Stay at home with Abbi

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Fallen off the bloggin' horse

We have had a couple of busy and uneventful months. My kids are growing and being really cute. Marston has been taking gymnastics and goes to speech once a week. He loves speech but I'm not so sure how much he likes gymnastics. I have been taking a Sierra College class (to keep my teaching creditial) on Early Childhood Education, trying to keep up with the mess that comes with having kids, and training for another half marathon. Daniel has been the busiest. He has been studying for the CFP test full time and going to the office to keep up on taxes part time. We haven't seen a whole lot of him around here. He has be working really hard. This Friday and Saturday is the big test. I know he will do well. We won't get the test results for 10 weeks. It has a lower pass rate than the BAR exam. Yikes! I am looking forward to putting this whole test thing behind us. As I am SURE he is too.

Daniel got an insanly large safe. It's a bit overkill in my opinion.

Valentine's day.

For cousin Evan's birthday we all went to a fire station. The kids loved it.

We made blue play dough.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Dance Party

Daniel got this video last night. Marston and Hazel love to have dance parties to Kidz Bop music. It's really fun to watch. Hazel insists that she dance on the coffee table.

Monday, January 23, 2012

My 31st Birthday

For my birthday this year, Daniel took me to Napa Valley. You might think, why go there when you don't drink wine. But it was so much fun just to have time alone with my husband. We drove up Hwy 29 to Calistoga. There was so much to look at, I was really glad I wasn't the one driving. Rolling hills, vineyard after vineyard after vineyard. All with beautiful homes. One thing I really wanted to do was to drive by the French Laundry. It's a fancy restaurant that believes in eating small courses with each course featuring a different ingredient. A meal there would be a once in a life time experience. For an evening there you need reservations months in advance and it's around $250 for a nine course meal. Not in the budget.
We continued to drive north to Calistoga where we walked around cute shops and art galleries. It was a wonderful couple of days. Thank you Daniel for taking me away and thank you grandma and grandpa Anderson for watching our little monkeys while we were gone.

The French Laundry garden. They grow almost everything they serve. Amazing. They even had a chicken coop with very pampered chickens and a couple of bee hives.

That's it. The French Laundry.

One of the only original wineries left in Napa. This house was built in 1884. Gorgeous!!!

Homemade All-Purpose Cleaner

I love love love this all purpose cleaner. I make it myself and it saves me tons of money. I have black granite counter tops and they are very hard to clean without the help of an all purpose cleaner. I was using this J.R Watkins one and I loved it but it was $6.00 a pop. I go through a bottle in about 2 weeks so it was getting a bit expensive. My lovely mother-in-law gave me an all-purpose cleaner recipe that worked for her so I gave it a try. Now that's all I use.

All-Purpose Cleaner
2 cups water
3 TBSP vinegar
1 tsp Borax
Whisk together and pour into a spray bottle. Add:
1 TBSP dish soap
Shake.