Beginnings and Endings

The seasons are changing! 

Woohoo!

Spring is just around the corner! 

Isn't this a beautiful sunrise?

The Canada Geese flew over just in time

for this glorious picture yesterday morning.

Winter will soon be a fading memory! 

 This picture was taken the morning of March 2. 

Prairie! What a beautiful sight!

With the heralding of spring I am looking forward to the hepatica, bloodroot, iris, tulip, trout lily, spring beauty, jack-in-the-pulpit, toothwort, violet, crocus, hyacinth, phlox treasures that await.

Happiness in the Small Things

Ahh!! New sheets! 

So fresh, so crisp, so wonderful! 

Nothing like new sheets! 

I splurged with my birthday money a few weeks ago and purchased a new set of sheets from Target. We just finally put them on the bed last night. 

I love the burnt orange color and white pattern that runs across the fabric. 

So fall like and not too girly!

Heaven! A freshly made bed is just heaven! 

We even took the time to rotate the mattress. We should do this more often, I woke up without my back hurting. Yay!

Besides these wonderful new sheets, I also like new hot-off-the-press books. The smell of a fresh new book is glorious and is also a rare treat! 

What do you like to have that is new?

F.A.M.I.L.Y.

Faith-  Family is all about faith.  Faith in your spouse.  Faith that your hubby will help with a few chores.  Faith that your spouse will surprise you with a date night every so often.  Faith in your children.  Faith that they will actually clean up after their selves (Ha ha ha- this rarely happens, but a girl can dream).  Faith in God.  Faith that even on the cloudy and stormy days of life that good will eventually shine through.  Faith that no matter what someone loves you.  Faith that no matter how bad you mess something up that someone will be there that understands.  Faith of love, family, and friends definitely make the world go round.

Adventure-  With family you have built-in adventures.  Even a trip outside the house can be an adventure.  Last Saturday I saw a pumpkin that was starting to get a little mushy on our back porch.  So I decided to place it under a tree so the animals in the neighborhood could eat it.  As I approached the tree. . . . whump!  Down I went.  The pumpkin sailed through the air.  I had step in a hole that the kids had dug over the summer while looking for earthworms.  Unfortunately for me it had not been filled in and said hole was covered in leaves.  Of course the kids thought it was a fun adventure and ran circles around me laughing and playing as I laid on the ground.  You know the saying: The taller they are, the harder they fall.  That is so true!  I ended up spraining my ankle and twisting my knee in the fall.  I called my grandma (hubby was at work) and she came over.  Grandma and Pumpkin carried a chair over to me so I had some leverage to get off the ground.  Needless to say hubby has now filled the hole in temporarily with hickory nut hulls until we can get some dirt to fill the hole in with.  My ankle is still mending and I will definitely have to be careful when it comes to black ice this winter. 

Meaningful- When you have family to share with even the simplest things become more meaningful.  New family traditions are started and old ones are carried on.  On Thanksgiving we always have Hawaiian sweet rolls.  Mom would always ensure it while growing up, so I have continued this tradition.  Typically the day after Thanksgiving we decorate our Christmas tree.  Each year we make simple paper ornaments and applesauce ornaments to adorn the tree along the with the tried and true ornaments.  On Christmas Eve everyone gets to open ONE present an hour or two before bedtime.  Hubby and I got engaged on Christmas Eve.  So we also drink a bottle of sparkling grape juice every year on Christmas Eve.  On New Year's Day we take down all of the holiday adornment from around the house.  We have turned Valentine's Day into family game night.  I am sure that as the years go and the kids get bigger family traditions will come and go, but the togetherness is the meaningful part of the experience.

Imagination-  Imagination and a sense of humor is a must when it comes to family.  The kids really enjoy it when I pretend to be a hungry tickle monster chasing them through the house.  They scream with joy as they dodge me and laugh hysterically when I capture and tickle them to death.  They enjoy building forts and destroying the sun room in the process.  They definitely use their imaginations when they draw and color to create their own beautiful masterpieces.

Love-  Love is must when it comes to family.  As a parent we are to have unconditional love for our children.  Sometimes this is easier said than done.  Children are easy to love when they are minding their p's and q's.  They are easy to love when they are sick or injured.  Sometimes it is more of a challenge when they have been causing mischief.  We love our kids unconditionally, but that is not to say that we are disappointed when they tell a tall tell. Or when they have a behavior note sent home from school.  We try to sit down with them and try to think about what we should do differently next time.  With Pumpkin we have to have him repeat his solutions several times to help ensure that he takes responsibility for what we talked about.  For example "Listen to the teacher." "Eye contact." "No swinging hats." "Respect authority." "No running in the classroom."  Etc . . . . . Kids can try their parent's patience at times.  Sometimes with Pumpkin I need a break to cool down before looking for a solution to the problem.  I am big on hugs.  Hugs help with all problems and are a great way to say "I love you!"

Youthful-  Spending time with those you love keeps you youthful.  You are only as young as you feel and children definitely keep a person feeling young.  Kids have very interesting perspectives on life and you NEVER know what they are going to say or do.    I always hear a few kidisms a day but right now I can not think of any to share.  I'll have to remember to write some down to share at another time.

What does F.A.M.I.L.Y. mean to you?

Birthday Marathon 2013

Whew!  Birthday Marathon is officially over!  Yay!

Pumpkin is now six and Princess is now four.  It can be crazy at times when your kids birthdays are only three days apart.  Good thing that they do not mind a joint birthday party at this age.  In a few years, I might have to start throwing birthday parties on separate weekends.  Ugh! 

We had a Scooby Doo & Rapunzel themed party this year.  We had family and friends over to celebrate.  Since the party actually fell on Princess's birthday this year, I let her choose what we did first presents or cupcakes.  Can you guess which one won?????  Yep, it was the presents!

The kids were very blessed this year.  They got clothes, books, toys and more.  I think Princess likes her 18" Merida doll with matching dress from her paternal cousins the best.  Pumpkin is quite taken with his volcano dinosaur playset that we got him (my table on the other hand is still a sticky mess from hours of play last night).

Next birthday on the list is daddy's at the end of the month.  Well better get a move on with preparing supper.  Have a lovely week!

What a day!

Today has definitely been a journey of sorts.  

The kids and I got up early for a Saturday.  We ate breakfast, got dressed and skipped Saturday morning cartoons.  Hubby called from work to let us know about an bummer of a start to his morning. Then grandma showed up at our house early and we left for our interesting adventure.  

First stop, Pumpkin's school-to-be which was having a rummage sale to benefit Relay for Life.  Second stop, a glorious store full of jeans that are actually long enough for my LONG legs.  Third stop, a rummage sale that had nothing we needed.  

As we drove back to our part of town, Pumpkin was having a conversation with Princess in the back seat about their shoes.  He told her that he had straps spelled "N.O.P." and then velcro spelled "N.O.T." on his shoes.  I told him that he spelled "not" instead of "velcro", so then he spelled "V.O.P."  Hahahahaha  Well at least he got the first letter right!

Fourth stop,  FINALLY the grocery store. We got the usual groceries and our usual donuts.  While we were at the store we got some tempera paint to do a project later in the day.

We got home just in time for lunch,  Pumpkin wanted me to fix spiral macaroni & cheese (one of my favorites).  So to get their donuts they had to eat their lunch first.   Pumpkin- mac & cheese, a banana, and ice water.  Princess- mac & cheese, strawberries, and ice water.  They did pretty good and both cleaned their plates for once.

I got the kids down for nap time/ quiet time in record time, since we had a project to do later.  During the lull of the day we actually got rain.  Oh, it was fabulous.  Our area is suffering from a severe drought right now and I we will probably be placed under water restrictions soon.  I ran outside with my camera to take a few shots, then I set the camera in a safe place, took my glasses off, and ran into the driveway for a few twirls in the rain.  That was fun!  It rained for about 30 minutes.

Slow splattering of rain

Happy downpour

Steady rainfall

After nap time/ quiet time we went outside with the tempera paint.  The kids had a blast.  We started in the driveway (which had dried off) then had to moved to the covered porch because it was sprinkling again.  But, bring on the rain!!!!!  We definitely need it.

Sister's dog

Mommy's painting

Princess a budding artist???

Pumpkin painting roses with thorns

Hubby discovered that a glass jar next to the garage filled with water during the rain storm.  It was empty yesterday and today it had 4.5 inches of water in it.  He poured it down a hole in the flower garden and was surprised by a toad with a large slug in its mouth.  Pretty cool!!!!!

Amazing jar full of water

Toad hiding in the hole

To conclude our adventures; we had lemon-butter chicken, corn on the cob, and hawaiian sweet rolls for dinner this evening and now the kids are watching a movie we rented.

Wait For It . . . .

We received an amazing blessing this evening. . . 

Wait for it . . . . .

Where did the television go????

Wait for it . . . .

 

A family member decided to be very generous and bought us a brand new high definition LED television as a gift for all of the February birthdays.  

It is AMAZING!!!!  Our other television was a hand-me-down from my grandparents (bought in 1982).  I have two different ideas in mind for the old television, so we will have to see how the ideas pan out before I post the outcome.  

Our FIRST brand-new television, hurray!!!!!  Anyway, we now get about 60 high definition channels to go with the 18 analog channels that we already had.  I'm extremely excited that we now get three PBS stations (with multiple sub-stations), instead of just one analog PBS station.  

So how are we going to celebrate???  By watching season one, esposide two of Dowton Abby on DVD!!!

I can't wait to play with it more tomorrow!!!!

Party Time

Whew!  It is finally over!!  We had a great time this afternoon & evening, but I sure am glad that it is over.  Hello nap time tomorrow afternoon!

Cleaned up pretty nice!

Pre-party time was busy with cleaning, "hiding" possible contraband (such as: music recorder, easel with dry erase markers), making party hats, and icing cupcakes.

The party hats were fun to make.  Materials include textured card stock scrapbook paper, letter stickers, character stickers, elastic strings and of course cutting tools.  I found a template on-line, which I modified a touch for our purposes.

We had 24 vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting and sprinkles and then 24 hot cocoa-marshmallow cupcakes.  Oh, don't forget vanilla ice cream!  Yummy!!!!

Three families = Seven kids

The party started at 3:00 p.m. and when the guests arrived we had a group photo with our lovely hats.  We played for awhile, then the kids got to open their presents.

Wow! Transformer shoes!

Opening gifts from great-grandma

Princess with a jewelry box from Auntie

Princess with her new tutu and new slippers!

Singing Happy Birthday

Yay for cupcakes!

Afterwards, we had cupcakes and ice cream.  Unfortunately Pumpkin decided to pull his blown-out candle out of his cupcake and got hot wax on his hands.  So we had tears for a good 10 minutes before he calmed down enough to eat his cupcake (His hand looked fine at bedtime).

Princess hanging with the triplets

Pepperoni pizza & mushroom pizza

Mmmmmm. . . . . pizza for supper!!!!  Most of our guests left by 4:30 p.m., and our last guests left at 8:45 p.m.

Well until next time . . . . . . . .

The Gift Of Friendship

A friend is someone who understands your past, 

believes in your future, 

and accepts you just the way you are.

~ Author Unknown ~

During this Christmas season I had the chance to see one of my best friends.  We have been friends since the 5th grade, just months before my baby sister was born.  We spent hours at each others houses growing up.  She lived in an old white Victorian house in town and I in a log cabin out in the country along the river.  She introduced me to Tang and bagels with cream cheese. We played flute-clarinet duets together for solo ensemble during our high school years. 

College sent me one way and the military sent her another.  She was the maid of honor in my wedding.  We have kept in touch through the years and across the miles.  Even though we do not get a chance to see each other often and even though we do not get a chance to speak often, when we do get together it is like we have never been apart.  It is a real honor to have such a wonderful friend.  I am definitely blessed with our friendship.

Merry Christmas

The kids sure do love Christmas!  

There is no snow this year, 

but it sure is a lovely day.  

We have been blessed by many 

wonderful gifts from our families and friends. 

 

Our family wishes you and your family 

many wondrous blessings today 

and throughout the next year! 

Merry Christmas!

Cookie Time!

Earlier this week we had our annual family cookie making day at grandma's house.  It was my sister, grandma and I making our Christmas treats.

This year our day had an interesting twist with the oven deciding not to open and keeping the lemonade cookies that my sister was baking inside.  The repairman was able to free the cookies the next day and the birds got a special treat.  It ended up that the motor went out on the auto-clean feature (which grandma has never used) and the oven automatically locked the door.  The auto clean has been permanently disconnected to prevent a reoccurence of the problem.  So we were able to make about half of the cookies that day.  I also had to take one chilled recipe home to bake in my non-automatic oven.

Here are the two recipes that I chose this year!

Melting Snowman Cookie Balls from Kraft Foods 

(click on highlighted recipe name for direct link)

Ingredients:  

1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
24 NUTTER BUTTER Cookies, finely crushed (about 3 cups)
2 pkg. (6 squares each) BAKER'S White Chocolate, melted
48 Mini OREO Bite Size Cookies
2 Tbsp. decorating icing

Instructions: 

MIX cream cheese and cookie crumbs until well blended. SHAPE into 48 (1-inch) balls; place in single layer in shallow pan. Freeze 10 min. Dip balls in melted chocolate (use two forks to coat & transfer); place in shallow waxed paper-lined pan, allowing excess chocolate to pool at bottom of each ball and place oreo on top for hat. REFRIGERATE 1 hour or until firm. Decorate with faces. Keep refrigerated.

Notes:  Well our cookie balls had a tan color from the 1/4 cup peanut butter that was mixed into the chocolate per the original recipe instructions.  I just visited the kraft website and they have removed the peanut butter from the recipe.  Next time we will just use white chocolate only for the coating.  We may also play with replacing the nutter butter cookies with oreo cookies and see how that works out.  Either way, these were very delicious. 

My Great-Grandma's Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup margarine

1 cup vegetable oil

1 cup sugar

1cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon lemon extract

2 eggs

1 teaspoon baking soda

4 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon cream of tarter

1 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

Cream vegetable oil, butter and both sugars.  Add vanilla, lemon extract and eggs.  Sift dry ingredients, then stir and blend all together.  Chill one hour.   Roll a teaspoon of soft dough into a ball, flaten down a little on greased cookie sheet and sprinkle with sugar (I use the bottom of a drinking glass that has been dipped in sugar between each cookie).  Bake approximately 12 minutes in a 350 degree oven.  Makes 8 dozen.

Note: I use parchment paper on my baking sheets and that cuts the baking time down to about 6 minutes, so keep an eye on the first batch to get the proper timing down.  These are a favorite of mine since I was a little kid.  I remember visiting my great-grandma (whom lived several hours away) and she would pull these cookies out of her freezer and we would decorate them with colored icing before eating them.  Enjoy!!!

My sister chose lemonade cookies and a turtle treat (which has yet to be made, darn oven).  Grandma make a chocolate cookie bar and was going to make another oven requiring treat.  I think they may be finishing the rest of the cookies this coming week.

What treats are you making this Christmas season???

The Princess and The Potty

Princess graduated from potty training last week.  She is excited to wear her little undies everywhere she goes.  We have chosen to have her wear pull-ups at night for the time being.  But I'm sure that by the time the warmer months roll around she will be completely graduated.

As her special treat for graduating from daytime potty training she received a beautiful Cinderella dress.  Always so cute!!!!!

Pumpkin of course had to get into the picture action, so he brought a "Transformer" in to show off.  To him any toy vehicle can be instantly turned into a Transformer.

May the adventures continue!!!!!