Owl Cake

I made this cake for Reed's school carnival.  They auctioned off cakes and other things like gift baskets made by each of the classes.  I am not sure how much my cake ended up bringing in to the school, but I had a lot of fun making it.  It fills my need for doing creative projects. 

Great pasta recipe

I was telling my mom last night about this recipe I found on allrecipes.com.  She wanted me to send it to her, but I thought maybe I ought to put it on the blog.  It is SUPER easy, but tastes great and made my whole family happy.  I added some cut up rotisserie chicken that I had leftover in the fridge.  I put it in at the end and heated it up while the feta cheese was melting down. 

8 oz penne pasta

2 Tbs olive oil

1 large 28 oz can of diced tomatoes

10 oz fresh spinach, washed and chopped

2 tsp minced garlic 

1 tsp of dried basil 
8 oz feta cheese

salt 

black pepper 

Boil the pasta, and when finished set aside until spinach and tomato mixture is done.

Heat oil in large pot.  Add tomatoes, spinach and garlic and cook until spinach is wilted. Then add feta cheese, and salt and pepper to taste.  The cheese will melt into the juices of the tomato and spinach.  If you want a little more kick you can add some red pepper flakes.  

ENJOY!

Sorry no picture.  Maybe when I make it again, I will remember to take a photo and post it.  

Breakfast with Santa

At church this last weekend the kids had breakfast with Santa!  Here are a few pictures from the event.  Surprising that we don't have any crying pictures of Marlie with Santa.  They put Lainey there with her and she was much more at ease.  Santa mingled during breakfast before they sat on his lap and I think that demystified him a bit.  The kids pointed out that they tested the beard and it is real.  But the hair, Reed noted that it was a little weird.

Afternoon at the park

The many faces of Marlie.  I can't believe how grown up she is getting.  Where is my little baby girl?

Lainey and Marlie are looking more alike the older Marlie gets.

Yeah! Summer! I hope we will have many more magical moments like these the next few months!  I love the first days of summer.  They are filled with hopefulness of what the summer will bring--what projects will get done, what fun will be had, what places and people we will visit.   

Spring Azaleas

Spring Pictures!  

Special thanks to our friend Dan West at danwestphotography.com for taking these photos. 

Goodbye Winter--Hello Spring!

Okay, I think its pretty safe to say that spring is here and we can say goodbye to winter.  So as a final farewell to the not-so-cold winters of South Carolina I thought it would be appropriate to post some pictures of our biggest snow this year.  This was one of two snowfalls.  Around here its a big deal to get ANY snow, but packable snow that can make a snowman and a huge chair.  The kids had so much fun.  We even went sledding after we built the snowman.  The snow was pretty much melted by the end of the day.  The snowman and the chair lasted a week and a half.  Just perfect.

The Swing

Anyone wanna come over for a swing?

   Our friend Dan took this photo and I wanted to add it to our last post about Reed's birthday party.