Weekend with Tobias

Wally and I are watching Tobias for the weekend. Since the weather is gorgeous, we decided to go to a local park and hike some of the trails by the lake. It was beautiful!

My job was playing on the grass while

Wally's job was putting on John's backpack and carrying Tobias in it.

Tobias' job was being cute.

He was good at it.

He kept it up at snack time too.

Happy Birthday to Josiah!

Here is my first look at precious Josiah!

and this is one of my favorite pictures taken the day he came home to his excited siblings.

Look at this precious fella with his eyes open. Wasn't he a doll?

Then, before we knew it he was ONE!

And he was a very spunky one year old too!

And again, before we could blink, he was TWO!

Here he is at Bible camp - the reason he was not wearing a shirt and shorts was due to the fact that he had spilled the entire picture of water all over the place, including himself.

Oh, the fun of a TWO YEAR OLD!

Happy Birthday Josiah!

Grandma and Grandpa love you and your whole family!

The girl of the golden west!

My sister is named after this lovely beauty!

Marlane, not Marlene!

Classic picture taking mistake

This lovely photograph was taken 69 years ago when my parents married.

My mom is the gal on the right, my Aunt on the left.

.

My dad, the groom is on the far right.

I guess the best man is on the far left.

.

My grandfather took this picture.

Perhaps he wasn't too interested in the men, only in his daughters.

Scaring the bee

I was photographing some flowers and this monarch butterfly using my macro setting on our camera. I couldn't see everything I was photographing completely as the sun was shining on the camera screen so I did not realize until I looked at this picture afterwards that there was a bee in the picture too. But take a good look, it makes me laugh every time I look at it, I snapped the shutter it at just the time as the butterfly was fluttering his wings to scare the bee - and I think that bee was mighty scared! "Whoa, I'm outa here!" thought the bee - and away he went!

Sweet.

August holiday

Did you know that in Canada there is a 3 day weekend every month by design? And in August, since they didn't have a specific holiday (like Thanksgiving, etc.) they just designated a weekend and call it August holiday.

Not a bad idea.

We just decided on Tuesday to take our August holiday on Wednesday.

Despite a little wet weather, we are having a relaxing time in Canal Park (Duluth) by the aerial lift bridge.

There are quite a few trendy shops and restaurants here and we love it.

sometimes it's good to be canadian...

One of life's blessings is..

...good friends..

(and yes, that is a fire in August in Minnesota...)

The rewards...

May 21, 2009

August 18, 2009

(The strawberries, peas and beans are already consumed. the pumpkins are still growing )

Come closer..

Come closer...

That's right... can you almost taste it?

Oh, can't you just dive right in?...

Hurry up, before the ice cream melts!....

Well, that's the best I can do for you.

You'll just have to stop by instead.

It was good.

You can go on sewing....

Okay, I don't know how many of you remember the sermon at your wedding, but I surely remember the one at our wedding. Bless his heart, the Pastor wanted to emphasis that, though we were coming together as one, we were to maintain our individual personalities. Shortly before the ceremony the Pastor asked Wally what some of my hobbies were... and W told him I liked to bake and sew. (True.) So, without considering how totally chauvinistic it would sound said, in the sermon.. "W, you go on hunting and fishing and C, you go on baking and sewing!"

Oh OUCH! Was he serious???

Well, I guess I have taken his advice...

I decided it was time to get into my sewing room.

I saw some cute burp cloths on the internet and gave them a try.

I sewed cute flannel down the center of a purchased cloth diaper and added trim.

And, since there were sooo many cute flannel patterns, I just kept going!

Actually, they will make great baby gifts and I know a good number of young gals currently expecting...

But, I didn't stop with burp cloths..

I decided it would be nice for grandma to make some PINK blankets.

Hm... wonder why.

They sell the most wonderfully soft fabric that makes such cuddly blankets!

I backed two pink ones with soft minky fabric and the others with a silky satin.

Oh, I just could cuddle right into them myself!


This chocolate brown minky fabric has a swirl design in the nap and I love the paisley pattern in the silky satin.

These dots, in pink, chocolate brown and sage, are adorable too.

The satin patterns worked for both the pink minky fabric and the chocolate brown minky fabric, so I made one of each.

Pink on pink.

Did I mention it's PINK?

Can't wait until the end of September...

All in a day's work...

Wally loves fruit trees. Here is his cherry tree!

This time we put a net over most of it so the birds didn't get the cherries.

Nice red, ripe, plump and juicy.

And very tart.

I have collected cherry pitters - the old kind is the small one.

The shiny ones are the expensive ones - I bought two so that two people could both be pitting cherries at the same time..

But! the cheap white plastic one was the BEST.

Today's cherry cobbler.

Can you smell it?

Maybe if you scratch and sniff....

Our little cowgirl!

The Red Horse Ranch, which is a state-of-the-art facility here in our area, is hosting it's 5th annual rodeo this coming weekend. We totally love the rodeo! It is just a wonderful event each year. One of the features of the Saturday evening rodeo are some children riding sheep - called "mutton bustin'!" - and the preliminaries were tonight. Any child under a designated weight (so that they aren't too heavy for the sheep) could give it a try. I think about 50 children did so and the top 5 or 6 advance to the Saturday night rodeo in the big outdoor arena ... and yup! .. you guessed it... our little cowgirl made it to the big time!

You will get a kick out of this video. You can see how the staff hold the animal and assist the child in position and then.... zowie! they're off! After Brooklyn's turn was Preston. They ask the child if they want to give their animal a name and he said "sharky" (he loves sharks!) You can see them place him on the sheep and then you see his head shaking "no.... don't think so..." and so they set him back on the ground. Maybe next year, buddy.

And hey! She won tickets for her parents to Saturday night. That's huge!

Congratulations cowgirl!

Happy Birthday Sara!

Happy Birthday to my sweet daughter-in-law, who has been a sweet lady from her early years to

today. Oh, so sweet.

Now she's a big city girl.... with...

that knowing look....

And her best job so far, after being a wife, is being Mom to this special fella!

May you have a happy birthday and look forward to many more wonderful days!

Faces and Flora

Seems like family camp at Inspiration Point provides lots of smiles.

Here are some ....

well, maybe not a smile, but still blog worthy!

ah.... one way to explore the world around is to taste, eh?

I thought this picture (above) was cute - especially Hannah, posing!

And now, some pictures of the nature around camp..

There were water lillies everywhere.

and even beauty in the lowly dandelion...

even when it goes to seed..

I'm sure there's a sermon in that somewhere...