Lots of Pippin....

I'm getting closer to caught up, woo hoo! I know it won't last though, July brings lots of travel for us and is always such a busy month here.

Just some random stuff....she loves going with Daddy to the local organic grocer to grind coffee beans......Lots more walks to see the firetrucks....
Sometimes we get tatted up and show off our muscles....
Pippin is still our best friend and feeling great. You really can't even see his scar which is just amazing.

We don't need a lot of space! (Yes, she still wants to wear her princess gown most days when she gets home. This one was actually from last week when she was home with her 24-hour Virus.)
We gave Pippin a tubby that night. Little Bossypants was all about telling Pippin what he needed to be doing.
Not so excited about the tubby!

If he could jump out, he would!! He hates water more than a cat. It probably doesn't help that my little helper loves pouring water all over him.
Where's Lilli?
Boo!

Father's Day

A few more pictures from Father's Day....

I forgot to really get any pictures of Brent opening his presents. Lilli was really trying to open all of them for him, and then for one of his gifts I made him a tin of assorted chocolates from The Peanut Shop down in the Arcade (love that place!) so we were all more interested in sampling than in picture taking!We've been updating Lil's room to be more "big girl". Gone is the changing table, we haven't used that in ages. We rearranged and moved her dresser to that corner and got several cube-type bookshelves where we have her books, shoes and some other puzzles/toys. We're weeding out other toys she's outgrown or doesn't play with anymore and just downsizing the junk.
She loves to take pictures. She does a pretty good job too!
She enjoys taking pics of herself - and will even cheese for the camera on her own.
Pool time!! It was a very cloudy/scattered rainy Father's Day but we went anyway and luckily the storms all went around. But it was kind of chilly in the pool! The kids didn't seem to care...
I found her this princess floatie at Walgreens and she wouldn't put it down.



The sadness when the pool closes for the day! She got really close to going down the kiddie waterslide but changed her mind at the last minute again. Brent did go down the big one a few times!!

Good Eats!

Our last two CSA boxes, we'll be getting a new one tomorrow already!They're starting to have less greens and more summer veggies, just as we've gotten so used to the greens and how to use them! Above is beets, cucumbers, squash, broccoli, I ordered sharp cheese (yum!), mint sprigs, the meat was 4 hamburgers and bacon that week, I also ordered chicken, kohlrabi, green onions, Oregon peas (so tired of those, that was bag #4 of them), cherry tomatoes and our eggs.
This past week we got 3 ears of corn, 4 cucumbers, 1 squash, 1 zucchini, beets, an albino green pepper (so cool!), kohlrabi, a red onion, green onions, carrots, blueberries, I ordered applesauce and chicken, and we got our eggs and the special meat this week was another whole chicken. Lots of variety and things with a good fridge life. Can't wait to see what we get tomorrow!
We've repeated several of our favorite recipes lately, Crock Pot Carnitas, always a major favorite of ours. We also made Turkey Nachos again and Indian Tandoori chicken. These helped use up some meat I had in the freezer and other stuff I had on-hand to use.. I'm really trying to eat through a lot of groceries that seem to stockpile around here. I'm the opposite of all those crazy coupon people, I want less stuff in my cabinets!

I pulled out a jar of Sweet Chili Sauce I've had for a while and used All Recipes to find a recipe to use it in. I'm trying to do that with one recipe per week to eat down our constantly overflowing pantry. I ended up finding a great recipe for a Sweet and Spicy Pork and Napa Cabbage Stir Fry. This was SO good and helped us use a pork tenderloin in the freezer, the last of our napa cabbage from our CSA box as well as some other things in it, and the whole bottle of Sweet Chili Sauce. And it was SO good, it was Brent's favorite thing we've had in a while. We did a lot of the chopping the night before, and also let the pork marinade overnight and all day.
(This is the new bumblebee Pillow Pet she got for planting her pacifiers in the backyard. The following recipes are of her harvesting all the candy that now grows in the backyard since she sleeps without her pacifiers now).We've had a lot of very different for us side dishes with the things we've been getting in our vegetable box. We had this cucumber-watermelon salad tonight that was SO good. I cut the portion size in a 1/4th because it sounded like a lot. We made this Massaged Kale Salad with the last of our kale, we didn't care for it. It was mega salty and just not our thing,maybe if we ever did it again we'd lay off the salt some. The other things in the salad were good, the salt taste was just overwhelming. This Parmesan Corn on the Cob was just ok. We've made better before, and the corn wasn't super juicy (but I think that's more the type of corn than the recipe).
This Sour Cream and Cucumber side was also really different for us, but good! Not something I'd make a ton, but it was a nice change. We made several different salads with the cherry tomatoes we got. We've never been big on tomatoes, but I think these recipes were all really good. I think this Cherry Tomato Corn Salad was probably my favorite and it also helped me use one of my many cucumbers we've had lately! Brent's been making fun of me because really, pretty much everything has cucumbers in it! We love feta, so this feta cheese tomato salad was really good and simple. And of course this one helped me use cucumbers, tomatoes and the mint we got!
I roasted the chicken we got from our CSA box using this Slashed Chicken with Bacon recipe from a website I really like. I think it turned out really well and was a very moist chicken. I still don't love whole chickens, I don't think we do a great job getting all the meat off or making the most of the bird.
We used the remaining chicken for this Chicken Salad Wrap recipe and it was SO good! It's not a super traditional chicken salad recipe, but it goes great in a wrap. And of course had a cucumber in it! I really hope cucumbers are a "super food".....

Hair and Beauty Night

One morning a couple of weeks ago Lilli surprised Brent and had pulled a few games into her crib. When he went to wake her up she was just sitting there playing Memory. She loves to match things, or identify things that are the "same kind" right now. This was the day before we took away her pappy, so probably the last time you will ever see one of her with it in!

That same day Alison (on the left) took us all out to lunch - at Maggie Moo's! I didn't get one of me and Angela for some reason, just Alison and Kirsten.And that same day the Kids buyer I work with sent home this awful product submission for Lilli. It's seriously a huge box of basically colored packing peanuts you're supposed to form into crafts. Awful. But I knew she'd have a blast squishing them and just making a mess with them.
She did figure out the best thing to do with them though....
Lightning bugs should really avoid our yard this year. Much torture.
For some reason she wanted me to fix her hair in a ponytail and a couple of her dolls that have "real" hair.
Then she wanted me to repaint our toes, so I did. This time she wanted more of a bright red and I stuck with my current plum.
And just as we were wrapping up, Brent had the misfortune of coming through. Lilli wanted to paint his toes, so we let her. And by painting his toes I mean she painted his toes, nails and everything else in-between.
The finished product - Ta Da!

Sesame Street Live!

I know this is getting everything out of order since I'm two weeks behind on here but I know I am just never going to get caught up anyway, so oh well!

Yesterday started in the normal fashion, with Mrs Perry's entourage of stray cats she feeds taunting Pippin. They just sit up there on top of the double-fence and taunt him since they know he can't go up there. So we just let Pippin bark at them as long as he likes since we are pretty tired of the gang of cats hanging out around our house that she won't stop feeding. Seriously, there is always a cat in our yard at all times lately.The main drama surrounding our outing to the Elmo Live show was whether or not the custom outfit I had made for Lilli would arrive or not. I had told this woman (that I had never worked with before, first mistake) a specific day I needed it for - two days earlier than what I really needed, just in case. I even paid a RUSH fee for it, too. And yet on the morning of the show Brent was driving around the neighborhood looking for the postman, trying to find it, because we could see through tracking numbers that it had arrived in our neighborhood at 6:41 that morning, finally. Our postman didn't have it, so he went to our post office and made them dig around in the back and they finally found it! Brent literally walked into the house with it less than ten minutes before we had to leave. Now that's love!
What made it even BETTER than all the stress and angry emails back and forth to this horrible woman is that Lilli was excited about it when she first saw it, and then immediately threw a major fit about it once we put it on her (she hates the big bows). To say we didn't care whether or not she liked it at that point would sum it up pretty well. She was going to wear this dress, period. She cried most of the way there but finally got over it, we knew once she got downtown she wouldn't care anymore. We parked in the garage of my office (free!) and just walked down to the GEC. She got really excited when she saw the big truck parked out front with Elmo on it. Everyone was having pictures made in front of the truck, so we asked someone to take a pic of the three of us. The first two were horrible and this is what we ended up with - blurry, and only part of the truck. Next time I will be more discerning who I ask to take our picture!
Of course the inside was laid out with all kinds of overpriced souvenirs and photo opps. These people know their market and know it well!
We ran into some friends that used to go to our church (we seriously see them at all the same events!) so we talked with them until about 15 minutes to show time when I took Lil for one last potty break and we headed into our seats. We had great ones - fourth row up in the bottom section. I didn't buy floor seats because I thought it might be uncomfortable and hard for her to see, and I'm really glad I didn't! It was pretty packed but the rest of the arena really wasn't full at all and we had some room to breath which was great. There was no one in front of us as well. My work really hooked us up with some great seats and a mega discount!
Sitting in her seat like a big girl!
The show started and she got a little scared when everything went dark and these enormous characters come out dancing. She climbed in my lap and watched it from there and was fine. I didn't mind because it was frigid in the arena!

I really liked the glow in the dark ones!
Right before intermission she told me she had to go potty so we headed out and were literally heading back in when they took their break so we were first back out to get snacks and avoided the bathroom line! Yippee!! She suckered us into some cotton candy and an Elmo doll, and I got some popcorn for Brent and I.
I love sugar! And Elmo!
She really started getting into the show the second half, participating along with them and dancing. I guess sugar helps her relax!
The whole show was about imagining where you wanted to be and you could be anywhere. Every character (pretty much) wanted to go to all these far off places, so we saw African dancers, a birthday party in Mexico, sailing the seas, etc. It was ok, no Broadway but all the kids really enjoyed it.
Afterwards Brent took her in the men's room (much shorter lines....) and I just couldn't help but buy her a insanely overpriced Elmo balloon. It really just completed her look.
Elmo, head to toe.

Walking back to the car we saw a fire truck so she wanted to stop and have her picture made.
The arena is only 3 miles from our house, and halfway home it was pretty quiet in the back. The poor thing was tuckered out!
You would think this meant she took a great afternoon nap, but no. As soon as we got her inside she woke right back up and spent her naptime playing in her crib. For 2.5 hours she sang, jumped, played, and had me get her out three times to go to the bathroom. And she had one fake choking incident that sent me in there running. It turns out cotton candy and popcorn for lunch do not lead to great naps.
The best part is that last night we went over to Green Hills to upgrade my phone and a couple of minutes after we got in the car it just seemed quieter than normal so when I turned around I saw this:
It was really, really hard not to throw something at her!