The Weekend

We had a nice weekend. I think the warm weather makes everyone feel more energetic so I was pretty glad we had two days of sunshine! On Sat we made a quick trip to Missoula to take our friend Jeff Wigmore to lunch. Jeff is leaving to teach English in either Vietnam or Thailand in a couple of weeks and will be gone for 1-2 years. We had lunch at Sushi Hanna which was excellent and we even ran into Jeff's old boss Manfred who then joined us for lunch. I discovered that I really like raw salmon and if you haven't already, I would suggest trying it. My favorite is still the snow crab though (this ones not raw.) Here's a link to their website http://www.sushihanamissoula.com
When that was over we did a quick stop at Rockin Rudy's for incense and then headed over to Robin and Trev's house. Robin is due in June with her first kid and I hadn't seen her since September so I had to check out how big her belly had grown and see the nursery. We ended up sitting in their back yard for awhile before Avery started to get a little cranky thus telling us it was time to head back to Butte. Jeff's been working pretty hard on finishing up projects for school so it was a nice little break. Here are a couple of pics from the car ride over.


These are a couple of pics from Sunday. We started to clean out our garage and I scraped paint off the door that will go up on our main floor bathroom for about four hours. I swear it had ten layers of paint on it. Which makes sense since our house is almost 100 years old. Now we just need to sand it a little, hopefully that'll happen tonight, stain it and we can hang it back up. I haven't updated on the rest of the bathroom remodel because there's really not much to tell. When we actually get our butts moving and get the toilet back in there I'll post a picture. Don't hold your breath though because it could be another six months before that post shows up!

Avery update: she's walking! She's not very good at it yet but she's doing it more and more often. She recently discovered how to get up from sitting to standing and she likes to practice that over and over again. I was going to try to post a video of her walking but we haven't really figured that part of our video camera out yet. Maybe someday. She also likes to walk and "talk" on the cell phone at the same time. It's so cute. I think she just thinks that Daddy and Mommy like to talk into the small device. So she holds it up to her ear and chats away. It's pretty funny. Some new words are kitty which sounds like ki ki and night night. She's also getting really good at blowing kissing when we way bye bye. She's so much fun.

A Little Poetry

My high school cheerleading coach Jill Hunt has a fantastic blog and yesterday she did a post on poetry. I guess it was poem in your pocket day. I wanted to share my favorite poem and also thank my Mom for passing this poem on to me. I can relate to this poem and I love the message that it conveys.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5 Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, 10 And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. 15 I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Lemon Creme Bars

I made these over the weekend and they were very easy and very good. Almost too good, I pawned a few off on Teresa but I ate almost all the rest!


Lemon Creme Bars (Cookie Mix)

Oatmeal cookie mix jump-starts the crust to a classic homemade lemon bar. Prep Time:10 min Start to Finish:1 hr 20 min Makes:25 bars
56 Ratings 28 Reviews Rate/Review Read Reviews

1/2	cup cold butter
1	pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker® oatmeal cookie mix
1	egg
1	can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated)
2	teaspoons grated lemon peel
1/4	cup lemon juice

1.	Heat oven to 350°F. Spray bottom of 8-inch square pan with cooking spray.
2.	In large bowl, cut butter into cookie mix, using fork or pastry blender. Stir in egg until mixture is crumbly. Press half of cookie mixture into bottom of pan; bake 15 minutes.
3.	In small bowl, stir condensed milk, lemon peel and lemon juice until thick. Spread over baked crust. Crumble remaining cookie mixture over top. Bake about 25 minutes longer or until light golden brown. Refrigerate 30 minutes or until set. For bars, cut into 5 rows by 5 rows. Store covered in refrigerator.
High Altitude (3500-6500 ft): Heat oven to 375°F.

Warm days are finally here!

We had a nice relaxing weekend and spent a lot of time outside enjoying the great weather. Nothing too eventful just lots of family time. I snapped a couple of cute pics of Avery I thought I'd share. The bottom one is when she got a hold of one of her Dad's empty beer bottles and decided that was way more interesting than any of her toys. She's really into drinking from bottles and cups right now and actually does a pretty good job. It sounds like the weather is going to turn cold again for awhile which is a total bummer. It's teasing us with a few nice days but hey I'll take them. Hopefully spring is just around the corner!

Just My Size

Avery finally received her last birthday present. We've been waiting for this for a few weeks. We found a really cool company on amazon.com called little furniture. They make kids furniture and personalize it. We had her name embroidered in pink stitching. Since Avery's been trying to climb on everything but isn't really tall enough to get anywhere we thought she'd appreciate a chair that she can actually get into by herself. She seems to really like it.

Entrees Made Easy

On Saturday when I got into town my Mom and I had an appointment at Entrees Made Easy. For those of you who don't know they are a new company in Great Falls that enables people to go to them and make up dinners that they can then take home and freeze. I wasn't really sure what to expect but it was a pretty cool place. First I went online (the week before my appointment) and choose from their menu for March the entrees that I wanted to make. Then menu changes each month. I picked 12 half orders plus one desert which cost me $123. Each entree serves 2-3 people. My Mom went with me to help me prepare everything and it took us about 45 minutes. They had stations set up with all of the ingredients and the recipe for how to put each entree together. It was super easy and really nice since everything is fresh and already chopped up for you. Sauces are made ahead of time so you just add those if needed. You can add more or less of certain ingredients for example if you don't like mushrooms you can leave them out. Jeff and I gave one a try last night and it was really good. For those of you who work and try to raise kids but don't like taking a long time to cook each night and don't like to eat out a lot, this is a great way to go. Here's a link to the website http://www.entreesmadeeasy.com/home_store.php I'm pretty sure I'll be doing it again.