Wednesday, March 31, 2010

April Blog Hop and Blog Candy

Welcome to the Close To My Heart April Stamp of the Month Blog Hop!

All artwork on the hop will feature April's SOTM, Flower Pot. If you have come here from Carol's Blog you are on the right path! This is so simple to do - just click on the link at the end of the post on each blog to move to the next one! If you visit all the blogs you will see over 60 examples of CTMH artwork.

This month I will also be randomly selecting one person to win the mini 2010/2011 calendar book! Just leave a comment and you'll be entered into the Blog Candy. I'll notify the winner by email.

I used the Veranda paper packet, ribbon from the chocolate ribbon rounds, bitty sparkles and tulip markers to color in the flowers.




Now head on over to Beth's Blog and see what she created this month using the Flower Pot stamp set.

Thanks for visiting this months blog hop, don't forget to leave a comment for your chance to win the mini calendar date book.

Wordless Wednesday

Monday, March 29, 2010

Menu Monday

I am sooooo excited! This week we get our first box of fresh produce from Full Circle Farm. I have wanted to sign up for a local produce box delivery for a long time now, but was worried about getting items I didn't want or would use. Then I heard about Full Circle Farm. I can add 5 items to my NEVER give me list and each week 3 days before my delivery date I can go in and edit my box. Which means I can add more of an item or take off any items I am not interested in that week. It's perfect!

Here is what we'll get in our standard sized box this week:
1 pound Red Thumb Fingerling Potatoes
0.75 pound Asparagus
1 each Cauliflower
1 bunch Bunched Carrots
1 each Romaine Lettuce
1 each Cucumbers
1 pound Zucchini
4 each D'anjou Pears
4 each Cameo Apples
4 each Valencia Oranges
1 bunch Red Radishes
2 each Meyer Lemons

So onto the meal planning for this week:
Monday -- Red Rice and Sausage leftovers from last night
Tuesday -- Fish Fillets from the Schwan's Man (we didn't have them last week)
Wednesday -- Chicken with artichokes and angel hair
Thursday -- leftovers
Friday --Linguine with spring vegetables (zucchini and asparagus from our box)
Saturday -- leftovers
Sunday -- Easter Dinner: Ham, potatoes, rolls, salad and pie for dessert

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Butterfly Basket



We made this cute butterfly basket last month at my CTMH team meeting. It's super cute, simple and easy to make. You are suppose to put a handle on it, but I liked it better with out one. It could be a cute gift holder for a set of 3x3 cards or a cute Easter decoration full of candy or Easter grass and eggs.

Stay tuned, this may just be an upcoming workshop....

Monday, March 22, 2010

Menu Monday

Gosh, is it Monday already? That weekend sure flew by!

Monday -- Baked Potatoes, broccoli, and strawberries

Tuesday -- Dinner out with Kenny's parents who are in town, along with his extended family that lives in the area.

Wednesday -- Bean and Cheese Burrito (recipe from my new Everyday Food Magazine from Martha Stewart...love that magazine).

Thursday -- Fish Fillets from the Schwans Man, tater tots and oranges.

Friday -- Red Rice with Sausage and Peppers (another new one from the magazine).

Saturday -- Leftovers

Sunday -- Dinner Surprise

Friday, March 19, 2010

Speech Therapy

After months and months of being concerned with Shane's speech, we finally had him evaluated. I just felt like he had tons to say and wanted to talk, but just wasn't getting things out right. Bingo! I was right. He qualified in the area of articulation. Yes, most toddlers at this point in their life have articulation problems and that is totally normally. BUT, Shane has so many articulation "errors" that it makes understanding him extra, extra hard. Though the little bugger has awesome ways of working around that by signing, using noises and hand gestures. And I've become super good at interpreting, it is way better to have him get some help now instead of struggle and get to the point where he shuts down and doesn't want to talk any more.

That is where Sarah comes into the picture. She is Shane's Speech Therapist from Kindering Center, an awesome non-profit organization that works with kids birth to three. Sarah comes out to our house once a week for an hour to work on Shane's speech sounds. He works super hard with her and has deeply fallen in love with "Weewah". It's easy to see that some of the sounds that we work together on can be really hard for him, but he tries and is already speaking in more complete sentences, using more words to describe things and has become extremely social with complete strangers. Just in 3 weeks!!

When Shane turns 3 in June he will transfer to the school district to receive services. I'm not entirely sure what that will be like and won't know for a couple more weeks, but it's just great to know the little guy is getting the help he needs. We constantly hear from other people how great he talks, and really it's just that the kid has so much to say, even if it is hard to understand him, he has a story to tell you.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Moving Day

We made it through moving day. It didn't rain, which was super helpful. We couldn't have done it with out help from my parents and The Hakamada's. We needed Dama's big muscles to help with the heavy stuff. My Mom cleaned the whole house on Thursday while everyone else was at work. Making a easy move into the place. Now we are just unpacking and organizing, trying to make life not feel quite so upside down.

I sure hope that we won't need to rent a moving truck for a really, really, really long time after this!

Every time I turned around, Shane seemed to be taking a snack break.


Our first home improvement project. Kenny tore out the carpet in the front entry way, where we'll soon be putting tile.

Sadie found herself a new perch where she can watch over the neighborhood.

These are two super tired doggies. Sadie was super stressed out last week and now is starting to finally settle down. Dodger is more wired at the new place, he won't let anyone out of his sight. He'll settle in soon with a great long nap on the couch.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Menu Monday

The kitchen is unpacked and it is time to get cooking in the new place. This is what I have in store for dinner this week. Of course, after a trip to the grocery store.

Monday -- Southwestern Meatball Stew (a new one we haven't tried before)
Tuesday -- leftovers
Wednesday -- Homemade Mac & Cheese (My FAVORITE from Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook)
Thursday -- leftovers
Friday -- Crunchy Parmesan Chicken (another new one, feeling adventurous this week)
Saturday -- leftovers
Sunday -- Surprise Dinner

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

It's Ours!


It's been a long drawn out process, a stressful few weeks, and we still have a weekend full of moving ahead of us, but it's finally ours! We get the keys tonight.

Years of waiting, watching the market, moving, renting and more waiting and watching the market, we have finally purchased a house. Years of me asking Kenny why can't we just buy right now, and him consistently telling me it is just not the right time, trust me when we buy we'll get what we want and even more, we just need to wait. And yes, he was right. Finally when the time came to start looking for a house, months went by and we found nothing on the market that we wanted. It was frustrating after waiting so long to then not find something you actually want to buy.

One Friday morning I was browsing my Facebook page when I saw a friend had posted that her house was on the market. I clicked on the link just out of curiosity. I flipped through the pictures, checked out the price and finally looked at the location and couldn't believe what I was looking at. This was the house! I instantly called Kenny and told him we needed to see that house ASAP and sent him the link. We had a tour already set up for that weekend, so we easily added on this house.

There happened to be an open house before our house tour, so we were the first ones to the open house, just dying to see it in person. Confirming our thoughts that it was the one. We put an offer in that night right after our second tour of it. Not even taking the time to see any other of the houses we were suppose to see that day.

It was a nail biting few days while negotiations took place. Word of multiple offers on the house made us super super nervous. I finally asked our Realtor if it would be okay if I contacted the sellers since I knew one of them as a casual acquaintance. I thought maybe adding a face to the offer may help. In the end it may just have done that. We were blessed by the sellers who accepted our offer, even though it was lower then another one that had been given to them. I will always remember the words Michelle (the seller) told me when we chatted after the offer had gone through. "We prayed before we put the house on the market and we felt you guys were the answer to that pray."

Now the fun begins. We have some projects and plans for our new place. It may take us years to complete our list of things that we would like to do, but that is all part of the fun when it is finally yours.

Thanks Moody's for being awesome sellers! We wish you the best in your new home.

Another big thank you to Kenny for working his butt off the past month making sure all the documents were in, double checking things and even catching an error while we were signing closing documents. You are a housing market genius, now don't let that go to your head!!!

Wordless Wednesday.



Monday, March 8, 2010

Menu Monday

Menu Monday while moving isn't going to be very exciting. I wasn't sure I was going to share my embarrassing menu for this week, but here goes.

Monday -- Tacos
Tuesday -- leftovers
Wednesday -- more of that frozen Chili and cornbread
Thursday -- leftovers
Friday -- Spaghetti and yummy Schwans french bread
Saturday -- THE BIG MOVING DAY!! dinner out would be my guess
Sunday -- ?????? Maybe our first dinner in the new house.....

Thanks for the push Julie!!

Texas

This weekend Shane went to Dahlia's 3rd birthday party. He was the only boy amongst the 5 other kiddos. It was very fun to see the huge differences with the girls versus the one boy. Dahlia had two horses at her party to ride. On the walk up there Shane wanted to know if he could ride the tractor he saw and was obsessed with playing in the dirt. Two things the little girls weren't having anything to do with.

We were so proud of him when he had no fear and got onto Rosie the pony and Texas the big horse for ride after ride. He kept asking to ride Texas and didn't want to ride the little one. He made sure to hold on and chatted away with the two people walking the horses around the coral. I even got a chance to ride Texas.

On the way up to see the horses.


All the kiddos waiting to ride them.

Shane on his favorite horse, Texas.

Riding Rosie.

Holding on.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Blog Candy Winner is....

The March Blog Hop/Blog Candy winner is #8 -- Lynette. (I used random.org to determine the winner).

Congrats, Lynette and Thanks to everyone who took a peek and entered into this month's blog candy.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Mojo Monday


I've been blogging like crazy today. If you are looking for the Blog Hop/Blog Candy or Menu Monday keep scrolling down.

It's the first Monday of the month, so I decided to participate in Mojo Monday since I had a few cards I needed to make today. You see the sketch to the side here and below is the card I came up with. Sorry for the poor picture, I took a ton and just couldn't get the like right.

March CTMH Blog Hop and Blog Candy

Welcome to the Close To My Heart March Stamp of the Month Blog Hop!

All artwork on the hop will feature March's SOTM, "A Little Everything". If you have come here from Amy's Blog you are on the right path! This is so simple to do - just click on the link at the end of the post on each blog to move to the next one! If you visit all the blogs you will see over 60 examples of CTMH artwork.

This month I will also be randomly selecting one person to win the 3 card set! Just leave a comment and you'll be entered into the Blog Candy. I'll notify the winner by email.

I was inspired by Vicki over at Wizard's Hangout. I used the Grace paper packet for all three cards. This one features the butterfly from the Just Blooms Spring Blossom Paper Flowers.

This card features the bird from the Heartfelt Wonder Die Cuts.

This card features a star from the stamp set Shining Star and popped up with 3D foam.


You can see two more projects I made using this versatile stamp set here. Thanks for taking a peek at my blog hop this month. I hope you take a moment to enter the blog candy.

Now hop on over to Kim's blog for more stamp of the month artwork.

Menu Monday

More eating from the freezer and pantry this week. The last two weeks we didn't end up following the menu plan very well. Kenny had a stomach bug so he wasn't up for much of anything. I didn't want to have tons of leftovers, so we pretty much survived on rice for dinner. Needless to say, we didn't clean much out of our pantry and freezer for moving purposes.

Monday -- Chili (frozen previously) I'm going to throw it into the crock pot this morning, I think it warms up best that way.

Tuesday -- leftovers

Wednesday -- Cod Fillets and Cheesy Tater Tots from our friendly Schwans Man.

Thursday -- Tacos

Friday -- leftovers

Saturday -- Meatballs (previously frozen from a large batch I made)