Open House & Ellen

Today all the kids went back to school. The wheels on the bus went round and round, and it was time to start a new school year. My niece Kaitlyn started 8th grade today! Holy cow, where do these years go? How is it possible that she's in 8th grade already! I'm suddenly feeling old! While my little Evan didn't start school today, it's hard to believe that next year at this time he will be starting kindergarten! I can't even imagine that right now! Tomorrow is Evan's first "official" day of preschool, but today there was an open house at his school so he still got to go to school today like other kids. It was just for a shorter time. The open house was a chance for the kids to go in and check out the classroom, meet the student teachers, meet classmates, and get a feel for what the class is going to be like.

All four of us went, and let me tell you my dear readers... Emmaline couldn't get into that school fast enough! I think she was more excited than Evan. She was running right to the door when we got out of the car. I had to stop her though so I could get a pic of Evan and his little sister outside the building. Aren't they cute?

They both look like they're ready to start school, don't they? Since it is Evan going to school though, I thought I'd better get one of just him. Here's Evan ready to go into the open house!

I'll get the "official" first day of school pics tomorrow, but I thought I'd snap a couple today as well. We stayed for about an hour and Evan got to try out all different activities that were set up- K-nex, the kitchen, dress up, bone station, books, and much more. Emmaline was not the least bit timid and took off to explore the classroom the minute we walked in. She was going to town with the unifix cubes, the books, and she got a hold of the markers at the coloring station and ended up with blue hands. She was definitely having a good time and enjoying every minute. She's definitely ready for preschool way before we're ready to send her! Unfortunately I didn't get around to taking pictures in the classroom. I'm mad at myself that I didn't! I was busy between the classroom and trying to train a mom to do the library cart so that's why I forgot. I'm sure I'll get some pictures during the year though! Evan met some of his new classmates, and one of the boys, Henry, in his class lives in our neighborhood we found out. Guess what readers? Remember when my wonderful husband was rolling through the neighborhood last night and one of the neighbors came out of her house to see what he and Rich were doing? Well, that lady just so happens to be Henry's mom! Can you believe it? Crazy. Actually Henry and his mom Stephanie were at the block party on Sunday and I met her briefly then for the first time. So we're looking forward to having someone from the neighborhood in Evan's class! It was nice we could all go to the open house and meet the kids and teachers. I'll fill you in on the first day of school tomorrow for sure!

Now that school is back in session and it's September, that means new shows are starting and old shows that were on hiatus for the summer are back. Do you know what this means folks? It means my favorite talk show host, Ellen, was back today with the premier of season 7! I've told you before how much I love the Ellen DeGeneres show! It was so good to get some good laughs today and see Ellen back at her dancing. Today's show kicked off with one of her best dances yet! She performed with some people from So You Think You Can Dance! It was totally awesome! Loved it, loved it, loved it! If you haven't seen it check it out Ellen's Season 7 Premier Dance. I can't wait to see what else Ellen has in store for this season!

Before I leave you tonight, I've got another Little People picture to share with you from this morning. Emmaline decided this time to line some of them up in the window sill. Then she stood there talking to them. If I had to take a guess, it looked like she was in school with the kids and she was being the teacher. Here she is once again with the Little People!


In case you haven't noticed all you Spartan readers... I've added a new item to the blog. It's under the "Fun Facts." It's the "MSU Football Schedule & Scores." I will update it each week after the games, hopefully with "W's" for all those Spartan wins!

Another cookout

After our big block party Sunday, we thought "Why not have another cookout today?" This time it was a lot smaller though. We had some burgers, pasta salad, watermelon, and cake left from the party so we had our our friends Rich, Liana, and Veronica (they live across the street from us) over tonight for dinner. We couldn't eat all this stuff up so we figured we might as well invite some people over to share it all! I had Greg run out earlier too and get some sweet corn from a farm not to far from here to go along with it. It was delicious sweet corn! I can't believe it's the first time we've gotten corn from there this summer! We ate dinner and then chatted a bit. I also taught Liana how to play Bunco so hopefully she can make it one of these times and join in the fun! Speaking of Bunco, I'm hosting for this month and it's coming up this Friday already so more to come on that.

The guys headed out to the garage after a bit to do bike "stuff" or so we thought. A little while later Liana sees Greg and Rich going down the street. This is what we saw! Greg on his bike pulling Rich on the skateboard.

There they go.....

...here they come!

Boys will be boys, right? Apparently they had been out on the bike and skateboard for quite some time because they had gone all throughout the neighborhood getting lots of attention. At one point, one neighbor saw them go by and she had to come out to watch for them to come back by and see what they were doing. I guess it was the only entertainment in the neighborhood! Of course they had to both ride the skateboard so here's Rich pulling Greg and Evan racing them on his bike!

When we went out to see what they were doing, Em had to try out Daddy's bike for a minute!

The mosquitoes were eating us alive out side so the girls decided we were heading back in. Em & Veronica grabbed some books and popped a squat on Liana. Here's the three of them having some book time. They were doing a look and find book, and Em did a really great job finding the pictures.

Then Evan came in and wanted to join in the reading. The chair wasn't big enough so they moved to the couch. Here's Liana reading another book to all the kids!

It was nice to have the Marr family over for dinner. We got most of the leftovers eaten up, and we got to chat and catch up! Thanks Liana and Veronica for reading to the kids! Thanks Rich and Greg for the entertainment of the evening! We should really try to have dinner with them more often. We always have a good time and this was the first time of the summer we all got together for dinner!

1st Annual Neighborhood Block Party

It's been a great holiday weekend in the Kohuth household! Saturday my beloved Spartans won their first football game so that's a "W" in the books! Next up is Central Michigan. Let's go for another win Spartans! We didn't do too much Saturday besides watch football, run some errands, and do some last minute planning for the block party.

Sunday we were on the go from morning until night. It was finally the big block party day that I had been planning for a few weeks with some other neighbors. I had to run and get a few last minute items in the morning. Then Em needed to get down for an early nap which she so thankfully cooperated for. While she napped I went do the street to help set up for the party. Between a group of us, we were able to get all the tables, chairs, grills, etc. set up before the 4pm party start time and we still had a good hour to spare!

Families were asked to contribute $5 for the meat and buns, bring a dish to pass, as well as BYOB (pop, water, etc). I took a pasta salad and watermelon, and then I picked up this cake from Sam's Sunday morning to take.


We had a ton of food. Hamburgers and hot dogs were grilled and there were a bunch of different salads, dips, desserts, and even Eggplant Parmesan which were all brought by the neighbors who attended! Tony's pasta salad and Christine's apple dip were two of my favorites! A great selection to choose from and way too much to eat! My friends Tony and Jeff did the grilling. Thanks guys! You did an awesome job! Here they are manning the grills.


The kids had a lot of fun running around and playing in the bounce house that the Thompson family contributed! (Thanks!) Here's some of the kids having fun in the bounce house.

Emmaline and her friend Madeleine jumping away! Em LOVED the bounce house!

Em's friends Lucia and Madeleine having a great time!

A neighbor I just met this week, Anne brought this sno-cone machine for the kids to enjoy! Boy was it a hit! Here's Evan and his friends Grace and Matt checking it out! Thanks Anne!

Now it's Em and Maddies' turn to get some sno-cones!

Here's Emmaline and her buddy Madeleine enjoying the sno-cones. Hmmm, I wonder how many this is for them? I know I saw Em over at the machine often!

Here's part of the crowd as we all started to dig into the goodies!

Some more of the neighbors eating and socializing!

An overview from the new house going up on the block!

As the evening went on and it got darker, the girls found some glo sticks to carry around and were quite happy with them. Here they are showing off their glo sticks!

Em, Madeleine, & Maddie were missing their friend Lucia who went inside to go to bed. So leave it to the three girls to peek in and see her one more time and to catch a little bit of cartoons on the T.V! Isn't this absolutely ADORABLE! My friend Dawn caught this moment! Thanks Dawn!

Of course the party and this post wouldn't be complete without a good drinking SHOT! So leave it to Jen for the Kodak Moment! Here's Jen thinking, "I probably shouldn't have done that shot of tequila!" I'm glad I captured this Jen! Better her than me because I'm not much for tequila shots. I stuck to the beer and Mike's!

The block party turned out great! We couldn't have asked for more perfect weather! I even worked on my end of the summer tan! For a BBQ that started out with four families, we ended up with a good turnout and probably had around 50-60 people! We've been waiting for three years to have the HOA plan a block party and it hasn't happened so we took it upon ourselves to do it. I'm pretty sure this is going to be an annual event for most of us! Everyone had a great time! It was a great way to meet new neighbors and hang with "old" neighbors! Thanks to everyone who helped to make this a success and to all the neighbors who showed up when they said they would, and to the Beckwith's and Buchin's for the use of their grills, and Dawn, Dave, Tony, Carmen, Ahna, & Jason for the use of their yards and driveways! We live in a wonderful neighborhood and are blessed to have such great neighbors/friends! I think this last picture tells it all...

A thumbs up for the block party & Jen's recovered from the tequila SHOT!

It's College Football Time!!!

Yes folks, it's finally that time of the year! College football is underway! I absolutely love this time of year when football is in full swing. Besides March Madness time, the college football season is one of my favorite sports time of the year. Whether it's watching at a game or watching on t.v., I love fall football Saturdays! This is also another reason I love living in East Lansing. The University right down the road, the fans, the MSU flags flying, the Green & White spirit, and the football games! In case you haven't figured it out my dear readers... I LOVE football! I actually like football more than my husband does... more than most women do... more than some men! It's been something I've loved since I was a kid and still to this day do. I remember my college days and post college days like it was yesterday going to football games and tailgating. Fun times! Nothing wrong with drinking beer and grilling burgers at 8am on a Saturday morning, right? I used to have season tickets with a group of friends, but after I got married I gave them up. Greg used to always have to work the games, and then some of my friends started having kids, and then I started having kids so it came to a point where many of us couldn't really make many games. I do miss those days though! Hopefully some day down the road we'll have season tickets.

Some women probably think I'm crazy for liking football so much, but oh well. I don't think it's ever going to change. I could watch football all day long on Saturdays (and sometimes I do). I'm a die hard Spartan fan and I bleed green and white. Whether they're winning or losing, I will always cheer my Spartans on! I'm really excited for this football season and I think (at least I'm hoping and keeping my fingers crossed) the Spartans are going to have a pretty good season. I'm also excited to see my little Spartan buddies this year cheer on the Green & White! For a little guy, Evan's a huge Spartan fan and I just love that he gets so excited singing parts of the Fight Song. And this year my dear readers, my sweet little Emmaline has learned to say GO GREEN! GO WHITE! GO SPARTANS! just in time for football season! I'm going to try to video her doing it sometime because it really is the cutest thing. Even if you're not a Spartan fan, you would think it's cute!

So tomorrow my beloved Spartans will be hitting the turf here in East Lansing and all of us around here are hoping for a win. MSU plays MSU! How funny is that? MSU (Michigan State University) is playing Montana State University. In honor of my Spartans I'm writing this post in Green! Go Green, Go White, Fight, Fight, Fight!

In other news around here today, we hit the road on another shopping expedition. Greg started his long holiday weekend today with a day off. We headed back to HomeGoods in Brighton and then to the Outlet Mall in Howell. I had a couple things to return from my previous trip to HomeGoods so since it was not far from Howell we swung by there first. Of course I had to look around and see what was new, and I found Emmaline a Halloween costume. I really had no idea what she'd be this year, but when I found the costume and tried it on her I couldn't resist. I can't tell you what it is because it's a surprise, but come Halloween time you'll find out! There's a slight possibility that I'll come across something else between now and October 31st, but unless it's absolutely irresistible, I think she'll be what I found today. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that it will fit her by then because it just fits now, but they didn't have a bigger size so I went with what they had.

After our trip to HomeGoods, we headed to Howell and had some lunch and did some more shopping. We stopped at this place called Tomato Brothers for lunch. Our friends the Marr's introduced us to this place a couple years ago when we went to the Outlet Mall. For those of you not familiar with Howell, there really isn't much around the Outlet Mall. The options of places to eat are slim so when we heard of this place we were glad to know it was there! This place is down the road a little bit from the mall and they have good food! The breadsticks and garlic cheese dip are the best. If you're ever in Howell, I highly recommend it! Here's the restaurant.


After lunch, we did some shopping at Children's Place and Old Navy. I used up my $20 certificate and then some at Children's Place and found the kids some clothes. Then we headed to Old Navy and did some more school clothes shopping for Evan and the rest of us even found a couple things. They were having a huge sale and had 40% off almost everything. I got a cute hoodie for like $8. I found some much needed shoes for Em and Greg got a couple shirts. I think we're all done school shopping for now. Evan will need a couple pair of shoes probably later in the fall & when winter comes, but I haven't really found anything I like yet so we'll keep looking. We must of wore the kids out shopping because this is what the car ride home looked like.

One kid sleeping...

...two kids sleeping.

Little Miss Betty Crocker

This morning I went to the grocery store, and after spending another $100 I figured I was going to have a little fun in the kitchen when I got home. Today is our neighbor friend Rich's birthday. Rich & his wife Liana have been known to bring us some goodies on our birthdays and we've been known to drop off some goodies on their birthdays. So I figured I'd better play the role of Little Miss Betty Crocker today and whip something up to take over later on. First I started out by making an apple pie. It's that time of year right folks? Now that September has hit things like apple cider, donuts, apples, & apple pie all sound good. Not to mention the fact that a baking apple pie makes the house smell mmm mmm good! Here's my finished pie!


I'm not the greatest on designs on the top of the crust, but all that matters is the taste, right? Well, so far anytime I've made an apple pie I've gotten rave reviews. So hopefully this one will be the same.

After the pie came out of the oven I whipped up some cookies. Awhile back, my friend Dawn gave me a recipe for Cake Mix Cookies. They're so simple and more than likely you have everything right in the cupboard to make them at anytime. Here's the recipe:

Cake Mix Cookies

1 box cake mix, any flavor

1/3 cup milk

1/4 cup butter, softened not melted

1 egg

1 cup chocolate chips (or M&M's or peanut butter chips ....)

Mix and spoon onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake at 375 for 11 - 13 minutes.

** Try different combinations such as yellow cake and chocolate chips .... or chocolate cake and M&M's .... or spice cake and butterscotch chips .... or strawberry cake and chocolate chips... the possibilities are endless!

Today I used a yellow cake mix. I put chocolate chips in half the batter and M&M's in the other half. I don't have a picture to show you right now because my camera died right after I took the pie picture. So I'll be heading over to the Marr household tonight to deliver some pie and cookies! Of course we'll be enjoying some here tonight too!

Oh and a FYI- I don't have a special Apple Pie recipe so I didn't post it. I just use the one out of the Betty Crocker cookbook.

Parent Orientation

What a gorgeous day it was today! I'm loving this warmer weather and NO RAIN! It could be a little warmer for me, but I'll take this weather any day compared to the crappy week we had last week! It looks to be a beautiful Labor Day weekend ahead. Greg has Friday and Monday off so I'm looking forward to that! We've got our neighborhood block party this weekend that a few of us have been planning. I seem to have taken on a chunk of the organizing so I've been busy back and forth with people and trying to get the final details figured out. We had to get permission from the city of E.L. to block off the street and that was approved yesterday at the city council meeting so that's a good thing. Should be lots of fun!

Now that it's September (Can you believe it? Where did summer go? Oh wait it never arrived!) that means it's school time. Evan officially starts next Wednesday, but tonight we had to go to school for Parent Orientation. We went last year so I wasn't sure if we really needed to go, but we wanted to meet the student teachers that would be in Evan's room so we went. Plus, since I'm the library coordinator I needed to meet with some of the mom's who are going to help out with the library cart. Well, we ended up accomplishing 50% of our agenda. The student teachers weren't there tonight, but I did meet with one of the mom's and ran her through the library cart routine. We got to meet some of the other parents though so that was nice, as well as visit with Evan's teacher.

Next week the school has an Open House on Tuesday for parents and kids to attend. I'm looking forward to attending that, and Evan being able to meet some of his new classmates & student teachers! Sounds like a wonderful school year is planned and I look forward to what is to come! I've acquired a pretty massive headache tonight so I'm going to have to call it a night and try to get some rest. I'm hoping and praying this headache is gone by morning!

The Students Are Back!!!!!

This morning the kids and I headed downtown E. Lansing to the bookstores. Evan has outgrown his MSU t-shirt from last year, not to mention it's got a hole in it, so I wanted to see if I could find him a new one. It's finally football season Saturday so he needs to be ready for the game. It's definitely a different atmosphere heading towards downtown E.L. and going down the main drag- Grand River! The fraternity and sorority houses had their lawns filled with students drinking, and the sidewalks were packed on Grand River. Life has been revived in East Lansing after a quiet summer with students gone. It definitely looked like school was going to start because the bookstores were full and all the students are back!

We headed into a couple bookstores and one of the main stores, SBS had the local radio station broadcasting in front of it. They were having a drawing for a giveaway and handing out stickers. Of course Evan & Em needed stickers. The DJ asked Evan his name and where he was from so he could give a shout out to him on the radio! Evan thought it was pretty cool!

After a few stores, I did find Evan a t-shirt and I got Em a cute green and white bow for her hair to go with her cheerleader outfit! Evan was having a blast in the stores checking out everything and saying "Go Green Go White!" Em saw the Spartan logo and was saying "Spartans!" Too cute readers! I've got my kids well trained! Evan found this Spartan helmet he loved and was wearing it around and carrying a football. I was ready to leave and he said, "Wait mom, I have to do one more thing." He starts saying, "Rah team fight, Go Michigan State," and running around with the football and then says, "Touchdown MSU!" These two college girls were walking by and they're like, "That is soooo cute!" That's my Evan getting the girls attention again! Here's my little Spartan guy in his helmet with the football.


After we got home and I got Em down for a nap, I got some much needed outside work done! The grass in the backyard was becoming a jungle after all the rain we had so it was definitely time to cut it. I was going to do it yesterday, but I thought it would still be a little wet. Well, I was right because today it was still wet! I did get it cut though, but not without almost running over a few frogs! I don't know if I've mentioned it, but we often find frogs in the backyard and then Greg tries to catch them in a bucket and returns them to the pond by our neighbors house. I'm guessing with all the rain and the grass being long and wet the frogs were liking it because I saw four of them! Although they were small, they kept startling me when they would jump right in front of the lawn mower. I was beginning to think we were going to have frog legs for dinner!

I was about to head inside after I cut the grass, but Evan wanted to play some more outside. So I told him he could for a few more minutes. While he was playing I decided to do some much needed work on the disaster in the garage! It's been getting messier and messier since I had my garage sale. Not only do I still have tubs of stuff sitting in the garage because I keep thinking I'm going to do one more sale, but the kids had toys all over, and there's bikes everywhere. Just a big mess. Well, folks once I started I was on a mission to finish! Evan was more than happy to stay outside, and I worked away like a busy little bee. I needed to get to a couple tables so we can use them for our block party this weekend. Once I got one cleared off, I get going and going and made some huge progress. I got all but one small pile done, swept the whole garage out, and filled the trunk of Greg's car with a bunch of boxes for recycle. It looks like a whole new garage and I need to get my bike and the bike trailer moved to the one side and I can finally get my car back in the garage! Now, I just need to work on the inside of the house. The papers and magazines are piling up again, as is the laundry. I got two of my Uppercase Living orders this week so now I have all my sample stuff to put together and work on. I'm off to do some of that now. It's so fun to put the expressions on things and see what I can create!