This Moment

- A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
I go this idea from a blog I like called soulemama.com

Sleep or lack there of...

This was my night last night. 

I went to bed at 9:15ish because I was so tired and I slept till 1, thats when Jeff come upstairs to go to bed. 

Then I fell back asleep till 2:20ish when Charlie woke up to nurse. 

Then he went back to sleep and so did I until I hear barking at 3, we had Jeff's parents dog Rayne staying with us so I thought it might be her...nope not her... I knew it wasn't my dogs because they were sleeping in my room so it must be Mic (Jeff's cousins dog, he loves coming to visit). 

So I get up go down stairs and see Mic outside the fence waiting to come in, so I let him in the fence and get him some water because he lives a few miles away and it was still REALLY hot outside. So now every dog and person are sleeping again so its my turn to go back to sleep, YAY! 

My turn to sleep... Until 4ish when Natalie wakes up crying. I'm pretty tired so I let her cry but she keep crying/ making noise till 5:30 so I give in and go get her some milk. She goes back to sleep and the house is quiet.... or so I think. Natalie fell asleep around 5:45 and soon after she is asleep Jeff's alarm goes off and he hits snooze but Charlie wakes up and is ready to get up for the day at 6. So I get up with him and go down stairs. He played while I rested on the couch with a very soft blanket. Around when he is ready for his 1st nap Jeff comes down stairs ready for work, he asks how long I have been down stairs and I tell him about my night (he didn't hear anything and slept through it all), while I'm telling him about my night Natalie wakes up for the day. Jeff decided to go into work late so I could take a nap (Thank you!!!).

That was my night last night.

How was your night?

The Office is Painted!

This past week Jeff and his parents finished sanding the walls and that ment that I got to paint! I have a few different before and after pictures to share.

 Before

after

Before

After

In this picture you can see the light in the office and into the dining room

Next step in the office is to put in the wood floors and then sand, stain and clear coat them. After the floors are in then we will put trim around the windows, baseboard around the floor, install the door and closet doors. 

If you saw the office before the remodel job you will know that we moved the closet, raised the ceiling from 7.5 feet to 9.5 feet and added 2 new windows. there also wasn't any heat or A/C in the room so we added that and there was only 1 outlet and now there are 6. Because we raised the ceiling so much we decided to not raise the top of the closet up that high so we could have storage up there.

I am loving how it looks and I can't wait till we finish it! This week I will also be painting the dining room so we can finish that as well. We will do the dining room and office floors and trim at the same time.

It will be so nice to have these rooms back when they are done!

More blogs to come on the office and dining room project.

This Moment

- A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
I go this idea from a blog I like called soulemama.com

Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie

By Betty Crocker

Bake: 13-15 Min  Makes around 3 1/2 dozen cookies 

(very large cookies! It makes more if you don't make them as big)

1 1/2 cups butter softened (3 sticks)

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar

1 Tablespoon vanilla 

2 eggs

4 cups all-purpose flower

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups coarsely chopped nuts, if desired 

1 package (24 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips (4 cups) or if you want to make it fun you can do a cup each of semisweet chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate and butterscotch chips.

Heat oven to 375. 

Mix butter, sugars, vanilla and eggs in large bowl. stir in flour, baking soda and salt (dough will be stiff). stir in nuts and chocolate chips.

Drop dough by level 1/4 cupfuls about 2" apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten slightly with a fork. Bake 13- 15 minutes or until light brown (centers will be soft) cool 1-2 minutes before removing from cookie sheet to wire rack.

This recipe is from the Betty Crocker Cookie Book
 

(I do not like nuts in my cookies so I didn't make them with nuts I also made them smaller then the recipe says to make them)

Melanie's Farm!

My friend Melanie and her family live on a 200 acre farm. That is one of Natalie's favorite places to go visit. 

Who can blame her! From playing with Melanie's girls to playing with all of the animals it's so much fun! I really like Mel's tea mixtures she always has ready to drink (so yummy) and she just about always has some yummy baked goods in the house. Her cookies are fantastic!

Melanie and one of the cute baby bunnies.

If anyone is looking to get a bunny Melanie's girls have some they might sell to you. I think they have 7 bunnies from 2 different rabbits.

 Natalie loves the goats and baby goats as she calls them. She talks about Melanie's girls and the baby goats just about every day! Melanie is going to try her hand at making goat milk soap this year. I'm excited to see it, hear about it or help out when she does that. 

Every time I go to the farm to visit the girls there is always something fun going on. One time the vet came, another time it was down pouring, another time there were baby goats just born.

 Natalie is looking out of the barn next to a mama goat. She likes to pet the goats and say "soft" while she is petting them.

If you can't tell I have 4 goat kids nibbling on me and I am in love with it all.

Goats and rabbits are not the only animals on the farm! There are steers(boy beef cows and I say boy because they do not have parts to make babies), goats, rabbits, 2 ponies, chickens, ducks, cats and dogs!

 Boy do the girls love their ponies, Sparkles and Brownie are their names! They really like to ride them when ever they can.

We cant forget about the ducks! They are one of the newest members of the farm, and will be used for their eggs, and from what I here duck eggs are fantastic.

And there are chickens EVERYWHERE!!!

To give you an ides of how awesome the eggs are here is a picture of one of Melanie's eggs and a free range egg from the store.

If you couldn't guess the darker yolk is from Melanie's farm.

Willy, one of the dogs, is such a handsome farm dog! He is a Great Pyrenees a breed I hope to own some day.

Melanie is also a painter so when she isn't taking care of her family or working on the farm she is working on her beautiful art!

Check out her web site http://schumacherart.com/

I could keep going on and on about how much I love this family and their farm but this is all for today. Maybe I will do another blog on them soon.

Gardens

As some of you may know I love to garden.

That being said I thought I would share the gardens I have made since I moved in to my house.

This is my front walk way that I made mostly for free. I bought the Salvia but the rest of the plants were split from my mother-in law or from my grandparents. I have 2 kinds of Host and 3 different colored Day Lillies. The path its self was also free I used gray pavers that were there but buried under grass and then I got the red pavers from my grandparents (they had them stacked on the side of the house).  You can't see because the plants are so big but the path has rocks edging the plants, those I got from Jeff's aunt and uncle and they were also free. All of the wood chips in my garden I can get free from the city of Mayer or Jeff's parents get free wood chips from their neighbor who is a tree guy.

 Along the wooden fence I have many different colored Day Lillies (all from my grandparents). Along the chain link fence I have a few kinds of Hosta from my mother in-law and then I also have a row of Hydrangea that I moved there from the other side of the house. The tree trunk you see is a maple tree that I did not plant but I love. 

This garden is a work in progress I have Hosta from my mom and my mother in-law, Irises from my mom and neighbor and Vinca that I bought. I will be adding more plants to the garden this summer!

The bench I got from my mom, the watering can was for Mothers Day when I was Pregnant with Natalie and the rocks are from Jeff's aunt and uncle's field. So another almost free garden!

This is my newest garden! It doesn't even have mulch yet. Its on the south side of my garden shed. The trellis I got at target a few years ago at Target and you can't really see them but there are small Morning Glories that I bought planted by the trellis. So I hope that they will grow up the trellis. I have some I think Tiger Lillies that I got from my good friend, Salvia that I got from my mom and some plants I bought but I don't know what kind they are. The rocks around this garden are from Jeff's grandparents lake. I'm not sure what else I'm going to plant in this garden but its a summer project. 

This is my vegetable garden. I have sweet corn, potatoes, carrots, lettuce, onions, broccoli, horseradish, summer squash, zucchini and strawberries. I have  few tomato plants at Jeff's parents and I'm going to plant green beans this week. as you can see I have only mulched 1/2 of the garden so far.

I am blessed to be able to have done so much of my landscaping for free. 

I will do another blog later this summer showing how everything has grown.

A New Page in My Life!

Today June 7th was my last day of work!

I have been watch my sister Kari's kids since October of 2008. Now that I have two kids of my own its time for me to stay home with them. Seven kids is a lot of kids to watch! I will miss seeing Jocelyn, Anthony, Elaina, Danny and Matthew almost every week day! I will still see them at family stuff and when we hang out. Natalie and Matthew are really close so I think that it will be the hardest on them not being together every time I would watch the kids.

Some people may wonder what I will do when I'm home most of the time. I have plans to work on the yard and gardens, and to keep up on laundry, dishes, cooking, baking and house cleaning. It is also a lot of work to take care of kids and teach them new things. I would like to also work on painting my dining room and office when they are ready and then all of the trim work. Natalie has a bed frame that I need to sand down and paint so that we can put that in use. I'm really glad that I will have time to work on projects keep up on the blog and spend time with my kids and dogs during the day and also keep up on the house so nights and weekends aren't so crazy busy doing house work.

Hello Again!!!

I am sorry I haven't posted any blogs in over a month. My life has been crazy busy, with work, 2 kids and construction I haven't had time to think let alone write. On June 7th is my last day of work and I will be a stay at home mom starting on the 8th. I'm hoping to have more time to post a lot more often starting then. I have much to update with my family and projects around my house but that will have to wait till I'm done with work.