Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Everyone!

Lebanese Cooking

One of Todd's favorite things to do is cook. One thing that makes cooking even more enjoyable for him is making Lebanese food from his mother's recipes. On special holidays throughout his life, his mother always made meshee, which is a traditional Lebanese dish that involves wrapping a meat and rice mixture in grape leaves or cabbage and then cooking it. It includes the traditional ingredients such as tomatoes, garlic, mint, lemon juice, basil and cinnamon.

Rolling meshee can be a job so Todd's mom was nice enough to come over and help him cook. The boys didn't want to miss out and even offered to help out a little. My mouth is watering and I can't wait for Easter lunch!

Todd prepping the meat and rice mixture.

Todd rolling the grape leaf meshee.

Cooking is a family affair!

Evan adding some butter to the dish prior to cooking.

Here is a short video of Todd demonstrating how to roll the meshee:

My Two Loves

Here is a photo of Chad and Gwen hanging out on my bed. So sweet! :)



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Outside Fun

The weather has been gorgeous here. The boys have been playing a lot of basketball in our driveway and shooting Todd's gun on the weekend. Evan has always loved playing in the water and as you can see from the photo, that has not changed!

Honor Roll Breakfast

For the second semester in a row, Evan made the honor roll at his school. Wanda and I attended a breakfast for all of the Honor Roll students on Friday. They served milk, juice and donuts from Mr. Ronnie's. Evan ate at least three and I lost count after that. Way to go Evan...I am so proud of you!












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Gwen's New Toy

We have all learned that anything within Gwen's reach is fair game!

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Ready, Aim, Fire

Todd went to his mom's house this weekend and came back with the pellet gun that he had when he was a teenager. Needless to say, the boys were thrilled and couldn't wait to do some shooting. 

To be honest, I don't have a lot any experience with guns and they scare me to death, so I made Todd promise that he would train the boys extensively and only let them shoot it under his supervision. He agreed and we were off to the races!

The first thing I discovered about this gun is that you have to pump it to make it shoot. It takes a lot of muscles to just get it pumped up.

Evan struggling to pump the gun.

Todd showed the boys how to put bullets in, how to set the safety, how to hold the gun, where to stand when someone else is shooting, etc. They wanted to shoot so they made sure that they followed all of the rules. We set up a can and a plastic bottle to use as targets and they both got a few hits.

After having all the fun of shooting, they begged me to get in on the action. I couldn't refuse, so Todd showed me how to hold the gun, turn the safety off and aim. I ran into some problems at first because I was closing the wrong eye and couldn't see the target. 

I finally figured out how to aim and took my shot. It hit the plastic bottle. Yea, I was thrilled! I think the boys were a little jealous of my hit on the first try so I told them it was just beginner's luck. I have to admit that it was pretty fun, so there will probably be more shooting practice in our future.

We Have Plants

Our garden is doing great. Evan showed me the tomato plants today as well as the green bean and corn plants, which are just sprouting. He loves watering so I am sure we will have some fresh veggies, soon. Here are some photos:






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