If she had the proper words to say,

I made Alfredo Chicken Primavera tonight, but I didn't take any pictures of it. This is an older recipe from my Recipe Basket™, and I've really only been documenting the newer stuff. As if it didn't have enough veggies already (carrots, red peppers, broccoli), I still served it up with green beans. I didn't, however, get my hind end in gear early enough to pull off the Fudge Berry Pie that was to be dessert. It will have to be some other day.

Oh my, but it feels busy around here lately. We got the call late last week of Jack's assignment to the orange team for spring soccer season, and it's been go-go-go ever since. The 'Orange Suns' had a Meet-and-Greet event with their coach on Sunday evening. We were already in town, buying more landscaping supplies, so we hung out for an extra 45 minutes instead of driving home to the base, and then all the way back out to town again.

Last night (Monday), we had a Jamboree to attend for the entire soccer association. We went extra-early, having been warned that there were 502 registered players this season. Wow, but it was crowded! It was well-organized, and the soccer club took a giant picture of all the players together in their team shirts. Then they ran skills and drills for the next couple hours. We had arrived at 4:50 to secure parking (the event didn't start until 6pm, but Jack's coach had all the players arriving at 5:45 to group together), so we'd not eaten dinner first. I brought water bottles for each of us, and I was so glad! To run many of the drills, parents were needed, and I was out there tossing and kicking soccer balls around for a few hours. A.J. stood close by and tinkered with my camera (I'll have to check out what he shot later on - maybe he got some great pics!).

Jack has practice on Monday nights for the next month, as well as games every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. His first game is two days from now, and the team hasn't practiced yet. In fact, they have TWO games before the first practice (Thursday and Saturday). I've never heard of such a thing, but he's excited about it nonetheless.

Also this Thursday, Jack chose Earth Day to have his birthday celebration at school. See, in Nebraska, the school year started after his birthday (August 9th). We were already here in North Dakota by his half-birthday (February 9th), but the teacher made the records at the beginning of the school year, and she didn't even think about it. During parent-teacher conferences last month, she told him to pick a day to celebrate and let her know. Now, in their old school, birthdays weren't a big deal - students weren't allowed to bring in treats or snacks at all. At their new school, there are no rules. As such, Jack is very excited for Thursday!

I wish I'd thought to take 'before' pictures of the yard, but alas. This house had been vacant for at least a couple years before we moved in, so the yard is completely bare. There's weeds, but that's about it. Philip and I built retaining walls for three, large raised flowerbeds using these pavers, and then we've been lining around our bushes/trees in the backyard with black edging, filling it with white rock. We also yanked up the ugly concrete things under the eave spouts, replacing them with discreet, bendable hoses. Now that we have the flowerbeds established, we can focus on the grass repair.

I've also been editing up a storm! At some point in the future, I'll have a "Marathon Posting Day," using so many of my pictures. Man, am I ever behind on that! However, it is so rewarding each night to clean up and file away more folders of pictures onto the harddrive. I swear, there's hardly anything on this computer since I upped to Windows 7, and it feels so nice.

I'm off to be a kitchen tornado for a few hours tonight. I'm prepping and freezing a few meals, hoping it will help with the soccer-induced chaos of the next month!

Today was Jack's 1/2-birthday. My little boy is now well and truly five and a half years old!

Though our family celebrates such occasions, the preschool also wanted to commemorate the day. Since Jack's traditional birthday falls outside the school calendar year, they allow him to bring a special treat for his classmates on his special 1/2-birthday. Jack and I had been discussing treat possibilities for some time, and late last week, we finally decided on something new and neat together: Strawberry Snakes!

What is a Strawberry Snake? Well, I had been thinking about how much the boys really enjoyed the Pizza Snakes we've made a few times, but I wanted a fun twist to make it an enjoyable snack for preschoolers. Jack absolutely adores his bagels for breakfast with a smear of strawberry cream cheese, so we worked with that idea. And so the final idea came together: whole-wheat mini bagels cut into fourths and then rearranged to make "snakes," spread with strawberry cream cheese, and decorated with triangular cut-outs of strawberry fruit leather. Each snake had a raisin for an eye, too. (There would have been red vines for tongues, if I'd had more time to make them.)

( Picture of the 'Strawberry Snakes.' )

The students seemed very excited to try Jack's treats when I arrived with them. Jack carried them on a baking sheet around to all of his friends, asking each one politely if they'd like to try one. Only three of the 24 students opted not to try a Snake, and I only saw two children leave any of their treat behind afterwards (although many of the children removed the raisin before digging in). I think 4/5 is pretty good for a group of preschool food critics!

( The birthday boy during snacktime. )

Also during preschool, Jack's class made a Friendship Snack from different kinds of cereals for the kids to bring home. And they had a pizza party at the end of the day as a reward for having earned all of their stickers. It was a very food-centric morning!

And speaking of food, Heather2 had called early this morning to invite me and Jack out for a special lunch at Kobe Steakhouse. Normally, I'd have been working at that time, but Philip was working for me today at Runza so that I could create Jack's snacks. And Philip doesn't like that kind of food, so I'd never been to Kobe before. So her family picked us up after preschool and drove us out to the restaurant in Omaha for a new experience.

It was all so very cool. Jack was scared of the flames when he caught sight of them at another table, and he began crying. When our server was ready to begin cooking at our own table, Heather's husband Andy took Jack to look at the fish pond and fountain so that I could still watch everything as it happened. Once the grill was lit, he brought Jack back to the table. Also, while we were getting our salad/soup courses, Jack ran into a waitress with water glasses, causing a spill all over her and the floor. She was concerned, thinking she'd hit him with her tray, but he was crying only because he felt bad about making her spill. Despite the tears, it was a nice lunch, and we both liked our food very much (and have lots of leftovers, too!).

We picked up Philip after lunch, and when we came back home. A bit later, he picked up A.J. from school. Once the boys were settled into activities, he and I laid down for a nap - welcome relief for my poor ears after the noises of the day. I made hamburger patties, gravy and veggies to go with some leftover mashed potatoes for dinner, and I still need to get the dishes done. The boys had their baths, and then we all played four rounds of Mexican Train Dominoes together before bed.

But now I need to get to those dinner dishes. Philip promised to make me a vanilla milkshake (it sounds so good for my sore throat), and I need to clean up the kitchen so he can do it without maneuvering around my messes from the Snakes and dinner. :-)

Layouts: I apologize to the seven or eight of you currently sporting layouts that I helped you customize to your journal. At the moment, LJ is working on stricter CSS coding measures, and these rip the CSS code from the "print_function" part of our layout. Until I can re-figure the code, or until someone higher up manages to post a quick fix, we're stuck with non-working banners, I'm afraid. Rest assured, though, that I have not deleted the images I'm hosting for you - they're just not accessable in our style code at the moment.

And I know how you're feeling. I'd like my own banner back right now as well. *sigh*

1/2 Birthdays: Jack's birthday this morning went over very well. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the fruit cups and dip. Jack passed out the cups of fruit, and I passed out the dip behind him. Jamie's son Noah inhaled his fruit so quickly that he was on the last piece before I got to him with the dip! The teachers said it was a very refreshing break for them, and I was glad to hear it. Jack wore his crown and special sticker, and he picked a dinosaur toy out of the "birthday box" for his treat.