I recently revamped the front room with new pictures from the family photo shoot on Monday and this little sign I made. I like it when people use text in their homes, especially letters and sayings and stuff. I'm not really big on vinyl lettering just yet, but I do like framed artistic text prints. I found some stuff on etsy that I liked and then decided I'd like it better if I changed a few parts and did it the color that I liked instead ... so this is what I came up with:

... to see all of our family picture photo shoot. OK, truthfully, we took about 200 pictures, so I narrowed it down to about 25. I posted most of these on facebook, but I hate facebook and I think it's taking over my life and so I withheld a few pictures just for my blog. So there.

Daniel is the one who came up with the genius idea of taking family pictures. We hadn't decided what to do with the Labor Day vacation day he had from work, so Monday morning we slept in. Then started doing projects around the house and we lost steam on the projects after about 45 minutes. So Daniel suggested we get the boys dressed up in nice clothes (and we use the term "nice clothes" in the loosest form of the word ... meaning "clothes that don't have stains on the front. Stains on the back are just fine") and take pictures of them. Then he said I should get dressed too (instead of sporting the "painting clothes" I had on) because he wanted to take pictures of me too. Then I mentioned he should get dressed too ... and well, we went out and took family pictures.

The whole time we kept bribing the boys to be good and smile for the camera because we promised them we'd go to the cider mill and get donuts afterwards if they did. We went to a place called Nankin Mills nearby. It's just a huge white barn turned into a community-type-nature-center with lots of trees and landscaping around it. It was a little rough on the boys because there's a park they love right across the street. So when we weren't actually shooting pictures, the boys would immediately run over to the street and stare at the park and ask to stop taking pictures and go to the park. They were rewarded with cider donuts and yummy cider afterwards. It was a pretty fun fall-ish day.

I haven't blogged much this week. It's because Daniel was gone in Colorado backpacking near Boulder with Eric and Ian (his brothers). I thougth I would just sound sad and depressing if I wrote down all my "missing Daniel" thoughts. I was driving myself crazy the first 3 days - doing mad amounts of projects, errands, cleaning every nook and cranny of my house, staying up until 2 am, 4 am, it was crazy. I finally relaxed and got into a rhythm by Wednesday.

Now it is 2:11 pm on Saturday and Daniel flies in at 3:30 pm and I keep looking at the clock about every two minutes. It's so silly. It's the last hour and a half and I am ridiculously giddy and excited. I wanted to buy and wear a new outfit for the airport pick up (don't worry Daniel cakes, I thought it would stress you out, so I didn't spend the money). Liam is sleeping and Noah is coloring in a Welcome Home sign for the front door. Noah requested the "spider man song cd" (a Vocal Point CD that Liz gave us - thanks!) So Noah is listening to acapella music and coloring in the kitchen and I am deciding when is it too early to redo my hair and makeup and when to get dressed in the outfit I have planned out.

I already mowed the lawn, did all the dishes ... I still have to put some laundry away ... I should get on that. I already did grocery shopping and I have dinner planned, complete with Rosemary olive oil bread from Costco (mmmmm, dipping it in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, mmmm).

I guess I'll start doing the laundry, then getting gussied up for my sweet Daniel. I know he doesn't care and he'll barely notice what I'm wearing, but I have to do SOMETHING for the next hour, now it's 2:21 pm .... oh geez. This is taking forever.

Noah, Liam and I went to park last night to have dinner and play in the last rays of sunshine for the day. When we got to this park we noticed that they had recently updated it with a new play structure. This is a video of Noah explaining his favorite part of the new play structure. He's trying to say "skeewampus", meaning haphazard:

Ya know that saying, “if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, did it make a noise?” ... I think, “If I clean the countertops and nobody sees it and then they just get messy the next morning, did I really clean them?”

OK, we had an awesome anniversary and I love Daniel very much, but the craziest part of our date was being in downtown Detroit and Dearborn (neighboring city).

I do not hang out downtown very much, mostly because it's pretty dangerous, run down and I have two young boys. Enough said. But driving downtown was really eye opening. Not only were most of the houses and businesses boarded up and destroyed, but many were burned. I don't get that. Why are people burning old buildings? It was like driving through a war zone. There were old brick buildings with all the windows smashed out. It was worse than Gotham.

Anyway, the thing that took the cake was on the way home. We were driving down the road and noticed that the right lane traffic was going significantly slower than the left ... slower than the speed limit ... slower than most cars with wheels on them. And then we saw why - there was some idiot driving on his rims in the right lane. Evidently his left front wheel had gotten a flat tire and instead of stopping (refer to the above paragraph and you might come to the same conclusion I did - he might have been scared to stop in this neighborhood), he was driving on his rim and leaving a scrape inthe road as he went - sparks flying, etc. It was crazy. I got all these pictures with my phone, so they're not great, but the best I could do. Check it out ... one memorable anniversary here in Michigan. Oh geez.

I took these pictures with my phone ... so they're bad. But look at the size of Liam's cookie in comparison to his head.


This is definately the sugar rush talking here.

Daniel is super busy these days. It's the end of his summer semester and he has assignments due and a final to study for ... so that means less Daniel time and more time with my two crazy boys alone. But let's make the most of it, right? So when Daniel got a reccomendation from a guy at work about a very yummy and wonderful pastry shop nearby, I took tonight to explore it with the boys.

Right after dinner, around 6 pm, I had 2 hours before the boys had to be in bed and Daniel needed the time to study, so I piled the boys in the car and headed off to Astoria Pastry Shop about 30 minutes away.

I think I need to preface my review of the shop - I have been spoiled for life after living near NYC, eating at amazing delis and restaurants and eating at Mike's Pastries in Boston (best cannoli besides the ones my mom makes). OK, now here we go:

The Pastry Shop is tucked in a cute and hip downtown area. Nice area but I was pretty much the only one on the block with kids and a stroller. The Shop itself was cool and aesthetically pleasing, but the customer service was not good and the pastries were only mediocre.

I bought: a chocolate cannoli, a plain cannoli, some rice pudding, a chocolate covered pretzel with sprinkles for Noah, a "black and white cookie" for Liam (white and milk chocolate dipped cookie) and a macaroon.

The cannoli - bad. Worse than bad ... they were filled with thick, disgusting cream. Overly sweet and the chocolate dipped cannoli had waxy tasting chocolate, ugh. By the way - cannoli should be filled with RICOTTA CHEESE PEOPLE. Just in case anyone was wondering. This pastry shop should be ashamed of themselves. They advertise themselves as having "European pastries". Europe would be gagging. Italy ... would throw up.

The rice pudding - not flavorful.

The stuff for the boys - who cares. I mean really, is anyone out there going to go out and buy a chocolate covered pretzel at a pastry shop except for Noah? I think not. I'm pretty sure the only reason why he picked it was because it was also covered in sprinkles. And the black and white cookie was tasteless and the chocolate was also waxy.

The macaroon - the first one I got from the girl at the counter had a fruit fly smashed into the bottom of it. Yummy. I brought it back to the girl at the counter and this brings me to the customer service ... I showed her the macaroon and she took it from me and said, "you want another one?" ... no "I'm sorry" or "That's disgusting, I feel bad about that" or anything remotely helpful or kind. Hmmmm. And when I asked if they had a restroom she flatly responded with "no". I would expect something like that from a NYC bus driver, not a girl at a pastry shop serving her ONLY CUSTOMERS in the ENTIRE SHOP. lame.

Probably won't go back. But the boys .... you guessed it: LOVED it. Liam's cookie was bigger than his head and Noah was so excited and full of a little sugar rush after scarfing down his pretzel that he did a few laps running around the empty shop. All in all, we killed time before bedtime and Daniel had an hour and a 1/2 to study before we came home and got the kids ready for bed. Not bad.