My niece!

Here is a new picture of my beautiful niece. Hopefully they get to come home today so I can see her again!!

I just got the call!

Lauren is finally headed to the hospital!! Wish her luck!!!

Andrew's school B-day celebration.

In kindergarten, the kids take a turn bringing snacks for the class. Because Andrew's birthday is in the summer, we celebrated his "1/2" birthday today. Here is a picture of the treats we made. They are peanut butter French Fries and sugar cookie/peanut butter hamburgers! They were a huge hit with the class, and very easy to make. The recipes even have a little history, mom made these for me to take to school for my birthday when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, and she still had the recipe book!

Gardening Wagon gets a new home!

Thank you Steve and Sue for giving your gardening wagon a new home. Colby loves the wagon, he has been hauling all over the yard. I even gave them a ride in it this morning. I cleaned the dead foliage from the tomato plants up this morning, in preparation for a new year of gardening. I am excited to try some new plants this year. I found some seedless watermelon's that the boys want to try. We will have three garden patches this year, so there will be lots to share!!

Lauren's baby shower

First of all, thanks to everyone who attended Lauren's shower this weekend. We had a very good turn out and Lauren received lots of wonderful gifts. It was so good to get to see everyone, and do a little catching up! Connie requested the recipe for the Spinach salad, so here it is:

Poppy Seed Salad Dressing

1 1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. dry mustard
3 Tbsp grated onion
2/3 c vinegar
2 c. oil
3 Tbsp Poppy seeds

Combine sugar, salt, mustard, onion, and vinegar. Slowly add oil, stirring constantly. Add poppy seeds last.

This dressing is good served with fresh spinach, fresh strawberries, toasted pecans, chopped green onions, and feta cheese. You can also add crumbled bacon, and replace the strawberries with dried cranberries.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Puppy update!

Well, we ended up keeping the little male puppy with the kink in his tail. He is the best natured puppy I have ever seen. He would prefer to sleep than rough house. The boys are in love with him, and I think Jeff and I are also! He spends most of the evening in the house with us sleeping.

During the day though, either him, or his mother have to go into the dog pen. Not much fun, but a necessity since his momma won't stay home. Take today for example, all three dogs were asleep on the front porch when Jeff left, and Mattie had been limping, so he left them out. When he came home at lunch, the older dogs were home, but not Bo. He looked a little bit, but had to get back to work. When I got home with the kids, we drove around looking for him. Jeff ended up finding him on the neighbors land with his foot caught in a hunting trap. As you can see from the pictures, his front right paw is very swollen. Luckily, he is walking fairly well on it now, so we don't think it is broken. Earlier this week, the neighbors grown dog had been caught in the trap as well, but was there for at least 24 hours, and his leg was pretty tore up.