I'm not tired!

Yea, that's what they always say when they are near the point of exhaustion. Case in point:

Purses

I've been making purses lately, and I just love them! My friend Patty taught me how to make them. They are pretty easy, and the color combos are endless. I've made two so far, but have bought fabric to make several more. My next step is to start adding a few flower embellishments to them, and buy the closures for them, because right now they are just open top purses. But here are my first two:

Forever Family Anniversary

Today was the 2nd anniversary of the adoption of our three beautiful, energetic, life-loving children. It was a bright and sunny day, so we joined Auntie Brenda and Nicolas at the Valley Mall for some lunch, and then drove down to Discovery Park for some playtime. The kids had a ball. For dinner, we joined my parents and a friend from church for dinner at Red Robin. We gave the kids each a new book to commemorate the day and had a yummy dinner.

A New Home!

Well, we have made a huge leap - we are buying a house. And not just a house, but 10 acres of land along with it, and a large shop/garage, and hopefully, a lifetime of memories. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it! I've been so eager to get back to living in the country, and God has found a way to grant me my dream. We got it at a great price, a steal some would say, but I know that it was put there for us. Do you want to see it? Here are a couple of photos of it:

The house - look at all the trees around it! And it's so quiet out there!

The backyard - needs some serious watering, but come next spring, it should look awesome.


We close in a couple of weeks, and start moving things out there soon after. I've been cleaning and packing, but need to move it into high gear now.

I Heart Faces Week 37 - Vroom Vroom!

This week's challenge was to use some sort of vehicle in the photo. I love this one of Daniel on a vintage farm tractor at one of the Greenbluff Farms last fall.

To see more entries, head on over to I Heart Faces

Winning Pillsbury Bake-off Recipe

OK, I'm a little disappointed. Maybe a lot disappointed.

Some of you may remember - I don't know, all two or three of you that read my blog - that I entered the Pillsbury Bake-off Contest last year. Here is the post about it if you don't remember.

Out of curiosity, I went on to the Pillsbury site tonight to see who had won the contest. This is the winning recipe. Really? Really? It seems this contest has become more of "how can you super simply use our products", rather than how good are your kitchen skills. I don't know - you tell me - what do you think of this winning recipe?

By the way, the recipe I submitted was for Thai Chicken Pizza, with a homemade sauce on a refrigerated pizza crust from Pillsbury, which was one of the requirements - that I use at least one of their products in my recipe. I actually used two qualifying products - the pizza crust and the peanut butter. Would you like to try a losing recipe? Here is mine, although not in such great detail as the one I had to submit for the contest. But you can get the idea.

Meegan's Peanut Sauce
1/2 c. crunchy peanut butter
2 T. soy sauce
1 t. white sugar
1 clove garlic, minced
1-2 t. dried pepper flakes
1/2 c water

In a small pan, stir together peanut butter, soy sauce, sugar, garlic and pepper flakes until well mixed. Gradually stir in water until texture is smooth and creamy. Cook over medium heat until slightly bubbly.

For the pizza, spread 1/2 of sauce on a pizza crust. Put on a layer of cooked and chopped chicken. Arrange assorted veggies - my favorites are julienned carrots, red onions, and chopped broccoli. Pour remaining sauce over chicken and veggies, and sprinkle with a mixture of feta cheese and mozzarella cheese. Bake in oven according to pizza crust directions.

Enjoy - we love it!

MOPS

My MOPS Group started back up again today. It was a good meeting, and I absolutely love the decorations this year. I meant to take more pictures of the cool tables and such, but I ended up only taking the two below. I love how they re-purposed old doors and windows into chalkboards. This year the theme is Momology: The Art and Science of Mothering. Our verse for the year is Psalm 139:10, seen in the photo below. I'm really looking forward to getting to know my table mates this year.

Austin's First Day of Kindergarten

What a big day! Austin's first day in Kindergarten. He has been talking about it all summer. He was so excited. He got his school supplies and backpack two weeks ago, and has been showing it off to anyone who came near him! He has been talking about how "I'm 5 now and I know how it works". Such a smart kid! His first day went really well today, and I didn't cry a bit. There were plenty of other moms crying as they were leaving school, but I think both Austin and I were so excited for this next phase of his life that we didn't even think to cry over it. He had all the confidence in the world going into school, and hardly had time to say good-bye. James got off early so we could all pick him up together, and then we headed out to Chuck E Cheese to celebrate the big day. Such fun!

My ballerina

Gretchen is now taking very beginner ballet classes at the Y. Today was her second day of class. She is very fickle about it. One minute she loves it, the next she wants to leave. I'm finding that if I just drop her off, then go take the boys to the play center and drop them off, I can then watch her from afar and she does fine. It's when I'm sitting right in the classroom with her that she wants to go home. She enjoys the dancing, and does all the moves well for a beginning 3 year old dancer. She's just so stinkin' cute!

Austin's Invention

Another week, another theme for I Heart Faces. This time it is Photojournalism. Our definition of Photojournalism for the sake of this challenge: Using an image (or images) to tell a story.

I love this series of photos of Austin. He loves to build - with blocks or anything else he can get his hands on. When we went out to my mom & dad's over the 4th of July holiday, he was in Heaven! So many "treasures" to play with. Grandpa tends to have a lot of things around the farm, and Austin eagerly found a quite place away from the craziness and just started creating. I love watching his mind work through his hands. He is going to do big things someday, I am sure of it!

Faceless Photos - today's inspiration

Over at the inspirational blog post for the day was on photos that don't necessarily have faces in them. This brought to my mind one of my very, very favorite photos that I took last summer while at Gearhart Beach, Oregon. Thanks to Twila and Susan I was able to do some fun editing of it. Hope you like it.

Peaches!

We decided to go pick peaches this morning before our playgroup date. The kids picked a bunch that weren't quite ripe, but we still got a big boxful of yummy ones. Now I'll just have to get them all skinned and chopped up and into the freezer so that I can make jam out of them once the kids go back to school.


They enjoyed riding the farm tractor back to the farmhouse.

We took some time to play in the pea pit. It's like a big sandbox only with dried peas - dusty, but lots of fun.

We even said hello to the goats and ducks on the farm!

Late Night - Early Morning

I'm not sure what to call this - it's late at night, or early in the morning, whichever way you want to look at it. Basically - it's an "I can't sleep" kind of night. I tried - I went to bed around 11:30, after watching the late night news. I laid in bed for an hour, after smooching my hubby good night, and listened to him quietly snore away. It's so easy for him to fall asleep - good night, kiss kiss, head on pillow, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Not for me, though. My mind just won't turn off. It thinks about the things that happened during the day, and mostly the things that DIDN'T happen, meaning my unfinished to-do list. It's always so long! And so I get up, and I write things down, and make a new list. Because that's what THEY say to do - those experts that tell you the tricks to falling asleep fast. Yeah, well, it didn't work - again! So I found the season ending episode to Grey's Anatomy, which somehow I missed, and watched that on my computer. And halfway through, Daniel came upstairs in a half-asleep whimper, saying his leg hurt. I cuddled him, prayed over his leg, and tucked him back in. That was an hour ago, and here I still sit. Mind, please turn off. Please go to sleep land. I really, really don't want to finally fall asleep, only to hear my kids start to get up for the day!

Tomorrow - or today, I guess - is another day. I WILL get things done - maybe not everything on my list, but I will accomplish things. And it will be a good day, no matter what gets done. I will play with my children, and I will clean my house, and I will prepare dinner for my family, and it will be a good day.

Good night, moon.

Beach Fun photo challenge

This week's contest is Beach Fun, and I had lots of fun beach photos from our trip to the Oregon Coast last summer. I chose the one below with Austin looking up. I thought it was an interesting composition. When I took the photo, I was trying to just get all of our feet in it, with all of us looking down, and just as I clicked the camera, Austin looked up. But when I looked at it later - I actually loved it. Hope you do, too!

Fat Quarter give away!

I love fabrics, and have really been getting into quilting more and more lately. I recently found a couple new sites to drool over!



Jaybird Quilts is teaming up with Fat Quarter Shop for a great giveaway. They are giving away a fat quarter bundle of fabrics from Moda Fabrics - Pure by Sweetwater. These are some very yummy fabrics, and I'm crossing all my fingers and toes that I might win. But I've also had a chance to look over both sites, and have found lots of inspiration and great fabrics. So hop over to Jaybird Quilts and see what you can do to enter to win these cute fabrics!

Shades

The challenge over at I Heart Faces is "Got To Wear Shades". I chose this photo of Austin taken in February 2009 - all dressed in his fireman jacket and hat and ready to go!

Row Robin

I'm doing a swap in my quilt group, Frayed Edges, called Row Robin. Basically, each of us starts with a row for a quilt, and then you pass it to the next person, and they make a row to go with it. They don't sew it on to your row, because you'll want to arrange all the rows you get yourself. It has been so fun! Unfortunately, I keep forgetting to take photos of the rows I make! At the next meeting I'll have to take photos of all my rows. But I do have a photo of my latest row, and I really like how it turned out!

End of Swim Lessons

Today was the end of two weeks of swim lessons for the kids. It was a really good two weeks. The kids did an amazing job. They did what their instructor asked them to do, and had fun doing it. And none of them sank to the bottom! I'm pretty certain that Austin thought he was going to sink, but he really did well. They all got their report cards, and the graduated to the next level, but we probably won't do swim lessons again until next summer. But I'm really proud of them!

It's not easy being.....ORANGE!

This week at Sunday Shutterbugs the theme is O for Orange. I couldn't think of a better orange than this! Photos were taken in May 2009.

Gretchen in her orange finery!

5 minutes later I had to change her shirt,

as she decided to try out my coffee and spilled it all over her!

I took the kids to our downtown park and carousel

for a fun family day, but my hubby was out of town.

I decided to dress them all in orange so they would be

easy to spot if they left my side!

Happy Birthday Gram!

Picture from Gram's birthday July 2009

Today has been a melancholy day. It would have been my Gram's 82nd birthday. I miss her very much. I placed some pink and white carnations and a birthday balloon on her gravesite today - she really liked carnations, second only to sunflowers. The store didn't have sunflowers, so I chose the carnations. It still seems very weird not to have her around anymore. I miss her coming over, playing with the kids, having dinner with us - just being there to be a part of our lives. It's been very strange without her around these last 8 months.

Gram - you are misssed and loved. We carry you in our hearts forever.

What a fun weekend!

I love three day weekends! All of our weekends are three day because James works four 10's and so he is off every Friday. This weekend we packed a ton of fun into it. On Friday we spent the afternoon at the pool playing with the kids, and the evening at the ball game with a bunch of friends. On Saturday, after sleeping in and lounging in jammies until noon, we headed out to the local water slide park for James' company picnic - we all had a blast, and Daniel even went down the giant slides with Daddy. After grabbing a Papa Murphy's pizza on the way home, I got to go to a bridal shower while Daddy stayed home with the kids. On Sunday, after a blessed morning at church, I got to go to a baby shower, and then came home and got the family for our Life Group picnic at the park. Tons of family fun this weekend, and the kids are pooped out! I love these kinds of days - just fun and family time. It really refreshes everyone.

Here are some random fun photos of the weekend.

Organics at Bountiful Baskets

The Spokane Bountiful Baskets have now added organic fruits and veggies to their offerings each week. It is $10 more for organic. Here are a couple photos of the organic offerings they had today.

Sunday Shutterbugs - N is for Nature

This week Sunday Shutterbugs has posted Nature as the theme. I have two photos for this, both taken near the Bowl & Pitcher Campground on a June weekend of camping. Enjoy!

Camping with Kids

We spent the weekend camping with our kids up in the Colville National Forest at Sullivan Creek, just above Sullivan Lake. It was a lot of fun. James and I have been going to Sullivan Creek since we were first married (wayyyyy back in 1994!) We are extremely familiar with the area, and have probably camped in almost every spot along Sullivan Creek. It's so beautiful up there. We got up there late this time, lunchtime on Friday, so there were only two spots left, both across the road from the creek. So we camped in the better of the two, and our silver lining was that the bathroom was at the beginning of the entrance into our camp spot. Score! No digging holes this weekend!

Friday was spent just setting up camp and cooking dinner and letting the kids explore our area. We did walk down the road a bit to a good spot to get into the creek, and the kids had fun throwing rocks in. Gretchen and Daniel took their shoes and socks off with me and waded in the creek a bit. Austin left his on, and was throwing rocks, and ended up slipping and falling into the creek, getting wetter than the rest of us. But he did it with such grace! He thought it was kind of funny.

Saturday we fixed a big pancake and bacon breakfast, and then packed into the van and drove down to Sullivan Lake (about 5 or 10 minutes from our camp spot) and swam and had a picnic lunch. The kids had a ball with it! We then drove into Metalline Falls, and treated the kids to ice cream sundaes, right after mommy shopped at Sweet Creek Creations quilt store. This is a famous quilt store with a liquor store in the back end of it. Perfect for everyone! When we sat down for our ice creams, Daniel said, "you mean, we get dessert before dinner? Cool!"

We stopped at Mill Pond on our way back to the camp spot and explored the spillway - the kids thought it was a cool waterfall. Although Daniel almost gave me a heart attack when he started to climb the bridge railings to see the waterfall better. James snatched him down quickly, and it was about 10 minutes before my heart was back to normal pace!

Our dinner that night was yum my rib eye steaks cooked over an open fire - heavenly! After dinner the kids were definitely showing signs of being overtired - running around like banshees chasing each other. But we giggled more than we've giggled in a long time! Daniel got a bad case of the sillies, and was just being goofy, which then made Austin and Gretchen silly goofy, and pretty soon we were all laughing! But we finally got them settled down with some jiffy pop popcorn and a great game of Diego 1-2-3. They were all asleep in the trailer before we even got the door closed I think!

Sunday we had a yummy breakfast of bacon and scrambled eggs, and then got everything packed up. We were on the road by about 10:30 or 11 am, which was good. We topped off our weekend by eating lunch at the Ram Drive Inn across from my old high school - and ran into some of our church friends while we were there.

It really was a great weekend, and the boys both said their favorite part was helping Daddy build the camp fire, and Gretchen's favorite was seeing the momma and baby deer on our way back from Mill Pond. My favorite part was drinking wine and reading my book and talking with James as we sat by the camp fire - such a relaxing weekend!

Sunday Shutterbugs - M is for Macro

The Challenge on Sunday Shutterbugs is to post a photo using your macro setting on your camera. I experimented this weekend with some still life shots using my sister's camera. Although I didn't set it on macro, I tried to take some close up photos for a different perspective on things. Hopefully it worked. Here's my submission:



And here's another one I liked:



I'm not sure if it hits the challenge exactly, but it's what I have for now. I accidentally left my camera battery charger in our hotel room when we went to my brother's wedding Father's Day weekend, so I can't use my own camera right now. I should be getting the battery back by the end of this week, so then I can experiment a little more with macro.

The End.....

....of some busy things in my life. If you know me even a little bit, you know that it is very hard for me to say No to activities and involvement, and very hard for me to sit still for more than 5 minutes at a time. But this week I said good-bye to two activities that have kept me extremely busy for the last couple of years.

I have been a member of my MOMS Club since September 2006. In July 2007 I became secretary, in July 2008 I was voted in as the AVP (in charge of Service Projects), and in July 2009 I was voted in as President. I have had a ton of fun in my board positions, but now, as of this month, I am simply a contributing member of MOMS Club. I am looking forward to the change. A great new group of ladies were voted in to board positions, and I know they will do a fantastic job of leading the chapter.

I have also been involved in Relay for Life since 1996, serving as a participant for the first couple of years, and then as Silent Auction chair since about 1998. In 2008 I was asked to be the Relay Event co-chair for 2 years, and it has been quite the ride. Soon after I began my co-chair position I had my brain aneurysm, so trying to deal with that along with planning the Relay was quite the challenge. But it's been a good two years, with two successful relays under my belt. Of course, the Spokane Relay for Life has been going strong for over 20 years, so I don't think I could have really messed it up too badly! But now, I'm done with that as well. There are two new chairs to handle the event for the next two years, and they will do an awesome job! Now, I can just be a contributing member of the planning committee, and concentrate on being team captain for my MOMS Club team.

So I'm feeling very relieved right now. It's going to be weird, not having those responsibilities on my plate anymore, but I think it will be a nice break. Austin starts kindergarten in the fall, Daniel goes back for Pre-K, and Gretchen starts her first year of preschool. So for three mornings a week, I won't have any kids at home. Wow! That will be a change! But one I'm looking forward to.

I'm mobile!

Well, kind of anyway. A very good friend of mine loaned me her laptop, and now I can be on the computer at the same time as hubby. It's nice to be able to sit in the living room, catch up on my dvr'd shows, and surf the web, too. I know, very "couch potato" but sometimes my days get so busy and full of things, having some couch potato time at night is very nice! I'll be able to update my blog on a more regular basis now, too. Yea!

New baby in the house

We have a new baby in the house! Yesterday around dinner time we took placement of a 3-month old baby boy. I found out today that it looks like he'll be placed with an aunt on Tuesday afternoon, after a court hearing. So we won't have him for very long. I don't know what is more of a challenge - taking care of an infant again, or keeping my own kids out of his little chubby face! They just want to surround him constantly, and I think he gets a tad overwhelmed! He slept ok last - down to sleep around 9 pm, up at 1:30 and 5 am for feedings, and up for the day at 8 am. This afternoon has been a struggle for him - I think he's realizing this is not home, and has been very fussy. But he's good right now - he's cooing to Gretchen while he is in his swing. Hopefully those coos won't turn in to screams!

Scrapbook Page

The kids went down to bed really easily tonight - they were all asleep very soon after tucking them in. So I took advantage of the quiet night, and the fact that Relay for Life is all done, and I spent some time in my scrapbook room. I'm slowly starting to get it all cleaned up and organized. We put one big floor to almost ceiling shelving unit in the room last weekend, and I was able to get a bunch of stuff organized and off the floor. I have another shelf to put in there, the same size, but that one will be for all my sewing stuff, mostly quilting. Hopefully before too long the room will be just as I want it!

Here's the scrapbook page I did tonight. I followed a sketch challenge on scrapbook.com.

Diamond Lake Gretchen
by Inkyscrapper
Scrapbook.com

I won a prize!!!

Remember this post? I just found out I won!!! Woo-hoo is right!!! I'm so excited, and can't wait to get the prize in the mail.

Now, go check out the sponsor's site - Blue Moon Scrapbooking and see what great items they have for your scrapbooking and paper crafting projects. Beautiful stuff!!!

Thanks so much to Lynette at Desperate Army Housewife and to Scott & Lisa at Blue Moon Scrapbooking for this incredible prize package!