Le Petit Garden

The state of our yard when we moved into our house left something to be desired. One of the corners wasn't pretty to look at (not to mention the eyesore behind the garage that Chris just finished for my birthday - more on that to come) and I knew that it would make the perfect place for a little garden. It's in plain sight upon entering our backyard, so I had to give it a complete overhaul. Unfortunately, I forgot to take before pictures, but here is the finished product shortly after the initial planting:


Since then, I have planted strawberries in the center, and the marigolds have really filled out to make quite a nice border. The only thing I am having a problem with are the four plants along the fence. One of them has shot up and produced pretty flowers:

The rest of them are still midgets like these (Please excuse the weeds, by the way. My belly is filling out to the point of making it quite uncomfortable to work that close to the ground):

I feed them plant food, as instructed, but only one of them seems to be benefiting from it. And although it looks better than before, I sure wish that they'd all grow properly to provide some lushness and color that the yard desperately needs!

San Diego - FINALLY!

So, it only took me five months to get this posted - what is wrong with me?! You'd think that we must not have had a very good time if it took me this long, but quite the contrary - we had an AMAZING time! Let's start off with a recap:

Chris celebrated his 30th birthday this February. I wanted to do something big and unexpected, and we happened to have a few thousand flight points lying around and a good friend out in San Diego who we hadn't been out to visit. What's better than a free birthday gift, right?! Chris was driving me nuts about theXBox he thought he was receiving, so imagine his surprise when my brother (in town to take care of Lola while we were gone) and I picked him up from work the Friday before his birthday! Adam drove us to the airport while Chris started to figure it out. I wasn't going to let him see the tickets beforehand, but I caved and showed him where we were going. He was super excited, and I was even more excited because I love giving gifts!

We were there for 3.5 days, and I must say that we loved every single minute of it. Matt had a great apartment just outside of Little Italy downtown. We were walking distance from great little shops and restaurants, the ocean, and the famous San Diego Zoo. Being the early bird that I am, I got up and walked around downtown until I stumbled upon a coffee shop and just sat outside enjoying the beautiful city and weather. We just loved the city and the people. Everyone was so laid back and friendly. They all seemed to be walking their dogs, and some even took them to work with them likeMochaccino here:


Saturday morning was spent on a much anticipated whale watching cruise. Chris and I really wanted to go while in Iceland, but we didn't get it done, so we were super excited to see some up close in the prime of their migration.

We saw a ton of dolphins, which was really neat...

...but, unfortunately, the only whales we saw during our vacation were these:Bummer.

Next up: Tijuana. I had been to Cancun before, but never had I experienced anything like the Mexican border town of Tijuana. It was so odd that I don't even have the words for it.

Here's Chris looking a little apprehensive about his entry into the foreign land...

...and he still looks a little scared on our way back to the U.S....
I think just about everyone in Tijuana wanted out of there. Check out the wait back into the border:It's a good thing we walked across so we didn't have to wait in line!

We also visited something on the very top of my list: the world-famous San Diego Zoo. I absolutely love zoos, so I was super excited to see something that blows even the Omaha Zoo out of the water. Chris took some fantastic photos of many of the animals there which we've hung in the babies room, so you'll have to wait until the big reveal of the nursery to see those. For fun, I'll tease you with this awesome shot of me:
The rest of the time was spent by Matt showing us around pretty much every single part of San Diego (or so it seemed), so I'll leave you with a few more pictures:

La Jolla

Ocean Beach

San Diego Skyline

And no birthday would be complete without a shot of tequila from an unmarked bottle purchased from a creepy dude in Tijuana. Good thing I had the excuse of being pregnant so I could sit this one out!

Mom's 50th Birthday

Can you believe that my lovely mother is now half a century old? I remember the days when I thought that 50 was a couple of years shy from life in a nursing home, but now it seems like a vibrant and fun age when you actually begin envisioning the reality of the fun you'll have during retirement (unlike the 30 years of dreaming I have left to go). I mean, heck, my Grandma is over 70 and she's still out-running us. Okay, maybe walking, but she even manages to do a load of laundry, cook, and clean while us youngsters are rubbing our feet afterwards.

Lucky for me, my parents still have the spunk to drive six hours round trip to visit us for the day. To top it off, it took more like 7-8 hours due to the crazy RAGBRAI (annual bike ride across Iowa - a huge event here) traffic. They arrived around 11:30, which gave me plenty of time to hit up a few garage sales as well as the grocery store before their arrival. While I was at the store I saw a beautiful, unique floral arrangement. I just had to bring it home with me for my mom, even though I knew it was kind of a weird gift for someone driving three hours back home. Though she loved it, she was gracious enough to leave it with us to bring some much needed color into our great room. Aren't these flowers just awesome - I love the lime green ones, and isn't the big pink one just to die for?

The one thing that I wanted to be sure to do was to make her a cake. I don't ever remember her having a birthday cake, but she always made sure to have one for us! I searched long and hard for the perfect homemade recipe before stumbling upon a delectable cake at my friend's bridal shower the night before. I made sure to get the recipe, and it was semi-homemade - even better! It was a super moist yellow cake topped with a light and creamy frosting.

I wanted to make a beautiful display, so I made two round cakes instead of a sheet cake in order to put it atop my pretty cake stand. However, I neglected to note that the light and creamy frosting would not bode well for a stacked cake. My gorgeous two-tiered cake quickly looked like Mt. Everest on a 100 degree day - it all came falling down. My luscious white frosting starting sliding down the sides into a gooey blob along with the perfectly placed pineapple topping. And like a mom to her 5-yr old cake decorating daughter would say, she told me it was great....only I'm a 24-yr old! It was delicious nonetheless, and I didn't need her confirmation as my tummy voted itself -- I ate the leftover half of the cake in two days. :) So, without further ado, I give you The 50th Birthday Cake (I don't have the name for it, so someone should help me come up with one!):

(I told you it was ugly - and this was before the rest of the pineapple and frosting fell!)

1 box yellow cake mix (and whatever other ingredients it calls for)

1 box white chocolate pudding

1 tub Cool Whip

Prepare and bake yellow cake mix according to package. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely. With a toothpick, make multiple pokes throughout the cake (without poking through all the way to the bottom).

Prepare pudding according to directions. Before it thickens, pour enough over the cake to cover it. Use a spatula to spread evenly in order to ensure that it gets to all of the toothpick holes. After the remaining pudding has thickened, gently fold in the Cool Whip with a spatula. Spread over the cake and top with fruit, if desired.

I also added about 1/2-3/4 cup coconut (I eyeballed it) to my cake mix before baking to give it a little extra yumminess. I topped mine with pineapple, but strawberries, kiwi and banana would also be delish!

**I think it would be best to use recently thawed Cool Whip as I believe that the creamy consistency of the cool whip was one of the culprits in my sliding frosting goo. Better yet, stick to a sheet cake for this one so it has nowhere to go but in your tummy!

Real Simple for $5?!

My favorite magazine is about $4 at the store for one issue. My usual course of action while waiting in a checkout line is to glance through all of the magazines while Chris unloads and pays for everything. Now I can count one less magazine off my must-read list while in line because I just got a year subscription for Real Simple for only $5!!! What a deal! And I know that the yummy recipes and organization tips will come in extra handy with Curtis keeping me busy!

Check out this deal for yourself here.

Auf Wiedersehen

After much deliberation, I have come to the following decision: Kylee Wagner is no more.

Introducing: Kylee Brock.

I have officially began the tedious process of changing my name. There was a slight hold up due to me having no clue where my marriage license is and therefore having to send for a new one. I then have to bring the certificate to the DMV for a new driver's license which I can then take to the Social Security office for a new card. After the new card arrives, I can then begin the horrendous work of changing everything in my past 25 years to my new name.

And here arrives my beef with Google: make it easier to change your name! While I should be counting my lucky stars that I don't have to resort to kyleebrock22682698326 for an email, I am still annoyed to no end that I can not have kylee.brock. Yes, I am that anal that brock.kylee is going to drive me nuts for quite sometime, but I'll get over it eventually. Issue #2 - Google makes it extremely difficult to transfer my Google Reader, Blogger, etc to my new email. It would be super helpful if I could just change my Gmail account and everything else Google related would transfer right over. Instead I'll have to keep my old account open for eternity as it is the original admin of my pages.

But back to the names. I was said to say "Auf Wiedersehen" to my nice, simple, German name until I did a little research this morning. Chris can still be proud of his fancy Irish heritage, but I'm happy to report that Brock is indeed a German name! You see, way back in the day, the Saxons from Germany migrated to modern-day Ireland and England. With them, they brought the Brock surname. Although, I must add that it's not going to be so glamorous having the last name Brock as it's the Saxon word for badger.

And just in case Chris decides to throw his McDonald name in my face (the last name he should have, if his ancestor hadn't been adopted by the Brocks), then I'm ready with another curve ball: McDonald is actually Scottish, so you can kiss your luck of the Irish goodbye!