In Minnesota, where we used to live, we used to have a weekly BBQ at our house on Wednesday’s called “Why Wait for the Weekend Wednesdays”.  At such there were several givens:

1) The kids would have WAY too much fun under WAY to little supervision

2) Grace would arrive first

3) Dan would bring something from Walmart and claim it “homemade”.  I miss the bean dip and can’t believe you are settling down

4) Angela would bring the newest pasta salad and it would of course have sun dried tomatoes and be AMAZING

5) Tina would hopefully bring the best banana bread I have ever had

So it is with points 4 and 5 that I wistfully write this post.

Last week when we were going through the “you will eat this or be hungry” portion of our dinners, Angela replied to me on Facebook with a recipe she had tried for a goat cheese pasta.  It has been on my list of things to make for a week.  Literally.  I was going to make it Saturday but forgot we had BINGO at the clubhouse (for those of you with Tom’s sense of humor, no we are not 80, and there were a lot of young families there).   Sunday, Tom was writing and we had leftovers, Monday, migraine, ordered Pizza, Tuesday, I had an appointment and Tom was on his own for dinner with the kids, Wednesday, Tom had journal club and I was on my own for dinner with the kids.  So here we are, Thursday, and finally getting around to Goat Cheese and Spinach Pasta.  You can check out the recipe but here is a step by step…sorry, no pics, but wicked easy, one pot, totally changeable to taste, and took about 25 minutes.

1) cook pasta.  I used bow tie but you could use anything.  I think the original recipe had shells, whatever.

2) reserve 2 cups pasta water and drain pasta.

3) in pot you cooked pasta cook down spinach with garlic.  I added some leftover kielbasa that we had to the pot and cooked that with some garlic and a bag of spinach.  Cook until the spinach is wilted.  You could add mushrooms, peppers, onion, chicken, etc at this point.

4) add chopped sun dried tomatoes.  I used half a jar, could have used more.

5) add 1 cups of reserved pasta water, 1/2 cup of sour cream or greek non fat yogurt and 4 oz of goat cheese.  Stir until it becomes a nice melty cream sauce.

6) add pasta to pot and stir to coat.

7) garnish with shredded Parmesan and red pepper flakes, if desired.

I had one dirty pot, one dirty knife, one dirty cutting board, and one colander to wash at the end (and by this I mean, Tom cleaned up)  Still it was super easy, really really good, and both kids ate it without complaining at all.  Jackson even said he couldn’t tell the difference between the sun dried tomatoes and kielbasa it was so good.

Here are some photos of the finished product.  I had a GREAT glass of zinfandel that went well with the goat cheese and smokiness of the kielbasa, but anything would have been good with it.

Likewise, with the banana bread, I don’t have any photos of my doing it.  Now, if I were a less crazy mom at times, I would have hunkered down and called my good friend Tina to get her recipe when I got the craving for it.  But, since I got the craving for it in the middle of the night and then didn’t think about it until nap time for her little one (never mess with a mom during naptime) I turned to Pinterest and looked long and hard for one that looked like her’s did and the recipe had ingredients that made me think of hers.  Don’t believe there is that big a variance of recipes of banana bread, go to Pinterest and see for yourself.  Anyway, you can find the recipe I used here.  It is by a serious foodie, check out her blog, it looks super yummy and I am already compiling ideas.

NOTE:  a double batch did not fit in my kitchen aid 11cup mixer, which I found out the hard way.  I had to hand mix the rest in the largest bowl I had, which still wasn’t quite large enough.  A double batch probably could have made five regular sized loaf pans, but I did it in four and had them overflow a smidgen.

Give both recipes a try and have a fabulous meal! And yes, Jenny, there is a loaf coming to work tomorrow.  :)

It has been 6 days since I have posted my latest post and several people have asked, “what have you been up to?”  Here’s what.  Lily is potty training.  For those of you out there who have been through the routine (or lack there of) of potty training a small child (or in some cases a puppy) you know EXACTLY what I mean.  You disappear, become invisible, and shrink away from the world.  For those of you who have never has the pleasure, it is like this.  Imagine sitting on the ground next to the toiler (only in this case it is not induced by an alcohol binge).  You sit there with another humans naked body inches from your face, hoping that when the inevitable stream comes, your child leans forward to keep you dry.  And instead of reading a book or magazine or listening to your own music, you are singing a song or reading a short story over and over and over and over and over again because that is what said child wants to do while they wait to “push some peepee or poopy out”.  And you sit so long that you, the parent, eventually has to pee, but for fear of missing the window of your child’s pee, you hold it.

On a positive note, since Saturday, Lily has been in underwear (not to be confused with panties or underpants, or undies, because she WILL correct you) and has had no more than two accidents a day.   Yay!!!  However, she has this neat trick…as all kids do…of crying and protesting the potty when she needs it the most.  Most accidents happen within ten minutes of an absolute meltdown of “I don’t want to go potty, I don’t need to, I don’t want to be in underwear, I want a pull-up, I am a little girl!, etc”  Followed by the horror that ensues when she does in fact have an accident.   The two that were the worst was 1) when she peed on the brand new carpet in the media center at Jackson’s school.  The librarian was very kind about it and when I let her know I cleaned it up with carpet cleaner and all she explained that it was nice of me to do, but she hadn’t located the spot yet where the first grader peed earlier this week (No, it wasn’t Jackson) and 2) when she pooped in her underwear and when I was telling Tom about it, he said, “well that’s ok” followed immediately with (and the words were the exact same in my head and the exact same time), “says the person who didn’t have to clean it up”.  So there you have, that’s where I was.

Until we get things all ironed out, posts might be fewer and farther between.

Ah yes, the pinterest pages that get accumulated that sometimes never get anything done with them.  Well, today I finally decided I was going to try and make that ombre (shaded) five layer cake.  I should have taken pictures along the way, but with kiddos helping and a surprise entrance by Tom for the afternoon, we were having too much fun as a family.

So, had a hard time figuring out what color to do, and Jackson suggested that we do everyone’s favorite colors in the family, so that is what we did.  I tried to do the shading gradient with different colors so it became more intense, but had a hard time once I got past the light green and mid blue getting the intensity of the purple, pink, and orange.  In the future, I will probably pick the color for whatever occasion and do that.

I also figured I would try out a new white cake recipe that I have been wanting to do and was really happy with it.  You can find the recipe here.  I made a double batch to get five layers.  It made just over 11 cups of batter so each layer had 2 1/4 cups of batter to start.  I made butter cream icing as well but had a hard time finding one with out shortening because 1) I don’t like it all that much and 2) the roads eventually did get pretty bad and it wasn’t worth going out in sleet for.  So here is one that I found that was really good, but VERY sweet.

Lily requested it be topping with sprinkles so per her request here it is:

Like I said, it was hard to get the gradient right on the shading with different colors and in this photo the light lime green looks a bit yellow and the mid range Carolina blue looks a bit green, but it tasted good.

Thanks to our fabulous neighbors for coming over and helping us eat it.  I must say that this week we have yet to have a single complaint with dinners….of course, today I let them eat cake!  :)

So, yesterday about 10am, our local school district decided to call an early release day for schools based on the forecasted weather.  While I am grateful for the planning.  You all know how I like to plan, plan, plan…part of me thought it was absolutely ridiculous.  First of all, my only experience is in MN where if the conditions are going to be that bad for the day, they call the whole day, and second, more than 24 hours in advance for predicted weather.  I can see the night before, I can see possibly early in the day, but before the kids have had lunch…nuts.

Due to this, and the fact that we are unable to tonight, we chose to have our weekly Friday Family movie night on Thursday instead.  After all, most of Jackson’s 3 1/2 hours at school would be spent having arrival, snack, lunch, recess, and departure activities.  What difference does it make if he is a little sleepy.  For all you teacher’s out there, please, no hate mail. He was in bed at 8 and still arrived to school promptly today.

We chose Mirror Mirror.  Both of our kids are totally digging the fairy tale thing right now.  Last week was Ella Enchanted (great movie BTW, and I am going to start reading the book too).  Here is a shot of all of us, snuggled into bed, well fed on a comfort dinner of homemade mac and cheese, and enjoying the movie.

Moving forward to this morning.  I had a physical therapy appointment for my shoulder and Lily and I were out running errands before hand.  We would leave PT and then get Jackson at school on the way home before the “big weather” event.  We headed to the grocery store and as we were leaving and about to go to PT it started to flurry.  Let me explain what I mean by flurry.  The “was that a flash out of the corner of my eye or a flurry” kind of flurries.  You know, where you have to look really hard to find them.  This is where it get comical.  There were people in the grocery parking lot who started to panic.  I mean, all out panic.  Like, one of them said “Hurry, we need to be quick in the store before they close for the weather”.  Yeah, because it started to flurry, the roads will instantly be shut down and people stranded.  I can understand if  freezing rain is expected.  It is FLURRYING and 25F outside, there is no major event happening while you go by your bananas and milk.  Trust me.

Got in the car and drove the 20 mins to PT.  During this time it started furiously flurrying (say that 3 times fast).  By this I mean, you can see the flurries easily.  Nothing is sticking, and nothing is icing.  Does this stop the natives from driving 20 on a 55 road….no, even though it snows about 4 times a year here and the non natives are almost all from New York.  As I am driving into the parking lot for PT, it is now 1013 for my 1015 appt, I get an automated message from the district stating that “due to severe and inclement weather” schools would be dismissed at 1030 instead of 1130.  Change in my plans, cancel and reschedule PT, and go get Jackson, because I’ll be damned if I am going to let him on a school bus when the people here think that this is the Armageddon of winter events.  Is the weather really so inclement that we needed to abruptly send kids home an hour before already scheduled.  Ummm…no…probably not.  Did this create panic…um…yes.  Below you can see (if you look really really really closely, the thin line of flurries that are starting to accumulate at the edge of the (dry) street by the pine needles.

Here you can see the line of cars lined up at least a half mile back from the school.  Now, I admit, the pick up line on a good day is still a strange event.  If you want your child in your car at 3pm.  (yes, school dismisses at 2:45 but it is prioritized, bus riders, car rides, walkers, so car riders don’t get in the car until 3) you need to arrive by at least 2:30.  There are, and I kid you not, a regular group of parents that arrive at 1:45 and set up a tailgate behind their cars so they are first in line.  This is insane, INSANE, INSANE!!!!!  Usually start to finish takes about 20 mins.  Today 40 mins.  CRAZY!  Also note, the line you see of cars is one of three roads that they line up down and have to merge into one line as you line up through the parking lot and along the curb.

We got home about 11:15, yes, I was a bad mom and located about 20 mins from my child when the alarm sounded that they needed to get gotten.  So we were one of the last out of there.  The roads were fine coming home.  It probably wasn’t until an hour and a half later that they started getting good accumulation.  Still, it was a fun exercise in mass hysteria (This is one of my Dad’s phrases that he used when we went to Sam’s Club after they ordered voluntary evacuations before Hurricane Ivan when generators and water were going out of style and I think it is hilarious so I use it sometimes).

So we headed home, watched it flurry, decided to have a movie afternoon, and work on some pinterest things that I have been wanting to try…more on that later.

And I have done it…the THREE-PEAT.  Three meals in a row…all healthy, well balanced, and nutritious…and not A SINGLE COMPLAINT!!!!  Not a one of these was a choice or suggestion my kiddos threw out either.  I am hoping that we have broken the cycle now and we can move forward with whine free meals…but I’m a realist, I’ll take what I can get.

A recap: Night 1) chicken won-tacos; Night 2) Chinese beef and broccoli; Night 3) Chicken, veggie, and cheese roll-ups, with mixed veggies, and low-fat crescent rolls.  Ok, I admit, we don’t usually eat pastries out of the pop cans, but it was a crazy night and I happened to have one so we did that instead of baked potatoes or rice.

Here’s how for all of you wondering:

I put 3 good sized chicken breasts between plastic wrap and whacked it with a rolling pin until it was big and thin.  This had the added bonus of both being fun, stress relieving, and highly entertaining to Lily as she ate her lunch.

Get your fillings ready.  I used sliced bell peppers, shredded 2% swiss cheese, and cilantro because it was what I had on hand.  Could do spinach and bacon, green chilies and pepper jack, the possibilities are endless.  Choose what you like.  Get it all ready and put out so that when you start rolling chicken you aren’t having to spread raw chicken juices everywhere.  Also, only put as much out as you will need because if you contaminate it you will have to throw it away.  Don’t learn this one the hard way, or you will blame me for getting well acquainted with you toilet.  :)

Lay chicken on plate and pile on the toppings.  Generous, but not overfilling.  Think of a burrito.  If you put to much in it just all falls out on the floor.

Roll up and secure with a toothpick.  Put in baking dish.  I made this about 6 hours before they went into the oven and just refrigerated them.  When ready I pulled them out, put them in a cold oven and cranked it up to 375F (seriously people, why waste time and energy preheating, I only do that nonsense for delicate things and baking, you will not mess up your chicken by letting it warm in the oven as the oven warms).

This went for about an hour with I think was a little long, but I got carried away rearranging clothes in Lily’s dresser, folding laundry, and then organizing Lily’s play kitchen food so that it was neat and tidy.  I can hear my mother rolling her eyes at me from here to the last one there.  I know….it is a sickness….I know it is weird to have to account for all kitchen and food items….but it is my sickness and I own it.  For the record, I just about lost my mind because the only thing that was missing was half of a Melissa and Doug cut able kiwi and it drove me bonkers until I asked Lily where it was.  Without missing a beat, from underneath one of the couch chairs she pulls one of my own cake pans with the missing kiwi.  Apparently one of the features of my couch now is that it doubles and an oven.  She was quite proud of her kiwi cake…we’ll save that for the summer though.

Anyway, cook til the chicken is cooked through.  Maybe 45-60 mins.

Super yummy.  The cheese was really melty when it came out so I let it sit for a bit to come together.

Winning dinner.  Jackson giving the thumbs up (with the crazy eyes) and Lily shoveling it in.

One would think that perhaps two dinners in a row without complaining kids might mean that my children are in relatively good spirits.  If you were to take that wager, you would lose.  The last two days alone have been rough with Jackson (he doesn’t do as well with unstructured time and being out of school) and now that Lily is three she is coming into her own with the whining and temper tantrums, especially when provoked by her big brother who likes to incite storms.  I think that my mom feels a special flutter in her heart that I get to have these challenges.  Something along the lines of “you get what you give and then some/”  When they are kind and peaceful to each other, though, it is like magic and heaven are raining down at the same time while you are eating rainbow sprinkled cupcakes in a butterfly garden.

So, it came as a surprise to me tha,t once again, we had an argument free dinner.  Now, we had Chinese beef and broccoli with rice which typically is an easy one to get my kids to eat.  They both love broccoli and rice and are usually pretty good about meats, although Lily favors chicken and Jackson fish.  However, just when you think that it’s a solid, people pleasing, healthy dinner, WHAM, you get hit.  It’s like Lucy in Peanuts tempting Charlie Brown.  Every darn time he believes in her, she yanks that football away and he is flat on his rear end with little birdies flying around his stunned head.

Here’s what I did for all of you out there that just don’t know what to make for dinner or are looking for winner for your kids.  Someday, I am going to create a page on my site that is just a running list of ideas for dinner.  That is the hardest part, I swear.  Just tell me what to make!!!!  I am definitely falling in love with my ninja so forgive me.  Modify as you need to for what you have.

Two pounds stew meat (or any other kind of slow cooker meat – could use something like flank or skirt if you are just doing it in a pan)  Toss with corn starch and brown.  I used the stovetop setting on my ninja for this.

Add 1 1/2 cups of liquid.  This is probably 1/3 cup of soy sauce, some brown sugar, ginger paste out of a tube, minced garlic, a splash or two of sesame oil, some red pepper flakes, and some chicken stock to top it off.  If you are doing it in the slow cooker you can probably cut back to 1 cup total of liquid.

Slow cook for 6-8 hours.  I did 8 and it fell apart like pot roast.  Do it how you want.  Longer for fall apart, shorter for more firm.

Throw in broccoli on top when there is 30-45 minutes of cooking time left.

At this point we went for a walk and when we came back…voila…

Serve with rice and top with sesame seeds if you want.

Stay tuned for adventures in dining with tired, hungry, kiddos tomorrow when we try chicken, bell pepper, and cheese rollatini with biscuits and salad tomorrow.  We’ll see if we can three-peat.  If so, I will be happier than the Chicago Bulls in the 90′s.

Yes, lots of posts tonight.  Couldn’t resist this one though.  Lily has recently started asking to have Jackson do nap and bedtime.  I was skeptical at first, but he does it with great care, and they both seem to love it.  Here is a cute shot of tonight’s adventure.

I have a little caramel obsession.  When I worked at Starbucks, on a dare, I drank an entire  squeeze bottle of the caramel sauce.  This is not a good idea.  I have never felt sicker in my life…but not enough to divert me from future caramel endeavors.  We got a new Verismo coffee/latte maker for Christmas and the one thing that I just can’t do is drink a latte without caramel.

As usual, a totally random side note, but they had this “commercial” on SNL this past weekend featuring Starbucks and the Verismo.  HILARIOUS…  You can see it here on hulu.

So…I had to learn to make it.  Ina Garten has a great recipe, but I have always been intimidated to try it.  I don’t know why, but I was.  Anyway, it is FABULOUS and so easy.  It takes about 20 minutes, no candy thermometer, and so far I have had 2 perfect batches, one of which was a triple recipe.  You can find the recipe here.

So, in addition to making my lattes better in the morning, it is making my desserts sweeter at night.  I am not a big dessert person generally, but this was perfect.

Tonight was the best dinner ever!!!  Not actually the best one I have ever eaten…although it was good.  I mean, from start to finish there was not a single person at the table who said, “I don’t like that”, “I don’t eat that”, “I’m not hungry”, “This isn’t what I thought it was”, “Can we go out to dinner?”, etc, etc, etc.  Every parent everywhere is familiar with this at one point or another.  Somehow, my children who are exposed to all kids of cuisine and types of food, and I have never cooked separate “children’s” meals for (with the exception of super super spicy foods) have become picky eaters.  Strike that…whiny eaters.

This was especially important today because Jackson and I had been in near hand to hand combat most of the day.  There was a brief reprieve when he was playing with one of his friends outside for a couple of hours, but even that ended with Jackson being rude to his friend, shouting he hated me (thank god my mom used to tell me that if I didn’t hate her she wasn’t doing her job right, or it would really make me upset), and then devolving in a major temper tantrum that sent him, unwillingly and uncooperatively , to his room.  Back to this later…

I stumbled across a compilation of “best nachos” recipes on some website.  Was clicking through it and found this blog http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com.  I thought, hmmm…her nachos look yummy, what else does she have and today’s post was an idea for Green Chili Verde Chicken Wonton Tacos.  Well, this I had no thought of.  I must admit, I learned long ago, that you can put ANYTHING in a wonton wrapper and 1) it will be delicious and 2) kids will eat it.  Butternut squash ravioli  of course, cream cheese puffs, yum!, shrimp salad in a wonton cup, my kids gobble that up.  I am even known at the holidays to make avocado egg rolls (shout out to my NOLA girls) which my kids eat in force, red onions and bell peppers and all.  But a taco, this is new.  And so I embarked on the experiment.  Anyone who knows me knows that I do not follow recipes.  I briefly skimmed what she did, and here is what I did.  I’ll estimate as best as I can.

Place 4 frozen chicken breasts (or whatever you have) in a crock pot with whatever green chile sauce you have.  I was going to use green chilies, but this is half a jar (maybe a cup) or salsa verde because I didn’t have chilies.  Cook on low for 8 hours.

Remove the chicken and shred.  My momma got me a Ninja crockpot for Christmas and my birthday (NOTE:  this is the best invention EVER!!!)  I turned it to the stove top setting and cooked down the remaining sauce til it was thick and tossed the shredded chicken back in.  Perfect and not watery at all.  Throw in a couple of spoonfuls of sour cream and maybe half a cup of low fat shredded cheese and mixed up.  At this point I had decided that Jackson could either help with dinner, or could stay in his room until it was ready.  Reluctantly he came downstairs and was gruff to start, but once he saw me stuffing and rolling up the first won-taco he was all over that action.  He did a really good job too.  I think I might have done 5 and then let him do the rest.  By the end, his spirits were back up, and fortunately so were mine.

Baked at 425F for maybe 20 minutes…check and see when you think they are brown enough.  Oh, I sprayed them with a little PAM so they crisped nicely.

We topped these with cilantro, avocado, tomatoes, and some diced jalapeno.

Both kids dug in right away and Jackson even shouted “These are DELICIOUS!!!”  Lily of course followed suit and added “best food ever”.  The both went back for seconds.  Tom even kept saying “mmm hmmm” over and over.  Can’t ask for a better dinner than that….and I didn’t even have to do the dishes.

We started off the weekend with a very lazy Saturday morning for three of us.  Poor Tom got up at 7:30 and went for a 4 mile run with our neighbor Chris (who graciously allowed Tom to “sleep-in” instead of running at 5:15 as they have been).

After a two hour mobilization effort, which, for the record, drives me crazy since I can get up and ready in about 20 minutes and no one in my family can go to the bathroom faster than that in the mornings, we headed out for a surprise breakfast.

There is a new shop called Rise: Biscuits and Doughnuts near the Target where I shop and there was a line out the door the other day while I was running errands.  I tucked that in my back pocket of ideas for outings and we headed out.  I have no idea what I was thinking going to a breakfast place at 10 am on a beautiful Saturday when there was a line on any given random Wednesday.  So, we got there, Jackson nearly melted down at the sight of the line, and we summoned the strength and resolve to grab a ticket.  Number 02…Now Serving 73.  And there were lots of big orders.  Fortunately they have a quick case where you can buy up to 6 of whatever doughnuts they have in there so we each grabbed a doughnut and settled in for our number to be called.  You didn’t think we were leaving without a biscuit, did you?

Let me first apologize for not having a picture of these doughnuts.  They were beautiful works of art.  The Tiramisu one, which I had, even had a coffee dusted lady finger shoved into the filling hole.  They had every kind imaginable, meyer lemon with macadamia nut, peanut butter iced with jelly filling (Tom’s and my favorite), chocolate mousse filled, maple and bacon bars, the list was nearly endless.  Let me tell you, this was the absolute best doughnnut I have EVER had.  It was doughy and soft.  The icing was sweet but not overpoweringly so.  The toppings were well balanced between sweet and salt and savory.  If we weren’t so enraptured with the doughnuts and busy trading and tasting away, there would have been some great shots of happy kids with smiling sugared faces and the looming line behind us.

Tom and the kids made the trek across the parking lot to Target to hit the Starbucks there and get some drinks while I waited for out number to be called.  Now serving number 84.  The line moved that slowly.  I chatted with a couple of people sitting at the table next to us sharing what looked like the worlds freshest, tastiest apple fritter.  It was literally, as the woman pointed out, the size of a show.  And not one of my “baby feet” shoes, one of Tom’s big, huge, trip over in the hall, boat shoes.  It could have fed half the county.  Finally our number was drawn.  Since we were nearing 1115, we figured the extended breakfast of doughnuts and biscuits would double for lunch.

These are not your normal biscuits.  They have those as well, with plain or butter or honey or the usual, but they had so much more.  Local slab bacon, house made hand formed sausage, you can add eggs, cheese, sauces.  Tom and I settled on sharing a fried chicken one and a short rib one.  The fried chicken was spicy and perfectly crisp without the overpowering grease that often comes with chicken.  It was tender and the biscuit fell apart in your mouth.  The short ribs made the chicken pale in comparison.  Moist, warm, short ribs with a horseradish cream sauce.  There was this beautiful marriage of sweet, flay biscuit with savory hearty dinner fare.  It was perfect.  Although, the more I think of it, when we return for breakfast next, I think I  might add a runny egg to it.  Might as well savor the mess.

The kids asked to go to the Barnes and Noble (also known as the big bookstore), not to be confused with the little bookstore, McIntyre’s which is a local bookstore about 2 miles from our house.  We headed over for some reading and browsing time before heading home for  some down time before Tom headed off to work for the evening.  True to form, Jackson amassed a pile of books before we were even all up in the children’s section and secured his favorite spot in the window.

Lily at first asked to play with the trains but after maybe 5 minutes gave that up, collected a large collection of Barbie books, and asked Tom, “Daddy, please it ok I read now?” and without waiting for an answer marched off to read them.  Now I confess, Tom and I were both engaged in our own books.

Total sidetrack here:  I was reading Lady Almina and The Real Downton Abbey.  I have not seen the show, though it is on my Amazon watchlist queue.  I also am not a huge fan of historical fiction, although after reading both The 19th Wife and An American Heiress, I am gaining an appreciation for it.  Totally addictive book though about Lady Almina, who Downton Abbey is based on.  She was the 5th Countess of Highclere Castle and the book is written by the 8th Countess of Highclere Castle.

Anyway….back to the kids.  I glanced up to see what the kids were reading and here is Lily, perched on the window ledge, with Jackson.  I asked Tom, “Did you put her up there?”  He responded that he did not.  We still don’t know if she climbed or if Jackson placed her up there.  Neither of them remember…which demonstrates how sucked into the books they were.

Dragging them away of course was a difficult task.  Who would want to leave a warm sunny window, with a good book, sated on the world’s best doughnuts and biscuits?