A Visit To Great Grandma's

Gio gives Great Grandma a kiss. He has his own word(s) for each family member. He has decided what he will call Great Grandma. We just haven't been able to decide if it's Me Ma or May May but if we asked him "Where is Great Grandma?" he would point to her.

Great Grandma and Gio look at a book together.

This is Dawn and Figaro Great Grandma's newest lawn ornament. She names all her lawn ornaments and many have a short story. These two are twins and Dawn was named Dawn because that is when they were born. They are decorating the kitchen table until better weather arrives.

She enjoys baking and usually has whipped up some homemade treat(s) for us every time we visit. On this visit we enjoyed fresh strawberries, delicious baked that day bran muffins with golden raisins and picked earlier in the day fresh baked rhubarb pie. She even had a special kid's cup for Gio out of which he drank several cups of purple grape juice.

3 Small Gifts

For Mother's Day I received Three small gifts. The first came during breakfast. I just couldn't wait to give my Mom her Mother's Day gifts. After I opened mine she said "Well, I guess I'll give you mine now too." I really wasn't expecting anything. She handed me a small card. "Hmmm?!?" I thought. I opened it and to my surprise it was a gift card to a local clothing store. I haven't bought new clothes in quite some time. Most of the clothes I buy are "new to me" clothes. I look forward to the treat of shopping for new clothes. Which brings me to my second small gift.

We ended up buying cold cuts, bread, lettuce, and cucumbers for lunch (of course we bought other stuff too). While Mom and I brought the bags in the house Bob gave me what I like to call a mini vacation. Ahhh, they're GREAT! Stay at home Moms really don't get any breaks during their work day. Where is Gio and what is he doing are two questions I ask myself everyday more times than I can count. Every once in awhile my parents or my husband will watch him for a few minutes to a few hours so I can get some me time. Many times my mini vacations are unexpected, like this one, and those are the best.

After dinner which consisted of pizza, wings, and cannolis for dessert I received my third small gift. Joe gave Gio a fairly large gift bag to bring to me. I looked inside to find a small black box. I opened it to find a beautiful blue topaz and white gold ring.

Wow, what a lucky Mom I am to have received three gifts that while physically small were packed with large amounts of love which makes them incredibly special. It's not the size of the present or how much money was spent on it that makes the gift great.

Happy Mother's Day!

Gio says, "To all you Moms out there have a great Mother's Day and all you kids remember to be nice and give your Mom lots of hugs and kisses."

A Picture with a story

I was making dinner when Gio walked in with this coat on backwards. I stood there for a second in amazement (he had never done this before) then praised him for putting his coat on. I then ran as fast as I could to get the camera and "capture the moment". I turned it on on my way back to the kitchen and I'm glad I did because I was able to capture this photo of him no longer in the kitchen and almost no longer in the coat.

Recently Prepared Dishes

The recipe for this came from a cookbook I've had for years. The recipe called for 1/4 cup lime juice. Well I put in the juice of one lime and the lime zest. It ended up having a tropical almost aftertaste to it that just didn't go well with the other things going on in the dish.

I call this dish Thanksgiving With A Crust. I adapted a recipe I saw in the afore mentioned cookbook. It has ground turkey, frozen squash, celery, and onions in it. Gio enjoyed everything except the crust which is very strange because he just loves carbs.

Again from the afore mentioned cookbook. The difference here is that I pretty much followed the recipe for this one. I did add some freeze dried tomatoes and half the rice is brown. The recipe called for all white rice.

Teriyaki Pork. For this I used bottled organic teriyaki sauce and veggies I needed to use up.

Fun In A Field

Gio carried the same rock pretty much the whole time we played here. He kept looking for a better one but never found it.

A boy, his dog, some dirt and THE rock.

"Hey, check out this rock."

Hey, check out this dirt.

one little boy + one big tire = one cute picture

Baking Lesson

I decided to make some chocolate chip cookies. I had some leftover coconut milk and had been thinking of a way to use it. ??????? Replace the butter in the recipe with the coconut milk. "One type of fat for another" I thought. Besides, I love the rich texture and coconutty flavor that coconut milk brings. "Coconut and chocolate go together" I reasoned. I have never used this brand of chocolate chips before but when I sampled them they seemed like they would go well. I used the recipe on the back of the package. It called for vanilla. The batter looked just perfect but I thought, "Well.... It called for vanilla I better put some in." I was out and used some chocolate liquor instead. Instantly the batter became thin. Forget that the finished product looked like pancakes and fast forward to the taste test. Disappointing. They were very light and had not even the slightest hint of coconut flavor. In fact not much flavor at all. I tried it. Didn't like it. Will not be substituting coconut milk for butter again. Lesson learned.