Some pictures

I actually scrapbooked. It's a miracle--I've been meaning to scrap these pictures forever! Not that I did much--pretty much slapped on some stickers and called it done, but I like it. Kristi is my inspiration--always simple, always cute.

And here's some more pictures of Hazel in a hat. But these are much more recent.

These two are from the other day at Happy Hollow park. I wish the dumb garbage can wasn't in the picture. Oh well.
And here is my IRRESISTIBLE honey. Cute, no?

Fun things on the docket for today. I'm so excited! I'll be sure to post all about it.

I'm not dead.

Here's the lowdown:

Ethne can pull herself up on things...like the couch and things. Just now, in fact, I went in to her room to get her and she had pulled herself up on the side of her crib! She has two teeth now too, and is getting so big so fast!

Jethro bonked his head the other day on the piano and it was bleeding pretty good. I washed him all up and it wasn't a big deal, but later that day Hazel got a TEENY-WEENY scratch that bled a half a teeny droplet of blood and she fake-cried and said "You dot to wass it." Hee hee, so carefully washed it.

I don't like making dinner in the summertime. But, here is an INCREDIBLY yummy recipe for gyros. It tastes SOOOO good. If you like gyros you should try it. It's not hard and tastes GREAT. I think it will be a weekly meal around here.

1 lb ground lamb or beef
2 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp salt
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp oregano
¼ tsp pepper
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 small onion, chopped
Mix all together. Shape into 4 (or more) thin patties. Cook over medium heat, turning frequently, until done.
4 pita breads (6-inch diameter)
2 cups shredded lettuce (optional)

Cucmber sauce:

1 cup chopped cucumber
1 cup plain yogurt
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp dill weed
1 tsp minced garlic

Mix together

Our garden is doing pretty great. I put some of our extra tomato guards around the peas because they're getting so tall. I thinned the lettuce a while back, and we have had it on taco salad and tuna sandwiches. I don't like thinning. I feel bad, those poor little shoots that have made it up....who am I to tell them they may no longer live? Also, our roses that we planted have buds.

Brett has started pulling our windows out of house and replacing them with new ones. The problem is, then he sees other things that need to be replaced. He came in saying we should get new siding cause the siding we do have is hud. I said, "NO NO NO!!! This can NOT be one of your projects that turns into a million other projects because then before you know it you'll be knocking down the entire house and building it from scratch." He laughed, but we both know it's true that that could really happen!

We watched a movie last night called "turtles can fly" and it was HEARTBREAKING! Seriously. It's a movie shot in Iraq. Here's the back-cover synopsis: On the Iraqi-Turkish border, enterprising 13-year-old "Satellite" is the de facto leader of a Kurdish village, thanks to his ability to install satellite dishes and translate news of the pending US invasion. Organizing fellow orphans into landmine-collecting teams so that they can eke out a living, he is all business...until the arrival of a clairvoyant boy and his quiet, beautiful sister.

Seriously the saddest movie ever....I actually threw a little tantrum and made Brett fast-forward a spot cause I didn't want to see it (although I think it was pretty much over and didn't show anything). The other saddest movie ever is 'Miss Evers' Boys.' You should watch them both.

What else? Oh. I cut my hair again. It was a mistake.

Hmmm. That's all I've got for now.

If your house is really a mess....

If your house is really a mess and a stranger comes to the door, greet them with, "who could have done this? We have no enemies." ~Phyllis Diller

I can't remember where I saw that quote, but I *LOVED* it. I'm saving that idea to really use some day when my MOM comes unexpectedly and sees my house.

The other day my Dad called and he said, "What are you up to?" and I said, "Oh, just trying to clean my house." And he said, "What, is this like a yearly thing?" Ha haa ha ahem. That's right, you wouldn't want to overdo it. ;)

So, I FINALLY did some scrapbooking. YAY! It's been For-eeeeever! So I had to post them right away. That one with the one large picture of Hazel I've been wanting to do forever...when I saw it (I pretty much copy to some degree all my layouts...it saves time and I know it'll end up cute!) I bought the same paper, same little wooden flower, and I just waited for The Perfect Picture. Now after a year or so...I got it! The top one is a Shelly Laming lift. Anyway.

Poor Jethro, some of you may remember his Big Ear day, and then the day after that, he was peeling carrots for us for dinner--no problem, but then he tried peeling a potato and cut his thumb quite badly.

Then the next day he woke up with a swollen eye. I don't know why he had a swollen eye, perhaps he'll die. Actually we think he just got a mosquito bite or something and it puffed up extra big. It was a rough few days there for him.

This is Hazel and Jethro with their river that they made. My sister Andrea has been writing a little preschool curriculum and mailing it with all the little worksheets to me. So, we learned about rivers and went on a walk by the river to gather all kinds of stuff like shells and grass and sticks and rocks. Then we made salt dough and made our river bed, and sprayed it with glue spray and put sand on it, then put all the stuff we gathered on top. It was fun. I should have taken pictures of our sugar cube pyramid from last month when we learned about Ancient Egypt. We spray painted it gold and everything. I could totally homeschool. That is, if my sister did too, and just sent me all of her plans. :)

Here's a little inch-worm I found in my kitchen. Isn't it so cute? I thought it was. She's really crawling pretty great these days. Goes and finds all sorts of good paper and fluff on the floor to eat.

Here's Brett's latest project. In case you can't tell, it's the passenger floor of his Scout--all gone--and he's made a new floor that he's going to weld in. The old floor was so rusty and corroded that I actually made a hole in it one time when I stepped on it. He's already made a new floor on the driver's side. Why do we have a vehicle that we have to put entirely new floors in--doesn't that sound like the point when it should be given to the junkyard? I don't know, I just married the guy.

Ethne decided she'll skip baby food and go straight to grown-up food, particularly bananas. Actually though, she is doing a little better now at eating some baby food, (yahoo--I won't have to nurse her until she's 10!) and bananas are a favorite.

And here's what we did today. A little of throwing rocks into the water, a little wading/swimming, a little climbing trees (look at my huge guns! (or arm muscles, in case you don't know the Brett slang)), and a little cooking hot dogs. Fun fun fun. Summer is so fun for stuff like that.

I guess that's all. There were quite a few other funny things I was going to share, but I've forgotten it all by now. Have a night.

My Boy

This is a layout I did recently. The title (which says, if you can't read it "You have stolen my heart") is inspired by my newest favorite song, "Stolen" by Dashboard Confessional. I have listened to it over and over the past while. Very good.

So, I had a dream last night about Brett stealing back his car, the Opel (he really did have an Opel when we got married), from some place that was keeping it, and he did a big jump out, crashing through the door, just like in the movies. You know, if I hadn't married Brett, I wouldn't even know what an Opel is...let alone dream about one.

Here are some more things I've learned by being married to Brett:

-what the term "jimmy" means

-what a differential is, and what it is for

-what an intake manifold looks like

-that there is such a thing as biodiesel (let alone having it made in my very own garage)

-what a spoiler is (okay, maybe most people know that one)

-that the Chevy symbol is called a Chevy bow-tie
-all Chevy Novas are unibodies

And some places I'd never been to before Brett:

-the junkyard (now it is near and dear to my heart, as that is where our first date was to)

-classic car show

-demolition derby

-truck/tractor pull

-AutoZone (okay, maybe I had been inside the store before, but now it is much more familiar and almost homey)

Brett, with his very first baja derby car (he's the one in blue shirt in front)

And there's Brett and I in front of the Opel (in case you, like myself pre-Brett, have no idea what it is). Behind it is the Blazer Brett bought for $400 and put about $100 of parts in, and we drove for quite a while when we were first married.

We've been through 12 cars since we've been married (not quite six years). 13, if you count the parts car. It's a sickness, but...we've never made a car payment.

So, your assignment is if you read this, write 3 things you have learned from your spouse, either in your blog or in the comments. They can be any sort of things at all. I meant to do this before Valentine's Day, but that's when our computer crashed.

p.s. I've learned something about short hair.....I don't know how to do it!