Better Late Than Never...

My buddy Beverly and I have been named "BFFs" you know best friends forever. It's kind of funny so I made her this book for her b-day which was Wednesday... and yes I just finished it tonight. Better Late than never!

Grasshopper Point

We took off work a little early yesterday to meet up with our friend Jereme for a trip we had been planning all summer but scheduling would not allow. Jereme told us about this great place called Grasshopper Point in Sedona. The drive was beautiful as usual and we even got some rain on the way up. The weather was amazing- although the water was SO cold!! After a little coaxing Kenny and I did jump off the 15 foot +- cliff into the water. We had to swim through the little stream and do a little rock climbing to make our way up to the ledge... seemed a whole lot higher when we were looking down! It was exhilarating and lots of fun! After we had all go our jumping and swimming in the freezing water we decided to go for a little exploration hike/swim. We hiked up stream trying to stay on the rocks, however I am very clumsy and found myself in the water a whole lot more often than the guys!! We ate wild black berries and mint and watched the fish swim by our legs. As we were walking we stumbled upon a dead deer in the water we were just walking through... it was SO sad. I am no hunter and haven't ever seen anything before... it was kind of like a car crash, you can't help but look at it : (
Anyway, we hiked out and got to the top just as it got pretty dark. We were the last ones in the park when it closed at 8. We grabbed something to eat and made the drive home.

We made some good memories on this Monday evening.

Sunday Night Dinner

Sunday night Kenny's Nana came over for dinner and we had a nice roast made by Kenny!! It was delicious and nice to have the company.

Lucky 7

Sunday we went by to see my brother's daughter Genna to wish her a Happy 7th Birthday (which was Monday). It was nice that she was excited to see us and remembered us from our recent visit. She showed us her cute room and all her birthday goodies.

I can't believe she is already 7 years old!! She is in 2nd grade and goes to a private school. She is really smart and got put in the accelerated class this year.

Can't wait to see her again soon- Love ya Miss Genna!!

Crazy weekend of cooking!

This weekend I was crazy busy cooking, canning and baking!!

Thursday I took a canning class with a girl at work and learned the ins and out of water bath/steam and pressure canning. I was excited to find out I didn't need to buy a pressure canerand could use my pressure cooker I already have ! So I thought I mind as well try something out this weekend. The beans were the easiest so I made Smoked Mesquite Baked Beans....

Plus as requested by Kenny I made more flour tortillas. I think I have it down now and they came out pretty well.

When we were at the 99 cent store I discovered they had delicious raspberries!

So I bought a bunch to try out making and canning Jam. I made a miscalculation and ended up with way too many raspberries and not enough jars... It didn't come out thick enough like jam really should be, but it tastes SO good! It spelled delicious when it was cooking too. My mom suggested that it would be really good on ice

cream or maybe pancakes... so we will try that!

Lastly I made my 21 hour bread... I actually messed up that recipe too so I just converted it to a double batch... It came out pretty good.

Love Notes- August

I just love the Love Notes class at Scrapbooks Etc!Making these amazing cards just makes you feel good! I love the flower pot one where the bouquet comes out for you to write your message!

It's a Keeper

Kenny is so awesome! He has been cooking all week for us in effort to keep us from going out to eat and wasting money! Sunday he made a the below Beef & Beer Stew and we had his mom come over. It was really really good!! I made the 21 hour bread that is like Firebird's bread to go with it. Its definatly a keeper and we are sharing the recipe. (FYI you can use beef broth instead of the beer)

Beef & Beer Stew

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 pounds lean beef stew meat, cut in 1-inch cubes
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 carrots, cut in 1-inch slices
• 2 ribs celery, cut in 1/2-inch slices
• 2 medium potatoes, cut in 1-inch cubes
• 1 cup beer
• 1 cup beef broth, or use all beer
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 3 tablespoons melted butter
• 1/3 cup flour

Preparation:

Place all ingredients, except butter and flour in the Crock Pot; mix well. Cover and cook on low for 8 to 10 hours. Mix melted butter with flour; add to the stew. Taste and adjust seasonings. Turn to high and cook until thickened, about 15 to 20 minutes.
Serves 6.

Cute, but naughty... Hopie begging for her share of the stew!

This is what happens...

when you sew to much and don't play with your dogs...

They bring their toys into the craft room and demolish them right under your feet...

Farmer's Market Bag

Here is a picture of the Farmer's market tote bag I made tonight. It has 22 different fruit and veggie fabrics in it!!

Stash Busting Ideas

I have SO much fabric! It's insane really (although I have seen worse..)! These shelves are 2 stacks deep and this is just the fabric that looks good enough to show... I have stacks all around my craft room, in the closet, on shelves, in baskets etc.

My buddy Carol gives me bags of fabric at a time, also other friends and family have given me fabric when they clean out their own stashes... plus I used to go to the quilt store at least twice per week and buy, buy, buy... so here I am with a giant stash. I love it but... what do I do with it all??

I am making bags for a few online friends and then what?? I love scrappy quilts but don't really want to put the time into them. I thought of pillow cases for the children's hospitals, but mostly these are fat quarters and smaller.... Any ideas??

Paper or Plastic???

In a normal week Kenny and I could debit from 20-30 times... that is a lot to keep up with and reconcile each month. It is also easy to spend more than you should...

We have decided to live on a budget and pay cash! This is out 3rd week and it is working really well. We are spending less and kinda having fun with the whole system. I am the spender so I always run out of money before the next payday and I end up eating Taco Bell and bringing water to drink for lunch. (Ruff I know... I could actually bring my lunch.... )

The funny thing for me is how hard it is for cashiers to count change (you really have to pay attention to that!) I guess we are all so used to the computers just adding up our products, applying taxes etc and giving us a total. If the total sounds about right we then swipe our card and the machine prints a receipt... not much thinking. I remember that Visa commercial where everything is running smoothly while people buy their lunches and swipe their cards and one person stops to pay cash and holds up the entire process. That's us! We are choosing cold hard cash!!

Get over it!

Quilting really intimidates me... which is silly really. I have a top of the line sewing machine with a special foot called a BSR (Bernina stitch regulator) which helps make quilting easier... its the reason I bought that machine! So I thought hey I just need to get over it. I practiced a little on a scrap and then i went ahead a quilted this bag! It's far from perfect, but it came out just fine and I finished the bag tonight - yippee!

Weekend in the Cool Pines

To me one of the best things about having a trailer for camping is your weekend can be as full of activity as you want it to be. Since there is no real set up (like tents) we can just park, level it out and pull out a chair. We have weekends where we made extensive meals, went on long hikes and played lots of games etc... this was not one of them... we microwaved meals, slept in, read, took naps and played with the dogs all weekend. We did manage a few visits to the cabin and a drive into Heber but for the most part we just hung around enjoying the cool weather. It was just the kind of weekend we needed.

Bucket List

I recent celebrated my 5th anniversary at my job and it got me thinking... I graduated from ASU 5 years ago! Where does the time go?? It seems like Kenny and I had so many accomplishments in our first years together and then nothing too spectacular recently... So I was thinking we needed to start a new Bucket List (dreams/goals/experiences). We made a list as a couple, because, really, we do almost everything together shouldn't we do the big things together?? I am sure it will be fun to look back on in 5 years or so and see what we have done and what still needs to be marked off. Any hoo here it is (not in order of importance!)--

Sky Dive (Kenny is doing the wind tunnel)

See Stone Henge and the Egyptian pyramids

build a custom home

hike the grand canyon

run a marathon

be parents

go on a world cruise

Pull the trailer through 49 states (11 done!!)

Visit New York

Hot Air Balloon ride

Anyway that is what is on ours ... so far. What is on yours??

Trick or Treat

This weeks make n take at Crop Girls was so stinkin' cute! We used an embossing envelope on the cuttlebug machine to make the 3 D spider web and then sanded it with sandpaper. This was my first time using that machine and I really loved it ... I will have to check CL for one... Then we used stamps for the trick or treat and spider, inked the edges, added some ribbon and bling and wah la!

Zack is 1!

This evening was Zack's first birthday/pool party. We had a blast swimming. The kids just loved Kenny and Andy and constantly wanted them to throw them or let them stand on their shoulders etc.

Zack opened his presents with his mama's help and had his cake... Then the only boys had a cake fight with his leftovers.

It was a nice night.

It's finished!

My blogger friend Molly saw a bag I made and asked me to make her one too... well that was back in February and I just finished it today! The part that held me up (besides just life in general) was the quilting on the bag. The bags I have made before did not require any quilting so this was new... and intimidating. Finally I asked my buddy Carol to help me and she was kind enough to do the quilting for me and today I finished it! I love that feeling of getting a project completed! It will be in the mail Monday!