Last Week in Pictures

So with the MOMS retreat done and over I stepped into the house, hung out with my family and on Sunday my mom and I decided to make some pickle relish...some with cucumbers and some with zucchini.  It came out sooo yummy!  Here are some pics of what we made.

In between batches I worked on punching out circles and scalloped circles for my big order for Papercutz!  I punched out 2000 punches and made 700 cookies in 3 days, lol!  Here is my work!

Here is a picture of my kitchen when I baked all day!  It was CRAZY (and slightly embarrassing)

This was the finished product!

Sunday night we went to music on the lawn down at the museum of the southwest!  It was lots of fun!  Gabe & Bill played ball, Lily made her rounds snuggling with everyone but Tim Waterman was her favorite that night.  :-)

In the midst of punching, taping, baking...Lily would always surprise me with something.  She had me belly laughing when she came out of her room like this.

She had her one piece swimsuit on her head, lol!  

On Wednesday night we had a family party to celebrate Gabe's 5th birthday!

Thursday afternoon I thought it would be fun to make my own pinata.  It was so much fun!  It was messy but fun!

Then on Friday night Gabe went to spend the night with Nanny so we could surprise him with his room makeover for his birthday.  All of our family help contribute to his room.  

On Saturday we celebrated Gabe's 5th birthday with all of his friends Super Mario style!

They had a blast!

That sums up our last week in pictures!

Moms Retreat

It has been a whirlwind since I got home from my MOMS group retreat.  This is the first moment I have had to sit down and actually update y'all about what has been going on.  First of all the retreat was AMAZING!  We had so much girl talk, were encouraged with the word (thanks Tina Chalk), got to bond with some of our mentor moms, shopped, and of course planned for next year!  Here are all the fabulous woman who will be leading MOMS this year!

We had such a great time!  I can't wait for MOMS to start up again this year and be sure to check out Stonegate's website to register!  We have some new speakers, fun topics, and some great ideas!  We are super pumped about what God is doing!

Here are a few more pictures from our weekend!

A beautiful view of Ruidoso, NM, we celebrated the "diva's" birthday (our fearless leader), and then a picture of our planning meeting!

Almost Here

I seriously feel like a kid who is waiting anxiously to go to Disney!  This is my first time ever going away with the girls...alone....no husband....no kids....just me and a group of Godly woman from Thursday-Saturday!  It's going to be so blissful!  I won't have to do laundry, change diapers, clean up after kids, entertain them, watch cartons or listen to video games.  I will have the opportunity to have a weekend of uninterrupted conversation, dinner in a restaurant where I won't have to cut up any one's meal into bite size pieces, be sure there is a lid on the cup, or take anyone to the potty in the middle of the meal.  I will actually get to sit, with a napkin on my lap, eat my food, carry on wonderful conversation and laugh at all of Candyce's wonderful stories!  She's one of the best story tellers I know.

Even though we are going away to do planning for our MOMS group next year, spend time in the Word and prayer, we are also going shopping, and just enjoying each others company...did I mention kid-less?  I am so excited to soak up the wisdom of the older ladies and really develop closer relationships with a group of fabulous woman!

I can't wait!!!!

First Canning Experience

I wanted to plant a garden so I could not only enjoy fresh produce from our own garden but also to be able to can & freeze some of it.  As I am sure most of you know we have our first garden this year over at my parents house.  It has been so much fun learning about how to grow things, the space they need, what they look like as they transition from a seed to a big flower bearing plant into fresh, yummy produce!  It just amazes me that such beautiful & wonderful things come from such a tiny and small seed.  Our God is so amazing!  I just stand in awe of the creativity!  I feel so special that I know Him!

Sorry about the trail, but it's so true!  This morning started like most except for Lily not going to school because she was sick...I think just allergies.  She's up & kickin' tonight though.  My mom surprised me and said she was at Walmart picking up the stuff to make pickles.  Seriously?  I was pumped!  Everything else I had planned for the day could be put on hold.  I was so excited to try and can something!  It brought back memories from when my grandma used to make her homemade pickles.  It kind of made me feel domesticated as I then whipped up some Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies, dinner followed by some homemade banana bread.  Watch out Betty Crocker!  Ohhh wait my bread is done!  The timer just went off!  It looks wonderful!  I can't wait to dig into it in the morning!  My kitchen is filled with that yummy, warm, sweet, banana smell!  Yummmm.....

Back to canning....I totally enjoyed the time spent with my mom as we talked about her childhood experiences canning with her mother.  Not always good memories seeing that they peeled tomatoes until their hands bled practically.  But they always had food and it always lasted them through the winter.  My grandma, Nana was definitely a hard worker.  I made 6 jars of pickles today and I thought that was an accomplishment.  :-)  My Nana would can just about everything!  Her pickles were hands down the best ever!  Maybe one day mine will be like hers. 

Here are some pictures of my first canning experience along with the recipe we used.

Here is the recipe that we used.  We didn't have all the fresh dill it called for so we used what we had along with 1/4 tsp of pickling spice, and a sprinkle of dill weed just to be sure they are dilly!  I'll let you know in 8 weeks how they are!  The process was successful, let's just hope the product is too!

Here are a fe good canning websites too!  Home Canning and Ball! 

Sneak Peek Into Gabe's Room Makeover

I thought it would be fun to give y'all a little sneak peek into Gabe's bedroom makeover! This is what we are doing for his birthday gift this year. We have always talked about redoing his room before he goes into Kindergarten and we are so excited to do it. We have never really ever done his room like we did Lily's. It was first his nursery stuff and then a hand me down set which is fine we were grateful to receive it especially at the time we did. So it's a big deal to us because we feel like we have come a long way since we have had Gabe and God has blessed us with the opportunity to do this for him. So, we are super excited about it.

Gabe knows we are redoing his room. We have been talking about it for over a year now. He got to choose the paint color and his bedding but the rest was up to us. He doesn't know about all the cool extra's he's going to get. Check out the pictures and let me know what you think!

Wall color Magnetic Gray

Guitar Bedding Collection

Some fun hooks we found at Bed Bath and Beyond!

His new bunk bed. The only thing that stinks is having to buy a second mattress and 2 bedding collections, lol.

A reading chair...that reclines!

A Cool Nightlight!

My homemade magnetic memo board!

I think I am also going to spell his name out in guitar picks, spray them all one color, and mat and frame it. We also want to do a drum set in either paint or Target has a cute chalkboard vinyl sticker that would be fun too. We shall see what we decide though!

Some Days Are Just More Productive Than Others

I often wonder if I had this much energy & motivation every day how much more I could accomplish in a week. I woke up at 6:30, had some coffee, got into the word, showered, and got to Albertson's around 7:30 this morning. I forgot it was Hawaiian day at school and Gabe had to bring grapes for the fruit salad, oops! So, I figured why not just get groceries while I was there so I did. I raced home to get the kids ready for summer camp, put away groceries,pack lunches, and get get them to their school by 9:00. I then hit up Hobby Lobby, McDonalds for a yummy hazelnut ice coffee and an oh so fattening breakfast sandwich that was oh so yummy and then went to Lowe's to pick up some things for Gabe's room, flowers, and soil. Came home to realize that I was locked out of the house! A friend watched our dogs and I still need to get my key back and Bill locked up before going to work as usual. So, he had to come rescue me! :-) In the meantime I planted 2 new perennials out in the front flower bed before he arrived.

Once I got in the house I decided to finish planting the flowers out back. I planted 7 flowers today 2 which I already had. My goal was to just put them in the existing flowerbeds but that didn't happen. I had to be over adventurous and dig up all along the side of our house where we have a walk way into our back yard. This is what it looked like before.

And after much sweating and planting, flowers and seeds this is what it looks like now.

In between planting I would be working on this for Gabe's room makeover! (shh it's a surprise)

I started with a frame that I bought like 4 years ago at that huge garage sale that Meals on Wheels puts on each fall for like $3. I just knew it would come in use one day.

Then I gave it a new coat of black spray paint.

I inserted a piece of sheet metal that I bought at Lowe's.

I added some cardboard to make it sturdy. You could spray it black too but I didn't. :-)

I also added some new wire and hooks so we could hang it up. Voila!

It's a magnetic frame for Gabe to put all his art work on, school stuff...whatever he wants in his room. I love it!

Along with doing laundry (6 loads I think) I decided to start organizing. Oh boy did I need it! Since we have traveled so much this summer, the kids busy schedule and not to add taking the house off the market...I just needed to get cleaned out and organized again. I felt like I just couldn't stand it anymore. Organizing is an ongoing process at my house but these 3 areas really needed some TLC! Besides feeling slightly embarrassed by my craziness I thought it would be fun to post some before & after pictures!

I forgot to take the inside of my cabinet before I took everything out so here is all the stuff that was shoved into this little cabinet.

Here is the after

I also did the pantry...again.

Before

After

Tackled the laundry room next!

Before

After

Well, that was my day in a nutshell...well besides some coloring with Lily this evening and making brownies with Gabe oh yeah and painting in his room...lol. I need to get off here so I can go fold the last few loads of laundry while watching America's Got Talent! :-) Good Night Friends!

Beautiful Blessing

When we moved into our house we had this big plant right in the middle of our yard so we decided at one time to try and take it out. Well, the dang plant kept coming back. So we just decided to leave it. We have never had flowers on it. We have mowed over it, ran over and drove over it many times and it still won't die. When we got home from vacation this past weekend I went outside and was over-joyed by something so simple.




It had flowers! For the first time since we have ever lived here! It's so beautiful! God is so good!