5/11/12

I have 200 cupcakes to do this weekend, so I really should be in the kitchen right now, but, we have some errands to run today and there isn't enough time before we leave to bake a full batch before we head out the door. There is enough time for me to update the PAD Journal though. :o)

5/11/12

Michelle and I had a fun "home-ec" day on Friday, making bread, granola, and rice crispy treats. The crispy treats are actually part of a cake design, but we made extra for sampling. :o) Of course, cooking involves lots of math and science. Today we talked about density. This is the mixture of oil, maple syrup, corn syrup and maple flavoring we used to make the granola.

I couldn't resist posting this one. :o)

Well, I suppose I could go straighten up the kitchen and get things ready so I can start baking as soon as we return from our errands.

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

PAD 5/6/12-5/10/12

I have no excuses as to why I haven't updated this week other than trying to be more diligent with my time and getting house and school work done. Michelle and I are trying to finish up the last few weeks of school so we can take our summer off.

5/6/12

Most of Sunday was spent at church. The first Sunday of the month we have Fellowship Supper and our evening service is moved to the afternoon, so we're there from 9:30 till 3ish usually. Often times Mike and I take the "day of rest" literally and take a nap, this was one of those days. After the nap, I was straightening up the kitchen from the baking frenzy when I spotted this teacup Mike had given me for my birthday last month. I love the colors in it. The deep blues really stand out on my shelves against the lighter colors of most of the other teacups.

5/7/12

Monday turned out to be a beautiful spring day here so Michelle and I spent most of  it outside working in the yard and veggie garden. I pulled out weeds and added compost to the beds. In one corner I spotted this little guy. His green was amazing! Once again I wish I could recapture God's creation in my camera, but I just can't seem to do it justice.

5/8/12

Tuesday was mostly house cleaning and school work for us. I had a lady stopping by in the evening to talk about a wedding cake, so as soon as Mike got home, we headed off to the polls to vote, grabbed some dinner at Subway and headed back home. Just in time! I took these picture that morning when I went in to make my bed. Seems someone likes my pillows. :o)

5/9/12

Here's another comparison of my garden, only this time, the top one was taken on May 9th 2011 and the bottom one was May 9th 2012. Big difference! I think there are two things that contributed to how much fuller the garden is now. First, last year I transplanted several more daisies, columbines, and other plants from around our property, and they are filling in nicely. Secondly, we had such warm weather so early this year. Several of the larger plants you see in the bottom picture are barely out of the ground in the top one. There's still so many plants out in the fields...I foresee another garden plot in the near future. :o)

5/10/12

Do you know what that is? That is the beginning of our new bakery!!! We decided several months ago that it is time for us to turn my hobby into a business and this is one of the first steps. We already have a couple of stainless steel cabinets and a commercial oven, thanks to a good friend of ours in the scrap business, but now we need to start on the building. We are planning on turning the back room of our pole shed into the bakery. Before we can start adding the plumbing, we need to find somewhere to store all the stuff that's being stored in the room right now. That's where this pile of wood comes in. Mikel's going to use it to build shelves in the "garage" side of the building to move all our storage stuff to. Then we will need to frame in a bathroom and get plumbing in. Then there's a bazillion other things to do, but, one step at a time.

That is our update for this week. I'm excited to have Angel coming home tonight. I promised to make her some Japanese cheese bread, so I better get busy on that.

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

PAD 5/5/12

5/5/12

So, Saturday was pretty busy. I spent most of the morning baking cupcakes and prepping for our Ladies' Salad Supper while Mike and Michelle did some work around the yard. Here they're working on putting new weed cloth under the deck. Looks like hard work to me.

We surprised Michelle and didn't tell her her friends were coming over to play for the afternoon. She was so happy. :o) They had a great time playing in the creek. When it started raining, they just moved their play time into the garage.

That evening, Michelle and I went to the Ladies' Salad Supper. It was wonderful. Our theme this year was on having a contented heart. If our "treasure" is here on earth, if the things we crave and desire are earthly things, we will never be satisfied. However, if we seek God first, we will find joy and contentment in what He has blessed us with. This is definitely something I need to work on.

Michelle sang a special song for us at the supper. I thought you might like to hear it. Unfortunately, blogger won't let me upload the video. I've been trying since Saturday evening. I will try again later, but since it is now Monday, and I'm two days behind on the journal, I'm going to go ahead and get this one posted.

It's a beautiful day out here today and there doesn't seem to be any frost warnings this week, so I think I'm going to get some veggies transplanted to the garden today.

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

PAD 5/3/12-5/4/12

 5/3/12

I actually took these photos on Friday morning, but it is what I was working on late into the night on Thursday. Some of these are for the Ladies' Salad Supper on Saturday, and some are for Fellowhip Supper on Sunday.

5/4/12

Friday was a fun day for us. Mike took the day off work so we could all go into the cities to see a 3D movie. We stopped at a town nearby first to visit the museum. I checked ahead of time to see what day and time they would be open...I didn't check to see what season they would be open. They don't open until after Memorial Day. Oh well, we got a couple of pics outside anyway.

After lunch we headed into the cities, picked up Angel and then they dropped me off at the craft store while they hung out at the mall for a bit.

We still had a little time before the movie started so we stopped at Starbucks to get a drink. This is my favorite photo. Look, I got a picture of Angel and Mike, and everyone's smiling right at the camera!

A storm rolled in while we were in the theater and was rolling out when we finished and as the sun was setting. God's handiwork is so amazing!

Now I'm off to decorate for the Ladies' Salad Supper. Till next time....
God's love and blessings!

PAD 5/2/12

Hello there! I have had a busy day in the kitchen so I didn't get a chance to post yesterday's pics yet, and I didn't take any pics today. :o( I will have to find something to take a picture of before heading off to bed.

5/2/12

We had quite a thunderstorm Monday night and got about 2 inches of rain which made our creek run again. The beautiful sunny day, coupled with a creek with running water turned out to be more than Michelle could resist. She took a break from book work in the morning and got outside to get some PE time in. One of the benefits of homeschooling--being able to rearrange schedules to fit the weather.

It turns out that our new dog, Layla, is a water dog. She was on super-charge mode out there, running through the creek, up the bank, and across the bridge. Coco, on the other hand, stayed up on shore and tried to stay dry.

I had to post these two because they are too funny. The black and brown blur in the lower right foreground is Coco's backside as he is about to defend himself from Layla. She kept trying to get him to play with her and run through the water, but he didn't seem too happy about it.

Love this funny picture! That tongue sticking out! :o) Both dogs were a mess and had to get hosed down before I let them back in the laundry room where they had to stay until they dried. Coco wasn't too thrilled with that idea. Poor Coco, since we got Layla, he seems to think he's an old man now and doesn't like to play around like he did last year.

I think she was telling me about a rock she saw, but it looks like a fish story to me. ;o)

Here she is with my first dandelion bouquet of the year. I'm sure there will be more to come. :o)

Once again, it's time for bed, so I will close here. We have a fun day planned for tomorrow. I hope to have some fun photos to post.

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

PAD 5/1/12

5/1/12
OK, so here's the surprise pictures I promised yesterday. Angel needed a model for class, and I needed a new "do". So what do you think?

This is how long it was before. It was getting to be a bit of work, and it was ALWAYS getting caught in the weirdest things...car window, seat belt, purse strap. When it started getting in my waistband I knew it was time for a cut.

There's another couple of inches hiding behind the chair back.

We decided to donate the hair to locks of love, so Angel banded it first--she probably should have done a few more bands, her shears were really working to get through those.

Here's an after of Angel working on it. I can't believe I spent several hours with Angel and I didn't get any pictures of her, although you can see her arm in this one and her reflection in the one above. :o)

Michelle took this photo of me when we got home. I have some bangs that I'm going to try and grow out, which explains the long one in my face.

This one we took today. I really like the new "do". I haven't had time to play with different styles with it yet. Here I just slid on a headband to help hold the longer bangs out of my face. No curling, no spraying, just brush and go. I like that!


I took a whole bunch of pictures today of Michelle and the dogs playing in the creek, but I don't have time to post them now. It's time for bed. I'll try and post first thing tomorrow.

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

PAD 4/28/12-4/30/12

4/28/12

Saturday morning, Mike taught a Bicycle Maintenance Workshop for the home school families in the area. We had several families here with their bikes tuning them up for the summer. I can't believe I didn't get the camera out. :o( It's not often I get to get pictures of Mike, but I missed the chance. He even had time later in the afternoon to do some yard work and mow the grass for the first time this year. Missed that too. :o(

Since I cleaned the house prior to the workshop, and didn't have any cakes to do, I was free to play in the craft room. (Insert HUGE grin here!) Here's what I made...

I realized on Tuesday I had been so busy planning decorations and cakes for the double baby shower, I completely forgot gifts! So I made these and brought them to church on Sunday. Both mommies loved them.

4/29/12

Sunday was spent at church and a quick trip into town to do some grocery shopping. I didn't take any family photos, but here's a snapshot of my garden at the beginning of the month and right now. We put fresh mulch down a couple weeks ago which makes a huge difference.

4/30/12

Yep, another garden picture. These flowers don't last long so I like to get pictures of them. I love the colors in these. Angel was home for the weekend, but I forgot to get some pictures of her. Maybe next time she's home I will have to drag her outside so I can get some pictures.

Well, I have a surprise for today's picture, but it's kind of a two-part photo and I need to take the second part. I'll take it tomorrow when there's better lighting.

Till next time...


God's love and blessings!