My Two Nephews

Andres

This is Andres. He lives in Spain with his parents. His mother is from Spain and his dad got a job in Spain so they moved back there a few years ago.

For a birthday present for my MIL I bought this tote from Red Envelope that you can put 3 pictures in (bought it in red to go with her red hat lady stuff). Anyways, I needed to get pictures of my 2 nephews to put in there as well so that she has pictures of all 3 grandchildren.

Travis

This is Travis. He is the oldest nephew. He will turn 12 next month. He lives here in MN with his dad & step-mom. I took his picture the day of their party and printed it off on the in-laws photo printer, as his dad forgot to bring the picture with him. It all worked out.

My brother-in-laws (Andy is the youngest of 4 boys) are not really into giving out pictures. Actually, I don't think we ever got a picture of either one unless we took the picture. So, now we have some recent pictures of them.

There are no other kids on my side of the family, as I was the first one to have kids (I'm the oldest).....but my youngest siter might be starting soon.

Bat House?

There was a bat in the house this morning. I noticed it when I first got up.

We haven't had a bat for a couple years now, since we remodeled the attic & put up the bat house outside (actually, just outside this window on the outside of the 3-season porch below.)

Why must they use our house as the bat house rather than the one I gave them.

Andy took care of it. I had to feed the baby.

Woohoo! Pizza Delivery!

Yea! Pizza Ranch (which is a fairly new restaurant in our neighboring town) delivers to our little town. None of the other pizza places in either of the bordering towns delivered to our town before, which stunk. But now, some place does. Our little town is sandwiched in between 2 other towns and we are about 7 miles from each town, which you wouldn't think would be a big deal for delivery. But apparently it was until now. Actually, we even got charged a trip charge from plumbers to drive the 7 miles to come here, which sucks because our town has no plumber to call.

So, Roundup ( Beef, Pepperoni, Italian Sausage, Onions, Mushrooms, Black Olives) pizza with a skillet crust and a mix od red & white sauces (just the way we like it) for us tonight!

You wouldn't think pizza delivery would be so exciting -- but that was one thing we really missed when we moved from the Cities, having food delivered.

Aaaahhhh! The Farmer's Market.

I love checking out the Farmer's Market, especially this time of year when there are more vendors and more options. I haven't really gotten to the Farmer's Market much this year, once before I had Isabel, another time when she was a week old and now 8 weeks later. And the weather is just BEAUTIFUL! out right now. It felt to good to walk around Central Park and check out everything.

What I brought home was:
* Honey Whole Wheat Bread (this lady makes the best bread and it's high fiber & high protein)
* Whole Wheat & Flax Seed Bread (same lady, a new variety for her) (Had for breakfast - yummy!)
* Raspberries (Had for breakfast - Yummy!)
* Egglplant
* Turnip
* Red Onions (2 HUGE ones!)
* Green Top Carrots
* Cucumbers (got about 6-7 of these, I know I planted these, but mine are just starting and I thought a cucumber salad would be nice tonight with out pork ribs)
* Dozen Farm-fresh Brown Eggs (Had for breakfast - yummy!)
* Cinnamon Rolls (This little old lady makes a bunch of stuff and sells it cheap, haven't tasted them yet.)

I got all that for under $20. That's incredible!

Hair & Nail Growth

So, everyone kept telling me how fast your hair & nails grown while you are pregnant and also how strong & beautiful they will be.

I did notice that they both grew very fast, but I didn't really think the quality of them had changed until now, after birth and during breastfeeding. Could the hormones associated with breastfeeding be improving the quality of my hair & nails? All my nails have never been so long, strong or pretty (now, I type that I will probably break a bunch.)

It's unfortunate that my wash & go style involves throwing my hair in a ponytail, because my hair has probably never been so healthy (at least not since I started dying it over half my lifetime ago.) Even if I did wear it down, it's not practical anymore. Isabel can already grab up and pull my hair. She likes to grab at things with her free hand while she nurses.

Organic Food

So, I was trying to look up information about a particular brand of organic cereal when I came across this article about how big name brand companies have been buying up small organic companies.

I was just doing some research on some food products before I bought some things on Amazon's Grocery (store, a beta store). Right now if you spend $49+ you get $10 off instantly if you enter in the code GROCERY2. The cool thing is that all this stuff qualifies for free shipping (at least everything I have looked at so far.)

Now, if you buy organic food (& we try to quite a bit), you know it can get spendy, especially if your grocery store only has a small section and they aren't buying in bulk. Bulk is the key word here because you are not just buying 1 box of cereal, you are buying a box of 6 boxes (just an example).

And for those of you WW dieters out there that I know, you might want to check it out because organic food tends to be made with whole grains, thus being high(er) in fiber & lower in added sugars, thus lowering your points for an item (or allowing you to eat more.)

I should mention that there are plenty of non-organic food in the Amazon grocery section if you choose to want to buy that.

Things That Suck!

• The "budgeted" gas bill going up by $16/mo.
• 100 degree weather
• The electric bill when I see the total from having the a/c on all the time
• That my baby won't take a bottle & I can't go anywhere w/o her for more than an hour
• My garden is getting weedy
• The smell of a diaper pail full of dirty diapers
• The price of gas hovering around $3/gallon (& probably rising)
• Never being able to get rid of those cottage cheese looking thighs
• That summer is half over already, which means my maternity time is half over too
• Vegtables & fruits going bad before you have a chance to use them
• Lack of Sleep
• Babies outgrowing clothes before you ever have a chance to put them in it
• Those first few minutes in the car before the a/c cools it down when it's 80+ degrees out
• Cat hair all over everything, and no matter how hard you try to keep up with it, there is always more
• Having to pay for car tabs or car insurance
• Offering to give something away for free & then the people not showing
• Burning the toast or popcorn
• Babies who don't want to sleep
• Dead bugs on window sills
• Wasps, bees, or anything with stingers
• Vaccuming & then having the cats fight & leave little tufts of hair all over after you just finished
• Buildings that don't allow cell phone coverage because of how they are contructed
• Buying creamer (or any dairy product) & then noticing after you get home that it is expired
• Craving cereal but discovering you are out of milk
• Thinking you are drinking milk but instead it's a glass of lemonade
• Blogger having problems & losing big long posts you typed

ok- I guess I should end my rant & try to be more positive. I am just tired & cranky.

Garden Progress

I got some radishes out of the garden. Yeah! And I see I have peppers & tomatoes growing on some of my plants. The zucchini has blossoms on it, so hopefully I will have some of those soon as well. Everything else is growing nicely.