Beautiful Day!

 

Lily has got the cutest yawns.  Her giant tongue sticks way out and is pointy.  I wish I could get a good picture of it, I have never seen a tongue quite like it.

 

She was just hanging out with her dad this morning while we watched tv and the sun was glowing in. 

 

While I was cooking the two pups decided to be nice to one another.  Killer did not even protest to being Lily's pillow.  They both like lying on the cushy foam rugs in the kitchen anyway but I like it that they were cuddling up to one another.  

 

Meanwhile today I collected my couponing stuff and went to the grocery store with Clay and Eric when he arrived and I please myself by saving $60 and only using coupons on items that we would have purchased anyway.  I may have created a monster.

 

I was also feeling crafty so I started embroidering the onsies that I got for Allyson and Bekie's babies.  This was a lot of fun.  I just free-handed some little drawings on the onsie started sewing.

 

I was really please with the final product, I can't wait to start on the next one!  The crafting bug always gets me in the mood to start all kinds of projects so next off was baking.  I have 2 banana breads in the oven right now.  

1. Pear, banana, cardamom, almond  2. Apple, banana, pecan, cinnamon.

If either turns out well I will post the recipes later.  No point in typing it up now it they are duds.  Which is possible since they were experiments.

Killer Kayaking

 

A couple of weekends ago we took Killer out for her first kayak ride.  She did fantastic!  She liked my boat better because she could see around while we were riding and didn't have to stand on her back legs like she did in Clay's boat.  

 

She sat in my lap most of the time.  The only time she got upset was once when Clay paddled a good bit ahead of us she got the the very front of my boat and started whining until we caught up.  I even thought that she was going to hop in and swim after him at one point.

 

This stretch of river was very flat and required a lot of padding.  It was great for taking Killer out the first time since it was so calm.  There was a great rock island in the middle of the river that I think we will camp on some time.

  

More pictures and a video of our little Lily.  She met Mr. Whiskers and Alvin.  She played in the leaves in the backyard, chewed on some sticks and weeds.

I have been taking lots of pictures of her so she will get used to the camera and not be afraid of it like Killer is.  As you can see from the picture above, I don't think that will be a problem.

I LOVE this wrinkled face above!  She plays hard and then she crashes.  She and Killer are figuring out things little by little.  She has a blast with all her toys.  She has been sleeping well during the night too only getting up a time or two.  We weighed her today - 7lbs- that will not last long! 

Bringing home pup

 

On Friday we went over to Alabama to pick up our newest addition to the family.  Meet Lily Pad, our Vizsla puppy.  She was born in a litter of 12 ( 7 girls) and we got to choose.  We had watched several videos the breeder had sent and thought we had a good idea of which one we wanted, but once we started playing with all the little girls then we changed our minds a little.   We also got to see Bob and Claudia while we were there, we stopped with them for a late lunch in Anniston before picking up the puppy.

 

Our picks initially: I liked green, Clay liked pink, and mom liked purple.  Turns out purple won, pink was a close second though.  Green turned out to be a superior escape artist and we didn't want to always be worried that the pup was going to get out.  We stopped by Petsmart on the way home and rode Lily and Killer around in the shopping cart, she was excited to see new people and we got some toys for them both.  We also made her a little tag for her collar to make her all official and stuff.

 

Lily was checking out the puppy fish.  I was so excited to play with her and she and Clay had slept almost the whole ride home but it was pretty much bedtime when we got home.  She did great overnight, we were pleased with how well she adjusted.  We did however break down and decide we are going to let her sleep in the bed.  I mean really, we can't have Killer up in the bed and make Lily sleep on the floor.  I just dread the coming days of her giraffe legs kicking me in the night.  It is coming I am sure.

 

She is just the cutest thing!  Since she was one of 12 they are a little smaller at this age than they normally are which we were glad of.  We are hoping that will help  Killer get used to her and exert a little dominance before Lily gets too much bigger.  Killer is NOT sure about puppy yet, but I think she will warm up to her.

Racing and crafting

Things have been a little different at my job lately, my partner at night moved to day shift on another floor and in order to have coverage on more days they asked if I would work 5 eight hour shifts per week or 11p-7a Monday-Friday so that is what I have been doing lately.  I had already signed up for the Kaiser Permanente 5K race in Atlanta for Thursday Sept, 13 so I asked if I could just come in a little late that night.  So I came home Thursday morning, slept a bit and off to Atlanta I went. 

 

We got there super early to make sure we could get parking since the race was going to be so large.  It was a warm day but there was a nice breeze and we checked out the Expo and hung out listening to the music until Jason's Deli arrived with our box lunches.  We chowed down and then walked back through the Expo again to see what else had been put up since before.  I met my new boyfriend, Mr. Broccoli.  Then we warmed up with the group exercise.

 

This was a HUGE race, when we lined up you couldn't see the front or the back of the swarm of people.  The race started at Turner field, made a loop around the capitol and then ended back at Turner.

 

It was slow getting started due to the sheer number of people that were participating, however it started to open up a little into the race.  We finished in 35:45 which was pretty good, I have not run in 4 weeks, yikes!  The marathon training burned me out from running so I decided to drop it.  I think I may do another half though, I enjoyed that length and the training was not nearly so time consuming.  

 

The sunset was beautiful at the end, we grabbed our t-shirts and headed out, stopped for a delicious milkshake on the way home.  I stopped by the house showered up and headed to work.  Running this race definitely has me wanting to do more 5Ks!

I made Arnetra's baby Zachariah a present the other day and took it to her at work.  I used the caps off of vials from work that I had saved for a long time and never knew what to do with them to cover the frame.  I made the background with fabric and cut out of scrapbook paper the moon and caterpillar.

Homemade detergent and more zucchini

 

I got both of these ideas/recipes from Pinterest.  Above are Zucchini "tots" or bites,  I have linked to the recipe.  They are very easy to make and Clay really loved these, in fact I think that I will be making another batch tomorrow.

 

I am giving the homemade laundry detergent a try as well.  I got this recipe from HERE. I made up a batch tonight and will give it a try tomorrow and will update this post with my thoughts on it below.  The cost of the ingredients above was less than $8 and will make many gallons of detergent since it uses only as much as 3tbsp of each per gallon.  I am excited about this.

Review:  I use an HE front-loading washer  and was excited and apprehensive to try out a load.  Good news!  Everything turned out perfectly fine, not noticeable suds.  As others mentioned on the linked website it does not leave clothes with a particular scent other than clean.  I even added a little tea tree oil to mine since I typically added it to my laundry anyway to help combat musty odors thanks to GA humidity.  This is awesome!  The $8 I spent yesterday should do our laundry for 2 for a year or more.  

Zucchini gets my vote!

 

Not sure what inspired me today but I felt like baking a little something.  I saw this recipe for Zucchini Lemon Bread a few days ago and had the link pulled up on my computer and finally put myself into gear today.   I made a few small changes based on what I had on hand.  I subbed some apple banana sauce since I didn't have plain apple sauce, I also didn't have quite enough so I added 2tsps of coconut oil.  I didn't have wheat flour so I used all purpose plus 2tbsp flax meal.  I didn't have buttermilk to I used the recommended amount of milk plus 1.5tsp white vinegar.  I also didn't have white sugar so I used 1/3cup brown sugar and 1/3 cup splenda.  I think I also added an extra 1/2 cup of zucchini too.  This bread is super dense and moist and I really liked it sprinkled with a bit of cinnamon.