Easter Weekend 2013

Friday we decided to pack up and visit our cousins in Chicago.  The kids were excited to get to see family members they have heard so much about, but never met.  They were also excited to add two more states to their "been to" status.  Before our move to Ohio they had each only been to a few states.  Now they are national travelers!

The drive to Chicago was pretty uneventful and blah.  Layla and Hayden were great travelers and Gary and I are so proud of them.  I know sitting in a car for hours isn't fun, but they made the best of it!  The kids were shocked by all the wind turbines in Indiana.  Other than that Indiana was pretty gray for March.  I'm sure the state would have been prettier in the spring.  Once we got into Illinois the kids were starting to get really excited to be close to our destination.  We were all so happy to be out of the car!

I was thrilled Saturday morning to get to go to Target for the first time since November.  That's crazy huh?  I have been having some serious Target withdrawal.  I wanted to go hog wild, but I tried to behave myself and not wreck our checkbook.  I did score tons of Easter goodies, if you know what I mean!   

Saturday afternoon the kids were thrilled to actually participate in an egg hunt at church.  Remember last time we tried an egg hunt....it was over before we got there.  Well, this egg hunt was 'the best ever', and those were words right out of Hayden's mouth!

After the egg hunt we all went out to a delicious family lunch and then we hung out all afternoon and then grilled some good food for dinner.  Our kids had so much fun with their cousins and it was almost as if we all have been together once a month for years instead of just meeting.  You know?!?  Our families got along so well together.  We all have great kiddos!

Sunday morning the kids all woke up and the Easter bunny visited!

I love all their sleepy faces!  It was a very special and fun Easter weekend!

We just got home a little bit ago after making the road trip home.  We had a fun Easter dinner (including strawberry cheesecake) as a family of four at a steakhouse near Cleveland.  We are all super sleepy and thankful we are home safe.  We can't wait to sleep in tomorrow morning and go get our puppies from their mini vacation.

Happy Easter!  

We are so thankful for Jesus all the blessing in our lives!

Bowling with our buddies

The weather has been cold but that isn't stopping us from having fun indoors!

We have enjoyed our Spring Break this week. The kids and I have loved having Gary home and he has enjoyed a much needed break from work!

Bowling is one of our favorite things to do lately. We had tons of fun bowling with our buddies! I giggle each time I see one of the little kids tossing the huge bowling ball across the line onto the lane. We had a fun filled day!

I'm thankful for an evening at home tonight watching March Madness & Grey's!

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Wordless Wednesday -Laid Back

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a movie and the mall

Spring break is supposed to be all fun and exciting, but I'm feeling grumpy. The snow is putting a damper in our week and I am feeling like negative Nelly.  Gary took off work so we are making the best of our time together as a family.  We haven't ventured too far away from home yet.  We weren't sure if the roads would be nasty.  But we are still having fun dang it!

The weather makes me wanna eat this whole bag of Twix Eggs.  Yep...Twix eggs.

Gahhhh.  They are so good, but really the Reese's eggs are better.

I'm a sucker for peanut butter. 

Monday we took the kids to a movie.  It was such a cute movie with a great message.  We all really enjoyed it.  I really enjoyed eating half a large bag of popcorn. Poor Gary he didn't know he should have gotten his own bag.  What is it with movie theater popcorn?  I can't eat a few pieces slowly.  I have to SHOVE it into my mouth as fast as possible as if someone is about to take it away from me.  I always get a popcorn head ache and I always eat the corn anyway.  What is wrong with me?  It's like you walk into a theater and breathe the air...you must eat the CORN.  ALL OF THE CORN.  See what I mean...I blame the weather for my crazyness right now.  I had to really floss after the popcorn eating contest also.  Holy moly the kernels get stuck in my teeth something awful.  Ok...TMI and now I'm changing the topic to soda.  Why do you have to drink a soda with movie theater popcorn?  Honestly I don't usually drink soda.  I mean I will use it in a mixed drink now and then, but we don't buy soda for daily consumption.  Oh my eating is bad lately, but HEY Jack...It's Spring Break.

Look at this mess of an iPhone.  We went to the mall today to have this fixed to the tune of $89.00.  OUCH!  I dropped my phone not only once, but twice.  AFTER HAYDEN DROPPED HIS iPod touch.  What is wrong with our hands that neither one of us can hold onto these pricey little devices?  His was cheaper to fix, but still.  It's like buying tires.  You have to do it even though you don't wanna.  I didn't want glass to chip off any longer.  I was leaving a glass trail.  Did I mention I had to leave my phone with them while we shopped?  I missed it so much.  I'm pathetic.

We ate lunch and then had ice cream treats.  I ordered salted caramel truffle ice cream and I almost went back for another scoop.  It was to die for.  The kids got Playdoh.  Yep.  That yellow stuff has enough dye in it to choke a chicken.  It is vanilla ice cream with multi-colored sugar cookie chunks.  It was gooooUUUood (said in my best cousin Eddie voice)!!  Gary got his favorite mint chocolate chip.  

These two little heathens needed to burn off some steam.  Wow ... maybe I should have done the same thing.   We let them play at the nasty, germy mall play area, ahem I mean the fun, super cool play area.  Germs make their immune systems better right?!

There is our Spring Break Monday and Tuesday in a nutshell.  Also we are all really addicted to Candy Crush. Gary and I are bad addicted. Oh and the kids won't sleep in.  And Lily won't either.  So we have that going for us.  And now I am off to get an attitude adjustment....SEND US THE SUNSHINE!

Lily Jack

I can't believe it has been over a month since we brought Lily home.  She is just as snugly and sweet today as she was when we got her.  I'm so thankful for her sweet little personality and loving heart.  She is so gentle and kind with the kids.

She went to the vet last week.  I think the doctor kinda liked her!   Lily was showing off her skills and listened and sat down on command.   She is such a people pleaser!  She is about 3 1/2 months old and weighs 14.6 pounds.  It is so weird to carry her and then carry Daisy.  Lily is stout and thick.  Daisy is a little dainty princess.  I can't wait to see how big Lily gets, but the vet seemed to think she'd be a smaller sized lab.  Only time will tell!

Lily is really learning her place in our home.  When we leave the house during the day she goes right into her crate when we say "cage up."  She sleeps every night in one of the dog beds on the floor in our bedroom.  We decided not to crate her at night and she is adjusting well to sleeping in our room.  She needed outside many times a night in the first few weeks, but now she is doing much better.  She will use a potty pad that lays on the floor at night if she has to go really bad.  Usually she will whine when she needs out.  All in all she is doing great in the potty department.  She will sit by the backdoor or whine if she needs out.  She hasn't destroyed anything in our house.  She plays with her toys and loves to chew on bones, but so far the only thing she chewed up was my laptop cord.  Hopefully we can keep our things out of her sight so she doesn't get tempted.

Lily loves this rug in the kitchen.  She is always laying there and knows we spend a ton of time in the kitchen.  Sometimes she is in the way, so I'll just move her around on the rug.  ha!  Layla picked out her leopard print and pink collar at Old Navy.  It fits her personality perfectly!

One weekend morning all 6 of us were piled in our bed.  It was full of kids and dogs and tons of giggles.  I love how the pups are about the same size in the picture above, but soon Lily will tower over Daisy.  They are best buds.  It took Daisy awhile to really warm up to Lily.  Daisy didn't even want Lily to touch her, but now they wrestle and play fight all the time.  When they play it sounds terrible, like dogs are fighting and tearing their ears off, but they are just having fun.  

We have a few patches of grass in the backyard and they love to tumble around back there.  As you know I am not the biggest fan of our house, but I love the fenced backyard.  I can leave them outside to play on nice days with no worries!  It seems like most yards with lots of room to roam don't have fences.

We're trying to take Lily for walks as much as possible to get her adjusted to a leash.  I didn't do this with Daisy and now we need to leash train them both.  Lily is catching on and doesn't pull too bad.  One morning I decided to walk them both and sheesh, it was wild.  We have some work to do in this department!

Lily seems to catch on to simple commands and now she knows to sit if she wants our attention.  She will burn holes in us with her eyes when she just gazes at us.  We have been working on 'sit' and 'shake' and I really want to teach her to be gentle as she gets bigger.  I don't want the kids friends to be afraid of her.  I know kids get scared when a dog jumps up on them, and Callaway was so bad about jumping on our house guests.  Hopefully we can tame her from jumping when she's excited.  I know consistency in training will pay off!

These pictures really show off her black coat, but sometimes in the sunlight she looks really brown.  She has the neatest coloring.  We love those white paws and the tip of her tail is white paint dipped!

It is safe to say this little stinker has stolen our hearts!  She is such a fun little pup and we are thrilled to call her ours.  We have all been watching too much Duck Dynasty and we gave her the middle name of Jack.  Lily Jack. Daisy Mae and Lily Jack.  It has a nice ring to it huh?  Hopefully Lily Jack likes camping, because as soon as the weather gets warmer we will introduce her to our favorite activity!  We know she loves water, so she will fit right in with our adventurous clan.

Easter egg hunt fail

Gary and I decided to take the kids to a last minute Easter egg hunt we heard about this morning.  It started at noon and I guess they mean exactly at noon because we got there are 12:03 and the whole thing was over.  As we were walking up the all the kids were done and opening their eggs.  Ooops.  I felt terrible about showing up late.  The kids were so excited to go.  I mean dang who starts an egg hunt on time anyway?!?

Awww...they look so cute on the walk to the hunt that never happened....

Layla didn't mind missing the egg hunt.  She's such a good sport.  She knew we had Reece's eggs and Twix eggs at home.  She loves the good stuff!  

Hayden was a little more annoyed.  The look on his face was so sad, but really they were both great sports about missing the whole thing.

Honestly, I was struggling a little bit about the kids hunting eggs in coats and boots.  We're used to sundresses, shorts and flip-flops.  Also...this can be a life lesson for them.  Now they realize the importance of being on time. heeehee!  We ended up having a really fun day anyway and I'm loving the picture of the kids with the bunny!

Spring Break...

Starts NOW!!! Whoooo hooo!!

Can you tell they are excited?

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Slow cooker french onion soup

I know I have posted this recipe in the past, but it was with 3 other slow cooker recipes.  I believe this soup deserves a post of it's own.  It is really easy to make and really satisfying on a cold day.

I realize most of you are thinking, "Um lady, it's mid-March, Why are you cooking soup?  It's too warm for that!"  Well dang it all...it is cold here today.  25 degrees freezing a$$ cold.  So I'm making soup because I am cold!

Ingredients:

3 large onions {I use red onions}

1 TBS olive oil

1 tbsp.flour

2 boxes (32oz) low sodium beef broth

½ to 1 tsp. Tabasco (i used franks red hot today)

How to do it:

Saute onions in olive oil in a skillet until transparent.

Add flour; blend well. Put in slow cooker.

Add beef broth and Tabasco.

Cook on low 7-9 hours or high 4-5 hours.

Once the soup is ready to serve ladle it into a bowl and top with a slice of toasted bread and cheese.  Broil for a few minutes until the cheese is slightly brown.  Croutons are also a good french onion soup topper.  So just whatever bread suits your fancy.  Gary requested a bread bowl, but that is NOT happening.  I'd love it, but I'm trying to quit bread.  I  know I'll never fully quit bread, but today I quit bread, so no bread bowl.

This soup reminds me of my Auntie.  I got the recipe from her!

Happy Thursday friends...two more days until Spring Break!  Whooo Hoo!

This is why I blog

I get this a lot,

"Why do you blog and how do you have the time for it?"

First of all I think we all make time for the things that are important to us.  That is how I have time.

I post our life on our family blog so I can remember every moment.

I don't want to forget anything.

Life happens so fast.

Soon I will have an eight year old and a five year old.

It seems like they were just born.

Both of my babies will be in grade school.

I don't keep a paper scrapbook, so this blog is our family scrapbook.

We can all look back on all our memories and smile, laugh or cry.

I may not always be as transparent as I am right now, but I know the kids will love this blog one day in the future.  I love it now!

It is our memory bank and our cookbook and I will continue to fill it full of memories and recipes!

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St. Patrick's Day Weekend

St. Patty's Day is a fun holiday because it's a great excuse to drink green beer with friends! We went out on the town Saturday night and I laughed so hard the whole night. We have some funny friends here in Ohio. Gary is one of the funniest guys I know and the other guys are just as funny, so you can just imagine the belly laughs. It was awesome to laugh and act silly, especially after a tough week of Gary traveling.




A little word of warning though...

Don't leave your iPhone laying on the table unattended. Your friends just might update your Facebook status with random crazy-ness. It was too funny to delete. Haha!





Gary is quite certain I've done an Irish Car Bomb shot in the past. Honestly I don't think I have, but I did Saturday. Wow! It was good, but bad. It is Guiness beer with a floater of Jamison's Irish whiskey and Bailey's Irish cream. You must drink it fast or the hole drink turns into a mess. Pssshhhh and yuck! It was such a fun night!





We had a green appetizer of fried pickles. Whoever thought to fry a pickle? I'd kiss them right on the mouth if I met them. Fried pickles are a favorite of mine! I'd never had a fried spear until I moved here. Usually we eat fried hamburger sliced pickles, but hey, a pickle is a pickle and a fried pickle is even better!

If you follow Just Shy of a Y on Facebook you've already seen our breakfast from this morning, so sorry for the duplicate. And if you don't follow on FB go do it. I'm digging FB right now. I go through phases where I like Twitter or Instagram more, but I've loved following some of my favorite blogs in my Facebook feed! Ok...enough of that on to the picture.





The kids woke up searching the house for a Leprechaun. It was fun to see them setting up a shoebox to catch said Leprechaun. Hayden's school did a great job of getting him all excited about St. Patty's Day. The kids loved our green eggs, green pancakes and green chocolate milk. We had bacon too of course, and that was basically the end of our food making for the day. We ended up skipping lunch and eating giant cheeseburgers for dinner.

We were quite lazy most of the day and it felt great. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna sound like a nerd, but I'm addicted to Candy Crush. I'm stuck on level 20 something. It's killing me. See. I told you I sound nerdy, but I love the game. Every once in awhile I find a fun game on my phone and it sucks me in. Candy Crush is fun, you need to play. You're welcome!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

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Heaven for a little man!

The smile on Hayden's face says it all. He loves visiting Gary at the motorcycle dealership. Hayden decided he wants one of each vehicle in the place!


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This n that on Thursday

Gary is back from his week long trip! Yay! The kids woke up last night when he got home. They were so happy to see him.

My laptop battery was delivered and the stinking thing still won't charge. Grrrr! I'm thinking the cord must be the problem, so I guess I'll order one. I discovered chew marks on part of the cord. I wonder who might have done the chewing?




Hayden dropped his 'iPod touch' this morning and shattered the screen. He was so upset. It made me so sad to see him so upset. Poor guy. The phone is so old. I think it was my first iPhone and it's old and so slow. It doesn't have phone service, but he uses it here at home with Wi-fi. It seems we are having some technological difficulties lately.






Have you had an iPhone screen replaced? It is expensive? I hate to put money into an old phone ya know?!

Layla went on a field trip to the college yesterday. She got to hold petrified dinosaur poop. I bet you are jealous! She had an awesome time with her classmates. I'm happy she is making some fun school memories. Tonight she has her second dance class. She woke up so excited about it!

I'm making cream cheese chicken in the slow cooker tonight since we have a busy night. I'm already thinking about dinner and can't wait to eat it!

I have another chicken recipe I recently made in the slow-cooker. I will share it soon, because I loved it. I need the pictures from my laptop!!

Happy Thursday from cold Ohio!

Aheemm....mother nature...you need to get your act together. It is March and I need sun!

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Breakfast, lunch and dogs

I took this picture this morning of the kiddos eating a lazy breakfast on the couch. I love their sleepy morning faces. I've been sharing pictures with Gary every day because he's been in Florida working. We are ALL very ready for him to come home!




I had a solo lunch at Panera today. I love their french onion soup. Heck, I like all french onion soups and I think I'll add that to our meal plan for next week. I usually make it in the slow cooker and the weather is still cold enough for soup! Mannnnn it was nice to be alone today with no kids. I usually like to be surrounded by people, but today I was thankful for my alone time.




Today marks 1 year since Harley went to heaven. I can't believe it's been a year already. We miss our sweet Harley. Oh how she would hate the cold here in Ohio!


I'm hoping to get some good pictures of Daisy and Lily together. Lily is about to blow past Daisy's size. She is growing so fast and is such a stinker. Two dogs and two kids is a lot of work for this momma. Single moms that do it 24/7 all the time are rock stars! I'm ready for reinforcements.


I really miss editing pictures and writing my blog posts from my laptop. The battery died and after looking locally with no luck I was forced to order one from amazon. Hopefully it will be delivered tomorrow along with my husband!


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