Waitress, hostess with the mostest, and pastry chef

This was a Friday night treat.  Loverboy cooked a yummy dinner, and Little Miss set the table--all by herself!  She has her "waitress towel" over her arm here and introduced herself as my server for tonight.  Also, note the inclusion of a treat with each place-setting:

A leftover birthday balloon.  Move over, Martha!  There's a new entertainer in town!

Health update:  ebbing and flowing.  Little Miss is MUCH better.  I'm not sure how much longer we're going to be able to keep her inside and not on her bike or trampoline.  Loverboy--not so hot.  Breathing seems to be a major hassle.  I've not been to medical school, but I don't think that's a good sign.

Since Little Miss is on the mend but has to be inside,  we made use of Aunt Toni's birthday present--finally!  We made brownies with the...whatchamacallit that bakes them with a divider.  It worked quite well.  And, of course, decorating them was a lot of fun.

But not as much fun as eating them!

Come on, Friday!

Little Miss  has pneumonia.  That's right--p-freakin-neumonia!!!  Nothing seemed to knock the cough and fever, so back to Doctor Knockout they went this morning.  When I called to check on them, they were on their way to the hospital for a chest x-ray.  Loverboy said Little Miss was super brave--sailed through the x-ray, had a blood draw--twice!--and a huge shot in the leg, with no tears.  She already seems much more on the mend. 

And how cool is Dr. Knockout?  Since Little Miss had to have blood drawn, she a got a super special prize.  And have you ever seen a bigger bottle of amoxicillan?  That's a regular sized flashlight!

Thank God for my job with decent health insurance.

Spring (?), a mauling, too much eating out, and homemade chicken nuggets

A strange Spring Break week...especially the weather.  Snow on Sunday?!  I think they even had to cancel most of the General's Birthday events...I wasn't getting out in the atmospheric craziness even for free cake!  And if the outhouse races were called off too...well, there's always next year.  Now that we're back to school, of course, the weather is quite lovely.  C'est la vie.

Speaking of la vie...one was cut tragically short, or at least socially curtailed ...

Should I have warned you of the gruesome nature of these photos?  Note the defensive wounds/amputations.  And no hairdo deserves that kind of abuse. This chilling attack took place while were out on one of the nice days last week...

We re-enact the crime.

Look out!

Maybe it's all the TV she watches. 

The perp praying for forgiveness, perhaps?

Barbie looks a lot like I felt most of last week. Saturday Little Miss got it.  Now Loverboy is sniffling and snorting behind me.

But in happier times...

We were able to continue our big project--our quest if you will--for the BEST cheeseburger (in north central Texas, anyway).  The results will be revealed in later blogs.

Spring has been springing up.

Loverboy and I had a rare, as in I can't even remember the last time it happened, lunch "date."  Keeping up the burger quest.

Lots of family in town, too...

Papa made it out for his first restaurant visit since he got his new knee

Photo by Little Miss at Don "Keala's"

Photo by Little Miss of Uncle Trey and the back of Lolly's head

Photo by Little Miss of Kate and Miles down from the Panhandle, and Lolo.

It was a good time for all the Nockinbirds.

Friday,  we actually made it to the Peddler Show (on the right day) with Mimi Debbie.

Little Miss, attached to the pink poodle backpack, had enough fun for one day by this point.

Until she saw the hopscotch sidewalk.

Worn out!

Since Saturday was the first day of spring (albeit FREEZING), we had a "welcome spring" dinner:

What says "spring" better than deviled eggs, cantaloupe, celery and carrot sticks, dill ranch dip, homemade chicken nuggets with a sneaky twist, and, of course, Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce?

The sneaky chicken nuggets have a lot of broccoli in them.  Hiding broccoli is really not necessary since we all like broccoli around here...but I like the idea of homemade chicken nuggets.

Adapted from here

I used frozen broccoli, half a big bag, and mozzarella because it was the only preshredded cheese I had.  They got rave reviews from Loverboy and a not-very-hungry Little Miss.

This scene awaited my (tired) arrival home today...

A lot of love in that one recliner.  As well as two out of three Nockinbirds present on antibiotics.  Welcome Spring!

Spring Break begins...

English muffin pizzas and mango/blueberry/banana/orange juice smoothies

With cookies 'n cream pudding for dessert--with a candle mind you!  As Little Miss said, "For no good reason!"  Except that we had Lolly for the afternoon.  There was much trampolining, a puppet show, block building, the above gourmet meal, cousins in a tub followed by the great detangling/braiding adventure.  Then hopscotch.  Nothing like hopscotch right before bedtime.

And then a story from Molly before she and Lolly went back to her house.

It's been a busy Spring Break, friends.  And it's only MONDAY!

Sunday the McKinney crew came to Molly and Papa's.  It was the sixth anniversary of our Road Trip to Santa Barbara and Back.  And Trey and Sunny's wedding, of course.  We worked on Easter pictures...

Funny bunnies.

Lolly has a secret in this one...but I'll never tell.  I'm just that great an auntie!

A lovely spring vignette, yes?

Doing the bunnyhop.

Papa and Lolo found the AnnieBunnie quite entertaining.

To think that six years ago, none of them were here...we must have been soooooooo bored/boring back then!

Saturday was full of excitement as well.  We were out of the house by 9:30am!  We were off to Lowe's...

to make tabletop basketball hoops!  They have these make and takes every few weeks.  They're free and fun...

And educational in a skills-building kinda way.  I love how she's holding Loverboy's thumb while hammering away.  Little Miss was not overly thrilled with the noise level, but she was quite pleased with the outcome...

AND she got a completion certificate AND a patch...the aprons are on back order LuAnne at Lowe's said, but when we go back to build our next masterpiece at the end of the month they should be in...and she'll get another patch!  She seems to like the patch thing...maybe a future lure into Girl Scouts?  MMmmm...Girl Scout cookies...but I digress.  We went to the courthouse square to see Molly, who was working at the hotel.  We stopped by a shop next door first to peruse the marbles and bricabrac.  We left Loverboy there--he was SHOPPING.  I've never seen the man browse before.  A little distrubing really.   After visiting Molly and trying to track down the skunk smell in the hotel, we went to our beloved county library.  We also continued our Spring Break Burger Project--but that's a later post!

Which brings us back to Friday--the start of Spring Break '10.  It was a half day at school and then off to the Country Peddlar Show...except Molly realized that it's not until next Friday...luckily before we left.  Undaunted, we picked up Mimi Debbie and all headed for JoAnn's for some craftiness...and to try on seasonal headbands..

A nice day for it.

There were ballloons, static electricity, and foam swords with which to play...

And bouncing...

And bouncing...

And bouncing on this lovely, spring-y day. 

With her ever vigilant bff never far away.