Our Fun Family

Last week when Grandad was cleaning up the boat in the driveway after a fishing trip, Grace had so much fun “play fishing” that Grandad decided that she might be ready for the real thing.  This morning, Grandad and Colton picked up Grace after breakfast for her first fishing trip.  Near Gram and Granddad's house is a nice little pond that the boys have pulled some nice catfish out of.  It was close enough to not ruin the day if Grace lost interest, but well stocked enough to allow Grandad and Colton to have a little fun.  Grace didn’t bring home any trophy catches, but she had fun, and she looked good doing it.  Here are a few pictures from the trip. View Full Album

Brenda and I had decided long ago that we would have professional portraits taken of our kiddos every 3 months for their first year, and then annually thereafter.  We also decided to take those photo opportunities to get family portraits taken.  Today we went to Portrait Innovations for Grace’s 4 year old pictures.  If you have read this blog for long, you have heard us rave about Portrait Innovations, and they do take some good pictures.  I just think that we have gotten just about all that we can out of their studios.  We end up with very similar pics each time.  Today’s portraits didn’t knock our socks off, but I do think we got some good portraits. I have included a sampling below.  Being able to get the CD of all of the pics that were taken is one of the things we love the most about using Portrait Innovations. View Full Album

Grace has a new fascination, fishing.  There is no doubt that all the grandkids love their Granddad, and so far, the boys have enjoyed a monopoly on Granddad’s fishing time.  But times are a changing here in Round Rock, and it doesn’t look like it will be long before Grace and Hailey are ready to stake their claim to some dedicated lake time with Granddad.  To celebrate Granddad’s birthday (Happy Birthday, Granddad!), he took Clancy and his buddy Colin fishing.  Grace and Hailey got to enjoy a little driveway “fishing”, while Granddad cleaned up the gear and got things put away.  The fish may not have been biting in Gram’s driveway, but the fishing bug may have gotten a hold of Grace! View Full Album

“Does Grace like blueberry muffins?”  This was a question that Brenda asked me while she was on the phone with Gram.  I am sure she does, I can’t think of any reason she wouldn’t!  She always eats some of my muffin when we eat at Mimi’s Cafe, and I can remember making strawberry muffins with her before.  And we KNOW she loves fresh blueberries!  For breakfast the other day, Gram let Grace help her make the muffins.  And to put the question to rest in a decisive manner.  Yes, she likes blueberry muffins.  The only question left is, why didn’t Daddy get a muffin???  View Full Album

If you know me well at all, you probably already know that I HATE eating leftovers. With the exception of soups and stews, leftovers never taste better the second time around. Either you don't have all the necessary components, or the breading gets soggy, or the sauce separates , or the meat gets dry, or any other number of potential pitfalls and maladies. So rather than putting things away to eat as leftovers, in our house we prefer to re-purpose. For example, a dinner of Pot Roast with roasted veggies will get re-purposed into 2 completely different dinners. First the leftover roast gets shredded and seasoned with Mexican spices so they can be made into beef enchiladas. The leftover mushroom gravy and roasted veggies will take a spin with the immersion blender and some beef broth to become a killer vegetable soup. Over the last 2 weekends, we have enjoyed some great meals courtesy of the grill or smoker. Last weekend, while camping with friends, we grilled up some quite l