My Little Flowers

Some peonies...


Columbine from my grandma's garden...


And a Quinnie Flower! I ordered this dress last year from Ses Petites Mains, and it's a 5...good thing I tried it on her because it's almost too small on her! Those dresses run really, really small. I just love her in this dress! She wore it to Grandma and Grandpa's house this weekend.

Hope you all had a nice weekend. I have a chest cold...again...and a bad sunburn. Ouch. xo

Best in Show, Yo!

So my mom's garden club had a competition yesterday. You had to make an arrangement, but it wasn't that simple. They had a rule book with allllll these rules. What you could use, what you couldn't, height requirements, prop requirements, etc. etc. Basically, what you would see if you entered an actual floral show. Her super hip artsy craftsy friend, Marlene, came up with the idea. I would have loved to have done it too. My grandmother was a florist, so I think we inherited our interest from her.

Anywho, my mom checked out a painting from our local library (isn't that cool?) and used that in her display and as her inspiration. Check it out:

The container was a rusty wastebasket that her friend, who lives on several acres in the country, found on her property. I don't know a lot of the flowers, but I love the Queen Anne's lace and the bit of Spanish moss peeking out from the rusted hole in the bottom. I just think it turned out lovely. Like it was plucked right from the painting!

She got first place and Best in Show!!!!!!!!! Go, Janet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Celebrity Sighting & Weird Cake

Ryan called me this morning to tell me that they were filming a movie downtown Royal Oak. So I threw Vivi in her sling with a camera, threw on my tennies and walked downtown. It is a Lifetime movie called Prayers for Bobby starring Sigourney Weaver. It's a true story about a woman who became a huge gay rights activist after her son committed suicide because of her religious intolerance of him.


Two other kids from a movie Ryan and I liked, Mean Creek, star in it as well. But I didn't get to see either of them. I was actually pulling for Carly Schroeder to get the role of Susie in Lovely Bones.


So I got there, and they were filming a parade scene. My friend's husband owns a business right along the parade route, so the three of us hung out and watched for awhile. It was fun! And we finally got to see Sigourney too. Here she is in a navy blue shirt in the background.



The whole scene was super cheesy, like all the people in the light blue shirts were showing her, "Look! All these people came out to support gay rights!", and her face was like, "This is amazing!" Totally Lifetime for ya. But it was fun nonetheless. Something nifty on an otherwise boring Tuesday afternoon.

Here are some more stills. Note the super huge balloon arch...


...that blew away when it got super windy.




My parents, aunt & uncle came for a visit today on their way down to the Fox to see Alison Kraus and Robert Plant in concert. I realized I didn't have any cookies or ANYTHING, so I whipped up this Weight Watchers cake. Except I didn't have canned pears on hand, so I used fruit cocktail. Weird, right? Oh well. It was pretty good. Not very sweet. It will be good for breakfast tomorrow with coffee.

Weight Watchers Sweet Pear Bread (2 pts per serving)

Ingredients
1 sprays cooking spray
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-grain wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp table salt
1 large egg(s), beaten
1/4 cup canola oil
7 Tbsp dark brown sugar
15 oz unsweetened canned pears, drained and sliced (packed in water) OR FRUIT COCKTAIL!
1/2 cup diet cola

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat a 9-inch square pan with cooking spray. Combine flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a medium bowl. Combine egg, oil and brown sugar in a large bowl. Finely chop pears and add to egg mixture. Stir in soda. Stir flour mixture into egg mixture just enough to wet batter; do not beat. Spread batter into prepared pan and bake for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Slice into 16 pieces and serve warm.

And I cut these Annabelle hydrangeas and lavender from the garden this morning too.

Today = D-Day

In which the "D" stands for DIET. That's right-- no more excuses. Today, Vivian is 6 weeks old, and after my OB appt, I received the official green light for exercising (due to my C). I am pretty motivated. We're not having any more kids, so I think in my brain I know it's time to get back to my fighting weight.

I have like 40 lbs to lose. But it does give me hope that I was the lowest weight of my adult life 3 years ago right before I got pregnant with Quinn.

Anywho, long story long, I know what to do-- it's just maintaining the gumption to do it. Wish me luck! Any diet tips or healthy recipes or inspirations would be much needed and appreciated!!!!!

As a last hurrah, I did indulge last night. This stuff is made locally, and it is liquid gold, friends. Anybody out of state ever see it or taste it? Over vanilla ice cream with some pecans, it's sinful.


One more thing-- bummed out that I pretty much missed out on my peonies blooming. They bloomed and died like in 4 days! All that was left when I went to cut some yesterday were these which are starting to look decrepit. Dang-o!

Printemps

I received the May issue of Romantic Homes today, and there were some pretty pics of spring flowers in market buckets. Made me remember this picture I took in France 4 years ago...

And here are some more Springy pics from Monet's garden. When you walked into the gardens, the smell of hyacinth punched you in the face (in a good way, ha).

Running out of Red Sugar & Steam

So I'm making my Christmas Strawberries to take to my parent's tomorrow, and I'm running out of red decorator sugar. Plus, my "dough" is getting mushy, so I needed to put it back in the fridge for a bit, so I'm taking a break.

Jessie sent me the sweetest festive care package today! I had sent her just a few tiny things for coming in second in my Scared of Santa contest (well, plus I had something I wanted to send her for awhile now), and I got a return gifty. SO SWEET. Ok, first look how cute still wrapped. I'm sure she knew this vintage paper would be right up my alley!

Now, something dressy for something sweet:

And last, but certainly not least, indulging my obsession of Japanese fabrics! Filled with Puffs PLUS no less. My nose and I love it equally!

One final pic. I wanted to make an arrangement to take to my mom. It turned out less than spectacular. I wanted more height, but realized I didn't have enough flowers for more height. This is the third planter I attempted because the others were too large. Plus, I had to throw out some of the holly because it was browning. Sigh. But I think this is still acceptable. I like arranging flowers-- my grandma was a florist actually. It's so darn hard to do though! Usually my arrangements look pretty good from one angle (which is a no no), but oh well.

Off too fill stockings! We'll "open" stockings on Wed morning when we come home from visting both sets of parents.

Lazy Sunday

Ryan (the hubby) and I took Q to his friend/co-worker's house for lunch, play time with their twin boys, and to the park to play on a really cool splash pad which Q LOVED. I think we have a water baby on our hands. I was mad that I didn't think of something to bring ahead of time, so last minute (seriously, like 5 minutes before we left) I cut some flowers and some lemon verbena to give his friend's wife from our garden. I was feeling rather Martha and proud of myself, although I don't know how much they were appreciated. I was happy to cut some of my asiatic lilies because we can't have them cut in the house (apparently they are very toxic to kitties). As for the lemon verbena, I never knew what to do with the stuff, but I saw a recipe for tea in the last MS Living. And here are some other ideas from Gardenweb.

Also, I have a lovely snack that makes me feel all yummy and Nigella-esque. It's fat free greek yogurt with either lavender honey OR this sweet pistachio spread I bought from Zingerman's for Ryan for Father's Day. It is sooo good.

Ta ta for now...I think Oberweis is opening soon. The wait is killing me!