Container Gardening

While in NY we enjoyed the old houses and the beautiful flowers. I would love to know how they make their baskets, and pots so beautiful. My containers look really sad right now. Please if anyone out there reads this and has some suggestions on how I can achieve the look of the flowers in the pictures I have added to this post, PLEASE let me know!!!!!!!!!!!!

Long time no see....

Wow, it has been a long time since I have been able to update. I guess that I am living up to my blog title. School is finally out and we have been on the move. Gray played in Cooperstown, NY. He did incredibily well, he hit two home runs. We fell in love with Cooperstown. It is an incredible town. We loved Schnider's Bakery and Double Day Cafe. Triple Play Cafe is very good as well. Our favorite place we ate was actually in Oneata, a place called Pondo's II. The best food and the portions where huge! Anyone visiting upstate NY must vist Pondo's II.

It has been awhile!

Boy has it been busy around here. Baseball, softball, life, it is all great. Em played in her first tournament of the year this weekend. They did pretty good. They were third. She turned her first double play! We were all very excited.
School is winding down. Four weeks left. But what a busy summer. Gray is going to Cooperstown, NY to play at the Field of Dreams the week of the fourth. Then the following week the boys will be playing in the Tennessee World Series. Then add in all the baseball and basketball camps in and sprinkle the Coach's Clinic and CTE Summer Conference. It will be a summer packed from beginning to end.

Juggling it all!

What a day. Today EmmaLee had an eye appointment, I had a dentist appointment, the boys had open gym, and Em had softball practice. Ken and I are like ships passing in the night, but we often swap cargo (children). He is a great help with the children. I don't know how single parents get it all done.

Good Job Guys

I would like to send out a big congratulations to both of my boys. Kaleb for winning "All Conference" and "All Tournment" for his performance in his middle school baseball season. He was the only player to receive both honors in the entire conference.

Gray played travel ball this weekend with the Carolina Cougars. His team was undefeated. They had to call each game because of the mercy rule.

Great Job guys. Mom is proud of you!

Can you believe it!

The calandar may say spring, but Mother Nature says it is still winter. We had 70 degree weather over the weekend, but the past two days we have had snow. We have missed a day of school and may miss today as well. I know the schood administrators are going crazy. It was nice to have the day off. Spring break is coming up next week and we are planning our annual trek to the beach with my entire family, thirteen of us. The children look so forward to it. It is the only time they get to spend a significant amount of time with their cousins. We are hoping that all the nasty weather will be over and we will have a week full of sunshine.

BASEBALL

What fun. Today will make the sixth baseball game I have attended in a week. On Monday Kaleb hit a homerun out of the park, 315'. His team made it to the semis in his middle school baseball tourney. He received an all conference pick and an all tournament pick.
Gray plays today, but Ken's mom and dad are taking him so that we can go with Kaleb when he receives his plaques for the tourney. Em finally got to practice softball this week. Between schedules and the weather they have had a hard time getting to practice.
Kaleb came down with strep earlies this week, but is making a nice recovery. I will post some pictures of him in a later post. He has had an incredible year.
The family is heading to the beach during spring break so there will be much packing to do. I love going, but I dread the packing and unpacking. But all the sunshine and the wonderful time spent with family makes it worth every bit of it!

Why am I the Busiest Mom?

I guess I need to explain why I am so busy. I am the mother of three children who don't say no to anything. They play rec ball, school ball, travel ball, (in two sports), music, attend church, and then add the friend factor. My husband is the head football and basketball coach at the middle school where he teaches, as well as the athletic director. Then there is me. I am an early childhood education teacher at a high school. I teach 11th and 12th graders how to work in the child care industry. I am also the director of the onsite preschool. This is the learning lab for my high school students. I am the county program contact for More at Four, a state wide program that targets at risk preschoolers. I am the contact for a grant our county received called a "Ready Schools Grant" that is working to make sure all schools are ready for all children. It works to make sure the school meets the child where they are, a kind of closing the gap you could say. I also am a co-advisor for a student organization called FCCLA (Family, Community, and Career Leaders of America.).
These things keep us very busy, but...we always make time for family each and every day!

Weekend Gone Bust!

Well, this weekend was designated as my big cooking weekend for OAMC. Well...I started feeling bad on Saturday and just couldn't get motivated to get all of it done. At 3:00am on Sunday I woke up deathly sick. I can't think about even smelling food now let alone eating what few meals I did get prepared on Saturday.
I have been knitting. I watched Martha Stewart's knitting program and they had a blanket made from knitted squares. I decided that would be a great idea. You could always take it with you and you can mix and match the squares like a quilt so you could be working on many different projects at one time. You have to remember to use similar sized yarns, the same size needles, count your rows, and always cast on the same number of stitches. This is a great project for novice knitters like me!

What's for Lunch

I am always looking for easy, but wholesome ideas for my kids lunches. They also need to to be economical. They love snack cakes such as Little Debbie, but they are expensive and are full of perservatives. I found a great recipe for brownies that is easy, makes a huge pan, and freezes well. Here is the recipe:
Brownies
2c plain flour
2 1/4 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 sticks margarine
1/3 cup cocoa
1c chopped nuts (optional)
Mix flour, sugar and eggs together. Melt margarine and cocoa. Add the first mixture. Add nuts if desired. Pour into a greased 9x13" pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Do not over bake.
Your kids will love these!

Delicious Orange Ginger Chicken

Last night's meal was wonderful. We enjoyed orange ginger chicken that I marinated and froze the first part of the month. I placed it in the fridge the night before to defrost. All I had to do was cook the chicken and add a couple of sides. I have included some pictures for you to see how simple, but nutritious and attrative this meal was.

Spring is in the air

It is that glorious time of year when the birds start singing and bats start swinging. Kaleb is right in the thick of his middle school baseball season. He and Gray are both playing travel ball again this year, one team together and Gray will play with a team his age as well. EmmaLee is playing travel softball again. She had her first practice this week. Kaleb got his first win this week. They beat their rival school, Harris Middle School. Go Bowman!

OAMC "Once a Month Cooking"

I recently became very interested in OAMC. I have very little time in the evening to prepare a meal from scratch. It seemed we were always pulling through the drive thru of some fast food resturant. I felt very guilty, giving my background is in Family and Consumer Science. So I did some research on OAMC and hit the ground running. I compiled my recipes, made my list and did the "big shop". I spent about $220 for a family of five and that made 23 meals. I marked my calandar with days I knew we would have to eat out because of late ballgames and we are usually out of town on the weekends so we are forced to eat out. I was very proud of myself, I got all of the meals cooked and a couple of lunches and still manged to make it to three basketball games. I am working on next months menus now. I hope to add a few more lunches and maybe some breakfasts. I would love to have some new recipes to add to my collection. So if you would like to share, please do.