Caught Red Handed

Levi was caught red handed.  And he could care less!  He is so unfazed by the possibility of a consequence that I am almost at a loss.  With Levi, I am learning to just roll with it.

I had baked off a dozen cookies (had frozen dough in the freezer) for mama "G" who endured knees surgery this past week.  I was taking dinner and treats over to their house last night. I walked into the kitchen to package up the cookies and who did I see sitting on the floor, in the middle of the kitchen, with a glass of milk in one hand and a cookie in the other.  Yep, you guessed it.

As he was carrying out his naught-i-ness, he just kept on dunking and eating, dunking and eating.  I didn't get angry. I merely marveled at the sight of him just sitting there, totally indifferent and unconcerned that what he may be doing is wrong.  The only thing I could think of saying to him, at that very moment, was "don't go anywhere, let me grab my camera".

Just another day in the life....

An All Day 4th of July

July 4th I honestly thought I could wake up in the morning and take a long, leisurely walk. Ha Ha! I had so much to do. And with Mitch on his 30 mile bike ride, it was up to me to organize.

First thing in the a.m, I made the mint-green tea ice tea, cut the watermelon, mixed and baked the Lemon Blueberry Buckle, made the salad dressings, prepped the ingredients for the crostini, and made the butter cream frosting for the sugar cookie bars (from the Stylish Cuisine blog).

These were so much better than I had ever expected. I found the recipe on tastespotting, and it suggested the Magnolia Bakery butter cream frosting, which I use often. However, I usually add lots more powdered sugar than the recipe calls for as I like a really thick butter cream. This was the perfect large party dessert.

Even though we had over 20 kids and probably 20 adults, there were a lot left over.

As the kids started arriving on their bikes and scooters, the parents started drinking, Mitch started grilling and I sat back, watched and took a bunch of photos.

The highlight of the party was the enormous water slide that graced our lawn. The kids had a ball and couldn't get enough of it. Not looking forward to getting that dreaded "shame on you" letter from the DWP. Oh well, I guess I just won't water my plants the rest of the month!

The End of An Era

I was born in the house my mom currently lives in. My dad passed away two years ago and there were times that I thought, her living in that house, all by herself could be a little overwhelming.  She had talked about the possibility of moving, but kept saying she wasn't ready.  When her dog, Becky, of 15 years passed in April, she all of a sudden became ready.  She was no longer comfortable living "alone".

My cousin, a realtor in Manhattan Beach, hooked my mom up with a realtor in her neighborhood.  Within one week of the meeting, there was a for sale sign on my mom's lawn and an open house was scheduled for that first weekend.  The house sold in one day.  In this awful economy, none of us were prepared for how much needed to get done over the next 45 days (her escrow period).

We spent lots of time going through the house and all of the memories.  The more we cleaned out and packed up, the more my mom was willing to let go of. 

While I was photographing all of her furniture to put on Craig's list, my kids came in and said, "let's have a garage sale".  I don't really like garage sales.  They are a waste of time.  However, my kids really wanted to do it.  I gave in.  

Then they insisted we have goodies at the garage sale. I couldn't turn down an opportunity to bake.  For something like this, I usually like 3 variety's of baked treats.  I baked the first two and pretty much hit the wall.  

Eli requested Snicker doodles.  I was reading my Maida Heatter's Cookies book and found an Oatmeal Snicker doodle recipe.  I don't make a lot of snicker doodles and I find them a little bland.  The fact that these had oatmeal in them was appealing.  These were shaped more like a mound when baked.  I like a cookie like this that flattens out when baked.  I wasn't crazy about them.  However, everyone else really liked them.  We had so many left over that I packed them up in a huge bag and  sent them to school

with Eli the next day.  His classmates gobbled them up.

I decided to make some brownies to go along with them.   I wanted a recipe that had peanut butter in it. I had three jars of peanut butter in the cupboard all of which had about 1/4 to 1/2 cup each in them.  I found a peanut butter swirl brownie recipe in the Martha Stewart's Cookies.  Perfect!  I was able to make a delicious brownie and clean out my cupboard at the same time.  

The office girls at the kid's elementary school enjoyed the left overs the next day!