Day in the Life snapshot (or maybe Day on the Porch snapshot)

If you looked at our porch yesterday evening you would have seen this:

This is what I saw (click to enlarge):

Have a great Fun Friday!

PS: Last day to peek at my OnStar review and enter some of the review sweepstakes (they introduced sweepstakes for three of the second-phase reviews, and the link is at the bottom on my review.)

Hot hot hot

It was 95 degrees yesterday – every living thing was wilting in the heat. I thought we should stay inside next to the AC. The girls thought we should play in cold water.

Their idea was better.

The funny thing was that the ducks watched Ro and Ree’s every move and seemed to copy them with splashing and jumping into and out of their tiny pool every time the girls did it.

Funny little critters. All four of ‘em.

Snapshot of the day (*updated)

I haven’t felt much like blogging lately, but I am still taking fun photos and videos of our lives. So maybe for the next month I’ll post at least one quick snapshot a day. A smile of the day, if you will. This pic, taken right before school, makes me smile because Ro is wearing the cutest dang outfit. She picked her beloved Missoni coat from Target, her J-Crew silver bubble skirt (yay outlet store!), and her silver sequin Vans tennis shoes. 

Yeah, fun kid clothes and the outfits they come up with make me smile. (I, by contrast and in case anyone’s wondering, am wearing old gray capri sweats, a green t-shirt, and black drugstore flip flops. Hm, I’m thinking I need to incorporate a little of that sparkle or ask the girls to dress me!)

***Update: When the girls got home, I told them about this post and mentioned that I said they should dress me and they were quite extremely enthusiastic. Ree shouted “Yes!!! You should wear purple and tan. That purple t-shirt that you have. And a shrug! And a skirt!” And Ro said “Yes!!! We should buy you a skirt. And you should wear sparkly princess lipgloss. And makeup! Eye makeup.”

Granola bars win, sugar cookies fail

Tweaked our granola bar recipe and tried again (Ro was in a cooking kind of a mood, Ree was off somewhere reading one of her Rainbow Magic books from the library) and this time it worked! These little babies were great. Here’s the recipe:

Ro’s Successful Granola Bars

1. Preheat oven to 350 and grease an 8” or 9” square pan.

2. Mix all of the ingredients in a large bowl:

• 2 cups instant oats
• 1 cup roughly chopped dried fruit (for these bars we cleaned out the cupboard and used a combo of dried apricots, raisins, and dried blueberries)
• 1 cup roughly chopped unsalted almonds
• 1/2 cup wheat germ (it’s located next to the oatmeal in the cereal aisle)
• 1/2 cup nonfat dry milk powder
• 3/4 cup honey
• 1/2 cup maple syrup (Put this in a little bit at a time, you might not need it all to make everything gloopy. We used it all this time.)
• 4 Tablespoons melted butter
• 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup mini marshmallows

3. Transfer mixture to your greased pan and use a flat spatula to press the mixture down really hard (you’ll see it compress).

4. Bake for 25 minutes until light golden brown on top, then remove from oven and press down hard with your spatula (you’ll see them compress again).

5. Cool completely (probably for a few hours) before cutting into bars. Then wrap the bars in saran wrap store in the fridge.

Yum!

Oh, and about the fail: I got these awesome Chinese character candy molds off the internet and was going to make little sugar cookies with them for the favor bags at the girls’ upcoming party. They looked GREAT before the oven. I was using a recipe called “No-Fail Sugar Cookies” that wasn’t supposed to spread or rise AT ALL when baked. And, of course, they spread during baking and the Chinese characters got all blobby and unrecognizable. Fail! I’m thinking we’ll be using the molds with candy melts to make colored chocolate pops for the favor bags instead...

Guess I’d better get to cleaning up that kitchen. And figuring out what to do with the dozens and dozens of smallish blob-covered sugar cookies. If anyone wants any, come on over!

A big humungo post of some snapshots that never made it to the blog

Alright, this is a totally motley hodge-podge collection of photos. I admit it. Normally I would have posted these right when they occurred in nice, neat SHORT little posts. But ya know what? It just didn’t happen. I haven’t been feeling bloggity lately, but they’re still fun memories I don’t want to forget. So here they all are, in one massive post. Sorry.

1&2: Strong girls (and daddy). 3: Doesn’t everyone bring along a fan for back-to-school shoe shopping?

1-3: Ree and Ro got to be the “Play Ball” girls one night at an SF Giants game. We were worried they’d be shellshocked and not say a word after seeing the crowds, but they pulled it off. Phew. I got a little video too (I blanked out our names over the loudspeaker) 4: A funny pic I snapped of TubaDad laid out with crippling jetlag after an intense six-city international tour.

1: Reading at the table is a frequent sight now. Ro and Ree are just devouring books. They love the Rainbow Magic fairy series this month. 2&3: A trip to Santa Cruz with their good buddy and neighbor. 4: Old pic but funny story. Did I ever tell you that TubaDad accidentally drilled through a HOT water pipe while securing shelving to the walls? The water shot out and covered our entire office, taking out the phone and internet service with it. Oh the mess.

1: Wedding dresses fascinate these two. Every time they see one they scream and run to look closer. 2: Got their own library cards and brand-spanking-new sparkly bookbags. Now they can pick out their own books, check them out without help, and (hopefully) not lose them. I say hopefully because 15 minutes after taking this photo we were cruising through the mall and I looked down to see Ree had no bookbag! We retraced our steps frantically and found it at the Children’s Place. Argh! 3: They pick up rocks, sticks, and flowers everywhere we got. Our pockets and purses are always loaded with detritus.

1: I just thought these outfits were adorable. Ro and Ree thought their new Rapunzel painting thingamagig was adorable. 2: Friday night dinner out – our weekly tradition, which we all love. 3: Hey we actually grew something in our garden!

1: Tweaked the recipe and tried the homemade granola-bars again, and this time they were awesome! I’ll post the new recipe this week. 2: We have had so many gorgeous pink skies on our evening walks lately – partly due to the fact that it has been insanely hot and all the smog is trapped, but they are beautiful. 3: This is the girls’ new fave roasted seaweed snack. I get it at Lion Market and have no idea what it’s called. 4: Taking a daily stroll. 5: The unwelcome visitor we nearly stepped on during one evening stroll. &*%^! Yes, it’s a huge tarantula (are they ever anything but huge?).

1: At Z-Gallery, the girls yelled “Daddy, we found a money tree, now you can stop working.” 2: They say you should lose weight slowly if you do about 10K steps per day, but let me tell you I regularly hit 13K steps and the scale isn’t budging... 3: Got these adorable silk bags at the Dollar Store for Ro and Ree’s upcoming birthday party favors. 4: Watching some backyard fireworks from the safety of the playstructure. 5: Missoni coat from Target!

1: This one is for Johnny -- I pour soy sauce on my rice every time.  Yep it’s true. Mmmmm. 2: The new cooktop that our home warranty company bought us after the old one gave up the ghost. It feels absolutely decadent to have five burners after making do with two for so long! 3: Our old fridge that we didn’t like was also shutting down one part at a time, and not covered by warranty, so we finally caved and bought a new one (Kenmore Elite, French doors on top). Like it so far. 4: The girls had a gold-star dental check-up. The dentist didn’t believe they were brushing themselves their teeth looked so good. I told him we have a tooth-brush timer and it is awesome.

1-4: Shopping for birthday-party decorations in Chinatown. We got some great stuff and also stumbled into a wonderful bakery, Golden Gate Bakery. Lucky find. Maggie was here too, but she wouldn’t get in a picture.

1: This is pretty much how you’ll find us every Saturday morning.

1&2: The girls have been to two moon festivals this fall. The first one was hosted by our local FCC group where we loved seeing awesome old friends. 3&4: The second was in Palo Alto (put on by the Palo Alto Moms Group), and we loved the activities and meeting lots of wonderful new friends.

1: A sneak peek at the new Halloween costumes that arrived in the mail this week. Squeal!!

1-3: Another Friday night dinner out (thanks TubaDad!). This one at Nijo Castle in Fremont. The girls thought the decorations were gorgeous and gasped and had to inspect every single thing. I was just about to snap the first pic when the chef lit the onion-volcano-tower and we were covered with steam. Hee.

Whew, well I think that’ll do it. Have a great weekend!