Small in size...

... Big in personality. Everyday, Marley lets us know that it's time to have food and/or water in her bowls by flipping them over (something she taught herself). If nobody responds in a timely manner, she keeps flipping them all over the place, until she gets someone's attention! The funniest part is that once the food is in her dish, she doesn't even usually eat it until later! (Paul says that's because she is a typical woman. LOL!)

Blow it up. Let go. Giggle. Repeat.

The girls, and Marley, have been exploring the simple joy that comes from balloons. The girls blow them up as big as they can, then let them go from the loft. Marley barks and jumps at the balloon the whole time, wanting to play with it like a ball. They have also enjoyed a few games of balloon volleyball. We have gone through about a dozen balloons in the last couple of days. They don't last long before Marley gets a nip at one and explodes it into pieces.

My little shutterbugs are also having fun taking pictures throughout the day. Be still my heart! <3

Great way to start the day

Regan was eating her breakfast at the table and I was busy getting the normal morning routine done. At first glance of the kitchen counter, my mommy eyes saw more stuff that needed to be put away. 

Then, I noticed the little note 'to Sage: Have a nice breatfast'. 

Regan had left the cereal and all the fixins out for Sage and had got out a bowl and spoon and wrote her that sweet little note. This act of kindness in itself was enough to melt my heart, but it also meant so much more to me. 

One of my mini JOY projects has been to occasionally slip little notes into Regan's lunch box. On Monday, I had a special opportunity to do that. Regan told me she was going to have lunch in the classroom with two friends. She had reached a certain level in the accelerated reader program and that was the reward. I took the opportunity to put a little note and 3 squishy animals in her bag (to share). I couldn't be there at lunch time, but wanted her to know I was proud of her.

When I saw her leave this little note for Sage, I immediately realized where her inspiration came from. It showed me that my girls don't only pick up my bad behaviors and habits, but occasionally the good ones rub off too! What a great reminder to keep working on my own growth, knowing that so many seeds are being planted!!

Other funny notes at our house today:

Regan - "Mommy! I got another state quarter! This one is for New Hamster!"

Sage - quoting Alvin and the Chipmunks, in her best chipmunk voice "why does it smell like sweat sauce (ie - sweat socks) in here? Dave likes to wear dirty underwear!"

Hope your day was JOYful!

New Year!

It's a new year and I am excited to finally give this blog a much needed facelift and get back to blogging here a bit!

Thanks to Launa Valente for the referral and to Cinnamon Girl Studios for the creation of this awesome blogger template! I am in LOVE with this new simple look! I hope you enjoy it as well!

This year, I am embarking on a 365/photo a day type project, with a bit of my own flavor added. You can read more about the details at SpeedScraps.  I'm still sorting out what to post where, as my two worlds and blogs seem to be converging more now than before. One thing I do know, is that I want to do more documenting of our day to day life and feel that belongs here. :)

Here are a couple funny stories from our house this week.

Last Saturday, we finally had enough snow for Daddy to pull the girls on their sleds behind the quad. Regan and Daddy went out for a bit after dinner. It was quite cold and they didn't stay out very long. When Regan came inside, her face was bright red! At first I thought it was just from the cold, but then she explained that she fell off the sled and landed face first in the snow.

The next morning on the way to church, Regan was trying to convince Sage to go sledding behind the quad with her when we got home. Sage was having nothing doing! I asked her why, as she is usually my brave one. She said 'because I don't want any snow bushes!!'. Huh? I asked her what that meant and she said 'You know, like Regan did last night?'. I said 'You mean a face plant?' - 'Yeah, I don't want any face plants'!! LOL! (for some reason, this made me just laugh hysterically. The kid cracks me up!)

Later that afternoon, I went to the store to pick up a few things and thought I would treat the girls and daddy to some ice cream. I picked up Mint Moose Tracks (mostly for daddy) and Birthday Cake (mostly for the girls). For bedtime snack, all three of them opted for Moose tracks.

On Monday night, when it was time for bedtime snack again, they all opted for more Moose Tracks. Daddy reminded the girls that there was birthday cake ice cream. To which Regan responded 'We know, but we have to get some of the moose tracks before you eat it all....We KNOW your weakness!!'. LOL! This had both Paul and I chuckling pretty good. Even Paul admits that the girls have him pegged.

Other things that have brought us joy so far this week:

• - Eating lots of fruits and veggies and trying new recipes.
• - Sitting in the hot tub after playing in the snow.
• - Going sledding in Fruitport.
• - Baking bread and granola bars.
• - Stealing Daddy's pistachios.
• - Playing with Daddy at the pool.

And, a couple photos from today.

Reading before naptime.

Sage's 'self-portrait' - using the remote for the camera.

Have a blessed day!

Under Construction!

Pardon my mess while I update my blog! :)

Pulled Pork BBQ

Through some unique circumstances, we ended up with a whole pig in our freezer this summer. It has been processed by a butcher and has items in it that I had no idea what to do with. With guests coming over yesterday, I decided to see if I could make some pulled pork BBQ from our abundance of pork. A recipe search online sent me looking for a shoulder roast amongst my stash, but with no luck. What I did find was a smoked picnic. Another recipe search online clued me in that the picnic is made from a shoulder roast. Our picnic was already smoked and looked pretty much like a ham. I wasn't certain if it would actually break down and shred into pork, but figured I didn't have much to lose.

I put the approximately 5lb smoked picnic, still partially frozen, in my crockpot at 9pm and smothered it with my homemade BBQ sauce (prepared ahead, recipe below). I set the heat to low and went to bed. When I checked it in the morning, I could tell it was going to shred into a very nice BBQ. By noon I was able to remove the bone and large fat pieces and pull all the meat apart. I removed a bit of liquid fat and added in a bit more BBQ sauce and let the whole thing continue to cook on low for our 5 pm dinner. It was a big hit with the entire bunch, even the 6 kids devoured it!

My homemade BBQ sauce recipe started from the 'Spicy Franks' recipe in Crockpot Cuisine cookbook. The main reason we started making our own sauce is that neither Paul or I are big pepper fans and most bottled sauces contain pepper. We have made slight modifications to the original recipe and have modified the quantities to make a large batch to keep in the fridge. We buy a commercial size container of ketchup at Sam's club and put the finished sauce right back in the container after cooking and cooling.

BBQ Sauce (32 servings)

1 bottle 114 oz Ketchup
2 3/8 cup firmly packed brown sugar
9 5/8 Tbs red wine vinegar
6 3/8 Tbs soy sauce
6 3/8 Tbs dijon mustard
1 tsp garlic powder
liquid smoke to taste

Cook in crock pot on high 1 to 2 hours.

Nothing says summer like a good BBQ!!! :)

Family trip in photos

We had a wonderful family trip this summer. We spent 5 nights in St. Ignace, 3 nights at Tahquamenon Falls and 3 nights at my parents cottage in Grant. Here are the highlights of the trip with photos.

Soo Locks visit - it was Engineering day, meaning we could go across the locks into areas that are normally off limits.

Hydro Plant tour - also in Sault St. Marie

Tahquamenon visit in the mist and rain

A 'bit' of rain on Friday night, leaving the campground a wet mess. (8" fell over the weekend)

A great photo op at one of our geocache finds in St Ignace

Regan's 'treasure' found at the same spot

Cool Treat at the car show

Car show on the streets of St. Ignace

Fudge - a necessity of  any trip to the UP :)

Bridge view from another geocache location in the state park

Humongous 'wish flower' found on a geocache hike

Home sweet home - for the week

Playing at the toy store in Mackinac City

My beautiful butterflies

Heading to Mackinac Island for the day

Lots of geocaches on the island

Didn't know spiders could be pretty

We biked the whole 8 miles around the island, plus about another 5 or 6 throughout the day. Regan was a trooper!

The girls highlight of our time at Tahquamenon - some very tame chipmunks, including one who seemed to 'pose' for Regan to take his picture.

Hike from the lower to upper falls - 4 miles. Sage was the trooper that day, hiking almost the whole way.

The girls chasing 100s of yellow butterflies lining the dead end road we took by mistake while looking for a geocache.

Another necessity of any UP trip - pasties

Paul and the girls going out into Lake Superior. This was at a point in the lake near Paradise where the water was only about 2 feet deep for about a half a mile. The usually frigid lake Superior water was very warm here.

Tubing with Grandpa at Hess Lake - the girls all giving grandpa the thumbs up to go faster - and Grandpa more than happy to oblige.

and some sparkler fun - there is a kid behind there somewhere!

It was a great vacation. We had lots of fun, made lots of memories and took lots of pictures!! :)

Priorities

I have been thinking a lot lately about priorities and specifically about what my priorities should be. There are the obvious ones, like my relationship with God and things that nurture it, like prayer, devotions and worship. Then there is family - devotion to my husband and children and my role in their life as wife and parent, from the spiritual aspect to the practical aspects, like laundry and meals and housework. But what about the opportunities beyond these essential priorities? What comes next?

The main priorities consume a good majority of my time, but there are a couple hours a day left for the 'other' stuff. I often wonder and pray about if I am spending that time on the right 'stuff'? There are many things I enjoy doing during that time, but they can often turn into mini gods and can spill into the other areas of my life and cause me to derail from my focus on the real priorities. For example, as I work on stuff for my latest business venture - SpeedScraps - it is easy to get caught up in the details of it. I can spend way to much time looking at the facebook page to see if their are new fans and then checking out their blogs and websites and before I know it, an hour or two has passed and I have accomplished little. Yes, I enjoy doing it and it is a 'downtime' for me, much like television for others. But I have just been wondering lately if there is something else God wants for me.

As I was thinking about this on Sunday, God impressed on my mind two particular people that I think He would like me to invest some of my time in. Then, at Church later that morning, the message totally affirmed the ideas that were going through my head about how to invest in these two people. I have also realized in the last couple of days that the things that make me smile the most are when I hear people say 'you inspire me' or even better 'you have influenced my walk with Christ' and this helps me to re-focus my priorities. 

I am putting these thoughts in writing here as a way to hold myself accountable to what has been going through my head the last few days. It would be very easy for me to brush off these thoughts as too time consuming and requiring to much self sacrifice. But I know from past experience that when I follow and obey these promptings, blessings follow.

So, what are your priorities? Anything God is nudging you to do or change?