Weekend...

How was your weekend?

We have been so busy at home. I use the term “we” lightly. I mean to say, Dear Husband has been so busy… when he is not working, helping with daily house matters, or sleeping (not much sleeping going on), he is… getting ready for us to move. We should be closing on the purchase of our new house on Thursday. Yippee! There will be lots to say about the new house, most of all, it is a smaller house (for our GROWING family) but in a better school district. So, well, you gotta do what you gotta do! For future reference, we prefer to call it “cozy” not “small.” On the upside, it does have a backyard so now my kids don’t have to grow up playing on a slab of concrete for a yard. On the downside, I am deeply saddened to be leaving such wonderful neighbors. I know that we can “still be friends” but it won’t be the same.

I did NOT make the Halloween costume that I promised to make. Lulu wants to be a Starbucks disposable cup. I had intended on using a round, white trashcan for my base. But, I can’t find a round, white trashcan… you know… big enough to fit around Lulu. And, we have no idea what Bro is going to be for Halloween.

I love my new crockpot the crockpot that Fairy Grandmother let me borrow. I made Maui Chicken for dinner tonight and we’ll be having meatballs later this week. (Will post recipes if we deem them tasty enough for posting). Yummy!

So, the real reason for my post is because I found this most amazingly yummy recipe online (baked rigatoni cake) and want to share it with you. It’s basically a variation on baked ziti… but look at the presentation! Wow!

What's new for dinner at your house?????

Family

We loved, loved, loved the visit from Grand Matriarch and Pops.

As you can see, we are Ravens fans and Redskins fans, but most of all... family.

Call it a clan,

call it a network,

call it a tribe,

call it a family.

Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.

~Jane Howard

Pumpkin Patch

Last week we were at the corn maze with Fairy Grandmother.

This week... fun, fun, fun... we took Grand Matriarch to the pumpkin patch (ahem... where she claimed - see comment in the corn maze post - that she would never go).

Have you ever seen so many sunflowers?

... and so many pumpkins???

There were plenty of activities for everyone including a scavenger hunt for Lulu -

- and big pumpkins for Bro to try to lift.

Will we ever find our way out of this maze?

The pumpkin house... what can I say... it's a tradition. I should try to find some old pics of Lulu in this house when she was just a wee pumpkin herself. Oh my gosh!

And... now... for my favorite picture of the day.... ta-da! Yep - I'll be using this one for an upcoming photo contest. :-) Isn't she so cute?

Yippee!

This week's theme at i ♥ faces is excitement.

Recently, Bro was over-the-top excited about...

... his very first cup of lemonade...

... and his very first chance to hold his own cup and drink all by himself.

Everyone is excited over at i ♥ faces this week…pop on over to catch a glimpse of the fun!

Corn Maze

Fairy Grandmother took us all to the corn maze over the weekend.

Lulu and Bro practiced with the baby maze...

... before grabbing a "help - I'm lost stick" and entering the real maze.

We brought the stroller for Bro, but he didn't want to use it - wonder why.

We finally made it to the center of the maze and stopped to take in the view and get some cute pics of the group.

Check out the new braces... the "space" is gone. Can you believe it?

Did you know that corn grows up on its roots like it's standing on little tippy toes? Check this out. I had no idea.

Ahhh... what a fun way to spend a gorgeous fall morning. Are you going to visit a corn maze or pumpkin patch in your town this fall?

Happy Fall

So many things to blog about...

First of all, I have been a bit MIA. Why? Well, I have been sleeping for weeks (ala Rip Van Winkle style) and spend all of my spare time horizontel in my bed. Why? Well, because Lu and Bro are gonna have a baby. Yep. That's right. Sometime this April we will be welcoming a new person into our hearts. Lu is as excited as excited could be... Bro... well, Bro will get used to the idea, I'm sure!

So, now that I am out of the first trimester.. I have a bit more energy.

I added taco pics to my last post. So, peek back to my post on Slow Cooker Success and view the yummy goodness. And a bit more about my slow cooker... it has come to my attention that my slow cooker is defective. My neighbor has the same one and it burns her stuff too. I thought that I was the only moron on the planet who couldn't use a slow cooker.

I uploaded some pictures from our back-to-school bbq that we had with our neighbors and look what I found.

The girls were drinking lemonade and when they went inside to play, they left their lemonade on the table. There are a few things going on here: (1) this is the first time that Bro had lemonade and (2) this is the only time that he has been permitted to hold and drink from his own big-boy cup. Yes, he got it ALL over himself, but he was so happy... as you will see.

He has this same pirate face in this post too. This is his very excited look.

Are you craving lemonade now? I am.

Slow Cooker Success

Just incase you want to know how many individually wrapped treat packs of candy corn I have had this morning... the answer is 6.



Oh, but you REALLY wanted to know about dinner. Yes, dinner was awesome... of course!!! I did not smell burnt chicken when I walked into the house. Yippee!

After I verified that our dinner was not burnt, I loaded our counter top with lots of other goodies from the kitchen:
tortilla wraps
tortilla chips
shredded cheese
sour cream (or "our keem" as Bro likes to call it)
corn
spanish rice
lettuce

... and we all made individual chicken tacos for ourselves. Voila!!!!!

Easy Peasy!

Where did I find this great recipe? (Frozen chicken breasts + 1 jar of salsa + cook on low all day long) I have to credit according to Kelly for the recipe idea. Thanks Kelly... even though you have no idea who I am.



Secondly, Yummy Mummy has these great and fun printables on her blog. I printed out the lunch survey and put it in Lulu's lunchbox today. I rolled it up and tied with a cute yellow ribbon and attached a pencil. It is either going to be a big hit... or really embarrassing. Lulu has no idea that it is in there. I can't wait to see what type of reaction I get.



Thirdly, I don't know how to put my e-mail address on this blog... some sort of widget or something... looked at my settings... can't find it... tried to google it... whatever... I am going to create a little something for my sidebar. In the meantime, you can always reach me at makingmelaugh@gmail.com.

Slow Cooker - Take 2

I'm trying another slow cooker recipe. I've decided that I have slow cooker troubles because my slow cooker is oval shaped and everyone else has a round one. I borrowed a round one from Fairy Grandmother, over the weekend. I am currently slow cookin' some "chicken tacos" and the recipe is quite simple. Add 4 frozen chicken breasts. Dump in one jar of salsa. Cook on low "ALL DAY LONG." Serve with your favorite guacamole and sour cream.

I followed the directions exactly, this morning. The recipe came from a fellow blogger (who will be credited later, but I can't remember who it was) who PROMISES that this is the easiest and tastiest dish EVER. We'll see about that!

Confession

It is 8:49 p.m. and I am listening to my husband play the guitar while I contemplate this post.

The confession is... that... for the first time since Kindergarten... Lulu is NOT currently enrolled in any extracurricular activities. At this time every year we are juggling sports, scouts (cookie sales are coming), theater, and homework... with homework often taking a backseat to the other activities (sorry). It is just a mad house around here in Spetember.

Add baby Bro to this and it gets worse.

Add in the fact that Dear Husband is a real estate agent and things get even worse. Let's face it... people can't meet during the day. Real Estate agents work NIGHT and WEEKENDS. Thus, leaving me as a single mom, from time to time.

I dread back-to-school. I dread it.

This year is sooooooooooo different. I thought that Lulu needed to start out slow and take some time getting used to middle school. Thus, she is going to theater as part of an after-school activity (means no chauffering her back and forth) and she'll cheer this winter. Admittedly, scouts will start soon - Friday, to be exact.

Anyways... the point is... things aren't crazy... they are peaceful... I like peaceful...

It is now 8:56 p.m. and I'm going to get ready for bed.

How about you? Do you just feel like back-to-school is just crazy???

Or is it just me???

I'm So Competitive

We had a great time at trivia last night. The grab bag categories (a small sampling of questions in each round will be from these categories) were Great Expectations (classic book) and the Breakfast Club (80s movie).

Unfortunately, I was confused so I studied Grapes of Wrath instead of Great Expectations. How well do you remember Great Expectations?

1. What was the name of Miss Havisham’s estate?
2. What was the name of the convict who befriended Pip?
3. What was the job that Pip was projected to have when he grew up?
4. Parts of Great Expectations were published in two editions of a periodical in 1860. What was that periodical?
5. I forgot what this question was.

So, you see, obviously these were hard questions (for someone who hasn't read the book in 20 years) and obviously I needed to study. Oh well.

Other questions that I remember are:

1. In what part of your body is the labyrinth found? (I knew this one actually - lucky guess.)
2. What animal lives in a formicarium?
3. Who was the only bachelor American President? (Ben Franklin was our guess.)

It was fun to go and it makes for a cheap date night. We eat dinner ahead of time (grilled cheese and vegetable soup last night - napmom was really in the cooking mood) and just sit for drinks at the restaurant. I think that we are going to try to go the first Monday of every month. That sounds reasonable, right???

Answers

Great Expectations Answers:
1. Satis House
2. Magwitch
3. Blacksmith
4. All the Year Round

Other Answers:

1. Ear
2. Ant
3. James Buchanan (Apparently, Ben Franklin had a common law marriage with Deborah Read AND -drum roll please- he was never a President. Hello??? Maybe I had too many drinks at this point. No, wait - I wasn't drinking.)