Pizza

So we all know im a foodie right? Well, a couple of weeks ago I decided to recreate california pizza kitchens pear gorganzola pizza for Heather, Amy, Keith and the kids. Honestly Yum! It was perfection from the very first try!  I ran across this picture this morning and my stomach rumbled for another. Looks like I'll be making pizza again this weekend.

Pear gorganzola pizza with greens on top :)

P.S. Yuliya only ate the greens.

pan roasted tomatoes with our pizzas

Oh and this is a lovely meal that Keith whips up when I am desperately craving Huevos Rancheros....doesn't it look amazing? It's finished off with an over easy egg on top of corn tortillas ...yum!

Guess who liked dragon fruit! It was a total hit with my curious George's. They ate every last piece then rooted for more.

Dragon fruit

Today I tried Dragon Fruit, pretty yummy and bright pink. I was impressed, they taste like kiwi, but I'm not allergic. So... today I bought a dragon fruit for my lovely little lady, as her very favorite color is pink. Tomorrow morning we will feast on these for breakfast. Yum! Will try to document the reaction later :)

Very excited to sleep in tomorrow. This morning waking Yuliya up was no picnic, her top complaint was her eyes were too sleepy to open.

Also Carrot lotion on your face doesnt smell nearly as great as pomegranite lotion.

Oh say can you snake...

This is my best friend heather. We do a lot together, some people say too much...but yesterday, we fixed my sink!

This weekend my kitchen sink wasnt functioning well, anytime I would turn on the water it would take minutes to drain 30 seconds worth of water. The disposal only made it come out the other side of the sink and overflow under neath. So after getting some advice from Chris, Heather and I decided to try snaking it out ourselves. Now this requires taking the sink trap off (the U shape of the pipe) and snaking it out.

The first thing we did? Open the cabinet, start clearing it out to work and......promptly jump up and start screaming and jumping around the house! There was a big fat stinkin roach under the sink, blegh! I sure am glad it's finally raining in Houston again, but I don't miss roaches appearing because of it. Heather, being the brave soul that she is, was able to catch him in a cup and throw it outside....over the fence.

Now down to business. After much muscle work and the help of a wrench we were able to open the trap and check out what was causing all the trouble... a straw from one Cash Sawyer's cup and a flower stem. Then we snaked the rest of the pipe with our homemade snake, all clear! Plumber's tape, put her all back together,oh...theres a leak...lets repeat this step..... and viola! Fixed sink :) no leaks, no clogs, no trouble. Brought to you buy H & M, but mainly H.

Super heroes? Close enough.

P.S. Yuliya said we scared her when we were screaming. Sorry little lady

Karoke

Nothing totally blogworthy I just liked the pictures we took, but we did have fun. One of Tara's friends rented out a room for her birthday and ordered two massive pizza's, really, I've never seen a pizza so big. Over all we had a good time, we all needed a night out.

 Tara really put her heart into her singing.

We did not plan wearing black to white from oldest to youngest. ha!

Amy said I didn't have my eyes open wide enough....

And then she took this  picture! muahahahaha

On a different note:

I was able to wait for 10 minutes, yes, I said 10 minutes for 15 High Schoolers to get on bus 402 this morning because the bus driver for bus 402 felt that whatever speech she was giving each teenager at 6:35am before they were allowed to get on her bus was

A. Important enough to pull out her stop signs for.

B. Important enough to create a traffic jam where there previously had been no issue.

I have no doubt all of those kids were late to school today, as I was to work. I understand that dealing with 40 plus teenagers daily probably isnt a picnic, but a little consideration goes a long way.

Can we do it?

Yes we can! Here is our adventure from downgrading from a king sized pillowtop mattress to a queen sized wool stuffed futon mattress on a raised platform with storage underneath :)

First we figured out how we wanted the bed to look, platform it was, wanted a ledge with under the bed space for storing. We went to home depot and made a bed in the lumber section, yes, set the whole thing up. I regret not bringing my camera for this. Then we went to Jo'Anns and bought an awesome vintage yellow fabric to go with the paisely blue sheets

 

Assembled the platform in the garage

Moved mattresses to the playroom until the recylcers could come pick it up. This step I did all on my own....with cash offering to help every step of the way. It is way more difficult than one would assume, I was huffing and puffing afterwards for sure. And as soon as I was done? Fed Ex knocked on the door with the new mattress!

Duct tape the edges so the raw wood doesnt tear into the padding and fabric. Padding and fabric of course so you dont kill your shins and the much wanted platform part of it. Staple the batting.....notice two staple guns? Yes the longest process of making this bed was first trying to find the proper staples for the old staple gun, then after a few attempts, giving up and buying a new one, which actually turned out to be better suited for the project :)

We ran out of yellow here, and so did Jo'anns so we improvised with a grayish color.

Last steps, putting the legs on before we move it in place. Isn't it cute how marines sew their names on their rears? If you can find them in all that camo, you instantly know their names....a little paradoxical?  Just kidding Keith. :)

Soldier was a great cheerleader

The finished product, I realize I forgot to photograph most of the platform....I will be sure to post more at a later date.  We were pretty excited that it was finished, laid on it for a moment, then headed out to the farmer's market before they closed. Goat Cheese and local honey!  We may work on it a little more in the future since we differ a little on the raw wood look, but for now, my room smells like Papa's old boat shop, and that's comforting. :)

Fun with cousins

Recent trips to the zoo with Miss Alyssa and Aunt Amy and to the Childrens Museum with Aunt Tara, Madison, Jackson and Kaitlyn. Unfortunately this was the weekend that Amy and Alyssa had a stomach bug, so while we had fun at the zoo, Alyssa was back to being sick at night. She made a full recovery though, and is chattier than ever! Madison is starting to become a preteen and outgrow all of the "kid" stuff. But I think she still had fun with us :)

All three kids in the double stroller. We live on the edge.

When this chimp came and sat down Cash moved far away but Yuliya stayed to bond. Good Chimps eat their brocolli and greens. This is also where Amy quietly did her monkey impression seen here

Does this count as a picture of all of them?

All of the Lehrs snowboarding on a virtual mountain

Kaitlyn the daredevil, she happened to be the only one wearing appropriate shoes and good thing too, she really wanted to climb that wall. Pretty good for a three year old!

Artistic Madison did cat faces on Kaitlyn and herself.

Tara did a hilarious dog face on Jackson.

And they all put on a wonderful puppet show :)

The End.

Atrium Make over

The weather this weekend was fantastic, I don't think it ever got over 84. We left the windows and doors open all weekend and took advantage of houston garden center's 70% off sale of all plants! Some of them were a little crunchy looking or had a healthy dose of aphids, but I figure with enough love, and help from the lady bugs I released they will be happy in no time. :) It was such a great weekend to work outside, have I mentioned that I love fall?

This year the great azalea here and here that has been there my whole life died, the drought took it along with 6.5 million trees across Texas. I am glad this is one of my only major fatalities yet. Keith and I replaced it with two new ones, a Wax Mallow and a couple of Burbine.

Wax mallow close to the azaleas, when I woke up this morning there were about 30 ladybugs sleeping under this one's leaves tucked in like babies, very cute

Angelonia, Mexican heather

Hello Angelonia

Ah! Plants! The Oleanders with Bulbine planted between them

He was attempting to release them one at a time at first :P

Welcome home, drink up!

 

A lady bug chowing down on an aphid that was attacking the Oleanders 

The above is what the atrium looked like last winter 12/4/2010 when I initially decided to clean it up a little. Unfortunately I didn't think to take pictures until I was 1/3 of the way done, so just imagine all three sections around the T of bricks completley overgrown with wild ferns, making the atrium uninhabitable.

Here is what it looked like after the clearing of the overgrowth

Off to the right is what it looked like after moving all of the bricks to attempt to form a patio.
The bricks used were bought 10 years ago and I was unable to find any that matched exactly, so we had to get creative if we really wanted a patio.

The below series is what it looks like as of today....we actually added 5 more plants since taking these pictures.

at night

We planted Hawaiian Ti, a couple of types of Croton, a couple types of fern, Echeveria, Angelonia, Wax Mallow, Bulbine, Lavender, Rosemary and Blue Daze.

Hawaiian Ti (now has croton grass near it)

 

Bulbine, Wax Mallow, Angelonia

Asparagus Fern, Blue Daze and a Croton

Alex the Cat loves the new atrium, as does Soldier, he has been joining us for breakfast out there when we let him. It's so great to feel the air and see the sky while you eat your meals:)

P.S. I finally found the supplies I need to make Yuliya's halloween costume. We will start on it tonight!

Hello Fall

This week brought us massive storm clouds, lightening streaming across the sky almost blinding me and Tara on the way to art class, wonderfully lucious raindrops, and cool temperatures. We moved from triple digit weather to a high of 85, thank goodness. On thursday I was at the garden center when the sky was turning darker, and darker, and darker, almost black at 4:30 in the afternoon. But rain, I am not afraid, I missed it this summer, so I kept on strolling through the garden center feeling each ice cold drop of water jump on my skin and plummet to the ground and plants surrounding me.

I love rain.

I love fall.

Big fat orange pumpkins and gords! I love pumpkins as decorations, as plants in my garden, in my food, and in my drinks, if you can think of any others, I probably would love them that way too! They are just so jolly, a beautiful way to make this girl grin.

I love spring as well, but fall gives off such romantic colors, don't you think?