Summer Brew Fest

Friday night was Summer Brew Fest. My mom is in town, and we got a sitter and all headed down there. It was the second year for all three of us, and a lot of fun! We hung out with some friends (same as last year) and tried lots of good beers. It is a small festival consisting mainly of local breweries, and they bring out all kinds of unusual small batch beers that you cannot buy in the store. FUN!

Fruit Dip

13 oz jar (or two 7 oz) Marshmallow fluff
8 oz cream cheese (regular or light)
2 tsp vanilla

Bring cream cheese to room temperature.
Mix all ingredients with a mixer and serve with cut-up fruit. Keeps well in the refrigerator, so great to make ahead. Sweet and simple and always a favorite, great for brunches or pot-lucks. You can spruce it up by using strawberry cream cheese as well.

Penny

Meet Penny- she is the horse at the grocery store, and costs 1 cent to ride. The picture is blurry- its hard to capture a moving target with a cell phone! On this visit to King Soopers, I actually had to get cash back of $0.02 when I paid for my groceries with my debit card because I didn't have any pennies in my purse!

Dont Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

This is an excellent children's book! We actually have this one, "Don't let the pigeon stay up late" and "The pigeon finds a hot dog". Lauren and I both enjoy all three - her favorite is the hot-dog one. It is very simple and funny, and tickles your sense of humor. The pigeon shows a lot of emotion (for a cartoon pigeon) and I think it is great for a toddler who gets frustrated sometimes, to discuss the pigeon's feelings. I actually am thinking about getting another book by Mo Willems - he has a series of Elephant and piggie books that are supposed to be good, and recently read about  "Hooray for Amanda and her alligator" and it sounded good too.

Family Friday

Friday Jeff was off work, and we all went down to the Zoo. It was fun, but busy.

 A nice woman kindly offered to take a family photo. It would be cute if I werent in the light.

 About to pull a fast one...

 While Lauren napped we brewed a batch of beer and bottled a different one. It was Jeff's night to plan dinner, so we ate at The Spot. Some friends who live nearby stopped over for a drink and hung out on our porch. Lauren was so sweetly entertained by their 3 month old daughter~ she is really sweet and gentle around babies, it was cute! I wish Jeff had Fridays off more often!

Let's Go Rockies!

Not one bit afraid- she has gotten less shy, almost overnight! I plan to print and frame this for her~ she is so proud of her picture with Dinger!

Colorado sunsets are awesome~ some of the best are seen from right field at Coor's Field.

"Corn Dog" dairy -free and egg-free

Recipe:
Hot Dogs (Hebrew National all beef kosher is what I buy).
Refrigerated Crescent Rolls- the kind that come in the tube (read labels, most are dairy and egg free).
Wooden kabob skewers

Spike the skewer through the inside of the hot dog, then wrap the hot-dog in crescent rolls. I tore them into strips so they would wrap better, and I made sure the hot dog was peaking out between strips. I am sure you could do it so they were totally covered, too. I used about 1 1/4 of the triangles per dog, by my hotdogs were pretty large. Then, lay them on a cookie sheet and bake per the instructions for the crescent rolls. I found I had to cook it a couple minutes longer, but I watched closely so it didn't burn. The hotdogs were hot and the bread was crusty.

Lauren ate one and a half of these- I could hardly believe it. She likes hotdogs but has never eaten more than a half of one of these big ones. I was in shock when she chowed it and asked for another. I had only made a second one in case one didn't turn out, I never imagined she would eat more than one. Now, I am not saying this is a particularly healthy meal choice, but it is a source of calories and meat~

Love and Logic

We are attending a "Parenting with Love and Logic" seminar tomorrow. Jeff is grumpy and irritated, I am pretty excited. Life with a 2 year old is tough! Jeff doesn't realize it, but he needs it more than me. She can turn on those tears and cries like a light switch to get her way- especially when he is around. He also has never put her in time-out, just threatens it. She has him wrapped around her little finger, I hope this helps! I am not a saint, we both are struggling~ but I at least am reading about it and trying to learn. We will see how Jeff does. He already flat-out told me that he will walk out if there are any role-playing exercises. I might need to call a cab to bring me home, because after paying for the seminar and paying for a babysitter to watch her while we attend it- I will NOT be leaving with him. Wish me luck!!

Running Stroller

Lauren getting to go for a ride in the jogging stroller- doesn't she look like such a big girl? Well, she is. The combined weight of her and the stroller is over 60 lb, not including any stuff that is stashed in there. It was quite the work-out to go for a jog pushing her! To top it off the running app on my phone had malfunctioned and I ended up running a whole lot farther than I planned because it mislead me to think I barely had run over a mile! We ended up walking back home singing the Star Spangled Banner and the Sleeping Beauty song (someday I need to put up a video- she sings the entire Star Spangled Banner by heart- people cannot believe it!!). In the end, we went on an hour-long jog/ walk on a hot humid morning- crazy to say it was kinda fun!