Tuesday, January 31, 2012


S'more Puffs.
Found the recipe in one of my recipe books, "Quick Fixes (with mixes)".
Preparation time...5 minutes
My taste tester gave the recipe a good rating. 




The recipe called for Hershey Kisses.  I did not have any, but I did have some Hershey Chocolate bars.
Broke the bar up into the small individual squares for each cracker.
I do recommend the chocolate kisses though, because it adds a bit more chocolate.




Recipe
12 round buttery crackers (I used Ritz Crackers)
12 chocolate kisses
6 stacker marshmallows that I cut in half(recipe calls for large marshmallows, cut in half)
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Place crackers on a baking sheet.  Top each with 1 milk chocolate kiss and 1 marshmallow half, cut side down.
3. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 minutes or just until marshmallows begin to melt.  Let cool on wire rack for 5 minutes.




Heart plate for 1.99 at Target.  A fun, simple gift for Valentine's Day.




For fun, I tried these marshmallow hearts with the same recipe.  Added a touch of strawberry to the taste.




I think these little pink hearts are so cute.
Bought the bag of them at Target.




Adding little candy hearts, adds a fun touch of color to this plate of s'mores.



I am including a few more listed ideas of how to use these pink marshmallow hearts, just in case you find yourself with a bag of these in the next few weeks.


"The best portion of a good life is little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love."  ~William Wordsworth

Monday, January 30, 2012



All of our overnight guests have left.  The house is unusally quiet. 




The weather the last few days, is certainly not typical of what our usual winter weather is.
In fact lately, it seems like the spring time of the year.
I took this picture from our porch.  There were four robins on the tree when I took the picture.  With the warmer, sunny weather and the robins on the tree, I had to remind myself that it truly is the end of January.




We said good bye to our smallest visitor yesterday.  We miss her already.  It sure was a pleasure to have her and her mother here for an extended visit.
I feel like I have been out of the blogging loop for so long, and look forward to catching up on my visits.
But for now, we are enjoying a quiet evening.
Thank you for stopping by.   Are you experiencing winter weather now?

Friday, January 27, 2012



My talented neice is learning to master cookie decorating.  Her sugar cookies taste exceptionally good!  Sometimes pretty cookies don't taste real good, but not these.  She invited my daughter to her home, and together they created these heart cookies.



Each one has a beautiful design.




She is learning the technique of creating petals on the cookies.  I thought it appeared to me, that she has done the technique many times before.
The pink plate of four cookies that my daughter brought along home with her, is now empty, and the recipients are happy.
Thank you dear neice for sharing your artistic skills with us.  Anyone who receives one of your cookies this Valentine's Day, is most fortunate.

 


Since we are on the subject of hearts, I thought I would share a few of the simple vignettes I have in my home.   I have a thing for old postcards, and this is one of my favorites.




I also really like tiny red hearts.




As I walked out of my oldest daughter's home this evening, I was smitten with her pretty white snowdrops.  In the middle of the winter, what fun it was to see these little white flowers blooming in her front garden.

Hearts, flowers, and cookies...joy in my journey.
Wishing you some joy today!


Thursday, January 26, 2012



I discovered these small white tiles in our attic.  I bought a sheet of rub-ons at A.C. Moore.




I rubbed them on each of the four tiles.




Just what I needed.  A set of tile coasters.



 
I took one of the extra smaller rub-ons and made a tiny tag to tie on the gift.
Raffia and a piece of evergreen and I had the finished gift.
Cost...$1.79(since I already had the white tiles)

Truly, just a little something for you today.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012


My brother-in-law and sister-in-law were a few of our weekend houseguests. It was so good spending time with them again.  They live in the CO and rarely get to visit all of us.  I bet you could have guessed that they live in CO:)

Picture taken at a fun, family, western dinner
that we had for my husband's 60th birtday.
My sister captured this picture.

~~~

I am behind in my posting.
I am behind in many areas of life right now.
Life has been so busy.
I continue to have some house guests.


Yesterday, these two little guys paid a vist.  Bright colored hats left over from the dinner, were just what they wanted to play with.  They were so pleased when they had them on.




This tiny one continues to be a houseguest.  Her and Elmo have become a daily part of my life lately.

I will be back, but for right now, my computer has taken a back seat.

Monday, January 23, 2012


In the middle of an ordinary Friday afternoon, this little package arrived in my mailbox.  You see, I won a giveaway from a talented friend in blogland.  She drew my name and sent me one of the pretty gift bags, that she had sewn, and gave out for Christmas, along with some great smelling shower gel from Bath and Body Works.  It was a special blessing in my day.  Thank you Mary!  She sews many gifts for her family and friends and shares them on her blog..."cornersofmylife.blogspot.com/"




Our daughter and granddaughter have been spending time with us the last few days.  You can imagine how much we are enjoying our times together.  Family and friends filled our house this weekend, as we celebrated birthdays together.




Happy Birthday to our dear daughter today!  She adds joy to our lives in so many ways.

Thanks for stopping by.

Saturday, January 21, 2012


Happy 60th Birthday to a very special guy!  Today my husband has reached a milestone. 
Pictured above, his nephew and him sharing their first catch of the day.




Brothers and nephew spending treasured time together. 

What a privilege it is to share life with this man.
It is different, thinking that I am married to a sixty year old guy,
 but in a few years he will be thinking that of me too.

Happy Saturday!


Wednesday, January 18, 2012


 
No big, profound happenings in my part of the world.  Just one happy, little girl...

 

 
...thinking it is pretty cool to bird watch, with her older male cousins.
Thank you for stopping by.

Monday, January 16, 2012



Moments from my weekend.




One of my very favorite places to be...by a rippling brook.  I truly wanted to stay here.





"IF ONLY I KNEW...

        that wonders surround all we do...

                everywhere...

                        all the time,

        I would have searched

        my little corner of the world

                 and been continuously amazed."

                                 ~  from the book " If Only I Knew"  by Lance Wubbels

                                      I know that I mentioned this book before on a post, but each time I pick it up, I realize what a powerful little book it is.    

Wishing you "wonders" in your corner of the world today!

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Today was one of those rare Saturdays that I did not have a set schedule.  As the afternoon progressed, I headed for the attic to continue on in my organizational mode.  I was bound and determined to clear out, organize, and clean.  Let me tell you, I was so unprepared for what I found.



As I mother, I do ask for your help.  What is a mother to do, when she has three married daughters who still have their "boxes" in our attic?  It has been mentioned to them from time to time.  I hear answers like, "wait until we have a bigger place", or "wait until we are out of school", or "we will get it all at the right time, really we will."

First thing I found was the middle daughter's "Precious Teddy" collection from years ago.  They are sitting on the white wicker shelves in the corner of what used to be her room.  She wants them for her little girl, but not yet.  So, there they set, in all their cuteness...waiting to go to their next home.




As I examined them, the memories start flooding over me.  I remember clearly when she first decided that she wanted to collect them, and then I remember how happy she was with each one she received.   Quite honestly, like this little sign says, "my heart was starting to melt".  The resolve I had in my heart as I marched up the stairs to begin my mission, was already starting to fade.




Then I opened the first box, and what did I find but the cutest little guys ever...the longed for, coveted "Beanie Babies" that ruled our youngest daughter's heart for a few years.  Oh, how she treasured each and every one.  She learned early on that the individual tags must stay on, to keep their value.  As I looked over her collection, I smiled as I saw all the tiny white tags still attached.  How could I possibly get rid of these adorable, soft, cuddly creatures?  I felt the resolve melting even further.




Everything old that was Coca Cola...that is what our oldest daughter collected.  Old Coke bottles, old wooden Coke crates, tins, signs...she treasured them all.  Most of them she now displays in her home, but I did discover some remaining memorbilia in some of the boxes that I opened. 
Now understand, in between these discoveries, I did come upon items that I found quite easy to discard, but others, as I've shared, seemed to have unexpected strings attached to them, and that I found a bit disconcerting.




I opened this box and there I found an array of beautiful sea shells, and suddenly without warning, my mind went back, and I saw little girls walking on the beach of Florida, and so happy to discover each and every sea shell.  Excitedly they would run to me and share their every find.  I felt tears, totally unexpected, as I remembered...




As I opened another filled box, this white banner fell to the attic floor.  I looked down and saw the words "sophmore princess".  Instantly, I pictured our oldest daughter, in her little black dress, walking down the field at the soccer game halftime, in the homecoming court.  Things were going down hill for me, with each box or bag that was opened.
How did it happen that our girls saved so much of their lives, in our attic?




Then, the answer came, I discovered boxes from their great-grandmother, and realized she had the same malady.  A coloring book of Mrs. Beasley was on top of the next box of magazines.  It was a box that my mother, and their great-grandma had packed, along with...




...many old magazines.  There was the lovely Joanne Woodward and her daughters, dated July 1971.  Now, certainly I could throw this piece of history, into the trash, couldn't I?  No, I could not.  It is, at this moment, still in the same box, at the same spot of my attic.  What is wrong with me?  Why couldn't I just dispose of it?  Why would I keep it?  Who would want it?  But, no I could not throw it away.




Same is true of my mother's treasured record albums.  Really, Lawrence Welk's Most Requested T.V. Favorites?  My mind immediately took me to the Saturday nights, when with our own daughter's were in their young years, we all sat, watched Mr. Welk's show, and ate popcorn.  Yes, I also remembered their rolling eyes, and heavy sighs as to our choice of entertainment, but, nevertheless, the memories were so strong.




The box of photos was the last one I tackled, and at this point, I was emotionally spent.  I saw this photo of the three precious daugthers that God had blessed us with.  So much time had passed since this picture was taken, and so much change had transpired.  I found myself progressing three steps and then back two steps.  I do feel like I accomplished some of what I set out to do, but I discovered that the sentimentality that I didn't think I had, had risen to the surface, on this wintery Saturday afternoon.  I like clean, I like organization, I like to get rid of, but...
the other side of me, just had to keep some of the treasures that I had come upon.
How about you?  How do you find yourselves when in my situation?

Thursday, January 12, 2012



When three little ones are in your care for the day, and it just happens to be a cool, rainy day, one has to pull out all of the stops, when it comes to finding ways to help them entertain themselves.  And, since I like to appeal to their creative side, I am always looking for ways for them to practice creativity.  My sister sent me some ideas from Pinterest that I liked.  The one was a big container partly filled with small rocks.  The child had some small toy excavating equipment in the rocks to drive over the rocks, or lift the rocks, or build whatever he desired with the rocks.  I thought it was a great idea, but I did not have the small rocks. 




My husband had a partially filled bag of white sand from last winter.  I brought in a big, plastic storage container and filled it 1/4 full.  I shared a few ideas of what my grandson could do with the sand, including some faux Christmas greens to use as trees, and some kitchen utencils to use as shovels,  and then left him to play on our family room floor.  I did ask him to please be careful to not spill any of the sand on the floor.  I had no idea how much of a huge hit this would be.  An indoor sandbox all to himself.  For the next two hours he sat by the storage bin and was in his own little world. 




I think this is the only picture that he realized that I took, and that is because I called out his name.  When his sister came, she immediately joined him in the fun.




Together the two of them worked the sand in the bin, letting their imaginations run freely.  I loved sitting at my desk working, and watching their artistic skills coming to fruition.  I must admit, I never expected that this idea would be such a hit.  Soon my granddaughter came to me and asked if she could have her own storage bin, so up to the attic we went, to see if we could find two more empty containers.




Fortunately I did.  I added the same amount of sand to each one.  As you can see here, hers had a slightly different slant to it, as she got her pots and pans for hers.





When the littlest one woke from her nap, she was equally as enthused.  Now the three of them sat on the floor and each entered into their own little worlds of sand design and creation.  I share this with you in case you ever have need of an entertaining project for little ones in your life.  For this grandma...it worked, and I was given the gift of extra time to get my work done.  When they left, I did vacuum the floor, but I tell you it sure was worth it.  When they come the next time, I will set the bins on a big blanket and then shake out the sand when they are finished playing.  It might make it a bit easier than vacuuming again.  Thanks to my sister for giving me this simple, yet brilliant idea.

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