Mom's Birthday Present/ Wall Vinyl

Happy belated birthday Mom! She said she had all she needed and didn't want anything for her birthday, so I was trying to think of a sentimental gift that wouldn't result in more tchotchkes piling up around the house. I decided to get her some wall vinyl to decorate her photo wall. Here are some pictures of the final product. Bennett is in Brown and "families are forever" is in black. You might be able to read families are forever better if if you went for a dark and light contrast, but those were the colors that would really match the decor. I LOVE it personally. I can't wait to do something similar when I get a photo wall or something cool for Morgan's nursery. You can get something like this for your own house for about $25, more or less depending on size. We can do all sorts of quotes and fun things for any room.

From the mouth of babes III

So Joshua is continuing to grow his vocabulary which is super awesome. He is even putting two words together which is great. I'm not a big fan of "No, mine!" but at least it is a sentence. He is cut down to about 1 show a day so he gets his choice between Pablo(Backyardigans), Dora, or Go Diego Go. He can say Pablo and Dora but he is having some trouble with Diego. It sounds like something different every time. Today it was Do Do Do, (like the bird.)

Here's another awesome Samantha story, which I am sad I did not witness myself. Last week my Mom blew her nose and Samantha asked to see her boogies. My Mom said, "that's not proper etiquette." Samantha replied, "it's not appropriate either?" Well that's all well and good but the best part is that my Mom went ahead and showed her the boogies. Samantha's reply to that was, "Grandma that's gross." Oh how awesome is that!

Oven Roasted Broccoli/I ♥ Alton Brown

While I don't seem to actually cook a whole lot, I love cooking shows. My favorite is Good Eats, on the Food Network. On our Tivo upstairs, I have about 160 episodes. Wowee! I watched an episode yesterday about broccoli and he made this awesome recipe that I can't wait to try. The in-laws have broccoli at almost every family dinner so this would be a fun recipe for me to bring to a get together. Also, I learned that 75-90% of the antioxidants in broccoli are lost when you steam in the microwave. SHOCKING!

So here is the recipe for Oven Roasted Broccoli, courtesy Food Network and Alton Brown

Ingredients:
1 pound broccoli, rinsed and trimmed
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup panko bread crumbs
1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan or sharp Cheddar

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Cut the broccoli florets into bite size pieces. Cut the stalk into 1/8-inch thick, round slices. Place the broccoli into a mixing bowl and toss with the olive oil, garlic, kosher salt and pepper and set aside.

Spread the panko into a 13 by 9-inch metal cake pan and place into the oven for 2 minutes or until lightly toasted. Remove the panko from the oven and add to the bowl with the broccoli mixture. Toss to combine. Return the mixture to the cake pan, place in the oven and roast just until the broccoli is tender, 8 to 10 more minutes. Remove from the oven, toss in the cheese and serve immediately.

Busy month of March

We have lots of pictures from the past few weeks. I've already discussed some of the events, but here is a mega post about them all.


3-15-08: Autumn invited Joshua to her 10th birthday party at Pump It up in Tempe. Samantha was allowed to come too. They had a great time and so did we!


3-17-08 Joshua does yard work. I decided to pull some weeds with Joshua and oh what fun ensued. He really loved using the hula hoe. He was also very good at pulling the leaves off of the weeds and trying to eat them. Ryan came home from work while we were mid weed pulling, so he chipped in and the two boys bagged the weeds. Joshua actually really excelled at putting weeds in the bag.


03-23-2008 Family photo shoot on Easter Sunday at church. What a cute family.

Toddler Ninja Warrior

You may remember this post, where I first mention Ninja Warrior. Well we thought we'd put Joshua through our own qualifying round to see if he has the stuff to be a future Ninja Warrior. We found a nice replica of the Dancing Stones at the park. Here is a picture of the real thing.


We are joining the action right after a near fall on the dancing stones.

Can he recover?? OH NO!! His foot has touch the sand. He is disqualified.


Here he is contemplating his future fate as a Ninja Warrior. Next time perhaps, next time.