Our beans have a new home

About a month ago, the kids and I started some green bean seeds (they just loved the green beans we picked, cooked and ate from the garden at Potter's school last summer) and they are now too big to be in their very small tin can homes. Today was the day that we moved them all into a much larger pot with a tomato stake to help them grow upwards, without bending under their own weight. Potter took most of the photos while I was gently trying to get the seedlings out of their tin cans without ripping the root systems to shreds. We now have this in the living room and hope that they will continue to grow until we can plant them outside, you know, in three months when the weather finally warms up!! Here's to having some good green beans this summer!!!

Saturday playtime

Saturday was sunny, but cold and windy. Given how little the kids have gotten out over the past couple of months (except in the snow) we braved the cold and spent some time outside. It was weird not to have to dodge months of frozen dog poop. We do miss Trooper, it just wasn't the same out there with him not running around like a crazy puppy.

Caleb swinging on the big kid swing!!! He is slowly learning how to pump his legs. Well, we think he is anyway!

Some silly, some sweet

Molly and Caleb got into a spirited game of hand stack and it actually works now that Caleb understands what he is supposed to do.   You can see their successful stack!  Then they were making goofy faces for me (this time without the oranges) and I thought they were cute.  Dave scooped them up for a moment in the tryptophan chair.  

Tim has to leave :(

We had such a good time with Tim visiting us in NY that all of us, especially the children, were sorry to see him go.   The older kids were very happy to pose with him, Caleb was a little reluctant, but ultimately turned towards the camera at least.   I am also giving a plug to Vollwerth's, The King of Meats.  Tim had this very cool sweatshirt (see photo below) with their logo and his name sewn on it.  Apparently, this stays highly in the family, as I couldn't wear it myself, but one day I aspire to owning one!!  They have just started producing bacon, but also have a variety of other meats.  Mental note to self, must make order and inquire about sweatshirt!!  Visit them at  www.vollwerth.com  Seriously though, the other exciting happening while Tim visited was that we saw a rare bird.  Mostly found in the UP of Michigan, we must have seen this one on his circuitous migratory winter route.  Known as the double cheeked, crack a**ed pooper, Tim had only last seen one when he was about 12 with his family on a hike.  We marked that down in our bird book, as I doubt we'll ever see one again.  

Another potty picture

Caleb is definitely back into potty mode!!  We have discovered that he really loves to have a sucker on the potty, so even if it is 7:30 am (like today) he gets the sucker as long as he is sitting and going on the potty.  Today was especially exciting because he came up and asked to use the potty AND his diaper was dry when we went.  Yay for Caleb!!!

Snuggles

Tim loves the Wii

Golf, tennis, bowling, Mariokarts, we have totally gotten Tim sucked into the world of Wii.  And it didn't help that Potter won some new tracks yesterday, so we spent a good bit of time trying to perfect those.  

Stealing Tim's beer

Caleb and Molly try hard to get their first taste of some brew.  But Tim is pretty possessive of his beer and ultimately won!

Oranges at dinner

The kids love having orange slices for dinner.  Caleb is almost able to do this, then I'll have to get a group shot of them.

Tim dances 4

Tim dances 3

Tim dances 2

Yet another dance.......

Tim dances

Need I say more??  He had quite the captive audience!!

Back on the potty

Caleb did well for a week and then took a hiatus from the potty.  Today we found that if we gave him a sucker, he would sit and he did a couple of major pees!!  Yay!!!  So it was blog worthy.

Tim and Dave

Dave and Tim up to their usual pranks.  Trying to be so cool as they listen to the rock music from the 80s and relive their high school years.   Of course, they had to start the day with bloody marys.  It only got crazier from there on out!!!

Tim is here!!

Tim arrived very late on Thursday night/Friday morning, to a light snowfall in Binghamton.  The kids saw him when they got up on Friday and were so excited.  There was some hiding by Caleb, exhuberance by Potter, a great group shot, and story time with Molly, all before 8:15 am!!  The kids just love him, climb all over him, play hide and seek, and tell jokes.  We are so looking forward to being with Tim, Merrill and their kids this summer at Oak Island.  It'll be a scream with 6 kids and 4 adults on the beach.  Can you say open bar???

Iron Chef night

We had a group of friends over for a dinner party on Saturday night and did a loose (very loose) interpretation of Iron Chef.  Dave and his friend Ben spent the better part of Saturday afternoon in the kitchen, focusing on dishes that included sweet potatoes and a variety of nuts, among tons of other things.  They made appetizers out of lamb, pine nuts and zucchini (that was Ben) and Dave's appetizer was his killer crabcakes.  They moved onto an intermezzo which included some fresh greens with slices of apples and walnuts.  Dave made some sort of dressing which had garlic, sesame oil, lemon, ginger root, all sorts of my favorite flavors.  It was nice and light after some pretty substantial appetizers (and I knew what else was coming.....)  Then they brought out a huge amount of food including chicken curry, sweet potato casserole (for lack of a better word it was cubed sweet potatoes with raisins, nuts, maple syrup and brown sugar that was baked for an hour or so), beef bourgoniogn (sp?), apple chutney, Indian samosas, and along with this and all the other previous stuff there was a nice selection of red wines, if you like that sort of thing.  I had made the dessert, which was a carrot cake out of Gourmet cookbook.   There was enough food for an army!!    We spent the night just getting to talk with people we don't see often enough, there was piano playing, guitar picking, and general goofing off.  I don't know why we don't do this more, as it is always such a good time.  I just love having people over to our house for cookouts in the summer and comfort food meals in the winter.  I only snapped a few pictures before my battery died, but you'll get an idea of what we had.  

Dave and Ben prepare to get started.   

After some cooking time, many dishes start taking shape.  This is the time when you wish you had one of those 6 burner cook tops.

Dave was tasked with cutting carrots into julienne strips for Ben.  
Ben studies carefully the recipe for his beef, while wearing his Keith Olberman glasses.
A shot of Dave and Ben both prepping the food.

Trampoline action at the party

Here are Molly and Annie on the mini trampoline.  Watch fast, it is only an 8 second video!

Molly goes to Annie's princess birthday party

Molly went to her friend Annie's birthday party over the weekend.  It was a princess party and everyone came wearing their best.  Molly wore the Tinkerbell outfit that she got at her birthday, and there were also some Cinderella's, Snow White's, etc...you know, the standard princess fare.   They started out by running around wildly, flinging balloons all over the place and getting them to stick in their hair and on the furniture.   Bella dancerella was on the dvd player, and some were into that, but then the cookie decorating started and sugar trumped dancing!!  There was a lot of frosting and a tons of sprinkles on these cookies (and cupcakes came later!!)   Another big draw for all the kids was the mini trampoline that Laurie (Annie's little sister) uses and so they took turns on it (with the timer on the oven making it fair down to the last second) and all I could think about was all the food they had just consumed going all up and down in their stomachs!   During cupcakes, Annie got into opening her presents.  Molly was happy to share her love of Wall-E with Annie, so the party ended well.  I'm sure Molly will be doing another princess party when she turns 5.  At least it isn't Hannah Montana or Barbie!!