sweet and simple pineapple desert

So we had some friends over last night and I was scrambling to find a yummy easy desert, here it is, no mixing and no baking!

Pineapple desert (it reminds me of a cobbler or a crisp)

1 can (16 oz) of pineapple (I used Dole) if you don't like the chunks use crush pineapple instead

3 cups of miniature marshmallows

one pkg of yellow cake mix

1/2 a stick of butter (cubed)

Layer all ingredients in the order of this recipe in a microwave safe bowl(i used my Pampered Chef dutch oven stone ware,) microwave on high for about 12 minutes, let cool for a little bit serve with vanilla ice cream!

You wont believe how yummy this is! It's a perfect desert for summer, you don't have to heat up the oven!

Our 4th of july celebration

Fourth of July was on a Sunday, So how did I dress Chloe to Celebrate the 4th? Thats right, a tutu is the only thing that will do! Ok So that might be over the top but I couldn't resist finding some tulle for 25 cents at our local thrift store, that screamed to me make a tutu you know you want to when i picked up the red and blue tulle in a bag how could any one resist right? So under 10 min. I made a tutu for her to wear to church. A little much Maybe but come on, it's fourth of july you have to have some fun in the morning if your going to church right? I thought so!


your thinking OMG can she get any cuter? I don't know how?

Saturday was our town's big celebration and they had a small petting zoo, she enjoyed giving gentle and soft touches to the Llamas, I couldn't help saying is your Mamma a Llama?? you know the popular childrens book? We had fun, Chloe had lots of fun



After a great morning on Saturday Chloe was able to take a much needed nappy so I was able to make this adorable bald eagles, yes they are really that cute, they took some time but paid off, every one loved these little creatures. In case you might not know, I some what have a secret obsession with Bald Eagles, I love them, just look at my older post from Valentines day 2008
yes about 36 eagles later I was done! here is the link if you ever want to make them
http://www.delish.com/recipes/cooking-videos/how-to-make-bald-eagle-treats

I should note that instead of using frosting for the eyes, (aparently I wasn't good a making eyes with frosting) I used regular chocolate chips for the eyes I just stuck them on with left over almond bark.
Speaking of left over almond bark, I had plenty so I used it up pretzel style with cute stars from the Hy-Vee bakery. The genleman at the counter who helped me gave me three times the normal about of "sprinkles" they usually give some one (like 3-4 oz) for just $1, I still have stars sprinkles left over!



Last but not lest, So remember that Thrift store I told you about earlier with the tulle, yep I got this awesome table runner there too! 50 cents, and it was mine, actually it was 25 cents, since all 4th of July stuff was marked Half! can you believe it! I previously made the napkins and since I didn't have any napkin ring holders, I made them with my left over ribbon, I am so proud that all this stuff came together

I hope you all had a great 4th! our family did.

My little miss and flowers

lately Chloe has really been loving our phone, any phone any thing that resembles a phone (ie a calculator) she will pick it up and want to talk, she is so cute when she is doing this, I love how animated she gets. So if any of you family members and friends want to brighten up her day, give us a call.

Chloe loves her books, Just like daddy! although she will not let me read her a book she will gladly sit in mommy's chair and read a book! The book she is reading right now is one of her favorites, and she loves turning the flaps and the pages.

I was able to go to a informal flower arrangement class at our local Hy-Vee, Cathy taught me all the little ends and out of flower arrangements, and I got to say, the two arrangements I made with the flowers from our back yard looks great! I love it. It's so simple and beautiful! I made one for me and one for my friend that I thought would enjoy the flowers, There are more flowers, but since every time I think of some one, they live to far away to send them too... bummer. I am enjoying them, stop by and visit and maybe I will send you home with some beautiful lillys.

DIY Fence

Yes this is our house when we bought it, you can even see the for sale sign in front, We fell in love with this house and were super excited to move into our first house (after living in apartments and at "home" for 6 years) do you see how you can't really see the house? yeah the trees needed trimmed. Also do you see the hedges, I wish I had a better picture of the hedges, they were in bad shape... and they really didn't help our landscape, or how much yard we truly could have so...




We took the hedges out and put up a fence on our property line... which is skewed quite a bit, instead of our lot line being a perfect square it's skewed to the East and west, I know all of this because I had to make a trip to our county auditor office and research the land and get the plot map for the Sunset Addition, since the city had never got this land surveyed. (we are thinking what sort of city wouldn't have gotten this land surveyed right?) So we had our uncle Dave who use to be a surveyor for Polk co. come out and surveyed the land.

Although you can't tell that our fence is skewed from the picture, you can sorta tell when looking from it in our back yard



"Our getting there back yard", I say that because you can see where there is a patch of dirt, that is were our tree stump was, we got two tree stumps removed in our back yard when we had our hedges removed. We are going to need a ton of grass seed, as the hedges were taking up a lot of space in our yard.


This might seem like an ordinary gate, in fact it is, but the workman ship of it, is amazing to me! Gar's dad is an amazing skilled carpenter! The two gates he made for us, to me is something I could never create or try. He bought the hardware and then was able to do it all from his head! wow. Of course the fence was made possible by lots of people including mom/Grandma (Mel) Joe (Gary's brother) Brian, the Fulmers (they helped us finish the pickets, so the project could be done among being there three out of the four days were were working on it! Steven E, Uncle Jim and Matt H. was able to rent a skid loader with a post hole digger attachment to get all the holes dug in one night, he was our hero Friday night when things were not looking so hot...



this is the side that Gary and I mostly did, we had help, lots of help but this was our little bit of contribution, and I am just meaning that we put the pickets on, not the whole fence part, when it comes to handy man and building skills we both lack a lot of those skills. Thank heaven for family and friends that know thier stuff! see all that dirt? that is were the hedges use to be and now we have like 5 more feet on both sides of back yard we can use! we now have a huge back yard!

This last weekend we had about 6 inches of rain, so that mud that we had to work around was not easy to work around, it has been dry for 3 days now and you can still see how wet the dirt is! it was nuts, they guys didn't have to add much water to the concrete since there was so much water in the holes when we were going to set the posts! This fencing project was all done in 4 days! all 130 odd feet of fencing! with 24 posts to set, and 330 odd pickets! All I can say is thank you for everyone who helped with our big project for the year! we are so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends that like to help us!

Fathers day pics

Yep that's me with short hair! I love it! I was able to donate 8 inches of hair to Beautiful lenghts, Although it's a change I am grateful to have such great hair that grows so fast so I can donate hair (3rd time)

We had a great Fathers Day weekend, it was a great weekend to show our dads how much we love them!

why

Althought I haven't gotten asked this one word (why) by Chloe yet, I can feel it coming I thought I would Answer the question I have been asking my self for this past year, Why do I do all this crafty stuff?

As simple as I can say, it's because it's a) It's Cheaper than Therapy. b) Cheaper than rx drugs, although dr. pharm d. Daddy says other wise. (most of the popular ones are on any $5 lists)

The real reason why I love to craft and create things is that I hardly make any rules for my self when I do craft. who cares if I make a mistake on something, it was meant to be. Opps a big paint, glue, ink, blob got on to my work, oh I'll well make it work. I seem to enjoy not worring about the small stuff that comes into my life, and when it comes to my "work". I also enjoy the feeling that wow I took this ____ materials and made that! I love it. I also seem to forget about the every day stuff that goes on, and channel that creativity to what really matters my family. So This post really should be a big huge thank you letter for Gar to let me stay home and keep our house a happy home. As Picasso said " Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. That is what I live for.

Some of the things I have been creating this past month, Post of what or how I did this to come, and more

A Hoddie towel, you can't seem to have enough of these...
yes that horrible wall is now covered in a fun shade of purple, and yes I made that curtian, it's made from Eyelet fabric and I love it. Thanks MS (Martha Stewart) for the pattern/advice, from her new encyclopedia of fabric crafts


Chloe Approved Taggie blinkies, (I made one for little miss but doesn't like it) so I went straight to her fav taggie blankie and copied it and sure enough she didn't want to let go, (these are not for her although she should have a back up one.. I am still holding on that she will use the one I made her.)

A Chalk board desk, Chloe loves it! So do all the other kiddos that come to visit




You can sorta see it, the Lilly flower that has finally surfaced. I know this is not my conventional crafty thing but since spring we have been getting the water right to grow these beauties!

And lastly my little herb garden/back yard oasis! I love having fresh herbs just the other night I cooked chicken breasts and snipped some fresh rosemary for the seasoning and wow, I tasted like something you ate at a nice snazzy restaurant! I love taking care of my little herb garden.

in the lefy tree tops

We have been working out in our yard this pass couple of weeks. While we got our trees trimmed these little guys were in one of the branches that was taken off poor little birdies. we had to set them in one off my planters until we were done with that tree. Chloe was very intrigued by them, she would go up to them and say mom mom mom, I think that was her, mom what are these and what do i do with these! so cute! Although our back yard is not looking very great, with our hedges out and the two stumps that were removed we have enjoyed working on getting all the other yukky stuff out.



for those of you that love primary, I titled this post just for that reason. One of our favorite Sunbeam songs that we like to sing is In the Leafy Tree tops. I am no longer a Sunbeam teacher. I just got a call to be the 1st councilor in the Primary Presidency! For those family members and friends not of our faith I will explain it a little. Our church is ran all through volunteers, no one not even our president, or bishop, or any one else gets paid for what they do in the church. So we get called to help with different duties that the church needs. So I was a teacher to the 3-4 year old children. I was then asked if I could help with all the children 3-12 years, as a 1st councilor working with the Primary President. All the children learn through our primary program, I would be a teacher over all of them for part of the time. The teacher for that age group gets just those kiddos for another part of the time. Anyways I am super excited, I/we get to plan group activities for each Sunday, and I get to teach plan and spiritual truths to the children of our congregation (branch) and we get to have a big program at the end of the year for all the children to show what they learned this year in Primary, through our direction! I am so excited!