The Last Days of Summer

Here are some pictures from the last few days the kids spent at the beach. This was a weird summer - it was very busy and wasn't as relaxing as it usually is. We usually go out on my parents boat and Scott and I didn't get out on it once. Having the floors done was like loosing the month of August, and my parents have been busy, especially with my mom getting ready to go to China with Jen to get Katie. Next year, I vow that it's not going to be so crazy. We wanted to take Scott's truck on the beach and have dinner since he has the permit to bring the truck on the beach, and we didn't get to do that either! Oh brother!

Our kids love the beach. Evan will dig and dig for hours at a time and so will Abby. On this particular day, the man who runs the swimming program took out the big net for the kids to catch killies and whatever else they could get. Evan loves to go crabbing with Scott, but they didn't go as much as they would have liked. That's why I'm looking forward to our upcoming trip to Disney. I just want to hang out with the kids, and not have the pressures of home, of regular life. Just to not have to cook and clean will be awesome. We're always running and busy, and our kids deserve to have us all to themselves - and you can't not have fun at DisneyWorld!

So, summer 2008, farewell...On to Florida, watching my sister and BIL become parents again, to first grade and to nursery school. I'm sad to see the summer go, but I love the routine of school too. Evan does better when he has a routine and it'll be good for all of us when school starts.

PMS Cake

I found this recipe in a Good Housekeeping magazine a couple years ago, but never made it. We were going to our dear friends Lauren and Larry's house for their daughter Lily's birthday. There was going to be tons of kids, so I decided to give it a shot. It's officially called "Chocolate Crispy Cake" but I like to call it PMS Cake - it's got chocolate, M&M's and peanuts - the perfect combination of sweet and salty. It was crazy easy to make, only took about 10 minutes and it travels beautifully. The grown-ups loved it as much as the kids!

Here's the recipe:

4 oz. semisweet chocolate, broken into pieces
2 TBS of butter or margarine
1 bag (10 1/2 ounces miniature marshmallows
6 cups (6 oz) of rice krispies cereal
1 cup salted dry-roasted peanuts
1 cup M & M's Mini Baking Bits (the store didn't have mini's, so I just used regular)

1) Spray 10-12-cup fluted baking pan (such as a Bundt) with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a large bowl, heat chocolate and butter in the microwave oven on High for one and mixtminute, stirring once during heating. Remove from microwave, stir chocolate mixture until melted and smooth. Add marshmallows to mixture. Heat in microwave on High 1
minute longer; stir until marshmallows are melted and mixture is smooth.
3) Add cereal, peanuts and M&M's to chocolate mixture. Stir until all ingredients are coated and mixture is well combined.
4) Transfer cereal mixture to prepared pan, pressing mixture down with fingertips. Let stand at least 1 hour to set chocolate. (In warm weather, refrigerate to set cake.)
5. To unmold, with knife or metal spatula, loosen cake from side of pan; invert onto serving plate. Cut into slices to serve. Store in covered container at room temperature up to 3 days.

Y U M!

Again, more silence

Apparently, my children have a great love for writing on themselves..

At least this was just sidewalk chalk - no big deal. Definitely beats the time when Evan was about 18 months old and gave himself a Hitler mustache with permanent black marker.

The Green Monster

Of course, it was too quiet and I should have known better.

Why, though, is it always when you are running late and have to be somewhere on time (we were going to a surprise birthday party) and now you have to give them a bath?

Always beware of silence.

Holy Doormat Batman!

Check out the fluke that my brother in law Bill caught! It was 14 lbs! The thing was so ridiculously huge - Scott was just freaking out. We were really happy for Bill - it was almost as big as Evan! LOL

The garden grew great this year - lots of tomatoes. The sunflowers got as huge as dinner plates - I'm so mad at myself for not getting the kids to stand by them one more time. Evan's pumpkin grew the biggest this year, and Abby's plant got two little sweet ones. I love that the kids are so into gardening. They love helping me pick the tomatoes; sunflowers are awesome for them to grow because it seems that they grow a foot in a day! I hope it's something that they'll always want to do with us!

Summer Re-cap -

Well, the painting is done and the floors are all finished and came out beautiful. It was alot of work with the kids and I'm beyond relieved it's over. Everything came out beautiful and we're back to normal. Now I can catch up on posting!

When we were still at my mom's, we went to an Olympic's party hosted by our friends Missy and Greg. The kids had a ball. To our surprise, our friends Sharon and Eric, who we traveled to China with, came with their daughter Katie. Abby and Katie were in the same orphanage together. In just about all the pictures we have of Abby there, Katie is right next to her. When you see them together, there is just something about them together- they L O V E each other. They hug each other so hard that most of the times they fall on the ground. It's like the have a bond with each other, it's the only way I know how to describe it. Katie and Abby actually sat and watched the Opening Ceremonies and were cheering. It was adorable. I love what Katie does for Abby - just brings her out of her shell. Sharon and Eric have become such great friends of ours - we just love 'em and feel so blessed to have them as part of our family.

We thought the Opening Ceremonies were spectacular! We knew the Chinese would not disappoint - it just meant too much to them.

Thanks for not giving up on this blog!!!

Hugs,

My poor blog, I'm not ignoring you

I have so much to catch up, and I want to get everything updated before Disney, so I can post pictures when we get back...I'll update tonight and over the weekend. Thanks for your patience! I hope we still have somebody out there reading! LOL