A little celebratory jump…
And a happy new bike owner.
Happy Birthday, Sarah Bean! We love your joy for life 
Monthly Archives: May 2007
Click on the title of the blog post to view the entire entry.
She’s Having the Best 4th Birthday, ever.
May 30, 2007 – 1:27 pm
Ten On Tuesday: If you were a fly on the wall in our lives the last few days
May 29, 2007 – 9:39 pm
1. Sarah celebrated her {pretend} birthday at Chuck E. Cheese’s this past Sunday. She looked forward to it ALL YEAR LONG.
2. She and Ash tried to phone the Chuck from an internal phoneline. I think they got his voicemail, though.
3. Ashleigh found a game she was good at…
4. I made a Banana Wafer dessert and found a fun sticker on the Chiquita banana. It says, "Place sticker on forehead. Smile." So I did.
5. But someone forgot to tell me to take it off for the family shot. Speaking of which, Ashleigh has a new nickname: Animal from the Muppets. C’mon, you know you see the resemblance.
6. And if you’re gonna be at our house this week, you’re gonna be jumping. Andy’s cousin Erika joined in on the fun!
7. And then Bean joined in.
8. And then I convinced (ahem, begged and batted my eyelashes) Andy to jump! Coincidentally, his shirt says, "Catch this!"
9. And then I remembered that saying, "The couple that jumps together stays together" or something similar, right? Check out our faces- boy we’re dorks!
10. And if mom and dad are jumping then we might as well become a jumping family says Sarah:
Ah. I’m so glad I got all that out.
Woohoo!
May 26, 2007 – 11:02 pm
Becca and Ty came down to play today so we went to the park where a wedding was going on in the public gazebo. Well, we couldn’t resist dancing and doing a little jumping (I know we’re out of focus, but it’s okay, because focused doesn’t always equate fun). Anyway, I couldn’t resist, I had to join the jumping project. I wonder if flickr has a group for slightly ridiculous dancing in the park photos.
By the way, my toe touches were about that awful in high school, too.
Sarah was having the time of her life trying to keep up with Aunt B. Oh- and then the wedding DJ played that shake it like a polaroid picture song from Outkast. Oh my gosh! I love that song. We were in shake it, shake it, shake it baby heaven.
Here’s Ty being too cool to dance and jump with us (of course, he gets credit for snapping the silly photos).
Happy Memorial Day weekend, friends
Flashback Friday: Senior Prom Dress circa 1995
May 25, 2007 – 7:58 am
This is the prom dress. The one that my mom made an exception for and spent way too much money on for one night. She and I crawled the Brea mall twice after seeing this at the first store we went to, and of course, came back for it. I had to have it. I was really into pink my senior year (I had pink overalls and pink sneakers, it was scary) so this should come as no big surprise. We had high heels dyed to match this lovely shade of pink (in fact, I held on to them for years after- just in case I might wear them again… and just for the record, I never did), my next door neighbor did my hair in the most gorgeous up-do ever (I wish she would have done it for my wedding!) and my prom date and I had loads of fun at our downtown Long Beach destination.
There is always one most memorable moment of a girl’s senior prom that makes her smile. I’ll spare my high school girlfriend some embarrassment and just say it had do with bras and duct tape.
and now I present the
MOST RIDICULOUS ITEM OF THE WEEK
Last week, I tried it on:
After 3 kids, twelve years and two pants size difference, the prom dress still fits (barely). I think that might be the last straw folks, I’ve lost my marbles.
Happy Prom Day!
The GPS is here
May 24, 2007 – 8:13 am
Andy has been accumulating free hotel points for awhile. When he travels, he almost always stays at the same hotel and therefore benefits from the lure of their rewards program. Later, these points can be traded in for things like free rooms at our choice of destination or collapsible soccer field chairs or a GPS navigational system (that would have been particularly handy on ones honeymoon to get around an island you had never visited).
The catalog of choice items is rather large and surprisingly chalk full of quality items. Andy really did save up his hotel points and decided to trade his points in for the Garmin nüvi 680 that arrived on Monday. Like a little kid in a candy store, he was ecstatic when he came home to it and proceeded to pluck that electronic gadget out of its box so quickly and learn how to use its settings with lightning speed.
Tuesday night he informed me that the GPS system was working right on. He said the device gave him the proper directions on which roads he should take to get to work.
So I said, "Not that you’ve been going the same way for a year and half or anything."
Gotta love gadget geeks, eh?
I Have a New Hobby- flickering
May 21, 2007 – 10:41 pm
As if I need one more reason to be on the computer, some friends of mine have opened up the world of flickr to me. If you like photos, and I mean, good, colorful, sweet lookin’ photos (eye candy, friends, eye candy), then just click this link and you will swoon over thousands of photos that pros, amateurs and drunk slightly off-kilter folks’ take.
The best part, you ask? You can use the search box to look up Newborns! Flowers! People jumping (yes, there is even a group of sillies that post to one group with photos of the jumping project)! Well, it didn’t take but four or five visits to the site for me to do the inevitable and search for- can you guess? Starbucks.
What can I say? They had me at Hello (that is, grande, nonfat decaf with whip mocha, thankyouverymuch). Ahhh. We’re gonna be friends a long long time, that flickr and me.
Calling All Female Prom Go-ers
May 19, 2007 – 11:35 pm
Inspired, by Missy’s post earlier today, I present a Flashback Friday challenge- this Friday, May 25th- post a picture of your high school self wearing the prom dress you had to have, and/or yourself getting ready to go to the prom… If you have to, I give you permission to go ahead and cut out the old date. I realize this is nothing new in the world of blogs (that is, the posting of prom dresses, not cutting out old boyfriend’s heads), but proms are only once a year- so I say, just post it again.
OOH! I can’t wait. I bet some of you even have a picture of the satin heels that you had to have dyed to match, huh?? I can say this because I did, too.
**If you don’t have a blog, but want to join in on the fun, e-mail me your photo and I will gladly take you as my date here
A {slightly different kind of} Friday Five
May 18, 2007 – 11:02 pm
Andy isn’t so much into Rachel Ray after hearing a personal interview with her this past week (so she doesn’t want to have kids, which is a personal choice and none of our business), but I said, the woman can cook. And she has a cool magazine out, so there.
Speaking of the magazine, here’s a recipe I LOVE and have to share from the April edition "Take 5" section which is based on a dish made of five or fewer ingreidents!):
Marinated Flank Steak (I would post a picture, but it’s just a piece of meat, friends):
Ingredients:
1/2 cup bottled teriyaki sauce
1/4 cup soy sauce
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 pounds flank steak
1/4 cup spicy brown mustard
Directions:
In a baking dish, combine the teriyaki sauce, soy sauce and garlic. Make 1/4-inch-deep-cuts about 1/2-inch apart on both sides of the steak, cutting diagonally across the grain. Rub both sides with the mustard and place on steak in teh marinade. refrigerate up to 3 hours, turning occasionally.
The recipe suggests you broil the slab of meat for 6 minutes on each side, our variation is this: grill on high and let it go until you have reached a desired doneness (medium-rare), basting once on each side with leftover marinade.
Super easy to prepare + a short list of ingredients makes this one a keeper- let me know how much you love it, too!
(printed without permission and a special thanks to Paul Bekanich who sent the recipe in to Everyday with RR)
On Why We Tolerate Oversized Plastic Colorful Activity Gyms
May 16, 2007 – 8:21 am
She likes ‘em. A lot. Kick. Hand swoop. Smack. Back arch and GRAB!
And of course, stare in awe and wonder. Don’t you wish you could get into their brain for a glimse of what they are thinking? I do.
This is me attempting some arty stuff that my sweet friend Nely does (dude, if you want to have your socks knocked off, check out some of her photography here).
Ten on Tuesday
May 15, 2007 – 4:12 pm
1. Non-kick socks made for infants still get kicked off.
2. Confession: I really like to color in coloring books. It’s so peaceful.
3. I bought some flavored water yesterday- the Clear Excellence Strawberry Watermelon stuff. As my aunt would say, "It’s not bad."
4. Speaking of my aunt, she and my mom are going to the Strawberry Festival this weekend. If it wasn’t halfway up the coast to Canada, we’d be going, too (okay, I am exaggerating a bit on my geography).
5. Don’t you hate when you drag your feet on calling companies about fulfilling warranties and they are so amiable and do what you want that you could kick yourself for waiting two months to call?
6. Kicking myself.
7. I have 42 days left of being in my twenties. Well, I will technically be in my twenties when I am thirty, but you know what I mean.
8. The house we are currently living in was appraised last week. Something tells me we’ll be packing up and headin’ out this summer.
9. Two new magazines came this week. I just need me some new bubble bath. hint. hint, honey.
10. This is not my kiddo, but it’s my new favorite photo I have in my collection. This is Rory- isn’t she a beautiful girlie? Sarah just loves her to pieces.
