Today…

Outside my window: all is sunny, calm and bright. We seem to be past all the crazy storms and tornado warnings for the moment at least. I suppose I wouldn’t be all that surprised if it were hailing in an hour to be honest.

This weekend we: celebrated our daughter’s first birthday with lots of delicious cake and seven minute frosting. BB was absolutely delighted with the whole thing and wants you to know that her cake was thiiiiiiiiiiiiis big:

We also: spent the morning yesterday at the zoo and beach. The weather was almost too hot, but not quite and MM was a very compliant model for mommy’s picture taking addiction.

more pictures soon of course

Right now I’m reading: American on Purpose by Craig Ferguson – last night I read about his early stand up career as Bing Hitler – with lots of drinking and drugs and the end of his first marriage included.

In The Kitchen: I’m  hoping to make this recipe for macaroni and cheese tonight.

Some other links I think you should click:

• I just reviewed my new beautiful dishes from Oneida’s Chefs Table collection at the review blog. Long story short: ♥
• Ohdeedoh got to see the new Stuva kids furniture collection at an IKEA press event. It has me drooling excessively in anticipation as it is exactly what I’m looking for to organize the kids’ play area in our first house.
• I love this idea for making gift bags from recycled newspaper at How About Orange.
• The Perfect Neighbor Gift: Mason Jar Cupcakes at Make and Takes
• The Bloggess’s recent post about why marketers should *read* her blog before pitching to her literally made me laugh out loud. CLASSIC Bloggess post at it’s absolute best! LOVE her.
• Isn’t this simple skirt refashioning idea at Wardrobe Refashion just GENIUS?
• I made up a batch of these baked zucchini sticks last week with some of the zucchini from our CSA share. They were VERY delicious and reheated well yesterday when I needed a quick afternoon snack.

One last thing I want to tell you about before I go: actually I just wanted to share one more cute picture from our zoo / beach expedition. Here’s a quick shot of miss BB playing with some beach toys.