Birthday party

On Saturday night, we celebrated Lauryn's third birthday with a fondue party. It's a fun way to eat. Kathryn and Jeff provide shrimp, chicken and beef cubes for us to cook in mini-fryers. There is, of course, also melted cheese and bread cubes for dipping.

My chicken on a stick

Jeff and Kathryn call Lauryn their little monkey, so the birthday cake was made to celebrate that.

The cake

There was also a chocolate fountain for dessert. Man was that great.

Casey and his marshmallow on a pretzel rod

(I made sure they didn't double-dip)

Since we all go camping together, we bought Lauryn a Dora inflatable sleeping bag. Now she will be all ready for our big Memorial Day camping trip.

Lauryn opening her new sleeping bag

Stuffed peppers

Tonight I made stuffed peppers for dinner. For some reason, Brett loves them and often asks me to make them. Personally I just think he likes eating the meat out of the pepper. They are fun to eat, and I have to say both boys actually ate most of their peppers.

We're really lucky. Our boys are really good eaters--they aren't fussy and there are only a few things they don't like.

Brett enjoying his favorite dinner



Casey eating his pepper

Easter morning

Happy Easter!

Dan and I were up at 5 a.m. this morning seeing my parents off to the airport, but the boys didn't get up until 8.

The Easter Bunny made his annual appearance bringing candy, new Spiderman scooters and Crayola Color Surge coloring sets.

The boys and their baskets


Casey checking out his basket


Brett trying the edible Easter grass I found


Casey FINALLY getting the robin's eggs
he's been begging for all month

Easter egg fun

Tonight the boys decorated Easter eggs. I found a really cool Star Wars kit so they not only got to dye the eggs, but they also got to decorate them with stickers and special wrappers with scenes from the movie.

Brett and Casey dyeing their eggs


Casey and his C3PO egg


Choosing just the right sticker


Getting help from Nana Doris


Brett and his special egg

Another book I highly recommend

I know this might be a little embarrassing to admit, but I just finished Tori Spelling's autobiography, and I have to say, it was really good.

If you watched 90210, you know she was ditzy Donna. But in real life, she was a rich girl who didn't want to live in a fancy mansion, just to have a normal family life.

She goes into great detail about her troubled relationship with her mother (yes, even rich people have issues), and how she chose the wrong guys for years. One of which actually gambled away her entire 90210 salary.

It may not be book club material, but I really liked it.

Picnik

For my blogger friends (and those who aren't), I want to share a Web site I found a few months ago. It's called Picnik (www.picnik.com).

It's basically a free, web-based version of Photoshop. You can use it to crop photos, remove red eye, lighten or darken photos--anything you'd need to do to enhance a photo.

One of the fun parts of the program is the ability to add things to your photos such as special holiday-themed enhancements as you can see below.

Be sure to check it out.

Can you guess what I added in this photo?


Here's one I did for Halloween

Happy St. Patrick's Day

It's spring break in the Loving household. The boys are out of school for the week and my parents are here to take care of them.

Me and my boys wearing green



Casey and Nana Doris

Papa Louie cooked tonight (duh!). Instead of corned beef and cabbage, we had his famous spaghetti. He even made us meatballs.

Casey couldn't wait for dinner



For dessert there were shamrock cookies

Latest book

I am currently reading, "Why Women Should Rule the World," by Dee Dee Myers, former press secretary for the (previous) Clinton administration.

I wouldn't say I'm a feminist, but this book has really opened my eyes to the issues women both in and out of the workforce face.

It's part memoir and part research paper, but it's actually a page-turner, believe it or not.

Kids say the darnedest things

Since today is Nana Harla's birthday, the boys thought we should go out to dinner to celebrate, despite the fact that Nana Harla lives in Kansas City and isn't here visiting on her big day.

We went to Olive Garden, where we had a nice family dinner.

Casey was especially impressed, saying "the food was wonderful" and "the service was outstanding." (I don't know where he gets this stuff!)

A few minutes later, Brett brought up Dan's first name for some reason.

Casey then volunteered that "Dan" is not only Dan's first name, but it's a word people use when they're mad or when they're losing at a video game.

Believe it or not, Dan actually explained that people say "damn" when they're mad, but told Casey it was a bad word and not to use it.

Where do they come up with these things?

Watersedge playdate

It was so beautiful this afternoon, that the kids decided to play outside. Eventually all the neighborhood kids showed up and the whole thing turned in a Watersedge playdate.

Josh and Suzanne in our backyard


Brett and Casey's friend Gage
who was over for a playdate


Tanner and Carson


Riding bikes



Taking a break from the
action to have a snack and a drink


Mike even mowed our yard for us