Prettier than flowers?

Can these normal apples replace flowers? You bet!

Well, I do love a beautiful arrangement of flowers every now and then. But, sometimes I like to use a nice grouping of food like apples or oranges instead. It's a simple way to have a nice arrangement---be sure to use the same kind of fruit or veggie to get the biggest visual impact.

Try it this week!

Fresh garden green beans with cherry tomatoes

Fresh green beans with cherry tomatoes

1/3 cup of cold water

2 cups of green beans

1/4 cup of cherry tomatoes

1/8 teaspoon of garlic salt

olive oil

1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt

Here is a quick way to prepare green beans from the garden. I made it the other day and had it four times that week! It's a simple and delicious side dish that is lowfat and bursting with flavor.

To prepare:

Simply trim the edges of the green beans and wash.

Put the water in a pan and add the green beans to blanch for 2-3 minutes until the water is gone. When the water is gone, add about 1 tablespoon to 2 tablespoons of olive oil to give the green beans a quick saute. Cook for around 3 minutes.

Add the garlic salt, kosher salt and cherry tomatoes and cook for around 1 minute.

Serve and enjoy!

Family pictures 2

Kelly and I are holding Ava (7 months) and Ethan (9 months). They are getting big and are best friends!
Every night we put Ava in her sleep sacks. Sleep sacks are amazing because they allow you to do midnight diaper changes easily and with less crying than normal pajamas! I think they are a baby must!
This picture is for Luke who says that I have no pictures of him! We were celebrating Dad's birthday this night and took a picture right as Luke and Kelly were leaving.
I took this picture while Dad was holding Ava and Ethan and Mom, Becca and Luke were trying to get the babies to smile. Sometimes the background is better than the actual subjects.
Here is our little miss in her pink party dress ready to celebrate poppa's birthday. She loves to stand with help and is going to be walking soon at this rate!

Family pictures

Poker night/Phase 10 night was a couple of weeks ago. We all pigged out and then played a whole round of phase 10 and the guys had a poker game. They wouldn't let me play because they didn't want me to take their money! Just kidding....but I am pretty good and so is Kelly so we would have taken some of the money! It was nice to have Aunt Rita and Uncle Nick with us. Uncle Nick loves to play poker and he was showing Luke, Brandon and Shaun some new games.

Cuddle time
Here is a rare moment--Ethan let me hold him before he went crawling somewhere! He loves to crawl and is a little cutie. He loves to explore everything and loves to talk and babble. He is adorable.
Sisters, sisters.
Aunt Rita, Little Nicky and Mom hang out in the living room before dinner.
At dad's birthday, Ava and Ethan got to help dad blow out the candles on his cake.

First video available on The Shmidts blog site-check it out!

Winterpark_Olivia teaches us the "Baby Song"

I am now able to upload videos on to this site. Stay tuned for more videos.

To watch the above clip, hit the play button over the screen.

Birthday party

Ava, Brandon and I were over at mom and dad's for Dad's 51st birthday.
We had ribs with dad doing the bbq honors, corn, ahi tuna salad, rolls, and cake and ice cream. It was so fun to see everyone and Grandma and Grandpa Yoder also had dinner and celebrated with us.

Top Chef

Okay. I am seriously wondering who is going to win Top Chef
http://www.bravotv.com/Top_Chef/index.php. It's getting down to the wire and I still don't even have a favorite. I really don't want CJ to win. He seems to have put himself in a spot to win by designating Trey as the executive chef. What a big crazy ending last week. Trey was one of the chefs that I believed would make it to the final two.

However, I do like Brian and I do like Casey--are they Top Chef material? I am not sure yet. Can't wait to watch tonight's episode!

technical difficulties

Well, using Brandon's computer has seriously halted my computer use and blogging! By the end of the day when Brandon brings his laptop home, I just want to veg and not do any posting so bear with me as we work on getting new equipment. We are doing a new thing called saving for it--and it's going to be a little while because I have my eye on the new Imac 2008. Brandon swears I will enjoy saving money up for it and it has been kind've cool hording my money in my mason jar.

Usually, I would be all for just trying to make it work and going out right when I want it, but it has been kind of neat saving up my money for it. Hopefully it won't be too long!