PAD 6/26/12-6/30/12

So it looks like another catch-up post for me again. I'm having a hard time figuring out a good time of the day to sit down and blog. I used to try and do this in the morning after my prayer time and before Michelle and I started our school work and chores, but this time of year, I try and get outside and get the gardening done and take our walk early before it gets too hot. The evenings are hard because we live in the boonies. You see, living in the boonies means you are far away from internet services and then your connections are slow-especially when everyone else is using the same connections. And uploading photos means even slower connections. On that note, one thing you may or may not know about my dear husband--he's a gamer. Yup, some guys like football, some like cars, some like hunting, mine is a gamer. That's how he relaxes-blowing something up or going on a quest. And, frankly, he's not very happy when his shots miss or his quest is slowed down because I'm trying to upload photos. I like to keep my man happy, so I try my best not to interrupt his game time. Maybe I'll have to start getting up a bit earlier so I can work it in, or just do my chores later in the evening. Anyway, I have been given permission to do some uploading as he is currently studying and doesn't care one whit how fast or slow our connection is, so I better hurry up and get these photos on here before he's done. :o)

6/26/12
I have two pictures for Tuesday. First, here's how our tie-dyed shirts came out. Pretty cute, I think. Of course, the girls' smiles make anything look cute. :o)

Secondly, we had an unexpected trip to the Mall of America. Some friends that were stationed in Japan with us are currently on their way across country as they change duty stations, so, since they were going to be so close, we met them at the MOA for a couple of hours of fun and catching up. Angel is the one screaming in pink. ;o)

6/27/12
I know I left y'all hanging about the curtain tie-dye experiment. ;o) I took one of our sheets, cut it in half so I could do two different colors and then dyed it. I was trying for an ombre look where the color fades from dark to light so I accordion folded the fabric and simply laid it on top of the dye. I can post pics if anyone is interested in seeing how I did it. Anyway, after dying, I sewed the two colors together and made simple curtains out of them.

As you can see, Michelle is happy with them.

6/28/12
Day two of curtain makeover. I used some of the extra fabric to make some flowers and tie backs for the curtains. Michelle and I also did a lot of work outside in the yard trying to get things cleaned up a bit. I'll post pictures of that sometime next week...maybe.

6/29/12
Friday Michelle worked a bit on finishing up some of her school work for the year and I spent some time in the kitchen on a couple of cake projects. We also spent time outside gardening. We should be harvesting some beans and peas some time next week. Yum! We decided to get some grocery shopping done after Mike got home, and then we stopped by his mom's house to help her with a couple of projects. We've had a lot of rain this year, and everyone is harvesting their hay right now. This field was amazing. Sorry for the blurry shot, I tried to get this while we were driving.

If you click on these, you can see them much better.

6/30/12
And, finally, today, Mike spent most of the day working outside. It was a little warm, but he was working in the woods in the shade, so I don't think he got too hot. Although he probably lost a pint of blood to the mosquitoes. This is what he was working on.

He's building a deck at the top of Michelle's zipline. It's 8 x 14 so there is plenty of room for us to build a little play house up there later. Do you see the table in the foreground? That's what they kids were using to get on the line. It's pretty sturdy, but probably not the safest thing when there's 6 or 7 climbing on there. Besides, this project is great practice for the work we are going to be doing over at the kitchen, hopefully later this summer. 

I was in and out of the house. I helped him a bit, but spent most of the day in the kitchen working on "critters". I have another barn yard cake to do and wanted to get a jump start on the figures since we will have company next week. I was also working on several other cake projects at the same time, but didn't get any pictures yet.

I still have naked sheep, and albino cows, but they're almost finished. Too cute!!

PAD 6/25/12

6/25/12
I like Mondays like this. Nice and relaxing. No school work to do, no cakes to prep for, the house pretty clean. Just a relaxing kind of day.

Michelle had a surprise this afternoon as her two buddies showed up to spend the night. :o) They quickly bored of riding bikes so they took off to explore up the creek for a bit, then they changed into bathing suits and played in the sprinkler for a while. I heard them say something about going to the creek so I decided to grab my camera and follow after. The creek is pretty much just a trickle of water right now, but the girls managed to find a "pond". It was really just a pretty deep puddle in the bend of the creek. It was in the shade though and they were soon shivering so we headed back upstream till they found a nice sunny spot to warm up in. Not a nice sunny spot in the grass, but a muddy, sandy spot in the creek. They proceeded to give themselves a mud bath.

We did learn that it's a good idea to hose them off outside before going in to take showers and clean off. That was a lot of sand coming out of those bathing suits!!!

Tie dying some shirts is on our list of things to do this summer, so after dinner, we braved the million mosquitoes on the porch to dye a couple of shirts. We won't see what they look like till tomorrow as they have to sit in their plastic bags for 6-8 hours or longer. We're opting for the longer part 'cause I am so not getting up at 2 am to rinse them out and wash them. After the girls were done with their shirts there was still 2/3 of the bottles left so I grabbed some of Michelle's white socks to dye. There was still more than half so I swiped one of Mike's t-shirts to make a matching shirt for me. Thankfully I trust myself enough with the dye not to have to go outside to do it. I don't feel like being mosquito buffet anymore tonight. I still have half left in all 3 bottles. Wonder what else I have around the house that's white, cotton and needs to be bright pink, blue or purple? Too bad I don't have any cotton fabric or I would dye some to make curtains for Michelle's room. Oh! Idea! I have some plain white sheets in the closet and I know at least one of them is torn on one side. Looks like I need to get off of here and find myself a large enough bucket to soak a sheet in. I'll let you know how it comes out. 

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

PAD 6/24/12

Today is Sunday which, of course, means we get to spend the morning in church fellowshiping with other believers and worshiping the Lord. It was unusually quiet this morning as several of our families were on vacation and our Associate Pastor and most of our youth were assisting another church with their VBS. It was still a wonderful time at church, and in this evening's service, 3 of the ladies sang a special for us that I had never heard before. I don't remember the name, but the message was that we often take the brush from God and try to paint our own pictures of our lives, which never comes out quite right, but when we are willing to give the brush to God and let Him do the painting--oh what a masterpiece! I pray that this week, I will let God do the painting. :o)

It was a beautiful day here. I spent a little time in the garden picking strawberries and Mike worked on his school assignment. We had burgers on the grill for dinner and even had time to roast a marshmallow or two. :o)

Here's the pictures I think I mentioned before of the daisies. This first one I took out in our pasture.

This one was taken by one of my flower beds. We did put some compost and peat moss in the garden when we first tilled it under, and I've sprayed Miracle Gro on here twice this year. That's it. I don't know any other reason why they would get so tall. They don't look that great from this angle. They had gotten so long and bushy they were laying on the grass outside the garden and Mike couldn't mow or trim around it so I put up some extra white fencing we had to hold them up out of the way. Now they look all squished up on this side. Oh well. Maybe I should have taken the photo from the other side.

Michelle and I decided that each night, after prayers, I would check her room and give her a sticker on her calendar if it was all clean. She, in turn, would check my kitchen and give me a sticker on the kitchen calendar if it was all clean. Now we have to decide on some special prizes and figure out how many stickers will be needed to get the prizes. Right now though, I need to go make sure the dessert dishes were taken care of so I can get my sticker. :o)

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

PAD Journal Update Part 3

Whew! This should be the last post to get me updated...for now. :o) In the last update, I mentioned our trip to Ikea and reorganizing Michelle's room. Well, here's the final pictures.

6/20/12
I didn't get any photos of the room "before" the redo, but you may remember this.

What you can't see in this photo is the bookshelf and desk on the left wall, her dresser that's tucked in the closet on the right or the stackable drawers used as side tables. She had so many different storage pieces in here in all different styles and types. The desk and dresser were ones I painted for Angel many years ago, and although the are pretty, the blue doesn't match the blue in the room.We moved the china cabinet in here several months ago when we redid the kitchen to try and help give her more storage for stuff, but it just became a cluttered mess. I think part of the problem was that her toys were stored all over the place; under the bed, in the many different cabinets. When it came time to clean up she simply dumped it wherever was closest.

We moved her bed to the other side of the room and flanked the window with the Ikea shelves. Pretty much all of her toys and books are stored on these shelves. We were going to do a checkerboard look with the pink boxes, but some of those are heavy and I thought they would be best along the bottom.

 I added labels to the boxes with some scrapbooking chipboard and ribbon. I just safety pinned them to the fabric under the handles.

Do you see something else different in this photo?

By moving all the toys out of the china cabinet drawers, we were able to make it her dresser. The two little upper drawers hold all her hair stuff. I told her this was her space to "decorate" with the many picture frames and other miscellaneous decorative stuff she has. Now the only furniture in her room is her bed, the small dvd shelf, the china cabinet and the Ikea shelves. Oh, and two of the small drawers we kept beside her bed to put her nightlight and clock on, but they're pretty much empty.

Someday I may get around to finishing the mural I started on her walls and we may paint her bed and the china cabinet white to match the Ikea shelves. It will make for less visual clutter if they're all the same color.

6/21/12

Did you figure out what was different in the photo above, beside the labels on the drawers? We had to make room in one of the cubicles for our newest family member--Freddie. I promised Michelle that when we got her room cleaned and there was a place for it, she could get a fish. Betas are pretty easy to take care of and they don't require a lot of expensive equipment. 

I also had to add in a picture of Michelle spending time with her friend in NC. Yes, they are chatting on an Ipad and she's hiding under the bed. :o) I think she was just so excited to see all the empty carpet space under there that wasn't covered in toys and clothes that she had to show it off!!!

6/22/12

Friday was spent pretty much in the kitchen for me, working on graduation and birthday cakes. Angel came home for the weekend. Yay! We had home made pizza for dinner. Yum! Here's the cake and cupcakes I did for the graduation. Can you find my mistake? I guess when you finish a cake around midnight, you're bound to make mistakes on them, like not crossing the t. Oops!

6/23/12

And, finally today's photo and I am completely updated! Mike had a Legions training meeting today, Angel had to work, Michelle and I delivered the graduation cake and then I dropped her off along with the birthday cake at a party. And this is how I spend my quiet time. :o)

Yes, this is my addiction. A DP and a Lindt Intense Orange chocolate bar. These things are SO yummy! I blame it all on my pastor at church. He offered me one of these bars from our food pantry one afternoon after an activity and I've been hooked ever since. They just magically jump into my shopping cart every time I'm at Wal-Mart. I think I may have to join our addictions program soon. But, I do limit myself to these only on the weekends. And a quiet afternoon with no one home makes it even better. :o)

Well, I'm all done. I enjoy doing this journal, but hope not to have to do an update like this again. Keeping it up on a regular basis is a lot easier on my brain. I don't have to think so far back to remember what we did. ;o)

Till next time...(hopefully tomorrow)

God's love and blessings!

PAD Journal Update Part 2

Michelle is at a birthday party, Angel is at work, and Mike is busy in the garage, so it's the perfect time to try and get this updated.

6/14/12
I debated for a long time as to whether or not I should post this picture since I really don't want to offend my mother-in-law. Coco and Layla stayed with her and Darlene while we went to visit my family. They were so sweet and gave them both a bath and brushed out the tangles. They both needed it, especially Coco. His thick undercoat is always getting nasty knots in it. I can't imagine how much time it took to get them out. It usually takes me a couple of hours. Anyway, Carole decided that Layla needed a trim, unfortunately, Layla didn't cooperate. She looks so funny that I laugh every time I look at her. At least she's cooler, and it's much easier for us to find any ticks on her right now. :o)

Before---After

6/15/12
My garden is filling in very nicely this year. Here's a quick shot of my pink lilies. I love their color, but I am going to have to move them this fall as they are now hiding behind the daisies.

6/16/12
I'm afraid that not posting this regularly makes it much harder for me to remember what we were doing each day. Mostly it was unpacking and getting some house cleaning done. We've had a lot of rain lately, which my garden likes, and can make for some awesome pictures sometimes. :o)

6/17/12
Sunday was Father's Day. We were going to bar-b-q, but the weather didn't cooperate, so I moved to plan b--meatloaf, baked potatoes and corn on the cob. Yum! I feel bad though that we didn't do anything else to make the day special for Mike. I need to find a way to remedy that.

This is a shot of me with one of my future Sunday School students. Isn't he the cutest?

6/18/12
Monday, Michelle and I made a road trip into the cities to visit the Ikea store. I'd had enough of trying to clean and reorganize her bedroom and decided it was time for a better storage system. I will post pictures of that in Part 3 of this update since this one is getting a bit long.

Here's a shot of some of my daisies. These are the ones I transplanted from our pasture. They are amazing me this year. The ones in the pasture get about a foot and a half tall, so I planted these in the front and along the sidewalk of the gardens. They are all 3+ feel tall!! They're taking over the gardens, which I don't mind, but as I mentioned before, I'm going to need to rearrange a bit so they're not hiding the other plants in there. I'm going to get some pictures of them with Michelle beside them. I think I have one that goes up to her nose. :o)

6/19/12
Tuesday Michelle and I spent cleaning and reorganizing her room. Sorting, trashing, organizing, trashing some more, donating--all day. I was exhausted by bed time, but very happy with the results. I didn't take time to take any before pictures, but I did snap this one after lunch while Michelle snuggled with the doggies. Layla's fur is already starting to fill in a bit.

Anyway, I need to close this here, check on Mike in the garage, and go pick up Michelle from her party.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

PAD Journal Update Part 1

So, it has been a while, but I do have a fairly good reason. We were out of town. We drove to CO to visit my sister and her family to celebrate her 40th birthday. I would have mentioned it earlier, but I didn't think it was a good idea to announce to the world that our house was going to be empty for a week. Nope, not a smart idea. Needless to say, I took lots of photos that week, but I did try and narrow it down to just one a day for this blog.

6/7/12

Mike spent the morning at work while Michelle and I packed the car and made sure the house was ready. After he got home, we headed over to his mom's to drop off the dogs. A friend of ours agreed to come over to check on the cat and make sure she had food and water. After dropping off the dogs, we headed into the cities where we picked up Angel. With three drivers we were able to drive through the night to save us some time and money. I think these windmills were somewhere in Iowa.

6/8/12

We arrived a couple of hours earlier than Google maps said we should. We might possibly have had at least one speedy driver in the car. ;o)  I wish I could have slept in the car as easily as she does.

6/9/12

Saturday was my sister's party, and although I have several hundred pictures from that day, I think this one is the most appropriate. My silly sis is a true Disney fan. :o)

6/10/12

Sunday we ran some errands, did some shopping, and then had dinner over at my dad's. He makes the best salmon on the grill. My kids can't have salmon anywhere else without comparing it to Grandpa's.

6/11/12
 I have two for Monday cause I couldn't resist. We all met over at my nephew's new place for a house warming party, and then took off to do a little more shopping before heading out Tuesday.

Having fun at my nephew's.

Our super heroes to the rescue!

As we walked through the store, my sister started to reprimand her son for playing in the toy aisle...until she looked down the aisle and saw her brother-in-law doing the same thing. Yes, my husband will NEVER grow up, and I wouldn't have it any other way. :o)

6/13/12

Before we left on Tuesday, we had to get in one more photo shoot. Love this one of me and my sis. Happy Birthday, Pam! Glad we could come out and celebrate with you.

Well, since it's been nearly two weeks since my last update, and I have lots more photos to go through, I am going to stop here and post more later.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

PAD 6/5/12-6/6/12

Well, hello there! Thought I'd take a quick minute to update the journal here for the last couple of days. I was so busy with cakes last week, that Michelle and I have pretty much spent the last two days catching up on all the little things that didn't get done around the house. We did take a nice break in the afternoon on Tuesday to take a walk.

6/5/12

These flowers always make me smile!

6/6/12

Wednesday I had another cake to work on, we did some work in the garden, and did some other things I'll have to write about later. After church, I was putting the finishing touches on the cake. When I came downstairs to tell Michelle to get ready for bed, I found her like this.

Looks like this girl can sleep anywhere. That will come in handy soon. :o)

Funny girl. :o)

Well, Michelle and I have several things to accomplish this morning, and if we get it all done in time, I plan on spending some time getting the new cake blog up and running. I better get off of here and get busy.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

PAD 5/29/12-6/4/12

So, life around here has been a floury, eggy, sugary whirlwind. I had 1 bridal shower, 1 birthday, and 2 graduations to make cakes for. The graduations needed to feed 200 each so they each had several cakes. It was hectic, but a lot of fun. Thankfully, one of the young ladies from church came by on Friday and helped me out. I don't think I would have finished everything until late into the night had she not come. Thank you, Romni!!! I am planning on starting a new blog just for my cakes, so I will post those pictures over there, hopefully later this week.

Needless to say, with all that baking, nothing else got done here in the house, including the blog, so now I have a week's worth of updating to do. I'm just going to post a pic or two for each day and a quick journal.

5/29/12

You'll be happy to know the creek is back down to its normal trickle. Michelle was excited to find some fish in it and spent several hours happily scooping them up, saying hello to them and putting them back in. That's the culvert behind her, and yes, the water was a foot or so over that during the storm.

5/30/12

Lots of critters are enjoying all this water.

5/31/12

Thursday night was our annual Keepers of the Faith Banquet. I didn't get close enough to get very good shots, but here's Michelle receiving the pins she's earned this year. Hopefully we will be able to do more next year.

6/1/12

 

This not-so-little guy spent the afternoon bathing in the creek. He or she is about as long as the dogs are. It was hard to tell since he was partially buried in the sand. He was gone the next morning though. Hopefully he made it up the creek to the pond.

6/2/12

We spent most of Saturday at different parties. Michelle and I spent the morning at a wonderful bridal shower, and then we were all off to graduation open houses. Here's Michelle with a couple of her friends enjoying the beautiful day.

6/3/12

I realized Sunday that I did way too much this weekend and didn't eat properly. I woke up with a headache and feeling slightly dizzy and queasy. I think my iron was low along with other vitamins. We ended up leaving church early so I could go lay down. I'm happy to say that some pain meds, multi-vitamin, and a 4 hour nap made a world of difference! While I was napping, Mike taught Michelle how to ride her bike with no training wheels. We tried last year in the driveway, but it just didn't work. She couldn't get going fast enough and kept falling down. This time he had her start at the top of the hill and coast down. He said she was riding in no time. Now we can't get her off!

6/4/12

Today, Michelle and I spent the morning cleaning house. I promised a friend I would help her paint some signs on the windows of her new store in preparation for her open house this weekend, so we headed over there after lunch. There were several storms around us as we headed home, and got to see this beautiful rainbow along the way.

Well, I guess that updates us around here. We're off to bed now. Till next time...
God's love and blessings!