My Treasure....

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matt. 6:19-21

This another one of those great reminder verses. It is so easy for us (me!) to get caught up in thinking about our lives here, getting stressed about a project we want to get done, or putting all our efforts into things that will only be on this earth and forgetting to focus on what will last, namely relationships. I want to do more storing up of heavenly treasures by focusing on my relationship with God, my family and friends and also I want to put more effort into sharing the good news with others too! That is really treasure to see others chose to follow God too!

  It is so cool to realize where true prosperity and wealth come from. It comes from storing up treasures in heaven where nothing can happen to them and they will last for eternity rather than building up wealth that is only for a short time and it can be stolen or lost.

I hope you are also working to store up treasure in heaven!

p.s. It is fun to be back to blogging! I miss it and I miss hearing from you when I take a break, the break was good however as life has been very busy around here!

Our Camping Vacation - Part 3

Jon was fishing (while standing waist deep in the lake), Charlotte was practicing swimming, Evan was headed in the water to splash, and I was reading a book. This was one of the best mornings of our trip.

Jon only caught one small fish that wiggled it's way off the hook but they had fun trying.

Evan snuggled with Grandpa after a nap one day.

Charlotte liked to spend her nap time in front of Grammy and Grandpa's TV in the A/C.

My dad (Papa) came to visit and taught the kids how to use binoculars. I'm so glad you got a chance to come camping, Dad!

Charlotte and Jon fed the geese some Cheerios.

It rained the afternoon my dad came to visit so we all hung out in Jon's parents gazebo to play cards. The rain cooled things off a bit so it was nice to relax while the kids rested in the camper.

Jon's brother, Ken, and his wife, Valarie, came to visit that day also.

Chris and Denise were also there for the weekend. It was so great to spend time with you guys. You guys need to camp for a whole week next year!!

Baby Bootee Parade

Asalam Alaikum,


In an effort to use up some of the many tiny bit of yarn leftovers, I have started making little baby bootees.

I have made four pairs so far, all from the same basic pattern.

Pattern: Bootees from The Opinionated Knitter.
Needles:US 3
Yarn:Oddments

I like this pattern very much. It is easy enough to memorize, the end result is really cute, plus a pair works up in just a couple of hours.

Our Camping Vacation - Part 2

Mister Cool

I love these Puddle Jumpers I got for the kids last year. They're approved life preservers but they let the kids have better range of motion then most other life preservers.

This is how I spent my mornings... reading by the water while the kids dug in the sand. The best way to start a day if you ask me!

This is how I spent one afternoon. If it had been cooler, I would have spent every afternoon in the hammock.

We spent a lot of time in the water. It kept us cool and it was fun!

Aunt Suzanne took this picture. I LOVE this picture! Jon does "SuperEvan and SuperCharlotte" with the kids but this time they both wanted to do it at the same time. Suzanne captured this moment and I'm so glad she did! Thanks Suzanne!!

Making a pile of rocks.....

is fun!

Charlotte found a little flower growing nearby.

This picture makes me forget about the heat and makes me want to go back to the lake right now!!

Vacation Reads

I returned my Camping Vacation books to the library the other day. In two weeks, I read these 9 books. Now, before you're too impressed, they're all very easy reads. I'm a huge Janet Evanovich fan and now I have read all of her "By the Numbers" books. I wanted to go back and read all of her reprinted earlier novels. Her earlier books are much more typical of a romance novel but they have her wit and mystery/crime angle that she takes with many of her books.
I made it a Janet Evanovich vacation and I have now read everything published by her except 3 books. I plan to remedy that by the end of the summer. For me, summer reading is all about fun. I'll save the intellectual books for another season.

There is a quote from Janet Evanovich in the back cover of most of her earlier novels that says, "Romance novels are birthday cake and life is often peanut butter and jelly. I think everyone should have lots of delicious romance novels lying around for those times when the peanut butter of life gets stuck to the roof of your mouth."

Our Camping Vacation - Part 1

Mid-July we left for a two week camping trip at Kerr Lake. My mom camped at this same lake as a child and carried on the summer tradition with us when we were kids. She even camped the summer that she was quite pregnant with me! We went almost ever summer as kids for 2 weeks. Some of my fondest memories as a child were of camping. Jon and I are now continuing this tradition with our children. We went camping for a week last year and loved it so this year we planned to stay for two weeks. Jon's parents and sister camped next to us the first week and then Mom and Mark camped next to us the second week.

The weather ended up changing our plans a bit since it was in the 90's each day with some days reaching 100*. This is really hard when you're tent camping. The sun would shine brightly on the tent making it too hot to go into the tent after 10am. We ended up spending naptime each day in the grandparents camper or RV to cool off in their A/C. By day 10 we had had enough of the heat. The kids weren't sleeping well in the heat (neither were we). We were all getting cranky. The forecast called for 101* with a heat index of 108* so we headed home a few days early. We spent our days dreaming of a time when we'd be able to afford a camper.

Even with the unusually hot weather, we had a great time. I took lots of pictures, as usual, and I'll warn you now that you'll be seeing a lot of camping pictures for the rest of the week. If you come here to read about gardening, knitting, cooking, or baking... hang in there.... in a few days, they'll be back.

The view from the tents. We had a large, flat "backyard" for the kids to play in.

Digging is a nice way to start the day.

Oops, Evan... I think you need to go out a bit farther to get your raft to float, buddy.

Charlotte had a visit from her Canada Goose buddies. They were very gentle and not aggressive.

We didn't have any bread for them this day so they just got close and looked at us.... hoping.
When we still didn't have bread, they went about preening their feathers and looking in the water for food.

Charlotte loved being able to see them up close.

Evan gave them a glance and went back to digging.

Playing Memory With Uncle Chris

My brother came to visit at the beginning of July to help Jon with a Marching Band mini-camp.



He and the kids played quite a few games of Memory. Charlotte gave him a run for his money.

Come back soon, Chris!

Visiting Grammer

..........................LOVE this blanket that is going to Community Knitters Charity Knitting in Victoria/for Victoria... Grammer puts these squares together for people that are less fortunate than we are.

Maple Bacon Scones

Any recipe that calls for a pound of bacon gets my attention...

One of my favorite blogs is the King Arthur Flour blog. When the recipe for Maple Bacon Scones appeared one morning, I knew I had to try it. They go into more detail and the how-to in their blog post about this recipe.



I tried baking the bacon and it turned out wonderfully! I just laid out 12 oz of bacon (what is the deal with some packages only having 12 oz instead of 16oz??) on parchment paper and baked it at 350* for about 30 minutes. Yum!



Since I have a really hard time following a recipe exactly, here are the changes I made to the recipe (though I'm sure they'll be great if you follow the recipe exactly)...
-I used 12 oz of bacon instead of 16oz.... next time I'll find a package that has a full pound.
- I used Whole Grain Spelt flour instead of All-Purpose (Whole Wheat Pastry flour would have worked well too)
-I used Maple Syrup instead of sugar since I didn't have maple flavoring or maple sugar. I couldn't really taste much maple flavor in the scones so next time I may buy some maple flavoring.
-I used almond milk instead of regular milk ( I have IBS and my stomach can't handle dairy anymore... except butter... thank heavens for small favors!)
-I sprinkled the top with coarse unrefined sugar since I didn't have maple sugar.



Overall, a great recipe that I can see myself using again. I may try it with ham next time to see how that tastes.

FABRICS-Quilting & Patchwork

Hi ALL! I will be away for a week - going on holiday with the family - and will therefore NOT be by my sewing machine for all that 7 days. So I'm leaving y'all with some lovely fabrics to look at :-)

Presents & bouquet of flowers in blue background . . . .

. . . . and this one in gray background.

Delightful prints of animal friends holding hands on off-white background . . . .

(L-orange & yellow, R-pink & blue)

. . . . and here are some of rabbits & bears with houses and trees around them.

(L - lite pink background, R - lite green background)

Umbrellas - pink or white?

Let me know if anyone out there is interested. They are all lite-weight, 100% cotton @ RM28/ per meter. Have a good week y'all! I know I will as we'll be away on holiday :-)

For Baby Rania

She's 3 months already!! These rompers are for 9mths - hope its good for her ;-)

A lovely Pink baby Quilt, some rompers & a lush cotton towel.

All ribboned up and good to go!