Favorites Friday

A porch is a hospitable soul. It welcomes guests of all degrees in a more cordial manner than the inside of a house ever knows. A porch comes halfway to meet a guest with outstretched hands, and bids him a lingering good-by when he must go.

Dorothy Scarborough

Photo: Country Living

Pocket Pie Molds

I am loving these new pie molds from Williams-Sonoma. It's my favorite thing - serving food in personal sized portions.

Who says you have to go out

The philosophy du jour on maintaining a (good) relationship with your spouse is to go out on a date night. Well, that hasn't seemed to work out for me and daddy. For one reason or another we haven't been able to go out on a "date". But who says you can't have a date at home?

What we've done for our in-home date night is enjoy a good book together. I love this! We each take turns picking the book, or magazine article or anything of interest, and then we read to each other. I find this to be sooooo romantic! I'm definitely a quality time kind of love language. Don't buy this chick gifts, but give me some time... quality time...... I'm talking snuggled together reading me a book - and I can't picture anything more romantic for a date night. It's my turn tonight and I've picked out a few pages from Stories of Heart & Home. I can't wait!

Guy would be proud

After our train ride the other day we had lunch at this cute little DINER.



The food was traditional diner fare... but it's really the atmosphere I'm going to a diner for, not the food... after all, who orders a salad at a diner????

Me and Daddy!!!!

All Aboard...

...said the conductor, and then we all piled into the train.

Favorites Friday

Since this is the "year of the skirt" I thought I would show you my two favorites from this summer.

Frilly and feminine this lovely skirt from gap is as comfy as they get! I loved this skirt so much I also picked it up in brown! If you're going to snatch one up get it fast because at $19.99 they won't be there forever!

Talk about a great skirt... few things are as flattering on the female frame than a pencil skirt. Buy this skirt! You won't be disappointed... and the best part, this one's on sale for $12.99 from Old Navy. In case you weren't paying attention I did say $12.99!!!

School gear

It's that time again... school is just around the corner so I wanted to share with you one fabulicious product.

Laptop lunches makes these wonderful lunch containers (all phthalates, BPA, and lead free). Their website offers tons of lunch ideas plus you can sign up for their free monthly newsletter.

Look at these awesome lunches you can be sending your kid off to school with!

Wish we were there

This time last year we were just getting back from the beach. It was our first family vacation and we had so much fun. This year our schedules aren't going to permit us going away...and since it's been very cloudy and rainy around here lately I've been longing to revisit this place...

The camera has to be one of the greatest inventions! Just looking at these pictures makes my day.

To Memo's house

We went to Memo's place today. These are some of the things we did:



A little racing











Some bird watching













Had fun at the petting zoo












Did some three wheelin'

A little nature gazing











And splashed around at the water park

On a Saturday night

Does this take you back to your childhood

J Boy was awesome.

And then there was Bella,who had fun rolling on the mat!

Favorites Friday

Of the few things my dad had saved from his bakery/restaurant this is one of the things he gave to me. I wonder how many burgers I flipped with this when I was a teenager. I made pancakes the other day and thought how cool it was using this to flip em over. Thanks Pop!!!

Happily (sidetracked) ever after

So I can honestly say that I have been making huge steps towards organizing my homestead. However, there are moments that I can get seriously sidetracked by the "stuff" I am reorganizing. After all, all this stuff holds so many memories. The baby clothes that I've been sorting brings back memories from the tiny-baby days. I loved the cream furry coat that Belle wore to church for her first Christmas.... Jack's first pair of soccer cleats was hard to give away... and every toy that I pack up is hard to let go of because I can still remember them playing with them... how they explored the toy trying to figure out what it was they were holding in their little hands.

And then today... I saw a glimpse of my veil that I wore on my wedding day.... and I panicked when I saw the hanger that was holding up my gown had broken. Naturally I had to investigate to make sure the dress was still okay. Nothing was wrong with it..... and of course I had to hop into it because... well, just because. I hadn't touched the dress in years. It was magical... my dress, my wedding day, my prince charming sweeping me off my feet happily ever after.

My helper Jack carefully tried zipping up the back for me... with no such luck. Jack in his sincerest voice said, "mommy, maybe you've grown out of it." I knew my dress was tiny but I thought for sure it would still fit! I mean, my weight has remained about the same... the only difference is I did have two kids... but come on... how in the world did my rib cage expand -permanently!

When Belle saw my dress she oohed and awed... then she disappeared. Jack was still trying the zipper when Belle showed up in her Cinderella dress. "Now we can dance mommy." "Yes, Belle, now we can dance." And so we did.

Back to soccer camp this week

My Birthday Boy

My boy is six! Well, he isn't officially six until next week but we had his party today. I can remember the day we found out we were having a boy. I was so in love. The ultrasound picture went right into a frame and right on my desk at work. I would stare at that picture everyday... just admiring that little silhouette of his. He had a beautiful head. I know, it sounds funny, but when I saw the ultrasound picture I said, "he looks just like daddy".... everyone laughed, but I was right. They have the exact same noggins. I love it. The best gift God ever gave a woman was the ability to have children.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACK ! ! !

Swinging

I love seeing them play together.

Critters

We knew something had been getting into the garbage the past few nights but didn't know what it was. Lucky me, the other night I was up late when I heard the garbage can lid hitting the sidewalk.... so I had to investigate. This is what I saw...




It was my hand and camera that squeezed out the door in order to get a quick shot -hoping that the flash would scare him away. No such luck. In fact, quite the opposite. He walked right up the stairs, introduced himself, and begged my pardon for the mess. I invited him in for tea but he declined. Well, it went something like that.


Daddy on the other hand wasn't as hospitable. He offered him a glass of water... in the face. Our critter eventually got the hint and disappeared - at least for a little while.





But it wasn't long before I heard him out there again. This time I wasn't going to be Mr. Nice Guy.... I was ready to shew more aggressively. But before I could say anything I noticed that his tail looked a little different.





In fact, his whole body looked a little different. I knew raccoons were smart, but I had no idea they could impersonate a skunk so well!

Last of the Fourth

Grandpa IS the grill master!



The girls and guys idea of recreation.



Daddy and Belle's idea of recreation.

How peaceful......

Ya, right!

Princess Belly eating her brownie.

Playing with Grandpa.

Having a good ol' time.

Grandma shows Belle how to hold the dog. Poor dog.

Goodbye cabin!

A much needed nap....

before the fireworks.

Our Fourth

The weather was perfect on our Fourth of July celebration. We spent the day at my in-laws cabin. I took sooooo many pictures it was hard to pick which ones to post.

Here is the road that takes us to the cabin... a bit winding at times... poor Jack - gets sick every time.

Now this is the swinging bridge we have to cross in order to get to the cabin. Daddy assures me of it's safety, however, I find no comfort in his words as I'm standing halfway down the bridge... where it's too far to turn back, despite the fact that I feel like fainting but can't because I'm holding Jack's hand plus all the bags that hold extra clothes I brought along... It's about here that I think we're going to need marriage counseling.

But here's the reward for braving that darn bridge - this quaint little cabin built by my father-in-law... I helped build it too... Yes indeed. I hammered in about 25 nails... I'm not sure they went into the right place, but hey, that counts right?

The cabin is surrounded by creeks and a river and plenty of mountains.

The view from the deck.

The main attractions for the kids were Grandma's teeny tiny dog, and the gigantic tadpoles.

They only found minnows at this part of the River - Jack was loving it!

The scenery was oozing with serenity. The wind was making the tall grass wave back and forth. It was peaceful... unless you're a non-outdoorsy type like myself, and you hear a noise in the tall grass, and not wanting to encounter any snakes you strongly suggest to Jack that it's time to return to the cabin.

I love my boy!

More pics tomorrow...

Favorites Friday

I had to resist posting another picture of my KitchenAid mixer. So I'm posting the next best thing... the wonderful pizza dough I made today - using my favorite kitchen appliance.

I love making dough. There's something so familiar about it....could it be I'm a baker's daughter? That may have something to do with it. This isn't my dad's recipe... heaven help me if he finds out I've used another....this is an unpardonable sin! My dad's is always going to be the best... just because it's my dads... but this one was pretty good. I will definitely make it again.



Go here for the recipe.

Ninja warriors with mohawks???!!!

Before we went to the store today, all I said was: "does anyone want me to fix their hair before we go out.. please come to the bathroom".... I thought maybe a girl or two would want a bow or something, I had no idea the boys would show up requesting Mohawks!!! "That's not exactly what I had in mind," I thought to myself, but, why not...

Who knew how exciting getting a "Mohawk" would be....lol... I'm laughing as I type just thinking about the boys comparing whose Mohawk was the biggest... it was hysterical.

So, without further ado, here they are....

THE NINJA MOHAWKS