One finished gift!

Michele inspired me to create an Amish puzzle ball for Oliver for Christmas. He can't read yet so I'm pretty safe to post this:) Kirsten has already witnessed me putting it together so it's no big secret to her either!  So I have ONE finished gift! Yay me!  I have several other projects to work on so I'm off to get busy sewing.  If you would like to make a puzzle ball yourself you can check out these tutorials here and here.  Have a happy day!

Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  We had a wonderful day, hope you did too:)

Gotta LOVE that pumpkin pie!

Halloween

We had a fun weekend! Saturday started out with thoughts of Christmas at our Festival of Trees work day, and ended with the girls having a house full of friends for a Halloween party! Lots of kids, Lots of food, and Lots of fun!

Pre-party pics of our flapper, doctor, princess Leia and Yoda!

Sunday evening was much quieter, we had our annual pumpkin carving.  This is one of my favorite things to do for Halloween. Time well spent with my family.

As I'm browsing through the pictures I have to include one more.  Thayne made this awesome jack-o-lantern cheese ball for the party. It turned out great!

Ten Things I Love About Fall

1. Crunchy leaves in wonderful colors

2. Pumpkins of every shape and size

3. The smell of cinnamon

4. Pumpkin pie

5. Flannel sheets

6. Soup

7. Halloween costumes

8. Candy corn

9. Extra blankets on the bed

10. Warm air blowing up through the heater vents!

We went to a pumpkin patch last night for family night and here are our treasures!

Fall, Fall, My Most Favorite Time of All!

This past weekend I worked up these cute little pumpkins using the tutorial found here. I added the hemp because I felt like they needed a little bit of vine on them. I love them! Keyki loves them too, when I brought them outside to take photos she snatched one off of the bench and I had to chase her around the yard to get it back!  I also spent all morning this morning cleaning out my tomatoes and pumpkin patch. These are the lovely pumpkins that I found (literally) in all the overgrowth.

Pumpkins make me smile:)

Happy Independence Day!

For the past twenty three years our family has traveled to my Grandparents home's in Salina and Aurora to celebrate the fourth of July in the "small town" way!  We have missed only one year in all those twenty three and that was when I was nine months pregnant with Katie...fast forward to this year and we have Kirsten due to deliver her baby boy, our first grandbaby, any day now!  (Katie is hoping that it's closer to her birthday).  Wow, how quickly the years have gone. We stayed home this year and started our day out with breakfast in the park sponsored by the Lions Club.  This afternoon we parked at the high school and walked down to Main street for the parade.  This evening we'll watch the fireworks with friends.  We love where we live and I'm happy to say that Independence Day here still felt like the "small town" tradition that we love.  I hope everyone had a wonderful Fourth of July!

The last "entry" of our parade! What a surprise! We love our cousins!!

Spring Break

We're back from our Spring Break Vacation! Check here for some pictures from Nathan and here for a day to day from Thayne. (They've already done all the work for me so why double up on it??)
Have a super day!

So Nathan has spent quite a lot of time over at Kirsten's house the past couple of months working on his "super secret project" for everyone for Christmas. He found some old hardcover books and using just the covers he created new little journals for all of us. He covered them with fabric and cut and bound new paper to go inside. They really are wonderful! Thank you Nathan!

Christmas...

“And in despair, I bowed my head: ‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said. for hate is strong, and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men. Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: ‘God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; the wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good will to men!’” – H.W. Longfellow


This quote is just beautiful, and full of Faith.  Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Christmas

"Christmas isn’t about perfection. It’s celebrating the One who saved us from our impossible need to be perfect."
This was on the Simple Mom ( http://simplemom.net/ ) blog today.  I LOVE IT...just what I needed when the time to finish everything is getting short.

Gingerbread House

We bought Gingerbread House parts from the bakery at Reams and last night was construction night. Nathan was at Kirsten's house working on his super secret project, so the girls and Thayne worked on the house. I was happy to watch and snap some pics.  They had a great time and I think it turned out lovely! When I find out what the super secret project is I'll post a picture.

Halloween

Hannah and I decided to get a little crafty! We took this plain metal bucket.

Pulled out lots of pictures from our old Country Living magazines. Lots of Mod Podge later..................

Very messy, but very fun.

Thanksgiving

Today the girls and I made pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving. Our house smells so good! There ended up being thirteen pies. Yum! While baking the pies we made pineapple slush for our family to enjoy over the holidays.