Favorite Things

Part of my goals for the year is to be more regular in posting on the blog. Sometimes I have nothing to write about, but, I do like to have my thoughts, ideas and stuff out there.  So, anyway, I watch a couple of children that have recently watched The Sound of Music. Now, I like musicals and Sound of Music is one of the first musicals I remember watching and I loved it.  But, one of the kiddos was wandering around yesterday singing A Few of my Favorite Things yesterday and it got me thinking about what my favorite things were.  Some were easy to come up with, some were more difficult to choose.  The difficult ones fell into 2 camps, either I love so many I couldn't pick or I couldn't come up with a favorite.  Something to keep in mind, my fav's change often.  Some daily, some seasonally, some when I get a new notion in my head.

Favorite Cookbook

This cookbook is great in the winter, especially when I cannot think of something to make with what is available and fresh! 

Favorite Children's Book

This books makes me laugh, end of story, it is hilarious.

Favorite Book

I have always been fascinated by the Salem Witch Trials and I am loving this style of writing that takes you to the past and correlates it to a present story.

Favorite Color

Favorite Movie

I really couldn't think of one, I have lots I like, but not any I thought I loved:) I tend to like cheesy movies, like RomComs and Spoofs:)

Favorite TV Show

Oh, Glee, I am so happy you start again soon, You make me laugh .

Favorite Food

Avocado, yummy.  I love you with egg whites and salsa and on a sandwich! 

Favorite Magazine

This was hard to pick, I also love Living and Ready Made and Eating Well and Whole Living and .......

Favorite Place to Shop

Target is amazing. I also love thrift stores.  Probably my second fav place to shop are thrift stores, most any.  

Favorite Restaurant

This is a great local pizza place, the food and the atmosphere  are great.  I also love Bittercreek Alehouse in Boise and Ricks Press Room in Meridian

Favorite Child

I typed this cause the kids were looking over my shoulder and I wanted to freak them out a little.  So, I asked  them what they thought the answer was and Hannah points to Anders and Anders says "yeah, I was the most inventive when I was little" (which is the nice way we say that he was a handful). But, I have no favorite. I love Anders for his inventiveness and I love Hannah for her creativity.  Which says both of our children are creative, Hannah with her arty crafty stuff and Anders with his sciency building stuff.

Favorite thing in my kitchen

Really, best thing Pampered Chef has ever made! 

Favorite Hobby

Ha Ha! my husband (who is my favorite husband) suggested this one, but I love them all. Reading is fun and I love it. But, I also love to create. I can create with knitting, scrapping, sewing, decorating and just general crafting so they are all my favorite. Or maybe I should say my favorite is creating! 

Favorite Office Supply

yes, I love to highlight!

Favorite thing that has happened in the last 5 minutes

Hannah said "lets play marriage" to her brother (they are in the dramatic play center) and when she said marriage it sounded just like the priest from Princess Bride. "mawagge." he he.

Well, there you go.  I wonder if Julie Andrews could do my favorites justice:

Highlights on paper and Real Simple in the mail

Target and Cheese knifes in my kitchen

 Flatbread Community Oven to eat, 

these are a few of my favorite things. 

Avocado and Cheesy Musicals

Turquoise and Seasonal Food

Rhyming Dust Bunnies read to small children

These are a few of my favorite things

Anders, Hannah and that favorite Husband

Creating  and Making lots of fun 

Thrift Stores full of deals galore

These are a few of my favorite things

When the dog bites

When the bee stings

When I'm feeling sad

I simply remember my favorite things

And then I don't feel so bad

PS, dear Julie Andrews, sorry I butchered this song so much, but, it was fun (and maybe a new favorite thing)

New Year Update

The lest year was busy, hence the lack of posts.  So, since I didn't get a Christmas Letter out, but I did get some photo cards out, I thought I would do a little update on the blog.  

This year brought lots of changes, the childcare is going strong and we have had a few families leave, always sad, and a few new families join, always a new adventure. As part of the last year we have been working on a new program, the QRIS (Quality Rating and Improvement System) .  It is a lot of work and a lot is expected for a quality program -- which we have always been -- but the QRIS gives us some expected guideline, which I like! That has kept us super busy and super excited about what we are doing.  Also, I have gone back to school, again, and for the last time, to finish my degree.  It looks like I will be graduating with my AAS in Fall of 2012.  I plan to go onto get my BAS, but I have no idea when I will graduate with that degree.   The Childcare also received a grant to pay for a huge Outdoor Learning Environment, which was a HUGE blessing and a HUGE amount of work to complete. 

Anders is getting big, almost as tall as me, and I am sure will be taller than me in a few years, eek.  He is doing great in school and will begin guitar lessons in a few weeks with his Pops (super excited he is about it).  Hannah is still tiny and precious (when she wants) 3rd grade is always a hard year and I am ready for her to find out how more mellow 4th grade is when it comes to drama.  Both the kidlets have joined 4-H this year.  Hannah in the Rabbit project and Anders in the Cavy Project.  They are enjoying it a ton and have learned a lot! Anders is still in Scouts, a Webelo Scout, and seems to enjoy that as well.  

Larry's book is still out there and still for sale.  It seems to be slowly getting sales and he did enjoy being an author.  He still works with me and, I think, he enjoys the days! He still runs with the HHH and does lots of other things to occupy his time.  He recently became interested in fishing and I am sure the family will be doing many finishing trips this spring and summer.

I, I have been busy! Childcare, School, Scouts, 4-H, kids school and all the other duties (such as laundry, cleaning, cooking, menu planning) that come with being a wife and mother.  I am really enjoying school and cannot believe how much I am learning.  

We had a great Christmas -- everything was homemade! It was so fun finding this to make for everyone and so fun getting things the kids and Larry made for me! I think homemade means so much more -- at least is feels that way. 

As for this year we have lots going on again! We should finish the QRIS in the spring with a 4 star rating out of 5 (hopefully) and I will be in school and have my last 60 lbs to loose, the kids will continue with their activities and I will continue with crafting and coming up with some more homemade gifts for next year, Larry will continue with all his fun and learn lots about finishing! We have decided to do Project 365, a year of pictures with a new one everyday! It can be something big, like Christmas, or something small like how my Kitchen Counters look or what we had for dinner.  I have had a lot of fun deciding what to take and want to post them each week.  As the year goes on, I want Larry and the kidlets to get more involved in the picture taking and have their perspective on the year as well! Here are the First 6 pictures of 2011. 

January 1st, Relaxing and Watching Football

January 2nd, Comics, the kids favortie things about Sundays, they read them over and over!

January 3rd, Stuffed Acorn Squash for dinner, it was super yummy.

January 4th, I got my NookColor, thanks to Christmas Money!

January 5th, this is what it feel like I did all day, fold Laundry.

January 6th, Went to Costco, fridge really full:)

I hope you all have a wonderful new year and blessings in whatever you decide to take on this new year!  

Photography

So, a few years ago the hubby and I scored big time on Craigslist. A canon 20D camera with a 50mm and a 75-300mm lens, a bunch of other doohickeys I have no idea what to do with still (filters and whatnot) and a bag for $400, I know total steal. Right now I am looking at purchasing a better lens for what I use our camera for, something along the lines of a 18mm to 75 mm to I have a little more range with my shots!

So for the last 2 years I have used Auto, Auto is/was my best friend until Darcy came along with this little series called "31 Days to a better Picture." I couldn't resist! I have been reading the posts everyday, but I have not had the time to pull out the camera to work on the assignments until today. So most of it was pretty easy and I got it right away! Well, on day 11, Darcy threw us a tough assignment, photograph something in Manual! The ignored M on my camera dial. I have gotten comfortable with the P, AV and the FV. But the M, I was avoiding it. But, the time for avoidance was over. So, I pulled out the tripod and some brownies (to photograph, not to eat, well, I did eat one as a reward!), figured they needed a little color so I dug through the fabric stash, and tada, a somewhat correct manual photo of brownies. Here are the numbers, I don't know how I got these numbers, I just kept tweeking the dials for the shutter speed and Aperture until I found the right combo. As for ISO, I have found that 400 seems to be the best on my camera. So the Aperture was 16 and the Shutter speed was 4 seconds:) Enjoy.


Why am I doing this, besides learning how to take better pictures? I want to be able to take our family photo this year myself! And in order to take the best picture possible, I had to learn what the other side of the dial does!

Thank You Darcy for the awesome information!

Candy Corn Display

So, Candy Corn is back again! I love how it looks, almost sunny and cheery in the midst of the fall weather.  Ok, it is 90 today, but the leaves are changing and it is just fall!

So, With the leftover candy corn from my bracelet and another project, coming soon, I filled my apothecary jar with some goodies and added a little creepiness with some creepy cloth from the dollar store!

Candy Corn

Someday Crafts host a Categorically Crafting Link every week with a special theme, there is always a really cool theme and lots of great ideas pop in my head after the fact, but this week it pops up in my reader and the theme is Candy Corn! Yes, I have been tossing candy corn crafty ideas around for a few weeks and this was the motivation to get er done!

So the first of a few is this lovely!


I used, candy corn, Black Spray Paint, spray sealer and, the leftover cardboard roll from packing tape! I loved this wreath, but lacking the patience to make it I would just drool over it every time I saw it.  When I went through a roll of packing tape and placed the cardboard piece over my hand to keep it from rolling away while I switch rolls out of my tape dispenser, I realized it would make a great chunky bracelet and that with Halloween coming up, I would love a Candy Corn bracelet!




So, step 1: paint your cardboard roll black:




Step 2: Line up your candy corn and using your hot glue gun, glue them on:

Step 3: Seal with some clear sealer to keep the candy corn looking lovely.
Step 4: Wear it with pride:

Another Silhouette Giveaway!

Here is another Silhouette Giveaway at Twig and Thistle!
I really want to win one of these:)

Stashbusting and so on

I signed up over here for Stashbusting September. So far there has been little craft doing, but I did clean out the craft space and sell a bunch of stuff over Labor Day weekend.  I made $100! Yeah! The down side, 2 days later I got an email telling me about Rehobby.  It is a local craft consignment sale, sell your extra crafty items and buys new (used) stuff! I have been selling and buying my kiddos clothes with their partner sale for years, Moppet Togs.  I have always spent less than I make on the sale of my kids clothes and I get tons of quality clothing at huge savings!

Anyway, no crafty things yet -- but I have a bunch for Halloween that I am super inspired by -- but I think I need to go through my crafty things one more time and see if I can find more to sell at Rehobby!

Wow! I am honored and awed!

A picture of the table I built is on THE www.ana-white.com! She said it inspired her! Oh my gosh, she inspires me. So awesome, I am just speechless and a little rambly:)

I built this over Memorial Day Weekend while my hubby was visiting his Mom, all by myself! It is not perfect, but, I made it and I LOVE it. Now to see someone I admire so much was inspired by it is just amazing and totally awesome and wonderful. It is better than the feeling of walking out from taking a test and knowing you aced it. Wow, awesome.

Anyway, here it is, the table built by my own two hands, a drill, a miter saw and some stain:)

Anyway, I originally modified the Modern Farmhouse Table plans to make a square table, now she has posted Square Farmhouse Table plans! The only thing different from mine and hers are the legs, I stayed with the 2 x 6 legs and she made it with 2 x 4's.  Other than that, she did the exact same things I did!

After the table was built, I used Minwax Wood Conditioner to pre-treat the wood for the stain and then I applied 3 coats of Minwax Anntique Walnut PolyShades in gloss, yeah for poly and stain in one! In between coats of stain I sanded with a 220 grit sand paper and my palm sander.  When I applied the stain I used rags to wipe it on rather than a brush.  And the wood is hemlock studs!

That's about all! Thanks Ana for making the plans and being inspired by my table, I truly am so honored!