roasted asparagus

OH. MY. STINKIN' HECK!!!!!!!!!!


This was so tasty.

and so easy.

make it for lunch tomorrow. and dinner. and what the heck, breakfast.

really.

Okay, are you ready??


*Buy a bunch of asparagus.

*break off the ends.

*lay in jelly roll pan (cookie sheet with sides)

*pour some olive oil over it.

*sprinkle with Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper (you lika da pepper?!?)

*roast at 400 degrees for 8 minutes

*sprinkle with Parmesan and stick back in for 2 or 3 minutes, until cheese is melty.

Eat!

EAT!!

drag your meat and potatoes through the leftover oily salty cheesy goodness.

die and go to heaven.

any questions?

My husbands lunch

The rest of you do this, don't you? I mean, it isn't weird to make artistically arranged salads for your husband for lunch, is it?

I was dreaming I was at Panera. Oh how I wanted one of those salads that they serve with the dried apples and walnuts.

YUM

St. Patrick's Day Blogging Carnival

JanMary is hosting a blogging carnival. we will tell about how we do (or do not) celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

So put some corned beef in the crock pot and slice the soda bread.

Oh, and head over to JanMary's and check it out...

Artist Trading Cards

This has really been fun. And stressful. *sigh* It is never easy, is it! Below you will see Molly's cards. We are mailing them tomorrow. Ahead of schedule. 2 days before the deadline.

I am pretty darn happy about it, I must say. The top two are fabric, ribbon, buttons and gems. The bottom three are part of a series about her stuffed cat named Mal. In one Mal is in Paris (Eiffel Tower behind her!) in one she is getting ready for bed and the other she is enjoying the summer. Here is Molly writing the pertinent info on the back. Be sure and save these originals for when she is a famous artist.

Here are two of Ella's cards. They are fabric, buttons and a metal heart thingy. Adrian kept telling her to save the bunny one for herself because it was so darn cute. She decided to send it off, but NOT to the boy in her swap group. EEEWWWWW!!!

We are working chronologically backwards since that is how Blogger likes to do it. hmmm...

Here are all of Ella's. This is awfully random, isn't it? The top middle is a Japanese House. But Ella likes to mix it up so she called it "Chinese House". I better stop her before she gets totally out of control on me, huh?

The bottom right is a water fall and is named something or another about rocks. It has lots of rocks on the sides. And finally on the bottom left is an ocean scene. With the sun shining. If you look closely you can see the people getting skin cancer.

Just kidding. That is just what I see when i look at pictures of the beach.

Well, totally random and disjointed ramblings here in this post.

Have I mentioned we have a drum set in the house. Yeah, it has been 24 hours since they have come home.

My kids are all walking around with ear plugs in. This is how are conversations go now,

"WHAT?"

"WHAT?"

"WHAT?"

Something like that....

oh, I have gotten some things ordered for a big bloggy giveaway. Stay tuned!!!

Seventeen

Seventeen candles on a German Chocolate pie
Seventeen year old William ( Rachel thought I should mention that his hair is wet, not gross and greasy)

Eight year old Molly tickling seventeen year old William

William making a very bizarre face

Hungry teenagers and siblings ready to eat and head to Nashville. To eat more.

Please send earplugs. A.S.A.P.

yes, William bought these today. yes, his room is still pink from when it was the little girls room. we are really bad at home improvement projects...

Ella the All-Star or the big blogging question: why do we love to see pictures of other peoples kids getting trophys?

Ella was voted onto the all-star team again this year in basketball. Here she is with her friend Kara, who also made the all-star team. Here is Ella with the other girls from her team who made all-star.
THere were a lot of all-stars this year. 36 I think they said.

Even though she is hard to see in this picture, it so captures her personality. She is waving at us. Most of my kids never pay any attention to us when they are participating in sports or activities. They many times do not even know if we were there watching them. NOT Ella! She is always looking up in the stands to see if we are watching. Here is the proof I was watching, Ella. I have a picture!

Here she is with her coach and team members accepting a trophy for placing second in the season.

amazing peanut butter filled hearts. (yes, more Valentine's Day!!)

This are easy peasy chocolate covered peanut butter hearts. I went a little crazy with the extra white chocolate. I added some burgandy food color which gave me this groovy purple.

I got the recipe from Sunday Baker.

breakfast

will Valentine's Day ever end on this blog?

No it will never end. I may not post much about Christmas, but I sure like Valentine's Day. This is early Saturday morning: Valentine's Day!!

They had donuts, strawberries, grapes and sparkling cider. We had to wake them up pretty early since we had basketball awards that morning also.

Love is in the air

Front loader vs Top loader

I need to buy a new washing machine. I am using the stack able unit that I have in the hall bathroom that the older kids use.


I do not want a new washing machine. I like my 15 year old Kenmore. It has seen me through 6 kids. Kids that wore cloth diapers. It has always worked. until last Saturday.

It just quit spinning.

And now I am sad. They make those fancy $1500 front loading washers look great. But then we read the reviews on Amazon and Epinions. It seems as though people have a really bad opinion of front loaders. They break constantly. They flash all sorts of cryptic codes. And Whirlpool seems to have the worlds worst customer service.

I also really hate to spend money. Will I really be able to tell the difference in a $1500 machine versus a $500 one? Because I would much rather spend $500. I do not need pretty colours or cool looking shapes.


I just need clean clothes

Sewn Paper Valentines

Inspired by THESE cards at Purl Bee (those ones up there are from the Purl Bee site. Ours were a little more, ummm, basic? Maybe rustic!?!)

I took some fabric and sewn card stock cards to Molly's classroom on Thursday.
They chose the fabric. Then they traced the heart and cut and glued.

Viola! Valentine's for their sweethearts. And that is when the silliness ensued!! Second graders think it is REALLY funny to tell them to write a mushy love poem in their Valentine.

We all had lots of fun!

Sweets for my Sweeties

We made these for Ella's class to snack on on Thursday. They were muy yummy. You can find the directions at NO FUSS FABULOUS. They are way easy, but I did have one problem. The directions suggest 5 minutes to soften at 400 degrees. My first batch hardened. The second batch I tried I was able to soften at 375 degrees in about 45 seconds. So watch them carefully!!

Today we sold a house

It is not the house that we have listed on McMinnvillehouses.com but one we have had a contract on for a few weeks. The couple that bought it has been saving for many years to buy a house. They were very sweet and excited.



This is what they brought to us:

Adrian and I counted it out. Those are stacks of $10,000.

It felt all gangsta'!!

OH. MY. GOODNESS!!! They brought it in those envelopes they give you your withdrawal at the bank in. 7 of them with $10,000 each. Adrian was so nervous carrying it that he had to cancel his appointments for the rest of the afternoon. He is such an nervous guy when he is dealing with these houses! I was thinking about how I wish I could be reading the new book I had in my purse and he was sweating through his shirt.

Here it is after he took it to the bank and put it through the money counting machine. They stack it in $2000 stacks.


Now if only I could convince him to use that a stack of money to book a cruise around the Mediterranean....

NOT A CHANCE!!!

rice pudding

I have an unnatural obsession with pudding.

I need a twelve step program.

Until I find it I will sit in the corner growling at anyone that comes near me while I am eating pudding.

So you will not have to risk me biting your hand as you reach for a serving of rice pudding at my house, I will share the recipe.


RICE PUDDING

1 cup water
1/2 cup rice
4 Tablespoons of butter
4 Cups of milk
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Cook rice in water until it is almost all absorbed. Add the milk, cover and simmer VERY gently for 1 hour. Stir it every 10 minutes or so. Beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla until smooth. When you take the pan off the heat stir in the egg mixture until well incorporated. Cover with Saran Wrap to avoid that creepy skin on top and refrigerate at least 6 hours.

See, it will be ready for breakfast. And much less sugary than Captain Crunch. It is practically a health food!

He is an official blogger, sort of...

I created a blog for my husband. He was kind of resistant at first. He had a different plan.

But it was harder. And not as pretty.

Now he loves it and is sending everyone to look at it. No, he doesn't reveal any funny stories about himself on it. Or give us any good housekeeping ideas. Or recipes.

It has pictures of the houses that he has for sale. I have only put one up right now because he has contracts on 2 others and renters in the other two. But rest assured. There will be more. He has a house buying obsession.

A lot of times I don't really even know what houses he has. And I like it that way. He doesn't know what I am buying at the grocery store on any given day and I do not know if he is headed to the courthouse to attend a foreclosure auction.

It is all about taking care of our own stuff and delegating to the other what they are good at.

If Adrian was in charge of grocery shopping we would have 743 pounds of red meat, some white bread and mayonnaise. Oh, and some Breyers ice cream.

If I was in charge of buying houses I would say they are all too icky and I am too cheap to spend the money and all of our retirement would be sitting in mutual funds.

So it is a good thing that we divide and conquer here at our house!

So, here is his site: http://www.mcminnvillehouses.blogspot.com/

Go and leave him a nice comment.

Or better yet, make an offer on the house!!!!

A joke for all my friends who have adopted

"Adopted kids are such a pain; you have to teach them how to look like you."

Gilda Radner

today is a list day

and not only do i have to make a list, i am making one for all of my faithful readers. all 8 of you.


FAITHFUL READER TO DO LIST:

1. SCROLL DOWN TO YESTERDAYS POST AND GIVE ME AN OPINION ON WHAT TO ORDER FROM ANTHROPOLOGIE.


there, easy, right? sorry for saying it so loudly, i just didn't want you to get off the computer later and think: oh darn, i forgot to give Cynthia my opinion.

you know, like when you get home from the grocery store and didn't get one of the things on your list. Even though you carefully marked each item of as you placed it in the buggy.

well, enough of me talking about nothing and you all shaking your heads wondering why in the heck you read this drivel.

Cynthia's to do list: (feel free to give me direction on these these tasks.)

1. strangle husband (he is teasing me right now. I tease on the Internet. score one for me!)
2. clean kids bathroom. they are supposed to do this. they are given instruction and tools. I swear they go in there, sneeze, and leave. it is gross.)
3. clean my bathtub. *WHINE* i haaaate doing this one *whine* so i guess i understand the kids, except they can't even clean a mirror or a sink.
4. bake more English Muffin bread
5. order pizza for church tonight
6. shower (yes, sometimes i need gentle reminders. I am cold and do not like to get wet.)
7.run ROOMBA twice
8. put away laundry laying on couch
9. send email to senators and congressman to please put their head on straight and get rid of this 1.6 billion SPENDING package. UGH! Don't even get me started. A recession IS the fix. You do not have to fix a recession. We are supposed to be a market driven economy.....
10. clean sewing table
11. make cookie dough


will i finish this all? plus all the other junk that i have to do even though it never makes it to the list?


Yes, I think that I can. I am going to race against myself and try to finish everything but the pizza ordering before I have to leave and pick up the kids at 2:30.

On your marks.....

Get set......


GO!

I've got issues

help. please.

help me spend my Anthropologie gift card. I cannot "borrow" their pics, so you will have to click on the links and then come back and give me your opinions.


Choice A:
Matryoshka measuring cups

Choice B:
Artist's tote
but do I get it in orange or blue? be sure and look at the back view, because the fabric is different

4 quick points

many exciting things to share but only a few moments to share them, so I may have to post twice today. First, the post below this one is my 350th!!!

as lucy would say: i know, right?

second, i signed up my two little girls for an amazing art swap

you can read all about it here

third, i made english muffin bread yesterday. it was delicious and both loaves are already gobbled up. i used it this morning to make bacon egg and cheese sandwiches for breakfast. you can find the recipe here at dlyn's blog.

fourth, i went on an adventure yesterday to a place that reminded me of narnia.

and i took pictures.... more to come!

no knead bread

During one of our snow day vacations I tried out this recipe for no knead bread.


Wow, what a neat recipe. So easy and tasty. All the kids liked it. I used 1 cup King Arthur Whole Wheat Flour and the rest all purpose white flour.


I baked it in a Pampered Chef stoneware bowl with the round baker thingy as a lid.


The outside is really crunchy. I think I may try cooking it a few minutes less next time, but I don't know that it will make a big difference.

Adrian thinks I should have a loaf ready everyday when the kids get home from school.


Ummm, well, it's not that easy!