Scrap Along with Tracy

I just had to come and upload some photos from my littlest one 1st birthday. I just realized (while editing the photos to print to make her scrapbook pages) that I never edited the photos and I also never shared them online.

Her birthday week was super busy for us all because Vele was off at training for the week before and was scheduled to come back home the day before my youngest son's birthday which was 3 days before the baby. And then add the fact that I still had to prepare for his birthday and I didn't want to make "big" day for him but it turned out that way anyway. We all headed off to Como Zoo and park and sent the entire day there! It was awesome. It was peaceful for me because we decided to make it a family day and we got to stay as long as we could and just enjoy the day.

But back to Nya, it is our family tradition to actually make the 1st cake and decorate it and have it so that the little one can make a mess. Well since we had a cake still from LaTrele's party we decided to do a small cake and cupcakes and we picked it up from Sams. I hadn't bought a store bought cake in years but it was so cute that I had to get it...but here are some photos from her day.

Well I guess blogger is preparing for a maintenance update and for some reason I am not able to upload some of the photos. So I am going to just upload this one until I can get the page done and the rest will be on there.

Also we went to the fair this last weekend. It was nothing like MN's state fair. It was actually a little more expensive and Vele was so disappointed because he wasn't able to get his bucket of cookies. But I plan on making chocolate chip cookies today so that he can get over that craving because he keeps hinting that he wants some but I just haven't gotten around to making them. Plus we just finally finished off the chocolate chip brownies a couple of days ago. And they were so good. How come no one told me it was so easy to make brownies from scratch. I will never buy another box brownie mix again. Sorry Betty Crocker!

But I wanted to share a recipe that I just got a few months ago. And it is awesome! It's called chicken waldorf salad. It is soooo good. We had ours with fried fish instead of the chips. I have been trying to come up with a collection of salads since it's always so warm all year round. But here is a photo of the salad (if it uploads?)

And the recipe
ingredients (I double to make enough for my family but the recipe if for 4 people)
2 cups of cubed deli rotisserie chicken (I just use chicken breast that I saute)
2 medium unpeeled apples cubed
2 stalks of celery sliced thinly
1 cup red seedless grapes cut in half (I use black and cut at an angle)
1 tablespoon thinly sliced chives
1/3 cup almonds (since we have an tree nut allergy, I use sunflower seeds)
1/4 cup refrigerated coleslaw dressing (I use Litehouse)
4 leaves of lettuce

directions
In a large bowl mix all ingredients except lettuce and chives.
On each of 4 serving plates, place 1 lettuce leaf and spoon salad onto the lettuce, sprinkle with chives.

The kidos love it! And always ask for seconds. But also while I am able to get some of the other photos uploaded that I wanted...I will show some of the recent decorations that I had bought for the apartment. It feels so weird saying apartment, but I am looking for pieces that I might want to bring to the house and so I haven't rushed out and bought anything new. But I have been a thrifty shopper...oh I did splurge and spent a whole $10 on this rooster to add to my collection since my collection no longer exists lol. He is so purrrty!