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Well I finished the costumes and the girls absolutely loved them. I call that a success - I managed to find toxic free face paint for my kitty, hot glued my finger a time or two, made thrift store orange clothes and black felt look like a tiger and turned myself into Miss Frizzle from Magic School Bus. We had a wonderful night carving pumpkins, making baked pumpkin seeds, trick or treating and telling silly halloween jokes. Continue reading

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This was our cabin we stayed in called Rivers Edge. There was a nice porch to sit on and watch the turtles in the water and the steps led down to the canoes which we really enjoyed. The photo above shows part of the amazing drive to get to our cabin. We spent some time fishing in the pond and although no bites were had we still had a blast. One of my favorite things we did was hike to this beautiful place called goats rock. We spent a long time throwing rocks in the river and watching the big... Continue reading

Congratulations Mom!! We send big hugs for your much deserved happy day! May your next adventure be filled with laughter, relaxation, and days spent enjoying the beauty of life. We miss you and love you! Blessing from Texas! Continue reading

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I visited the beautiful Boneyard Beach on Bulls Island which is a barrier island in Charleston, SC. It is home to one of the cleanest and healthiest ecosystems in the US. The changing tides and currents combined with the salt, sand and sun have caused great erosion on this part of the island producing an eerie "bone yard" of sun bleached fallen oaks, pines, cedars and palmettos. It is a battle with the ever changing surf and it has been estimated that in 60 years these barrier islands will cease to exist. Is is heartbreaking to imagine such a peaceful... Continue reading

The girls are loving their new bunk beds! We had it on the big project list for a long time so it is awesome to finally have it finished. Jason started building them when Dad and Mom were here so it was nice for him to have help. They look really nice and open up the room a lot. Today I took the kids on a nature walk after dinner. It was pretty hot out but there was a nice breeze so we enjoyed our walk. Blessings, Kate Continue reading

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My parents just left after flying down for a wonderful visit. It was so awesome having them stay here with us and definitely hard to see them leave. The weather was sunny and beautiful for their stay and we enjoyed some fun outings and great conversations. One place we visited was a very unique strawberry farm. The strawberries are grown without soil using hydroponics. The strawberries are nourished with a liquid diet and to pick the strawberries you use little scissors to cut the stems. There were so many ripe berries I could have picked all day. One neat thing... Continue reading

Olisa had a wonderful 7th birthday! She requested a chocolate batman cake and homemade peanut butter ice cream. She got to open her present from Dad and Mom right after breakfast as is our birthday tradition. It didn't take her long at all to shoot some into the target. We took her out for a special lunch, played outside, opened presents and enjoyed cake and ice cream. I can't believe just how big she has grown and her kindness and love towards others is always overflowing! She love riding her bike (without training wheels!), helping bake healthy lunch treats, pushing... Continue reading

Olisa shooting her new bow. We had a wonderful weekend celebrating her 7 th birthday! More photos to come. Blessings, Kate Continue reading

Ayla loves her new big girl swing. She thinks it is so neat that her swing is just like big sisters. Here are our green eggs we made using spinach to give them color. The kids thought they looked so cool and they passed the taste test with flying colors. I love making fun foods for the girls to enjoy. Yesterday I made homemade cheese crackers using some really nice organic cheese. They were actually very easy to make the thing that took the longest was poking the holes in the center (I just used the end of a skewer)... Continue reading

We woke to an icy morning today. I couldn't resist taking some pictures it just looked so pretty covering the trees. Stay safe, stay warm everyone! Blessing, Kate Continue reading

Mexican Stuffed Sweet Potatoes serves 4 Preheat oven to 400 4 small/medium sweet potatoes 1 tsp. olive oil 1/2 to 1 small onion, diced 1 or 2 cloves of garlic, minced 1 tsp. ground cumin 1/2 tsp. chili powder 1 cup canned diced tomatoes with juices 1/2 cup cooked or canned blacl beans 1/2 cup frozen corn 2 Tbl. fresh cilantro, diced, divided 2 Tbl. cheddar cheese sea salt and pepper to taste Place sweet potatoes on baking sheet and bake 30 minutes. Remove from oven and prick with fork. Bake an additional 30 minutes or until tender. In a... Continue reading

Here are some of the recent treats I have made. Above are teacher treats for one of our teacher luncheons recently. The pink hearts are buttercream frosted sugar cookie bites and then I made these amazing cranberry oat bites. These Mexican potatoes were also made for the luncheon although I took this picture before I garnished with cilantro. They turned out pretty good so I made some for us-the hubby loved them! Here is one of my juicer drinks Ayla and Olisa helped me make. We put in a lot of carrots, some apples, pears and a little pineapple. It... Continue reading

The kids made sister shirts to celebrate Valentine's Day! They had so much fun decorating them it was a great project. Olisa also made a shirt to celebrate her 100th day of school. She decorated her shirt with 100 flowers-it turned out really cute! Tonight we are having a vegtable pasta salad, red jello hearts, and pink frosted sugar cookie bites for dessert. Yummy! Happy Valentine's Day!! Love, Kate Continue reading

Here is Ayla working on candy counting for our math time. She is really becoming a great counter! Ayla and I have been having learning time in the mornings where we talk about and work on numbers, letters and many other things. She is loving learning about letters right now. She is working her way through an alphabet book - in the picture above she learned about the letters c and b. She glued cotton balls onto the c and buttons onto the b. Blessings, Kate Continue reading

Our beautiful daughter turned 3 today! She requested a rainbow stripes & Super Why! cake. Super Why! is a pbs cartoon show where the character has the power to read so her cake has mini books on it. We took her out for lunch and then came home and played some games. I made a game where the kids had to find a bunch of letters hidden around the room and then put them together to spell the special birthday message which was TIME FOR CAKE! It turned out to be a great day! We are so blessed to have... Continue reading

We had a wonderful christmas as you can see from the pictures. Life has been very crazy busy here but I still wanted to share these. The kids woke early to open presents and then we enjoyed a homemade strawberry fruit pastry for late breakfast. It was a day full of laughter and blessings. Kate Continue reading

Yesterday we celebrated Jason's birthday! We went out for dinner and the kids helped me decorate a gingerbread house cake. I made a homemade vanilla confetti cake with vanilla and chocolate buttercream, torted, stacked and carved it into a house shape. Olisa was very helpful and came up with a lot of decorating ideas. Everything on the cake was edible! Olisa was worried about the house catching on fire from all the candles and I told her not to worry about it. Well it turns out she was right who knew m&m's could could light up so quickly!! We just... Continue reading

We visited Martin Tree farm this year to cut down our own fresh tree. The weather was cold and it started to rain right after we cut our tree down but we bundled up and still had a great time. Olisa picked out the tree all by herself this year. She saw it as we rode to the field in the trailer and loved it. We ended up with a 9 foot Virginia Pine and it looks amazing all decked out in christmas ornaments! We didn't linger too long after cutting it down as the rain was getting pretty heavy.... Continue reading

This is my new mail holder my hubby made for me. I have it hanging on the wall next to our desk where I pay bills. It is awesome and keeps me from cluttering our island with mail. Here is my new laundry room sorting wall. I love it so much!!! All the clothes are off of the floor and so much easier to sort. I found the bags on amazon-they have a zipper on the back for easy unloading. My Michigan driftwood and Texas seashells christmas tree. I love how it brings the beach into my home!! These are... Continue reading

Here are some of the photos i took when we went to the ranch for Texan day. There was so much to see and do it was a lot of fun. They had battle reenactments, rag doll making, music and baseball to name a few things. The kids thought the cannons were really loud and they loved the music. I loved looking at the fashion and helping Olisa make a rag doll. I have many more photos to share. Blessings, Kate Continue reading