Welcome!

Well.

My little blog was chosen to be featured on Friendly Friday.

I'm honored.

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So if you are new to my little corner of the web...welcome!

I am Michele.

I'm married to that guy that I like so much (who's real name in Michael) and have been for 24 years. I really do like him. Together we are raising 3 sons (20, 16 and 11) who are a collective mass of our gene pool, which can be just a tad bit frightening.

But we sure do like them alot.

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I am not, however, the only female in my house as we have two 'girls', Maggie and Mollie. They might be cats, but they are my lovies.

Other things about me?

I am a Christian, saved by grace, who worships in a Lutheran church. I love flowers and cooking and gardening and champagne and reading and Italy and music and the color yellow and writing and laughing and talking and being a wife and a mom.

Oh, and I like making jewelry.

I've been blogging FOREVER. Seven and a half years now, which in blogger time is a long, long time. I write about my boys and the food I've eaten and take really bad pictures of things.

Pull up a chair and introduce yourselves. I can't wait to 'meet' you!

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Cupcakes On My Brain

While blow drying my hair yesterday afternoon, a thought hit me.

Cupcakes.

Cupcakes?

Cupcakes.

There's a new show on the food network called Cupcake Wars and one of the people that was on has a store the next town over.

So cupcakes have been on my mind.

I texted that guy that I like so much, who happened to be two rooms over from me, but hey....why walk when you can text.

Me: cupcakes?

(knowing full well that he would get what I meant.)

Him: World Cup

(knowing full well that I would get what he meant.)

In other words, there was no way he was going to stop watching the Germany/Spain game to drive 15 miles for a cupcake.

So I did the next best thing and texted my neighbor.

"Would it be ridiculous to drive to Orange for a cupcake?"

Almost immediately I received a reply.

"I am running to your house now."

Gotta love girlfriends.

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So off we drove to buy cupcakes, to a cute little cupcake shop that was featured on Cupcake Wars, to satisfy my sweet tooth, to make me smile and at peace, to make all things right in the world.

Cupcakes have the power to do all that.

I'd love to show you the pictures of the adorable little shop and of the adorable display and of the adorable goodies.

But I can't.

I can't because once I saw all of that I became verklempt and forgot to take any photos.

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Yes, there were 6. Were.

The strawberry one was yummy.

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Delicious. I didn't try the chocolate (I'm not a huge chocolate fan) but the vanilla and strawberry ones were yummy...especially for breakfast this morning with my coffee.

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My houseful of boys has shrunk for the weekend. Matthew is on tour with drum corps and Alex just left for Lake Tahoe (9 hours away) with his basketball team.

So it's just us and the youngest shrub for the weekend.

I'd like to say it's going to be quiet, but well, have you met my 11 year old? He's a tad bit chatty.

I like that.

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New in the shop...and on sale this weekend!

Check it out HERE!

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Stealing Seats

We've been spending our time following Matthew around SoCal, stalking and watching his drum and bugle corps perform...and we may or may not have snuck into a sold out show in Riverside this weekend.

It may or may not have involved us flashing tickets from a previous show that I had in my purse (which came in handy, I might add...though they might want to change ticket colors from show to show. FYI.) and sitting in open seats until we would get booted by the people who truly owned them after every group that performed, ending our evening squeezed into one seat just so we could see Matthew perform his solo.

I just followed my nice, rule following husband.

Oh, and he (that guy that I like so much) may or may not have talked to EVERYONE around us and told EVERYONE around us (in each of the different seats we were 'borrowing') that his boy is the kid with the big mellophone solo.

Yeppers. He did.

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Matthew's corps is being featured in a documentary...Grandparents, there are lots of grandson sightings in it.

In other news...it is raining.

It is now July and we have yet to see 80 degrees outside.

Dear summertime weather,

We are ready for you.

So please come.

Thank you.

Michele

Oh...and you should head on over to Fingerprints on the Fridge, a really cute blog that is sponsoring a giveaway of my jewelry, and enter to win!!

Just sayin'.

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Happy 4th!

If you set up tables in the backyard (or garden, as it is called in Italy)...

...and IF you make a large amount of coffee,

...then they will come.

Some via skype from across an ocean.

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One of my favorite neighborhood gatherings of the year...the annual pancake breakfast.

1. because I love pancakes with my my neighbor Elisa's homemade blueberry syrup and I will stop hosting this party when she grows up and doesn't bring it

and

2. because I love my neighborhood. But you already know that.

So we packed the house with lots and lots of friends and neighbors and made lots and lots of pancakes.

Matthew is performing at the Rose Bowl today (last nights show was so awesome!) but the rest of us are here. Grilled teriyaki chicken (with grilled pineapple) sandwiches for supper accompanied by lots and lots of sangria (but you didn't hear it from me) followed by lots and lots of s'mores followed by lots and lots of fireworks at the end of our street.

Happy 4th of July!

(this post brought to you by the words 'lots and lots'.)

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My New Love

When that guy that I like so much and I first married, we moved into an apartment that had a gas stove.

The kind of gas stove that you had to light with a match.

High tech, I tell ya.

On the few occasions where I would actually USE the stove (I was 20, we were dirt poor and worked a lot) I would flip on the gas, stand about 3 feet away, light the match and throw it.

Yep.

I'd throw the flaming match. Or matches, depending on whether or not they blew out.

Back then I was not a cook. At all. I was a baker. Sort of. I could follow a recipe for baking because those recipes had easy to follow instructions. When it came to cooking...well, that whole 'season to taste' thing threw me every time. I mean, how was I supposed to know what it should taste like?

Fast forward to moving to hippie Boulder, having a baby and falling on the organic, local grown/raised, make your own baby food, cloth diapering band wagon.

I learned to cook. Better yet, I decided I liked to cook.

But along the way, I stopped baking. All those instructions...just daring me to step out of the lines and then greeting me with failure.

Too. Many. Rules.

(wow...I am totally turning this into a bible lesson for the fall!)

Anyway, my family hasn't suffered too much. I still pop out a batch of cookies here and there. I make a coffee cake now and then. I still make the homemade chocolate cake and frosting for the boys birthdays (yes, Matteo...I still owe you yours!), but I don't love to bake.

Now.

Please listen carefully. This is important.

Go to Trader Joe's. Look for this box in the freezer section. Gasp out loud when you see the price. Buy the box (or two, if you have a household of males) anyway.

I didn't take a picture, but before you go to bed lay the unbaked frozen croissants on a baking sheet. Climb into bed and finish the current summer read, which wasn't that good. (The Mailbox...anyone want it?) Sleep all night long. Wake up to the sound of World Cup, because you live with a bunch of World Cup addicts. Place the now puffy dough in oven, make coffee and pull THESE BEAUTIES out of the oven.

Whew. Those were long instructions.

Sit on your couch, drink coffee laced with french vanilla creamer and eat up while listening to all the males in your life tell you how amazing you are.

Happy Saturday, everyone.

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Healing

Alex's knee surgery was one week ago today and while the picture below is really gross in a you can't stop looking at it sort of way, it just amazes me that his whole surgery was done thru four tiny holes.

Four.

This same surgery just 3 years ago would have resulted in a four inch long incision. Crazy. Unfortunately it doesn't look this pretty anymore...as soon as the packing came off it swelled and turned all sorts of lovely colors, but that's OK. It's healing. The hard difficult part begins in the next week or so when therapy starts...but Alex was the one who pointed out that at least then he'll be doing something rather than just watching and waiting.

Other than that, we're all just settling into the rhythm of summer...and it's glorious.

It was worth the wait.

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I even spent a whole afternoon this week in the quiet, making lots and lots of new jewelry for an upcoming sale at a local boutique.

This is my new favorite...but check out the website for lots of new pretties!

Summer Eve's

The other night the oldest two sons of mine were absent at dinner time, which left (duh) only the youngest of my offspring home.

Not that he minds.

In fact, he digs it.

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I was all set to cook a huge slab 'o meat on the barbie, until that guy that I like so much remembered that it was Wednesday.

FYI...Wednesday's at The Counter rock. For 12 bucks you get 4 mini burgers and 4 mini beers.

Cool.

So off we drove, into the sunset.

(ok...not really, because it was only 6:oopm. But 'into the sunset' sounded good, so there you go.)

Brian is the baby of our family and there are perks to that. One of them is that at 11, he hasn't ordered off the kids menu (when he is alone with us) in who knows how many years...and the kid has pretty snobby food tastes.

Gotta love being the baby.

Anywho, at the Counter, you design your own burger.

Yum.

Not on the menu is The Sampler, which has fries, sweets, onions and pickles.

Pickles?

Don't knock a fried pickle till you've had one!

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And hello?

Check this out!

I tried (and tried and tried and tried), but I couldn't.

After, we walked to Home Depot and seriously thought about buying an olive tree...but I had just read about fruiting versus non fruiting olive trees and I want a fruiting one, so we had to come home and do our research.

God Bless Google.

This morning, under cloudy skies, I picked the first of the summer tomatoes and pasillas and zucchini and piled them into the bowl that we carried home from Italy.

I miss Italy.

Though as I blog this, I am sitting in my candle lit backyard listening (and occasionally dancing...yep, sappily it's true) and sipping prosecco.

So Italy isn't far away.

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