Just stuff.

The next several pictures are from Feb. 17th.
After seeing the clever way Shannon decorated her family's dinner table on Valentine's Day, I knew I had all I needed to create something similar.

 Sure the 17th was no longer V-Day.  But it was LOVE week.  So I wrote happy Love week in the middle of several sheets of butcher paper, scattered a few sheets of stickers around and some markers and smarties and called the girls down from quiet time. 

 They loved it and thought our table looked sooooo "fancy".
It kept them nice and busy  (without tears or fights!) while I finished up dinner.

 We had black bean soup that I made in the crockpot.
We thought it was really good.  Very tasty (and meatless).
I got the recipe from pinterest.  You can find it here.
It did have a bit of a kick so next time I might not add so many of the spices, but we still loved it.

 We topped it with avocado and a little bit of plain greek yogurt in place of sour cream.    Oh, and I made popover muffins with berry sauce.  See the sauce in the mason jar on the table there?

 The berry sauce was soooo sweet and so delicious.  Very simple to make too.  In a small saucepan I put about 3/4 c of frozen mixed berries, 1/4 c. water, and 2 T organic real maple syrup (you could also use agave).  Cook on low heat til berries are warm.  Then remove from heat, and here's where the fun part comes in...

 Pour into beaker and blend with hand immersion blender. 
You gotta get one of these things, they are so fun! I've been "immersion blending" everything. 

My mini whole wheat popovers didn't exactly "pop-over" very well.  I think it's because I used soy milk instead of cow's milk.  Ah well, they still tasted good.  Recipe for those here.

I don't know if it was the element of fun at the dinner table with the markers and stickers or what, but that meal was the longest that the girls have ever lingered at the table eating and talking with us after dinner.  I will have to do that more often.  Although, the next morning Claire snuck downstairs and decided to color orange and black marker on the dining chair seat cushions and the carpet.  Lovely.  Good thing crayola wasn't kidding when they labeled their markers as "washable".  Thanks for that crayola.

 Last week the girls got to spend some Valentine money they got from their Grandma Hass.  Claire refused to leave the store without this fairy purse filled with glitter nail polish and lip gloss, so that was what she picked out.

 Hannah picked out a hello kitty bubble toy.

 Claire is sippin a smoothie that I whipped up with my handy dandy immersion blender! ;) 

We sure have had lovely weather lately.
I'm starting to get spring fever in a bad way.
I want a tan.  And I want to wear my new shorts. 
I fell asleep outside on our wicker loveseat in the backyard with the sun shining on me while the girls were playing this afternoon.
I was sort of like a zombie for most of today because I was up coughing until 3am.  I took Nyquil to finally fall asleep, but you know how that is trying to snap out of that at 6am.  Not fun.  At all.

Happy almost weekend.
Anybody have any fun plans?
I've got a girls night out planned.
Can I get a woot woot.
See ya round friends.