Good-bye Kindergarten, Hello Summer and First Grade!

Where did the last nine months go???  

My oldest daughter Alison finished up kindergarten last Wednesday.  She is now a First Grader.  Gulp.  That's big time stuff.  I totally remember First Grade.  I remember where my desk was in my homeroom.  I remember when the kid next to me left his crayons sitting on top the heat vent and they melted everywhere.  I remember that the water fountain was right outside my homeroom door.

Alison will remember this stuff too and that just boggles my mind.  She's a big kid now.  She learned so much this past year.  All-day kindergarten was a fantastic experience for her.  She entered kindergarten a shy little girl who wrote the letter "s" backwards and left knowing how to count to 200, writing her entire name correctly and whizzing through math problems like nobody's business.  God bless you, Teachers!  You do a great job!

And look how much she's grown up!

September 6, 2012:

June 5, 2013:

Alison is an awesome kid.  I love her so much.  Great job Ali-Pants!

A $75 bird's nest

Seriously, why didn't I take a picture of this?

I got a bike this spring.  And a new helmet.  (A $75 helmet, I might add.  You'll see why this is important in a bit.)  I went on a couple of bike rides with my family a few weeks ago.  (and it was a few weeks ago because it has pretty much been raining non-stop here since.)  It was the first time I rode a bike since college.  (I'd like to say that was six years ago, but in all honesty it was 17 years.)

So it had been a few weeks since I took my new beloved light blue bike out for a spin.  It looked cute, though, sitting up on its hoist in the garage with my cute new red helmet hanging from the handlebar.

And then one day I noticed a lot of bird poop in our garage.

And a day or two later I found a robin flying around our garage.  I quickly shooed her out.

And then the following day, I noticed a couple of little stringy things hanging from my bike helmet.  What?

Upon closer inspection, I saw it.  A bunch of straw in my helmet.

My husband came home from work and lowered my bike down from its hoist and, sure enough, there it was.

(This is where the picture would come in handy.)

The most perfect little bird's nest with two beautiful little robin eggs in it.  Inside of my helmet.  My $75 helmet.  Which was now covered in bird poop in addition to a cute little nest.

We (and by "we", I mean my husband) climbed a tall ladder and hung the helmet from a sheltered tree on the side of our house where we thought maybe the mama bird would return to our nest.  I wish I could say this story has a fun happy ending and the mama returned to her nest, but she didn't.  So out went the bird's nest.  Along with my poop-covered helmet.  (Sorry, but no amount of Lysol and bleach would have me put a formerly poop-covered bird's nest home back on my head.)  And for two days, we received the Crazy Neighbor award in our neighborhood for being the family with a bike helmet hanging from their tree.

My awesome husband spent an entire afternoon cleaning everything in our garage that had been "hit" by the mama bird.  And power-washing the garage floor.  And scrubbing down my bike which, needless to say, is back up on its hoist sans helmet.

Another reason not to exercise anytime soon.

Only in Minnesota

So I haven't been posting for a while because, believe it or not, life is busy with a 6-year-old, 4-year-old and one-year-old.  Who knew?!

This will be brief.  I told this to my mom on the phone yesterday and she said that if I ever get back to blogging, that I should post this.  So here it is.

Only in Minnesota can I watch snowflakes pile up in my backyard while scratching a mosquito bite on my leg.

An explanation for those that live somewhere (i.e. a normal weather state) other than the great state of Minnesota:

It was 81 glorious degrees this past weekend.  I got mosquito bites while outside with my family, watching my oldest child (that's my 38-year-old husband) race a new remote-control speedboat across my neighbor's pond.

And then two days later, it was 31 degrees and snowflakes were flying.

Really.

My kids wore flip-flops on Sunday and snow boots on Tuesday.

Only in Minnesota.

Down for the count...again.

Remember a couple of weeks ago how we all had the flu in our house?  It felt like it lasted forever.  Well, after just a few short hours of everyone feeling better at the same time, my husband got a stomach bug and my oldest daughter came down with another cold.  Followed by her getting pink eye.  Followed by me getting a cold.  Which turned into a sinus infection that I still have.  Followed by my one-year-old now having a bad cold, ear infection and pink eye.

Boy, do we need Spring to arrive.  I need to open some windows and get some fresh air.  My house is a Petri dish.  (Thanks Kindergarten!)

Just when I tell myself that it is the middle of March and Spring is almost here, I look out the window this morning and see another inch of snow (on top of the 11 inches we got last week, which was on top of the 8 we already had on the ground).  And the weather forecast says to expect two more rounds of snow throughout the weekend.

Looks like I'll be waiting a bit longer to air out this Petri dish...

Menu Plan - week of 3/4/13

A day late but I'm finally getting around to posting our menu plan for the week.  Some carryover from last week's plan, since I forgot to get the chicken out the deep freezer to thaw in time to make last week.   Instead, we had Chinese takeout one night and homemade pizza the next.  So, there is more chicken yumminess on this week's menu (assuming I get the thing out of the freezer...)

Monday:  we had "make your own sandwich night" using homemade bread (I recently got a new KitchenAid mixer and made the dough w/ it...my first foray into making bread without a bread machine!)

Tuesday:  Crack Pasta (new recipe!), lettuce salad

Wednesday:  Sticky Chicken, Sweet Potato Tator Tots (new recipe!), garlic toast (using leftover homemade bread)

Thursday:  Creamy Chicken and Rice, fruit salad

Friday:  Clean out the fridge night!

Check out I'm an Organizing Junkie for menu planning links and ideas - and I'm also thinking of joining her 31-day organizing challenge.  My mudroom/laundry room is in need of major help!!  Stay tuned to see if I get ready to take the plunge...

Gratituesday: My Backyard

What a pretty sight it was the other evening.  Sitting in my living room and watching the sunset in our backyard.  Really too snowy and cold to go outside and enjoy the backyard, but it was beautiful nonetheless.

Our backyard is one of the big reasons we bought our house nearly two years ago.  It is nice and flat, very shady in the summer (almost too shady...so much so that I can't grow a garden in our backyard but there isn't a single spot that gets enough sunlight...), has a play spot for the kids, and backs right up to woods - instead of staring into another's neighbor's house or an alley like at our old house.  We absolutely love it and are very blessed to have this big, beautiful backyard.

Why am I so obsessed with our backyard?  Because - compare it to our postage-stamp-sized backyard in St. Paul:

It was a great little house and we were blessed to have the house for over ten years, but still...not a whole lot of "breathing room" there.  (too bad my sweet little daughter was bending over this picture so you can't see her cherub-like 3-year-old face in this picture).

Deer and turkeys meandering through our yard.  Sunsets.  And room to breathe and run.

This post is linked to Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers.

Menu Plan: Week of 2/26/13

We were all still fairly under weather the last week and I didn't get my menu plan posted, but I did actually follow it almost to a "t" all week, which nearly never happens.  We enjoyed homemade backed mac and cheese and pumpkin chocolate chip waffles with lots of leftovers.  This week's menu is simple and easy:

Monday:
Ranch Chicken Strips, homemade baked french fries, carrot sticks with ranch

Tuesday:
hubby working late so I promised I'd take the kids to Applebees :-)

Wednesday:
Oven Roasted Sticky Chicken (except making just one bird, not TWO like the recipe calls for...), sweet potato fries, roasted mixed vegetables

Thursday:
Creamy Chicken and Rice (using leftover chicken - this is one of my absolute favorite recipes and my mouth is watering already thinking about it!), fruit salad

Friday:
Grilled Mexican Chicken Wraps (new recipe - using leftover chicken), chips and salsa, carrots and ranch

Check out I'm an Organizing Junkie for more Menu Plan Monday ideas!