More Blog Hop Creations

Pics from our garden last spring/summer. The spread together met Kimberly's challenge to do an outdoor layout using magic mesh & also Tammy's challenge to use mini brads.

More Paper Flowers

Just wanted to share this little BD card I made for Alli....especially the folded paper flower.I thought they were so pretty & really easy to make. You can find the directions for them HERE.

Birthday & Bird Houses

Happy 11th Birthday to my sweet Alli-Cat! Hope you have a super fun day! Love you big bunches!!
Alli got this adorable little birdhouse kit from Aunt Linda for Christmas (Maw just delivered the gifts yesterday). She put it together & painted it last night. Didn't it turn out cute? I sat it on the counter next to the birdhouse David made me for Christmas.....out of the old boards from the treehouse that Pop built for us when we were little.

My Talented Girl!

OMG.....I snagged this off Sandee's blog! Totally made my day when I saw this!

Love you, Ashley-Girl!!

Winterfest Pics & some Scrappy Challenges

I snitched some pics from Ashley......just a few they took the night they went to Winterfest up at LU. Mercy Me

Silly mom that I am.....I love it when little bro puts his arm around his big sis! Aren't they sweet together?! Anyone remember this......'We're twins, we're twins....we're really, really twins'? LOL That's what they used to go around saying all the time when they were about 3 & 4 years old & just look at 'em now.

Jon & Chris acting like Goof-Balls...well, at least Jon is....but that's pretty normal for him!

Week 3 for our Book of Me challenges...Reasons I Should Love Myself.

I made this paper rose today as part of our Blog Hop. This was Suzanne's challenge & the directions can be found HERE. It really wasn't hard at all once you get the hang of it. The girls are dying for me to teach them how to do these too.

Winter Wonderland of Embellishments Blog Hop

Hello & welcome to the first ever Cookin' up Creations Winter Wonderland of Embellishments Blog Hop. We at Cookin' up Creations thought it would be a great idea to focus on Embellishments this month, as we have had lots of generous "embellishment" sponsors ....and we want to share with you. Along the Hop, you'll come across Challenges, Questions & Tuturials on different ways to use embellishments. If a blog requires you to complete a challenge, then please upload your completed challenge into the Embellishment Blog Hop Album before the end of the Blog Hop on January 22nd, 2010. All participating "blog hoppers" must be registered members in the gallery! The Cookin' up Creations Blog was your 1st stop and You are now at the 3rd stop of the hop. All you need to do at this stop, is to create a layout incorporating ribbon somehow on your page. You can see some of my own examples in the layouts below...under the heading of May Arts Ribbon. Leave your comment on this post, as well as posting your creation in Cookin' Up Creations' gallery to be entered to win. After you have visited all the blogs and made a comment on each one, be sure to go back to the Cookin' up Creations Blog and post when you are finished. Your next stop is 'Wanda's World'. Thanks for hopping with us!!

New Chalk Technique

This week Jan, over at CUC chose to share with us a really simple technique using a Versamark pad and our chalks! First you want to stamp your image in Versamark. Using a cotton ball or sponge dauber, apply your chalk color to your stamped image, blowing off the excess as you go. When you're done, erase any undesired chalk residue with a white eraser. You can spray a fixative to set the chalk or hairspray which is what I used! Above is my example.....this was such a cool/fun technique. I LOVED it & will definitely be playing around my chalks some more!!

May Arts Ribbon

One of our sponsors this month at Cookin' Up Creations is May Arts Ribbon. They provided us with a bunch of awesome ribbons to work with & below are just a few of the creations I came up with.Ashley took this pic of us at the LU play 'Jane Eyre' back in Nov. I stitched along one edge of this really wide ribbon & gathered it up to make this cute flower accent. Just add a button center & voila!
Not an exceelent pic by any means, but it's the only one we got.....taken at our Thanksgiving dinner at church also back in Nov. I used some May Arts ribbon as a pretty accent on my journaling tag.

'Our Last Oath' when they performed for the first time back in August at church. I love how that spidery black ribbon just seemed to go with the papers that I used. Ashley also said it would be so cool on a Halloween page.....it would look like spider webs!

And last but not least......a cute little chipboard Valentine. I cut the heart shape out of cardboard & gave it a coat of modge podge & laid 3 lengths of ribbon across it. When it dried, I trimmed the excess ribbon off, added the tile letters, velvety rose & there you have a cute little Vday accent for a page or card or just use it as is.....write a little Vday message on the back & give it to your sweety!

Scrappy Fun Stuff

Over at Cookin' Up Creations we have started on a year long project called the 'Book of Me'.....an album all about us.....the scrapper, who is usually behind the scenes so to speak in our scrapbooks. Each week I'm posting a different challenge & when we're all done in December, we will have an album with 52 layouts all about US & who we are. Below are my first two layouts for my album. Week 1- Portrait of Me: Who are you? What are your roles? What do you do? I lifted a LO from the cover of Memory Makers Feb 08 issue & 'borrowed' my friend's online screen name for my journaling.....I'm a daughter of the King.
Week 2-People I Love: Who are the most important people in your life? Tell about your relationship with them. This one is pretty self explanitory....these guys are my world! Pic was taken last year on Ashley's 15th birthday.

This layout was done using some of our January sponsor goodies at CUC...the deer brad on my journaling tag is from Eyelet Outlet & Brads. This was one of Jon's deer shot last year....the second week of muzzle load he called this guy in with the Primos Can....his biggest buck so far. Clay said these pics were good advertisement for Primos. ;-)

This is a quick layout I did with the photos I received in my Christmas cards this year.

Homemade Granola

Ashley made this for Maw for Christmas & she was asking if we would share the recipe. I figured I'd just post it here in case anyone else wanted to give it a try. Can't remember if I've posted this on here before or not, but anyways.....here it is again.

2 c. oats
1 c. sliced almonds
1/2 c. honey
1 Tbs. butter
1/2 c. raisins
1 Tbs. light brown sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. almond or vanilla extract


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease baking pan & set aside. Toast oats & almonds, (I just spread them out on a pizza pan) stirring occassionally for 15 mins. Remove & reduce heat to 300 degrees. While oats are toasting, combine honey & butter in small sauce pan & heat til butter is melted. When oasts come out of oven, transfer to lrg. bowl. Add honey, butter, raisins, brown sugar, salt & almond/vanilla extract. Stir to combine. Transfer to baking pan. Cut wax paper & place on top of granola mixture. Press firmly into pan. Remove wax paper & bake for 20 mins. Cool completely & cut into bars. Actually ours is more like breaking into pieces instead of cutting into bars, but whatever. It sure is yummy! Great topping for your yogurt. Enjoy!!

Nothing is Impossible With God

The Old Testament book of Exodus shows, over and over again, that nothing is impossible with God. Nothing! Moses was an ordinary man who was chosen by God to do an extraordinary task.


God led His people through the desert with a pillar of clouds by day and a pillar of fire by night. It must have been an amazing sight. It must have been thrilling...up until the point where Pharaoh's army was closing in on them as they approached the Red Sea. Talk about being caught between faith and a hard place! Talk about being faced with a seemingly impossible situation! Moses and around two million of his closest Hebrew friends stood at the edge of the water with nowhere to go. They were trapped. "They were terrified and cried out to the LORD" (Exodus 14:10). BUT GOD! God was on time for the miracle show. He had a plan. He made a way. Nothing is too difficult for God!


"Moses answered the people, "Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today...The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still" (Exodus 14:13).


The Israelites were saved, and Pharaoh's army was destroyed - all under the watchful eyes of the LORD. God wanted to be glorified through a seemingly impossible situation. He wants to be glorified through the difficult situations that you face, too. "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31) When we stand with Christ, we stand with power. What Red Sea are you facing? Nothing is impossible with God. When you set aside your doubts and call on the name of the LORD, you can face the waters of your circumstances with a strong confidence, knowing that God is able and willing to do great things in and through you.


Let's Pray
Dear God, like Moses, I often feel un-equipped to handle the assignments You have given me. You know exactly what waters I face today. As I stand at the water's edge, I commit to trusting Your strength. I will not give in to the fears, frustrations, and doubts that mock me. You are far more powerful than the circumstances of my life. Thank You for reminding me that nothing is too difficult for You.
In Jesus' Name,
Amen

~written by: Gwen Smith- Girlfriends in God


*I love the phrase in Exodus 14:13 that says 'you need only to be STILL.' How awesome. God has been teaching me alot here lately about being still, waiting on Him, resting in Him.....kinda something to think about in this FAST-paced world we live in.

Hotel Alpha Papa Papa Yankee Mike Oscar November Delta Alpha Yankee!

Official US Military Alphabet

A: Alpha
B: Bravo
C: Charlie
D: Delta
E: Echo
F: Foxtrot
G: Golf
H: Hotel
I: India
J: Juliet
K: Kilo
L: Lima
M: Mike
N: November
O: Oscar
P: Papa
Q: Quebec
R: Romeo
S: Sierra
T: Tango
U: Uniform
V: Victor
W: Whiskey
X: X-Ray
Y: Yankee
Z: Zulu


Just thought I'd post this here. I copied a phrase off a friend's facebook yesterday & it was written in military code. If you could read it, you were supposed to copy & paste it to your profile. Well, I read it, no problem. Called the kids in to see if they could get it (I knew they would) & of course they all could read it, no problem. I guess between watching NCIS & playing Battleship they knew most of the alphabet. So, we've been having fun writing stuff in military code & deciphering it. Thought maybe some of my Homeschool readers might be able to have some fun with this too. ;-)

A Page a Day

Maw was telling me the other day that she heard somewhere if you wrote a page each day for a year, then by the end of the year, you'd have a book. Hmmmm....new goal for this year? Instead of a picture a day could I write a page a day? I do love going back & reading old journal/blog entries. I just might give it a go.......we'll see how it plays out. Let me back up a few days & recap here..... NYE~ the three oldest kiddos...Chris, Ashley & Jon got to go to Winterfest at LU. They had been so looking forward to this for months & they were so excited. They said they had an awesome time & are already planning on saving their money & going again next year. Since they were off partying, Clay decided to bring Bojangles home for supper as a treat for Michael & Alli. They were tickled. We ate supper while watching an episode of NCIS with Michael (Alli doesn't care for that at all). Then it was Alli's turn to pick....we watched 'Princess Diaries 2' while Michael played some video games. Clay had to go in to work 3rd shift....so we all headed up to bed around 11ish when he left. They fell on asleep & I managed to stay up reading until a little past midnight, so I rung the New Year in quietly in my bed. Aaaahhhh!

New Year's Day~I headed off to town to get groceries by myself. Trying to get back onto my normal Friday routine here. I've been so 'off' over the holidays. When I got home, they were all so excited telling me all about their evening & showing me pictures/video. Chris took up a whole dang memory card full of pics & video. I will definitely be snagging some of these for a scrapbook page.

Sat. 1/2~ The girls & I headed off to Anna's BD party at 11. I can't believe that she's 8 years old already! We had a really nice time....a quiet little pizza party.....with Mari & Katelyn, a little girl from Sunday School & one from piano lessons. The girls had a blast playing & the rest of us enjoyed a nice gab session around Sarah's dining room table.

Sun. 1/3~Dang cold here this mornig!!! It's a wonder in this world that our water wasn't frozen when we got up. I really was expecting it to be.....I had made sure to fix a pot of water so I could have coffee this morning. Gotta get your priorities straight, right?! We had also put a little heater out on the back porch near the pipes & also out in the pump house plus letting the water drip during the night. Guess it worked. ;-) Church & then home for lunch & a relaxing afternoon. Watched NCIS with Michael while crocheting some, then I did some laundry & piddled around until time for supper. I'm aiming to start back to school tomorrow.......I know Ashley will be at it. She's so close to finishing her math book right now...just a couple more lessons. I don't think the others share her enthusiasm about getting back at it. But the best thing to do is just jump in there & get going. Chris doesn't have to be back until the 18th.

And to finish off my post....here's a LO I did this week. It scanned a little lop-sided so you'll just have to pretend that everything is straight....it really is IRL. Sarah did the coolest thing with her Thank You notes for Daniel's BD gifts.....she took a picture of him with each gift he recieved, printed them & pasted them onto the front of a plain white card & wrote her Thank You inside. What a cool & personal idea. I just cut the card in half & placed the pic & note side by side on my LO & voila.....photo & instant journaling.
Think I'm gonna go sit in here by the woodstove & corchet for a bit now before I head up to bed. Hope everyone stays warm tonight!!

Winter Wonderland of Embellishments Blog Hop

Cookin' up Creations will be having our very first Blog Hop this month, and would love for you to join us!! Our Sponsors for the month of January are numerous and each has provided us with an enormous supply of "Embellishments", hence the theme of the Blog Hop....be sure to check out the site, as more details are still to come!

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I'm sure once I sit here & type this all out, it won't seem nearly as bad as it did in the midst of it all. But anyway....here goes. This was going to be a totally lazy, relaxing day.....I only planned on making a run to the dump & doing the necessary laundry.....other than that, I just wanted a day to chill. Well, it started out nicely.....me messing around on the puter with my cup of coffee while the kids all slept in. When I finally decided it was time to head up to the shower....Ashley asked me if I knew that the deer meat in the frige was dripping all over. See, the other day the boys had bagged up a shoulder & something else that still needed to be cut into steaks or ground for burger & it was put in there to wait til after Christmas. Not sure if the bag got a hole or just what but there was nasty deer meat drippings ALL over in the frige. NOT how I had planned to spend my lazy Saturday morning. I had to pull EVERYTHING out....shelf by shelf.....& clean it all. Even the two bottom drawers. I kept reminding myself that instead of grumbling I should be thankful that I had meat in my frige, that I had a nice frige to clean out, that I was actually able to clean my frige. All I can say is that my frige is nice & CLEAN now!! So, off to the shower I go....then out to the dump & Dollar store....back home to have a nice left-over turkey sandwich on rye & then I was going to scrap some. NEXT catastrophe.......I was sitting here at the puter after eating my late lunch, just chillin' when I heard this awful noise. The girls had gone to clean Jonsie's (the rabbit)cage......I knew what I heard was the plastic cage bottom falling down the steps & my heart just about stopped.....I was terrified that Alli had fallen.....most of you understand our paranoia about stairs. I run into the living room to see Alli sitting at the top of the stairs with the cage bottom at the bottom of the stairs. She had slipped & sat down on her butt.....unhurt....Praise the Lord.......but what I beheld as I stood there trying to get my heart to slow down was just totally insane. Now as I type this I wonder why I didn't take pictures first....guess I was just too shaken up. But picture wood chips & rabbit terds ALL over the place! I mean down the stairs, on the piano, down under the Christmas tree. I think the wood chips & terds must've multiplied like the rabbits do! I just couldn't imagine how ALL of that came from one stupid little rabbit cage! So I set about sweeping, vacuuming & mopping.....behind the little bookcase at the bottom of the stairs, behind the piano, under the tree. Needless to say, my living room is now VERY clean too! Sigh......I think I'm just gonna fix me a nice hot cup of Tension Tamer tea now & go curl up in bed with my book & pray that tomorrow will be a better day! ;-)

Frolic & Play

Just love this pic of Alli flouring the chicken for our fried chicken supper one night this past summer. The journaling reads: Homeschool lessons from Titus 2~ The older women...teach the young women to be...keepers at home. A passage of scripture that's very near & dear to my heart!
And just a couple of cool shots that Ashley took of our goats last summer. Toby & Sparky were having a ball running the fields with the kids... even scampering over the bales of hay!

Another Quick Project

Here's another quick/easy/inexpensive little project for a last minute stocking stuffer. I picked up a few of these pocket calendars from Michael's...... And just used some of my scraps to embellish. How simple is that?Check out all the rest of our cool 'Countdown to Christmas' projects HERE

Rudolph, the Cool Reindeer!

What a fun surprise to get in the mail!! Sandee girl.....you are a trip....& we LOVE you! Alli got this little padded envie in the mail the other day addressed from Sandee & in it was this Santa hat with a note saying she had seen how Alli had put the sunglasses on Clay's deer & thought he needed a Santa hat for the season. So, here he is....in all his glory! Merry Christmas, Sandee!! Just a few pics from our Homeschool party this past week at Maw's house. Really wish you could've been here, Sandee... we missed you!
Daniel & Jesse....aren't they just the cutest?!

And the girlies....they are just getting too grown up! Miss Anna will be celebrating her 8th birthday next week!

Here we all are singing Happy Birthday to Jesus.....Maw made the yummy brownie cake for Jesus' birthday cake.

My pretzel treats

And the platter of cookies that Ashley baked for us. I must brag on her here......let me back up....Clay says I can never tell a 'short story'.....he just doesn't understand that you have to have all the background details to make it work. He had worked third shift Sunday night...came home & slept til noon on Monday. He had mentioned that he & I ought to do some Christmas shopping when he got up & I kind of sighed telling him I'd like to, but we had so much to do to get ready for our party the next day.....cookies to bake, pretzel treats to make, Mexican dip, tea, etc, etc. But after he went to bed Ashley assured me she wouldn't mind at all doing the baking & so I thought we'll go & have a fun time & all will be ok. I have to feel that this afternoon was a big part of our Homeschooling even though it didn't involve one single text book. When we got home about 8:30.....the house was clean....kitchen straight, dishes all done....Ashley had baked Neverland cookies, oatmeal, peanutbutter & chocolate chips. Not to mention fixing supper for the others.....chicken nuggets, fries & ronis.....plus there was even a gallon of tea already made up in the frige & ready to go to the party the next day! The boys had tended to the wood stove & brought in firewood while we were gone. I have to feel proud knowing that at 14 & 16 years old they have a pretty good handle on what it takes to run a household. Anyways.....thank you for allowing me a 'proud mama moment'......I just felt like I needed to brag on them! ;-) Also have to say that we decided to share the love with our friends at Chickfila......we have the most awesome CFA....the employees there are terrific & always go out of their way to make our time there pleasant. I sent out another email before the party asking everyone to bake an extra batch of cookies & we'd pile a platter & take it over after the party. I fixed a card & had everyone sign it....even all the kiddos & we took it by there on our way home. They were so excited & tickled that we would think of them. Ashely & I also made a plate full to take out to our library ladies the other day. It's so much fun surprising our community friends with a little treat during the holidays to show them how much we appreciate them!

SNOW!!

We ended up with about 20" of snow.....started Friday afternoon about 3pm & snowed all night Friday night & all day yesterday til about supper time. Drifts were 3-4 ft. in places! This is a drift beside Chris' car.....the Subaru
Our driveway looking toward the house. Clay took this to show the guys at work that he REALLY couldn't get out & go anywhere yesterday!

The pig barn

The back of David's house & Paul's in the background.

Ashley & Michael standing behind a drift down at the barn. Look at that over-hang over Ashely's head!

The drifts out beside the house were really cool-looking! Ashley got some really awesome pics on her camera too. Will have to steal them from her & post some on here for y'all to see.

Books I Want

Need to do a little research & see where I can find these at a good price. I'd love to have these two books by Sharon Jaynes.

Woven Heart Ornaments

I thought I had posted this already......geez, I guess I got it posted on the site & on the site blog but just not on my own blog. This was my 'Countdown to Christmas' project for last week at CUC.
You can find the directions HERE if you are interested. I am giving these to the kids at our Homeschool party Tuesday....filled with little candy treats. They can take them home & hang them on their Christmas tree.

Christmas Crafting

Ashley & I have been doing alot of baking here lately. Well, honestly SHE'S been doing it all. This past Thursday we made banana bread, 3 loaves of apple cake, oatmeal, peanut butter & chocolate chip cookies. Out of all those goodies, we fixed special treat bags for Chris & his room-mates.....kind of a special Christmas treat before they all head their separate ways over break & also to give them some munchies this weekend while they study for finals. This is my first ever attempt at crocheting a sweater....& I'm really pleased with how easy it was & how nicely it turned out. Since this picture was taken, I've added little blue buttons down the front & on each little lapel. This is for Clay's SIL who is expecting their first little one here in a few weeks.

This is one of my crafty projects for our 'Countdown to Christmas' over at CUC. I must admit that I got the idea for this from Inger (she is one crafty lady...full of the cutest ideas!!)

I started with this plain little wooden frame....$1 at Michael's, some scraps of patterned paper from my stash, Modge Podge & whatever little embellishments I thought suited each frame. Then I googled online until I found a site that gave names, their meaning & a Bible verse for each. I just typed up each name/meaning, printed it out & inserted it in the finished frame.

These are done for Ella's kids for Christmas.

And just in case someone wants to know.....here's the link where I learned how to do the little Lollipop flowers that I used on Cori's frame.

Holiday Pretzel Treats

I'm making these yummy Holiday Pretzel Treats to take to our Homeschool party at Maw's house on Tuesday. I first saw these on my friend Inger's blog & thought they'd be so fun to do for the kids. Will post a pic of mine when we get them made. Let me know what you think of these if you decide to give them a try. Enjoy!!