Golden

Today we celebrate J's Golden Birthday. For those of you unfamiliar with her story, when she was born, we never expected that we would have the privilege of enjoying this moment. Some days, it still feels too good to be true, and it is by God's Grace Alone.

South Bend Chocolate Factory

According to the time stamp, October of 2006 is when Grammy and I took the girls to the South Bend Chocolate factory for a fun field trip. Let the cravings commence.

Ohio 2006

If they can show retromercials on TV, the I'm taking the liberty to post some retro family photos here. It's not really a priority for us to have them printed. The digital versions take up less space, cost nothing, and can be accessed from any computer.

We took a trip to the Dayton area to visit family in 2006. We did some letterboxing, visited a Children's garden that was a sensory wonderland, and hung out with family. It's such fun for me to look back and see how much the girls have grown since then!

Week, the second

Since I'm a little behind on K's photo challenge, I'm going to have to try to post several this week. This probably won't be the last time I have to play catch up.

The challenge for the second week was to post: A picture of you and the person you have been close with for the longest.

 It might sound like a sappy greeting card, but my Mom is my best friend. Really.
After being away at college, I lived at home for a year so that I could pay off my student loans quickly. I knew it was time to move out when there started to be a little friction between us. It was nothing serious--just two women with different opinions in the same house stuff--but I wanted to protect our relationship.
Over the years since, through good and bad, Mom remains my closest friend. I can talk to her about anything, and we enjoy one another's company. I look just like her too, don't ya think? I am grateful to God for a Mom that I want to spend time with. I know not everyone has a good relationship with their parents.


This photo was taken on our recent tour of the barn quilts in Kankakee County. One of Mom's sisters, my Aunt Jamie, was with us. The photo was graciously taken by the farmer who owns this lovely farm, Mr. Schwark.

Barn Quilts of Kankakee County

Too bad it's not Grateful Friday--but I can't wait!

Yesterday, I took my Mom and Aunt with me to tour the Barn Quilts of Kankakee County. This was Mom's birthday present, but we had decided to wait until the fall trees were in their glory. We could not have picked a better day.

• The weather was perfect and the colors were magnificent. I am in awe of God's creation and man's creativity. 
• I am humbled by the gracious hospitality shown toward strangers.
• I am thankful for His protection, both for us as we traveled many miles and for our precious men-folk who experienced a small field fire while harvesting. (Yes, my initial reaction was the same as yours. The fields are wicked dry this year, but they are wise and experienced. It was quickly contained, no one was hurt, and no damage was done. Thank you, Father!)
• I am also appreciative of close-knit family relationships, as I am aware that not everyone is as fortunate...and time is fleeing.
• I am thankful for folks with a passion to preserve history and culture and share it with others in such a personal way.
• I am happy that I was taught how to read a map!
• Most of all, I feel ridiculously fortunate to be living here in the country myself. I cannot begin to count all the reasons that makes me feel blessed.

But you probably want pictures, right?

Specific information about many of the barns and quilt blocks is available HERE. We still have more to see in Kankakee County. And then it's on to another tour! I'm going to see if there are plans for Barn Quilts in my own county. We'll see where this takes us!

Portrait of a Newborn

Portrait stamps are difficult, there is no question about it; but there are several things that can make it even more difficult.

• Teeth--I don't care who the carver is, I have never seen teeth done well.
• Familiarity with the subject--Carving a stranger is harder than carving someone you know (okay, that sounds weird). Knowing a person's expressions and personality helps in determining what is important in an image.
• Potential for offense--If you carve the image of a jellyfish, it's not likely to walk off in a huff if you botch the job. Carve your Mother in Law, though, and you'd better get it right.
• Babies--even the babies themselves aren't familiar with their own expressions, so how can anyone else be? Add to that their rapidly changing bodies and you have a conundrum in short order. And of course, hands are so very key to a baby's expressions--and we know how easy they are to carve, right?

Now that I've pointed out how hard portraits stamps are, it's going to sound obnoxiously self serving to say that I am very pleased with how this stamp turned out. But I am enormously happy (and relieved) with the results, in spite of how intimidated I felt in the beginning. I think I will always feel that way about such personal images.

I'll let you know what Mom thinks when she gets it.

A Birthday

Recently, we celebrated M's 8th birthday. She has now reached the milestone of no longer needing a booster seat in the car. She is also growing up (too quickly) in other areas as well.
We like to take the girls out to dinner at a restaurant of their choice as part of our celebrations. M requested Red Lobster. However, this year, we used our parental veto powers and decided that she needed to experience the next level in dining out. We took her to Key Wester instead. It's still a pretty casual place, but the atmosphere and food quality are a significant step above Red Lobster. We had a wonderful time. If you go on Friday or Saturday night, they have someone playing the piano in the Reef Room or on the deck, and he sang Over the Rainbow for her, and then Happy Birthday a little later. That took her by surprise and made her feel self conscious and a little silly. The food was excellent too. Of course, this is a dangerous game that we played as well, since there is now no going back.

M had requested a nightstand for her birthday, along with an alarm clock and lamp to go with it. I watched for the right opportunity and was able to find a matching dresser as well, and saved 40% in the process. After opening her presents, she asked her Papa if he could help her "install" the alarm and lamp.

We created a homemade Wizard of Oz theme, and surprised her with it. Poppy plates, lollipops, Rainbow cake and all (Thanks, Aunt Miranda!) I asked everyone to wrap her gifts in green paper, and we built the Emerald City with them. Of course, having furniture to wrap really helped the effect.
Just in case you wonder how I did the cake, here are the instructions:

Mix up a white cake (you can use a mix, but I used the Betty Crocker Silver White cake recipe). Divide into six bowls (for me, each portion weighed about 7.5 ounces). Here are your color recipes:

• Red-18 drops red food coloring
• Orange-12 drops yellow, 4 red
• Yellow-12 drops yellow
• Green-12 drops green
• Blue-12 drops blue
• Purple-9 drops red, 6 blue

 I spread three layers in each of two 9 inch round pans. You could also use a 9x13, or make cupcakes. How particular you are about the evenness of the layers is up to you. I used a simple white buttercream for the frosting. In retrospect, the silver white cake might not be the best recipe to use with this type of cake. It tasted delicious, but mixing in all the colors caused the fluffy egg white part to get not so fluffy. The result was a yummy, but very dense and flat cake.

Happy Birthday, Daughter!

Bounce Town

Well, the relatives have all deserted us and we are catching up on sleep and housework. Things aren't quite back to normal, but we're getting there. Thanks for being patient. Here are some of the photos from our trip to Bounce Town.

The Relatives Came

Both of my brothers and their families are here from out of state, so we are all hanging out at our parents' this week. It is so fun having everyone together and watching all of the kids play. For the two of you who read the post on my other blog about Heaven on Earth, this partially answers my question. Heaven on Earth for me is having all of my family around me.
The following pictures don't represent everyone, but it's a start!

My 4yo niece, S

Aunt Stacy and niece P, S and R's baby sister

My Grandma Mary reading to L and R

DH with nephew G, L's baby brother

Today we're taking all of the littles to the children's museum. Guess what you're going to get to see tomorrow?