Last week, Emmalynn’s teachers planned a Memorial Day program complete with songs, poems and red, white and blue attire. The kids were so cute. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house.
Thank you to all the service men and women who sacrificed so much to protect our freedom.
God Bless the USA!
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This week’s Leap Into Spring Photo Challenge is Easter/Eggs. Given that Easter was just a few weeks ago and I still haven’t shared those photos, I hopped on it.
Like most , our Easter our was full of eggs from decorating and dying…
…to four different egg hunts. There was one egg hunt with Emmalynn’s class. Chugging along with a train basket in tow, Little Lion Man tried to keep up with the big kids.
We always love our annual egg hunt with our Moms on the Go friends.
On Easter morning, the Easter bunny left some jellybean-filled eggs in the yard. Did you know that dump trucks make better Easter baskets?
Then later that day, Grandma hid some eggs in her gorgeous garden, which is perfect for eggs hunts and wanna-be photographers.
After a long, “eggs”hausting hunt run in Grandma’s huge yard, we rewarded ourselves with the Cadbury Creme Egg Cupcakes I baked for dessert.
Yep, it was a truly “eggs”elent Easter.
Then he grunts, “I will call you by Whisper-ma-Phone,
for the secrets I tell you are for your ears alone.”
SLUPP!
Down slupps the Whisper-ma-Phone to your ear
and the old Once-ler’s whispers are not very clear,
since they have to come down
through a snergelly hose,
and he sounds
as if he had
smallish bees up his nose.
“Now I’ll tell you,”he says, with his teeth sounding gray,
“how the Lorax got lifted and taken away…
But those trees! Those trees!
Those Truffula Trees!
All my life I’d been searching
for trees such as these.
The touch of their tufts
was much softer than silk.
And they had the sweet smell
of fresh butterfly milk.
Then I chopped down a Truffula Tree with one chop.
And with great skillful skill and with great speedy speed,
I took the soft tuft, and I knitted a Thneed!
The instant I’d finished, I heard a ga-Zump!
I looked.
I saw something pop out of the stump
of the tree I’d chopped down. It was sort of a man.
Describe him?… That’s hard. I don’t know if I can.
He was shortish. And oldish.
And brownish. And mossy.
And he spoke with a voice
that was sharpish and bossy.
“Mister!” he said with a sawdusty sneeze,
“I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.
I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.
And I’m asking you, sir, at the top if my lungs”-
he was very upset as he shouted and puffed-
“What’s that THING you’ve made out of my Truffula tuft?”
“Look, Lorax,” I said.”There’s no cause for alarm.
I chopped just one tree. I am doing no harm.
I’m being quite useful. This thing is a Thneed.
A Thneed’s a Fine-Something-That-All-People-Need!
It’s a shirt. It’s a sock. It’s a glove, It’s a hat.
But it has other uses. Yes, far beyond that.
You can use it for carpets. For pillows! For sheets!
Or curtains! Or covers for bicycle seats!”
The Lorax said,
“Sir! You are crazy with greed.
There is no one on earth
who would buy that fool Thneed!”
From outside in the fields came a sickening smack
of an axe on a tree. Then we heard the tree fall.
The very last Truffula Tree of them all!
The Lorax said nothing. Just gave me a glance…
just gave me a very sad, sad backward glance…
as he lifted himself by the seat of his pants.
And I’ll never forget the grim look on his face
when he heisted himself and took leave of this place,
through a hole in the smog, without leaving a trace.
And all that the Lorax left here in this mess
was a small pile of rocks, with one word…
“UNLESS.”
Whatever that meant, well, I just couldn’t guess.
“But now,” says the Once-ler,
“Now that you’re here,
the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear.
UNLESS someone like you
cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better.
It’s not.
Excerpts from Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax
Photos taken at Universal Studios’ Island of Adventure - November 5, 2011
With Earth Day less than a week away, a song from The Lorax for Music Monday seemed like an appropriate choice. Although videos from The Lorax soundtrack are not available on You Tube, I found a wonderful adaption to Let It Grow by PS 22 Chorus. These kids are amazing!
The PS 22 Chorus preformed the song as part of NEA’s Read Across America with a reading of The Lorax by Danny Devito and Zac Efron.
Though the lyrics are simple, an all too important message rings loud and clear. With their sweet, yet powerful young voices, these kids remind us how we can make the world a better place by protecting, nurturing and growing the gifts we have to give the world.
“UNLESS someone like you
Cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better.
It’s not.” – Dr. Seuss, The Lorax
Visit Xmas Dolly , Hairbows & Guitar Picks and Jade Louise Designs for more Music Monday fun.
Green was the colour that I wore from morning to night on St. Patrick’s Day. For the Spring 5K, I ran in my green tutu and a little leprechaun hat to match. It’s important to accessorize.
*Photo provided by Suncoast Running.*
For the nighttime festivities, I wore green hair to coordinate with my green top and eye shadow. The secret is you have to coordinate. Most people don’t coordinate. You got to coordinate.
Honestly, it was fun to make a spectacle of myself and quite easy to be green for a day. Funny though, even after several pints of cider, I didn’t feel at all green the next morning and that’s a good thing.
Visit Xmas Dolly , Hairbows & Guitar Picks and Royalegacy for more Music Monday fun.
I am ridiculously excited about St. Patrick’s Day falling on a Saturday this year because there’s no work or after school activities to get in the way of our Irish beer consumption. Although my girls and I do have a 5K race in the morning, it won’t be long before I’m finishing off a green beer after crossing the finish line.
Before we head out that evening, Allan and I will line our bellies with some Guinness corned beef and potatoes and then get onto to the drinking. It won’t be too long before we look like this.
I’ll probably wear the same green top I always wear, but I love this shirt from Urban Outfitters.
I’m thinking about buying a green hair wig too just to change it up this year and go out full on green style.
What are your plans for St. Patrick’s Day? Will you be going out in style?
It’s been one year since we adopted our little Pomeranian, Lucy and we simply had to celebrate the occasion, which meant baking some kind of doggie birthday treat for her, of course. But what kind of cake to bake? I didn’t know the first thing about dog-friendly cakes other than the ones I could buy from our local doggie bakery.
A quick Google search returned some very simple, easy to follow dog-friendly and people-friendly recipes. Many sites said to avoid anything with butter, chocolate or sugar and if your dog has a wheat allergy, rice flour can be used as an alternative ingredient.
My mini-chef, Emmalynn, assisted me because she loves to bake. After reviewing the selection of recipes, we decided to bake Peanut Butter Delight Pupcakes because I had all of the ingredients on hand.
As you can imagine, Lucy loved it.
Chowed down on the Milk Bone, licked all the icing off of it and ran outside to gobble down the rest of her pupcake in her favorite spot kind of love. That’s how much she loved it.
If you most know, yes, we tried the pupcakes too. They were tasty, like a bran muffin without sugar, but our brains were expecting something sweet. So, the kids and I nibbled one between the four of us, just to try it.
At least Lucy enjoyed it and that’s all that mattered. After all, it was her day.
Peanut Butter Delight Pupcakes
(Yields six pupcakes)
Ingredients
1 cup white or whole wheat flour (I used white wheat flour.)
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup shredded carrots
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup honey
1 egg
Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Prepare a muffin pan with paper muffin liners.
In one bowl, whisk together flour and baking soda. Then, in another larger bowl, add the remaining wet ingredients and mix well. Slowly add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix well to combine.
Spoon batter into prepared muffin tin. Fill each cup about ¾ full. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Cool on rack.
Once completely cool, decorate the pupcakes with dog-safe peanut butter icing (recipe follows below) and top each with a Milk Bone or dog-safe treat, like jerky.
Peanut Butter Icing
Ingredients
4 oz low-fat cream cheese
2 oz all natural creamy peanut butter
1 Tbsp canola oil
Directions
Combine all ingredients with a hand-held mixer until well blended.
Thanks for joining our weekly Friday Food Fight! Can’t wait to see what everyone is flinging this week!
*Also submitted at*
Gung Hay Fat Choy!
It’s Chinese New Year! The year of the Dragon!
We started our Chinese New Year festivities with a potluck play date at the park with our friends. Everyone brought a Chinese entrée to share and everything so delicious. We had dumplings, doughnuts, a variety of noodles, fried rice, orange chicken and of course fortune cookies.
Emmalynn insisted on wearing her Mulan costume for the occasion.
The kids decorated dragon masks and made lanterns, which Allana loved almost as much as the dumplings.
For the potluck portion of the program, I brought Sesame Noodles to share. This dish is so simple and tasty served either warm or cold as a side dish or a main entrée.
The Rachel Ray recipe I use calls for angel hair pasta but I prefer spaghetti for this dish, so I sent hubby to the store to buy the ingredients for me. He returned with spaghetti rigata. Um…ok! At least it wasn’t linguini! Actually, hubby’s mistake worked perfectly because spaghetti rigata noodles are square and resemble lo mein noodles. (This is where Iron Chef Allan would chime in to tell me that was his intention all along.)
Sesame Noodles
(Adapted from Classic Rachel Ray 30-Minute Meals)
Ingredients
1 pound capellini (angle hair) or spaghetti rigatta
¼ cup low-sodium soy sauce
2 Tbsp tahini
2 Tbsp toasted sesame seed oil
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 inch gingerroot, peeled and grated or ½ tsp ground ginger
3 scallions, chopped
1 large carrot, grated
Toasted sesame seeds for garnish (optional)
Crushed red pepper flakes for garnish (optional)
Directions
Bring a large stock pot of salted water to a rolling boil and then add pasta. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente.
Meanwhile, in a large bowl combine soy sauce, tahini, sesame oil, cayenne, garlic and ginger. Whisk until smooth.
Drain pasta and immediately chill in a large bowl of ice water to blanch pasta and prevent further cooking.
Drain and dump chilled pasta into bowl with sauce and combine until noodles are evenly coated. Add veggies and toss to combine.
Serve in soup bowls garnished with some extra sliced greens of scallions, sesame seeds and a little crushed red pepper.
Thanks for joining our weekly Friday Food Fight. Link up and see what everyone else is flinging this week.
*Also shared at*
My first born child turned TEN today.
A whole decade!
When did that happen?
How did that happen?
Ten years ago, I cried happy tears when I held her in my arms for the first time.
Today I cried happy tears all over again, just thinking about ten years with our Allana Rose.
And I want to hold my baby tight again and never let go.
Happy 10th Birthday to our little Soul Sister, Allana Rose!
xox
So here we are: the last week of September. I can’t believe we’re into fall already especially since it still feels summer.
Much like the temperatures, we ended the month hot by celebrating two birthdays in one weekend. First, we celebrated my friend, Chrissy’s birthday with a pool party, which tells you just how warm it is here still.
Then, on Sunday we celebrated my hubby, Allan’s birthday, but he wanted a low-key birthday with just the kids and me.
As September draws to a close, we may have not experienced our first taste of fall, but we did taste the rainbow twice, minus the Skittles.
I believe this is a prelude to what fall and the remainder of the year has in store for us. Good times followed by good things, good fortune and many blessings.
Thanks for stopping by and linking up to share what music moves you. Be sure to visit Xmas Dolly and Hairbows & Guitar Picks for more Music Monday fun.
