had to wear them INDOORS today as winter has returned again for a few days.  Its COLD out.  Booooooooo.

And like a true girl, she jumped at the chance to model them for me.

Little big, but she'll grow into them.

This calls for a dance!

Wait - what's on TV?

Nothing good!  Back to dancing!

And while we were picking out sunglasses for her, she made sure that her brother got a pair too.

He'll do anything to try and get that one perfect picture.  We did this over and over and over again.

Then it was tent time.  Could be our last tent till Fall!

And finally, I had to pretend it was warm out while drinking my smoothie.  I was wishing I was in that pink chair with the sun warming me.

This is just frozen peaches and mangos with almond milk.  Sams Club has a frozen bag of Tropical Fruit right now and its fabulous.  It has peaches, mangos, pineapple and strawberries.  Delish!

My only wish is that I would have had a Vitamix to make it in.  This took FOREVER!  It was worth it tho cuz it was sooooo good.

 

Well, time to RELAX!  Better go dig out my slippers.  GRRR.

Spring Fun

Well, there were more outside shenanigans yesterday.  Falls from high places, mud, loons - to name a few.  Yeah, Avery fell from the top rung of the ladder side (where Dylan is), hitting her head on the bar as she fell through.  Awesome.  : (

But she recovered quickly.  There was too much to enjoy about the day.  Check out one of our new mugs!  Sweeeeeet.

More time was spent on the slide.  The bane of my existence.

Alright, its not the slide I hate, its the stupid (or stinky, if you are watching your language) mud patch you see at the bottom of the slide.  Most times she doesn't fall, but it takes just one time for a clean butt to turn into a muddy one.  Mental note - must pick up laundry spray.

Then when we went for a walk, Avery noted it was "too BRIGHT!" and demanded my sunglasses become hers.

"GIVE THEM TO MEEEEEE!"

She always wins.

Millicent was out enjoying her favorite time of the year - which is anytime when there isn't snow to get on her dainty feet.

Then when I wanted my shades back, she was still demanding sunglasses of her own, so I was forced to go in and dig around to find hers.  She got lucky that I found them.  Sadly, there was an incident this morning and the glasses are no more.

Thankfully, Dylan knew right where his were.  I love how they push his ears out.

He only wears them when he's riding on the road.  He told me that sunglasses are only for when you are driving.  Mmmmkay.

The loons are back!  We've seen several!  They most likely won't stick around.  We'll get a pair that will stay, but the rest are just passing through on their way to their prospective lakes.  Here's the zoomed in pic...

And the zoomed out pic...

As you can see, the ice is rapidly depleting.  YAY!

Annnnnd my work here was done once Eric was done working.  Mom turns into chopped liver at that point.

They decided to unload all the deck furniture, toys and bikes from Pontunia.  Its becoming more real now - WINTER IS OVER!!!!!

More spring fun pics to come later and maybe a video.  My niece Natalie made up an awesome song about Bath Toys that I am obsessed with, so I've been encouraging some creativity around here.  So far, no dice, but I'm not giving up.  These kids are going to perform and they are gonna LIKE IT!