Punch recipe, Hailey's birthday

I promised recipes, so here's a punch recipe that I made for my daugter's b-day.

*20 oz. frozen strawberry's in syrup, thawed

*3 cups apricot nectar (find in the juice aisle)

*3 cups cold water

*1 cup lemon juice

*6 oz. orange juice concentrate

*1 cup sugar

*1 320z. bottle of ginger ale

*Ice ring (recipe follows)

Prepare the ice ring the night before. Use a blender to puree the strawberries. In punch bowl, combine strawberries, apricot nectar, water, lemon juice, orange juice concentrate, and sugar. Stir it until the sugar's gone. Pour in the ginger ale. Do this slowly! It splashes like hell! Add the ice ring right before serving.

Ice Ring:

You can wing this pretty easily. Get out your bundt pan. (The star one makes a snowflake! Soooo cool!). I'm not going to put exact measures. How much you put in depends on the size of your bundt pan and punch bowl.

Pour in some ginger ale. Most of your mixture will be ginger ale, so fill it ALMOST to how big you want the ice ring. Add around 1/2 cup of lemon juice. Then start your garnishes. I add tons of fruit. Grapes, pineapple chunks, blueberries, strawberries, apricots, whatever. You can also add some mint leaves, but since I don't want mint leaves floating around my drink after the ring melts, I usually don't put it in.

So Hailey's party was pretty fun. I got quite a few compliments from my punch bowl. Plus I made my veggie bars, but no, no recipe will follow. Gravy meatballs, baked beans, spaghetti salad, taco salad, Italian salad, cheese/cracker/summer sausage tray, chips & dip, grandma brought a pistachio tart (sooooooooooo good!).

So my baby's 1. Bitter-sweet for me. Here are some pictures of her special day.

Catch with Will

Lazy morning, busy day.
We are missing church today. Mainly b/c McCrabby pants is sick, and Jr. McCrabby pants insisted on sleeping in my bed. So I'm too tired to force everyone there. So once McCrabby pants wakes up, I promised the boys they can watch a movie we rented last night. 3D!

But today's going to be busy, of course.
1. Bring the piano from the garage to the living room. This means that we need to call Mike an bribe him with beer. (Check-check)(Mike was working. I had to move it. Now I can't move....)
2. Clean the house spotless. Piano repair guy is coming tomorrow (hence getting the piano in) and Hailey's 1st B-day party is Tuesday, and it's fixing to be a doozy!
3. Go to Younkers to buy Hailey's Easter dress. (Check-a-roo)
4. Go to Walmart to buy the boys' suits for Easter. Then shop for Hailey's presents. (Check)
5. Go grocery shopping for Hailey's b-day party.

But tomorrow's going to be the really crazy day. With the piano guy coming, and decorating the house, pre-preparing (does that make sense?) the food, and Will's wrestling practice. It's going to be crazy. Tomorrow I'll give a list of food that I'm serving, and maybe even a few recipes!! Except my veggie bar recipe. So far everyone says I make the best they have had, and I know of a *few* people who would just LOVE to know my recipe!

Mm....almost forgot! Yesterday was bunches of fun. Here's a few pictures for you to enjoy!

Joe and Will playing catch in the backyard-----









Hailey watching me take pictures of the guys-----------

My Sweat Pea

Fun fun Saturday. The boys slept at their grandma's house last night. So me and my cute little girl had some 1-on-1 time that we NEVER get. It was so nice being able to give her my undivided attention.
Some things I learned about Hailey:
1. She only recognises her "cell phone" as being a phone. Pull-along phones apparently don't look like phones anymore =).
2. She loves playing basketball.
3. She calls her daddy "Da-ee" soooo cute!
4. She knows that our dog loves stuffed animals and tries sharing hers with the dog!
5. She dances whenever the singing puppy sings.
6. She loves to feed everyone. I give her a piece of banana, she gives me a piece.

My boys are sooooooo loud and demand so much attention, she tends to just get lost in the comotion. That was one of the best evenings I've had in a while.

Anyways, today we dropped Hailey off with her grandma, and we went to an auction! It's one of the few things me and my husband LOVE doing together. So we definately take advantage of it. It's like a date for us =). A little advertising: Superior Auction, LLC. best auction company I have ever seen. I am literally addicted to following these auctioneers around the area. Not only are they awesome at their jobs, but they are so entertaining to listen to! You can view some of their upcoming auctions at www.superiorauction.net Definately check them out, you won't be dissapointed!!

So we went. Great living estate auction. We came out with some tow chains, cabinet, garden bench, precious moments ornaments (another obsession of mine), wine accessories, and a BEAUTIFUL *Fenton* jewelry box with matching brooch and necklace of a butterflies in their famous glass. Absolutely gorgeous.

And yes, I will get pics of the truck up soon. My husband MADE me sit in the back on lawnchairs drinking beer late at night. Wow.........so if you want to take pictures of the "hicks" and send it to your friends, you can run past our house at night.

I live at Menards

Grrr, "Marie" drives me crazy. Just had to get that off my chest. Anyways....accomplished quite a bit today, for rotting on my comp seat for most of the day.

I feel a bit better than I did yesterday, so when I looked at the weather forcast and realized that today is going to be the warmest day in the next 10 days, I decided to "carpe diem" seize the carp.

So I raked out 2 of the gardens and came out with a heap of leaves. Yep, shoulda done that in the fall. Just one more to rake out, then I can start weeding. Then I started ripping up sod again in the back for the patio. 2 shovels and I got bored. Nuff of that.....I'll finish it when I have more patience.

Then I went to Menards and picked up my storm winow. Installed that. Yay! One thing off my BBQ list done!! (Well, I still have to build the table, but I'm excited anyways). And I also picked up these solar spotlights (only $10 for 2!) so I put them around the lilac bush out front. Found some cool puck lights that you can install on the floor of your deck, but it would set me back $40 for 10, which isn't that bad. But I thought I spent enough for today.

Last night Joe bought my a BHG bistro set for the front porch. Really cute! Now all I need is to build that stupid pergola on the porch for some privacy, lol. In due time.....

Walgreens is a joke

Blech.....so sick......everyone's sick.

But life goes on. I had to bring John to his yearly check-up. He did okay. Cried the entire time about getting a shot (4 actually), but he lucked out and didn't have to get them because he's running a fever, and the shots could make it go even higher. No thankyou. So he didn't get them. Even though he still insisted on getting ice cream afterwards.

Then off to Walgreens to fill his meds/inhaler that his dr ordered. 1 hour later, I finally emerge from that craphole. The stupid blonde bimbo behind the counter put my son's (John) meds under an Adam's account. Yeah.....he wouldn't be too happy when his insurance billed him, lol. So I had to wait some more. Not a good day to be PMSing. That girl was two seconds away from getting her head torn off and shoved up her asshole. I was literally clenching my teeth trying not to tear her a new one.

When I'm sick, PMSing, and generally having a less-than-par day, just stay away. Will's been driving me up the wall. His meds are definately too low of a dose. Need to get that checked soon. But his grandma is taking him overnight tonight. A little breather for me.

But I still have too much to do. I need to start cleaning b/c you seriously can't even see my kitchen floor. I've been too busy/sick to do anything. I guess our good friend is coming over so that Joe can show off his new truck. Not nessasary considering the health of the whole family right now. But what can I do? I think I'm going to call the piano repair guy now and take things into my own hands.