450th Post!

I can't believe this is my 450th post on this blog!

Last Saturday we went to the hospital to meet my new great-nephew Dante.

I, of course, forgot to take my camera so I had to steal this picture from my SIL Debbie's Facebook page. He's a little doll baby that's for sure! And he has the silkiest softest blond hair that I think we are all going to be jealous of in a few years!

Then we left the hospital and after a slow stressful construction filled drive we met Rich's sisters and their husbands for dinner. We had a great time visiting with them. We hadn't seen them since Christmas so it was long overdue!

On Wednesday I got to attend an awards luncheon at work because I was one of many who received a Customer Service award.  I got this beautiful bowl:

And  a $25 gift card to Target...my favorite store!

It was nice and it felt good to be appreciated!! I have to say that at my job they definitely let you know that you are an important part of the department!

Chris and Marissa closed on their house on Monday and this weekend we are helping move. Today we just cleaned windows and Shauna and I took all of the tape out of the refrigerator and wiped it down. Tonight will be their last night here!

Although I am happy for them of course, I think I'm experiencing empty nest syndrome again!!

Oh well..I'll close with a picture their new car. A 2012 Challenger!

No wonder I'm not a grandmother yet!!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there!

Our chimney swifts are back again this year. The other night we were sitting in the family room and we realized that the flue for the fireplace was still open when we saw a chimney swift flitting around the fireplace! Of course the cats were going crazy!

If you look closely above the head of the second cat from the right you can see the bird clinging to the inside screen! They kind of look like bats from this side because of their long wings! We were worried about it not being able to get back up the chimney but it managed to. Last year they must showed up but didn't stay very long, They must have gotten scared away by that stinking hawk that we have roaming around! This year I hope they stay and have babies!

 We went to visit my new great-nephew yesterday. Angela had her baby on Thursday by scheduled Cesarean section due to him being breech. He's such a little doll baby! I seriously did not want to put him down!! I'm happy for all of them!

 Then we met Rich's sisters and their spouses for dinner. We hadn't seen them since Christmas so we had a nice long visit.

I was planning on going to the cemetery this morning but it's pretty rainy out right now and we have the kids coming over later for a barbeque. This may be the first year since my mom passed away that I don't go. I think she'll understand. :)

Chris and Marissa close on their house on Monday so they will be moving in all next week and probably we will move their furniture on the weekend. I have loved having them here for all this time and I will definitely miss them!!!

Hope you all have a wonderful day!!

Happy Saturday Night

It's another exciting Saturday night here at casa de Net on the Net!

 I'm just hoping to stay awake late enough to see the Super Moon tonight. It's supposed to be the biggest and brightest at 11:34.

 Early last week we had one night where it got down below freezing. Our poor Japanese maple didn't appreciate that at all.  Here is a picture I took of it last weekend.

And here is is today. More than half of the leaves are shriveled up and dying.

The side that faces the house is not as bad but it's not going to be a good year for this poor tree! I thought it was just that our tree was weak but I noticed on my walk yesterday that every Japanese Maple is looking like that. Now I don't feel quite so bad! Speaking of not good years, my lilac bush was pretty bad this year,too. The flowers were scarce and gone pretty fast. Tomorrow Rich is going to trim it to within a inch of it's life and hope it comes back next year!

 Earlier today a little wild canary was flying up against the family room windows trying to get in! Here it is sitting on the fence trying to figure out a way!

Then it would fly at the window and land on the ledge looking into the house!

Toby and Max were going crazy!! They got their excitement for the day!!

Marissa and I walked around to a couple of garage sales in our subdivision. I got a kit to make a wire and bead tree and a pair of silver hoop earrings. Total spent $2.50.

Love that it's garage sale season again!

The Brenda Photo Challenge-Temptations

OK this is my first post since Blogger decided to change stuff around and confuse me!

Time for another Brenda's Photo Challenge! This is is titled Temptations!

This is probably my biggest temptation..and I'm sure I'm not alone! Since we don't have a lot of sweets around the house I took some pictures at the grocery store. Pardon the blurry phone pictures.

Cookies!

Ice cream! (That's a big one..I LOVE ice cream!)

Little Debbie goodies! They're just so good and inexpensive!

 

For a non-food temptation I would probably go with this. The open road, baby!
Every morning on my way to work it's so tempting to just keep going........

Now I am going to go see what tempts everyone else!

Hump Day

Happy hump day! The weekend is right around the corner!

The weather here in Michigan has been pretty unpredictable lately. It's recently been cold and it was even snowing a little last week. That's nothing new in April but we all hate to see it! Anyway, Saturday started out rainy and then got very nice towards the end of the day. Sunday was rainy, too and when the rain stopped it got hot and very humid for this time of year!

Yuck!! So needless to say we did not go hike a trail on Sunday like I wanted to!

Here's some pictures from my niece Angela's baby shower last Saturday. She got lots of nice stuff!

I especially love what we got her. Here she is opening it.

That's Shauna sitting there with her. She was in charge of keeping track of who gave what!

Anyway, a bunch of us aunts and cousins went in on this gift. It's a play pen /bed that I'm sure will be very handy.

Here she is with her dad, my brother Tom.

Him, my brother Don and Debbie's brother Bob did all of the cooking for us ladies! The food was delicious. I don't know if I mentioned that my brother is a excellent cook! I always said he missed his calling and should have been a chef!

Anyway, that's all for now. This Sunday we have my department dinner to go to...very fancy. Hopefully sometime we'll be walking a trail somewhere!

Hope you are having a good week!

Black Forest Bundt Cake and Pebbles

Easter was wonderful as usual. Full of family and lots of good food. My oldest brother made egg-drop soup, which was really good!

Anyway, I was in charge of desserts as usual because I like to find new recipes and make them. Usually they turn out really good.

This time I decided to try a Black Forest Bundt Cake recipe. I saw it on Pinterest and it looked pretty easy.

Start out by making  a chocolate bundt cake. I used a box cake mix but I replaced the oil with melted butter and the water with milk. It always seems to make a box cake a little richer. Anyway, I baked the cake on Saturday and let it sit in the fridge overnight.

On Sunday I cut it in thirds horizontally. Then I  mixed  8 oz cool whip, 1/4 c sugar and one small container of chocolate sprinkles, and spread half on one layer Then I put half of a can of cherry pie filling on top of that, then repeat with the next layer. Then sprinkle the top with powdered sugar. So easy and so good! Everyone loved it.

There was a couple little problems though. One was that the powdered sugar kept disappearing because the cake was so moist.  I probably should have let the cake sit out in the open air for a few hours. I don't like to do that really because of all our cats, I get paranoid that cat hair will somehow float onto my cake. So it looked pretty for a while before the sugar disappeared!

The other thing was the filling kind of oozed out. I actually made it several hours ahead of time and I think the weight of the cake caused that to happen.  But it was good!

Another great dessert to add to my collection!

This is Chris and Marissa's other dog, Pebbles.

Sometimes they call her three-toe because she only has three toes on one of her feet. She's not as friendly as Lou. I've never petted her because she's scared of everyone except Chris and Marissa. She's only half the size of Lou, too! She was a neglected dog that they rescued.

It's hump day so we are half way through the week. This weekend is my niece Angela's baby shower. It's supposed to be nice out, too, so maybe we'll get to go hike a trail somewhere. If so you know there will be pictures!

I'm outta here! Have a good week!!

Lou

This is one of Chris and Marissa's dogs, Luciano. This picture was taken almost 5 years ago. It was the first picture I ever put on my blog and

one of my first posts.

I took this picture of him this morning:

He loves hanging around the daffodils and fertilizing them, if you know what I mean!

A little grey around the muzzle these days but no less sweet or energetic.

Tomorrow we are going to my nephew Mike's house for Easter. I am in charge of dessert as usual. I am making that pretzel/jello cake and a Black Forest Bundt cake. I'll be telling you all about it next time!

Have a wonderful Easter filled with family and love!