Raspberry Picking & Jam making

On Wednesday this week I had a MOPS play date to pick Raspberry's. When I agreed to come I quickly thought "Am I crazy to try to go berry picking with two little girls?" But my friend, Sabrina quickly assured me it would be fine. That the isles at Remlinger Farms were wide enough for strollers.

But I didn't have to worry it turned out Bill was off. So I pulled him along to help pick & to help with the girls. He joked that it was a MOPS and DOPS "Dads of Preschoolers" play date. Okay honey.




Picking was fun. Although Ellia ate many, many, many berries and not all of them were ripe. Good thing they said you could eat while you picked. She had fun squeezing under the berries to join her friends on the other isles. (and yes I dressed Ellia in farmer clothes, overalls & boots, cause I am soooo anal about these things....)




Then on Thursday Ellia and I made freezer jam. Tons of fun and let me say YUMMY!!! Thanks to Aunt Beth - who gave me the idea of making the jam because the last time we visited she gave us a bunch of jam & told me it was easy to make.

Daddy trying to teach Ellia how to pick them

Addie wished she was older & could pick. Although she did pick her fair share of leaves

The keeper of the berries

Pre-Jam making - in our aprons

Ellia decided the strainer was a good hat

Helping Mama pour in the sugar

Smashing, smashing, smashing

Still smashing - notice the jam splatters on her face, and keeping her hands out of the jam proved to be a challenge too. Good thing this jam is just for our family! ;o)

All done - made 4.5 good size containers. And we still have berries left over for a pie & syrup

This is a sad girl! She didn't want to be done. She kept saying "Pleeease Mama, Meee" she wanted to keep making it....Poor girl.

4th of July celebrations

So our original plans of driving to Portland to spend the 4th with Bill's family didn't pan out. Bill's schedule kept changing and so we had to cancel our plans. Luckily a plan B wasn't hard to come up with.

Aunt Beth you would be proud of us.....we went to a small town parade. Well not as small as the Hockinson one but still a small town parade. The Bothell parade was fun. And Bill remembered riding in this parade as a child in his parents Model T. Apparently their Model T club always participated in this parade. So Bill told his dad that they have a year to get the Model T up & running again so the girls can have some of the same memories. We shall see if that happens.

After the parade we had a BBQ with our neighbors and then lit off fireworks with them. It was a fun day even though our original plans didn't plan out. Guess plan B's actually do work.

The girls were exhausted at the end of the day and slept through the night. WoooHooo!

Waiting for the parade to start & playing with Daddy's hat

Do you see Ellia's cute clips I made? The girls were all decked out in their Red, White & Blue


Bill and our friends the Tempe's (and their new baby- Jude who was only 1wk old) ...... still waiting

The girls wouldn't corrorporate for a picture together. So I had to settle with these.

Firework time. Addie wasn't scared at all

I love this picture! Ellia loved watching the fireworks

What a cute family enjoying the 4th ;o)

Mama and her lovebug snuggling up

Sparkler time......Ellia wasn't sure at first but then got into it

Not Me Monday!!

I haven't posted a Not Me Monday in a few weeks. So because of that I will share some of my favorites from the past few weeks.

A few weeks back while visiting my husband at work my zipper did NOT get stuck while I was attempting to go to the bathroom. And because I had waited so long to go I did NOT stand in the stall and do the potty dance while trying to get the zipper down. After a few minutes of dancing & trying to unzip my pants I did NOT go back to my husbands office and ask him to help me unzip my pants. And lets just say he wasn't alone in his office, there was NOT another employee in there, who I'm sure could hear & see this whole fisasco take place.

I did NOT start painting the girls bathroom over a week ago and today it is still NOT finished.

I did NOT tell my husband last night when I fell asleep at 8:30 that if he waited a few minutes and let me "wake up a bit" that maybe his advances would be returned. Let's just say that those advances did NOT get very far as I did NOT wake up at all.

Ellia did NOT get into the paint while I was painting a bookcase I found for free on the side of the road. And when this said bookcase did NOT fit into the back of my car I did NOT take Ellia out of her car seat and then shove the bookcase into the backseat on top of her car seat. Which means Ellia did NOT ride home in the front seat. Hmmm, good thing I found the bookcase at the top of our hill & we only had to go a short distance like this.

And this is NOT a picture of Ellia after she got into the paint. To which Bill did NOT have a freak out about because he thought she had injested the paint and that we had to call poison control. It did NOT take me a good 5minutes to finally make him realize she didn't eat the paint only got in on her face.

When Ellia asked for a piece of "Caaaaack" I did NOT just give her the rest of the cake that was left so that I did NOT have to throw it out. That would be just lazy on my part and I would never do that.

We did NOT buy Ellia sparklers and we did NOT encourage her to play with them with daddy on the evening of July 4th. Rationalizing that they were extra long and that with daddy it would be okay. That would be downright dangerous and wrong. But it did make for cute pictures for her scrap book.




I did NOT start feeding Addie table foods like Eggs and yogurt at 8months old. These things really shouldn't be given to a child until 1yr old - at least that's what they say. And I did NOT follow these recommendations to the " T " with Ellia. Guess that's what happens with all the children who come after the 1st born.

Beach Day Fun & June summed up

Wow, Today was the last day of June. It's crazy how 2009 is flying bye so fast. Here are a few of our June moments:

• This month we had great weather, which is weird for Seattle to have such nice weather so early in the summer.
• Addie started to eat more solids. Banana's, humus & mashed potato's are among her favorites.

• Ellia learned many new words like Airplane and Bus - and she knows what they are. Every time we see a bus she says "mama, buuuus". We joke she has radar ears cause she can hear a plane from far away even before we see it. And she is always looking in the sky for them.
• Ellia and I planted tomato's and I am happy to report that there are actual little green tomato's growing!! I am soooo excited about having my own tomato's. Who knew growing my own food would be this fun. What should we grow now??
• Ellia is really into trying to "pay" with Addie. Trying to give her big girl toys & trying to get her to crawl. She is such a good big sister. And my favorite thing is when she picks up a book and talks in her gibberish - pretending to read to Addie. I love that!!! Melts my heart every time.
• Bubba got the new ferminator brush & let me tell ya, that thing works!!! I have brushed him at least 3x a week for the last 2 weeks and I am happy to report not as much hair is on the floor. There is still hair on my floors, but not as much I'm sure.
• Bill has been traveling alot to other Warehouses training other Marketing departments on a new computer system that Costco rolled out for their marketing departments. The girls and I accompanied him on one such trip. We spent the day exploring the city of Wenatchee. (let me tell ya there ain't much there - But we did have lots of fun playing at their many parks) This is such a great thing for him to be recognized as a leader & trainer. It sounds like he might head to Alaska at the end of July to train their 2 buildings.

• I have been busy with the girls as usual but I have found a new hobby. Making the girls barrettes. I got tired of spending so much $$ on these stinkin cute & little things. So one night I looked them over and said to Bill "I can make these" and so I have started. I am having so much fun!!
• To mark the end of June we visited the beach with my Best Friend, Melissa and her 4 children. "Auntie Missy" and I have been friends for 15years and she is such a blessing in my life. It's crazy how life has come full circle. I used to watch her kids and now they are watching mine. All the kids had fun today, even the oldest who is 18 and wanted to come with us today! (which reminds me I still need to post his graduation pics)

Moriah, Ellia and Bekah wading in the water

Jasmine and Ellia having some water fun

Ellia decided sitting at the waters edge was best

Yet another sand eater

Playing on the spinner thing at the playground

Ellia loved being spun around on this thing

MMMM, strawberry ice cream (and Yes I matched her ice cream to her shirt, I'm anal like that)

I had all the kids pose for this picture - they all look thrilled don't they?

New Mr Linky service - c

Entering a contest over at MckMama's blog -

There’s a great new “linky” service available and I wanted to let you know about it. It’s called MckLinky – www.mcklinky.com. After realizing the need for a new, reliable linky capability, Brent Riggs and MckMama got together to create a free, easy to use linky service for all their blog friends.

MckLinky is a free link list feature that allows you to do include lists of other blog links like MckMama does on Not Me! Monday. You can use MckLinky any time you want your blog readers to leave a list of links on your blog. It’s simple, reliable, free...and loads of MckFun!

The Hope for America

Yesterday, the girls and I went to church without Bill who was working. We are in the process of finding a new church. So we visited where we've been going for the last 1.5yrs. Totally forgetting that it was Patriotic Sunday. And oh boy was I excited when I realized what Sunday it was.

Patriotic Sunday is always the Sunday before the 4th of July. Cedar Park always has special musical numbers by the choir, raises a HUGE flag in the sanctuary & salutes the soldiers and veterans. It was quite a service let me tell you. I was bummed that I had forgotten because I would've dressed the girls in their Red, White & Blue colors.

As I sat there listening to the choir sing my heart was lifted. It was such an inspiration to hear them sing in unity the praises of our freedom. Every song that they sang gave me goose bumps. And a few verses from these songs stood out among the rest:


"Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, For we have placed all our hope in thee"

"We will fight for the cause of our King to defend what is right"

"Send the Messiah, we need his help to free us, we need him here to lead us"


Can we say "WOW!!!" - what powerful words especially with what is going on in the world around us today. I sat there listening and the words hit home especially the "We will fight for the cause of our King to defend what is right" Because do you know why Bill was at work on a Sunday? The Gay Pride parade in Seattle. Yep, he had to work because there were so many managers with the day off to attend this event. Frustrating and very sad for our family to say the least.

What is happening in America? Where is Jesus? Why is that we have become so lazy when it comes to sharing about Jesus? I am slapping myself on the hand, because I am just as guilty. Pastor Joe Fuiten spoke about how lazy we as Christians have become. How we feel no obligation to live by the Bible standards anymore. The Bible is the starting point - it teaches & reveals all things about Jesus & how to live our lives. Yet, we do not read it let alone follow it.

Our country was founded on the Bible. On what each & everyone of those verses says. Yet, we have veered off the path. We need to get back up, dust ourselves off & be the the examples of Christ to this dying world. A world that thinks celebrating Gay pride is okay.

Jesus is the ONLY hope for America!!

Peter Marshall says "We need to stop focusing on our Rights & Privileges and get back to our Responsibilities & Duties" I think that sums it up quite nicely.

Show Us Where You Live Friday - Master Bedrooms

Today is Show Us Where You Live F-R-I-D-A-Y at Kelly's Corner and it's Master Bedrooms. I love my master bedroom and really excited & proud to show it off.

This is looking through the french doors into our bedroom. Our room is brown with blue accents. Three walls are a light beige color and the main wall is a chocolate brown. The painting we bought on sale, major discount at Costco. I love it and think it adds so much to the room.
This is a view from the foot of our bed. The headboard my husband made! Yes, indeed. I love it! In fact my husband did a LOT of work in this room. He sanded the bedside tables & stained them. They were pine and they didn't match. We like Espresso colored woods.

Here is the wall on my side of the bed. It has pictures of each of the girls in Bill's hands. These pictures are what I see when I crawl out of bed each morning and make getting up all worth it.
The dresser's in the room were my husband's grandparents. They spent a lot of time in his Aunt's garage and we inherited them. Bill also sanded, stained & replaced the handles on these too. He was careful to keep them authentic looking. They are amazing!!!


View of the other dresser - ignore the cords hanging down in the back. They are from the tv that is on the wall above this dresser.


Okay, that is my bedroom. Hope you enjoyed touring it and seeing all my husbands hard work!!