Last Day Of Kindergarten

Yes, it was a couple weeks ago, but I want to get these pictures on here for my own sake.  He'll be in high school before I know it.

Of course, I did pictures the morning of his first day, so I had to do some of his last.  The new found kindergarten attitude is apparent in the facial expressions.

Um yeah, I was really tempted to write captions.

Look at last years sweet, so excited to go to school, happy boy.

And now, here's the, Mom, this is sooooo dumb, I can't believe you're making me do this, little boy.

So I threw his little sister in the mix to try to get a REAL smile out of him.

Um, not so much.

They are so totally over me and my camera.

And then, The Girl goes in for the kill.

Okay, well, I don't think any of those could officially be called a smile, but, my BIL got this pic of us recently.

There's my sweet boy.

I'll be away from the computer for the next three days for the holiday weekend.

If you've been graced with an extra day off, enjoy!

The Hebe Is Blooming!

I love hebes.  Unfortunately, I tend to lose even the ones that are supposed to be hardy here.  I had one for years and once I lost that one, not one has overwintered since.  Until now!  I planted this one last year and it's blooming its little heart out right now.

The evening primrose is also blooming in the backyard now.

I swear it glows.

I wish I could get closeups of the color, but my camera skills are lacking and it just ends up washed out.

A few of the fuchsias I bought this year are starting to bloom.

The ones that wintered over are huuuuge, but only one of those is blooming.

I guess that's it for now.

The new recipe meat is goin' on the grill, the salad and rice are made, and the table is set.

I've got pictures in case it's as good as it sounds.

Have a good night.

This Week's Menu + A Baby Video + A Burger Recipe

It's three, three, three posts in one.

Okay, so first of all, I've had a couple people mention they'd like to know what's on our weekly menus.  Does it count if there's no immediate recipe links?  Maybe you just need inspiration?  Whatever the case may be, I hear ya and here's the latest meal plan at our house, in no particular order.....

• Tamarind Beef Satay with Indonesian Salad and Steamed Rice (new recipe)
• Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad and Bread
• BBQ Country-Style Ribs with Loaded Boiled Potatoes and Steamed Broccoli
• Spicy Buffalo Burgers, BBQ Oven Fries and Coleslaw (see recipe below)
• K-Falls Tacos
• Taco Salad 
• Tuna Melts on English Muffins with Chips

There ya go.  It's an easy week.  In the dinner department anyway.

Onto part two of the post.  I haven't shared a baby video in forever and I have one from a couple days ago, so here ya go (there's nothing monumental happening in this video - it's just her on my lap and me talking to her)..........

I know it appears as if she's about to fall off my lap onto the floor in the end, but I promise, no babies were harmed in the making of this video.

And now for the burger recipe.  I don't have pictures.  Don't you hate it when that happens?  We ate them too darned fast.  But they were delicious, so it would be unfair if I didn't share the recipe.  This one came out of the July issue of Woman's Day.

Prep your ground beef however you normally would.  I doctor it up with Worcestershire, Garlic Powder and McCormick's Steak Seasoning.  Make patties and grill 'em up.

For the "Buffalo", whisk together 2 Tbsp lowfat plain Greek yogurt, 1 Tbsp white wine vinegar and 1/4 tsp each salt and pepper.  Add 3 or 4 stalks of celery (thinly sliced), 2 oz crumbled blue cheese (1/2 C), 1 chopped scallion (I omitted this), and 1/4 C fresh, chopped flat-leaf parsley.  Toss to combine.

Assemble your burgers with the celery slaw, a good dousing of hot sauce (we used Frank's), and iceberg lettuce.  We also added cheddar cheese (duh) and tomatoes to ours.

Deeeeelicious!  This would be really good with turkey burgers or chicken breasts too.

We had ours with coleslaw and oven fries that I tossed with a mixture of BBQ sauce, olive oil, garlic powder, salt and pepper.  I baked them at 425 on a cookie sheet for 40 minutes, stirring once.

It's a hard sell with no pictures, I know, but it was a really good dinner.

For those who made it all the way to the bottom, thanks for sticking around for my ADD post.

The Lilies Are Blooming!

I've got some recent pics of what's goin' on in the front yard for ya today.

The Dad got me both of these lilies on separate occasions.  

One is a deep red color and the other is more orange.

This climbing rose is my nemesis.

It has blackspot and rust so bad right now, it's amazing it's actually blooming.

I'm really close to ripping the dang thing out.

This other climber was in the backyard when I bought the house.

It gets blackspot too, but not quite so bad.

It's more of a rambler than a climber I think.  

It needs a home where it can go wild, 'cause I'm constantly whacking it back.

I planted a whole packet of sweet peas this year and ONE came up.

I have no idea what happened.

But the good news is, they reseeded themselves in the old sink where I had them last year.

There's just two plants, but they've gone crazy.

Remember the amazingly beautiful giant pink begonia I had hanging in the front yard tree last year?

Well, they didn't have any when I was at the nursery, so I went with a yellow one with smaller flowers instead.

We'll see if it can live up to its predecessor.

I guess that's it for now.

The neighbor gave me something old and rusty that I love, so I'll be sharing that in a post soon.