It Looks Like a Forest!

Rescue Ranger

When we dumped her kitty pool, Peeper spotted a big old earthworm underneath it, so at my suggestion, she relocated him to the garden. She didn't even blink about picking it up.

Zebra Pillow

See the pillow on the left? Shrike made that sham!

She's taking a series of monthly sewing classes that, after several months, will buy her a brand-new, super-spiffy sewing machine.

This was the first project in the series, and I think it came out great!

Peeper loves it too :-)

I Have a Beard!

Chip Trip

The MOMS Club was scheduled to tour a not-so-local pretzel factory this morning, but it was pretty much a bust. They started the tour at 10-sharp, although eight of us (3 adults, 5 kids) weren't there yet, they lumped us with another group that was mostly adults, some of them kept "shushing" our kids, even when they had questions, the tour was led by Miss Monotone 2012, and what was billed as a "one hour tour" took about twenty minutes.

They weren't very concerned about our concerns either.

Needless to say, we won't be going back there.

So, upon the advice of a couple of moms in our group, we went over to a nearby potato chip factory that does a self-guided tour, and had a great time there. The kids could see all the steps of the chip making, and learned way more about that just from looking than we learned about the pretzels with a tour guide.

(There were recorded explanations of everything, but there wasn't much hope of hearing them over our kiddos.)

Then Peeper and I went to lunch at Friendly's with T and her girls (we'd carpooled).

I'd say we did a pretty good job of salvaging the trip. Despite the crappy tour number one, we had a good time and actually learned something.

But, there are no photos of it all, because we weren't allowed to take any.

I Got Nothin'

Somehow I managed to not take a single photo today. Heaven forfend!

This was Shrike's first day off since we got home from Texas, so we all just hung out together for most of the day, then checked out the first of the back-to-school deals at Staples, and looked around Michael's for a bit.

Then, Peeper and Mommy headed out for a "date" (Mexican food, Baskin Robbins and Lowe's) while I went out (at someone's house) with the outgoing and incoming MOMS Club board members.

A good time was had by all.

Baby Bear Goes to Target

Sure, what the hell?

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Splash Time

Peeper and I went to the sprinkler park this morning, with one of our MOMS Club friends. I think it's safe to say that she enjoyed herself.

Alonely

Just a typical conversation with the silverware family.

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Zukes!

Peeper picked out some zucchini (one yellow, one green) at the farmer's market yesterday morning, so I figured I'd better find a way to cook them before they went bad (like the last time we bought one.)

When I was talking about it, she asked me, "Do zucchinis make chips?"

Why yes. Yes they do.

I made them essentially the same way as the eggplant and kale chips. I used my "new" (thrift store) mandolin slicer (works great), then tossed them with olive oil, garlic, Tastefully Simple Tomato Basil Garlic whatever and Onion Onion and Parmesan cheese, then baked for about 15 minutes or so. She loved them, and was even doing a "zucchini dance" at one point!

They also make fritters. 

These were based on a recipe that I found here, but I was out of eggs, so after Chef Google told me that I could, I substituted 1T cornstarch + 2 T water for the 1 egg. 

I really liked these, and so did Peeper, although it took her a couple of tries, because the first time she picked one up, she thought it was a cookie!

This was really our first foray into the world of the zuke, and now I'm really glad that we're growing them in the garden!