Just a little gift for a special young woman....

Sarah's Vegetarian Adventures

today's adventure

Pineapple Fried Rice

Today's inspiration is from the Neely's

without the ham of course.

Sarah's Vegetarian Adventures

Today's latest culinary experiment

Stir Fried Sugar Snap Peas

Inspiration from  here.

Next time I am thinking a small bit of orange zest and some orange juice in the sauce.

Sarah's Vegetarian Adventures

Vegetable Chinese Dumplings

Filling: sauteed, carrots, green onion, mushrooms, zucchini, garlic, ginger

Sauce: Soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, ginger, garlic, green onion, sugar, chili pepper

Sarah's Vegetarian Adventures

Vegetable Stew with Dumplings

carrots, celery, onion, potatoes, cauliflower, zucchini

Sarah's Vegetarian Adventures

Stuffed Pepper

Stuffed with precooked rice, feta cheese and sauteed onion, pepper and mushroom. Baked in a tomato sauce.

Sarah's Vegetarian Adventures

Asparagus Lemon Pepper Pasta


Another yummy trial

Hannah's new style

A new hair color and cut for Hannah

 

 

The red is gone.  If you missed the red....... you are lucky.

Sarah's Vegetarian Adventures

Spinach Mushroom Lasagna

Not too bad. Sauteed the sliced mushrooms before putting them in. I didn't think the jar of sauce would be enough so I made my own white cheesy sauce to add to it.  Wish I had just used my own sauce and skipped the jarred sauce. Also need to remember to allow it to cool a bit before slicing. 

Some Cricut Love

I made Sarah a book bag today using my cricut to cut the letters. I am very pleased by the results.

My inspiration came from Courtney Lane Design

Mary, Mary Quite Contrary How does Your Garden Grow.........

End of June and it is HOT.  Currently 118 degrees today and I expect it to get a couple degrees hotter.
 Garden is starting to struggle a bit.  Really wilts down in the midday heat and it is so hard for me to get out and water midday.

 After taking this pic I looked over at kitchen table and there are twice this many tomatoes in another bowl

 Basil

 Wish  child would have stood in the corn for this picture.

 Eggplant

 I just do lousy at green beans.

 The okra has started off lousy this year.  I have tried seeds and plants. Everything has wilted and dies and this is all that is currently left.

 Finally some okra blossoms.

 Ihave never tried onions before.  I picked up a package of onion sets from the store that looked half dead and I didn't expect to have any results.  Except for the fact that a dog has walked thru them they have done well. 

 Another squash plant. Looks like I will have some small white patty pan squash soon.

 Peppers

 Redneck trellis with cucumbers on both sides and tomatoes on both ends.

 Yello squash peeking out.

 Massive tomato monster.  Yellow pear tomatoes grow massive and they are very heat tolerant.

 Yellow pear tomato, pulling trellis over.

 Yellow squash

Sarah High School Graduation Pics.....

Sarah is much more of a ham than Hannah so I have quite a few more pictures of her......

Hannah's 8th Grade promotion....

The last kiddo leaving grade school.  We will officially have two freshman next year.  A high school freshman and a college freshman.

Stinker never once looked towards the camera during promotion. 

Graduation.....

What an incredibly exciting day.  Hannah's eight grade promotion in the morning.  Sarah's graduation in the evening.  Stacey and Wyatt here to visit. We haven't seen Stacey for years and this is the first time we got to meet Wyatt.  It turned out to be a great visit.  Wyatt bonded with his grandpa immediately.

Mary, Mary quite contrary how does your garden grow......

My motivation to have a great garden this year 

Scrawny little beginning

Looking good!

The first two garden beds, built last year.

Whats that I spy, a brand new third bed this year. Please don't notice the nasty lattice. I can't keep it clean with the water hose splashing it all the time.  

Very hard to tell from this picture but there are nine okra plants popping through the soil.  

First section of corn. We are staggering the plantings so we won't be bombarded all at once.  

Cucumber plants beginning to grow up my redneck trellis. Two more tomato plants here and swiss chard just beginning to pop through the soil. 

Older picture, beginning of some great tomatoes.  

These are the same tomatoes.  Will have to anchor the trellis a bit better soon.

These pictures do not do the garden justice.  I have a section of green beans just popping up and two eggplants as well.

Spirit Day.... Barbie Versus GI Joe

What a relief......

Our taxes are done and it wasn't as bad as I expected.

Son's taxes are done and those came out better than we expected for him too.

FAFSA has been refiled with updated tax information.

What a relief to have those things off my mind!

Cheer Banquet Video........

Last week was the final event for Sarah as a cheerleader..... the Cheer Banquet. Very bittersweet! Sarah got several awards including best dancer, best at jumps and Sarah gets the honor of going with the coach to the end of year sports banquet. The coach always gets to come and bring two cheerleaders with her so it is a real honor.

I was the lucky parent who got the honor of making the cheer video this year.

For your viewing pleasure....

2010/2011 spiritline video

the password is..... spiritline

Ahhh 2011 where are you going....

I can not believe we are into April already. Time goes so fast. I had high hopes that 2011 would at the very least start out relaxing but not so. EVERYTHING as always revolves around the kiddos..... I need a vacation from anything school related. Where to begin... well lets start with oldest this time and move down.

Valet boy, hmmm, well the best of valet season is over so once again no income. He will need to hunt for ANYTHING to bring in some income. With college starting soon for Cheergirl we had to start harping on Valet boy to get a vehicle. He finally started saving and has bought a motorcycle. I am pretty unhappy about that situation. Not much else happening for Valet boy right now except that he had jury duty last week and really enjoyed it.

Cheergirl, I really need to think of a new name for her now. Cheer is over and I simply can not believe it. She has been in dance classes since about four years of age and cheer probably starting about eight years old. I have no clue what she will do with her time now. She does need to start looking for a job now to start saving for college expenses. My vote if for the new Joann's store that is coming into town so she can get me a store discount. Speaking of college....... oh so overwhelming. We have her signed up for her classes which was no easy job. The academic adviser explained what she will need to take and led us to the computer to figure out her schedule on our own.... NOT EASY! We are also waiting to hear if she will be qualifying for any grants, our fingers are crossed.

Origami girl seems to be the busiest of the kids right now. Very busy with mock trial. They are preparing a new case which will be kind of a performance for a couple grade schools. Origami girl also kept quite busy with her science project this year and a couple weeks ago her school had a science fair. Next week is the state science fair so she is supposed to be going to the city three days in a row...... SLOW DOWN Origami girl.

Hubby and I... nothing new. We work, work, work, trying to keep everyone fed.

Garden is off to a good start for the summer. Luckily I have most of the ground turned and cleared of bermuda grass so most of the work this year was just planting. With all my aches and pains I don't see how I could ever turn that soil with a shovel again. After seeing the price of squash at 3.50 a pound I had no choice but to get a garden in this year. Fingers crossed for an amazing crop this year.

Hmm wouldn't this be awesome

I’m posting this to enter a contest on offered by Brad’s Deals at Sweetney! I want to win the white iPad 2!

www.sweetney.com

No post since December?????

I was positive I had done some posting but I guess not. The beginning of the school year was so overwhelming and busy with all the fundraising that once Cheergirl took her trip to Florida I guess I crashed and burned.

Origami Girl remains as busy as ever. It is a fight to get the computer away from her. She loves editing her little movies that she puts on Youtube. If not making a movie she is always writing something. She has stacks of notebooks and keeps the word processor on the computers pretty busy. Origami Girl is also staying very involved at school. She has a mock trial class and a couple of weeks ago they went on a trip to the county courthouse to have a mock trial. Origami Girl played a witness and I thought she did very, very well. I couldn't have done it. With some of the students you could really see how nervous they were but Origami Girl seemed calm and collected and knew her answers and responded properly to the examination by the attorneys. Origami Girl is also in the book club at school and this past weekend they took a trip to Tucson to a writers festival. She was in seventh heaven. She was pretty pleased that she even got an autograph by an author.

Ahhhh Cheer Girl. It is kind of sad that I won't be calling her that much longer. Cheer season is actually over and she only really has two more events to help out with. Cheer try outs are next week for next season and as an outgoing senior she will be helping with that. Then will be the final cheer banquet at the end of this month. Maybe I will start calling her College Girl now. There is so much to learn and understand about college and I am trying to soak it all in. Trying to get guidance, well that is a joke. I really thought Academic Advisers were more helpful than they are. We took a trip to the college last week to get some guidance and she shows Sarah the class plan she will need to follow for her career choice and then takes us to a computer and says here you go, sign up for your classes. Ummm okay. It took us quite a while to sit there and figure it out but we finally did. So Cheer Girl is officially signed up for her first semester at college. Now just to figure out the finances... BIG SIGH. Cheer Girl qualifies for her first two years tuition free. She has to cover her books and supplies. We are waiting now to hear if she will qualify for anything in grants. She will need to get a part time job as soon as possible to start saving for the extras. Hoping and praying that she can find something.

Oh and you remember, pizza boy, casino boy, security boy.... well he is now valet boy. Not much else to say about that right now.