Finally, a day off!

So, I finally get today off! Except that the house is a wreck since we haven't been home for a week, the laundry needs done, I'm dehydrating carrots and apples, I have a huge box of tomatoes to can, the fridge needs cleaned out, Treven has soccer practice, Chelsey needs some hair stuff made before tomorrow, Mikayla has a bug collection we've been working on nightly, dinner will have to be made, and homework and baths will need to be done before bed! I guess it's not really a day off after all! I was really hoping to get some crafting done, but it better wait for tomorrow!

Blog Hop Reminder

Happy Tuesday, everyone! Just a quick reminder for anyone that wants to participate in the October Blog Hop...Friday is the first day of the month and the big reveal day! Make sure you let me know if you are posting so I can get your blog linked to mine! The theme this month is Falling into Fall...any project related to fall, Halloween, Harvest, etc counts!

Retreat Project

Our theme for the October retreat is "Getting More Bang for your Buck!" We came up with a project that really goes will with that theme. I have put together a kit for a paper bag mini album. You use lunch bags and sew them down the middle and you end up with lots of pages with pockets and all kinds of fun places to put pictures and journaling. Each lady will receive a kit that has their book already sewn and ready to go, patterned paper, some coordinating cardstock, some brads, and some ribbons. There will also be a unique twist to the project at the retreat, but it's a surprise for now so I can't tell you what it is!

I just did a few pages in my book because I want to finish it at the retreat with everyone else! They are really cute and I think they will make a fabulous Christmas gift for a grandparent or they would fun to display on the coffee table...not sure which place it will end up yet! Below are a few of the individual pages so you can see closer up.

Weekly Menu

Monday: chicken stir-fry over rice

Tuesday: hamburgers, macaroni salad

Wednesday: french dip sandwiches, fries

Thursday: shrimp gumbo

Friday: fajitas, beans

Saturday: eating out

Sunday: BBQ chicken, funeral potatoes, corn on the cob

Breakfast Menu:

Monday: cinnamon rolls, milk
Tuesday: cold cereal, juice
Wednesday: scrambled eggs, toast, juice
Thursday: apple cinnamon crepes, juice
Friday: bagels w/cream cheese, juice

Food Storage

I know it's been a couple of days since I posted; Ellie has had an ear infection and neither of us have slept for two nights straight. We are both getting pretty irritable and tired so I haven't felt much like sitting at the computer. Hopefully the antibiotics will really take hold soon and she will sleep tonight. The last couple of weeks Gary and I have been focusing on preparing for winter. We filled our propane tank, we've been cutting wood, and we have been stocking our food stores.

Smith's Food and Drug has had case lot sales for the past two weeks and I saw an ad for a case lot sale at Stokes this coming week. Since I do our grocery shopping once a week, I try to pick one item that is on sale and buy about $10 of it to put away. each week is completely different depending on the best sales. When I find the case lots, though-all bets are off. I went a little crazy at the last one! I spent $200 but I came home with cases of soups, pears, oranges, tomatoes of several types, chicken broth,, tuna fish, pinto beans, and a few other things.

I will continue to keep adding my few items each week, but it sure feels good to know that if we get snowed in or had an emergency, we could last awhile. I'm just now starting to branch into stocking other things such as hygiene items and diapers. You just never know when you may need these types of things! I just wish there was more available space for storage. Gary made me clear off three shelves in my laundry/craft room. I told him that was half and that was all I was giving up! He said that was good until I bought all the cases. They are breaking the shelves and we still have cases sitting on the floor under the shelves. Now he says we may need more scrapbooking stuff eliminated to make room-NOT!

Story of a Tree

Once upon a time, a big willow tree stood tall and proud in the front yard. The kids would play on the swing and climb high in it's branches like monkeys. The mom would take lots of first day of school pictures, birthday, playing, Halloween, and many other random pictures of the kids in front of the beautiful tree. It's branches and willows hung low to provide shade and everyone in the family loved the tree.

One spring, the dad noticed that only half of the tree sprouted new buds and leaves. He was concerned. The next spring, none of the tree sprouted and every time the wind blew, the family would find huge limbs laying on the ground. Once, when the little boy was swinging, the whole branch cracked and fell off of the tree. The dad was very concerned so he called a landscaping expert to look at the tree. The man told the family that some sort of bug had burrowed into the tree and killed it. There was no way to save the amazing tree.

So the dad had no choice but to cut down the tree. Branch by branch it fell as the family watched, heartbroken that their favorite tree was gone. No more school pictures in the tree, no more little monkeys climbing the tree, no more beautiful willows hanging to the ground. The dad and the little boy loaded all of the branches and twigs into the back of the truck.

The tree gave the family three nights of wonderful, toasty fire. Some of the flames were 12 feet high and kept the family very warm as they watched the fire dance in the branches of the tree. The tree also gave the coals to make the little boy and the little girl very sticky as they roasted marshmallows. The family will forever miss their tree and their front yard will never be the same again!

School pictures are back

School pictures were scheduled three days after school started this year...seriously...on top of registration, supplies, new clothes, class fees, etc, they have pictures right away. I have a hard time doing the whole picture thing anyway because to get enough pictures for me to hang on the wall, a picture for each grandparent, and a few for the kids to trade with their friends, I have to buy the biggest package (which has too many other pictures that just take up space). So this year, I did something different. There was an option to buy a portrait CD for $25.00 and the photographer releases the copyright on the picture. I can now take the CD in to any photo lab and print just how many I need. No more weird sizes that you don't give to anyone! So awesome! The best part is that he prints the release directly on the CD so I don't have to mess with paperwork or phone calls or anything else that I've had to deal with before! I'm not sure if this was an option before and I just didn't see it, or if it's something new this year, but it's the only way for me from now on!

World Card-Making Day

World Cardmaking Day is Saturday, October 2nd. I'm thinking of having a little get-together at my house for anyone interested in making cards that day. Everybody that comes will bring one card that is already made for a sample and all the fixin's for everyone else to make the same card. If there are 5 people here, you would take home 5 different cards. If there are 10 people here, you would take home 10 different cards! Let me know if you are interested and I'll see what I can put together! Either way, I am making cards for most of the day!

To get in the card making mood, I put together this set of Halloween cards. They are all the same basic design so it makes it easy to make a set quick.y.

Each of them have a rhinestone for an eye so they look just a tad on the creepy side!

Have a great day!

Weekly Menu

When I looked in our freezer and cupboards, I noticed that we had some meals I had bought groceries for that we had not eaten for some reason or another. We may have had dinner out that night or eaten leftovers or whatever. So, there are a few repeats on this weeks menu because I don't want to waste what I've already purchased!

Monday: ham and potato augraten, rolls, corn

Tuesday: chili casserole

Wednesday: shredded beef tacos

Thursday: chicken corn chowder, cheese biscuits

Friday: leftovers (I will be out of town so the kiddos and hubby get to fend for themselves!)

Saturday: enchilada casserole, Spanish rice

Sunday: chicken and broccoli alfredo, texas-size garlic toast

There you have it!

Ellie in the morning

Every morning when Ellie wakes up, she likes to sit in our rocking chair and watch Dora the Explorer. For some reason, she loves that one the most.

She cuddles up under the blanket with her binky and her sippy cup and slowly comes to life!

This is the best part of the day for me...she actually just sits and watches and I can get a little something done.

Wild Turkeys

I got a call from my neighbor the other day and she asked me to look out my front door and across the street to her house and see what she had in her yard. I assumed it was a deer, but when I got out there, it was three wild turkeys! One of them was pure white, but I never could get a good shot of that one. Lee and Woody have an old wagon bed that they use for a strawberry patch and the turkeys were eating out of it.

I ran back inside to get my camera and when I came back, they were eating off their bush. I took these pictures from my side of the street because we all know how I feel about birds! The big one saw me taking pictures and just kept staring at me. It made me nervous enough that I came back inside! When you live in the mountains, you never know what kind of wild animal you might get running through your yard. I have seen raccoons, skunks, turkeys, moose, and deer all roaming free! It's kind of cool!

Floral Cards

Last April on my way to the retreat, I stopped at Sierra's in Pocatello and found this awesome paper. It is slightly textured and glittery so I bough one sheet of striped, one sheet of floral, and one sheet of polka-dots. It's just been sitting around.

For my birthday, Stephanie gave me a gift certificate to Best Friends in Twin. I went and found a sheet of stickers that perfectly compliments my papers.

So one day, I sat down and made 4 cards using the paper and the stickers. I also used some purple ribbon from Papertrey Ink and a few tiny pearls on each card. This one also has a hat pin in the bow.

All in all, they took less than 45 minutes for all 4 cards. I'm not sure if I will use them individually or give the set as a gift.

Today is organization day so I am off to do mountains of laundry and cleaning and maybe a little baking to satisfy me sweet tooth!

Retreat Challenge #8

Our challenge this time was to use the sketch posted on 4 Girls and a Dream blog and make our own layout. I did mine slightly different from the sketch, but it is mostly the same. I didn't do any journaling and I left off a text block that was supposed to have the year or something in it. I figured that the photos pretty much spoke for themselves. It's hard to tell in the picture, but there is teeny red cording along the top and bottom of my patterned paper. The flowers have buttons in the middle of them and the rest of the page is super simple; lots of white space that I don't usually do a lot of. Have a super day and thanks for stopping by!

Yummy...Muffins!

Every few weeks or so, I bake up a couple of batches of these yummy babies! When they cool, I wrap them in plastic wrap and throw them in the freezer. For a quick breakfast, all you have to do is nuke them for about a minute and you have a homemade, yummy muffin. The top picture is chocolate chip and the bottom is blueberry.

If you were one of the ladies that came to our retreat in April, you might remember the cranberry-orange muffins, the lemon poppy seed, or the blueberry ones there. Here is the recipe:

Homemade Muffins

1 (18-oz) cake mix-Duncan Hines works the best

2 TBSP flour

3 eggs

2/3 cup milk

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp baking powder

Mix together and spoon into the large muffin tins. Bake at 375 for about 20 minutes. ( Really watch because if you add other goodies to the batter, it seems to take a bit longer.)

Now for the good stuff! You can customize your muffins by adding blueberries or raspberries, etc. You can use a chocolate cake mix and add chocolate chips for a double chocolate bonanza. You can use a lemon cake mix and add poppy seed for lemon poppy seed muffins...how about spice cake and shredded carrots for a healthy alternative to carrot cake....the possibilities are endless! Try a batch and let me know what you add!

Halloween Cards

I made a Halloween layout last year for Ellie using a kit. I can't remember what company made it, but it had 10 papers and 1 sheet of cut-outs to embellish the layouts with. After I finished the layout, I put the rest of the kit away and never thought about it again until I was sorting through some of my stash. I found the kit and decided to use it up and make some Halloween cards. I did two different sets, but you'll have to wait for another day to see the other set!

The cards are all basically the same design; I just used the different cut-outs on each card.

The ghost, the mummy, the Frankenstein and now....

the vampire! How cute are these guys?

I used a portion of my scallop punch to take a "bite" out of the corner on each of the cards, too!

Weekly Menu

Monday: (crazy, busy day) frozen pizzas

Tuesday: chili casserole

Wednesday: waffles with strawberries and whip cream, bacon

Thursday: ham and potato Au gratin, rolls, corn

Friday: chicken and rice casserole, green salad, garlic toast

Saturday: salsa chicken, Spanish rice

Sunday: butterfly shrimp, baked potato, green salad

I also started doing breakfast menus so that there is no thinking involved before 8:00 am! I can just get up, make lunches, and get something on the table quickly. Here is this weeks breakfast menu.

Monday: cold cereal, juice
Tuesday: breakfast burrito, juice
Wednesday: yogurt, toast, juice
Thursday: oatmeal, juice
Friday: granola bar, fruit, juice

I went to the grocery store yesterday and we are loaded and ready for another busy week! Hope your week starts off great!

Ellie's new backpack

Right before school started, we were at Payless Shoes and Ellie found this backpack (or pack-pack as she calls it!) She had to have it...

We use it for a diaper bag now so she has diapers, wipes, a sippy cup, a binky, and usually a bib and a snack in there. She loves to take it to Braquel's when she goes there for the day.

It's nearly as big as she is, but she loves it!

more sewing projects

Ellie outgrew all of her baby bibs (and they were all getting so stained and yucky), but when I priced some bigger bibs, they were all about $5.00 each. I find that a bit pricey, so I made her some. I cut them bigger than the store-bought ones so they would fit all the way down to her belly and cover more of her clothes. I bought 1/4 yard of 4 different fabrics and got 2-3 bibs out of each.

Then I just stitched the double fold edging around and added a button at the neck. I didn't do the edging the fancy way with no stitches showing, I just sewed. It's a bib-I really don't care if there was a line of thread. Anyway, she now has these two designs plus some purple Tinkerbelle ones and some with butterflies and sequins. I finished those a long time ago and these two the other day so I didn't have pix of the others. I think I will make a few more for good measure since she easily goes through 3-4 a day. Sometimes it takes me longer to get to the laundry than it should!!!

Back to School Layouts

I bought another kit at Wal-mart that was school themed. The papers and embellishments were a bit juvenile for the girls, but they matched Mikayla's outfit so I went ahead and used it on hers. The right side of the layout looks really boring because it's a pocket. I put all of their report cards, awards, etc. in the pocket so they don't take up so much room in their books. Also, I can pull out anything later that I want to look at.

I used the same kit for Treven. I used the orange to bring out the orange in his tee-shirt and I used more of the embellishments since he is younger and they looked better for a younger kid. This layout was easy because I left all of the pictures 4 x 6. I didn't leave a pocket for his layout because I had too many pictures that were just too cute not to use. When I get his school picture, I will put it on one side of a layout and his pocket on the other.

Chelsey's purple shirt just didn't go with any of the papers in the kit so I pulled out a kit from Close to My Heart (Bella, I think) and used all the pretty purple and yellow papers. The flower stickers are also from CTMH. Again, there is a pocket for all of her important papers so everything stays in one place!

Welcome to my Life!

The other night we had beef stroganoff for dinner. I'm not sure if Ellie didn't like her dinner or if she was full and I just didn't get her down from the table fast enough.

We were all just sitting there visiting and Chelsey said, "Oh my gosh" and starts laughing hysterically. I look over at Ellie sitting next to me and this is what I saw!

What a tornado I have on my hands. Sure, she's all cute and innocent most of the time-NOT! Look at those big blue eyes, though; how could I possibly get mad at her?

Oops!

I made this card for Janell's card swap in August. The problem is that I made them at the first of the month and put them away for the 20th (when they are due). Well, life sort of happens and with Treven's birthday and back to school, they just weren't on my mind and I forgot to take them to her. Next thing I know, she has already posted the months cards on her blog. So, now I have 5 of these little babies for birthdays! I love the pink sparkley jewels on each of the cherries-they just make me happy!

Robin- I missed a post yesterday, but I have one for each of the other days in September. I'm with ya, sista on the challenge! I'll try to post every day in September. I love seeing your blog; it's almost like seeing the boys more often and watching them grow up!

Something New

I was reading a blog the other day and they post a weekly menu. I liked the idea a lot because you can go back through and see what you are eating way too often or not often enough. I'm going to try it for awhile and see if it helps in my menu planning. (It might help, too if it's somewhere permanent as mine seem to disappear from the fridge all the time!)

Monday: (getting wood) roast, baby carrots, red potatoes

Tuesday: (working) grilled pork chops, fried red potatoes, corn on the cob

Wednesday: (working) sausage lasagna, garlic toast

Thursday: (craft day) chicken and gravy over mashed potatoes, green beans

Friday: (organization day) taco soup, cornbread

Saturday: (yard day) chicken alfredo pizza, green salad

Sunday: (wood day) fried chicken, creamed potatoes and peas, cheesy biscuits

I know it seems like a lot of chicken meals, but the kids love chicken and Ridleys had it on sale this week so I loaded up. Whatever meat is on sale that week is what we eat the most of! Also a lot of potatoes on the menu because Woody and Bert both gave me big sacks of beautiful homegrown red potatoes and I don't want to waste any of those!!!

Labor Day Plans

So, to start our Labor Day weekend, Gary and I went out last night. I really have been missing all the people from Annie's so we went down to the Sage and sat on the deck. It was such a beautiful night and it was nice and peaceful. Several of our old "locals" were there so it was good to see them and catch up with them again.

Today I am running to town to get the chainsaw ready for more wood cutting. Then we are going to mow and Round-up and then I am going to help Woody get the beans canned. I picked our beans yesterday and between picking and snapping, I spent 4 hours on them! Today will be easy compared to yesterday; my job is to stuff the jars....I think I can handle that! Tonight we are going to just hang at home with the kids and have a yummy dinner and maybe a movie.

Tomorrow we are going to laze around for the morning. Make breakfast, clean up, then we are going to go to my friend, Diana's for a end of summer BBQ. Hopefully there are lots of people coming; weather is supposed to be kind of yuck. We had thought about taking the boat out one last time, but the Idaho weather just doesn't want to cooperate!

Monday will be spent cutting more wood. Predictions are for a long, bad winter so we want to be extra prepared. It's always better to get too much than not enough! We were still burning wood clear into May and as cold as it's been getting at night, it won't be too long before we start burning now. Last week, we popped a tire getting a load so hopefully that doesn't happen again! I'm going to throw a roast and some carrots, potatoes, and onions in the oven on low so we have a nice, hot dinner waiting for us when we get home-I know I will be too tired to cook as I am getting old and worn out!!!

Hope you all have a great three-day weekend! Be safe!

Treven's Pirate Party

When Treven turned 7 a week or so ago, he decided he wanted a party. We went with a pirate theme and had so much fun. These are the cupcakes that we made with the chocolate pirate coins on them. Some of the kids went crazy over the coins and ate several of the coins and no cupcakes!

I wrapped a clue in Treven's last gift that sent them on a treasure hunt to find his gift from us. When they realized the gift was the clue, there were kids running everywhere looking for the next clue! I had hidden 5 or 6 clues and it was a mad dash...the final clue talked about the treasure in an old worn-out truck. We have a Toyota that the engine went out of and Gary just hasn't had time to put a new one in. That was where I had the final gift. All but one of the kids went right past the Toyota to our Ford that we use to haul garbage to the dump and get firewood in! Hilarious that they all picked the wrong truck...maybe it means we have too many worn out trucks on our property! LOL!!!

One of the games we played was a cannon-ball toss...otherwise known as a water balloon fight! Gary, my mom, Sally (my s-i-l), and one of the boys moms filled about 200 water balloons. We divided them in half and put them in coolers. We then divided the kids into teams and let em go. The only bad part was when they ran out of balloons! We also played Pin the Patch on the Pirate and a water game that they had to soak up water in a sponge and run it to another bucket about 100 feet away and transfer all the water from one bucket to the other. There were several groups of brothers at the party and they each went on opposite teams. It was really funny to watch them compete with each other!

We asked all the kids to come dressed as pirates and most of them did. They were all so cute! Two of the kids even blacked out a few of their teeth and one boy came with a gold hoop earring. Even my niece, Whitney came dressed as a pirate! She was the only girl here, but she had fun with all the boys anyway. If you look close at the picture of the kids on the treasure hunt, she's the second one running for the treasure...she kept right up with those rowdy boys! The kids had a blast and Treven had one memorable birthday!