Raising Cubs in a Campground

A much needed blanket of fresh snow is falling outside as I sit curled up in the chair with our 5 month old puppy. I consider it my birthday gift. I'm turning over a new snowflake so to speak - entering a new decade. Forty. It reminds me of when I first starting blogging ten years ago on the eve of my 30th birthday. I was content. I wasn't upset about getting older. I had two beautiful children, a loving husband, and the love of friends and family near and far. Like then, today feels like a milestone - something to celebrate and not dread. Today I have THREE beautiful children, a husband who loves me, and the love of more friends and family near and far. I also have more wrinkles, more free time, more hobbies, and more life experience. The Bible verse I've claimed for this year is "Let all that you do be done in love." (1 Corinthians 16:14) and if I've learned anything in my 40 years I hope that it's that - love is all you need. The love of my Savio...

In honor of World Photo Day   I'm sharing some photos from the pages of our Pacific Northwest photo book I made after our road trip down the Oregon Coast. You can view the entire project by clicking here.   I designed the book using Blurb's free bookmaking software called Booksmart. It took me two days to reduce the 4,000 photos I took on our trip down to 708.  It is so important to make photobooks within the first two week of returning from a trip. (Did you catch that? Dirty laundry can wait - photo book takes priority!) I've followed this mantra ever since I returned from studying abroad in college. Back then I had to print out photos and buy albums/pages. It was SO expensive! I paid $500 for two albums from a three month trip to South America in 1997. Fast forward almost 20 years and I now design photo books for a living. I have always used Blurb.com for their quality printing, affordability, and flexible page layouts.  Full disclosure: I am not being...

It's that time of year where things are just starting to get ripe in the garden, but not enough at once to do much more than enjoy a BLT or two. In a few short weeks I'll be up to my elbows in tomatoes, but until then I grab what is ripe and dice them to add to whatever dinners I can. This past Saturday that dinner was a crock pot lasagna recipe I came up with to serve our guests on a HOT and steamy evening when I didn't want to have the oven on or spend too much time in the kitchen cooking. We had some leftover chopped green peppers, onion, and jaune flamme tomatoes from the homemade relish I made for hotdogs/brats the night before so I added those to the sauce. I have been cooking long enough to eyeball ingredient amounts, but when I first started cooking or if I'm looking up a new recipe I definitely want a solid starting point so never fear - the following recipe has exact amounts if that's how you roll. There are a lot of crock pot lasagna recipes out the...

The themes we choose for birthday parties rarely fall in the 'typical' category and I enjoy the challenge! When Elsa turned three we were still waiting to close on our new house so we had to put off her party for a few weeks. Finally the second weekend in August of 2014 we were able to throw her a Farm Party. We had moved into the house ten days prior. I still had red checkered tablecloths from PapaBear's surprise 40th Camping Party a few years ago and we already had a good collection of bandanas as well. Add in PapaBear's vintage tractors from his childhood and mason jars filled with flowers from our garden and we were good to go!   Once I get started on a theme though....look out. I had so many ideas! Pudding cups for mud puddles, egg candy to put in the eggs for an egg hunt, making homemade ice cream, and don't even get me started on the other food ideas. I'll get to those in a minute. First I made signs for the different stations around our yard usin...