Rednesday - Tomato & Basil Salad

Today is Wednesday..or if you visit Sue over at It's A Very Cherry World, it's Rednesday!

My red for today is this....

The salad I made for dinner. It's a family favorite... when we want something light for dinner we usually whip this up!

Fresh roma tomatoes, fresh chopped mozarella and fresh basil....

toss in some basalmic vinegar and olive oil...and if you're like me... a little salt!

And what would the salad be without some delicious bread to pair it with?

I can't believe half the week is over! Time is just flying by!!

How can I get fall to hurry up? I am so over this heat!! The heat index everyday is over 100!! Enough all ready!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Visit Sue and all the other participants here!

Homeschooling Day plus other things

I have found a system that works pretty good for us homeschooling. I prepare the girls' work on the weekend, which usually ends up with me getting to bed super late, like 2 a.m. But it's ok. I give the girls two two hour sessions with a one hour break in between.

Here is Charlie watching me in the kitchen before the girls began their work.
And of course the bad Mr. Toby had to be included!

Lena checked this book out at the library Sunday. By Monday afternoon she only had about 15 pages left to read. THANK YOU LORD I have two readers!!Monday morning I decided to make my girls some "fried" apples. I had seen a recipe similar to this on another blog and thought it looked so good!! And I had some apples that we never touched and I didn't want them to go bad.

So I peeled and cubed them. The girls wanted them cubed. I wanted them sliced but this breakfast wasn't for me.....

I almost ran out of room on my cutting board!

I got my skillet nice and hot and buttered down... well not too buttered down, but enough so that the apples wouldn't stick!

I added cinnamon. I think the blogger that I saw also included nutmeg but I couldn't find mine. I did find pumpkin seasoning and thought that might be fun to add to it. But I didn't. I just wanted to make a regular batch first...experiments can come later!

Next I dumped in some brown sugar. I wish I could tell you how much but I just grabbed a handfull and dumped. And it was quite sweet, so next time I will surely use less sugar!

I threw in a little vanilla. I mean, vanilla goes with everything right? How could you NOT include it when you are frying apples with cinnamon and brown sugar?!?!?!

Then I super cheated and stuck some waffles in the toaster, buttered them, poured a little syrup at Lena's request and topped with my fried apples! It was good...sweet...but good!

After breakfast it was homework time. Like I said, I break it up in two sessions. 9-11 for the morning, an hour for lunch and then 12-2 for the last session. After school work they do their chores AND THEN they can earn free time to play on the computer or Wii. During their hour break they aren't allowed to play video games. They can rest or read.

This is normally how the table looks at their break time. It drives me crazy when it's this cluttered but it is always picked up when "school" is over.

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These are just some random pictures I found on my camera. I always label the pictures I download with the month and year. Then at the end of the month I combine all folder, delete the ones I don't need to keep and upload the rest to Walgreens.com. This way, God forbid anything happen to my computer, I will always have a backup of my photos.

I have mentioned that Charlie is being VERY aggressive to Luigi lately. Here is a funny picture I found from last week. Luigi was laying in his favorite spot by the front door and was trying to leave. Toby is in the middle "protecting" Luigi from Charlie and Charlie is monitoring Luigi, ready to attack at the slightest wrong move!

Poor Luigi, look how he has his head down, afraid to even make eye contact with Charlie!

And apparently Lena wrapped Toby up in her mimi. Lena was given this blanket when she was 2 days old by our friends. She still has it today and sleeps with it occassionally. When she was little I would have to wash it at night after she fell asleep because she would sit in front of the washer and cry "Mimi...mimi...." We always ended up giving it to her wet. Waiting for it to dry was out of the question!

My two little boys asleep on my bed. I think Toby was mad at Charlie here because of his attacking Luigi and he turned his back to Charlie.

Charlie was trying to make nice and snuggled next to Toby.

Last week CC called me outside and told me I HAD to see this. There were about 40 dragonflies zooming in front of my house. I tried to capture them but it was too hard. They are so fast. So as I was going through my photos I found this one. If you enlarge it you can see the dragonfly perfectly!

Today was such a sweet day. The girls spent the night with my mom. Papa Bear and I rented "It's Complicated" and ate sopapillas and drank Las Palapas sweet tea! This morning we woke up early and ran some important errands. More on that hopefully next week!!! Then we went to our favorite Thai restaurant again, headed to the mall and now we are home.

Since the girls aren't here I actually have a few minutes to write this post and just do some things I need to do here that I don't really have time to do when they are home.

Tuesday's are my and Papa Bear's date day..... I love Tuesday's!!

Busy, Busy Weekend!!

This past weekend was non-stop busy!!
Friday during the day we cleaned house like mad women. I helped Lena in her room which was long overdue for a good cleaning. We were in there at least two hours and threw away two large trash bags full of junk! I found bags stuffed with clean folded clothes. They all were put on hangers. I also found tons of dirty clothes stuffed in corners, box, behind her door..you name it. You could really tell there was no mommy around for quite some time while I was working. I am slowly but surely getting things in order!

My friend Georgina invited me to her mothers house Friday afternoon to celebrate her mother getting her citizenship. She told me about it a couple of weeks ago but I forgot that it was this Friday. So after deliveries we rushed home, picked up some appetizers and roses and headed over to Dolores' house.
They hired a DJ with all Spanish karaoke. Needless to say I wasn't singing. But I had a great time watching everyone else sing and dance!

Gina, Dolores and Dolores' friend

Me and Gina

Alba (Gina's sister) and Nani singing...

My CC posing...

And there she is again....

Lena and my CC

My beautiful babies... they had so much fun!!

I really wasn't expecting to stay too long but we ended up having such a great time we didn't leave til midnight. Oh, and Dolores made my favorite..chicharonnes...they were exceptional!!!

Saturday we stayed in most of the day. The girls and I went to Sonic and then to a new model home. We had to come home early because it was Lisa's party that night. She had it at the Bean Sprout Chinese restaurant. Everything was sooooo good!

Here is Lisa, me and Christine.... I think you can tell by the picture that I was the only one not drinking...hahahaha!

We had Chinese buffet and some Russian salads and appetizers.

My beautiful Lena....

Papa Bear came and sat next to Lena. I siezed the opportunity to photograph them together.

Pictures of Papa Bear are rare...even more rare is him posing for a pic!!

CC and Jenny... they were running off all night giggling and gossiping. They both had great fun and now Jenny wants CC to go see Justin Bieber with her. GREAT!! I hope I don't have to chauffer...I will NOT enjoy that!!!

This was my fortune. I couldn't help but wonder if that has anything to do with my losing my job and maybe where I should go from here.....

Me outside...again...all these pictures were taken with my cell phone.

I need to break out my camera. Here is Lena and me!

Me again....

And me with CC

Papa Bear singing. I brought my karaoke machine but no one really sang except for the kids and Emil! Ha!!

Nick, Lena and Sergey acting silly!

LaTricia and me. I met LaTricia at one of Lisa's girls night in. She used to work with Lisa and she is just such a good person with a beautiful, good heart. I love her! I enjoy spending time with her just talking and catching up. I wish we could get together more often!

Lisa and LaTricia....

We left the party around 11:30. Came home and went to bed. The girls and I woke up early to go to the meeting Sunday morning and then we all had Mexican for lunch. I laid down and took nap. We did a quick cleaning of the house when I woke up, went to the library, came home and cooked tortilla encrusted talapia with steamed white rice and pickled asparagus. I had the girls in bed by ten.

After cleaning the kitchen yet again I laid down and went to bed.

I stayed up late preparing their homework.
Staying home has been very busy and non-stop. But I love it and wouldn't change it for the world!!!

Five Question Friday

So Friday is here all ready! Where did this week go?

Here are my answers for FQF!!!

1. How many pets do you have?

I have 3 pets... two cats and one dog~

Charlie is the oldest and my baby. He turned 10 this month.

In my eyes he is perfect and can do no wrong.

He doesn't get along well with Luigi, our dog. This is my battlescar from their last fight a few days ago. Lately he has been super aggressive towards Luigi.
And he is Charlie's arch-enemy.... Luigi.

Luigi is 8 years old and just a big, ole baby! He loves Sonic drinks.... he can't wait for us to go! We usually put his water with no ice in the drink holder and he lays on the carseat and drinks.

He loves pizza and well, pretty much anything! Luigi weighs over 100 pounds!!

But he and Toby are best friends... Here he is with his giant beef jerky treat from Petsmart.

And this is Toby. I'm not sure why this picture came out light. But we just adopted him in May. He was originally a Mother's Day gift for my mother. We purchased him a week early and fell in love with him. He is now the newest member of our family. He will be one next month.

He loves boxes, playing under the covers when I fix my bed. He eats more than any cat I have ever seen and he sheds something terrible. I think it's dust balls on the floor but it's Toby's hair. I am constantly sweeping...it never ends!

2. If you could switch places with anyone in the world for one day, who would it be?

This question was hard. I like both Laura Bush and Jacqueline Kennedy.

Laura Bush is a true southern lady in every sense of the word. She always put family first and sought to improve literacy in our country. She has raised much awareness and funding for grants for women's health issues as well. And she knows how to decorate!

Jacqueline Kennedy is an easy one. She epitomizes elegance and grace. She remained cool and calm through so much heartache and difficulities. She too put her family first and signifies how a lady should act, answer and behave.

3. What is your favorite money saving tip?

Coupons... I know that this is nothing new for some people, but it's new to us and I have fun adding up my savings along the way!

4. What do you want your kids to be when they grow up?

Honestly....happy. If they are happy they will be successful in whatever they do.

5. What is your favorite quote?

George Edward Woodberry said -"Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure." How very true is that?

Another quote I found on a blog. She simply asked the question... How do you appear in your husband's eyes? That made me think. I want to be a good wife, a good mother and a good homemaker. I want him to see I am an honest woman with a true and honest heart.