Worth A Thousand Words

Last night Agnes was crying because this is what was set to happen today. She drew a picture of how she was feeling. The words are a little hard to read because they are in red. It says "Agnes Lillianne Read away on airplane to Ohio" and then it shows Eliot and Olive as well. Lots of tears are falling around here. I will miss them SO MUCH!

They Liked It

Last night we had a yummy dinner. In fact, the first thing out of Agnes' mouth after tasting the chicken was "MMMMMMMM!" Laura finished her first plate and declared she was full, but took seconds anyway, not knowing where she was going to put it, but still wanting to eat more.
I found the recipe here from Your Homebased Mom, Leigh Anne, but I changed it slightly.

Chicken and Green Bean Stir-Fry

2 skinless boneless chicken breast halves, cut in bite-sized pieces

1/2 lb green beans

3 T sesame oil

salt and pepper to taste

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 T grated ginger (use your microplane)

5 T soy sauce (reduce sodium is okay)

3 T vinegar

1 T brown sugar

1 tsp cornstarch

1 T water

Snap the ends off the green beans, and cut into about 1-inch sized pieces. Place in a Ziplock baggie and microwave about 2 minutes.

Heat 2 T sesame oil over medium-high heat in a frying pan or wok (does anyone still own a wok?). Add chicken, sprinkle with salt and pepper and cook until chicken is no longer pink. Remove chicken from pan, and add remaining 1 T oil to pan. Add green beans, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, vinegar and brown sugar. Cook about 2 minutes, return chicken to pan and cook an additional minute or two. Dissolve cornstarch in water and add to pan, stirring until thickened, about one more minute.

Serve over hot cooked rice (because cold rice wouldn't taste as good). Leigh Anne sprinkled sesame seeds over her dish, but I didn't notice in time to copy that since it wasn't specified in the recipe, it was just shown in her photo.

You can switch up the vegetable in this to whatever you want, or add some red pepper flakes if you like it spicier.

Better Late Than Never

A couple of weeks ago, my husband had a birthday. We decided it was best to just use one candle.
Laura found a recipe on a website new to me (it's the same website where we found the idea for the flag cake). If memory serves me correctly, this cake was really tasty, and super easy, and very tall!
We tried to frost it the same way that Amanda did, but because my plate was so curved at the bottom, I had too much trouble making it work.

Of course, Amanda's photo of the cake looks more professional than my photo.
It's just a red velvet cake mix and a white cake mix. I used OBB's cooked frosting recipe for between the layers (because I was trying to be a little creative, and because it is so incredibly delicious) and then the whole thing is covered in Cool Whip (Samuel, don't judge). If you want to see how Amanda frosted it, look here. It's a cool technique.

Family On The Fourth

Yesterday I showed you what we ate so today I thought I'd show you who showed up to eat what we ate. Because I know you care that much. Let's start with him, because I like him so much. I'm not afraid to tell him so either.

Hi Amy.
Hi Mom, you look great today, as usual.

Don't tell anyone, but Agnes is really my mom's favorite great grandchild. True statement.

Olive is my favorite, but that's because she always has a smile for me. She isn't really smiling here because I'm not the one taking the picture. All of these pictures were taken by our semi-professional photographer.

Here's our own little firecracker, Eliot.

Here's my cute niece, Kyanna and her sweet little son.

My nephew, Seth, and his wife, Katie, and their adorable daughter.

See? Adorable!

We were trying to get a good smile from Olive but she wasn't up to her normal performance of smiles.

Just a matter of moments later, this is what Olive looked like. No wonder she wasn't giving out smiles!

I don't think I've seen a cuter boy holding an ear of corn.

Here's Agnes looking so sweet! Hello, my precious girl!

Oh, and here is the semi-professional photographer herself! Thanks for the great photos, Sister!
I call her Sister because she's my sister. Neat how that works out, don't you think?

Here's her DH, Kim. I call him Kim-Dear. She calls him Charlie.

Amy getting a nice snuggle from her niece.

Mom and Walt-

Seth being adventurous on the slide.
Cousins! Kyanna and Amy :)

and Yours Truly.
We had a great time. I love my family and I love my country.

Food For The Fourth

On Monday afternoon we had a little family get-together. Since Laura is the party-planner extraordinaire, we did it up with a "bang." Earlier in the week, I found this drink stand at World Market, but they were out of the buckets. We found this white one at Target.
Laura made the little sign for the bucket, but in the future I'm going to pop some vinyl lettering on there to match the occasion- whatever it might be.

Here we have homemade buns, pulled pork, baked beans in a jar (isn't everything cuter when it is in a jar?) topped with cornbread...
over there in the corner is Kate's (from OBB) Grilled Chicken and Berries Salad- yum.

Blueberry pie "shooters" (as Seth put it). Loved these because the crust to filling ratio was perfect.

Look at Laura's cute star-shaped cornbread.
The tablecloth is actually the back of a "quilt" that I made but haven't put it all together yet.

And now we get to the cool stuff...
Cheryl made the strawberries. Aren't they cute? And the jello salad (which wasn't Jell-O, it was made from scratch with Knox gelatin) was reeeeeally good!
And ta-da! The cake! Here comes the cake! Isn't the little bunting so cute? Good job, Laura.
Here's our patriotic flag cake.

My mom was SO surprised to see a flag inside.
The cake was a lot of fun to make. The whole day went well, and it was fun to see everyone.

Happy Independence Day

Here's wishing you a Happy Independence Day. May we all appreciate the freedom we occasionally take for granted, and those who have given the ultimate sacrifice.

In honor of the red, white and blue, here are my beautiful granddaughters and my very handsome grandson, being adorable in their patriotic church clothes their mommy made for them (psst, Karen, Olive is using Caleb's bow tie for her headband. I hope you don't mind!).
And this is my new fun bunting that Laura made for the front porch. Just one of the perks having her here is that she gets the crafty stuff done that I only ever think about and wish I got accomplished!
Now it's off to the backyard to start the barbecue :)