What are you Cooking?

One thing I'm loving with this whole Blogging World, are all the cooking/baking blogs out there.  I used to love to be in the kitchen and try new things.  But somehow 3 kids and a busy schedule I've gotten away from that a little bit.  So I feel like I've been motivated & inspired with all these blogs.

Here are a few of my favorites.



Dinner's Ready

Anne Strawberry

Pizza Place #1

Our first monthly pizza outing was to Nello's.  For all you Mesans you'll remember when it used to be on Brown Road, now it's on Alma School/Guadalupe.  When I was in high school we used to go there for lunch a lot.  I would always get their bread sticks with sauce, which was seasoned pizza crust. YUM!!

Overall we all decided that we give it 4 Stars.  For a Friday night, we had no trouble getting a table right away.  The service was excellent and the Pizza was GREAT!  We ordered the deep dish, which was really thick with lots of toppings (requiring the use of a knife and fork).  This will go on our list of favorite places.

Chocolate Pizza!

As I was trying to help the kids come up with an idea for Father's Day, I saw this great idea in the Family Fun magazine about a "Pizza of the Month Club". Seeing as Jimmy would eat pizza every day if I let him, I thought it would be a great gift. So we found 12 different pizza places where we could go as a family each month to eat and I made a little coupon booklet.



Then my friend, Anna, told me about Cerreta's Candy Company in Glendale, (click here) where you could go have a free tour of the factory and then make chocolate pizzas! (thanks Anna!)  Well, that just topped off our gift idea! So off we went with Nicky and her girls and had a great time. The kids loved it (but were a little confused as to where the Oompa Loompas were)!


Our only disappointment was that the summer is not a busy time for them. The only candy making we saw was the caramel machine.  We were just told what the other machines were used for and how they worked. But they did make it up with some free samples. We'll definitely go back in the fall or winter when we can see them all in action!  (and eat more chocolate!)




Jimmy - here's what it looked like before the words ran together. Happy Father's Day! We Love You!!

TJ The Baker!

  TJ has been wanting to learn to cook.  But the only thing he wants to learn how to make so far is COOKIES!  Chocolate Chip Cookies to be exact.  He's getting pretty good at it now, learning how to use a recipe and everything.  One day him and his friend, Collin wanted to make cookies.  They decided that they needed aprons on as to not get their clothes dirty.  They were so cute and had such a great time I couldn't resist taking some pictures.
 
 
 

Josie's Dance Recital

This is Josie's second year taking dance at Jeanne's School of Dance.  It's been so much fun to see her enjoy and learn how to dance.  And it's brought back a lot of memories for me, since I also took lessons from Jeanne's when I was young.  Jeanne is my great aunt and it's so great to see so many cousins there dancing together.

At the end of the school year they put on a HUGE dance recital.  There are 3 different days of performances at Red Mountain High School and there were around 38 numbers in each one.  It is so much fun!

She gets so excited to be able to wear makeup!




Here she's hamming it up on stage!


Here she is...drum roll...Miss Josie!

Ries's 1st Chocolate Chip Cookie

Mmm!



Finger Lickin' Good!



Chocolate Coma!

Gotta Love Ikea

I love Ikea! The store itself I think can be overwhelming if you don't have a plan first before going in. And you definitely can't make it out of there in 1 1/2 hours (even though that's as long as they'll let your kids stay in the play area). But I love to get inspiration from other places and then try to duplicate it by going to Ikea.

For example, I saw this idea in a Pottery Barn catalog a few years ago.  It would have cost me about $400 - $500 to buy this from Pottery Barn.  But I went to Ikea and found almost the exact same ledge and then bought my frames on sale at Target, which ended up costing me less than $100.




So while searching the www tonight I came across this cool blog where people submit their projects using supplies from Ikea.   http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/

My creative juices are flowing...I'm thinking summer projects!

Ries's 1st Birthday!

Can you believe a year has gone by already?!  I CAN'T!!  Where has the time gone?  I Love You Ries!!  Happy Birthday!

Little League

(click to enlarge)

Baseball season is officially in full force. This is Josie's first year to play T-ball. Which now has made our schedules CRAZY! Fortunately both TJ and Josie play at Poston and half their games are on the same day and time. So Jimmy and I split up to watch them.

I forgot how much fun it is to watch T-ball. Kids running the wrong way, kids running to get the ball after they hit it (Emeli Wayas), doing the splits in the outfield (Josie), sliding into every base...it goes on and on. It is quite entertaining. Josie started off not hitting off the tee very well, but she's got the hang of it now.

This is TJ's last year playing coach pitch. We actually thought he'd be playing Minors this year, but his birthday didn't make the cut off. He was a little sad but is enjoying working on his skills. He's really getting a lot better. Last night he hit his first home run. YAH!! We enjoy watching him and he really loves it - which makes dad proud!!

Computer Dependant

Computers are amazing things!  It's crazy to think back not that long ago where it wasn't the "norm" to have a computer in your home.  In high school I learned to type on a typewriter.  Do those even exist anymore?  But now everything we do is on the computer.  All my recipes with meal plans and grocery lists are on my computer (thanks  Crystal!).  I don't know how to go to the grocery store without it anymore.  Banking...I can't remember the last time I filled out one of those paper check registers or paid my bills by writing checks and mailing them in (how much are stamps anyway?).  All my pictures and scrapbooking is done on the computer.  I plan lessons for primary or f.h.e, email, blog...You get the picture.  

So needless to say when my computer "FRIED" on me two weeks ago, I felt so frustrated and angry that I depend so much on the dang thing!!  It's such a sick feeling that so many aspects of my daily life is in an uproar because of one electronic devise.  CRAZY!!  But I'm happy to say that I'm back on track and online with a new computer.  HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN!