T stands for Thanksgiving 2015

Hello, how are you? I'm sharing our Thanksgiving day/weekend with you today for T day with Elizabeth and gang. This is my favorite day and weekend of the year and this one was so good and needed and I'm sad it's come to the end. It's so nice having the kids home and especially Rich for 4 days in a row, no schedules or anything to do but what we choose to do. SO NICE!! I need this time to prepare myself for the holiday rush and reading this book and my advent studies helps me so much, these last few years I've enjoyed the upcoming holiday time and don't stress quite as much, hoping to do the same this year. So this weekend I took a break from my phone/IG and enjoyed slowing down and being with the family and quiet time, so good and I plan to do this more often. I of course took some photos to share with using my camera which I think isn't doing well by the looks of some of these photos. So here's a peek at our long weekend

The break started on Wednesday for us, Sam and I spent a lot of time outside while it was warm out

The only cooking I did was baked goods and boiled eggs for deviled eggs. We always order pizza for dinner too, love this tradition and no cooking meant more time to relax and no dishes, YAY!

Summer couldn't wait to put up her tree, love that about her, more each year she gets like this :)

I worked on my November Pl pages and after this weekend's photos will have all of November done, YAY! Bring on December! I loved the pages I did this night too, YAY!

Love that I got Rich and I in a picture, getting foods ready for the next day!!!

I didn't get a lot of photos Thanksgiving morning, the kids slept in and the house was quiet as Rich started the turkey early and prepared the food all morning, he does this so well and loves it. I'm happy to get this picture though, all the kids and my sister Annie ate with us since she had to be at work and would miss dinner at my mom's, so nice having her with us. Everything came out so YUMMY!!!

I took some unposed photos at my mom's, this is what I got, lol. We all hang in her kitchen, laughing and talking and snacking, the kids are getting so much older, just imagine what this scene will look like in 5 years. All the food was good here too, can't have enough of the yummy food on this day!!

I did do some walking/laps in my driveway that night under the full moon and the Christmas lights across the street. So happy I did this, got my exercise in and the lights were so cool! I do this most nights if it's not too cold/wet  to get my exercise and enjoy the fresh air before it's really winter.

Sam, Rich and I played Sorry, a new favorite lately and Rich won, he always wins, lol.

Renee and I colored, we haven't done this in so long, loved every minute of it. Played some Christmas music quietly on my phone for us too, so nice!! Love this photos too!

we bought a tree on Saturday and Summer happily decorated it tonight. Told you she is so excited about the trees this year, GO SUMMER! When she was done with this tree she went and....

helped Sam change his room around and put up his tree, that's 3 trees for her this weekend. She also loves changing around their rooms and cleaning them. His tree looks so much cuter then it does here too, maybe it's the lighting or I need a new camera.

 

Sorry this was so long, I took 80 photos and tried to narrow it down, so much good happened. Can't wait to put these in my PL now. Thanks so much for reading and for Elizabeth hosting us this week again. Take care and have a good week! Hugs!

Around here

 

Around here it's Thanksgiving tomorrow!! YAY!!!

 

Around here there is two pies in the oven baking, yum!

 

Around here Renee has college today then we are on break!!

 

Around here we are ready for the long weekend break!!

 

Around here the weather turned cold and we had a bit of snow Tuesday

 

Around here we will have pizza for dinner tonight, no cooking or leftovers

 

Around here I started a little holiday shopping, before it's too crazy and cold

 

Around here I'm getting my December Daily album ready

 

Around here we had a great warm fall, so thankful for that

 

Around here I need to start my Christmas cards

 

Around here the new normal is pretty normal now

 

Around here I'm thankful my kids don't work on Thanksgiving

 

Around here I'm ready to put up our tree, maybe tomorrow or Friday!!

 

Around here I'm ready to sit by the tree lights and read and savor this time

 

Around here I'm so thankful for my family and friends, blessed so much!!

 

Around here I was happy to run into Nancy, HI NANCY!!

 

 

Hello friends, it's the day before my favorite holiday/ favorite weekend of the year!! I will post some more of my projects from the retreat over the weekend. Wishing all my friends in the states a very Happy Thanksgiving!!! Be safe and enjoy the time with your loved ones. Thanks so much for reading here and leaving me comments. I appreciate and love each one of them and YOU!!

My scrapbook retreat, lots of photos and fun!!

 

Hello! It's good to be back home and settling for Thanksgiving and the soon to come busy holiday time. I had a good time at my scrap retreat, it's been years since I've been to one and even had one myself.  I wasn't sure what to bring and do for all that time, there's always some PL to do but I was hoping to scrap some too. I finally decided on some mini albums and PL and Disney, YAY! I even packed pretty light, just the stuff above, the blue bag had my clothes in it. I was happy to use my cute pink bag from my Secret Pal last year at church, it's so handy and held up to all I put in it. Are you ready to see this gorgeous place, it was really so pretty, the pictures don't show just how much it is.

 

Oh and let me say that being there with other scrappers, a lot of them I didn't know. It felt odd taking photos so I didn't get any of anyone and I didn't take nearly all that I wanted too. No one else was taking them and it felt weird being the only one so I did the best I could.

I got there about 3:30 on Friday and was the second person there, YAY! I liked it soon as I saw it, already looked cozy and my kind of house, windows everywhere and a porch to sit on.

There are 3 different houses here, the main house and the game room house and a one room cottage by the pond you will see soon. Above is the main house on the left and the far right is a peek of the game room. We used both of these to have enough sleeping room. I shared a room in the main house.

Soon as I took my stuff in, I walked around and got pictures before it would be dark. This place is only 20mts away from home but felt so far away from everything, peaceful and cozy. Here is the pond and the cottage off to the right,  isn't this lovely. Even if I didn't scrap I would have loved just walking around and enjoying this nature, always a favorite for me.

On the other side of all this and down further is all woods like this, sigh, love it! Wish I had seen it in full fall color though but still so pretty. I'm not sure how many acres there were but had to be a lot.

Here's the long driveway, wouldn't be fun to shovel it in the winter but I sure enjoyed taking walks down it a few times each day. All that sitting made my back ache so a good walk was helpful.

Here we are back up to the house and the porch which stretches on down to the game room too. It was cold enough we kept a cooler of drinks out there and packs of our drinks sitting there too. This made more room in the fridge. Hoping to go back here in warmer months and sit out there.

When you walk in there is an entryway with laundry and bedroom to the side and then this kitchen ahead. So pretty!! We scrapped in the room behind the fireplace, so much light! I loved all the wood already, the floor and the fireplace. Yep, I could live here!

here's to the right of the kitchen, more wood and a big stove. Just past this is the dining table and stools to sit at behind this counter. Lots of room for everyone!

here's the cozy little living room area, fireplace and a tv off to the side. We made good use of those recliners, two of the ladies sat there most of the time and did digital scrapping.

to the left of living room is a chair holder, how cool is that!!

Of course, we had a snack table set up too, lots of goodies all weekend here

here was my table, right next to a window, so pretty. Plenty of space too, YAY!!

Once everyone showed up this is what it looked like, a room full of tables and creative messes going on, YAY!! Like I said no pictures of anyone, I snuck and took this Saturday morning about 6:15 when I got up. I was the first one up each day and had this quiet space to myself for almost two hours, YAY!! I got my work done most in those hours of quietness. These ladies were serious scrappers though, staying up all night. I went to bed about 12:15am each day and did ok but by Sunday I was feeling a head cold and tiredness hitting me. Some of these ladies stayed till Monday, I wend home Sunday about 2:30, just the right amount of time for me.

I took some pictures with the sunlight coming in Sunday morning, I was the only one up. This is what it looks like from the other side of the kitchen. In the back on the right is the entryway. Look at those big closet doors there in the kitchen, one is a pantry and the other has cleaning stuff. I would LOVE that kind of space in my house right now. If you go down the right there is two bedroom and a bathroom. My bedroom was all the way at the end and had it's own bathroom.

Here's the room I shared with my Sunday school friends. They took they shared the big bed and another in the single and I took the air mattress on the floor. On the other side is a patio door that lets in pretty light. A HUGE walk in closet was beside my bed and then the bathroom too. 

Ok, are you ready to see my scrapping now, I'm so happy with what I got done! Here are two little mini's I worked on. I love working with mini's when I get the chance, such a cute fun size. I will share a few of my favorite pages from each one since this post is already pretty long.

First up is the mini Christmas album, this is from 1997. We lived in a different house then and had Kristin and this was Renee's first Christmas. So sweet going back this far and remembering.

here's the next page, so cute they are!

I added the ones from that day at my mom's house too. LOVE!

My mom with long hair and her beautiful table every year she does this!

LOVE these pictures!

Now here is my Halloween mine, so fun this was for me. Remember how sad I was about Halloween this year,  no more trick or treating for the kids. Well, I started looking at older photos and decided to make one album with just the kids and their costumes. LOVE!! I didn't tape anything down yet, still looking for a few more photos and might have to move things around but this is a good start.

 

Above is a photo of me and my sisters at Halloween and the bottom one is Kristin's first Halloween.

more of Kristin's first few years

Then we skip to these ones, can't find younger ones of them but sweet having all 3 of my girls here

Skipping ahead again because I love these pages, the papers were perfect for them.

Skipping ahead again to share the last page and last time we treated with their cousins. Making it a double spread since I like these pictures and the story of us that night.

 

I'm going to end this here because my computer is slowing down and this is already pretty long. Will post the rest of my pages in another post. Thanks so much for reading this far if you did. I had so much to share with you. Again, so happy I got this chance to scrap older memories and do so much at one time. Everyone was so nice and I'm sure I will do this again with them.

AROUND HERE

 

Around here Sam turned 14 yesterday!!! GO SAM!

 

Around here I enjoyed my Woman's retreat last weekend

 

Around here I'm packing for my scrap retreat this weekend

 

Around here time is flying between retreats, sigh

 

Around here we had summer weather last week, YAY!

 

Around here this week it's cooler and rainy

 

Around here I've done some PL pages, YAY!

 

Around here we have a big turkey in the freezer

 

Around here I'm SO READY for Thanksgiving!

 

Around here we are doing our Thankful leaves

 

Around here we are NOT getting snow, YAY!

 

Around here we have a leak in the bathroom,  sigh

 

Around here there are blessings found each day, YES!

 

Around here we are watching older movies

 

Around here we made blankets at Secret Sisters

 

Around here the leaves are blowing around the year, YAY!

 

Around here I'm thankful for all Veterans :)

 

Around here life is good and busy

 

 

I've had a busy couple weeks friends, sorry if I don't make it to your blogs. I will be there soon as I have time and home from this last retreat and things slow down.  You are always in my thoughts even if I'm not stopping by.  Big hugs and thank you for reading! Have a great week !

T stands for a Trip to Amish country

 

Hello and Happy T Day! As you know Elizabeth has some help in running her blog, her two cats help out. So I was happy to see this cute cat creamer on a visit to an Amish store, this is also my beverage/cup share for this post.  They had other cute ones as you can see the elephant too, but it was hard to get pictures and the glare from the window didn't help either.

Rich and I went to this cute little store two weeks ago and I loved it. The drive there was full of fall goodness out our windows too. I love seeing the Amish houses too, it must have been laundry day because all the houses had rows and rows of laundry hanging out to dry. Kids were raking leaves and the men were working on the farm or the gardens. Driving along with a horse and buggy beside you is fun too. I had never been here before but Rich and taken the kids one day and finally I got to go and see it.  It was a Saturday so a big crowd of people were there making it hard to get pictures, did the best I could and then just enjoyed walking and looking at all the fun stuff they had.

They had tons of sample goodies for you to try, not sure if it's everyday or just the weekends. I tried a bit of everything and bought some of my favorites to bring home and enjoy more of. The dip you see here is garlic and herb, the other one in the package is a pumpkin spice one, both were so good. They served everything with these crackers so I bought them too along with homemade black raspberry jam, YUM!!  Rich tried a hot pepper dip that was way hotter then expected, lol.

 

They also had a little counter to order some food to eat there or take with you. A little band was in the corner playing music too, really made the place feel cozy and fun at the same time. The drive home was just as nice and went by quick since I closed my eyes and napped, lol. 

 

I wanted to say thank you for the wonderful sweet comments on my last T post. I love whenever I can make a mandala to share. Also, if you like my HELLO posts for each month, my November one is below. I will be gone the next two weekends in a row for retreats, so no T posts till the 3rd week if I can squeeze it in. 

 

Thank you Elizabeth for hosting us again!  Have a great week T friends!