This is one of my husband’s favorite dishes; he requests it a lot.  Actually, everyone requests it a lot.  It is an easy dish to throw together to take to a party or serve when guests are over.   Out of everything I’ve ever made for other people, this  is the recipe that people ask me for the most.  It is the perfect go-to recipe.  When I don’t plan well and we are about to walk out the door to an event that requires a carry-in dish, I throw this together.  When we have surprise guests, I throw this together.  When we’re laying around on a Sunday afternoon watching a movie, I throw this together. 
Over the years of making this, I have made a few modifications.  I don’t use artichokes at all.  I use a whole package of cream cheese and a whole tub of sour cream.  I sometimes add parmesan and/or mozzarella cheese.  Sometimes I also add some garlic powder.  I adjust the salt and pepper to taste.  I think squeezing the moisture out of the spinach is the key to making this delicious–I usually squeeze it through a strainer first, and then in paper towels.  We usually end up just eating the dip with tortilla chips if we don’t have pita chips on hand.  Or, if I have a Sweet Hawaiian bread bowl, we really love to use that. Enjoy!

Spinach-Artichoke Dip
1 – 10oz box frozen cut or chopped spinach, thawed
1 – 12oz jar artichoke hearts, drained and roughly chopped
1/2 cup whipped cream cheese
3/4 cup sour cream
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Squeeze the spinach between paper towels to remove excess moisture.  In a medium bowl,  combine the spinach, artichokes, cream cheese, sour cream, and cheddar cheese.  Season with the salt and pepper.  Scrape the mixture into a small oven-safe baking dish.  Bake until lightly golden and heated through, about 15 minutes.  Serve warm with pita chips or bread and lemon wedges, if desired.

Children’s birthday parties are a new thing to me, so when our “baby” was nearing his first birthday, I was kind of at a loss as to what to plan. But, I did know that every good party starts with a theme. Then I was at a loss for a theme. I knew I wanted something unique and specific to the birthday boy. One day it just came to me, his favorite book is Goodnight Moon–we read it every single night and he can already point out some of the items in the pictures when we say them. Then I was at a loss for what to do for a Goodnight Moon party. I searched the internet and Pinterest, but there just wasn’t much out there. So, we ended up coming up with our own party pieces.
First, we picked a color palette. I was never a real fan of Goodnight Moon before we acquired two copies of the board book in the past year. I especially didn’t care for the color in the book, but when I switched my thinking and realized we could use a bright palette of red, green, blue and yellow, it became very fun! The book does offer several staple illustrations–the red balloon, the socks and mittens on the drying rack, the cow jumping over the moon, the little old lady bunny and the young bunny, the mouse, the toyhouse, the telephone, the three little bears sitting in chairs, the fireplace, the windows and curtains, and more. The babe was able to point out the “red balloon” when we read the book very early on, so we knew we wanted to make that a big part of the decor.
I did find a picture of a cake I loved on Pinterest and sent that to our neighbor and expert cake decorator. She fashioned up the most beautiful cakes I have ever seen. We had one smash cake for photos, one smash cake for the party, and one cake to serve the guests. I couldn’t have imagined them turning out any better.



We sat down and came up with all of the decoration ideas and then made our list of supplies. I wanted to start preparing early because my sister was coming in from Dallas for the party and I wanted to be able to spend time with her that weekend rather than pasting cardstock and ribbon together.
I designed an invitation first. I used the bright green, yellow, red, and blue, included the red balloon, and came up with a little rhyme that associated the book with the party.

While I was at it, I designed thank you cards to send out after the party and a bookmark to give out as a party favor.


A couple of weeks before the party, my husband helped me cover our dining room window (which was the backdrop for the guest of honor’s highchair during the cake smash) in crepe paper to replicate the window in the book. My mom cut out stars and we used double-sided tape to attach them. It turned out so cute that we still haven’t taken it down!

Then I made a banner for the highchair. I just picked out scrapbook paper in our theme colors and cut out the letters to spell o-n-e and used rubber cement to hold it all together. It’s attached to jute twine with hot glue. I had planned to use this in the background of his smash cake photos, but completely forgot when the time came. Sad face.

The day of the party, we set up a welcome station which included the socks and mittens (cut out of construction paper) clothespinned to our drying rack, the guest book (one of our copies of Goodnight Moon for guests to sign in), the bookmark favors, and a “message in a bottle.” The message in a bottle started at our baby shower. Our friends and family wrote sweet messages on tags with orange ribbon which coordinated with the shower decorations and our nursery. For the first birthday, I used tags with green ribbon. I plan to continue this each year with ribbons that coordinate to the party theme and continue stacking the messages in the bottle through the years.







The welcome area also included a chalkboard year-in-review. I worked for a long time on this and it ended up being one of my favorite pieces at the party.

The dining room table was covered with a blue sheet and made up like a bed with a pillow at one end and the young bunny in the blue striped pajamas. We also included some balls of yarn in coordinating theme colors, as the little old lady bunny is knitting in the book. The table centerpiece was a Ball quart jar painted metallic silver with a glittery number one and paper flowers made out of the pages of a Goodnight Moon book (ordered from Etsy). We tied a red helium balloon to each of the dining room chairs.



In the dining room entrance, we hung photos of the baby from one to eleven months.

Since the party was on a Sunday afternoon, we just served snacks and drinks. Above the food and drink table were red and white paper fans that we bought at the craft store. They were so cute that I wanted to leave them up, too, but we didn’t.


Last but not least, I bought a little gray t-shirt at the craft store and some iron on letters for the birthday boy’s attire for the party. He already had the shorts that matched the party theme palette.

The morning of the party we got busy making food and decorating. Eventually I had to jump in the shower. I came out of the shower to a perfectly decorated house, thanks to my mom and sister working like busy little beavers without needing any direction!
Once guests arrived, we read Goodnight Moon, opened gifts (an overload of gifts!) and then had cake and ice cream. The babe was very delicate with his smash cake at the party. He just kind of poked at the icing and stayed neat and clean and even preferred to use a spoon. It was a beautiful day and we all ended up outside swimming, playing at the water table, riding the horse, grilling, and sitting around the fire until dark.  

So, one thing you didn’t see in my previous posts under things I love was singing. I don’t know that I should really say that I don’t love it, I should instead say that no one loves for me to do it. Because if there is one thing I really, really fail at, it’s singing. I feel so sorry for my poor child every night as I sing lullabies into his ear. I always think I must be setting him up for nightmares. (cue Psycho music)
I pretty much always knew I couldn’t sing. As a kid in the church choir, I tried to just make it through by pulling a Milli Vanilli and lip syncing. I remember when the choir leader told me to “really belt it out.” I could tell by the look on her face that she wished she had said to “really hold it in.” I got by in my high school and college years singing along to popular songs because everyone was loud and perhaps not noticing small things such as pitch and tone. A few years ago, I was riding home with my husband and brother from one of my brother’s band gigs (yeah, he can carry a tune in a bucket) and from the backseat I faintly heard the radio and let loose on the lyrics to Strawberry Wine at the top of my lungs. Those two boys laughed the whole two hour drive home and that story still hasn’t died. It’s now a constant inside joke.
You don’t realize how often you sing on a daily basis, until you’re no good at it. And when you’re no good at it, it seems like everyone else is the proud owner of a Grammy. When I was teaching Kindergarten, I had to sing every single day. When you go to a birthday party, you have to sing to the guest of honor. When you have a baby, you’re constantly singing ABCs or Wheels on the Bus. At sports events, everyone sings the national anthem. Funerals, weddings, concerts, in the car, in the shower… And karaoke? Eek!
My husband has officially coined my singing as “HARM-onizing” and I think that’s “right on key.”

Now that I’m in my thirties and have lived in at least seven different places since moving out of my parents’ house at eighteen, I’ve realized what a gullible little fool I was as a child.  With a baby and a husband to clean up after constantly, I see why my grandparents had nine children.  Because, although more children equals more mess, more children also equals more forced labor without violating child labor laws. 
I actually didn’t think my brother, sister and I had to work that hard when we were kids, but more than once a visiting neighbor kid or friend would comment on how much work we had to do.  Once, a girl questioned if I always had to work so hard after my dad asked me to carry an empty bucket about 200 feet to the barn.  Clearly our worlds were very different as I didn’t even consider that task to be “work.”  We did regularly help clean the house, make dinner, do the dishes, and mow the yard.  In the summers, we helped in the hayfields most days.  And also in the summers, because my mom was a teacher and was home with us the entire break, we were roped into projects like cleaning out the basement or pulling weeds in the garden.  I remember doing a lot of whining and complaining (with the help of my siblings) and that always resulted in my mother’s most infamous words: If we all just work together, we’ll get this done much faster.
To this day, it’s an inside joke with my siblings.  Any time we are all together, you’ll hear one of us ring out at some point, “If we all just work together…” and then laughter ensues.  (The phrase has been shortened to those six words over the years.)  But in reality, I find myself using this mantra in my current life.  It rings true.  Perhaps moms do know best.
As my Mom nears retirement and begins her final school year next week, she has taken on a much more leisurely pace in life.  She spends a large part of her summer break reading and napping now, and much less of it cleaning out the basement or pulling weeds in the garden.   This past weekend, I realized that this change has brought about a new Momism. 
Saturday morning my mom and I got up early, grabbed some coffee, and hit up a few garage sales.  We left the house at 6:30am and returned about 10:30am.  The husband and baby were batting a hundred, and insisted that I return to town with my mom to run errands (in husband speak this means “please go with her now so I don’t have to go with you later.”)  So off we went, with a plan to make three stops.  I should have known better as another thing my mom has become infamous for over the years is reeling you in to run one errand and then dragging you along for five or six instead.  Five hours and six stops later, as we were leaving the last store, my mom—looking truly befuddled—asked, “Where does the time go?”
So, until we reach that golden age of retirement, and can really wonder “Where does the time go?” it will be another great inside joke for my siblings and me. 
And in retrospect, I realize that at about the third hour in, I should have said to my mom, “If we both just work together, we’ll get this done much faster.”

[Also posted at my Moberly Monitor Index blog, Sunny Side Up.]

We took a two week road trip through Texas in March, so it wasn't until half way through July that we realized we didn't have a summer vacation planned.  So we've been trying to make the most of some daycation staycations.

Our son is the first grandchild on both sides of the family. His first word should have been "spoiled." We are so lucky to have all of his grandparents and great-grandparents living within a two hour radius, and the majority of them being within ten minutes of us. I said we're "lucky" not boring and unimaginative--watch it. We use the grandparents as babysitters all the time, but we're always going to the office instead of on dates. So, two weekends ago when my father-in-law called and said they wanted to keep the baby on Sunday, we jumped on it. We went to our first movie in over a year (ah! even a matinee is getting too expensive for my cheapskate self) and had dinner without a highchair and without going by the drive through window to avoid waking up the sleeping child. It was pure bliss.

This past weekend, my parents offered to come to our house and watch the little chunk and put him to bed. They've done the bedtime routine a handful of times since he was born, so again, we jumped on it. This time, we decided to take the boat to the lake for some fishing and to watch the Blue Moon rise. We were both clearly determined to enjoy the evening, because when our boat motor still wouldn't start after messing with it for almost two hours, we were both just laughing and smiling (and sweating, my poor husband was really sweating.) We grabbed a blanket and some lawn chairs out of my Jeep, opened the cooler, soaked ourselves in bug spray and had a blast watching the huge, orange moon come up over the horizon and create a beautiful reflection on the lake.

Sunday was the annual St. Mary's church picnic in Wein. Every year it's so hot you're pretty sure you're going to melt, except for the years when it pours rain. This year, we got the heat. They have a huge, delicious dinner of fried chicken, roast beef, and all the yummy sides and desserts. You sit at long tables in the church hall with all the other guests. Young children fill and re-fill your sweet tea and clear the table when you're done. Or, in our case, the young children keep picking up the silverware your baby repeatedly throws on the floor. Everyone knows everyone and you can't walk but a few steps without stopping to talk to someone. After stuffing yourself, you go outside and either post up at the beer garden or play bingo, the turtle races, the ring toss, the duck pond, or several other infamous picnic games, and then eventually make a sashay through the church's thrift store: Share and Care.The whole thing is so charming, from the napkin holders that adorn the tables every year made by the parishioners many moons ago, to the children's ride that has been going round and round for generations. Seriously, I remember riding it with my sister and cousins over and over and over again. The whole thing is a bit of a marvel--the way hundreds of people turn out, no matter how many buckets you're going to sweat, in the true middle of nowhere (we're talking NO cell phone service), and spend their entire Sunday just enjoying each other's company. And where else can you go to a church event to drink beer and gamble? I've never seen anyone having a bad time. The whole thing has such a sweet, antiquated feel, and that's something an old soul like me truly loves.

[Also posted at my Moberly Monitor Index blog, Sunny Side Up.]

Gossip is at large anywhere, but in small towns it seems to be even more rampant.  I'm sure it's due to the fact that "everyone knows everyone" and you run into people you know everywhere you go.  But no matter what the reason, rumors spread like wildfire here.  And sometimes there's no truth to it.  For example, one of our friends is in the hospital right now and the rumor around town was that he was dead.  It was all over facebook and it even went so far that the tavern regulars took up a collection for flowers!  We got everyone straightened out, luckily, without having to go as far as one of the local doctors did.  Apparently to combat the rumor about himself, Dr. Turnbaugh had to take an ad out in the local newspaper!

So, it turns out I don't think I have the heart to write a negative review.  I'm sure that would baffle Cliff because he knows that I can be a real pro at complaining about things.  So, instead of "reviews" of cool baby items that we come across, I think I'll just post about things that I do have a heart for.