Weekend Away.

We just returned from a little last minute weekend camping trip with our new church to Big Bear, California. Perfectly warm weather, afternoons on the lake, morning hikes, meadows, wildflowers, getting to know people, relaxing and reading…aaahhh. The boys are at just the right age to take camping. They don’t really help yet, but at least they no longer get in the way of the work of camping, and they also don’t freak out if they wake up in the tent in the middle of the night. But best of all, they are constantly reminding us how lucky we are with their excitement and joy at the smallest wonders of camping. The roasting of the marshmallows, the nature walks, feeling the lake ooze between their toes, sleeping in a sleeping bag, the changing colors of the campfire as it burns…it’s all met with wide eyes and laughter. We’re all looking forward to our weeklong trip to the Sequoias next month now.

A Favorite Fourth.

I know I’m a little behind on a fourth of July post, but we really did have a wonderful all-American day. It boggles my mind to think that so many people in this great nation not only don’t appreciate, but even fight against the things our country was founded upon and the ideals and rights which men and women have died for over so many years. Especially after viewing the John Adams miniseries (have you seen it? If you live in America, you should!) I feel like allowing the fourth of July to pass without even mentioning it and recognizing the blessings we have in America today would be unthinkable. So several days later, I share our way of celebrating…

For our fourth, our neighborhood has a cute bike parade where two kids multiplied by this many…

…equals organized chaos (but lots of fun, too.) After the neighborhood picnic with the obligatory hot dogs, snow cones, bounce house/waterslide, chili cookoff, we spent a few more hours with the neighbors on our street just enjoying the beautiful day and relaxing together.

Then it was off to the Angel game! (By far my favorite place to spend July 4th) More hot dogs (but I had chinese food…is that unpatriotic?) and some junk food while daddy explained the rules of the game to Jake…

…and the best part? The most amazing fireworks show set to music. Not to mention that the Angels won.

What could be better than to celebrate our great country’s birthday with family, friends, fireworks and baseball?

The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men. -Samuel Adams

Early Morning Walk.

When I was teaching, I used to walk this beautiful path along the reservoir behind our neighborhood every morning at 6:00 a.m. before work. The fog drifting over the water, the bunnies scrambling away, the trees hung with spiderwebs…so peaceful. It’s been years since I’ve ventured back out there again early enough to catch all this beauty, but last week when my sister was here, we got up early and walked the loop together. Oh, how I miss that peaceful morning wake up time. I think I’ll have to get to bed early every now and then just so I can enjoy God’s creation like this again. What a perfect way to start the day.

Nooks and Crannies.

Remember when my house was clean a while back? I have a few little photo odds and ends that I never shared with you. There are some spots in my house (like the ledge above the sink, shown above) that I don’t mind getting cluttered with our artistic endeavors. But mostly I like to clear away as much of the excess as I can. But there are always those few special mementos that I’ve saved and stashed here and there. Like this conch from Hawaii sitting on my bathroom sink…

…I love this organizer my mom gave me for Christmas one year (it’s from Pottery Barn Teen)…

…and if you didn’t already know, I’m a scrapbooker. Big time. And I recently converted all my pages into these cool albums according to Stacy Julian’s Library of Memories organization…

Now, this isn’t a nook or cranny, it’s the boys’ bedroom. I love the fabric flags I hung there, even if they do get knocked down quite often…

And in their closet they’ve created an airplane. Do you see the “Control Bord” and the sign letting you know that Jake is the “pilit”? The instrument posters are from Uncle Rob’s training manuals.

And if you’re a mom, you recognize the toy (and laundry) corner of the living room.

I’m thankful for a mom who lets me “borrow” indefinitely the little things I love from her house, like these dinosaur salt and pepper shakers. I don’t know why they tickle me so much, but they do.

Now I’m off to do some more sewing and shop for our dinner guests tonight. Hmmm…that reminds me, I’d better clean up the patio where we’ll be eating. Life is full of to-do lists, isn’t it?

A Non-Beach Post.

Okay, okay. So three of my recent posts have been beach related. I’m sorry. I guess this is payback to all of you folks who have real seasons and post the most gorgeous autumn photos on your blogs in October when we’re still enduring summer around here. I can’t help it. I’m especially enthusiastic about the beach at the beginning of the summer. My mom accuses me of encouraging other people to covet our beach days, but little does she know I spend much of the year coveting your snow, bright green spring, open green fields…we all find something to covet, don’t we? And for those of you who can’t do the beach often, perhaps you’ll be encouraged to know that packing for the beach and recovering from the beach is quite a project. If I were any less of a beach lover, I don’t think I’d undertake it. Most of my neighbors go only a few times a year…alas, even typing that makes my heart ache. Can you imagine, only a few times a year??! How could they? All this coming from the wife of a man who hates sand but comes to the beach every week after work for the sake of his beach loving family. Well, we all have to make our sacrifices, don’t we?

But I said this post was not beach related, didn’t I? Oh yes. It’s about sewing. Remember the quilt-along? I’m still plugging away. My fabric is beautiful and the pattern is simple. It’s just that the quilt I’m making is king sized (for our bed) and takes a long time. Time that can also be spent baking four cakes and cleaning the house for a bridal shower and straightening the art studio again and browsing the new Stampin’ Up! catalog that just arrived. And, gosh darn it, I still have those two children who seem to want a wee bit of attention and I’ve just gotten into the most interesting book. Oh, time, if there were only more of you. But rest assured, I’m working on that quilt and she will be finished. Hopefully within a month, as my purpose was to make a lightweight quilt to replace our comforter for the summer. And, as REAL summer has just shown up this weekend (mid nineties with beautiful evenings) I’d better get sewing stat! EllieMittens is doing her part by always resting on whatever part of the quilt I have going on the ironing board. It’s nice to have company up there.

Three Beach Week.

This week we’re immersed in our new church’s VBS (loving it!), our doses of penicillin (so thankful for it!), and Greg working late (can’t wait till that’s over!) so we haven’t made it to the beach at all, but last week we just couldn’t stay away. Although we’re still in our typical “June gloom” here (usually overcast all day or for most of the morning and warming in the afternoon) we couldn’t help hitting the beach three times. After all, it is officially summer now, right?

First we went for our summer Wednesday Night Beach Night and guess who joined us? Can you see our visitor not 20 yards offshore?

Who wouldn’t want to join our party with a view like this?

The next morning the boys were still sandy (yes, I let them sleep in their beds with sandy feet on beach nights…we get most of it off before heading home so it’s not too bad!) So since we were dropping Greg at work and had no plans, I took the boys to my favorite “morning” beach. The place I liked to go in college and when I first started teaching and was living in this cute little cottage near the beach…

So I took them down to the Wedge to watch the surfers…

…climb the jetty…

…and take in the typical Newport Beach sights…

But since that was only for an hour or so, we went back to Laguna on Friday for several hours and a picnic lunch. 

Cousins are such fun. So are beach days. And beach nights. And beach mornings. I’m so glad my boys are following in their mommy’s footsteps and becoming beach lovers.

Quadruple Layer Chocolate Toffee Cake.

I’m almost embarassed to post this recipe because it’s just so easy and I’m sure everyone in the world has thought of it. I actually adapted it from a recipe in an old dessert cookbook that Greg and I used to bake with every Thursday night when we were dating. But it is such a big hit with anyone who tastes it, and it’s so simple, that I thought I should pass it along to you.

1 package devil’s food cake prepared in two round cake pans.

1 container heavy whipping cream (not the tiniest container, the next one up…I know, I’m not very specific, am I! Good thing I’m not a professional recipe writer.)

3 T brown sugar

1 bag toffee chips and 1 bag miniature chocolate chips, or about 10 Skor bars, crushed.

After the cakes have cooled, slice them in half lengthwise so you’ll have four thin cake layers. (I think the thinness of the layers is what makes this cake so moist.) Beat the whipping cream and the brown sugar together until stiff peaks form. Combine the toffee chips and about half the bag of miniature chocolate chips (estimate here…or if you’re using crushed Skor bars, skip this) Layer cake, whipped cream, toffee/chocolate, cake, whipped cream, toffee chocolate…ending with the toffee/chocolate mixture on top. This cake tastes best when it has a day to sit and get moister and moister. So yummy! So yummy in fact, that I made four of them in one week. (two for the beach birthday party, one for our friends who just had a baby, one for movie night at home with relatives.) I’ve even doubled the recipe to make an eight layer cake…talk about impressive! Just cut the rounded tops of the cakes off so the whole thing doesn’t topple over! Enjoy. We certainly did. 

L.A. Touristing

I’m just too tired to write much today. Sickness, lack of sleep, messes…these are not the things that make up an interesting blog post. We all have those in our own lives and don’t need to read about it in other people’s! So I will share some photos from a recent tourist day in nearby L.A.. Enjoy.

Beach Nights Have Begun!

Our summer tradition lives on…weekly beach nights have begun! This year we kicked off with my grandmother’s 96th birthday party on the sand. Food, folks, and fun…

This boy has sure adjusted to the surf and sand that he used to hate so much.

I just love that belly button.

This boy, on the other hand, has loved the beach from day one. There’s nothing like a little sand in the ears (and hair and face and nose) to let you know you’re really at the beach.

He will con anyone he can into taking him into the water…even in the cooling after-dinner air. Uncle Rob’s always a sucker.

The birthday girl…Jake gave her a card made from a whole posterboard…”She gets a really big card because she’s really old,” he told us.

The three “boys” then (1960)…

…And now. (I wish for purposes of comparison that my dad were standing in the middle like he was in the old photo! I can totally see his same smile [in the middle on the first photo, on the left in the second photo] almost 50 years ago.)

Beautiful touches like flowers and new recipes make beach dinner seem extra special. I love my mom’s new food cover!

Summer, here we come!

Beautiful Baby (and Blanket)

Just in time for the birth of a beautiful baby girl, I finished the baby quilt I told you about last week…and accidentally made two more quilt tops! I was using a pattern from a book and figured the top would be too big so I’d just have two baby quilts on hand. Turns out that I had enough to make one baby quilt and two throw quilts…one for me and one for my sister. (I did cut up the fabric that was supposed to be the backing to expand the quilts. Had to buy more backing but that wasn’t a problem because my favorite quilt shop was having a huge sale. That’s the good news. The bad news is the sale was their closing sale…they’re going out of business…so bummed!)

I couldn’t stop myself from adding ruffles to my baby quilt. After all, I have two boys here and no ruffles to be seen. I don’t really know how to do ruffles but I improvised and it turned out quite cute, I think. But not as cute as the baby who will cuddle with it…

Praise the Lord!

Today I am running on less than four hours of sleep. My throat is killing me and my boys are cranky. My house is a mess as most homes are when sickness hits, and it’s not even Monday. But today I’m praising God for his blessings! I posted here about our last Sunday at our previous church, and although our final goodbye was only last month, we’ve been researching, calling and visiting churches in the area for four months. So maybe that doesn’t sound like long to some of you, but it feels like an eternity to our family because our church is a part of us. This morning we visited the last two churches on our search list. And wouldn’t you know it, the very last church of our four month search was the best church service we’ve visited yet!

Saviour! He can move the mountains…our God is mighty to save, He is mighty to save. Forever, author of salvation, He rose and conquered the grave…Jesus conquered the grave! Shine a light and let the whole world see. We’re singing for the glory of the risen King! Jesus, we’ll shine a light and let the whole world see. We’re singing for the glory of the risen King! Saviour! He can move the mountains…our God is mighty to save, He is mighty to save!

Not only are we looking for our own little family of four with our picky preferences (yes, I realize that’s all many things on our wish list are: preferences, not imperatives!), but we’ve also been praying for a long time now that if the time finally came to find a new church home that some of the other core families from our previous church fellowship would choose the same new church home. So that makes at least three families to please, with their accompanying preferences, church backgrounds, and children to please from age 3 to age 8. It’s a tall order. One of the best comforts as a christian is knowing that God can move mountains, but we never know when it will further His divine plan to do so, or when He will ask us to go through the valley instead. But God delivered an option to us at our very last church visit this morning. Although there have been a few churches that we would consider revisiting, nothing stood out to all of us until today. Yes, we’ve only been to one service but we LOVED it! I’m finding myself excited to go back, excited to meet people, excited to get involved, excited to serve. I’m impressed with the outreaches they have in the community and the world, and I’ve already put their upcoming family camping trip on our calendar. Okay, I’m a little over zealous, I know. But I’m just so thrilled to have found a place where, at least for one sunday, we connected to God’s Spirit through worship, we felt challenged to action through the preaching, and we even found a people and a fellowship that we could possibly call home. We’ve been missing this feeling of enthusiasm for our church body for a long time now. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. I can’t wait to go back next week.

As King David said,

 Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Then all the people said “Amen” and “Praise the LORD.”

1 Chronicles 16:36

A Time to Sew…

Remember way back when I told you the whole house was clean at the same time? Well, it’s certainly not that way today. (Am I the only one whose home takes a month to recover from a little weekend trip?) But I thought I’d share some more pictures of my bedroom/sewing room, which is one of my favorite respites from a very loud life. I especially love my new ‘library’ that you see above. For days after these shelves arrived, I spent all my free time admiring them and feeling like I was living in my own little book store. But that’s not where I’ll be spending most of my free time this week…

When we bought our house, this room was a bare white box. Why anyone needs a bedroom this big is beyond me, so we set to work creating a partition to separate our sleeping area from my new sewing area. Just a month or so ago I finally recovered my headboard to match our new blue paint and white trim. The fabrics are cut from a duvet cover from Ikea…talk about getting a deal on fabric! Now this room is complete and so soothing. I love it here. And I feel so clever when I go into the sewing “room” I created on the back side of the partition…

Isn’t this great? I know it’s small, but it’s the perfect spot to hide all of my sewing “junk” and store all the fabric that I love but don’t have specific plans for. But this week, I do have plans…big ones. Involving this:

These are the fabrics I’m using on the six week Sew-a-long I told you about. I’m planning on making a king sized quilt (yikes!) to use on our bed in the summer months. But first, I’m playing with these:

I couldn’t wait until daylight to take a better picture for you, but aren’t these fabrics lovely? I’m using them to make a little quilt for a certain baby girl who arrived this week…and to her dear stylish mommy, if you’ve escaped nursing and loving on your new little bundle of joy long enought to take a peek in here, I guess you can consider this a sneak preview. I didn’t have any fabrics chic enough for you in my stash so I just had to go fabric shopping for you today. I do hope you love the colors as much as I do.

There’s always a risk when sewing as a gift, isn’t there? Perhaps that’s why I rarely give away anything as precious as a quilt…yes, that’s a good excuse. But if this little exception turns out as cute as I think it will, I’ll be sure to show it to you completed soon. My friends certainly do benefit from the fact that there are only so many sewing projects you can make for boys! I hope the little ladies in my life enjoy satisfying my longing for girly material! I hope your week (and mine, too!) is peaceful and productive.

North Carolina Weekend.

A weekend of exploring and building in the woods behind the cousins’ house…

…visiting Duke gardens and enjoying east coast flowers…

…the gothic architecture that reminded me of Europe and the booming organ rehearsal in the Duke Chapel (dubbed by the kids ‘Duke Castle’…you can see why.)

…enjoying a delicious outdoors “Camp Breakfast” in Umstead Park with the cousins, the cousins’ cousins, and friends…

…hiking with the kids through the creekbeds: throwing rocks, getting ticks, talking like pirates on ‘pirate island’…

…visiting a local farm to watch the farmers and pick perfect strawberries…

…and though a trip like this is not necessarily relaxing, it’s perfect for spending time with cousins, sitting on the porch and listening to the sounds of a different part of the world, catching up with late night conversations, and reconnecting…

Today we will: -recover, unpack, unwind

                      -quarantine our boys and their pinkeye

                      -wait to hear about the arrival of our good friends’ new baby girl

                      -hope for our first nectarines to ripen

                      -anticipate the arrival of my new quilt fabric for the quilt-a-long

                      -be thankful for this lovely weather!

Six Week Quilt Along

Guess what? I am joining a quilting bee! Well, not quite an actual quilting bee but a virtual quilting bee. Dana at Old Red Barn Co. does some amazing quilt giveaways (yes, she gives away quilts!) and is hosting a six week quilt along. This week we gather our supplies, next week we cut, the following week we piece the squares, etc… It looks like even a beginning quilter could follow along with her tutorials if they’d like. So if you’re at all interested in quilting you might want to pop over and check it out. I’m glad to have something fun to be involved in right now. And FYI, I’m taking the boys on their first cross-country plane trip this week to visit their cousins in North Carolina this week! I’ll check back in after Memorial Day and let you know how the quilting bee is going. Happy Memorial Day!

Beach Discovery Days.

Returning…to a place the boys are learning to love and one of my favorite places in the world…

Climbing…over the tidepools and saving a few out of towners from being stranded by the incoming tide…

Remembering…the thrill of chasing the waves and cold water on your toes…

Digging…just for the fun of it…and I’m enjoying that toddler tummy and adorable belly button while I still can…

Finding…a nest of these little eggs under the sand (grunion eggs, we learned when we researched it back at home)…

Building…a village of wigwams with an ampitheater and “the great wigwam wall” around it…

Cheering…the return of the sunshine on the water.

Now we’re resting…and nursing ever so slight sunburns from our first summery-weathered beach trip of the year.