Enjoying the Pre Spring Weather!

2 weekends ago we decided to get out and enjoy the wonderful weather the Lord was blessing us with. We packed up into the van and headed to Matter Park in Marion and had a great time!

A new fun blog to follow and a try at a give away....

Today I was lead to a new blog and was actually lured there for a give away of a very cute apron. i look forward to visiting this blog more and more. If you'd like to check it out just click here. Enjoy!

Blog button

Well, after some sorting through what I couldn't understand lastnight very well and with the help of my amazing husband and then a fresh new look at things the next day, I have created a button for our little blog here. Feel free to pick one up and put on your blog, they just seem to bring a smile to my face and look so much more inviting then the regular text on the side bar. Enjoy and if you want to create one your self I recommend looking into the instructions here. If you have questions or need help, you can either ask at that site or ask me and I'll do my best to walk you through one.

SPRING is on it's way!

I don't have any pictures for this post but I'm kind of tired of waiting for something to happen where I have pictures in order to post. We had a beautiful week this week with weather that started in the 50's that hit the high 60's in the middle of the week then dropped back down a bit and we are now expected to have a few rumbbly nights with thunder storms. I now have a head full of congestion since I apparently am allergic to season changes, go figure. I spent a lot of time outside this week and I'm sure that didn't help but boy did it feel good. We ( the boys helped not by volunteer or anything) pulled out some dead stuff in various flower gardens around the yard that we didn't get to when we were moving in and I trimmed back quite a few plants or bushes to tame them a bit. I so don't have a green thumb and pretty much just cut away hoping they'll make it and if not then I will replace them with something I can nurture from the very get go. Moving in at the end of fall sure leaves us to wonder what our yard has to offer for when everything takes off this spring. I know there are at least 6 areas that need to have some sort of boarder around them to define them better than they are now. Once again, have no clue what I'm doing but boy I'm going to have a blast figuring it all out. My girl friend and I were discussing a plant swap possibly from the things our yards have in them already to spread some love and some variety. What a great idea she had....you go Christine! Roses, I have roses and have no clue what it's going to take all I know is I love to look at roses so I'll be googling that often. I'll also have to talk with the hubby and pick our place for our garden plot for this year. It will be our second year of gardening and we are going bigger this year in dirt size but not planting amount since we outgrew our plot size last year. Live and learn!
I think my big freezer in the garage might be warning me it's on it's last legs, so that will involve making some jam since I didn't quite complete that task last year with the moving and all. Oh shucks a day of jamming, what more of a boring way can I think of to wast my day.....NOT! Think I'm going to call my girl Christine over to join in and learn the fun of making your own jam. Colby and I created our own type/recipe of jam last year due to already starting everything to make jam and ending up not having all the ingredients we needed so we had to get creative and it is our favorite! We call it Raspberry Hawaiian Peach and we actually sat down together and submitted our recipe to Gooseberry Patch in hopes they will pick our recipe to share with thousands of others! We'll see! Gooseberry Patch cookbooks have become my new excitement in the kitchen. I bought my first book in February but had borrowed one from Christine before that so i had a jump start on many yummy recipes. We have made a bunch and I love how most of my kids get excited when I tell them "new recipe tonight", especially Colby.
Well, I've started to buy seed packets and I'm going to try something new this year, starting them inside early then moving them to the garden, also I want to try another new thing...a few flower bulbs. Lilies to be exact and maybe some gladiolas. We'll see though cause my eyes and imagination are way bigger than my wallet if you know what I mean. Buds are popping on the trees, birds are gracing me with a song every morning, little green sprouts are sprouting and my kids come in from playing, muddy. What signs are in your neck of the woods that SPRING is on it's way and springing quickly????

A Girl's Weekend of Crafting

The weekend before Valentine's I had the opportunity (it was my birthday present from my awesome husband) to get away with some of my girl friends and head up north to Shipshewanna for a craft retreat. Now they have this retreat annually and they always have it on the weekend that Shipshewanna is having their "pajama sale" so this is a weekend of serious eating, crafting, girl talk and SHOPPING! We left late Friday morning and started our weekend. We didn't get far (about a half hour north) before stopping at a quilt shop and to grab some lunch. After that we headed up the rest of the way. We checked in early, claimed our rooms then claimed our space for our crafting in the basement for the weekend. After doing this, we headed into town for what we call "scout shopping" (it's where we go see what it is we are going to want to buy the next morning at the pajama sale and then we make a list). After a nice diner we headed back to camp (the retreat is at our church camp) to chit chat and then get to work. Cindy and I brought our quilting and Winter brought her scrap booking. I went with a pretty nice size list (about 7 projects) and left accomplishing about 6 but also one that wasn't on my list to begin with. Cindy worked on a tedious pattern and left with a beautiful quilt top all done in blues and white......

Here she is the last day there getting in some last minute cutting so she could work on her next project when she got home.
Winter hard at work scrapping all the beautiful pictures she take of her family. She went with a pretty hefty goal and almost accomplished it however she also made valentines for her sons class.
The last day is hard cause it's really a half day so we find our selves cramming in work into every last minute as you see Winter happily doing here.
After our cram session after lunch, it was time to pack. Now we all found some really great deals while out shopping Saturday morning during the pajama sale (which we started at 5AM after going to bed at I think 2AM).

Here is the seat next to where I sat in the back and then there was the BACK!........

Here is the view from where I was sitting and.......the view from where we crammed all this stuff in! Yes people, this car was packed with all we need to craft for our weekend along with new goodies we picked up along the way. This was my second year going and I loved it this year just as much as last year. Lord willing, I will go every year. This is such a great break for me and I accomplish so much and tend to come home with new inspiration for more projects. The super exciting thing this year is that last year I began a quilt for Winter there and this year I finished it there. I named it Sherbet Dreams....
I look forward to next year!

Valentine Crafts

This year I forgot that I had picked up Valentines for the kids on clearance from last year and didn't want to buy any so I thought about making some after being inspired from a magazine. Colby was up first and he chose a puppy love look......
These little puppies held something special for the person who received it.Colby actually really enjoyed doing this little project, and I enjoyed working on something with him, just the two of us.
The next day was Autumn's turn and she picked a pretty little flower made of hearts with yet another little treat right in the middle.These were so stinkin cute, this project was very easy and turned out fabulous.A couple days later Dakotah had the chance to work on his. He picked a green alien and he put his own twists on it. Instead of drawing normal alien eyes, he wanted to put on google eyes which are way more fun and he made his aliens have smiley faces. I asked what kind of antennae he wanted on them and he picked curly then we had to add a treat to these little guys as well.
Over all, it was nice to be able to make something and have the kids put in more effort than just signing names. They enjoyed it as much as I did and next year we just might have to do it again and if not well, I already have a stock up of Valentines from last year I didn't know I had until after we started these projects.

A Rocking Good Time!!!!

On Sunday the 31 we had our growth group as we normally do on Sundays....the difference this Sunday compared to the others is that we had a rockin good party! We invited some new people to come to growth group and part of our party was so that we could all hang out and have a good time while getting to know eachother. It was a blast! We hooked up a WII to a projector in the down stairs living room and then had the XBox 360 going up stairs with Rock Band and Band Hero. Everyone brought some yummy food and we all enjoyed hours of playing, eating, talking and most of all laughing. This group has been amazing this year from what I have heard and the moments I've had hanging out with them. I get to watch all the little kiddos when they have their normal group and so I have really my little growth group with juice boxes, snacks, movies and little people in tow.