Summer!

Nothing says summer like a Georgia peach!

This week's peaches from Whole Foods were from Pearson Farms in Georgia. They were so ripe that Will had to be outside without a shirt on in order to eat it!

Peach juice was dripping everywhere...

I think he liked it:)

Winner of the Clickin Mom's Giveaway!

Wow - I'm so glad so many of you signed up for this giveaway! I REALLY wanted to make sure I was completely fair in drawing a winner because I really wanted all of you to win this, so I used Random.org and showed the results straight from their site so you can know that I was not partial or biased in choosing a winner. With that said, the winner is...

Comment #3 - Mary Beth!!! Congratulations! Clickin Moms will be in touch with you about your lifetime membership!!

Overnight Oats

I first heard about overnight oats about 3 weeks ago and have had this for breakfast every day since then. I LOVE it and look forward to it every morning! And it is incredibly filling.

Here's how I make it:

Mix together equal parts rolled oats (uncooked), milk, and plain yogurt (I do 1/3 cup of each; Matt does 1/2 cup). Put in the fridge overnight. In the morning, top with any fruit and nut combination that you like! I usually do strawberries or blueberries with chopped walnuts or slivered almonds. Add sweetener to taste (I usually use Truvia, and on occasion will use honey or agave nectar). 

Enjoy!

Father's Day weekend

We had such a relaxing weekend. Saturday I finally remembered to bring my camera along to the farmer's market...

This was the first week of squash and zucchini!

So many different types of lettuce!

Matt likes talking to the farmers:)

Loaded down with the goods!

We shared a strawberry rhubarb smoothie! It was awesome - it had nothing but fruit and ice in it.

Will found some rocks in our yard and will literally do nothing else for 2 hours except put them in and out of his cup:)

I tried to get a couple of pictures of Will with his daddy before church for Father's Day! They are so sweet together!

After church we made a greek frittata with spinach, onions, feta, and tomatoes, along with an arugula salad and sausage....all local that we'd just gotten from the farmer's market!

After reading a book that has hats in it (Go Dogs Go..."Do you like my hat?") Will has been going around saying "hat?" and trying to put everything he can find on his head...

For dinner we grilled steaks and fingerling potatoes, along with another salad - again, all from the farmer's market! We don't normally eat like this, but for Father's Day Matt picked all the meals:)

The weather's been absolutely perfect, in the 70's, so we ate both meals outside and spent the afternoon outside too. After dinner we went on a long walk and then took Will to the park and let him play until it was too dark to see. It couldn't have been a more perfect day and weekend!

23 months

Will is 23 months!

My sweet Will,

• You are putting more words together, like "Good morning!", "Bye Coco" (when you are going upstairs for naps/bedtime), or "Night Night Mama!"
• You are SUPER friendly. On our morning walks you will yell "Hi!" to anyone you see, and keep yelling louder and louder until they say hi back!
• Your favorite food at the moment is apples. You also like cheese, yogurt, and berries
• Your dad and I have to spell out certain words now, like "bike," or "park," because it will likely start a tantrum!
• Your favorite activities right now are riding bikes, playing with rocks, pushing the swiffer around the house, and reading books (you like to be read SEVERAL before naps/bedtime!)
• You are the sweetest little guy and I love you more and more every day!

HUGE Giveaway!

I am kind of in shock about this.

Today I get to give away a free lifetime membership to Clickin' Moms ($195 value)!

About a year ago, while trying to learn as much as I could about photography, I came across Clickin' Moms. Clickin' Moms is a forum based website with over 8,000 members who are all passionate about photography (and despite the name you don't need to be a mom or female to join!) According to their website, 65% of members are professional photographers, and 35% are hobbyists - I am clearly in the latter group and knew next to nothing when I joined. They have amazing tutorials and workshops...I just finished a 4 week workshop on Lightroom and I just started a new workshop this week on natural light. I really can't say enough good things about Clickin' Moms - I have learned SO much on their website!

I started out just buying a one-week membership to see what it was all about. A year later, after still loving it, I decided to buy a lifetime membership. As a lifetime member you can sign up for workshops first, which sell out FAST! As a promotion they are doing with their lifetime members who have blogs, they have allowed me to give away a free lifetime membership ($195 value) to one of my readers!!

To enter, just leave me a comment on why you'd like to win (and please leave your email in case you win!!) I will use Random Number Generator to pick a winner on June 30. GOOD LUCK!

Note** If you join during the month of June and then win the giveaway, you will be refunded:)

Strawberries and the beach

So this was the first week at the farmer's market that there was fruit! Strawberries to be exact, and they were everywhere! Local fresh picked strawberries are SO different than what you'll find at the grocery store. They are so sweet and juicy! The grocery store tends to sell under-ripe fruit that is too "crunchy" and flavorless.

We were so excited that we got a few quarts, and have been eating them nonstop! We also got some arugula this week, and I found a recipe from Mark Bittman for a strawberry arugula salad! You basically let the strawberries soak in a little balsamic vinegar and black pepper, and then you toss with arugula and a little olive oil. We also added goat cheese, because goat cheese makes any salad better.

Peonies are also in season and were everywhere so we got a few of those too...I love peonies!

Our church is planting a church between where we live and downtown Chicago, and we went Sunday to help out. They are meeting in a park right on the lake, and Will REALLY enjoyed running along the "beach" and playing in the sand!

Such a fun weekend!

Heat wave!

So I guess since it is now June it's nice that I took down the snow pictures huh? :)

Matt and I are probably the only ones who care, but I just have to post a picture of this:

We walked into the grocery store tonight and the first thing we see are Lane peach boxes! We go to the Lane peach farm every summer in Georgia (here is where we went last year) - they have the BEST peaches! I guess I was just a little shocked to see them in our neighborhood grocery store in Evanston Illinois! Small world!

We are having a major heat wave this week with temps getting close to 100. It just doesn't get this hot up here, in the land where central air is rare (we don't have it). So what do we do?...

Keep cool of course!