Come visit me here now:
Wow, sorry it's been so long! These last 2 months have been an incredible whirlwind of activities both in & out of the home. September is quickly proving to be the same....hopefully I can maintain my sanity :)
One of the wonderful events that took place in August was a visit from some dear friends from back home in Idaho. Erik & Marcie stopped by as they made a loop from Idaho to the Oregon Coast to the Columbia RIver Gorge then back to Idaho. We made a trip up to Rainer & went on a beautiful hike to a couple mountain lakes.
At Joanns they carry this pre-elasticized (gathered) fabric that makes the easiest sun dresses!
This one I actually made for Saige, but she is SO very picky about her clothes and felt like she was too immodest in this one. I do not fault her for wanting to be modest. I'm very thankful that her idea of modesty is even more conservative than mine. So instead this dress went on to Em, my middle lady. She adores it and did not want to take it off last night!
The headband is from Heather Bailey's wonderful free pattern collection!
We spent Independence Day at our Pastor's farm, with the whole church! It was an incredible blast, even in the 98* heat!
If you have an account with PhotoBucket you can make a custom little avatar to add to your blog or website. It was fun to spend a few minutes making one for myself.
Here I am: (only a LOT skinnier!!)
My middle girl Em just turned 6 on Monday! Here are some pics of her opening some of her gifts. We didn't actually get a chance to take pictures of her party. We had it on Father's Day & invited over some good friends to celebrate both Em & the Daddys. There was a BBQ, tons of food, children playing everywhere, gifts, cake & ice cream and to top it all off: a bon fire! It was a blast.
Working on the box from Grandma Katrina!
A sweet little Precious Moments piggy bank. Em thought this was the cutest bank she has ever had & offered to give her old one to Saige.
Grandma K sent a Play Doh factory & Dora Dominoes too :). Em LOVED them all! She played with her dominoes during her quiet time & took the playdoh outside to play when her quiet time was over.
Thanks Grandma Katrina :)
A package from the other side of the family :).
My Grandparents came to spend a couple days visiting us. They spoil us rotten when they are here, taking us out to eat, shopping, ice cream, on trips. We joke about how we only eat this way twice a year...When Grandma & Papa come to visit! LOL!
Well we took a little jaunt up to Lake Chelan here in Washington. What a beautiful place! The drive up & back was spectacular as well. We spent some time at the beach, went on a lovely river walk, ate yummy food, swam, visited Rocky Reach Dam, got lost in Wenatchee, drove down the Columbia River Gorge & tried to see the Gorge Amphitheater (but it was closed!), spent a few minutes at the Ginko Petrified Forest in Vantage & came home exhausted!
Here are a few highlights of our little time:
A recent pic of the chickens in their tractor & of their almost done new coop...
Go make one for yourself!!
http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/magazine.php#
Here's what we used for our tomatoes this year. Got them at a local nursery $9.99 for 3. Well worth it in my opinion! We bought the plants already started & got a good 2 month start on our tomatoes!
http://www.planetnatural.com/site/wallo-water.html
I've been a little preoccupied the last couple weeks. My honey had a few weeks off between his old job & his new job...so we spent that time working around house/farm :). He has a job now that allows him to actually work normal human hours! Instead of Mon-Sat 7am - 7pm, he how works Mon-Fri 8am-5pm. Its been crazy to see him driving down the driveway before dinner is even ready! He used to get home just as the ladies were getting in bed & he had to eat his dinner warmed up after everyone was asleep. We are praising God for this new job! The pay is a bit less, but we don't care about that! We're just thrilled to have him home more now!
We are working on a new chicken coop, that used to be our dog kennel. My honey built a cool nesting box station for the hens & is working on getting the open top of the kennel covered with chicken wire. When it's all done I'll post pics.
We also planted most of our garden! We're kind of doing square foot gardening. Our tomatoes were started months ago in a Wall-O-Water...so they are now huge & blooming already, we hope to be eating fresh 'maters in the next month!
So we planted:
- 3 varieties of tomatoes
- Beets
- Green Onions
- Jalapenos
- Green Beans
- Lemon Cucumbers
- Slicing Cucumbers
- Yellow Crookneck squash
- Zuchinni squash
- 2 Watermelon varieties
- Sugar Pie Pumpkins
- Cilantro
- Catnip
- Applemint
- Spearmint
- Strawberries
- Italian Oregano
- Sage
And we plan on adding some fall plantings of garlic, red onions, carrots, lettuce, spinch, & cabbage.
Speaking of the garden I really need to get out & water it.
Ta-Ta
I love this place for recipes: Tammy's Recipes.
This blog/website is done by a Christian sahm. She tests, photographs & rates each recipe she makes....and there are a lot of them! Readers can also submit recipes to be tried out. Most of the recipes are made for the frugal/one income type of families, but are not all just beans & rice.
She also blogs about many other things pertaining to sahm, frugality, babies, parenting etc.
I make my weekly menu on Monday's, so while I sit here making it, I have Tammy's Recipe's on my computer screen the whole time! Half of our weekly meals are from her website.
Check it out!
Wonderful, wonderful sermon here by S.M. Davis on God's Viewpoint on Having Babies. I highly encourage you to listen!
Wow what a day! Got up this morning to find one of our chicks lame. We brought out the tractor to put the chicks in and isolated the lame chick on a nice cozy towel. I woke Saige up early so she could help me with all this transitioning. Took us 3 tries to get a clamp lamp so we could keep the lame chick warm. Finally we found one that would work...after nearly being electricuted once, climbing down into the creepy darkness of the root cellar, and scaling my daughters top bunk bed.
So the chicks were all in place and off the girls & I went to town. Town was normal, nothing too crazy there. But upon coming home we were greeted with the worst hail storm I have EVER been in! We pull in to our dog jumping upon the van like a mad-dog (apparently she doesn't like hail...go figure). So I get the big umbrella and try to get the girls out of the van and up to the house without being impaled. Whilst this is going on, we notice there is no little lame chick in the box on the porch. Dog. Darn Dog!!!!!
Ok...too much going on right now to think of the missing chicks. We have a load of groceries to get in the house, as well as a slew of library books. So I run back to the van (slipping in the two inch thick slush, in my flip-flops). Did I mention it was sunny & 60* when we left this morning? Anywho....the DOG jumps into the back of the van SMASHING all the groceries & getting nasty wet dogness all over the car!!!! I drag her out, after she jumped into every empty seat, and she headed straight into the house. UGH.
Remind me again why I wanted a DOG? 
I got a list in my email this morning on what & how much you should stock up for emergency situations. Never in my life have I lived in an "emergency situtation", but am beginning to think that a little stocking up in our uncertain times, isn't a bad idea. Not in a paranoid way, but in a Proverbs 31, keeper of my home, manager of my home, kind of way :)
My biggest problem is storage. We have a small 1100 Sq. Ft. home & no outbuilding that is in decent enough shape to house this kind of stuff. We are hoping to re-do our 90 year old root cellar & buil a shed on top of it, sometime in the next year or two. Then it will be perfect for this kind of thing! In the meantime, I may make a few purchases & stash them under my bed or at the top of our closets.
SO check out this calculator that will tell you how much you need for "Emergencies". This is cool:
She is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household are clothed in scarlet. ~Proverbs 31:21
WE DO!
Today we picked up:
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2 Barred Rocks
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2 Rhode Island Reds
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2 Buff Orpingtons
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2 Banties
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2 White Cornish Cross
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1 Auracana
YAY for SPRINGTIME & Sweet little babies :)
We had a great visit from my in-laws the last couple days. Kev's Dad, Mom & Sister all came from Parma, Idaho to visit us! They are just a blast to be with and the best house-guests you could ask for.
The day they arrived, Kev decided we should go on a "walk". Little did we know, it was a 3-mile HIKE through the Cowiche Canyon. AS pretty was it was, I am not entirely fond of heights...especially when the wind is blowing 50 mph! 
So Mom & I spent a lot of time looking at our feet and trying really hard not to "look down".
Yesterday we took a day trip to Leavenworth, WA. It's a cute little Bavarian style village in the mountains of Western Washington. Look back a bit on my blog and you can find pictures of when we went there with my Grandparents.
Anyway, we had a fun time walking, shopping, eating and taking in the gorgeous scenery. By the time we got home we had nothing left in us and all pooped out after dinner! The poor dog was just rarin' to go though, since she had to spend the whole day in the kennel. Might as well as had a newborn in the room with us last night...for as much as she woke us up!
Well, it was a loverly time spent with loverly people! We love you Dad, Mom & Tammy!!
A ministry of Kindred Spirits Journal &
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"...teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed." Titus 2:4,5
"SOFIE"
She's somewhere between 8 months to 1 year old. The owner needed to get rid of her and gave her to us for free. He said she was a Springer Spaniel, but we are pretty sure she is not. She looks more like a Pointer mixed with something else. Guess we have a thing for Pointers huh?