Mid-Summer Madness

Hey, I'm not doing too bad here. Actually posting the July photos in July! Yeehaw!

Some of you know my niece, Hannah. She recently graduated from 8th grade, and her parents held a small congratulatory picnic in her honor. I do have more photos from that day, but unfortunately a good many of them were blurry. I hate it when that happens. Here's a decent one of Hannah and her cake, though.

We are simplifying things around here. At least that was the goal I had in mind when I decided we would celebrate all four kids' birthdays at once instead of doing 4 separate parties during the year. Seems like that would make sense, right? Well, it does, sort of. But a party is a party...and the day was crazy hot, and not as organized as I envisioned it would be (I hardly got a chance to take any photos, and I still need to contact the gift givers so we can get the gifts straight for thank-you notes). *sigh* We really did enjoy everyone's company that made the effort to come, though, and I think the kids all had a fun time. Best of all, I don't have to repeat this madness for 12 months! :-)

Theme was Carnival - so these were the cupcakes

The pool was filled to the gills in 90 degree heat!

My little garden is yielding a little zucchini! I'm so excited about being able to watch these grow and actually pick something I can eat. I know it sounds a little silly coming from a grown woman, but you have to remember this is my first garden and I'm giddy as a 5 year old. In fact, I think there's a really good backyard dance for "I just picked my first zucchini"..... :-)

These are the first 4 from my plants. Aren't they beautiful! They made delicious zucchini bread, which is also the recipe for today at the end of this post.
I finally completed an on-going project I was working on. I say on-going, but really it was only on-going for about the first 2 days, and then it was completely stagnant for about 3 weeks before I got the gumption to finish it. I'm really not sure why it took me so long since it wasn't a hard project at all, and not even really all that time-consuming. I think I just get side-tracked a little too easily.

This was a door that originally belonged on a wardrobe closet set that can be purchased at IKEA. I bought it in IKEA's scratch and dent section. The rest of the closet wasn't there, but when I saw this with an $8 price tag, I knew I could find some use for it.
So, with a little spray paint (yellow) a few coats of magnetic paint and chalkboard paint, and some cute little bird hooks, I have a new addition to my kitchen! I love it! Now I'm getting more motivation to get started on some of the other long past-due projects on my list.
MMMMM.....this zucchini bread made the house smell lovely today! Even the kids came running from all corners of the house to sniff the air and seek out the source of such aroma! My kids like this recipe, which I'm happy about because it does have a lot of zucchini in it. It also has quite a bit of sugar in it, but we won't talk about all that. Credit for this recipe goes to our friend Robin who was always so kind to share some with us when we visited her family.

Zucchini Bread

3 eggs

1 c. packed brown sugar

1 c. granulated sugar

1 c. vegetable oil (can use half oil and half applesauce)

2 c. grated zucchini (peeled)

1 tsp. vanilla

3 c. flour

1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 325*. Beat eggs until frothy....stir in sugars, oil, zucchini, and vanilla and mix until combined. Add dry ingredients and mix again on low speed until all is combined. Pour into 2 well-greased 9x5x3 loaf pans. Bake for 1 hour. Cool 10 minutes in pan, then remove to wire rack . Let cool completely before serving or storing.