TODAY I SAW..... FALL AND SUNSHINE

This was at 6:45a.m. I had just walked outside with Lucky and saw how WARM & SUNNY it was, so I told him to sit and wait while I ran and got the camera. He came running to me when I came back, so dang cute and happy, LOVE THIS!! I am so happy to say the day was warm all day and the sun stayed out. With camera in hand today I captured a much needed great fall day.

 

TODAY I SAW

these pretty daisy like weeds all over our yard, LOVE

the last two pumpkins, they were baby's when I first showed you

just peeks of fall colors coming in

wind blowing the cattails, happy I got this one

the fall leaves reaching for the sunshine

this little building at the soccer fields, crazy but I love chipped paint

this beautiful stone and brick together, a favorite combination of mine

Sam and buddy played a good game today. SAM SCORED! We loved watching it in the sun finally and no rain and freezing cold like the last few weeks. Love these two guys, friends for 7 years now.

my sister helping my niece to try riding her new scooter from our dad, LOVE THIS

my other niece getting on it instead and taking off

Sam loves his new scooter too, pray he doesn't wipe out

these gorgeous yellow trees

these two different fall trees together, LOVE

I came home to see playtime in the backyard, click on it to see Sam and Lucky better. LOVE THIS

my favorite way to end the day, gorgeous sunset and fall colors

a sink full of dinner dishes that I will wash since my hubby cooked an amazing dinner for us while I was at movies with the kids. He enjoyed this day just as much as I did. We both needed a warm day.

 

I took 120 pictures today, tried to narrow them down best I could, so hard with all these pretty fall phtotos. Can you see all the joy in these and happiness, seriously it was from just seeing the SUN and NO RAIN for once. My mood was going down all week and this really lifted me up. Hope to get more of these next week if the weather is right. Enjoy your last weekend of September, YIKES!!!!

RIGHT NOW

I love love writing these kinds of posts as most of you know. All week I've had some ideas on what to write about today, couple of special posts or just the random right now post. Due to busy schedule and not even being home right now this will be a random RIGHT NOW post! Today this is a prompt given by the wonderful and amazing Ali Edwards, check out her blog to read hers and more like this one. Hope you will link up and join the fun also.

RIGHT NOW:

I am at the library typing this while girls at church choir and boys at home hanging out

My hair is short and curly after a much needed haircut

Summer texted me from the bus to remind me to "GET RID" of the spider she saw in the bathroom,lol

Sam has the worst runny nose he's ever had, LIKE EVER!! It won't stop running and he has to keep blowing it so his nose is red and chapped and it's driving him crazy.

LOVE LOVE that soccer season has started and seeing my boy out there on the field running brings joy to my heart even after all these years. Even in the rain and cold it warms my heart just watching him!!

Renee has been collaging at random times thru the day/bedtime, LOVE THIS

The girls just had braces adjustements and are in pain and hate eating right now, soft foods for now

wishing the nights didn't get dark yet, Rich and Sam like to bike when he gets home, soon they won't be able to. Will have to do it only on the weekends.

Wish the rain would stop so we could have the last bonfire and smores for the year, love doing this

Sam has been asking for snow to come for his bday (Nov.10) and we keep saying NO WAY!

We've been watching the Cosby Show at night before bed, so nice to have a show we all enjoy

Doing my Project Life pages each week and loving it more then ever. CAN'T WAIT TO GET THE NEW ONES COMING SOON...... IT'S LIKE CHRISTMAS FOR ME

The amazing sky and clouds lately have me taking more pictures of them instead of the kids. Seriously loving how cool and pretty they've been.

Excited thinking that in a few weeks will make it 2 years since we got our dog, Lucky. Special post coming up on that, love love this dog!!

My hubby is busy busy at work, working a little more hours lately

Proud of my hubby for heading back to the YMCA to work out and for me back to walking again, feels good

Getting one daughter ready for homecoming and watching her relationship grow with her boyfriend. Puppy love/teen love is very serious in our house right now. Mixed feelings about this, wanting to go back about 10 years when it was easier and more fun.

Kristin is planning her trip back home for Christmas, HOORAY

Sam brought home his library book which he picked out for me... A CRAFT EVERYTHING BOOK, he's so sweet and funny. Can't wait to create something from it.

So happy and ready for fall: pumpkins, cider, jeans, color leaves, Thanksgiving just makes me love fall more

The girls waking up so good in the mornings early for school, Sam who is buried under his covers though and doesn't want to wake up. LOVE waking them all up softly and gently each morning.

Playing cards with Sienna when I watch her. Our favorites: Slap Jack, hi/low and Go Fish. She is GOOD!

Little Colt growing up and being soooo sweet right now. Blessed to watch him and his sister.

Enjoying church every Sunday for 6 months now, can't even describe how it feels me with peace.

Making more Morning Glory Muffins and comfort warm foods, love leftovers in the fridge for lunch

Thanks for letting me ramble on. I love being the storyteller more and more in my family. Thanks Ali for this prompt today and letting us share it with you.
Oh and I cannot forget to add watching the new seasons of The Middle and Modern last night and Grey's tonight, happy for fall tv shows.

PROJECT LIFE AND RENEE'S 29 FACES

Welcome to another week of PROJECT LIFE!!! I can't believe how fast this week went by, no more blinking for me. This week has a nice variety of stories, some planned and some not. This led to harder time picking out photos so I sneaked them in for next week already,lol  gotta love that!!

Here is the left side, look at those pumpkins in my front yard, FALL TIME!! Made some amazing and can't stop eating muffins (sharing recipe later). The start of colds for Renee & Summer which kept them home a day and me following them around with a Lysol can, haha.  Click on the image so you can read the journal cards, that 3rd one is funny and you can blame Sam if we get snow early this year. Feel free to send him a not happy message about it!!!!

This is the right side and I LOVE IT!! Look at those cute munchins playing so good together, lots of this going on here. Now if you remember my ONCE UPON TIME Story from last year and guessed  what it was, CONGRATS!!! We went homecoming shopping for the dance in 2 weeks, sadly this trip wasn't as much fun as last year ( post and dress coming later on). We had a CRAZY CRAZY WEATHER WEEKEND and here is just one shot of it, Rich outside while the hail was pelting down on him. This happend a couple of times thru the weeend along with lots of rain, black clouds over us, windy, COLD TEMPS and peeks of sun. This pattern repeated all weekend long, CRAZY!!

 

I am going to post Renee's part of 29 Days of Septmember now while I can, busy week ahead. She did hers on computer paper and I'm thinking of just making my favorite kinda of collage and adding it in with mine. She didn't last all the way but still did a great job. So here is peek at hers.

The first 3 days did start off with just pencil then she decided to add color

I love that she did guy faces also, inspired me to do mine

COLT..... RIGHT NOW!!!

This little guy is growing up so fast in the last few months, despite my telling him to stop growing. I only see him once/twice a week so I try to SAVOR AND ENJOY EVERY MINUTE OF IT!! Lately, with his big sister in pre-k we have the mornings together which gives me more time to really spoil (love and play and hug) him and not worry about his sister being left out (not that I don't spoil her). So today I need to write down some RIGHT NOW thoughts before he grows out of them. Oh and I don't always get the best pictures, he's always moving, smiles too late/soon for pictures but that's ok it's who he is fast and curious and playful at this time!! I just love this little guy more and more!

 

right now you love hugs and just laying your head down on my lap when you need to

right now you love playing at the window and love when tractors/trucks go by

right now you are getting tall, look big even next to your sister

right now you still suck your thumb when sleepy, sad, upset

right now you ALWAYS make car sounds when playing cars, LOVE LOVE THIS

right now CARS are your favorite thing, moving them around, hiding them, putting them into rows

right now you love to sit and put bunches of toys on your lap and laugh

right now you are running, soooo very cute

right now you can also walk backwards and spin

right now you love to stand up and fall on your bottom 50x and laugh so much

right now you SMILE and SMILE all the time for soooo much

right now I think smiling is your way of communicating

right now you are learning to talk and are so proud and happy about it

right now you give knuckle touches and give them often

right now you love my pets, always watching and excited by them

right now you do have tantrums, throw yourself in the floor and cry LOUD

right now you can be talked out of those tantrums and given hugs and love

right now you want to go outside often and if the kids go out you want to follow

right now you are learning to share and take turns with sister, good job buddy

right now I love watching you sit with mom, dad, papa in church, so sweet!!

right now you eat so well and aren't too picky over here

right now you are reading books more and laughing at them

right now you drool all the time and everywhere, LOVE THIS

right now your looking tall in your high chair

right now you love to walk in garden looking at pumpkins and flowers

right now you laugh when Lucky chases the ball

right now you know Sam is the other boy here and LOVE HIM

right now the girls are your sweeties, lots of hugs given

right now you take GREAT naps here, 2 hours most times

right now you are such a JOY for me, so easy going and happy

right now you like to stand up the toy people and try so hard at it

right now you SMILE BIG when toys work right and esp. when blocks fit together

right now you LOVE your big sister and playing with her

right now you love to play chase with big sister

right now you want me to tickle you, taking my hand and making me know you want me to tickle you, so much laughter when we do, love that you do this and enjoy it

right now you have a pouty lip when crying and sad, makes you CUTER!

right now you still look at your hands and my hands not sure why

right now I want to bottle you up and keep you RIGHT HERE AT THIS AGE

right now is pretty good and I'm so blessed to take care of you and watch you grow!!

Colt and me!!!

LOOK AT THAT SMILE!! LOVE THIS!!

 

I hope you enjoyed this cute post of my little man!! Will be doing something this weekend and sharing it next week if all goes well..... think ONCE UPON A TIME THE SEQUEL from a post last year at this time ( my older readers might remember). Have a great weekend ladies!!

29 FACES IN SEPTEMBER

Hello and welcome to 29 faces in September. This is what I've been working on this month now that the kids are ALL IN SCHOOL. I heard about it thru my talented blog friend Stephanie, she has been impressing me with her drawing skills (esp. her faces) for months now. When she first shared this I had already told myself to dedicate Sept. to the kids and homeschooling, not start anything new for me. That first week of Sept and seeing Stephanie's pages changed my mind and I decided to GO FOR IT!! Not only am I doing this but so is my daughter Renee, she loves drawing faces and thought it would be fun for her also. I didn't want to commit to daily blogging these faces either, figured we'd see how it went first then if all was good would start sharing a group of them at a time. I'm so glad to be doing this, it's been so fun and challenging and good for me, just what I needed with the kids ALL BACK IN SCHOOL. These aren't anything close to what Stephanie has been doing and I haven't checked out the blog who is hosting this challenge, that would freeze me right there, just seeing Stephanies' is enough to motivate me and make this fun. There were no rules in this, even unfinished faces are fine and any medium is accepted. These rules made it even better for me, LESS STRESS!

 

So I decided to make up a mini canvas for each day and fill up the page protector which will be added to my PL at the end of the month. I  LOVE LOVE that this will be in my PL now that I've been filling the canvas up. My daughter is doing hers on computer paper and I haven't decided yet how to add hers into PL or doing something else. Will share her pictures later on, still need to get a picture of them. We have both slipped here in there but catch up right away. I can honestly say thsi is making me very HAPPY and inspired to keep doing more faces and learning more about drawing them.

I'm going to repost the same picture now below so I can explain them to you, hope your hanging in thee with me thru this, just had to explain it all. Oh and I have to share links at the bottom...

Ok, like I said these are just fun not very artistic and WOW but they are MINE and I love them!!

The faces start at the top left and go across..oh and the rule I gave myself is however way it comes out that's ok and no redoing them or starting over again, heck I'd still be on day one, lol...

Day 1... look how tiny she is, haha just had fun and Renee LOVES THIS ONE

Day 2... a little bigger and color on her face, very plain and calm

Day 3... she is happy and excited about Labor Day so she is decked out and BIG

Day 4... decided to just use pencil, uuuhhhh not much else

Day 5... LOVE her, she is me with  my curly hair. The kids like this one

Day 6... UH HELLO THERE! Red sparkly gel pen hair, SAM LOVES HER

Day 7... A BOY FACE, haha not to bad for the first time

Day 8... a pencil face again, BIG and happy, like this one

Day 9... hello pretty face, I didn't know what kinda hair so I left her bald and LOVE IT

So that is my first 9 photos, the next 9 are on the backside and will be shared later on. I pretty much used pencil, pen, sharpie, colored pencils for these. In the newer ones I'm using some paints and other goodies. I sometimes freehand the face shapes and others using a oval cutter.

So this has me thinking of a plan for October and I will share that later with you. So here are the links to Stephanie's blog and the host of this challenge, I hope you can at least check out Stephanie's she is doing an AMAZING JOB WITH HER FACES. I have even named some of her past faces.

Thanks for reading this and for the sweet and supporting comments in my last post. HUGS!

http://stephaineestrin.blogspot.com and the host http://ilove2paint.blogspot.com

sorry the first link won't work, try this one http://Stephanieestrin.blogspot.com  

PROJECT LIFE SEPT. 8-15

Hello and Happy Project Life!! I had a great week of pictures and ordering and putting it together. Took my time and just enjoyed the process, added some fall theme goodies and called it done. Can you belive we are half way thru September already, the days just fly by don't they. The weather has been chilly in the mornings and just right during the day. Thanks for the comments on my apple post, I'm happy to say that I did buy my own cider and have enjoyed it!! How about some close ups now...

Here is the left side, added a little fun to the title card this week. I had to do a collage on the gorgeous sunrise I shared last week. Really love how it turned out. In the bottom right is my sister's PL she just completed and shared it with me. I finally talked her into buying one and sadly she just doesn't "GET IT" or the time and the labor of printing so many photos. Glad she tried it and she does like it but said to count her out next year. SIGH, SNIFF..... Look at those two cuties holding their mini pumpkins!

here is the right side, full of FALL FUN!! Love the apple orchard collage and I decided to add my own apple scrapbook paper to fill up that pocket. Look at Sam playing soccer in the bottom one, it was our first game of the season. MAN DO I LOVE TO WATCH HIM PLAY, MY HEART POUNDS THE WHOLE TIME and yes I do stand at the sides yelling GO SAM, HUSTLE, FIGHT AND PLAY HARD, FOLLOW IT UP, GOOD JOB TEAM, GOOD PASSING, GOOD TRY!! I cheer for them all but especially for my boy!! Rich took the kids to a friend's haunted house and the kids were too scared right away so they came home. I have never liked them and still  don't, guess Rich will have to do this on his own from now on.  I also went scrapping on Sat. will show my pages later, it was finishing up more in my summer journal.  So that's another week done and happy about.

 

On another subject, don't let this take away the FUN FROM THE PL POST HERE, my 2 homeschoolers are back in school now. They really had a different attitude once it started and just couldn't handle the change. I think they should have tried harder and longer but they were both unhappy and not impressed with the online schooling programs. I for one am very upset and sadden by their change of heart. The programs were good, the teachers amazing and sweet and given more time to get use to this new way of learning could have benefitted both of them. It was hard just to type this and tell you after all my excitment about it, thank you for the support you gave me then. Trying not to dwell on it and moving forward with a new mind set on just me and my quiet house again. That's enough talking about this subject now, just wanted to let you know how it was.

Thanks again ladies for being so awesome and sweet! Have a great week!

APPLE ORCHARD WITH MY SISTERS

My sisters and I went on a little outing on Friday, a little orchard about 20mts. away. We usually come with the kids but this year it was SOOOO nice to just be us adults. Rode in my sister's SUV for the first time with the sunroof open,  and just laughing and talking. We should do this more often. This is a cute little family run business and you can always count on the little grandchildren running around and granma and papa helping out when it's busy. We have never been there on a weekday, usually it's a Sat/Sun thing when kids are home so I was quite surprised at how busy they were. I had a hard time taking photos because I'm sure these strangers didn't want to be in them, lol. Just did the best I could and am happy to have them and remember this day with my sisters. There was only one dissappointment about our visit, I will share that part later on. The weather was perfect for us then rained the rest of the day and cleared up and got sunny in time for Friday night football, love that!

My sister is taking a picture in front of me, I love walking into this big building

usually someone is working here but not today

So HAPPY they have my favorite kind, so yummy when freshly picked

My sister Heather got a lemon/dill sauce that they say is great with fish

I love all the cabinets/hutches they have here and filled with goodies to try

this is why we really come, fresh baked cider donuts and other yummy food. They even have a new grape mini pie, Heather bought one for her girls and will let me know what they thought of it. I also tried a oatmeal, apple, carmel cookie that was SOOOO good. This is where the disappointment came.

Remember I've been talking about getting some cider well here it was made fresh and went so well with the donuts. This year they have a new HOT Carmel Cider with foam and cinnamon drink, WHAT NO REGULAR CIDER??? I wasn't too happy about this but got one to try and only sipped a little bit and burnt my tongue on it, threw it out and bought my own cider at the store today, haha. They also have Cider Slushies which are pretty good and the kids like them. Oh well, some things change I guess and I know my sisters didn't like theirs and I heard other's talking about just wanting plain cider also. See the little apple postcard in the photo, hoping that will fit into a PL pocket.

I love that you can sit here and just enjoy the yummy smells and feel the fall in the air. Thanks for a nice trip girls, will have to do this again and wait till the leaves have changed colors.