The wedding, a story in pictures.

My favorite before the wedding picture.

The Bride and her Grandmother.

They had just finished doing the Brides hair.

The Bride and her Father.

The Bride and Groom's first kiss as a married couple.


Introducing Mr. and Mrs.

The wedding party at dinner.

The Bride hugging her Father. During their dance.

The first dance as a married couple.

Preparing to cut the cake.

Grandpa taking a walk with the Daughter of the Bride.

Walking with Grandpa, with Mom's wedding bouquet.

THE END.



(There are many more pictures, of the Bride and Groom, Their children, Family and Friends. Pictures of the dancing, and kids playing. I'll post some of them later.)

The perfect bike for me.

Madsen Cycles has a cargo bike that looks like it would be perfect for me. I could take the kids for a ride across the bridge to the farmers market, and bring home our purchases. It would be terrific for shopping, or taking everyone out for a picnic. Here's the link to the cargo bike MADSEN Cargo Bikes what do you think?

Results of our IEP meeting at The Boy's school.

The Boy is doing quite well in school, academically at least.

He's right on track with reading, maybe even a bit advanced, and he's doing well in math. He loves to read and is always playing with letters and words.

His speech is still a bit off, but it's more of a communication problem. He speaks clearly, and has a fairly large vocabulary, but doesn't know how to explain, or describe something.

He was screened for vision, and seems to have depth perception problems and distance vision problems. We need to take him in for an exam.

He didn't finish the hearing screening, he says that the beeps made his head feel wobbly.

He is going to stay in the ERC, where there are more adults in the class room and is set up for adaptive educational opportunities, for the rest of this year and for next year. They will main stream him for reading and math next year, if it works out the way we all think it will.

He needs to learn some basic social stuff, like personal space, and how to read non-verbal clues. He doesn't seem to understand when people are being mean to him or want him to step back a pace or two.

His hands are fairly weak, and he hates writing and drawing. We are working on that still this year in school and home. Next year we will continue and see if we can find anything new to do to help him.

The Doctor's office is looking into getting him a referral for some neurological testing to see if there is a neurological reason for some of the things we have been seeing. They want to get him in as soon as possible, so they are looking at a few places in Portland that do the testing we think he needs to see which one will be quickest and which one our insurance will pay for. I don't know what we will do if the insurance doesn't pay for any of the testing.

He is showing some signs for epilepsy, but there are also some signs for other neurological disturbances. Of course it might not be any thing we have thought of, it might be nothing except for is own personality.

Easter, a photo post.

These are the Easter Cake Balls.

They are white cake, with cherry frosting and milk chocolate.

I tried to shape some sort of egg shaped.

They were really good.

Three silly children.

This is what happens when you let the Daddies watch the boys play.

I tried to get fancy with the chocolate covering.

The boys played Nintendo.

The girl played with her eggs. She wouldn't let me push her hair out of her eyes.

Another picture post, Strawberry-chocolate-white chocolate Cake Balls.

This is about half of the strawberry chocolate mix.

A Strawberry chocolate ball before it was dipped.

My Pizza pan works well for cake balls. It holds about half the cake balls I made.

I had enough white chocolate to cover about 1/4 of all the cake balls I made.

A couple of them got kind of messy.

The prettiest one. Top view.

The prettiest on.

Cake Balls, a picture post.

Here are the cake balls I made the other day. I just finished up dipping the last of them this afternoon. They took longer to do than I thought they would and I didn't feel comfortable doing them while my Little Day Care Girl (Now on know as LDCG) was here, and need the morning for dishes and cleaning. I got them done with only 15 minutes until she got here today. They are chocolate, with chocolate frosting and of course dipped in chocolate. The first batch were dipped in semi-sweet chocolate, the last batch was dipped in a mixture of what was left of the semi-sweet and some milk chocolate. Everyone loves them, I've even had someone suggest that I make them to sell!

The tray with 4 left over semi-sweet dipped cake balls

along with the milk chocolate dipped ones.

A bit closer look.

My favorite one.

Another close up.

Another look at my favorite one.

Baking with cake mix, and other stuff.

Last week I was hungry for spice cake. I needed something quick to make, because I had a Daycare child here and didn't feel comfortable being in the kitchen for more than a few minutes at a time. So I decided to try improvising and used a yellow cake mix and just added 1/2 teaspoon cloves, 1/2 teaspoon allspice, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, 2 teaspoons ginger and 1 teaspoon cinnamon. I made the cake as directed on the package. I baked it in a 9X13 cake pan. It turned out fantastic! I'm not much for frosting, so I got a can of spray whipped cream to top it with. YUM!

Another way to use cake mix, You take any flavor cake mix and bake according to directions. Let cool and then crumble into a big bowl. Add any flavor of frosting and mix well. Roll into half-inch balls and chill in refrigerator for about an hour. Melt down baking chocolate (like Ghiardelli's) and dip each ball into the chocolate and then re-refrigerate until chocolate is set. If you use the right kind of chocolate it shouldn't melt on your fingers and can be kept at room temperature for a good while. I found this recipe on Baby Center, in the Cooking for your Family group. I haven't tried them yet but they sound good. You could probably put them on sticks if you wanted to, that might make it easier to decorate them. You can roll them in crushed nuts or candy, add sprinkles or drizzle another chocolate over them. I've heard of people making them with white chocolate, and almond bark.

There are cookies you can make using a cake mix as well. I'll have to go looking for some of them. It's always nice to be able to put together something a little bit different, without all the hassle of a from scratch recipe. And it seems that every now and then cake mixes go on sale, sometimes 10 for $10 or something. Of course I'm going to keep making things from scratch most of the time, because I like knowing exactly how much sugar, salt and fat things have. I like that there are no artificial preservatives. But there are times when I just need/want something quickly and mixes fit the bill.

Long day ahead of me.

Today is going to be very hard. I got about 4 hours of sleep last night, I NEED 8. Two of the Kids came at 8:30 this morning, the other came at 2:00PM. I'll be watching other people's kids for about 16 hours when it's all over. Tomorrow it will be about the same, two will be here early, and one at the normal evening schedule. I just have to make sure I get to sleep earlier tonight. One good thing for tomorrow, I'll be able to have half an hour sleep in the morning, since The Boy doesn't have school. Next week is Spring Break, so we will see how it all works out.

Corned Beef, with pictures.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We had our corned beef last night. It wasn't horrible, but it's not something I'll be having more than once a year or so. I'll try different recipes and see how they work. Maybe next years will convince me to have it more often, who knows? This time I cooked it in the slow cooker, with small red potatoes, baby carrots and sliced onion. I didn't rinse the corning spices off, and added some beer. The only thing that had any flavor from the beer was the potatoes. I liked the carrots and onion, the meat was okay, I didn't like the potatoes at all. Now I'll look for recipes for next year. LOL

So here are a couple of pictures I took of our dinner.

Sad news from California.

Howard's cousin's daughter died yesterday. She was 28. The family in California is devastated, they are very close. The Boy really liked her when he was little, he called her Miss Emily and thought she was a princess. So far all we have is a short newspaper report of the accident. I can't remember how many children she has, at least 2 but could be 3 or 4. I can't imagine how her Mother must be feeling, I can't even begin to think of loosing one of my children. Yesterday they were waiting for he Father's brother to get there before they told him.

She was a beautiful, sweet, caring young woman. Her family meant everything to her. My heart is breaking for them. Her Mom and Dad, her Husband and children, her brother and sister, and all the Aunts, Uncles, and cousins who loved her.

Here is a copy of the News Paper report from the Merced Sun-Star. I stared out the name of the other driver to protect his privacy, even though it was printed in the paper I don't feel it's important for my purposes to have it printed here. I'm sure he is feeling awful enough.

One killed in highway wreck near Chowchilla

A 28-year-old Chowchilla woman was killed on Thursday morning when she crossed Highway 152 against traffic and was struck by a westbound car.

According to the California Highway Patrol, Emily Tatum was driving a 2000 Toyota Camry southbound on Road 10 when she attempted to cross Highway 152. ******************of Clovis, was westbound on Highway 152 in a 2008 Dodge Charger traveling at 65 miles per hour when Tatum tried to cross in front of him, pulling out directly in front of the ****** car. The front of the Dodge collided with the driver’s side of the Toyota.

**** had only minor injuries. Tatum had dropped her six-year-old child off at school, and was on her way to work. Both parties were wearing seat belts. The accident is under investigation by the California Highway Patrol.

--Carol Reiter

What I did yesterday, and what we woke up to this morning.

I spent 9 hours yesterday helping The Boy make his 100 Days poster. I cut out 100 hand prints, 50 small ones and 50 larger ones. (His and Mine) Then we glued them together in groups of 4. The I glued them to the poster board. (The Boy fell asleep before we started that part.)

100 days of school,

100 Helping Hands.

We woke up to snow in the yard, on the road and still falling! We expected school to be delayed, so that morning Kindergarten would be canceled. But it wasn't, so we waited for the bus and The Boy played.

The Snow made the Bus late.

But The Boy got to play in the snow.

These are just some extra pictures of the snow and the tree that is getting ready to bloom soon.

The Boy has an other birthday!

His birthday was February 14th. The day before they had a small celebration at school, with a big card signed by everyone in the class, singing "Happy Birthday" (which I'm told he handled well, no crying or hands over ears), and a small treat. This happened at the start of their day, and then at the end of the day (for kindergartners) they had a Valentine's Day party with some treats. Right now he feels lucky to have a Valentine's birthday, because he gets treats twice in one day.

His actual birthday was quiet. Messed Up Daddy had to work, so we decided to have The Boy's Birthday Party on Sunday the 15th.

The party was nice, we had family a friends there, we ate pizza, and had cupcakes. The Boy got some Hot Wheels cars and track, and a Candy Land game. He was very excited about everything. The kids all played on the floor of the Pizza place with the cars and track, helped by two of the grown men who were there. (Messed Up Daddy and My nieces fiance)

And now for some pictures. I didn't get as many as I wanted to, I got distracted visiting with everyone I missed some good ones.

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This is the cake The Boy picked out. It's make from chocolate cupcakes,

and has star shaped candles.

With the candles lighted.

The Boy and My Sweet Little Great Niece.

The kids playing.

A New Rock Group I discovered yesterday.

This group is really awesome! The guitar player is amazingly cute, their lead lady singer is exciting, and the drummer, well he's multi-talented he also plays the guitar. I have a few pictures to share.

They are called

"The Boy and The Grandparents"

they really rock!

The guitarist is called "The Boy", The Drummer is called "Grandaddy", and the lead singer is known as "Grammy".

Here is "Granddaddy" playing the guitar.

Oh yeah! I forgot that "The Boy" also plays the drums and sings with "Grammy". What an amazing group!

Happy Valentines day, more than 2 weeks early.

Messed Up Daddy, I've decided to call him that because it connects us and he thinks it's strange, ordered a Valentines Day present for me, it was delivered yesterday. I was surprised he ordered it, but I knew it was coming. I've wanted one of these for years!


I couldn't wait to make something with it, so I went looking for a brownie recipe that used cocoa powder instead of bakers chocolate or semi sweet chocolate chips, because I have cocoa and don't have the other stuff. I found one, and quickly put it together.



They didn't turn out very brownie like, the flavor is good, but I think I made them too thick.

They are nice though, a good chocolate cake kind of thing.

So, got any good recipes that I can use my new kitchen toy making? I'm going to make bread in a day or two. But I already have a loaf and nearly a half here.

Photos from my new camera.

The only thing I did to these pictures was crop them a little bit. I probably need to do some adjusting with the high lights and shadows.

Rain drops on the grass.

A big smile from The Boy.

The Boy running around at the bus terminal.