Front Yard Party

On Sundays in the Fall we have every TV in the house tuned into FOOTBALL! So in order to keep the troops busy this weekend I pulled a few tricks out of my hat.

First, the kids and I walked down to Sam's Market for an ice cream cone. Then I pulled the cars out of the driveway so we could ride bikes out there. (Since we live on a pretty busy street we don't get to do much bike riding in our neighborhood.) While we were out there Aidan and Clare decided to climb the trees too.

It was a great Fall day as I watched the kids play around the yard and driveway and listened to Sean and his Dad yell at the Redskins!

Ballerina school

Today was Clare's first day of Ballerina School. Although she gave me a hard time before we left to go there she was very excited with the outcome of her first hour long class. We purchased her ballerina shoes and tap shoes today. (We're waiting for the tap shoes to arrive til next week.) She dressed herself in her black leotard and her pink tights and I did her pony tail. When we got there she was sized for shoes and one of the nice ladies walked her back to her class. We left her there for an hour and when we got back she was a little shy but super excited about it. Today's class, she learned how to be an ice cube, how to tip-toe around in a circle and how to sit like a butterfly. It's all coming out in pieces, as she decides when she's ready to share it, but all in all it seems like Ballerina School was the right choice for our little ballerina!

9/11

This morning as I pulled out of my driveway and down the street, I noticed that my neighbor had lined his half acre of property along the street with little American Flags. It brought tears to my eyes. I got on the internet and saw some pictures of that day 9 years ago and cried to myself (luckily my 2 precious babies were not paying attention to me).

I pray and hope that all people in the USA are as sorrowful, respectful, hopeful and remembering of what happened 9 years ago today all over this wonderful country of ours. One day I'll be brave enough to share my experience of what happened 9 years ago today to my family. In the meantime, I hope and pray that my children will never have to experience this type of hatred in their lives.

God Bless America...NOW and always!

Where's the BEEF?

We recently purchased a half a cow along with my in-laws. It's been fully butchered and is all sitting in a deep freeze in the basement at the Daycare Center. I finally got down there this afternoon to look at all the meats and it looks GREAT! They had some burgers made from the ground beef this weekend and said it was yummy. Evidently, sometimes when you butcher a cow they get anxious when going to slaughter and that can make the adrenaline stay in the muscle tissue afterwards, making the meat taste not so good. So it sounds like we lucked out. YUMMO!

Labor Day

Yesterday we had the Murphy's and Hughes' over for the final hoorah at Club Healey for the summer! Crabs, body painting, ice cream pie, swimming and tons of laughs!

Canning

This summer I learned how to CAN! It's something I've wanted to learn to do for a couple of years now. For my birthday this year Toni gave me a canning kit and Patra gave me a case of the jars. You see, I have trouble finding a store bought tomato sauce that I really like so I end up buying canned tomatoes and making my own sauce. A couple of years ago Sean and I made the "Sopranos Sunday Gravy" from a Sopranos cookbook we borrowed from our friend Jen. Let me tell you it was DELICIOUS! After we made it I thought that I'd love to have jars of that sauce in my pantry. And now I can!

Toni is the one who gave me the lesson on how to can tomatoes. She got a whole crate of tomatoes from the farm we belong to. One Saturday morning, Clare and I went down to her house and got to work. First we had to wash the tomatoes, then bake them in the oven til the skins start to split, and then peel the skins off. At that point we cooked some down on the stove top and some of the others we just canned right out of the oven. Then, put them in boiling water for like 40 minutes and the tops seal. Ta Da! Jars full of yummy tomatoes ready to be made into delicious sauces over the winter.

It seems like a bit of a lost art to me. As we were canning, Toni and I were talking about how people used to do this all the time and how much they would have had to can in order to make it through the winter months. Amazing! We are so spoiled with the technology and conveniences we have available to us.

We're not out of the woods yet!

Yesterday, our lil Saddie girl had her surgery. The stone (calcium deposit) was removed successfully and she was a champ! She came out of the anesthesia well and Sean picked her up at 4:00, only to be told a laundry list of instructions before he left.

Apparently, the surgery was the easy part! For the next 14 days Saddie has to stay in a crate unless she's "closely monitored in a small confined space". She has to be leash walked for "elimination" and she got a whole bunch of pills to take between. She can't walk up or down stairs, can't run and can't get too excited otherwise she runs the risk of tearing the stitches in her bladder which would result in urine leaking into her body and eventually.. well, I'm not ready to talk about what could happen then!

So, it's a darn good thing Sean and I decided that we were good with 2 (human) kids because we've got to care for our first (dog) baby as if she were brand new again! It's going to be a long road to recovery but I know my girl will be just fine! She's getting more attention now than she's had for the last 5 years- and I'm sure she's LOVIN IT!