A Year in Pictures–Week 39

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Saturday, June 18, 2011

Finally, two years after we started, the swingset is finally completely stained and it looks awesome!  (the blue sky looks great too!)

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Sunday, June 19, 2011

Weirdest looking cloud ever!    We’ve had two storms this week with hail and tornado sirens and hiding in the basement.  Enough already!

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Monday, June 20, 2011

It’s coming along again…  I wonder sometimes if I’ll ever finish this thing.  I started it because it was supposed to be a quick project – not for me.  And right now, I’m not really sure that I even like it.  Ugh…  I love vests, especially in the fall, surely I’ll like it, when it’s all done…  Right?

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Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Running around the house, doing my Mommy thing and I hear my boys singing, making up a sweet little song about how much they love Boo and Heidi.  And when I find them all, Boo and Heidi seem to be enjoying it as much as I was!

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Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Had no idea what I was going to do with a giant bag of rhubarb that I got in my veggie box this week.  And then saw my friend, Katherine, mention on Facebook that she’d made Rhubarb Cinnamon muffins.  So I decided to give it a try.  They’ve been a big hit with all the boys.  I call them “Cinnamon Roll Muffins” for the boys and they gobble them up!  Here’s the recipe, if you’d like to try them:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/cinnamon-topped-rhubarb-muffins/detail.aspx 

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Thursday, June 23, 2011

So, I had enough strawberries to make 4 1/2 (8 oz) jars of freezer jam!  I’m very happy and the jam is delicious!  Going to take one to my folks and one is for my cooking buddy!

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Friday, June 24, 2011

Sweet Miss Heidi Holly came to stay with us for 3 days.  They had so much fun, they were completely exhausted by the end of the visit!  (a sure sign that a good time was had by all!)

The boys and I are headed out to Colorado this morning.  I’m leaving them for a week at my folks’ house.  It’ll be the first time they’ve spent a significant amount of time away from us.  I’m a little apprehensive about it, but we’re going to give it a try…  And, I have big plans at home: things I’d like to get done while little boys are away, for instance organizing and cleaning the playroom and little boy bedrooms…  Wish me luck!

Year in Pictures–Week 37 and 38

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Thursday, June 2, 2011

Finally we have baby bugs and we released them before too many of them feasted on each other…  YUCK!  Not sure how many survived the mosquito spray and the mower, we shall see…

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Friday, June 3, 2011

I thought these button monogram letters were so cute that I set out to make one for myself.  And it’s cute, huh?  But what do I do with it now?

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Saturday, June 4, 2011

First day this summer at the pool.  That’s Will’s feet, sticking out of the water and Bee, unimpressed and walking the other way…

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Sunday, June 5, 2011

The boys’ new best friend, Nathan.  He’s been hanging out with our boys quite a bit since moving in, right across the street a couple of weeks ago.  They’re all having so much fun!

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Monday, June 6, 2011

It was BEAUTIFUL this year, my blue Columbine.  It had just reached it’s peak when the hail hit…  and now it’s gone.  I’m thankful I got to enjoy it for a little while.

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Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Just some pretty poppies on the way to Scottsbluff…

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Wednesday, June 8, 2011

My recipes (I’ve got quite a collection) were getting out of control.  So, I bought a couple ugly, plastic binders…  not good enough…  So I covered them with some fabric that was hanging out in my stash…  MUCH better!  And now the recipes are all organized and I can find them when a friend asks for a second copy because she lost the first…  I won’t mention any names (Rupa!)  LOL

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Thursday, June 9, 2011

The boys and I went on an adventure to Ricky and Lucy’s Country Greenhouse and it was more beautiful than ever!

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Friday, June 10, 2011

I’ve never liked horseradish very much, but when Ricky and Lucy included some in my first veggie box, I had to figure out what I could do with it.  So I found this recipe:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/creamy-horseradish-garlic-spread/detail.aspx  And it’s so delicious.  We ate it on steak and it was yummy on squash too!

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Saturday, June 11, 2011

Our Doodle is an animal lover.

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Sunday, June 12, 2011

The boys and I spent the weekend here with Guh and Umpa.

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Monday, June 13, 2011

Perfect summer day in the Colorado Rocky Mountains!

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Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Prettiest salad ever, courtesy of my mother.

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Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Hanging out with my honey at Flatirons Crossing in Westminster, Colorado,  after spending the morning at National Jewish Health for his check-up.  (all the news on my honey’s health is GREAT!)

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Thursday, June 16, 2011

It wasn’t a huge surprise…  We had another epic hail storm last Monday.  I had heard all about the damage from my Sidney friends on Facebook.  We got home to see for ourselves, the damage to the siding on our house will be around $4000.00 again this year…  (It was just repaired about 8 weeks ago from the 2010 spring hail storms.)  Whatever…

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Friday, June 17, 2011

49 degrees…  Really?

Just Enjoying What We’ve Made

Finally getting to enjoy strawberries that I planted THREE summers ago.  (I probably wouldn’t have done strawberries if I had known they take that long to produce…)

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My wish was to have enough to make a batch of freezer jam and in a couple more weeks, I’m pretty sure that’s going to happen!

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Oh boy, do I love these Columbine!  Those little spikey, pointy bits remind me of the wild honeysuckle that use to grow all over the woods that I use to play in when I was a little girl in Georgia.

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And this blue Columbine?  Oh my – well first of all it’s my favorite color, but it reminds me of many, many fun trips to the Rocky Mountains.  All those memories flood back every time I look at this strong, thriving flower!  (I’ve always heard that Columbine are fickle and fragile and hard to keep alive, but I do NOTHING special to mine and they’re growing like crazy…  during years that they aren’t pummeled by hail.)

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Just a beautiful, beautiful thing to look at!

The tomatoes and herbs aren’t doing so great yet, but I’m not going to complain too loudly when there’s so much that IS doing great!

 

My Sweet Jo

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Today is June the 3rd.  It is my Jo’s birthday.  (she’s the big, blonde girl on the right.)  Her portrait hangs on the wall, in my bedroom and there’s another on my desk, in my office. Her favorite blanket is folded, on the shelf in my closet.  And her ashes are on the top bookshelf in the family room.

It hasn’t gotten any easier.  Time has not healed this wound. I think of her and miss her daily still.  I love you, beautiful girl.  And if there’s a God in Heaven, I WILL see you again!

Year in Pictures–Week 36

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Thursday, May 26, 2011

We switched up things in the boys’ bedrooms, Scotty got Will’s double bed and Will got a new king sized bed from Guh and Umpa!  They both love having big, new beds!

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Friday, May 27, 2011

She’s one happy girl if she’s playing ball with Mommy!

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Saturday, May 28, 2011

It looks much more sophisticated with salt and pepper on it…

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Sunday, May 29, 2011

I never get tired of looking at this thing!

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Monday, May 30, 2011

Just relaxing after working hard all day…  I love this shot for many reasons:  our new red barn, my favorite maple tree, the lights on the tree kinda make it look like fall and my Boo, watching me.

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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The boys and I stained our fence chocolate brown.  I love it!

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Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Inspired by the new Smash Journals, I got our summer journal out (from a couple years ago) and added some new pages!  Just fun…

I Remember How to Scrapbook…

I signed up for another class online last week, at www.bigpicturescrapbooking.com called Cluster Embellishing.  Loved it and here’s what came of it:

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I’ve always loved the look of putting lots of little do dads together, but I’ve never been very good at it…  This class has really straight forward instructions on what to look for and what order to build things and colors to use.  It was very helpful.

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I forget sometimes, how much I love the process of making pretty things from nothing.

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I remember when I first started scrapbooking back in Iowa in 2002 (Scotty had just been born and I wanted to do something special with all the baby pictures I was taking.) my mother asked me, “Aren’t you going to run out of things to do?  How are you going to keep making pages look different?”

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I’ve discovered over the last nearly 10 years, it’s like writing music:  there are ENDLESS possibilities.

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Although I have copied pages from other scrapbookers and I’ve duplicated designs of my own, I’m nowhere near exhausting all the possibilities!

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And now my babies boys enjoy doing it WITH me!