Family Matters

Loving my potato masher photo/recipe holder

Picked up the current issue of Flea Market Style and I'm totally inspired to create things for around the house.

On the way home from Pittsburg today I picked up a couple of vintage potato mashers.  I inserted a photo pick and voila, these adorable photo/recipe holders.  Lovin' it!

I have a recipe of Grandma Vickie's and one from my Mom inserted in them now.  I'm going to look for some old photos of my Grandmother's in the kitchen.  I think these would look pretty cute in a Christmas vignette, too... I'm thinking with a bow around the handle.  The idea's are just popping.

Kwinn Leyl - 5 months old

I love this picture of Kwinn.

Kristie stayed after the Ladies Cottage meeting at my house and helped me pick things up and put the furniture back in place.

Kwinn can't quite sit up on his own yet and he was making a slow slide towards the pillow in this shot.  

He is such an adorable, sweet tempered child; he just always seems to be happy (unless he's tired, hungry or needs a diaper change...LOL).

I just love this little guy!

Getting Ready for Molli Blou's 3rd Birthday

The Cottage Meeting is over - great success, by the way.  Then Mom and Tony arrived the following day for a quick visit.  They headed home on Friday.  

So after taking a day off I started pulling items out of my stash and made a couple trips to the city for supplies to work on the birthday banner for Molli Blou's third birthday, per Jess' request.  (I better get a move on, the party is only a couple weeks away.)

Here is a sneak peek of the banner... prior to assembly.

LOL... hope you have a good imagination.  I'll post more pictures as soon as it's finished.  Better get a move on it.

Breck cracking me up!

After Quentin's game on Saturday morning, Breck decided she wanted to come home with me and watch "horsey".  That's her word to let me know she wants to watch horse videos on You Tube.  (Look out Jed, you've got another little cowgirl on your hands.  LOL!)

So after we watched "horsey" videos for nearly an hour and a half she was ready to move onto other things.  Oh, I should mention, Breck doesn't like to watch the ENTIRE video.  Oh no, she just wants to watch about 15 - 30 seconds of the video then she points to another one to watch.  LOL!

Here she is "working out" with some weights.  

 

Isn't this hysterical?  She sees weights and things "FUN" whereas I see them and think "WORK."  LOL!

I love that she likes coming over to spend the afternoon with her Aunt Laura.

2011... ready or not, here we come!

I hope everyone had a safe and happy new year. 

I am really looking forward to the "new start" that a new year always seems to inspire.  (I always get the same feeling in September, too.  I think that has to do with all those years of school.)

I'm not setting any resolutions this year.  I never seem to keep up with them and I don't need anything else to feel guilty about.  But I am going to try and focus on getting things done in 2011.  I always seem to have a half dozen projects going on at one time... well, this year I'm going to try and get a few of those projects actually done.

Hopefully, on January 1, 2012 I'll have progress to report!

God's blessings to you and yours and a prayer for the best year ever.

Congratulations Mollie!

I just wanted to send out congratulations to Mollie Marie for winning a trophy at her gymnastic competition last weekend!

I don't have any details, I didn't know Mollie was competing so I also don't have pictures.  But I did want to give a shout out to Mollie for this accomplishment.

Mollie is in the first grade this year.

Way to go, girl!!!

 

Grandma and Grandpa's House Nearly Down

I'm sure most of you know by now that Kristie and Paul are making a lot of changes on the farm.  (Grandpa deeded the farm over to them several years ago.)

Some of the changes they've made so far:

• They've replaced the trusses and roof on the pole barn (where the combine is kept).
• They back filled all of the dirt in the pole barn... the ground is actually LEVEL in there... don't think I've seen that in over 20 years.
• They cleaned out the old pig barn. Leveled the ground using coal slag from the coal mine hill, that stuff is impenetrable. Then they enclosed the entire front, added some barn doors and had lighting installed inside and out.
• They cleaned out the shed where Grandpa used to keep the little tractor (on the other side of the carport where Grandma parked the old green Impala) and leveled the floor and put down a moisture barrier so they can use it for storage.

Now they are in the process of tearing down the farmhouse so they can build a bigger house (minus the termites).

When I saw the house starting to come down last week I wasn't sure whether to cry or just be happy for Kristie and Paul.  An era has definitely come to a close and I'm really not sure how I feel about it yet.

Photos take 17-Nov-2010, the day before I headed to TN.

Photo taken 02-Dec-2010, two days after I got home from Thanksgiving in Tennessee.  Wow, what a change!

Photo take today, 07-Dec-2010.

 

So I need a new banner... what would you like to see?

So I figure it will take folks a few days/weeks/months to realize I'm posting again on the blog.  And I'm hoping my question will generate a few comments.

So what would you like to see in the banner?  Jed's been up there for an extremely long time and I think it's about time he and Volcano took a break.

If you have something or someone you'd like to see let me know and I'll try to track down some pictures.

Have a great November!

Now this is how a girl plays soccer!

Okay, so I gotta get back into the swing of things here on the Family Matters blog.  So I figure posting anything is an improvement over nothing... it's just a matter of getting back into the groove.  (I'm finding this is a little like missing church for a really long time, the longer you stay away the harder it is to go back.  Why is that?)

Jae getting a little body action going on there!  She is playing soccer today and Julie emailed the picture from her Blackberry phone.

What did we do before cell phones with cameras?

Celebrating Natalie's birthday

In late April, friends and family celebrated Natalie's birthday at El Charro's in Fort Scott.  After eating, several staff members came out, put a sombrero on Natalie's head, sang her a Spanish version of Happy Birthday and proceeded to "feed" her fried ice cream with lots of whipped cream.  The only problem was the guy "feeding" her was more interested in getting the whipped cream everywhere but in her mouth.  Hysterical!