Today…

Outside my window: all is calm and clear. We were supposed to get thunderstorms yesterday, like all day according to the weather man but never saw any. I’m not sure if they happened last night or will happen today or if it just isn’t happening. The annual week month long fireworks in the pizza place parking lot across the street seems to have begun so I’d have easily tuned out any thunder in the evening, assuming it was just more darn fireworks.

This weekend we: went camping again! We had a great time, with much lower expectations and much simpler plans. We arrived in town early again and had lunch at a local diner-type establishment where I had my very first piece of rhubarb pie and oh my lord it was heavenly. I think it might be my new favorite pie ever. For anyone who’s never had rhubarb before – in pie form at least, it was sweet but slightly spicy like in a cinnamon sort of way – delicious.

We also: grilled brats and hot dogs, had more chocolate chip cookie s’mores, chased fire flies, played on multiple playgrounds, swinging and playing in sandboxes, window shopped in the next town over, went “firework hunting” around town while taking the baby for a slumber cruise and all went to sleep sometime between 10 and 11, but since we knew it would be a late night, it wasn’t that bad.

We woke up the next morning at like 5am but luckily for our sanity didn’t look at any clocks until we’d gotten dressed and packed up camp, deciding to take the tent down then and check out before the rain started (although it never did). We got in the car and turned it on and saw it was 6am or so. Yikes! Some pop tarts and fruit and much coffee later and it was still not quite 7am so we decided to just head back home and relax for a few hours. Still a great day.

I am reading: Eating for Beginners by Melanie Rehak – and just oh my god loving it. I’m only maybe a 4th of the way through it as “non-fiction” tends to take me longer or maybe I’m just old and tired, but either way – loving it. It’s everything I wanted The Omnivore’s Dilemma to be mixed with an awesome narrative on kids and picky eating behaviors and awesome.

We’re looking forward to: baby’s 1st birthday. After shopping around a few different stores I think we’ve decided what we’re getting her. I’m also hoping to get a few things to review for her as part of a little celebration at our review blog – with giveaways for anyone else who has summer babies – so check there in 3 weeks for some awesomeness. And if anyone reading this has a product they’d like reviewed in this celebration, send me an email at mommasreview (at) gmail (dot) com.

In The Kitchen:

• Monday: Shrimp Salad with Cucumbers, Feta Cheese and assorted fresh veggies
• Tuesday: Spaghetti
• Wednesday: Chili Dogs
• Thursday: Grilled Cheese and Soup
• Friday: Breakfast for Dinner: Waffles with Fruit

Some other links I think you should click:

• 6 Classics Despised by the People Who Created Them at Cracked.com
• Fear-Based Parenting at Suburban Snapshots : another great post from the woman who brought us Why Having a Toddler is Like Being at a Frat Party
• What’s Your Decorating Style? quiz at Ethan Allen : I got “estate” – how about you?
• What is DOF? Depth of Field Revealed at 5 Minutes for Mom
• A Drive-In Movie at Home at Ohdeedoh : I’m planning to do this next weekend
• Starfall is a great website for preschoolers to learn about letters and reading : MM loves this website!
• Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning at gCaptain : This is a must read for any parent – it was a real eye opener for me and I’m so glad it was mentioned to me on Facebook last week.
  

One last thing I want to tell you about before I go: Friday we put an offer down on a house. We haven’t officially gotten a counter offer yet but things look promising, assuming we can find a subletter for our apartment. Cross your fingers, knock on wood, all that jazz.