Photo Catch Up~

There are several "Urban Farms" in our neighborhood.

I love buying farm fresh eggs from our neighbors.

It was 99 degrees today! Summer is HERE

and the boys have had plenty of "water fun" already.

Some new items in the shop ready for a (your) new home~

AND, FRIENDS.... There is a giveaway coming later this week!!!!

Happy Mother's Day to Me~

As much as I love to cook, it was so nice to have a day off!

Josh grilled burgers for us and made homemade salsa.

Of course, he had some helpers.

My mother passed away in 1998.

Her favorite flower was a daisy.

Josh always makes sure I have daisies in my

Mother's Day bouquet in addition to my favorite flower, the carnation.

How lucky are we that a shaved ice stand moved in only 2 blocks from the house?????!!!!

Of course, we had to check it out.

Zachary gave the new stand a thumbs up.

Lucas gave it 150 thumbs up.

Josh gave it an "I like it."

(That's 150 thumbs up in Josh talk.)

The stand gave the kids stomach aches.

Happy Mother's Day!

Black Bean and Couscous Salad

Recently we've been trying to eat more healthy, meat free dishes.

By trying, I mean we have talked about it a lot and have only done it once.

This is a great dish that I found on Allrecipes.com and changed up just a bit.

It was really good and super fast to throw together.

We ate it as a main dish but it would be a great side dish as well.

Recipe for Black Bean and Couscous Salad~

1 cup uncooked plain couscous

1 1/4 cup chicken broth (use vegetable broth to make completely meat free)

3 Tbsp olive oil

2 Tbsp lime juice (about 2 juicy limes)

1 tsp red wine vinegar

1/2 tsp cumin

3 Tbsp dried minced onion (You could cut up about 1/2 of a REAL onion. You know I can't stand a REAL onion.... something to do with Grub Worms...)

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

1 cup frozen corn

2 cans black beans, rinsed and drained

salt and pepper to taste

Boil broth and add couscous. Remove from heat, stir and cover. Let sit for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, whisk together oil, lime juice, vinegar and cumin. Add onion, cilantro, corn and beans. Toss to coat. Fluff couscous with fork and add to mixture. Season with salt and pepper. Yield: 10-12 servings

In the shop~

~Find them here~

Catching up~

I just realized that I have about 136 food (sweets!) posts in a row (minus the shirt re-do),

so here's what has been going on in the Allday household:

The van got mistreated this week.

I'm sure the would be robbers were very dissapointed at what they found.

Or in this case didn't find.

Unless you're in the market for an old diaper bag, a broken soccer chair or boogery car seats, there's not much of value in there.

Except my Austin Entertainment Coupon Book.

I was so relieved that they left it.

Dumb criminals.

By the end of the day, Josh and Lucas had the van looking brand new.

Soccer season is in full swing

You can buy this here.

If you do I will give you 10% off. Just let me know you found it here.

Happy Easter everyone!!!!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is a great Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe because:

A. The cookies taste great

and

B. It is super easy to throw together and can be made by hand.

For those of you that keep your mixer on the counter top this is not a big deal. I have to store mine away in a closet so I like a recipe that can be stirred together entirely by hand.

It uses shortening (I know, I know) but the shortening actually lends to a crispy texture on the outer edges of the cookie and you can still have the soft chewy interior.

1/2 cup butter, softened but not melted

1/2 cup shortening

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

2 1/2 cups flour

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

Mix butter, shortening and sugars. Don't overmix~ use a heavy spoon and mix by hand. Mix in vanilla and eggs. Sift dry ingredients together. Add them to the wet mixture. Stir until JUST combined. You should still be able to see some flecks of flour in the dough. Add chocolate chips. Scoop large and equal size cookies onto parchment paper lined baking sheet and bake at 350 until just starting to brown on the edges. The interior of the cookie will look under baked. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for about 2 minutes until the cookie is "set" enough to remove without falling apart.

Shirt Re-Do

I bought this simple tank top to wear with some of my

summer skirts to soccer games, shopping, etc

but didn't like that it looked like a plain and manly undershirt.

So I hand sewed some "petals" on and made it a little more girly.

Super easy project that can be done while watching your fav. evening TV show.

(Let me know if you want a little tutorial on making the petals and I'll put one together. There's TONS on the internet, too.)