Offering Hospitality

Guess who is one of the new staff writers over at Offering Hospitality? ME!!! I'm so excited to learn and share about true biblical hospitality over there. I will be doing a few posts a month for them including a monthly recipe swap, which will begin on July 7th. Click the button to the left to check that out when it starts up. You can visit Offering Hospitality's blog here.

Woodland Park Zoo

Today we went to the Woodland Park Zoo with some of our friends and we had a great time. The weather was great today with the sun shinning and just a little breeze. My friend has a large van so we were able to all ride together, which was fantastic.

This guy was just hanging out by the picnic area eating everyone's dropped food. He was literally close enough to eat out of my hand. I had to fight every urge to pick him up! LOL

Joshua's second favorite lizard: The Komodo Dragon

(his first favorite is the bearded dragon)

We went into one of the bird exhibits where you can purchase a feeding stick that the birds will land on and eat off of. It was a big hit!

My friends daughter was able to get one of these Cockatiels (?) to land on hers and Joshua spent the whole time trying to get the Macaw to land on his, but it would just bite off all the seeds and stay on it's branch.

I just love Zaccheaus and all his goofy expressions!

All in all it was a great day and the boys are already planning their next trip. LOL!

Welcome Summer!

Not only was yesterday the first day of summer, but June 21 is also Mary's birthday! With Josh off on his camping trip and the kids having a dentist appointment that morning I knew I wasn't going to get to go see her on her birthday. Since Ben (Josh's brother/Mary's dad) was on the camping trip as well, Trish and the girls came up here to celebrate Mary and Gabby's (on June 17) birthdays with us! Here's what I threw together kind of last minute to honor them.

I had already purchased their gifts through out the year and had them all wrapped for when I saw them next and for the cakes I headed to a local discount grocer and got a organic chocolate cake mix and reduced sugar frosting (for a healthier option) and the pink one is funfetti (best boxed cake ever!) that I decorated with canned frosting and food coloring spray. The base is my pampered chef stoneware wrapped in cellophane to look a little prettier. I just love how it turned out!

The chocolate looked great too, although my photography doesn't do it much justice.

The girls loved their gifts and we finished off the night with pizza and movies.

How did you spend your first day of summer? Did you blog about it? Link up your post here

Let's go on a picnic!

It is sheer coincidence that today, National Picnic Day, I am posting about this recent find, but very fitting... So here it goes!

I have been wanting a picnic basket for some time now. Probably since a certain child busted the handles off of the one my parents had bought me when I was in HS. I've dropped hints, shopped around, looked at Goodwill. But everyone I found was either a weird size, had flimsy handles, cost way too much or was broken so badly it was good for nothing but decoration. Until the other day. Went to Goodwill and found this lovely gem....

The only thing wrong with it is a little bit of the decorative wood trim is chipped, but what you can't make out in this photo is that little red tag there says $1.99!!! Sturdy handles, big space, durable wood and a great price!

It fits my fancy enamel thrift store plates very nicely (although the charger plates are a bit too big), if we are doing a picnic for two or it can hold a big stack of paper plates and plastic cups if we're doing something for the whole family. I can't wait to start using it! I can envision so many special moments using this little basket!

Shoebox Swap!

I recently took part in this gift swap over at the Homespun Heart and it was so much fun! Usually these blogging sisters use a theme like "clean sweep" or "noel" for their swaps, but this time around it was choose your own theme and I think it kinda makes the element of surprise a little bit more fun.

My swap partner was April and we literally had the same answers to most of the getting know to you questions. We didn't get to talk much before the swap deadline, but are fastly becoming friends through facebook chat. Special bonus...She lives like 10 minutes from Trish, so I'm hoping to meet her soon!

Here is what I received from April...

Some yummy smelling coffee from Maple Valley, a book, magazine, recipe cards (I needed some for a new something I'll post about soon), blank note cards, super soft socks, notepad, pretty necklace and that little hook thing on the socks is a bookmark with blue jewels and a moon on it!

For the box I sent her I went with an outdoors kind of theme. It included some Woods Coffee, cinnamon pine cones, a votive candle w/ a basket holder, a book, recipe cards, a jar of "Friendship Soup" mix, outdoor themed toys for her kids and an apron I made that looks just like this one...

I had so much fun doing this swap and enjoyed putting the package together. Can't wait for the next one!

Never a dull moment here...

Today was a day just like any other day. Fed the kids breakfast, got some coffee going and when I sat down to drink my coffee in the living room I notice this guy messing around with his car. My thoughts were that's so sad that he's having car problems. Then he starts beating on the car, yanking stuff out and pouring stuff onto it. (may have just been water, I'm not sure) He begins to walk away from the car and we start to see it smoking. Then the smoke starts billowing out. I call 911 and when the firetruck got here the engine compartment was a full on blaze!

The fire department quickly got the fire under control and just as I'm typing this the tow truck is hauling the SUV away. I've come to the conclusion that we will rarely get those calm serene mornings that we dream of. Even when we're calm and quiet, the outside world comes smashing in! Enjoy your day!

Offering Hopsitality

I've been featured on a wonderful blog over at Offering Hospitality for my spring parties I have done with the kiddos!!!
Head over to their blog and read today's post challenging us to do something fun for the first day of summer.

I'm really enjoying learning from these ladies and growing in the area of hospitality and now my head is swirling with ideas of how to celebrate the first day of summer with my kids. I'm sure that big beautiful lake outside my window will play into it somehow!

Pizza Al Fresco

Today Josh was gone most of the day and I wanted to do something extra special for him when he returned home. I thought a picnic on the patio would be perfect since we are finally having some nice weather today. But, alas...I have no picnicy foods in my cupboard. I did however, have everything to make homemade pizzas! So here is what Josh came home to...

We enjoyed a nice evening on our patio and the kids ate inside with Grandma Faith. Josh got his pesto/feta pizza again and everyone else had turkey peperoni with pineapple. I made cinnamon dessert pizza, tossed green salad and fresh squeezed lemonade.

I broke out the fancy Goodwill china, camping silverware and used some scrapbooking paper for place mats. My favorite bandanna matched perfectly and the table cloth is half of our old bed sheet that Josh put his toe through. LOL! I even had the boys pick some flowers for our little table. Sorry anyone from church, the boys wandered off beyond our yard and took those purple ones from in front of the Ed building. Again, Sorry! ☺ 

I hope you all enjoyed the sun today! 

Hi, Ho! Hi, Ho!

It's off to Zaccheaus' work we go! Tomorrow morning we will be up bright and early for our kids' workshop. I had to miss my do-it-herself class this week due to the busyness of life right now. The kids will be building their own "soccer game" and they are really excited about it! Pics will be posted soon, if I remember my camera this time ;-)

UPDATE

Well, I forgot the camera, of course! But, we still had a great time. Got to see Delilah and her Grandpa there and the instructor was someone I knew long ago. The project wasn't too complicated and everyone's turned out very nice. We followed up our workshop with some cupcakes at Icing on the Cake, downtown. So yummy! Here's one of the finished soccer games...

Sick No More!!!

You may have noticed my absence from blogging recently and I wish I had some fun tale to tell as to why I haven't been on here, but plain and simply we were sick. Actually no "we" but just the male members of the family. They all battled some bacterial infection that presented itself in a number of forms with each person. I'll spare you the details! But, thanks to medicine and lots of rest everyone is feeling 100% again!

Here are some photos from events of the last few weeks that should have been blogged about...

We rescued this little lady from Sunset Square, She was unable to fly and we kept her safe and fed her until she could again. The boys looked her up in their bird book and determined that she is a SHE and she is a house sparrow.

Mama don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys...

Gabriel turned 7 in May and this is what he got with his birthday money from Auntie Shandi. We celebrated his special day by watching this movie...

And we took him out for Round Table Pizza, where he ordered the "king arthur supreme" and then back home for his yummy cake that  I made him.

Hope everyone out there in the blogosphere is doing well!