A "Berry" Special Birthday Party

Wow! Birthday parties. At the pool. I promise I have never seen anything like it. This weekend Derrick and I went to our very first kid’s birthday party. We are still awestruck. There were hundreds (maybe not quite that many) little ones running and swimming. We seriously stood in the background and took it all in with big stupid smiles on our faces. The whole time I kept thinking to myself, “We are seriously going to have to buy some running shoes and start training now to be able to keep up with Baby Girl.”

My friend Laura invited us to her daughters’ birthday party. Hannah turned 5 and Maggie turned 2 and they had a Strawberry Shortcake theme party. It was too stinking cute. Thankfully I passed my glucose tolerance test this week so that I could have a huge piece of these gorgeous cakes...

I had to ask a million questions. Here are my pearls of wisdom that I am taking away...
1. “Someone watch my child while I cut the cake.” – Laura
2. “All the kids need to dry off before they eat” – Hannah

3. “The hardest part of a birthday party is letting your kids unwrap the presents but not open them. You will lose pieces and be mad at yourself later.” – Valerie

4. “Find a new love for soccer (which is conveniently on the TV located the shade) - Derrick
5. “No joke. Someone watch my child while I cut the cake.” – Laura
6. “Don’t let the ice cream melt on the table.” – Gracie

Ok. Gracie didn’t actually “say” not to let the ice cream melt on the table. But these pictures did…

We had a great time and can’t wait until next year!!! More pictures of the party are here…

A "Berry" Special Birthday Party

It's "Udderly" Delicious

Chaney’s Dairy Barn. One of my favorite places.

We were trying to figure out what to cook tonight for dinner and honestly, it has just been too hot to cook. I think our air conditioner has been going non-stop for the past five days without shutting off. Every time I even attempt to stand in front of the stove I about pass out from the heat. We decided chicken salad from Chaney’s was a much “cooler” option than cooking.

And where else are you going to get the best ice cream other than an actual dairy farm? I could eat my weight in this stuff. Tonight I had Pralines and Cream…

Derrick had Chocolate Chip (don’t worry, he didn’t get short changed on his ice cream – he just started eating it before we paid for it and this was what was left)…

I love to sit outside here while we eat ice cream. It is absolutely gorgeous and so peaceful.

But check out this old girl. I think she is ready to be milked. But Derrick wasn’t up to it. I tried.

Next time my niece and nephew come up to visit we are going to have to take them here. I think they would love this…

But if for some reason we can’t make it to Chaney’s, we can always hope to see them at another spot in town seeing how they bring the "MOO to YOU”.

After we left we stopped and bought the dogs some squeaky tennis balls. I just have to put a couple of the pictures on here because they were having way too much fun.

Annie is a little bit of a nut for tennis balls. She absolutely will not put hers down for any reason except to try to steal someone else’s. One day she will find a way to fit two in her mouth at once. And even if she doesn’t, I know she will never stop trying : )

Late At Night While You're Sleeping Poison Ivy Comes A Creeping Around

Derrick’s slight poison ivy breakout is a getting a little worse. One of the areas I had him clear earlier this week apparently had quite a bit of the devil’s vine hiding in there. And this is horrible, we have this “climbing vine” everywhere. I had no idea it was poison ivy. I know “Leaves of Three, Let It Be” but I thought poison ivy had a red tint to it all year long. WRONG! It turns out it is more red in the fall, but in the summer it is often just a green vine. Well, I had Derrick clear out a bunch more of this vine until the guy that mows our lawn told us it was poison ivy. Whoops. I really feel horrible about it because I don’t seem to be allergic and Derrick is about to scratch his skin off. I had to hide all the Brillo Pads and Pumice Stones for fear of what he would do to himself. Anyway, I compared the pictures of ours to some I found online just to make sure.


Online Picture…

Our Picture…

And this stuff has taken over!

 Pretty much all of the leaves on this front tree are coming off of the vines…

And here are the vines. How in the world are we supposed to get rid of this? I don’t think round up is going to cut it…

This is part of our backyard. We obviously need to clear this out so we could take advantage of the extra yard, but I do not even want to think about how much poison ivy calls this area “home”.

We have tried all kinds of things to help with the itching. I made a baking soda and vinegar paste, which was helping until Mom and Katie told me to have Derrick wash with Fels-Naptha.

I did break the bar in half because it is enormous and I figure we will need it again considering this is about the third breakout he has had this year. I caught Derrick scrubbing himself with the broken rough edge of the bar. He was so rough he busted some of the blisters open. Poor fella. We are also using Caladryl. I opted for the pink instead of clear because if you are going to have a gross rash you might as well try to make it pretty in pink. Or at least use it to cover up the ugliness of it.

P.S. One thing that does not work is playing/singing at the top of you lungs “Poison Ivy” by The Coasters. It really just gets a look of disapproval, but it’s good for a giggle if you aren’t the one “scratching like a hound….poison ivy, lord’ll make you itch.”

The Nesting Begins...

I believe I have entered my “nesting” stage! Here lately I have been making MAJOR Honey-Do-Lists for Derrick. I have my own list, but his is much longer and involves much more manual labor. He has been painting, trimming trees, moving furniture and so on. We finally picked a color and have the nursery painted and the furniture assembled and arranged. I still have lots of work to do before Baby girl is here, but it makes me feel a little better knowing she at least has a crib with clean sheets to sleep in.

Katie told me that when I started “nesting” I would get a little crazy. Yep. She was right. I remember her saying, “You won’t understand why you feel like the inside of your hallway bathroom cabinets needs to be repainted. It’s not like your baby is going to look in there and judge you, but you will think it needs to be done anyway. It will need to be done immediately.” Oh, was she right. I got up at 5am this morning because I absolutely had to wash my couch cushions. It had to be done ight then. I woke up about 3am and managed to put it off till 5am, but that was as a late as I could wait. I also felt like all of the weeds needed to be removed from the entire yard. Our flower beds have been taken over by polk, dandelions, wild onions and some other strange looking plants that I have never seen before. Derrick thankfully took care of that for me over the last couple of days. One farmer’s tan and slight breakout of poison ivy later, he has successfully removed most of the weeds (but he assures me the remaining weeds will be gone by next weekend).

We did take a break today so that we could go by the Farmer’s market and get some fresh produce. We have an abundance of green beans, snow peas, peaches, zucchini, yellow squash, several types of tomatoes, corn, fresh baked bread, cheese, potatoes, peppers and onions. Derrick wanted grilled corn tonight so he worked on that while I cooked some zucchini cups. I found a picture on the internet and mixed up a couple of different recipes. We loved them! Very tasty, but best when hot.

Zucchini Cups

- Cut zucchini in thick slices (about an inch or so)
- Hollow zucchini almost all the way through making a cup
- Brush lightly with oil and bake at 350 for about 15 minutes
- Chop the remaining zucchini

- Heat 1 TBSP of butter in a small skillet
- Sauté remaining zucchini, 1 TBSP onion and 1 clove of garlic, minced
- Remove from heat and stir in 1 TBSP of mozzarella and 1 TBSP of fresh parmesan and 2 TBSP of fresh bread crumbs
- Stuff this mixture back into the zucchini cups and bake for 10 minutes
- Finally, top with sliced cherry tomatoes and sprinkle with parmesan cheese

Delicious!!!

After dinner I made peach milkshakes and now we are going to lie down on our freshly washed couch cushions and watch a movie!