Moles bite. Hard.

I curse the creatures who steal from my garden and spoil my hard work.

And then...

I get them face to face and turn all mushy.

First a woodchuck.

Now a mole.

Only this time, the "sweet little thing" turned out to be vicious.

I was never more thankful for having fabric between myself and a creature before. Don't let that face fool you....Moles sure can BITE!

Foto Friday

Seriously, where did this week go?!?

Didn't take any BREAKFAST shots recently (that was last weeks challenge, if you recall) but I did take this breakfast shot about a month or two ago and never blogged it. Here ya go:





When we got married, Matt made me sign a prenuptial agreement stating I would never, ever, EVER buy syrup water from the store. He made me swear we would only ever have REAL maple syrup and since his Dad makes it, 'twas no big deal.

But his Dad didn't make it last year OR the year before that and they have officially run OUT of syrup and so have we. But apparently, a pancake hunkering calls for desperate measures.

Matt made homemade molasses syrup as a stand in. Not the same of course, but it means we don't have to live without waffles and pancakes until next March.

What about you? Anyone want to share a favorite photo (or breakfast) for the week?





I sure hope I actually get to work on a challenge sometime soon. I am starting to feel like a loser.

Maybe this week? The challenge is........................... BOOKS.

I think I would like to think out of the box on this one....

Now for some favorites from last week:

Winner #1: All Things Under the Son


Jennifer must live in the most beautiful spot in the world, as this is not the first time she has wow'ed me with her landscapes. Even more, she took this photo from a speeding car which makes it doubly impressive.

Winner # 2: Simply Life Photographs


There is something magical about this cloud. It reminds me *almost* of a funnel cloud, but without the terror. If it HAD been a funnel cloud I fear I would have been a goner, becoming entranced by its beauty instead of hightailing it to safety.

Thank you all for your contributions! It is so much fun to peruse your blogs each Friday and see what you've been up to!

A Circus Party (on a dime)

Last month I decided to show the world myself that just because we are temporarily living in the season of flat-out broke, you don't need money to have a good time, you can create memories without dollars AND being hospitable has more to do with the heart than with the pocketbook.

With Matt just starting his own business and having no regular-steady income and the stresses that go hand in hand with that, I knew that more than ever, we needed something FUN to decompress.


So I began planning a CIRCUS PARTY shindig for 40+ guests, challenging myself to make it as close to free as possible and for the last few weeks, I have been sharing sneakpeaks of the preparations. Some homemade prizes, the homemade invites and decorations, the homemade button candy and face paint and games, all as I made them.....

well, NOW.

The party is done and over with, (most of) the party decorations are put away, and the final cost has been tallied so it is time to tell all.

Are................


You............................................


Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaddddyyyyyyyyyy???????????


No matter how much work I did before hand, I was still rushing around like a madwoman before the party and regretfully, didn't get it all done. I wonder if I will EVERY achieve a party that I am sitting around, sipping lemonade waiting for the guests to arrive???

Nor did I get to take more....artful.....pictures before people got there. In fact, I only started taking pictures long after people arrived-when face paint was smeared and smudged to near oblivion (which was sad~ you should have SEEN the cute tiger prowling around!), the prize table was looted and the party was WELL underway. I didn't even take pictures of everything, I was so busy! Like the tin can game, the coin toss, the dart game... and over half of the guests. But, you'll get the idea anyway.

Circus costumes were ENCOURAGED (as stated on the invites) so I knew there would be lots of little people costumes. I was happy to find I was not the only ADULT in costume though! yay!

Andrew was a popcorn and cotton candy man:


Adele' was a lion. Raaaeorr.


Judah was, (what else??) a strong man!


Corynn was a trapezist. Along with just about every other girl her age... (what can I say? Ballerina costumes are in every dress up bin!)


And I was a mime. Only WITH the talking. (Because you KNOW I can't NOT talk....)


And Matt was a food vendor. His was the most convincing costume of all.

(This man is a great spiedie griller. A good looker and a good cooker.)

We basically raided the dress up bin, the burnables, my makeup, and my scrap ribbon stash and threw it all together as guests were arriving. Yeah, I am on the ball like that.

There were plenty of games:

Driveway bowling. (Recycled bottles, water and food coloring)


Tight rope walking. (Cruddy sawhorses and a pipe). (**This, by the way, was the biggest hit of all.)


Face (and Arm, and leg) Painting. Let's just say, if no one mans the table, the children will turn themselves and each other into abstract art by the end of the night. ;-) Again, the (very simple) recipe is here.


Aerial Acrobatics. ( Adding a bunch of ribbon to the swing made it enchanting, evenifIdosaysomyself.)


A Ducky Pond. (used a big plastic tub for this instead of those elegant, fancy (but costing money) metal tubs I so covet)


A Circus Tent. (table clothes, scrap fabric, and white curtains hung on the clothesline.)


Horseshoes (though admittedly, a man game.)


A Photo Booth which didn't get used NEARLY enough! I was hoping to get all my guests' pictures. :-( I just nailed some fabric to the side of the barn and brought out a few props. Homemade mustaches, an empty picture frame, etc.

Also, there was a tin can game (with recycled tins and leftover scrapbook paper), a dart game (with leftover balloons and borrowed darts), and a coin toss (using canning jars). Unfortunately, those never got photographed.

Plenty of Prizes~

(though, I assure you, beer was not one of them.)


A friend from church loaned me some popcorn containers but, not trusting people with them since they were only on loan, I used them to decorate and hold prizes instead of popcorn. A bloggy friend, when she heard about the party, shared some excess popcorn BAGS from a previous church gathering. (So I got some festive popcorn bag things after ALL! Thank you ladies!)

Besides the homemade things like friendship bracelets, popcorn, mustaches and button candy, there was rubber froggy things, noisemakers, stickers and coloring books that had been given to my children (and then promptly set aside for the circus party. WHO NEEDS A DOZEN BRAND NEW COLORING BOOKS?!?! Not us.)

Plenty of Decorations~

Borrowed elephants (thank you Annika!), flowers picked from around the yard, buntings from bits of fabric and yarn, tissue paper flowers, paper globes from last years' Target dollar store clearance, and borrowed Christmas (but not TOO Christmasy) birds and ornaments. And Christmas lights.

Not to mention, perdy food.

And of course, plenty of food!

Everybody brought a dish to pass, and some even brought TWO. I provided tons of chicken spiedies some rolls, carrot and raisin salad, coleslaw, chocolate cake, baked beans, pesto pasta, popcorn and enough Mint tea and lavender Lemonade to quench many a thirst.

(my mom got me those drink dispensers for my birthday. Beautiful, aren't they?)

TIP: I froze containers of tea with mint leaves and lemonade with lemon balm so that the drinks would stay cold without becoming diluted. Just be sure that the container you use to freeze the drinks is small enough to fit through the opening of your drink dispenser.


I also made the concentrate up for several batches of drink before the party, allowing for quick replacement but not wasting space in the fridge by adding the water.

We have a well-stocked pantry that provided the beans, pastas, popcorn (our go-to snack), tea and lemon juice. (I always keep several large bottles of lemon juice from Aldi on hand so I can whip up some lemonade for unexpected company.) Plenty of Herbs from my herb garden for the pesto, mint and lavender. Got the chicken from our freezer. I ALWAYS keep PLENTY of carrots in the house (that is a staple of ours for dinners AND snacks.) But I*DID* buy the cabbage for the coleslaw. It was $1.29 from Aldi.

Others brought cookies, cakes and cupcakes, hot dogs, watermelon, jello jigglers and every cold salad you can possibly imagine~

Needless to say, no one went home hungry.


And at the very END of the night, there were fireworks, sparklers and S'mores. (We had fireworks left over from last year and my sister brought some, and my brother brought the S'mores stuff.)




And just in case you aren't already on photo overload, here are (more than) a few more!




Total cost for party of around 40 people: $4.29

$3.00 for the duckies
$1.29 for the head of cabbage

YaY!

Independence

~ True independence and freedom can only exist in doing what's right. ~

Brigham Young

Fathers Day pies for the men in my life; I know the secret of getting into a man's heart is through his stomach. I used up the last of the frozen fruits from last year but it was worth it.

The favorites?

Matt loves blueberry pie.
His dad loves strawberry rhubarb.
My dad loves apricot.

Very patriotic when baked all on the same day and with stars atop.

Have a happy Independence Day!

CLoudy with a chance of...

Happy Friday!

I don't know about you, but I am in NEED of a weekend right about now. Pizza and movie night, here we come! (And instead of making dough, I am making it SUPER easy and using up the rest of our french bread for french bread pizzas. awesome.)

And yes. Tonight there WILL be ice cream.

I wasn't overly inspired with the challenge of CLOUDS this week. I ended up doing some photography for a MAGAZINE (!!!!!!!!!!!) this week and that took a lot out of me, resulting in not a whole lotta pictures for myself. The subject of clouds is a great one that can result in some pretty powerful images so I look forward to seeing what others have done with it.

These are the only real pictures I took this week and they were taken last Friday. The cloud one isn't all that special, but I do really love the colors. Bright red, bright green, bright blue.

I love the colors of summer. I miss them so much in wintertime.






Let's see YOUR favorites for the week! (And remember, it doesn't have to be a CHALLENGE picture~ any favorite will do!)





Some favorites from last week:

Winner #1: My Journey for His Glory

This is quite simply, a BREATHTAKING portrait. Beautiful.


Winner #2: FullofGracenBlessingsinAbundance


Maybe I am a bit partial as this is my niece, but this picture tells a very special story and isn't that what makes the most wonderful photographs? Photography can be frivolous or it can be profound, it can be a tool for fun or a locker for memories. The fun ones are all well and good, but it is the ones that stir up our souls and remind us of precious memories that we value most. Read the story, it is sweet.

And, if you didn't already, you ought to visit Out for an Adventures' contribution. She used it to make quite the announcement!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Finally, if you are up for it~ the challenge for this coming week is "BREAKFAST TODAY". Obviously, it can be any day this week, so I guess it ought to be just BREAKFAST. Guess that means I have to eat some! :-)

See you next Friday!

Green(peas) in the garden

This is the first year I have ever planted peas. They are planted early, as soon as the ground can be worked, and I always FORGOT until it was too late. But not THIS year.

We've been eating snap peas and snow peas in their pods often at dinner, but the little marvel garden peas get plucked and eaten right in the garden and never even make it to the house.

Yesterday, Andrew declared he was camping out in the garden and looked more than a bit sheepish when I asked him if peas had been his main provision.

Have you ever tasted raw, sweet peas? Oh my.

Every single time I bring a colander-full from the garden, I find myself singing this song, a favorite:

Road Trip

Last weekend we took a wee bit of a road trip.

I met up with an old friend, a new friend and her FELLOW-FOTO-FRIDAY-contributing daughter. It was just so much fun.

Of course, I had to get a freakish eye disfigurement just in the nick of time. Oh, the pleasantness of meeting new people while looking like a monster. I picked a pair of of frames from the 'free' section (read: please take these off our hands because no one in their right minds would actually BUY them section) several months ago, justifying their hideousness with the idea that I would never ever ever let anyone see me in them. HA!

I found out a *little* too late that red raspberry leaf tea is great for my first-ever eye sty.

Here are some pictures from that day. Gross glasses and all.

Glimpses of a Newman road trip:

..............................hand holding (not pictured: not letting GO when baby brother starts to cry)

.........................singing (not pictured: the bickering)

..................................snacks (not pictured: the donuts)

........................crocheting (not pictured: doing it more for the challenge of taking a picture of both hands simultaneously)

......................... sleeping (not pictured: "Are we THERE yet?!")

........................... reading a purposely-fresh batch of library books (not pictured: dropping them on the floor and asking for more 4.5 seconds after opening them.)

.....................a cool picture of movement out the window (not pictured: the 100 other attempts)

......................puckered lips ( a sure sign we need to switch drivers!)

It is pretty obvious by the ratio of car ride photos to visiting photos, I take most of my photographs when I am bored or am in need of some entertainment.

Obviously, the visit was entertaining enough. I had a great time. (And boy can that Amy PLAY.) winky wink


(Ann, Amy and Nanci~ feel free to swipe the group picture/ guitar picture by right clicking on them if you would like your own copies.)