May 3rd, 2012 / No Comments » / by mandyadmin
We had quite the day celebrating Mary. Harriet and I spent all day baking and we also put together this cake topper.
This is how the 6 layer cake turned out! Very pretty but seriously, way too tall.
Mary wanted Japanese for dinner! At first she wanted sushi but then she realized that she had never done the hot grill before. So, we had a fun time with Taylor the chef who tossed broccoli at all of us and made a lot of jokes. (Btw, no one caught the broccoli.) Then the waiter came out with a surprise dessert for Mary and had everyone sing Happy Birthday. It was a blast!
Happy Birthday Mary! Love, mom
Posted in: family, fun stuff
May 2nd, 2012 / 3 Comments » / by mandyadmin
It’s official. At 11:32 this morning we will be the proud parents of a nine year old.
Posted in: family, fun stuff
May 1st, 2012 / 2 Comments » / by mandyadmin
Wow, I guess I needed to take a week off! Here are some things we have been up to lately.
-Traveling to Des Moines to visit friends and family
-Celebrating Birthdays
-Sewing
-Walking in the woods and ditches searching for morels and asparagus
-Dehydrating food for the first time
-Working of course
-John has been recording and may have just finished an album with his band!
-Planning for big things and even bigger things
-I have been spinning a ton of yarn in the past couple of weeks
-I joined Harriet on a field trip
-Harriet and I joined Mary on a Girl Scout field trip
-Reading. I just finished the Hunger Games series and I am also finishing up my second Biography of the year. Next up, a book club!
-Working out. I just added kettle balls to my routine.
Today is May 1, so Happy May Day! This is a great day in our house, much excitement. We have already received our first May Day basket this morning! Tomorrow is Mary’s birthday so we will be quite busy for the next 2 days. Have a great day wherever you are! -mandy
Posted in: weekly update
April 26th, 2012 / No Comments » / by mandyadmin
Posted in: Uncategorized
April 18th, 2012 / No Comments » / by mandyadmin
Posted in: picture a day
April 18th, 2012 / 1 Comment » / by mandyadmin
Sometimes my weeks are so busy that I can’t even remember what I did! Does that ever happen to you? Besides the usual work and meetings we really didn’t even do that much last week.
-I spent a lot of time catching up on some sewing.
-John and the girls spent an entire day out in the woods on Saturday and it payed off with an abundance of morels.
-We got a babysitter for a couple of hours just for the fun of it!
Well, I hope everyone is having a good week so far! I am off to have a strawberry spinach shake and do some more spinning.
-mandy
Posted in: weekly update
April 12th, 2012 / No Comments » / by mandyadmin
Posted in: picture a day
April 11th, 2012 / 1 Comment » / by mandyadmin
My friend has had the same kale growing in his garden for a couple of years. This is the second winter that it has gone through with now problems. He also has an abundance of red lettuce! It’s incredible. I haven’t even cleaned out my garden to get ready to plant seeds yet, and he still has things growing from last year. So, with all this extra kale we have been making tons of kale chips lately. It’s super easy and super yummy, and it’s even good crunched on top of your popcorn.
Here is the kale all loaded up on the pan before it goes in the oven.
Kale chips, ready for munching.
Want to make your own kale chips? Follow these easy instructions.
You will need:
kale
olive oil
sea salt
Wash your kale and then cut or rip off the big stems and hearty vein pieces. Put the pieces in a bowl and drizzle with olive oil. (I have also used grape seed oil.) Stir it so the oil coats all the kale. Then lay it out on a cookie sheet in one layer and sprinkle with sea salt. A couple of times I have also tried using different spices, like garlic mixes and such. Try your favorite spice if you want. Now you are ready. Put the kale in the oven for about 20 minutes at 300 degrees. Sometimes it takes a little longer than 20 minutes. I just keep checking it and pull it out when it’s all good and crispy.
Enjoy and make sure you check your teeth before you leave the house! These chips sometimes will leave you with some green debris in your teeth.
Posted in: food
April 11th, 2012 / 1 Comment » / by mandyadmin
Posted in: picture a day
April 11th, 2012 / No Comments » / by mandyadmin
And the winner is…
LISA OTIS APRIL 5TH, 2012 AT 12:32 PM EDIT
what a fun pack of goodies!! Thanks so much the giveaway.
Lisa, send me your mailing address and I will get that package out to you! Thanks everyone for playing.
This past week has been fun and busy. I went to a School Board meeting on Monday. On Tuesday we had Mary’s conferences at school, followed by a PTO meeting. I spent the rest of my time, spinning yarn, mailing fun things off around the world, searching for morels and asparagus, and working in my art journal.
Thursday John’s sister and family came to visit for the weekend. They haven’t been down for awhile and it was so nice to have them here. We had a great time hanging out with the kids who just keep getting bigger and bigger! It’s fun when they are here, we hardly ever plan anything and it all just works out. The kids all have so much fun together I sometimes feel like I can go a whole day and not even see them!
On Sunday they left and we left for Des Moines. We just went for the day to visit some of my family. It was literally the only stop that we even made in town. Straight to my Aunts and then straight back out of town. Even though it was super short it was definitely worth the trip!
Here is a page I did in my journal last week. My Love List. I like doing pages like this that you can come back in 3, 6, 12 months and make a whole new list. Sometimes life seems to change that quickly that you can just keep making new love lists. Of course I also like this page because it has you thinking of the positive things in your life.
I have a lot of upcoming ideas for sewSpun so be on the lookout for some fun changes! -mandy
Posted in: art journal, weekly update
