Better than diamonds

Craig and I went out last night to celebrate our anniversary. He had been gone for two days on a school field trip and I was really looking forward to our date. It was wonderful. I can't believe it's been 11 years since we said, "I do". At 20 and 21 we were so young, but we didn't really know it then. I look back on how we've both grown and changed so much, and I honestly can say I love him so much more today than I did on that day 11 years ago. Back then I thought my heart would burst with the amount of love I had for him. But it just keeps growing and growing.

It's awesome how God will bless a marriage when we seek His wisdom. I don't deserve this wedded bliss and I certainly don't deserve a man this wonderful, but God has blessed me, and it makes my eyes fill with tears.

Craig said he had something for me, just a little thing, and I jokingly said, "something little, huh, just a diamond ring?" As we sat on the park bench and watched the water go by he read me a TOP 11 List of the reasons he loved me. After he was finished I had a huge lump in my throat, and he said, "ya it's no diamond ring...." and I replied, "that was better than a diamond ring".

And it was.

What did the girl mushroom say to the boy mushroom?

You're a FUN GUY!

Check out all the fungi we found over Memorial Day weekend.

Morrel mushrooms

Us by the lake

A family of 7....my biggest find.

Cute flowers growing out of a old log. And a cute girl, too.

Hunting and gathering is so much fun.

Wyatt chillin' by the lake.

Brothers and Friends

The three on the infamous dirt mound.

Can you spot the two monkey's in the tree? This is what happens when mom takes a nap.

A basket full!

A very fungi weekend, indeed!

Calling all photographers....

Professional or amateaur! Rachel Anne of Home Sanctuary is running a contest and YOU have a chance to be published in her first book. She's looking for photos displaying the "friendship" theme. Check out details HERE. Enlist the help of your kiddos or join up with some girlfriends and get snappin. Deadline for entries is June 7.

Company Girl Coffee

One of our small things this week over at Home Sanctuary was to organize our pens and pencils. After I organized the jars of pens and pencils I have by each phone I moved onto:

The Kids Art Tub

Anybody have something that looks like this at home? Well I did. A few days before I had seen THIS LINK on organizing art supplies, and thought, "I should do something like that will all our art supplies". So I dug in, sorted all the pens, pencils, crayons and paints. Threw out the dried out pens with no lids and broken crayons. Dug out some of my pretty canning jars and whalla....this turned into.....

THIS!!



Already Anna and Wyatt have been getting good use out of these organized art supplies, and I am so glad I took a little time to get it done. One reason I love Home Sanctuary, is that am inspired to get little things accomplished every day, that would otherwise be put off, again and again!



If you have little budding artists at home too, let me recommend a couple books:


Great Artists by Maryann F. Kohl ~ this book contains hands-on art projects for kids that are styled after the great masters of art. I copied off a few to hopefully try with the kiddos this summer.

ABC Museum by the Metropolitan Museum of Art~ This is a really fun one for all ages (little kids especially!) each letter of the alphabet has a word chosen, which is represented by 4 works of art. So, for example "A is for apple" shows 4 different works of art with an apple in it. Wyatt was easily able to read this one, and Anna loved it, too!

(both books I found at the library)

Just a lot of pictures of my wonderful weekend

Almost Ready

Our chicken are almost ready to move outside! Remember the nice warm days we had a couple weeks ago? Well, here are the chicks then, enjoying the sunshine in the "baby gate" turned "chicken pen", outside. They were still little, cute and a bit fluffy.

Here they are as of Monday. I'm not sure where the "cuteness" factor has gone. This picture cracks me up. It kind of makes me think of one of those pet looks like the owner pics. Both April and Wyatt have the same expression.
They love to come out of their rubbermaid tub and perch on our arms. I'm not sure they love to be squeezed like Anna's demonstrating in the picture below. But they don't object.

Can you just hear the little girl scream through this picture? Anna isn't too keen on the feel of chicken claws on her leg.

And here's Will and Starly, lookin' ever so proud.Hopefully it'll be warm enough to move them outside this weekend. I really hope so, my laundry room has been smelling like a pet store long enough.

Practicing

Friday night I had the BEST time with my good friend Christi. She suggested we get together for coffee and study up on our cameras. This girl's blog inspired us. We both have similar models but hadn't really taken the time to read the manual and learn how to use all the settings. I loved my photography class back in high school....but let's face it, that was 15 + years ago, and I really had no clue about F-stops and apertures back then, let alone now.

One of my biggest goals was figuring out the different settings on my camera, being able to take nice indoor pictures in natural light and get that blurred background affect. Today I took my camera out for about 5 minutes and practiced.

I started with an easy subject. He gladly stood still in the rain while I snapped, adjusted settings, snapped again. I like the blurred background.

Next was my lone yellow tulip. I have ONE tulip in my yard this year. I don't know what is up with that. But here she is standing gracefully in the rain. Again, I like the blurred background. You don't see everything across the street.


Next was onto these wiggle worms. Christi and I experimented with adjusting the aperture (I think) and I got a lot of blurry ones at home with these two because they move so much. The one below was where I was trying to get Anna's feet in focus.

This one is probably all wrong with the lighting and such, according to the rules of photography. Her feet are shadowed, but she's still got cute piggies.

Trying out the foot shot on Wyatt....here is when it got a little more difficult as Anna was bouncing over the side of the sofa waving a piece of paper in front of the camera and trying to get her feet in the picture.

So this is where I stopped. I am glad I know just a tad bit more, and maybe with lots more practice I will become comfortable using all the setting on my camera. Christi, if you try anything new, post your pics! And those of you who know a thing or two about photography, feel free to leave a comment with your best tips!

We have a winner

Thank you for all your wonderfully creative and catchy blog names! You girls came up with some really good ones.

Craig and I went over the names last night and he helped me choose one....it was a hard decision but the winner is....

EVERYDAY BUTTONS

Submitted by Alysun!

Congratulations Alysun, $5 coffee cash coming your way.

And Honorable mention goes to Darbi with Oh Button. Darbi will receive a consolidation prize. :)

I'll be working on a blog layout with the new title soon!