Thanks Donna Starkey!

Thanks for the bracelet Donna! I LOVE it! It was so sweet of you to make it for me (and one for Lara too!). I really think you should sell them! I buy them for me and for Katie's school teacher and for me!!

Mom's Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Here's the recipe for the fabulous zucchini cake pictured below!

3/4 c. butter
3 eggs
1/2 c. milk
2 c. shredded zucchini
1/2 c. cocoa
1 1/2tsp baking soda
1 Tbsp cinnamon
2 c. sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1 c. walnuts (optional)
2 1/2 c. flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt(optional)
chocolate chips(optional)

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, vanilla, milk, zucchini. Sift flour, cinnamon, salt, baking powder and baking soda, cocoa...add to first mixture. Grease and flour a bundt or angel cake pan. Bake at 350 for 1 hr 15 min(the original recipe says 45 min, but mine is never done until half and hour later. go figure). I also add this glaze recipe:

1/2 c. powdered sugar
2-3 tsp milk
1/4 tsp vanilla
Blend until smooth. Spoon over hot cake.

Soccer Season

Soccer season has officially started here in SC. Katie is playing this year (Taylor won't be old enough until next spring). Craig is coaching again this year. So far so great. They had a skills day on Saturday (those are the sunny pictures) and then our first practice was on Monday. The first 10 minutes were dry, but they were rained on the rest of the time. They still had a great time though!

Great Zucchini mommo!

Mommo sent us home from Ohio with some huge zucchinis from her garden a couple weeks ago. When we got home I made chocolate zucchini cake (with chocolate chips, of course) and it was soooo good! With all the zucchini in it, it's like eating salad, right??? Than I cut up the other one and steamed it! It was so good served with fish and saffron rice. Yum Yum yummmy yum!

More Baby Pix

We got to get another ultrasound on Tuesday so they could get the pictures of the heart that they couldn't get last time (she was spine up last time). This time she was all over the place. We did finally nail down that profile picture. Pretty cute, in my biased opinion! You can tell by the other picture that she was not loving the ultrasound. She kept squirming around and throwing her head back. That picture reminded me of Zeb's crying x-ray pic. She was sitting breech this time, which explains all the kicks to my bladder and other vital organs. Then she hid behind my diaphram for a little while. Sure is fun to share body space with her! I can't believe that I have all the way until Christmas. It seems like forever away, I think I'll pop! (hopefully I'll just go a little early). My favorite baby name right now is Alice May.

First day of First Grade!

Katie started her first day of First Grade today! Her new teacher is named Mrs. Bliss. She was so excited to go, she even got a new hello kitty lunch box (and made sure to add the smile).

Goodbye Summer vacation (the weather won't change)

Friday morning I blew off the gym and we went to the zoo in honor of the last day of summer vacation. The forecast promised a high of 92, well it got ALOT hotter. Why is it always soooooo hot when we go to the zoo? Anyhow, they put in a new park right outside the zoo and we've been waiting for them to finish it so we can play there. They were finished. Pretty cool park, huh? They even put up a sun shield (thank heaven). We had fun seeing the lions (feeding the lions) and playing at the park outside the zoo and the park inside the zoo. On the way home I even got us an ice cream cone (well, just me, they don't like cones, they got sundaes). Monday Katie will meet her new teacher and Tuesday school starts. We got great news!! Taylor got in to our #1 preschool so he'll start school the beginning of Sept. He's so excited! (almost as excited as me!!)

The Ohio

We went up to Ohio this past weekend through this past Wednesday to visit Craig's family and also to intercept the Great Oswald Migration. It was really fun. The weather was fantastically cool for this time of year and I think some of it followed us back because it's been under 90 for 2 days now down here(I think that's a new record). We got in from our drive on Saturday night and enjoyed Cameron's Birthday party on Sunday and a visit from the famous "Yar-Dog". Thanks for the plane Lara, Taylor slept with it last night and even took it to the library today (I wouldn't let him take it to the gym). Craig and his brother's had a "Corn hole" play off in honor of the Summer Olympics. It was really fun to see them all hanging out together. Monday we hung around Ashland and went to the park and downtown and to the A&W drive through (ashland-wooster) with Craig's parents. I got some fantastic fried pickles! YUMMY!
We drove up to Toledo on Tuesday and hung out with Leisy, Laney, "Big" Taylor, Annie, Phil(the "Greatest Uncle"), Metta and Melon-head (also Zeb and Hank, but I think we bored them because they slept through part of our visit). We went to Toledo's amazing art museum that houses some orginal Van Gogh's and other nice pieces and a family center where kids can paint and play, all for a very nice price (FREE). Then we went to the "Toledo Beach" or Maumee State Park. It was really fun having a picnic there and swimming. It was so fun to have a mini-family reunion up there. I'm hoping to see more of them now that they are on our side of the continent.
The 10 hr drive home was pretty fun too. Katie refused to have breakfast so she had to urp about an hour into it, but then she listened to reason and had some pretzels and thankfully, that was the end of the urping. You can tell by the pictures that by the end we were all pretty much done with the car. Thanks everybody for having us!! What a fantastic way to say adieu to the summer! School starts this Tuesday.

Here's some dumpster pix

Here are some pix of the place where we found our couch! Looks really dumpy, huh? I guess it's a decorator's secret. They really do have great furniture INSIDE the buildings. I'm gonna keep an eye out for chairs and they said they could make an ottoman for us (we'll see what that would cost, but it could be okay). We may get our room finished off yet!

It's a Girl!!

Any healthy news is good news and we got good news that we're having a girl!! Katie immediately announced "She's mine Taylor!" so I guess we're all happy about it! She's measuring 12 oz already so that's good. I get to go back in 2 wks to take another peek at her heart, just because she was spine up and that made it difficult to make all the measurements they need. We had to wait over an hour to get in to our appt. and the kids were nutty by the time we got in so it'll be nice to have another ultrasound without the distraction. Here's our current name list: Caroline, Alice, Lucy, Mia, Isabel, Sophia, Hailey, Paige, Molly, Camden, Cortlynn and Jill. I currently like the last 3 best. I think Cortlynn Jill Starkey is a good name. We'll see. I don't think Craig is convinced. Katie wanted to name her "Kate", but we thought that might be confusing, then she decided that she liked "Jessica", but she does like Cortlynn. We'll see, we still have lots of time, and we're still accepting suggestions, yes Aunt Annie, I know, Ingaborg is lovely.

Lookie what we found in the Dumpster!

Okay so we didn't actually find it in the dumpster, just the store here in town called "End up Furniture" that LOOKS like a dumpster. I'll try to get a pic to attach tomorrow. We're so excited for our new addition.