Answers...and our own photos

Ok, here are the answers from last time:

The Questions:

1. What is your first name? Elizabeth
2. What is your favorite food? Cheese
3. What high school did you go to? I was homeschooled
4. What is your favorite color? Blue
5. Who is your celebrity crush? I don't have one...and for some reason when I searched "celebrity crush" the picture I used came up...random, but somehow charming
6. Favorite drink? Proof that I'm uninteresting, it really and truly is water.
7. Dream vacation? Iguazu Falls on the Border of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. Maybe we'll actually get to do this for our sabbatical! (YAY!!!)
8. Favorite dessert? Cheesecake
9. What you want to be when you grow up? How do you even answer this question. I searched for "complete"
10. What do you love most in life? My family
11. One Word to describe you. Loyal
12. Your flickr name: Most random of the whole bunch...I use James' flickr account and his user name is the really original "James Slager" and lo and behold, for some reason when you type that into search, the photo I posted is the only one that comes up and I can't figure out how it relates at all to anything with "james" or "slager"

How'd you do? Did you guess them right?

And because I've been having a lot of fun with the collage-maker and because I absolutely love these shots we've taken over the past year, and since posts with no pictures can be boring,here is a collage I made the other day:

Just For Fun

It's a drippy gray day here, with not a whole lot going on (well, except Lydia may be coming down with something. *fingers-crossed* Hopefully not!)

Sooo, I stumbled on this little Flickr game today. As an aside, if you've never visited Flickr, go now. Wow, I love me some good photographs and even if I devoted my life to the process, I wouldn't have time to find them all on Flickr. If only I took pictures like that!

Anyway, I spent way too much of naptime doing this, but it was fun. Here's my picture:



And here are the credits: 1. Elizabeth Cady Stanton House at Night, 2. Meant To Be Dinner: Cheese Board, 3. Home Office, 4. TRue BLue BaBy i LoVe You!!!, 5. Mind Your Manners 1954, 6. macro water drop, 7. Cataratas del Iguazú 002 / Iguassu Falls 002, 8. Chocolate Chip Cheesecake with Raspberries, 9. .freedom., 10. My brother and his family, 11. Hill of Loyal, Perth and Kinross, 12. e-flux video rental opens at Carpenter Center, Boston

Here are the rules:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image. (You can choose between interesting, recent, and relevant)
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker).

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

Can you guess my answers from the pictures???
Stay tuned, I'll post the answers in the next couple of days. Hope you enjoy!

Singing the Lunchtime Blues

Lunch is becoming the bane of my existence! Ok, so that's overly dramatic, but really, I feel like I have a pretty good handle on dinner ideas and breakfast is always the same, but what on earth should I feed my kids for lunch day after day.

It seems that they'd prefer to have a "favorite" every day, but you can only have mac 'n cheese or hot dogs so often with out having to turn in your mom card. Grilled cheese is also a hit, and while potentially healthier than the previous two, it's still not a nutritional goldmine.

Lunchmeats are always so salty and full of preservatives, etc. and expensive to boot, so we don't usually have them in the house since the kids only eat them once in a while even when they're around. And, it seems that by the time we return from whatever the morning activity was, I don't have the time or energy to make a whole new meal from scratch and the kids want food NOW!

I like leftovers just fine, but many times there aren't enough for all four of us, and even if there are, the kids usually won't go for something from a previous dinner the second time around. Further complicating the matter, Joshua has a peanut allergy, so all forms of peanut containing/contaminated foods are out as well...

Both kids eat fruits and veggies pretty well, but I'm at a loss for what to serve as a "main-course" at lunch. So what am I missing?? Someone must have more or better ideas on what to feed to small children for lunch five days a week that is quick, yet still reasonably healthy and economical! Or, do the rest of you struggle with this for yourself or your kids too??? Hit me with your best ideas, I'm all ears!

Halloween 09

The day of the year Joshua's been looking forward to most since his birthday has finally come, and gone just as quickly.
Here are a few pictures of my little cuties all ready to go get CANDY!!!

Four Months

It's been a little more than four months since we moved into our new house. Typing that I can hardly believe it--it feels both like yesterday and like it was years ago all at once. But, four months it has been and we've been busy trying to put our touch on the house. I think we've succeeded, I think we've completed most of our short-term projects, although there is always a seemingly endless list of things we'd like to do "someday."

Somewhat surprisingly, given how clueless we felt when we first become homeowners four years ago, we've found we really enjoy doing a lot of do-it-yourself improvements and doing them together.

We're also still right on the fence between the hand-me-down/early-garage-sale-era styles of furnishing and starting to buy pieces that we hope to have long term and which represent our own style and preferences.

All in good time, but for now we're doing the best we can with what we have and trying to make responsible, economical, and resource-conscious decisions about what to keep, what to replace, and what we can "remake" in order to use things we already have, but love them more. (For example, we just got new slipcovers for our living room couches, since they're both still comfortable, usable couches, but the upholstery has seen better days...)

I was going to post before and after photos here, but blogger isn't cooperating with me and photos recently and I'm running out of time, so for now I'll post links to online photo albums, both before and after. Check them out!
Before:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026607&id=178201571&l=e87729a2fe
After: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2030084&id=178201571&l=06f31aef04

And, just because she's too cute, and I really like how this picture turned out, here's Lydia while she was playing in the leaves yesterday...

Gleaning

We were part of a community supported agriculture (CSA) program again this year (our 2nd year, but with a new provider) at a local farm and we've just loved it. Our kids are so excited to get our box every week and see what's in it, and Joshua's been looking forward to the pumpkin party the farm was hosting for weeks.Last Sunday was the appointed day, so we headed off to Evansville to get our pumpkins and show the kids the farm. As an added bonus, the farm owners had decided to open the farm up for a gleaning as well. Basically, all of the crops that were finished with harvest for the year (and a couple that weren't) were opened up to the CSA members and your family could take home what you'd like to use/freeze or otherwise enjoy. So much fun! We picked cucumbers, red peppers, green beans, watermelon, tomatoes, carrots and broccoli in addition to our pumpkins. We could have picked a couple others, but somehow summer squash and zucchini just have never charmed any of us so extras weren't desired.

I guess this cool, moist, but not overly-wet summer was great for production and since it hasn't yet frosted in most of southern wisconsin the produce was still good for the taking. An overabundance, what a blessing--so different from our experience with CSA last year where crops were scarce. The frost is supposed to come tonight and with it the official end of the 2009 harvest season here in Wisconsin, but one we've truly enjoyed!

Welcome

Just wanted to say a quick welcome to this guy:

Pipp joined our family about two months ago and he's been a great source of entertainment for the kiddos. Joshua very carefully monitors all things he does because "otherwise he might DIE."

After the tragic suicide of Michael we also invested in a new (to us) mini-acquarium with a COVER, hopefully preventing the same fate from meeting Mr. Pipp.

Welcome, little blue Pipp, we hope you'll stay with us for a very long fishy life!