Lazy Vegetarian: Day 8

So much for not eating today. I was hungry again by the morning.

Breakfast... I decided that if I'm going to have the same thing every day I should at least try some different toast toppings from time to time. So today I had this...

Yep, those are bananas on top, and underneath the bananas is... dulce de leche!! And it was incredible. Best. Toast. Ever.

Accompanied, of course, by a latte.

Later that morning we decided to have an adventure so we took the train downtown. Here's Fiona waiting for the train and "smiling".

We strolled around downtown and settled on Indian Buffet for lunch. It was so dark inside that I wasn't able to take a picture until I remembered the handy flashlight app Ben has on his phone, but by then I'd started eating. So here's my first, partially eaten plate...

My approach is usually to try a little bit of everything and then have more of my favourite, and the winner at this restaurant was (what I'm pretty sure was) Paneer Makhani. Oh my goodness, my mouth thought it had died and gone to heaven. It was incredible. I know all of the pictures I took make the food look really questionable but you'll have to believe me that it was delicious.

After that we walked over to Loring Park and played for a while before taking the train home.

Double swing!!

Later in the afternoon we went to a super fun birthday party!

Fiona and Adele had a really good time playing with their friends and bouncing in the bouncy castle and I had a really good time chatting with my friends while Ben bounced in the bouncy castle with the girls!

We had yummy party dinner...

My super talented friend Sara makes amazing cakes and this one was no exception...

And delicious! Happy Birthday Connor and Dominick!

Photo Challenge Day 29

At bedtime every night Fiona requests a "telling story" which is either a completely made up story or a story about something we did that day or are going to do the next day. Here's tonight's telling story...

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Fiona, and she was super smart and super sweet and super awesome (they always start like this). One day Fiona went to the nature center with her friends. Once they got there they found a nest and turned into a Mummy bird and some eggs...

After a while the eggs began to hatch!

(This is honestly what she's doing here!)

And one by one the birds flew until there was just one bird left...

The birds got bigger and moved into a new place together...

(Though they were reluctant to all be in there sitting still at the same time)

And had such a wonderful time playing, climbing, hugging and getting all grubby together that they promised to always be friends...

And they all lived happily ever after.

The end.

So that was our morning. This evening I did something I've been planning to do for a while and took my tripod to Minnehaha Falls. Here's today's photo:

30 Day Photo Challenge Day 29: Black and White

Yard Work

This week the weather has been really nice (in the mid 40s/low 50s a.k.a. Scottish Summer ;-) so yesterday Fiona and I began the epic task that is spring cleaning the yard. For a yard that's only 0.12 acres, I am constantly surprised by the amount of effort it takes to keep it looking reasonable. Not good, just reasonable.

On Monday we took on less than 1/4 of the back yard. My goal was to pick up the poop and scoop up the leaves on the patio. We didn't get round to any raking last fall so we have the pleasure of doing that in spring instead. Our neighbor's tree (which technically I think should be half ours since we get at least 50% of it's droppings) doesn't shed it's leaves until November, and by then we had a nice covering of snow, and raking never happened.

Fiona is a great help with the poop part because she is closer to the ground, and whenever she spots one (which honestly is not hard, it's six months worth of poop we're talking about) she yells "POOP!!" and I pick it up. She had a good time pushing the rake and broom around too, and was really happy to have use of her little house again, making me many cups of tea. That's my girl :-)

Here's a picture of yesterday's progress:

Today we continued our efforts and I managed to clean up another 1/4 of the back. We're making progress.

I know it doesn't look good, but it looks better. Especially when compared to the other side...

For all of you yard work rookies out there, I have prepared an handy "Q & A" session based on my recently acquired yard work experience.

Q: My leaf blower/sucker seems to be on fire on the inside. Is this normal?

A: Do you mean "on fire" in a Charlie Sheen sense, or are there actual flames?

Q: No, actual flames. Is this safe?

A: Probably not. However, if someone knows this is actually normal, please tell me, because it would be nice if I could use mine...

Q: Some of my leaves are still stuck to the ground with ice. Should I wait a little until they thaw?

A: NO!! Chop that up with a dandelion stabber and toss it all in the bag.

Q: Will a regular paper lawn waste bag hold sodden leaves and ice chunks? It says "dry and damp yard waste" on it...

A: So far so good...

Q: I can only find two right handed gardening gloves. Is the left hand really necessary?

A: No, but it is more comfortable to have one of each.

Q: I keep buying earplugs for my husband and they keep vanishing. Any idea where they are?

A: Yes, my dog ate them, and they are now scattered all over my back yard. If you're missing moon dough, foam bath letters, or a variety of brightly colored plastic toys, those are here too.

And that concludes "yard upkeep for the inept". I hope it was useful.

While I was finishing up this evening, Adele and Fiona played together on the tiny swing I rescued from the half that is not yet de-pooped. They had a great time playing together. I think they'll be friends soon :-)

The reason she is yelling "dinosaur" in the end is because she thinks her picture is being taken. I don't know what that's about, but it makes for some interesting pictures!

Fiona's House

A few months ago I made Fiona a house using her carseat box. Recently she's started to play inside it. She likes to gather all of her cuddly toys inside it...

And then she throws them all out again...

She thinks this is very funny!

If they're lucky, she'll give them all a cuddle at some point, but this game mostly consists of merciless stuffed animal torture.

I made a video of her in action, but it seems that the files are way too big for blogger to handle, so you'll have to check it out on flickr.

So goofy.