Produce Box–Week 1–Squash

I LOVE steamed squash!  A little salt, pepper and butter is all you need to make an easy side dish.  I found what appeared to be an easy squash recipe on Pinterest for oven-baked squash chips.  I don’t like to eat potato chips, so I usually eat veggie chips.  I thought this would be a nice change.  This is the picture of the chips with the recipe:

 

Nothing to the recipe – slice thinly, lay out on a greased cookie sheet (make sure the “chips” don’t touch), sprinkle with salt and cook on 200 for 2 to 3 hours, but check after 2 hours.  Easy enough.

After 2 hours…

As Kelsie would say… EPIC FAIL!  Major shrinkage.  They were the size of dimes!   Martha would be so disappointed in me.

PS – Dave liked them.  He said they tasted like pumpkin seeds.  I was too mad to try them.

Produce Box–Week 1–Green Beans (and Memories)

We have purchased a 10-week organic produce box through a local farm in Clayton.  We get 10 pounds of produce, delivered to our front door, for 10 weeks.  You can’t beat $1.50/pound for fruits and veggies!  Our first box was filled with green beans, squash, zucchini, turnip greens, cabbage and green onions. 

After scouring Pinterest for the best veggie recipes, I settled on a super easy green bean recipe.  Snapping the ends of the green beans reminded me of New Years Eve at Nana and PapPap’s house.  Every year my parents would drop my sisters and I at our grandparents house to spend the night with them and our cousins.  Before we celebrated, Nana would make us snap green beans (and LOTS of them) to prepare for New Year’s Day dinner.  And here’s the picture to prove it!

This was December 31, 1984.  Kelli and I were 8, Denni was 7 and Jimmy was 4 or 5 (she trained them young!)  It seemed like a pain then, but they are now sweet memories.

After snapping the green bean ends, coat with olive oil, salt and pepper in a bowl.  Spread out on a baking sheet and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.  Bake on 400 for 20-25 minutes.  

They were crisp and delicious! 

Baseball Finale

Kyle finished up his baseball season with the Civitan league this past weekend.  No more weekend games!!  He’ll start with the YMCA league next week.

Kyle and his coach, Caroline

Kyle and his proud Diddy (that’s what Kyle calls Dave)

The End of Brownie Girl Scouts

This past Sunday Kelsie became a Junior Girl Scout.  No more brown uniforms… we’ve graduated to the green uniforms.  I’ve been a Co-Leader of her troop and have enjoyed watching the girls grow since they were in Kindergarten.  This year is the 100th Anniversary of Girl Scouts so we’re going to the National Celebration on the Mall in DC in June.  200,000 singing girls… Lord help me.

Kelsie Bridging (receiving her Junior vest)

Wordless Wednesday

Kyle’s Spring Soccer Pictures

Me and My Guy Dance

Dave and Kelsie attended a Girl Scout “Me and My Guy” Dance Friday night.  They both looked so nice!

Since Moms weren’t allowed at the dance, Dave was in charge of pictures for the night.

And some video of Kelsie…

Kelsie cuttin’ a rug!

Mother’s Day Weekend

I had such a wonderful Mother’s Day weekend!  For the past 3 years we’ve been picking our own strawberries for Mother’s Day. 

The farm we go to has the BEST homemade ice cream!

We went to eat at Brasa, a Brazilian steakhouse, Saturday night.  Dave and the kids made me open my presents at dinner.  Kelsie had been dying for me to get my present!

They got me a Kindle Fire with a cute pink cover!  I’ve had to fight the kids off of it to use it.  I LOVE it!  It’s awesome!!

On Sunday Kelsie and I went to see Wicked.  OMG… it was incredible!  I will never look at The Wizard of Oz movie the same again.  If you like the Wizard of Oz, you MUST see this play.  It will blow your mind!

Good Bye, Mrs. Long!

We have been fortunate enough to have the most amazing Kindergarten teacher with Kelsie and Kyle.  3 years ago when Kelsie was in Kindergarten I was working full-time, so I wasn’t able to spend much time in the classroom.  The few times I visited, I was in awe of how she had those kids whipped into shape.  This year, I have been working in Kyle’s classroom two days a week.  I LOVE being there and seeing Mrs. Long in action.  The kids are so well behaved and so respectful of her.  I’m sure they are all total opposite for their parents!  Mrs. Long is 9 months pregnant and due next week.  Today was her last day in the classroom.  She has been a trooper!  When I was 9 months pregnant, I didn’t even want to deal with my own child let alone 23 other children!  Kyle and I are going to miss her!

Mrs. Long and Kyle (Mrs. Long’s last day 5/11/12)

Kelsie and Mrs. Long (on Kelsie’s Kindergarten Graduation Day 06/09/09)

Playing Nicely

Every once in a while Kelsie and Kyle will play nicely together.  She usually has him playing school – him being the student and her bossing him around, playing the teacher.  Last night happened to be one of the nights when they were getting along so well.  Or so I thought…

Kelsie had tied Kyle to a chair!  Now, if I was a teacher, this would certainly be one of my methods of punishment!  Kelsie might be onto something here.

Mother’s Day Tea

The Kindergarten classes hosted a Mother’s Day Tea today for all of the important ladies in our kindergartener’s life.  The kids started out by making us a plate of goodies and letting us eat before them – something I never get to do!  No surprise to me that Kyle begged for a bite of my cookie and drank all of my lemonade.  It’s not really Mother’s Day yet.  The kids made us picture necklaces, a vase, a tissue paper flower corsage and a card.

The card cracks me up.  I love to see what a 5 year old really thinks about his Mama.

Hopefully his teacher won’t call Child Protective Services on me for all of the spanking I do.  For the record, I think I may have spanked him once and he promptly told me that it didn’t hurt.  I laughed and forgot about why I was spanking him in the first place.

Teacher Appreciation Week!

Any teacher that has to deal with my children, especially Kyle, for 6 hours a day deserves a hellava lot more money than what they are making now!  Homemade pencil vases with flowers will have to do this year.

Celebrating 45 Years of Marriage (and the Kentucky Derby)…

This past weekend we celebrated Dave’s parents 45th wedding anniversary in Charles Town, WV.  Little did we know when scheduling the weekend trip that it was the same weekend as the Kentucky Derby.  The horse racing area was packed!  That didn’t stop us from having a great time.

Shuttle bus fun with Mo and Dave

My horse… didn’t win me anything

The Nesselrode Family

Kyle’s Classwork

This assignment was proudly hanging in Kyle’s classroom for the past week.  Each child had to draw what they would see from a hot air balloon.  They then had to type it on the computer, without any help from the teacher.  This is what Kyle drew…

This is what he typed…

Translation: I see the FLAG.  I see my house.  I can see my bike.

I hope the teacher has learned her lesson with this and will help these poor kids with their spelling the next time.