You Are My Sunshine

You Are My Sunshine is my sidekick and my special song. After spending her last two birthdays with us, this year we had to wait a week to celebrate. She has just turned six...and when you are six you get to bake your own birthday cake :)  She got a kick out "reading" the recipe on the box (thanks to the pictures of the ingredients).  She did all the measuring and mixing. The decorating was a collaborative effort among the four of us.

Our sidekick and her bonus brother were with us the entire weekend. When we have her, I can't help but try to pack in everything we can.  Awhile back, I made a king-sized quilt from 3 inch squares. I had a stack of squares leftover. I decided to give them to her to make her own quilt. This weekend she laid it out.  When I make quilts like this the pattern is supposed to be random. My husband always teases me when I go back and move squares so the same fabrics aren't too close together - making it a little less random :)  I really had to sit on my hands and allow her to do her own thing. Hey! Can't you see you have three blue denims in a row???  When she was finished, we carefully picked up and labeled each row to be sewn at a later date.

This is the quilt I made. It is gigantic. I am sure you can find some "mistakes." For example, right in the middle of the edge of the foot of the bad, I now see two red squares side by side and a few squares down two dark blues side by side. I think I might have gotten a row flipped when I was sewing to end up with two mistakes so close together. 

It rained quite a bit this weekend. Therefore, it was muddy at the farm and we didn't take Millie with us. When we got home, we all got a pretty snarky sniff-down from Millie. My sidekick decided she needed a disguise so Millie wouldn't know she went to the farm. Who would have thought you would need to go into the witness protection program for such a minor crime?

I might have won a game or two of Yeti in the Spaghetti. If you haven't played - the goal is to pull out the spaghetti noodles without making Yeti fall in the bowl.

Sunday we celebrated the return of football with a couple snacks (and some not pictured pizza.)

It was our first time trying Buffalo Cauliflower. (Full disclosure - I couldn't find the exact recipe I used, but this one is essentially the same.)  I was a little nervous about making it too hot for the kids - it had a good kick, but next time I will use more sauce. I was a pleasantly surprised how much the kids loved it. They gobbled it up. I will definitely make it again, but I will need to tweak it for my husband. I thought it had a bit of a flour taste from the batter - perhaps more sauce will help that too.

Unfortunately, all weekends (and visits) must end. I was wiped out and didn't get up early enough to walk on Monday. However, I am happy to say I was at the gym this morning before the crack of dawn.

I decided to go swimming again. I was a bit bummed when I arrived to see that I was FAR from alone in the pool. There were about 6 people already there walking and someone else swimming in the lap lane. I don't mean to disparage the walkers at all (I am one of them) and maybe they are doing their best. I did my best to work around everyone.However, they were much slower and some were walking two abreast chatting. Hopefully, I didn't annoy them too much by dodging around them. I couldn't swim around them, so I was really trying to walk as fast as possible. At times I felt like the person weaving in and out of traffic. After awhile the lap lane opened up and I asked a lady using a kick board if she wanted it (she was there before me). She didn't. It was so nice to be able to freely swim a few laps.  For some reason, I was having trouble getting my swimming grove on. When someone else came in (who looked like a more accomplished swimmer) I let him have the lap lane and moved back into the  fray. Some laps I was able to get ahead of the walkers and at least swim half the length of the pool before walking again. At one point, an older guy who was basically floating along on a noodle, pulled out a rope to create another lap lane. I naively thought he was doing it for me, but instead he hopped in that lane and continued his meandering. I admit in my mind I was not so supportive of him doing his own thing. I hope I didn't annoy people - I was doing my best to get in a good workout without getting in anyone else's way. I guess I am going to have to get there earlier and stake my claim.

This is a picture of the renovation work I mentioned last week. They made this slate wall and put down a vinyl floor covering on the pool deck.  I think the wall looks great, but am not a huge fan of the blue pool deck. Incidentally, today I am wearing a dress that same color of blue.

For reference, this is the old wood wall on the left and the concrete deck. The painted stripe is still the same. And what a lovely empty pool....

I managed to log 45 minutes (which translates to 3 miles for our Hogwarts challenge). When I got home I made my lunch and had a good breakfast. Tonight I am making turkey burgers. I give myself a pat on the back for getting some healthy foods together for the day :)  

This post seems uncharacteristically short, so let me throw in a couple random pictures from the weekend.

I am not sure how I feel about this frosting I saw at Walmart. The boxes contain pre-filled pastry bags of icing. Of course, I have all kinds of cake decorating tips and bags so I definitely wouldn't buy it. I suppose it works for the occasional baker.

A local news station visits area high schools during football season for early morning pep rallies. My niece's high school was featured this week. I am secretly (or not so secretly) in love with the mascot. 

Hope your week is off to a fantastic start!