Eat More Vegetables

My goal this year is to try to eat more vegetables for better health. Unfortunately, the only vegetables that I currently like are green beans, corn, onions, mushrooms, peppers, and uncooked spinach.

My health coach and I came up with a plan for me to hide vegetables in my food. Last week I made a meat loaf with chopped carrots. That turned out well. They were hidden enough, that I didn't have a problem.

This week I am trying blended broccoli into my spaghetti sauce. The picture is the meal as I'm cooking as well as our tea brewing. We have tea from Kenya, and it tastes great.

The broccoli is cooked and ready to blend. The sauce picture is the broccoli blended into part of the spaghetti sauce. It makes the sauce pretty thick. Not overly visually appetizing! My plate is on the left, the new sauce on my wheat noodles. My husband's plate on the right looks more attractive with the beautiful green broccoli. I added a little bit more spaghetti sauce without the broccoli to my sauce to help it be a little bit more appealing. It didn't taste too bad, but don't think I will try this again. Too much trouble and not enough gain. My next plate was spaghetti with the regular sauce. Mmmm Good!

What will I try next? Veggie pizza with cheese. Everything tastes good with a lot of cheese on it!

2 of 4

These are two of our four labs. The black lab is Scout and the yellow lab is Luke. They are not much into photos. They are ready for it to be Spring. Get rid of the ice and snow. They love chasing rabbits and eating blackberries. OK - Luke doesn't really chase rabbits.

They love running over our 10 acres, swimming in the pond, and chasing each other when all four are out together. Luke usually watches from the sidelines! He's a loveable guy, just slow to action.

Cora loves him. She calls him Guke. "Where's Guke Nana?" is usually her first question when she calls us on the phone.

Lil' Olive

My latest pictures of my youngest granddaughter, Olive. She is 4 months now. She always has a big smile for Nana and Papa and is reaching and grabbing things now such as these toys. She is red headed and blue eyed and reminds us a lot of her big sister, Cora.

We enjoy watching her grow and become more active. She is a good eater and sleeper. Her mom and dad sure have two sweet girls and are Nana and Papa's joy.

V-Day Gift

My hubby surprised me with this necklace for Valentine's Day. I really love it. The middle letter is my first initial and the two smaller letters are my granddaughters' first initials. The necklace is reversible and has either black background or white background.

He bought it from a local shop called Schaeffer House. This shop has dishes, furniture, knick knacks, frames, vases, jewelry and a wide variety of gifts for showers and weddings. It is a favorite shop in our city.

Hubby knew that I am a proud nana and the necklace is perfect for me.

Photo Booth

At my niece's wedding they had a photo booth instead of a guestbook. They had props, costumes, etc. to use and you took fun pictures and then two photos were printed. One for you and one to put in her wedding scrapbook. I thought that was such a cute idea and everyone seemed to really enjoy going into the booth and taking fun shots.

This is my daughter and I being crazy! Fun times.

Book Review

Just finished reading "The Pillars of the Earth". I'm not cutting edge on my reading, but I tend to get around to reading some of the popular books (i.e. Oprah's list). I really enjoyed reading this book. The writing took me right back to the Middle Ages. I took my time reading this very long book, but after about halfway through, I had trouble putting the book down.

My next read is Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol". I have read his "The DaVinci Code" and "Angels and Demons" and enjoyed them very much. I enjoy his writing style and look forward to the roller coaster I am getting ready to step onto!

Child's Kitchen

My daughter, husband and myself worked this weekend in building a play kitchen for my granddaughters. My daughter, Kate, had researched on the internet for other homemade play kitchens and we put it all together this weekend from spare parts, scrap material and a few items from Lowes.

Kate will finish the project by putting on a hanging utensil bar across the backsplash. Behind the curtains, there will be baskets to store kitchen utensils, dishes and food.

One of the websites that Kate used in designing the kitchen was Ohdeedoh. A website that I found that had a very similar kitchen was Vintage Songbird: DIY is fun. It was fun to pull our resources together and make something fun for our granddaughters.

Music Download

I have added a widget to my blog that makes downloading my SIL's music easy. See bottom right. ALL MONEY generated this year from his tours and CD sales is going to build a freshwater well. So listen and buy away! Also, read about his life and music at "Continue the Conversation".

Another Wedding

Another family wedding. Another niece getting married. My daughter and I traveled to Florida for a mini-vacation and the wedding.

My parents are also in the photo. They are snowbirds in Florida every year and so were able to attend their granddaughter's wedding.

My daughter and I visited Blue Springs State Park and saw manatee, enjoyed the beach at Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach, and stopped at several Farmers Markets.

I will share more photos from our trip in my next few blogs. We had a great time and fit a lot of activity into a few days.