March Madness Part III

When we were done with the park, we headed to Chick Fil A for lunch. Now, CFA is barely five minutes from the park, but that's all the time it took for Owen to pass out.


























He woke up from his little catnap hungry, though, and in a great mood considering how tired he was and how brief his rest was.


























I couldn't believe it, but Owen and Lyla still had energy to burn after we ate so we spent some time in the CFA playground.













The CFA slide was slick, and EVERYone enjoyed their ride down.











































Finally, it was time to go back to the house and pack everything up. As we were putting shoes on, Lyla sat on the McHusband's lap and he teased her by blowing on her head. She laughed and it was so cute, but by the time I got the camera ready, she was done with that game.


The McHusband and I did our best to keep Owen and Lyla occupied so my mom, Shannon, and Amy could gather all their belongings and pack the van up.

Lyla and the McHusband went out into the backyard.













Then Morgan and I joined them, and Lyla practiced her bossing around. I think the look on Morgan's face is best summed up as "Huh?"













She tried to get Lyla to play HER way.













Suffice it to say, neither of them was too successful in getting the other to play her way.

It was a great weekend and it was wonderful to spend so much time with Owen and Lyla (and of course with Mom, Shannon, and Amy, too). They grow so much in between visits.

{The babies, not Mom, Shannon and Amy.}

I'm meeting up with Bri, Lyla, Mom, Shannon and Owen in a couple of weeks. We're going to the zoo in Asheboro, which should be a blast. I'm really excited to see how Lyla and Owen react to all the animals, and I hope they sorta remember me and warm up quickly when we all get together. I know I'll never be on Gma's level, but an aunt can hope. :)

March Madness Part II

On Saturday, we went up to the park for the Easter festivities. Owen was Mr. GQ Junior in his brown and yellow and jean jacket. How adorable was he?

















We had to walk a ways from the car to get to the field where the event was and the wind was really blowing, which made for a very chilly morning. But the sun was shining and we had on our layers.













Here's where we were headed:













But first we had to make a couple of stops. The first one was for the McHusband.

















The next was for Owen and Lyla. We certainly couldn't walk by the playground without testing it out.







































There were balloons bigger than our heads,













Cornhole, and bounce houses (Can I call it a bounce house if it's shaped like a caterpillar?).


























The warmest people at the event were also the scariest: the Chick-Fil-A cow and an Easter Bunny who had seen better days.











Lyla liked being by the pond, and Owen enjoyed his front row seat of the live entertainment.


































We stopped back by the "horsies" as we were leaving.











Time for lunch. "Come on, Uncle McHusband, let's go!"

March Madness Part I

We had a full house for part of the weekend. Shannon, her friend Amy, my mom, Owen, and Lyla all came up for a whirlwind visit. There was a big consignment sale at the fairgrounds that Shannon wanted to check out so they came up Friday afternoon and then headed home a little less than 24 hours later.

We stayed outside for a bit when everyone first got here so that the kids could stretch their legs, and we even went on a short walk. When we got back to the house, Lyla was asking for "mouse," so we put a Mickey Mouse Club DVD on for her and Owen.

And Morgan.













Tucker wasn't too sure about all the "stuff" that accompanies babies on weekend trips. Once he conducted a thorough inspection and assessed the situation from afar, he decided it was okay to join the group but only if he could have the best seat in the house.







































There were snacks and horseplay.






























And later, there were Easter "baskets" to open. See, we were planning on going to the park by the old house on Saturday for the Easter festivities that the Town was putting on, and there was going to be an Easter egg hunt. Well, I couldn't let Owen and Lyla show up for an Easter egg hunt without something to put their treasures in, could I? And what fun is an empty "basket" - for me or for them?


























Each pail had bubbles, a four-pack of Peeps, and three plastic eggs containing M&M's and colored Goldfish.













Uncle McHusband helped Lyla with her basket, and I helped Owen with his.




























































When we were done with the Easter pails, Shannon called Calvin so Owen could say goodnight. He was very excited to give his daddy kisses through the phone.













Owen says, "Mwah!"

A hairy situation

I'm not the only one loving my IKEA chairs.
















The dining room gets lots of sun in the first part of the day. Emma really appreciates that the new table doesn't block any of her precious rays.

Each chair now has a hand towel on its seat. I really need to use a full-sized towel to cover the seat and bottom half of the back, but I just can't quite bring myself to cover up so much of my new chairs.

We'll see how I feel after going through several lint rollers though.

Recipe Recap: Shrimp and veggies

With the weather being so nice, the McHusband and I knew we wanted to grill something for dinner Sunday night. We ended up doing shrimp with a side of mushrooms and onions.

The shrimp recipe is from my Cook's Illustrated books, the set my dad got me probably 10 years ago. These books are awesome. They're compilations of the bimonthly magazines and my set covers 10 years. The writers go through different ways to make things to find what's best and then they share the results - the good, the bad, and the ugly - along with the recipes.

We used the Grilled Shrimp with Spicy Garlic Paste recipe.

Ingredients:
2 lbs large shrimp
1 large clove garlic (I used 1 heaping teaspoon jarred minced garlic.)
1 t. salt
1/2 t. cayenne pepper
1 t. paprika
2 T. olive oil
2 t. lemon juice (Didn't have lemons or lemon juice so I used a couple squirts of lime juice.)

1. Mince garlic with salt; mix it with cayenne and paprika in small bowl. Add olive oil and lemon juice to form a paste. Toss shrimp with paste until evenly coated. Thread shrimp onto skewers.

2. Heat grill or broiler. Grill or broil shrimp, turning once, 2 to 3 minutes per side.

The McHusband came home with the shrimp, some mushrooms, and a couple of onions so I used Allrecipes, my go-to site for finding a recipe to suit my ingredients, in this case mushrooms and onions, to find a way to cook the veggies.

The site didn't let me down. When I did a recipe search, plugging in onions, mushrooms, and olive oil as my ingredients for a grilled side dish, it returned this recipe, which looked pretty good. I actually tripled the marinade - we had a LOT of mushrooms - but I probably should've just doubled it.













Our meal was delicious! I highly recommend both these recipes. If you're not too sure about the spiciness of the shrimp, I think you could leave the cayenne pepper out and the shrimp would still be plenty flavorful.

Dining room debut

Before I show all the afters, let me remind you how the dining room looked when we moved in.
















And here's the hutch in the old dining room.





















Drum roll please...

What you see from the kitchen:





















We disassembled the hutch, painted the bottom portion, donated the upper part to Good Will, and added new hardware. I needed the cabinet part for not-so-pretty storage, and I got some floating shelves to use as decorative storage.





















The view from the foyer:
















I was really happy to finally get to hang my entertaining shelves, which had been residing under the guest bed since we moved in.





















The wall opposite the windows got a funky mirror that I found at Pier 1. When I went to the store, I asked the salesperson about a mirror I'd seen in the catalog, and I described it as looking kinda like a giraffe. I could tell I totally confused her so we looked it up in the catalog. Then she said, "You're right, it does look like a giraffe."
















I don't have anything on the wall to the right of the mirror yet. I don't want to put something up there just to have something up there so I'm waiting for inspiration to strike.

Or for just the right sale, whichever comes first.

Please forgive my poor photography skills. Here's the best I could do for the curtains since I was taking the picture into the window.
















I found the table on craigslist. It's not perfect, but it's in good enough shape for me.















So there you have it, our mostly finished redone dining room. I still need a rug and a good centerpiece, and I'm on constant lookout for something for the one wall, but I'm really happy with how the room turned out.