Father's Day Week

I haven't blogged in forever. It's kind of daunting to start back up, but I'm going to attempt it again. I'm too tired to rearrange these from how they loaded, so just know they aren't in chronological order and I'm trying to get back into this :)

First, a group shot from Father's Day today. This is a terrible pic of me, but fun of everyone else, so I'm posting it! We had our friend (and Eli's primary teacher), Maraley, over for dinner too - she's the one taking the picture. We had a fun dinner, but I was in the kitchen from the time I got home from church at 1 p.m. until we ate dinner at 4:45 p.m. (hence my exhaustion). I gave my dad and Ben customized iPhone cases (from Uncommon - love their cases) with a picture of the boys on the back, and I also gave Ben the materials to make homemade bubbles. 

Eli is very into doing tricks with bubbles ever since we saw a show by The Bubble Man in Madison, WI last month. The bottled stuff never works that great, so Ben made a bubble solution out of karo syrup and dishwasher soap and it worked really well! I'll have to get some pics of Eli and his huge bubbles. 

Here are some pics of Ben and the boys after my family left and we were out on a walk before bedtime tonight. Eli and Charlie love Ben so much and are lucky to have such a fun dad. Charlie insisted on wearing his flip flops on the walk, but totally biffed it while running and skinned his right knee, so Ben scooped him up and put him on his shoulders. 

 

These next pictures are from a few days ago when my parents went to a nursery near our house to see HGTV's Jamie Durie speak and sign his new book. They came over afterward and hung out with us for a little bit. Here is Charlie having fun being pushed on the swing by my mom :)

Here's were they are really out of order... I tried to take some cute pictures of my parents with the boys, so they are interspersed below. 

Reading books with the kiddos - 

More pics with the four of them - 

Then Ben came home from work and distracted Eli and Charlie :)

Happy Father's Day to the dads in my life! 

Father's Day and Fresh Corn-Rice Salad

This first picture is for Stacy, who originally blogged this idea of her son having fun stacking with plastic cups. I showed it to Eli and he got excited to try it out. Now he stacks cups at least once a day into new patterns and pyramids.
And Happy Father's Day! I'm glad we have a holiday that celebrates great people like my dad and my husband and father-in-law. They have all been great examples to me in how they parent and interact with their kids. Yesterday we went up to my parents' house for an early Father's Day dinner and walked around the golf course behind their house for a little bit. Eli and Charlie had fun with the rakes at each hole.




After a little while, some golfers showed up and we had to book it off the course to get out of the way.


We stopped to look at some bugs on the big rocks along the path -


Eli making a very typical Eli face when he's thinking or questioning something -


Eli found some treasures to share with his dad (pine cone and rock):

Charlie had fun stuffing sticks down the gutter holes.

Back inside, we opened presents and the boys were a little wild/overtired...




Before heading home for the night, we put the boys in their pjs and they read a book with my parents.

As for today, we had a fun morning at home. The boys and I made a yummy breakfast for Ben and gave him cards and some presents. I love these pictures of sleepy Ben, content Charlie, and excited Eli.

Finally, here is a tasty recipe to share - I made it as part of our Father's Day dinner tonight and served it with grilled salmon and fruit. I used jasmine rice tonight, but we thought it would be good next time to mix the jasmine rice with wild rice, or use brown rice/wild rice to make it a little heartier. Happy Father's Day!

4 ears fresh corn

1 1/2 C. cooked rice, cooled

1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved

1 C. fresh arugula or spinach

1 small red onion, cut in thin wedges

1 jalapeno, thinly sliced

2 Tbs rice vinegar or red wine vinegar

2 Tbs olive oil

Directions

1.Husk corn and remove silk with a stiff brush; rinse. Cook corn in boiling, lightly salted water for 3 minutes. Remove corn; let cool. Cut corn off the cob in planks (see note).

2.Combine cooked rice, tomatoes, arugula, onion and jalapeño pepper. Transfer to serving bowl; top with corn.

3.Drizzle with vinegar and olive oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve at room temperature. Makes 10 to 12 servings.

Note: To cut planks, place an ear on its side on a cutting board. Holding the corn firmly with fingers away from the blade, cut off a side of the corn. Rotate and repeat until all sides are removed. Use a spatula to gently move planks to salad.

Source: BHG

Lastly - I'm trying to catch up on editing from some recent photo shoots. Check out this link to see the most recent session blogged of a family with two handsome boys!

Father's Day

We had a really nice Father's Day yesterday! Ben opened one of his gifts in the morning - a box with two ties inside - and wore one of them to church. We had an open house in the early afternoon, and had two people come through! (this may not sound like much, but this was better than last week's open house when we had ZERO people...) One of the people seemed very interested and gave us some hope that we may actually be able to sell this place soon. We'll see though.

After the open house, we drove up to my parents' house for dinner. Eli loves playing in their yard and being outside, so it was fun to watch him toddling around in the grass. My parents had pulled out their wooden Noah's Ark set and Eli enjoyed playing with the sets of animals and of course dropping them in a metal bowl.

The second part of my gift for Ben (and also to my dad) was something that I made (I got the idea from another blog) - I bought two Real Simple business card holders at Target and filled them with pictures, mostly of Eli, but some of Ben and Eli, or Ben and my dad, and a few with me, Ben and Eli. I love gifts that include pictures, since I am constantly taking them and like to do things with them.