Happy Birthday!

To my favorite brother.  Never mind that he's my only brother. He'd still be my favorite. He's getting old!

2013

Welcome to 2013. Hard to believe.  As a friend said, the world was supposed to end twice last year.  But yet, here we are.  2012 was a better year than 2011 but still hard.  I've already cried tears over 2013--it's one more year away from the last time I saw my girl.  But it's also one more year closer to the time I will see her again. I'm hoping it's soon.

In the meantime, I'm hoping to be a little more consistent on this here blog thingy. Prolly not every day--our lives aren't that interesting.  As our Preacher said "don't make New Year's resolutions; make New Year's decisions.  I have a few, mostly personal.  And I even started on them yesterday.  Woo Hoo me!

One thing our family is going to be doing together this year is a "blessings" jar or basket or container or whatever I come up with.  Each night as we get ready to put C to bed, we are going to ask if there is something that was a significant blessing that day.  It will get written on a piece of paper and put in the container (note to self: GO BUY ONE).  December 31, 2013, we will read through all the papers in the jar and remember how the Lord has blessed us this year.  It can be something as 'small' as a good grade on a math test or as 'big' as someone handing us a $100 bill.  I had seen this idea all over Pinterest and thought it was a neat idea, but my thought was "what if we have another crappy year like 2011?"  Then my thought was "but the possibility of something bad shouldn't keep me from not counting all the blessings that will happen."

So without further rambling, here is what we did New Year's Eve.

Me: aka Martha Stwart

I have become the next Martha Stewart.  Well....... for me it's very Martha Stewart-like.

Salsa.  I am so tired of making salsa.  I think I made 10 jars.  That's a lot of tomatoes and peppers to cut up.

Making salsa.  

Still making salsa.

Oh look!  Making salsa!

I also dried peppers for hot pepper flakes.  The dried flakes aren't as hot as I expected.

I did all this in one day: salsa, granola, pumpkin cookies with icing, and red velvet cookies.
Plus a loaf of bread (not pictured).

Doesn't this look like a torture device?  For apples, I guess it would be.

I borrowed this from a friend.  It saved me so much time doing these apples!

And it turns the apples into these cute little things.

Look at Daddy go!

And leaves the peels behind in nice long strings.

Look at all that juice!

In the crockpot ready to get turned to mush to make apple butter.









Plus I have tried many new recipes and made the yummiest cinnamon rolls 3 different times.  My next en devour is home made pizza dough.  I know!  What is wrong with me?

Friends

Summer is always a time for friends to come play for the day (if only cuz I"m babysitting).

Look how little she looks!  E baby!

Funny story with this pix: we delivered flowers to a friend (ding-dong ditch) but after I posted this pix on FB she figured out it was us cuz she had seen a flash of orange run by her window 

Trying to crawl.  Now she's running around every where.

She is such a funny child!

Not sure who this person is.

Iron man in a too small suit.

Can you find the two "soldiers" ?   This was at a friend's house.

At the pool with friends.  

See?  Funny child!

My boy made it on Twitter!  The Pastor of the other church that went to Junior Camp with our church.  

A busy day of children.

Such a pretty, easy-going baby.

See walking!  And funny! and so much bigger!

Olive Garden

It's where Kalei always picked to go for her birthday dinner.  Especially for the tomatoes and croutons on the salad.  A few friends (actually 20 counting kids) met us at OG for dinner.  It was so nice to sit and chat with friends that loved my girl.  We have been blessed with amazing friends.  I think we will try to make this a yearly tradition.

Some beautiful, huge flowers some sweet friends brought us to celebrate her birthday.