Pumpkin Carving

Peachy got to help carve her first pumpkin for Halloween this year. I had told her that we might and she was pretty good about reminding me, but not bugging me about it. So, we went to Wal-Mart to pick up one of the $2.50 pumpkins they were selling. We easily found a really good one and brought it home to carve up. I did all of the cutting and my mom helped with the scooping. Peachy used a spoon to get all of the guts out. She did such a great job of listening and not being too crazy. I was so proud of her. And she was proud of her finished creation.
And, she wasn't eating the pumpkin. That is leftover ketchup from supper smeared on her face. :O)

Fun Fall Family Photos

Here are a few of the pictures from our fall family photo shoot. This is the very shoot where I lost my engagement ring. Since the pictures turned out awesome, I will say that they were worth temporarily misplacing my ring. Good thing! :)

And there are even more! Can you believe it!!?? If you are local, let me know and I can totally hook you up with Nina and her awesome photography skills!
Oh, and my plan to look through the pictures and locate the ring would have worked. You could easily tell I lost it while we were playing in the leaves.

Foodie Friday: Easy Monster Cookie Sticks

This week one of the items on my to-do list was to make a baked good for a bake sale. I turned to the ever trusty Pinterest and found these Monster Cookie Sticks from The Decorated Cookie. The term easy is what really reeled me in. While I can cook and bake, I am not a good food decorator. The best thing about these cookie treats is that the more imperfect they are, the cuter they get. Perfect for me! While I didn't get a picture before packaging them up and sending them off, here is a shot from The Decorated Cookie.

from The Decorated Cookie

While you are on her blog, be sure to check out some of her other great cookie and non-cookie creations!

Roll Reversal

Just for the weekend, Mr. Cherry traded in his working father hat for a stay-at-home dad hat. I headed out the door a little before 7 on Saturday morning to run my booth at a two day craft fair I had entered. And although that is when my day started, there was plenty of preparation that had gone into the fair before that. I had been busy the last week and a half working on some new items to sell at my booth in addition to the ones I have stashed away from previous sales. After packing up all of my wares, Mr. Cherry and the girls helped me set my booth space the previous night. All that I had to do to get ready for the shoppers was put out my items and make my booth space look nice.

I had bought a peg board set up from a friend who also does sales. And let me tell you, it is so nice to have hanging space for displaying my wares. In addition to the peg board walls, I brought along a table, an old step ladder, and a cubed shelving system.

The first day went well with a steady amount of costumers. It is always interesting to see what items end up selling. I had worked hard at making art portfolios the week leading up to the show and I didn't end up selling one. I had some eye spy bags that I had made a long time ago and I ended up almost selling out of them. You just never know.

At five I covered up the items in my booth and headed for home. Mr. Cherry and the girls had a good day and were happy to see me. I joked with Mr. Cherry that I now knew what it felt like to work a 10 hour day like he normally does. I was tired and had a nasty headache.

After attending church the next morning, it as off for day number two. I rearranged my booth a bit before the 11 o'clock opening and then waited for my first sale. Sunday was a lot slower of a day than Saturday had been. I had a feeling that it would be when I stepped out of church and realized it was going to be a nice fall day. Who would want to spend the day in a large arena shopping? I did end up making a few sales, though, and then it was time to pack it up for the weekend.

I got everything stored away in my tubs and out to the car with the exception of the peg board walls. Mr. Cherry brought the girls down and helped me load up the walls and we were home by 5 o'clock.
It was a fun weekend for me and I know that Mr. Cherry enjoyed his time with the girls. He told me his plans were to just take care of the girls and not worry about accomplishing anything else. And he did a good job of it. Even though we both had an enjoyable weekend, I don't think we will be switching rolls permanently.

Candy Corn Halloween Costume

Last Halloween I was so excited to be able to dress the girls in coordinating costumes! I turned to the internet for inspiration.
It was one of my first pins on Pinterest, the candy corn pillowcase dress sold on Etsy by Daintee Designs. And last Halloween I set out to make one for Peachy. I followed my usual pillowcase dress tutorial but before cutting it out, I pieced together strips of yellow, orange, and white fabric. I threaded through yellow ribbon on one side and orange on the other. Since it isn't always balmy in the end of October where we live, I put a white turtleneck underneath along with some white tights.

My mom suggested making Cream's by attaching a layered skirt to a onesie. Perfect. For hers I simply made a gathered skirt out of the orange and yellow fabric and attached it to a white long sleeve onesie. I layered it with some footed leggings we already had to add some warmth.

To make Peachy's barrettes, I started with a base of white felt cut out in the shape of candy corn and layered it with the yellow on the bottom and a stripe of orange on top. I covered an alligator clip with some yellow and white striped ribbon and glued it all together.

You can see the coordinating candy corn shirt I made for Peachy here.
These were the perfect Halloween costumes for a mother of a newborn. They came together super quickly and were easy to take on and off of the girls. They also were easily washed. Super important when dealing with a two year old and a two month old.
And can we just stop for a minute and look at how young the girls look in these pictures? Seriously! I can't believe how much they have both grown up in the last year. And I also can't believe that this was already a year ago! Crazy town.
**These pictures were taken by my talented photographer friend, Nina. If you are local and would like her information, please let me know.**

The Story of the Lost Ring

Here is the story I promised yesterday about losing and finding my engagement ring. We had gone to a bigger park in the area to have our family pictures taken. After walking all around the park for about an hour we got in the van to go home. Before we drove away I realized I was only wearing my wedding band, my engagement ring wasn't there. It had been a chilly evening and the ring must have slid off my finger sometime during the pictures. We did a quick search of the van and the parking area, no ring. Mr. Cherry ran back through the park checking the areas we had been, no ring. We decided to head home for the night without the ring.

We really didn't know where to start. Do we file a claim with the police department? Does our home owner's insurance cover this sort of thing. Should I post a listing on Craigslist Lost and Found Board?
After mulling it over throughout the evening and night, we decided we would head back to the park the next day. We rented a metal detector and bought a leaf rake. Cream fell asleep on the way there, so Mr. Cherry and Peachy set out first. While they started looking, I contacted our photographer to see if she had the time to look through the pictures and see if she could see my ring in any of them. I figured we might be able to narrow down where I lost it a little bit.

Mr. Cherry started at the most obvious place to look. The most obvious and also the hardest. On the leaf covered hillside where we had made a huge pile of leaves and thrown them at each other. When I arrived with Cream he and Peachy were raking the area that they remembered us sitting in. I tried my luck at the metal detector, but quickly found out why Mr. Cherry had opted for the rake. The detector would go off at every little scrap of metal.

After about an hour of raking, Mr. Cherry said, "I found it!" And he had!!! There laying on the ground among the leaves was my ring. We were so happy!! We put that baby back on my hand and celebrated by playing in all of the leaves we had raked!!

I was missing it for less than 24 hours, but the thought of never having it again made me feel sick. I knew we could get a new ring, but that wasn't what I wanted. I wanted my old ring back. The ring that Mr. Cherry had presented to me on the night he asked me to be his wife. The ring that I wore the year we spent engaged and preparing to get married. The ring that I wore throughout our first years of marriage. The ring I wore to the hospital when each of our children were born. The ring I plan to wear the rest of my life.
I know that the ring is simply a symbol, but it is a symbol that means so much to me. I truly feel blessed that the Lord allowed us to find it again. It was the answer to my prayers.

These pictures were taken during our celebration!

Catch Up Time

Okay, so time is moving way too quickly right now. I just can't believe that we are already half way through October! True story, I saw calendars for sale a Jo-Ann Fabrics the other day and thought, "Wow, those have got to be greatly discounted." Here I was thinking that they were from the beginning of this year. It didn't occur to me until a while later that they are actually for 2013 and we are nearing the Holidays and New Year. Yikes!
Since it has been so long since my last post, here are a few glimpses into our life over the past couple of weeks.
1. We already got our first snow. It was gone by the afternoon, but it was covering the ground. Yikes!

2. Someone from church gave us this cow costume. Peachy loves it. She had already decided on being a pumpkin for Halloween, but thinks that she will wear this for Christmas. Bwa ha ha!

3. Last weekend we went to visit Mr. Cherry's parents. The girls loved the time with grandpa and grandma. Mr. Cherry and I even got to have a date night. We also went to a huge craft store, Trader Joe's, Home Goods, and IKEA! We now have storage for our lower level and for shoes in the entryway. Now to just get them assembled.

4. Since it has cooled down here, I have been enjoying using my fall and winter recipes. We have had pumpkin brownies, caramel corn, and chili in the crockpot. Now if only time would slow down a bit and allow me to cook all of the other recipes that I would like to.

5. I decided to enter one of the bigger fall craft shows in the area. So I have been trying to get some projects done for that as well. It hasn't been easy finding crafting time lately, but I have the rest of this week to get it all done.
6. This weekend we met with my photographer friend to do some family pictures at the park. It was the same park that the girls and I were at for these pictures. However, the view had changed a bit due to the colder weather and snow. The leaves were brown instead of yellow and on the ground rather than on the trees. But I still think it was a great session. Unfortunately, I lost my engagement ring while we were at the park. Thankfully we were able to find it the next day. Phew! I will post the rest of the story tomorrow.

And We're Off Again . . .

Cream has been perfecting her walking moves over the last month. Shortly after her 1st birthday she started piecing together a few steps at a time. She has been gradually adding on, literally, one step at a time. While she still crawls, she is walking more and more. She can get completely across a room at this point. It is still a zombie-like walk, but she gets the job done. Here is a short video I shot the other day. I clipped the end where she does a nice face plant because her momma is too busy holding the camera to catch her. (Didn't want anyone to report me. :o)

She has even improved from this point in the last few says. It is so fun to see her getting better and better. She is pretty happy with herself these days and lets her face show it.
I had fun looking back at the blog the other night at Peachy at this age. Here is the post I made when Peachy started walking.

Fall Fun

I have family pictures scheduled for the end of next week, but the nice weather today and the predicted change in the weather had me out capturing a few shots of  the girls on my own today. I am not ready to quit my day job, but we had fun and the results aren't bad. I used PicMonkey to edit in the end. It was the middle of the day, so they turned out really bright, even in the shade. I love PicMonkey. It is easy to use and best of all, free! I even have Photoshop, but have never really gotten around to figuring it out. Lets call PicMonkey photo editing for dummies.
Anyway, back to the photos.