Do you like this newspaper?

Here you can see J's favorite newspaper. He's subscribed to several over the years, but this one is the best, and he is fond of telling me about "THE GREAT DEAL" he got on the subscription rate. (He considers the "other" papers useful for things I ought not mention here...:) 

Cute, huh?!

What's wrong with this?

5-day forecast

Got Milk?

Great Food Blog

Take a look at this food blog:

Smitten Kitchen

This site is seriously wonderful! I have already spent way-t00-much time looking at all the fabulous photos, reading the funny posts, and drooling over the yummy recipes. You will find recipes for everything on this blog!

A Day in Our Life...

Words I heard today (repeated over and over and over...):

• "movie" - SIG wanting to watch home movies on our computer (we probably watched 20 today)
• "bagel" - his new favorite food, which we ran out of yesterday, but he managed to get from his friend LD as she was eating breakfast....!
• "wawa" - translation: water, SIG's favorite drink (with ice, of course)
• "bulldozer" - we were looking for them every time we went outside, but sadly we couldn't find any on our city streets...
• "a-bewee" - translation: strawberry, another favorite food which we are eating all the time, thanks to the local produce market that sells them for $1/pound!
• "siren" - which we hear a lot of on our busy street
• "birdie, dog, plane" ...
• and several others that I'm sure I'll hear going through my head and my dreams as I sleep!

For dinner, we got take out from Chipotle, a "gourmet burrito and taco" restaurant. They recently opened a new location a couple miles away, and we got a handful of "free burrito" coupons tucked in with the weekly grocery store ads. Since most of our neighbors don't take the ads and coupons, my friend KD and I are making sure they don't go to waste (along with all the free milkshake and kids' meal coupons from Chick-fil-A, too)!

Tonight we went to the park after dinner.
We saw a tiny creek, some chirping birds, LOTS of dogs, a few chickens, and a couple of horses.

This is a large tree trunk that grew up a few feet, then sideways for 5-6 feet, then up again.
I am standing up, so you can tell how high it is off the ground.

Spanish Rose

Last year, my next-door neighbor gave us this lovely Spanish Rose plant. It was a gift to welcome our newborn son. I love this plant! It's very hardy - it just needs to be watered regularly, then it will spread as far as it has room! The flowers are a beautiful shade of light pink (hard to tell from the picture), very delicate, and bloom quickly!

When I first got the plant, it was fairly small, but it spreads quickly, so the pot was soon filled with green vines and pink flowers. When winter came, it started wilting, and I pulled out the dead pieces. All that was left were 3 very small (just above the dirt) vines. I kept watering it all winter, and this spring it started growing again. Now it looks like these pictures here!

...The pot also has a lot of little critters living in it: rollie-polies and various other bugs which SIG loves to dig up and look at!

Outside Fun

We're having triple-digit weather this week so we're doing whatever we can to stay cool. Here's what SIG did after dinner tonight:

LD's mom brought out a little sprinkler and set it up in the courtyard. The both got pretty wet from the waist down, and then enjoyed running back and forth along the sidewalk.

Notice the matching sandals....:) SIG got his pair first, and LD would always put them on when she came over, so she got her own. They are like two peas in a pod - cute, huh?!

Here they are with Phoebe, our next door neighbor's Boston Terrier. They both get so excited whenever they can play with Phoebe! SIG likes to pick up rocks and hold them out for her to lick...

Chili - it's what's for dinner

I have been wanting to make a nice big pot of chili for about a week now. My husband and I both love to eat it, especially with a batch of buttery corn bread fresh from the oven! Never mind that it's nearly summer and not that cool anymore, we will still eat it. Plus, I can freeze most of it and get a lot more meals out it later.

I spent the evening doing all the prep work and putting everything in the crock pot, where it will simmer all day tomorrow. Then, all I have to do is make the corn bread and dinner is served - well, almost...I'll probably make hot dogs for my toddler, but that's super quick, too.

For the recipe, click here. It comes from my friend AMG. Yummy!