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We've been making some progress on the home improvement front. On the 4th hubby installed my utility sink, and then this week he worked really hard on the florescent lights in our kitchen. Basically, we have them running around the perimeter of the kitchen, but there was no cover over them...so after three years here, hubby finally came up with a solution that works for him (he's an obnoxious perfectionist...) and it looks pretty good! Unfortunately, he burnt out the motor brushes on his Dremel while cutting the plastic. So, after checking every store conceivable within a 1 1/2 hour radius, he ended up calling Dremel to get the part, which is supposed to be replaced every 60 hours of use (trust me, he's gotten 60 hours of usage out of it on home improvement projects around here...I never actually thought that thing would be useful, but I stand corrected!) Shipping was okay from Dremel, but when I was looking online at stores, most of them charged $7 to $8 to ship an INTERIOR PART FOR A DREMEL...something about that just seems wrong!
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On Sunday, we had a picnic at the park with MILs side of the family. We don't see them that often (although several of them live in the same town as MIL), we mostly just see MIL's dad and one of her brothers (and his family). So, seeing the more extended group was fun. Although, this is the side of the family where most of the siblings (MIL's dad and his brothers and sisters) have been married between 3 and 5 times each. One of the sisters is a teacher in a private school for learning disabled children, and we had a great talk about schools and homeschooling. It's really nice to have one side of the family be excited about our homeschooling the girls. I mean, my MIL and FIL and all hubby's siblings are just fine with it, but the more extended family on his dad's side is a little anti-homeschooling...and then there are my (public school teaching) parents, who just don't get it, and I'm pretty sure are still hoping that I just get over it before Eva needs to be in school.
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Tuesday MIL had a doctor's appointment, so we took the opportunity to take the girls for their Chuck E Cheese reward for Charlotte's potty training (and Eva's not waking us up every night with nightmares), so the girls, hubby, myself, MIL and SIL went up, and my mom and dad met us at Chuck E Cheese's...the girls had a blast, and SIL is super competitive at skee ball. Of course, while she was driving MIL over to her doctor's appointment, I had the best skee ball game in my life (it really doesn't take much...I'm really bad) and scored over 450,000, which won the grand prize (I didn't realize they had a grand prize) which was up to 250 tickets. So, the girls ended up getting slightly more interesting junk at the end of the trip.
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Anyone want zucchini??? Hubby swore he was keeping up on bringing in the squash for me, and then he brought in 7 baseball bat sized zucchini. I threatened his life if he ever brought in more that size (after shredding the 7, and freezing 14-2 cup portions of zucchini for baking), and I now have another 6 sitting on my counter...and that's after he begged a friend to come over and take some (I think he talked her into taking 3). We also have beans starting to produce, so before I know it, I'll be in full swing of canning again.
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I am working on eating lower carb foods, as per my doctor's orders, and it's a challenge for me, since I used to cook spaghetti about 3 times a week. Last night I made stuffed peppers, and they were SOOO good, so here's my kinda sorta recipe for them:
1 1/2 lbs hamburger (that's just the package size we get from the packing plant, could do less)
1 med zucchini chopped
1/2 chopped red bell pepper
1 chopped carrot
1/2 c. crushed croutons (I said lower carb...)
1/2 c. ketchup
5 large red bell peppers
brown hamburger...realize that it is greasy, find almost empty ketchup bottle in fridge. Squeeze remainder of ketchup into a mixing bowl. Use funnel to pour off grease into ketchup bottle. Throw hamburger on top of ketchup in bowl. Preheat over to 350. saute zucchini, chopped bell pepper and carrot. Ignore instructions to boil whole red peppers for 5 minutes, instead just cut off tops, remove seeds and wash, set upside down to drain. Put sauteed veggies in mixing bowl, add crushed croutons. Mix well. Fill each pepper with meat mixture, set in muffin tins (to keep upright while cooking) bake for 30 minutes. Watch children and husband devour. Serve with cottage cheese because you are feeling too lazy to make anything else.
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I am enjoying myself very much right now...Eva is at the end of the year swim party for the summer reading program, accompanied by MIL. Charlotte is in her bedroom with hubby watching Pocahontas on the little TV/VCR that grandma brought down because she felt so bad that Charlotte can't go swimming today. We already finished school, MIL has offered to take us out to lunch (so I don't have to cook) and she's going to stay around this afternoon to watch the girls while I take our pug Bubba to the vet (otherwise, hubby would have to take an hour or so off work this afternoon, since he scheduled the appointment in the middle of the girl's usual nap/quiet time.)
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We are planning Eva's 5th birthday party now, and I'm pretty excited about it. This will be her first friend party, and we have rented out the pool in MILs town (our pool is outdoors, and closes as soon as school is back in session...so August 30th is too late for here!) and Eva has asked grandma to make her a little mermaid cake. I figure, swimming, cake, juice boxes, I don't really need to do much else, besides find and send out invitations!
As always, more quick takes at Conversion Diary!
Oooh, I'm going to need to see that little mermaid cake. I think my 3 year old would definitely jump on that bandwagon ")
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