{feelin' hot, hot, hot!}

It's been so hot here that we've barely ventured outside these last few days. We've been doing a lot of this:

Our favorites at the moment are Monopoly Junior and Clue Junior. I'm sooo happy to be past the Candyland/Chutes and Ladders phase with Gerard. Those games bore me to tears. Unfortunately I can't get rid of them yet -- I'm sure Morgan will be more than happy to play them OVER and OVER and OVER again soon enough! In the meantime, she's happy playing with her princess shoes, Care Bears and Little People (and no, that's not a euphemism for midgets). Yesterday she occupied herself by running around the house playing peek-a-boo, chasing Gerard, and just looking cute.

To help stay cool, we've been making our own popsicles this summer and they've been a big hit. The strawberry-banana was definitely our favorite and yesterday I tried blueberry. Not quite as popular, probably because I didn't strain out the blueberry "skins" like I strained out the strawberry seeds. Both kids ate the blueberry popsicles, but they both had issues with the texture. Note to self: strain the blueberry puree next time to avoid THIS (check out the teeth!):

EASY POPSICLE RECIPE:
To a blender, add the following:
*any fruit
*about 6 oz. yogurt (I have been using a container of Yoplait Light, but you could use plain and then add a little honey to sweeten)
*milk
Blend. Strain if necessary. Pour into popsicle molds (or a cup with a stick in it) and freeze.

EDITED: I've started using plain low-fat yogurt instead of the flavored kind. That way I can adjust the sweetness (by adding up to 1T of honey) based on how sweet the fruit it. Our latest popsicles were banana, strawberry and raspberry. They raspberries were pretty tart, so I think I used close to 1T of honey.

{jumping rope?}

Morgan thinks she can jump rope. Shhhh, don't tell her she can't...let's keep her dream alive....(Once again this video is taken with my cell phone, so please excuse the poor quality. One day I'll break out the real video camera.)

{report cards and a recipe}

We got Gerard's report cards the other day and we are very proud of him! (You can click on them to enlarge them.)

And I thought I'd share a recipe for Cajun Chicken Pasta from The American Heart Association's Low-Fat, Low-Cholesterol Cookbook. I made it last night and it was very good. A little too spicy for the kids, but Gerard and I liked it (click to enlarge):

{computer help}

Any computer pros out there? I can't seem to get my new computer (Windows Vista) to recognize my Western Digital external hard drive. Debbie and I googled it and apparently many, many people have had the same problem, but none of their fixes seem to work for me. Any suggestions????

UPDATE: Apparently it's not the computer, it's the EHD. I tried plugging it back in to my old computer and it's not recognizing it either. Ugh.

{tennis}

Look out Roger Federer, here comes Gerard! He loves tennis camp again this year which reaffirms my belief that he chooses the sports he likes based on whether he can carry a big stick (think tennis racket, hockey stick, baseball bat, golf club, NOT soccer ball). Today they were learning proper serving techniques:





And Morgan will always be his biggest fan!

{at the park}

I am LOVING having a laptop!!! The kids are finishing up their lunches so I thought I'd post a quick picture from the park today. We meet up with a bunch of friends on Wednesdays at the park and we usually stay all day and have a picnic, but it was way too hot to stay that long today. So we brought the picnic back home and had our lunches in the comfort of our air-conditioned kitchen. Ahhhhhhh.

(taken with my cell phone)

{a gift for morgan}

Morgan loves the Disney princesses so Grandma Andrea made her a wallhanging for her room. On the back it says "For Morgan, our princess" and Grandma used Morgan's favorite princesses: Sleepin Booty, Snow White, and Cindawella. We haven't hung it up yet, as Morgan would rather walk around with it. Here is the photo play-by-play of Morgan opening her gift:













And Gerard finally agreed to get his hair cut. I thought I took a picture, but apparently I did not. You can kind of see his hair in this one of the kids playing with Gerard's Wedgits:


Goodnight. I am tired and I have a headache and I was supposed to go to bed hours ago, but having a laptop makes it too easy to lay in bed and work on the computer instead of going to sleep! I am officially turning the computer off now. Or in another 5 minutes....