Another Girls Getaway!

I am really looking forward to the upcoming weekend! I can't believe that I'm getting more time with the girls this weekend, but with different girls! I'll be leaving Saturday morning with my mom and Morgan to go down to where my sister lives. We were hoping that my nieces would be able to join us, so we'd have all the girls in the family but, when their parents are divorced, not everything works as you hope.

This is going to be our 2nd annual girl weekend. My mom started it when Morgan was 9 months old as a way for me to get away for my birthday. The last couple years we were not able to go with my parents being away in Germany, but they're back now and it's starting up again! We have all sorts of plans including going to an indoor play are for Morgan, then a toy museum, maybe see a movie at the theater and going to an ice festival! We'll be staying at my sister's place this year and I can imagine that it's just going to be a laid back good time. I can't wait! :-)

These are a couple pictures from our 1st girls weekend. We went to Frankenmuth that time and did some wine tasting at St. Julian's. Since I was 3 months pregnant with Blake, and Morgan was a baby, she and I did some sparkling juice tasting! Yum! :-)

Morgan has always been a little goofy. This was while we were waiting to eat at the Black Forest Brew Haus & Grill.

This last pic is of Morgan's first time in a pool! She was able to swim in the pool at the hotel and it was so neat seeing how she went from scared to being silly and having fun. :-)

I'll be sure to post pics of this weekend sometime next week! :-)

Awards!

Since I'm late posting these, I'm going to keep it shorter than I originally planned. Debby from Just Breathe honored me with these 2 beautiful awards, a little while ago now, and I want to thank her for thinking of me! I truly feel blessed to have met Debby through my blog. She is such a sweet person with a warm heart. Thank you Debby!

Be sure to stop by and say Hi to Debby at Just Breathe or her ministry blog, For Your Tears! I'm going to be a bum and not pass these on to anyone specific, but I want you all to know how much you mean to me and that you are welcome to take them if you wish! :-)

Wordless Wednesday: The Candy Drool Beard

For more Wordless Wednesday, check out 5 Minutes for Mom, Go Graham Go! and Healthy Moms.

Girls Night!

Take some old friends...

Feed them some yummy food...

Add a couple drinks...

And you've got a girls night that was a ton of fun!

And it was all thanks to our beautiful hostess! :-)

As sad as it is, it took a very devastating funeral to bring old high school friends back together. We met up for our first girls night this past Saturday and kinda made it a housewarming for Amanda as well. (Thank you to those of you who planned it-you did a wonderful job!) We're hoping that it's the first of many to come. It's hard to believe that many of us were at Amanda's for over 8 hours! I haven't had a night like that since college! I actually didn't get home until 2:00 am! (Yeah-I really need to get out more-LOL!) I SO cannot wait until our next girls night in February! :-) (And without naming names, since I didn't ask permission, thank you for allowing me to steal your pics!)

Make Something Monday: ABC Twists

I was very fortunate to win Alexis's King Arthur Flour giveaway at Running Away? I'll help you pack before Christmas. Not only did I receive a bag of flour but I also was able to choose one mix from all of their mixes. I ended up choosing the k.a.f kids ABC twists because, after seeing the pics of Alexis's son making them, I thought it would be fun to make with Morgan. So last week we decided to go ahead and make them and we had a wonderful time! Not only that, but they were pretty tasty too! ;-)

Everything except the water and butter!

Morgan pooring the mix into the bowl.

Adding the yeast.

Very carefully pooring in the water.

Mixing.

Rolling the dough out.

Morgan wasn't able to shape the letters, but had a great time playing with the dough while I made the letters! LOL!

The twists with the butter and cinnamon sugar mixture on them.

Mmmmm....good!

Blake with his wild hair enjoying one of the letters from Morgan's name.

I was really impressed on how simple the whole process was that Morgan, at 3-1/2, was able to do quite a bit of it with just a little help from me. This was just 1 of seven different k.a.f. kids mixes that King Arthur Flour has and runs $6.95. Even though I lucked out and didn't have to pay for it, I think that it's an inexpensive way to have some baking fun with the kiddos! :-)

Wordless Wednesday: Driving tractor...

...and very proud about their creativity too! :-)

For more Wordless Wednesday, check out 5 Minutes for Mom, Go Graham Go! and Healthy Moms.

Saying Goodbye to the Family's Farmhouse

This past Sunday brought the end of a piece of my family history. Ancestors from my mom's side were some of the first settlers in our area and our family has remained here, farming on the family farm, for over 170 years. While I was in college the old farmhouse was moved from it's original location to the neighboring hayfield, so that my aunt (who had been living in the old farmhouse) could put a new house in it's old location. My grandfather didn't want the farmhouse to be destroyed at the time. (I cannot blame him-he grew up there and he was attached to the old place.) Grandpa passed away last year and, after considering several options for the old farmhouse, my family made the decision to donate it to the fire department to use for a practice burn and ultimately have it burned down.

The fire department happened to invite my husband's fire department to join them, so Rich was able to get a little practice in as well. I had every intention on taking pictures throughout the whole process, but when I arrived, I realized that I had left the camera's memory stick in the printer. Anyhow, the only documentation I personally got was video footage and haven't figured out how to get it all in one video AND be able to post it on my blog, so I'm just going to show a few of the 20 clips of video that I took. You probably didn't want to watch 10 minutes of a house burning anyway, right? ;-)

This first video is shortly after they started the fire and Rich was getting ready to go in for some practice.


This next video is after all the firefighters left the house and it was at the point where they were going to just allow it to burn. They decided to get a group picture and if course I had to videotape it with having no camera! ;-)


This last video is when most of the house had collapsed. The kids were getting too cold being outside, so we were in my parents' house for this clip.

Make Something Monday: Blueberry Zucchini Bread

Each year I freeze several different fruits and vegetables, so that I can bake with them at other times of the year. This year I froze blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, zucchini, pumpkin and corn (which I don't usually bake with, but will warm up to go with a meal.) The thing is, I haven't been baking much, summer will be here before I know it and I still have a TON of fruits and veggies in the freezer. So when I found this recipe at allrecipes.com that used both blueberries and zucchini, I was excited to be able to clean out a couple things from the freezer! Plus it had awesome reviews, so I knew it was a must to try! :-) By the way-the reviews were right on! This bread is DELICIOUS! :-)
Blueberry Zucchini Bread

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2-1/4 cups white sugar
• 2 cups shredded zucchini
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 1 pint fresh blueberries (I used frozen and it still turned out great!)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease 4 mini-loaf pans. (I used two 9x5 loaf pans and baked them about 15 minutes longer.)

2. In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar. Fold in the zucchini. Beat in the flour, salt baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Gently fold in the blueberries. Transfer to the prepared mini-loaf pans.

3. Bake 50 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a knife inserted in the center of a loaf comes out clean. Cool 20 minutes in pans, then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely.

A Button for the Buckland Family

If you haven't noticed yet, Diana at Custom Blog Designs was kind enough to make a button for prayers for the Buckland family!


I wanted to share it in a blog post in case anyone may want to post it on their blog (the code is in my sidebar) and to say a big THANK YOU to Diana! It was so sweet of her to give up her time to help Amanda and Ayllissa and I think she did a beautiful job! :-)

Skin MD Natural Valentines Day Giveaway

If you missed the giveaway of the Skin MD Natural lotion that I hosted here, or didn't win but still wanted the chance, then head on over to the Skin MD Natural website for your chance to win an awesome Valentines Day gift basket!

This is what the gift basket (valued at $100) includes:

- Bottle of Skin MD Natural shielding lotion

- Bottle of Skin MD Natural + SPF 15 shielding lotion

- One pound of See's dark assorted chocolates

- Pack of Starbucks VIA Ready brew coffee pouches

- Kiss Me coffee mug

- A Cuddly teddy bear

- Lollipop Bouquet

So not only could you win lotion, but you could win all sorts of goodies to share with your Valentine this year! :-)

The giveaway started today and ends February 7th. The winner will be announced on February 8th, which just happens to be my birthday! So be sure to stop by the Skin MD Natural website, before my birthday, for your chance to win! ;-)

Wordless Wednesday: Like Father, Like Son

Like Father

Like Son

For more Wordless Wednesday, check out 5 Minutes for Mom, Go Graham Go! and Healthy Moms.

First Big Snow this Winter

I kept wondering if we were going to get a decent amount of snow to take the kids out to play this year. I made sure that both kids had snow boots and snow pants this year, so I didn't want their brand new snow gear to go unused! Last year we had at least 3 or 4 snow storms by this time and nothing this year...until this last Friday we woke up to this....

So after getting a couple more inches throughout Friday, we headed out Saturday morning to play in the snow when the temperature hit a whopping 17 degrees! The kiddos didn't want to wait any longer!

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Notice Morgan's snow pants and boots are blue....yeah I'm cheap-I'm hoping Blake can wear them after her ;-)

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Trying out their new German sled in the snow. It glides SO nice! We just need to put a string on it, so we can pull the kiddos around.

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Rich pulling Morgan around in the snow on one of their old plastic sleds. I wish you could see the smile on Morgan's face...

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Oh! There it is! ;-)

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Morgan trying with all her might to pull Blake in his sled.

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Rich took over, but didn't make it very far before Blake tipped over and got a face full of snow. No fun!

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All better now! I nice flat snowy area where Blake won't tip over :-)

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Starting to really enjoy being outside. This was actually his first time really being able to play in snow.

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Rich and Bear rolled around in the snow a bit and we ended up with a 'Snow Bear'!

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Morgan's first snow angel! Didn't she do a nice job!? Now if I could have just been able to see through the camera in the bright snow to get a good picture!

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Blake with a little smirk.

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And finally, Rich taught the kiddos about eating snow.

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Morgan wasn't too impressed, though, and spit it out! LOL!

All that snow fun lasted about 20 minutes...I was froze and wanted to come back in and the kids didn't even protest too much. Now, I'm hoping for a warmer day, so we can stay out a bit longer and maybe make a snowman! :-)

Make Something Monday: Marshmallow Snowmen

I borrowed this fun little marshmallow snowman idea from Felicia at Go Graham Go! We made these one night before Christmas after the kids' baths. Not the best timing, but the Morgan and Blake didn't mind ;-) They are so easy to make and they're adorable. If you'd like the instructions, just check out the link above. I didn't make the scarf and I used a piece of a pretzel stick for the nose instead of getting candy corn (in case you wondered why mine looks so different from Felicia's.)

*REMINDER! The Skin MD lotion giveaway ends tomorrow night at 10:00 pm EST for those of you who want to enter.