First Day of Preschool!!

On Tuesday September 11th, Wesley had his first day of school ever!  Can't believe my little guy is in Preschool.  He was definitely excited!  But first we had a special breakfast of pancakes and sausage and took a few pictures, ok a lot of pictures (I kept it short and sweet here :) and then headed out.

Very exited here with his special Lil' Lighthouse backpack. 

 We drop off and pick up the kids in the worship center and then they walk across the street to their classrooms.  Each school day there are different toys/activities to play with before clean up/pledge of allegiance/ prayer and songs.

Here is Miss Peggy, Wes' teacher and his little classmate Rihanna. 

Here they are walking back across the street to be picked up.  Good lessons on street safety here!

And when we picked Wes up after school, we told him we would take him to lunch anywhere he wanted.  And he chose Z Pizza, this kid loves pizza!  And since it was "two for Tuesday" it worked out perfectly!  We were able to get a little info out of him about his school day...unfortunately he had to sit in the "quiet chair" once (but I'm happy to say that he hasn't had to sit in it again since that first day!) so we talked a bit about that, but he said he definitely wanted to go back, so I think we're going to have a fun year!

Happy Birthday Uncle Jason

On September 8th, we helped Uncle Jason celebrate his 40th birthday!  Grammy came over to stay with the kids, Mike and I got all dressed up and then a big limo party bus filled with all Jason and Leanna's friends came to pick us up and take us to Morton's steakhouse for an amazing dinner!

Happy 40th Jason!

Tall Ships Festival

On September 7th, we headed to Dana Point and the Bluffs by Auntie Chrissy's house to celebrate the Tall Ships Festival and Auntie Chrissy's birthday as well!

There were lots of friends and lots of yummy food

 Wesley enjoying some homemade pizza with Grammy and Cora (on a quilt Grammy made for Auntie Chrissy several years ago!)

Wes checking out the Tall Ships with his binoculars...

 ...and playing soccer with one of the kids.

 Chrissy and I have celebrated so many birthday's together, love our friendship!

Back to School!

Wesley is headed to Preschool!  We are all so excited and on September 6th, the Lil' Lighthouse Preschool held an Open House for all the students and parents to meet their teacher, the other kids and parents in their class and to check out the classroom.  

 Wes is in Miss Peggy's class, and she the most bubbly and happy young teacher!  Wes is going to do really well in her class, and I'm so thankful that God calls people to be Preschool teachers, because I know it's not for me :)

 Cora liked Wes' classroom too!

 Of course he found the trucks!  Playing here with Miss Mary.

She'd totally join Wes if she could.  The first day of school is a week away, can't wait!

More Disney

On September 4th we headed back to Disneyland with the Rausch family.  Since school was starting and the boys were soon to be on opposite schedules, we were glad to squeeze in this trip.  We didn't do too much because it was pretty crowded and hot but we had fun in Cars Land, doing a few rides, eating at the Hungry Bear restaurant and visiting with Mickey. 

  Love Eva's face and body language...she's not too sure of Mickey today!

On Winnie the Pooh

Waiting for lunch!

 Cruising on the Mark Twain

 And on the way out, Mike and Wes drove the little motor boats in Down Town Disney.

Another fun day at the Happiest Place on Earth.

Cooking From Our Garden

We've been enjoying the fruits (or vegetables) of our labors and making some yummy meals from what's been growing in our garden.  We had an explosion of ripe tomatoes all at the same time, so I figured sauce was in order:

 Ingredients: Red Bell Peppers, Onions and 5 pounds of tomatoes

To peel the tomatoes I boiled them for a minute and then plunged them in an ice bath - the skins just peeled right off.  We grew several varieties of tomatoes, but these little grape ones (which grew like gangbusters) were such a pain to de-seed.  They are obviously not the preferable variety to use for sauce, but they sure are yummy and plentiful.

This was more of a "garden" sauce because I also added carrots and celery.

And a couple of days later I made chicken parmigiana with the sauce.  I think it was one of my all-time favorites, so delicious!

I forgot to take a pic before we started eating, so sorry for showing you a half eaten meal!  Cora loved it too!

Next was a Butternut Squash and Corn Gratin:

We had two big butternut squashes and one went to make baby food and a roasted chicken and vegetable dish and the other one I used to make this Gratin recipe that I pulled out of a magazine in 2004 (the date was on the recipe)!!  Did it really take me me 8 years to make this??  

Can't believe I waited so long, it was delicious and a big hit!

Our neighbors behind us also have a garden and where tomatoes have been our success, cucumbers have been theirs, so we did a nice little swap.  We traded a basket of grape tomatoes and a bell pepper and several Italian roasting peppers for 5 cucumbers - a fair trade I think :)  We ate one in a salad, gave one to Grammy and used the other three to make pickles:

We love pickles around here and I have to say, we all agreed that these were probably the best pickles we've ever had (and I'm not exaggerating).  I found a refrigerator dill pickle recipe on Pinterest, Wes and I made them one afternoon and we were enjoying them on sandwiches two days later.  We'll definitely be growing cucumbers next year!

Back to Disneyland!

On August 28th, we finally headed back to Disneyland.  I'm not one for the summer crowds and since Grammy and Daddy's passes weren't good, we kind of stayed away.  But I actually think this was one of the best days at Disneyland we've had the whole year!  It was still summer hours so we got there right at 9:00 and it wasn't very crowded, so we got to do lots of rides we hadn't done before.  We headed straight to Fantasy Land and convinced Wes (with bribery) to go on Peter Pan (he went when we were in Florida, but has refused since we've had our passes here).  He cried in line the whole time but then loved it once the ride started (seeing the volcanoes on Neverland Island really helped, he loves volcanoes).  It's funny too because he didn't seem to be afraid, it was just that he had decided he didn't like Peter Pan and didn't want to change his mind.  But he was very proud of himself afterward!  Then we rode Dumbo and it's obviously been a long time since I've been on Dumbo because I didn't remember that they gave you the feather to hold, so cute!

 

After Dumbo we went over and rode Winnie the Poo, and afterward noticed the canoes had just opened.  We jumped at the chance to do this, since I hadn't been since I was a kid.  Such great memories!

 I read an article about the canoes recently and it's the only ride at Disneyland that is man-powered (and not on a track).  And the article said only about 30% of the passengers actually help paddle, so I was determined to be part of the 30%!  I held Cora on my lap and did my best :)  Wes even got a few strokes in, but held on tight to his paddle and that's what counted in my book.

I'm so glad we got to do this, we all enjoyed it!

 We had perfect timing after the canoes and jumped onto the Mark Twain paddle steamer for a trip around the Rivers of America.  This is another one I hadn't done in forever, and Wes is still talking about it.  I love that this kid's favorite rides are the paddle steamer and the monorail!

After our boat ride, I went to the baby station on Main Street to nurse Cora and Grammy and Wes went to the petting zoo by Big Thunder and then we met up to ride the Monorail.  Can you believe we did all these things before lunch??  Granted we didn't eat until 1:30, but still that's a lot of stuff to do in a couple of hours.  It makes all the difference when the other people stay home :)

After the Monorail we headed to California adventure and the Pacific Warf for lunch at Boudin's. And then on to Cars Land since Grammy hadn't see it yet. 

 Grammy and Wes on Luigi's Flying Tires...

...with Red...

 ...and on Mater's Junkyard Jamboree.

And then utterly exhausted at the end of an awesome day.  Even though he was delirious, Wes's memory was still intact because he asked to stop for some of those "powder sugar things."  Beignets from the Jazz Kitchen in Downtown Disney.  I had to admit I'm glad he remembered, and I think Grammy was too.  Those things are the best!!  Can't believe our passes are almost expired, hopefully we'll get a few more trips in before November.