Pasta bake anyone....?

Cory and I made this fabulous dish last week. Pasta Bake. It's pretty much just like spaghetti but made with like bow-tie pasta noodles instead. For our sauce we used hamburger, green and black olives, mushrooms, and the really tall Hunts can of sauce. Then, we boiled the noodles and once they were done, we added them to the sauce, mixed in some cheese and then put a little more on top. Then, we baked it until the cheese was golden, brown, and delicious. We had left-overs for the whole week. It was awesome. We also made it tonight for Jenni, Ted, the girls, and Mom and Dad. We wanted something quick and easy. I highly recommend this. Our bread was from Wal-mart and we just cooked it on the stove top since the pasta bake was in the oven.

I'm a winner

My free goodies that I won. I love the Mark lip-gloss. It smells good and looks good. I also like the body was and lotions. I've already pampered my feet with the lovely foot care set.

Last weekend I went to the Chubbuck days with Tyler, my mother in law, and Tyler's great-grandma. There was a parade in which Tyler got a whole bag full of candy. It's really quite crazy how much stuff he got. He loved it. Then, after the parade we went to the park where a bunch of different companies were set up at booths. Well, you all know how lucky I am. I won not one, but two prizes. The first was an awesome Avon basket. It was full o so much stuff. Lotions, body wash, shampoo-conditioner, an am/fm radio adapter thing, foot stuff, and make-up. It was cool. Then, a few days later I got a call from someone else. I also won a gigantic beach towel for Tyler. It's one I wouldn't have picked out for him. It was a pirate one and has an ugly skull on it and a pirate. At least he has a beach towel, even if it isn't 2 year old appropriate.

QuickMonth Calendar

There used to be a decent calendar that sat in your Windows taskbar and showed the current date, as well as providing an easily accessible calendar if needed. The problem is, it was associated with a company known for distributing adware, which is just annoying, but I found out how to disable the adware component and I installed it everytime I had to reinstall Windows on my system.

For whatever reason, I lost the installer for that little app and had to hunt a bit. This time I came up with DateInTray, which was happily free of adware and provided pretty much the exact same function. This has worked for me for a couple of years now.

Today, though, via LifeHacker, I discovered QuickMonth Calendar, which may just replace DateInTray as my standard. It's quite handly because it automatically pops up whenever you hover over the time on your Windows taskbar. It's also a bit prettier (no clunky border) than DateInTray, while providing a very similar calendar view. The one downside I see is that it doesn't actively show the current date in the system tray.

In any case, given one or the other a try - it's a far cry better than double clicking on the clock to bring up the set date option to see a calendar.

A beautiful TREE!!

Here is the tree....I think it's cool how we made it go up to the ceiling.

Another shot of the tree.

Close-up of the branches.

This is the branch Jenni told me to thicken

I did that branch that goes to the other wall. I'm quite proud of myself.

Jenni's sunbathing frog under a beautiful flower

More leaves that I'm proud of

A cool shot of Tyler and the dragon fly

Jenni was in town last week and we spontaneously decided to paint a tree on Tyler's wall. I've always thought it would be cool to do something like that, but I didn't have the confidence because I'm not as artistic as Jenni is. I do have to say that I did do quite a lot of the tree and Jenni was my art director. She told me where to thicken a branch, where to add more leaves, and when to change colors. She helped me shadow a few lines and she also drew a beautiful frog in a bikini. I thought it was pretty funny. She also drew the dragonflies. I know I wouldn't have painted this tree without Jenni's help. I really appreciate that she took the time to help me with my project. It looks really good. Tyler loves it. He runs over to it pretty much every morning and pats it. He calls it an "eeeee." It's cute. He can even point out the frog, rocks, and dragonflies. He's so cute with it. I think it scared him the first night, but he has definatley grown attached to it now. A funny story, I had the paintbrush we used drying out on the bathroom counter and Tyler took it and ran to his TREE and pretended to paint on the wall. He was so proud of himself when I clapped and told him what a beautiful tree he had drawn. He sure is a cute boy. So, if any of you want a tree on your wall, just give me a call. I'll be happy to paint on your wall. I'm a painter now.

Bedtime Routine

I've been meaning to post this for quite some time now. We bought Tyler a toddler bed a few months ago and we even have a nice bedtime routine. He goes to bed very well. All we have to do is........in order....

1. Take vitamins and get a sippy of water
2. Take a bath
3. Pick a book out, it's Tyler's choice
4. Read Tyler his story
5. Say prayers
6. Give hugs and kisses to Tyler
7. Put Ty in bed
8. Surround him with all his favorite animals (before me or Cory go to bed, we usually take his stuffed animal friends off the bed)
9. Turn off lights and blow kisses from the door (Ty blows kisses back or waves)
10. Shut door and we, Cory and I, hang out together.


I almost forgot to tell everyone that this particular toddler bed was on sale at Shopko for $20. Now, that's a good deal. Tyler really does love his bed and we love that he goes down so well.

Pajama pants anyone....??

I've been kind of busy lately working on these pants for Tyler. He seems to never have enough pajamas. I decided to make him some out of some of my scrap material and I also bought some for $1 a yard. I ended up making like 14 bottoms. Some are bigger so that he can wear them in the fall/winter. I made one pair of long bottoms and one pair of shorts out of a yard or less. It's awesome and cheap. At least he always has something to wear to bed. Oh, I did kind of mess up on the long pants. I think I made capri's on accident. Oh well. They'll be short pajamas for next year.

Swimming pool

Our neighbor just bought this really annoying swimming pool. Sure, it's kind of cool, but Tyler is fascinated by it. We had to ask them to please keep the stairs inside the pool because Ty can climb them. I was outside with him and he climbed to the second stair and was about to dive in when I grabbed him off of the stair. Now, every time we walk out to our car we have to grab Tyler away from the pool. It's annoying. The good thing about the pool is that we can swim in it whenever we want......but, knowing me, that won't be anytime soon.

DOGGY

Tyler loves, loves, loves dogs. They are his favorite thing in the world besides his mommy and daddy. He says doggy every other word and he even says woof through out the day. Our neighbor dog was out the other day and he and Ty had a grand old time rolling around in the grass. Cory is very tempted to get a dog, but I'm still a bit hesitant about the idea. Tyler really does love them though.

Our little sweet-heart

We just had to take pictures of Ty in his cute little church outfit. I think he looks so grown up in it. He still has a little bit of a hard time in nursery, just at first though. After he gets used to it, he loves it. There are a few boys in there that he has become friends with. He really likes the bubbles that they blow in the nursery, he also likes snack time, although he tends to steal the snacks from the kids sitting by him. We need to teach him not to do that. He really is a sweet heart and we're really proud of the little boy he's becoming.

I think he looks really grown up in this picture. He's really grown to love books too. They are one of his favorite things.

This is a close up of Ty's cute smile.

I think Tyler is so cute funny in this picture. He's a character.

He loves his chair.

Sticker boy

The other day we were at Mom and Dad's house and we found a bunch my old stickers. Tyler was very curious about them so I started sticking them to him. He thought it was so much fun. He kept taking them off and re-sticking them to different areas. He was laughing and having a lot of fun. It was way cute.