Glorious, Sunny, Warm, Spring!

All those adjectives are exactly what I am feeling about the great outdoors!  This has been the most perfect Spring I can remember in a long time.  I keep waiting for the bomb to drop (in the form of frozen white stuff).  Maybe it won't happen....

Although today is a little overcast, rainy and cooler (67*F), we have spent the past 5 days or so basking in 80 degree sunshine.  The earth is warming up and beginning to show signs of life again. Even the neighborhood is becoming more lively.  People are out walking their dogs, riding their bikes, poking around in the dirt, etc...  It's like hibernation is over for everyone and everything.  I love it!  

My weeping cherry tree is full of beautiful white blossoms.

I got motivated to take down the Valentine wreath and put up a new spring/summer one I made (thanks, Pinterest for the idea).

The swings are in "full swing" finally.  The kids have also been loving this weather.  

Look!  My children can fly!

We even got to our local park a couple of times.

Spring is also a time for new beginnings.  My kids have been begging for a pet of ANY kind for a long time now.  I have felt like an incredibly mean mom by not giving in to them.  Pets are a lot of responsibility, though.  Sometimes the thought of adding one more living thing to my list of responsibilities was just too daunting.  I'm sure many of you can relate.
One day while visiting Granny at the nursing home, though, I got an epiphany.  There is a very large, pretty atrium in that building where people can sit and visit.  There are two birdcages there with a couple of cockatiels and another small bird.  It came to me that day that I could get a bird for my kids.  I had one growing up and we loved him.  Small birds are relatively easy to care for, and can be quite entertaining.  
So....a few days later, we brought Pepe home to join our family.

Pepe is a budgie, also called a parakeet.  We wanted a male because we've heard they are more likely to talk than females.  By the way, males have a blue "nose" (that area just above the beak), and a female's is more tan in color.
He has fit right in.  The kids love him, and so do we.  He is still VERY quiet, but little by little each day he's chirping a bit more.  He is quite young, not much more than a year old.  We're hoping we can teach him to say a few words.  Today for the first time, he really interacted with me and chirped quite a bit.  :-)

March is a birthday month for our family.  Lauren and Nelly share the same day, and mine is a few days later.  Since I do one big birthday party in the summer for all the kids together, we usually just do a little family celebration during their actual birthday month.  Mom made a cute ice cream cake and we celebrated at their house this time.

The birthday girls relaxed with Grandpa while waiting for dinner.

My sweet hubby and kids got this pretty Kalanchoe plant for me for my birthday.  

If walls could talk, this one would probably be mourning the fact that he's so boring.  I am slowly collecting some stuff to put up here.  It involves...

...this humungous cardboard "S" (which I plan to cover in moss)...

...and these shelves, which I made thanks to these instructions.

I want to use the shelves to display our family pictures...which we still haven't had taken....  Something tells me this is going to be a project that won't be finished for a little while.


Maybe many of you are familiar with March being Reading Month.  To celebrate, the school had the kids pick their favorite book character and then dress up like them today.  This was Owen's pick.  

Love that little sideways grin.

Lauren was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.  I don't think that's really her favorite book character, but she desperately wanted to wear her ruby red high-heeled slippers shoes before they are officially too small to walk in.  

Emily didn't dress up today, but yesterday her class had a performance called "An Evening in the Colonies".  She had to dress as a concerned loyalist for Thomas Hutchinson.  

It was a musical performance, and I always love these.  :-)

I have been in a cooking funk lately.  It's getting a little better, but since I haven't taken any photos of anything I've made lately, I thought instead I'd share with you one of my favorite store-bought marinades.  If you haven't tried Dale's Seasoning, you are really missing out.  The original is high in sodium, but they make a low-sodium version which I've heard is just as good.  I get it at our local grocery store.

It is awesome used on most any kind of meat, but our favorite is beef and poultry (you can turn a cheap sirloin steak into a WONDERFUL steak dinner with this stuff).  I've never tried it on fish, but I think it would be wonderful that way, too.  This is what I did with it today...

Pour it over a dish of raw chicken (these are thighs)

I used almost the whole bottle (about 3/4).  Too much can result in an overly salty meat. Be sure to refrigerate any leftover bottled marinade to use another time. 

Then I diluted it by pouring water in the container until the chicken began to float.  Then just cover it and stick it in the fridge for several hours or overnight (you can flip the meat if you want...I didn't today).  Drain marinade and cook meat as usual.  Tonight, we are going to dredge the thighs in seasoned flour and fry these babies for supper.

Just for fun I'm adding a recipe (and photos) I found today on Plain Chicken.  It is a pizza with a gluten free crust.  Looks interesting, and given the fact that I have had good results using other recipes from this site, I thought I'd give it a try sometime.  Maybe you'd like to try it, too.  Let me know if you like it!   

Have a good weekend everyone!

Where's The Crust Pizza

Crust
1 (8 oz) package of full fat cream cheese, room temperature
2 eggs
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Topping
1/2 cup pizza sauce
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
toppings - pepperoni, ham, sausage, mushrooms, peppers
Garlic powder


Preheat oven to 350.

Lightly spay a 9×13 baking dish with cooking spray. With a handheld mixer, mix cream cheese, eggs, pepper, garlic powder and parmesan cheese until combined. Spread into baking dish. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown. Allow crust to cool for 10 minutes.

Spread pizza sauce on crust. Top with cheese and toppings. Sprinkle pizza with garlic powder. Bake 8-10 minutes, until cheese is melted.