Green With Envy

Somewhere in the midst of everything that is my life right now, I have found some time to take down Valentine's Day and get the St. Patrick's Day decor up. Now I did say "take down" not put away. My MO these many years has been to take whatever is coming down and begin moving it closer to the place where it will be stored for the next 12 months-be that the garage, family room closet or one of the guest room closets. That is a move I can do quickly and will get the ball rolling. If I don't do it that way, I may never take one holiday down and move on to the next because I fall in love with whatever may be up at the moment.

This set-up has worked for me-until now. For some reason, I am REALLY slow about now getting everything red back to their storage containers. The sun room is FULL of red, the first guest room looks like a war between pillows and artificial flowers and the other two are not far behind. At least the family room is a bit more organized but the large Rubbermaid containers are still out waiting to see what overflow they may need from the other rooms.

And so it goes. I am just moving so much slower these days and things that used to drive me crazy-hence, motivate me to action-no longer do and I can overlook so much more than I ever could.

I had lovely plans for this week but the we got an unexpected invitation for a wonderful dinner on Valentine's Day, an unexpected visit from daughter # 2 and four football games on Saturday. I am not complaining. I love all of these things and they certainly keep our lives interesting...I am just justifying why my St. Pat's decor hasn't been more forth-coming. lol It is hard to take pictures of green with so much red in the backgrounds.

In any case, I have the living room ready to show you. I DO love green. To me, it is such a calming color and the fact that it accompanies one of my favorite holidays can't hurt. Come on along for the start of the tour.

Here it is once again-the little flower pot leprechaun hat arrangement that the girls and I made oh so many years ago...and, that has just by chance become the NUMBER 1 hit on my blog. I think I've told you before but someone re-posted this on her site for children's crafts made from terra cotta pots and because she gave a link to my site, the number of hits it got-and still gets-is incredible. This time of year my stats go especially hay-wire!

I LOVE that old baluster so much. Daughter #1 gave it to me last year and if I can find a place to decorate with it, I will. Since it is green, it fits into most of my decor all year long.

I especially love it topped off with the vintage image daughter #2 gave me...I'm a lucky girl to have such generous daughters!

And now that I have this started, it is time to begin making plans for another Nana and Papa holiday weekend with the kids. It is coming fast-stay tuned!

Wow!

What a wonderful weekend we had! It was Valentine's Weekend at Nana and Papa's and 2017 is now in the record books but will not be quickly forgotten. I must say, I don't have as many pictures as usual-somehow, things happened but by the time I realized they were, we were on to something else. I think I mentioned that our schedule was different this year and I guess it threw me off a bit!

In any case, a great time was had by all!

Because there is a lot of waiting for drying time on the candy hearts, we started on these right away. The kids are all getting really good at rolling dough and using cookie cutters so this was a no-brainer-plus, they got to test the flavors of the candies. I think we all agreed that the mint was our favorite and the cinnamon our least favorite. We also made orange, lemon and cherry this year. I usually head to WalMart for my flavorings for things like this because they have a much greater selection than any other stores around here.

After that, Hudson and Presley mixed up our cookie dough and while it was chilling, we had a bit of a snack outside. Presley decided she was going to skim the leaves off of the pool and I am never one to deny free labor...lol. I discovered why she was so anxious to do this on Sunday...pictures to come.

We went back inside for Presley to cut and decorate the cookies and just as we got them in the oven, Uncle Joel and Aunt Cyndi arrived and we were on to mug decorating.

Everyone put their own little twist on the design and they came out so pretty! I used the new Sharpie Oil pens and baked them much as I used to bake the ceramic ink paint-hope they hold up through some washings!

Aunt Cyndi brought along a Valentine pouch project so she and Presley sewed on that while Papa supervised.


Because dinner was a little later than usual, we kept it pretty simple this year. Our "nod" to the holiday was simply cutting heart shaped pepperoni for the pizza and heart shaped veggies for the salad. These kids are pretty healthy eaters so we also had several great salads from Fresh Market and a big bowl of steamed broccoli. Dessert was simple-strawberries and cream ice cream and our yummy cookies.

After dinner, we all got cozy in the family room and watched the movie RV. Several of the gang had never seen it and we all laughed like crazy. Then it was off to bed to get rested for our next busy day to come.


While I was getting breakfast ready, the rest of the crew was adding the "conversations" to our candy hearts.

Oh no...looks like these two are conspiring on their thoughts...guess I'd better edit those hearts! lol

Breakfast is ready. We had heart shaped pancakes, heart shaped bacon and fruit. Hopefully everyone filled up because the "big jobs" were yet to come.

We sat outside in the beautiful weather waiting for daughter #3 and her hubby to arrive and Presley's eagerness to skim the pool soon became evident!

She was going swimming...in February. Yes, we have had some exceptionally warm days this winter but the nights still get chilly and this pool is 18' X 36' so it takes a long time time for the sun to work its magic on the cold water. But, she was not to be deterred and...

...off she went. She didn't stay in too, too longer but it sure was a lot longer than I would have made it!

And then Jennie and Elton arrived. This is second Sunday-a new event that Jen has initiated to come over and help Nana and Papa with some of our heavier duty kind of chores-things we really shouldn't be attempting any more-but they know we will if this doesn't happen kind of thing. In any case, we are encouraged to come up with a list of chores each month and the whole gang gets busy and then Jen ends the afternoon with a wonderful, home cooked meal-every month is different and it seems like each month is better than the last! She makes all sorts of new recipes-things I would like to try but probably won't because they either take too long or they use too many pots-lol.

This month, we needed a new latch and lock on our gate into the back field-and my brother and Hudson took care of that for us. Then, since Jim and I had done such a good job clearing out back, I asked Elton to bring his chain saw to help us tackle some of the trees that were just too big to do by hand-and tackle we did! We all felt like Paul Bunyon as those trees hit the ground and the kids were huge helps in cutting up the remnants and dragging them back into the woods. I think I have mentioned that even though we don't own this property, it will probably always be undeveloped and the owner has given us permission to cut it back away from the 308' we have running along there. It just makes our job of yard maintenance so much easier.

There were some vines wrapping around these trees and literally snaking up into our huge live oaks that were as big around as my arms. We cut them to a reasonable length and tried to pull them out of the trees but they snaked so far that even with all of us swinging on them-while doing the Tarzan yell I might add-they wouldn't come down so I guess we will just have to wait for them to shrivel before we try pulling again!

And just when they thought they were done, my son-in-law backed up his truck and we loaded it with all of the remnants of our much loved swing set-and that is another story for another post-sob, sob-and many, many wood pallets from an old deck. It was a job but that end of the yard looks so nice now that it is gone!

Everyones' hard work got rewarded with a wonderful meal and then too soon, everyone was headed home to get ready for their new week. My husband is nothing if not consistent-every time we have had a weekend with lots of company like this, we no sooner make it into the house after saying good-bye and he is saying how much he misses everyone. Guess it's a good thing that St. Pat's is right around the corner as well as another second Sunday-stay tuned.

Can We Talk?

Well, can we "converse"? With candy hearts that is.

When I was trying to come up with some more things that the kids could do without a lot of help, I remembered how much they enjoyed making this candy a few years back. I am pretty sure Presley doesn't even remember doing it because she was so young, the only "conversation" she could put on her hearts was "scribble"...and she enjoyed eating the rolling pin! lol

I found this recipe many, many years ago on makemontly.blogspot. It is actually kind of fun to do albeit a little bit messy at the beginning. The only part I wish I could do differently is have the kids in on the making of the "dough" but, unfortunately, it is one of those recipes where the initial process has to be done in advance-or, it would need to be done on one of those weekends where we have nothing but time and the "waiting" in between would be fine...this isn't one of those weekends.

And so, I gathered up the ingredients and got the dough done and ready for little hands tomorrow.

Tomorrow the kids will need to sprinkle powdered sugar on a cutting board, roll out the candy dough and cut out lots and lots of hearts. Then, the hearts will need to air dry at least over night before they can be filled with lots of lovely thoughts! It's kind of fun and even if they end up way too sweet for anyone to eat, the memories are in the process!

And, of course, while I was out and about I found the St. Pat's stuff popping up. Gotta get it when you see it-after all, it is only a few weeks away...more fun to come. And, I saw those lovely diamond studded glasses and just knew Presley would fall for those-especially for her photo ops. So much fun to come and pictures to share soon. Stay tuned.

For Those of You...

...sitting on the edge of your seats from yesterday's post...was there EVER any doubt? I just wasn't thrilled with the way the canvas looked all in white. In some light, you could read what it said but in others it just looked blanked. I tried dry brushing the edges of the letters in red and I like it better but it goes without saying thart this isn't one of my favorite projects. And, that being said, I'm not sure the little kids will even be able to do this technique. It takes a VERY light hand, very little paint and LOTS of patience. I wish I could distress the letters before putting them on the canvasd but they are just those foam, stick-on things and not easy to deal with.

I'm still thinking but I might at least be on the right trail! Stay tuned.

Pictureless Post...

...almost!

The only things I have remembered to take pictures of recently are my tulips. I love this time of the year where these beautiful flowers are readily available almost everywhere you go! I am a bit of a purist when it comes to Valentine colors for tulips but since I have had tulips here ever since I decorated, I have gone through about every shade of red and pink I can find. The last ones are dark pink with the lighter edges and they are beautiful!

In any case, we have been on the go. Lots of visits with family, a birthday celebration, football games-yes, you read that right-football again and invitations for dinners. I love it when people cook for us-and we have definitely had our share of that recently-but I love it when I can cook for others as well.

Mt brother and sister-in-law came down on a cool Sunday recently. They brought a loaf of fresh bread and warm peach cobbler for dessert and I made a big old pot of homemade lentil and barley vegetable soup. It turned out to be just what we needed before my brother and I ventured out behind our fence line to cut down a bunch of trees that were beginning to once again drape over our property line.

Before you think you may have to come visit me in jail for trespass, I must tell you that we have permission from the property owners to keep these incredibly fast growing things cut back so they don't drop their ridiculously huge leaves into our pool and yard.

My husband and sister-in-law came back with chairs to sit and watch and said we were so entertaining they could sell tickets.

It was another one of those "TOWANDA" days-I love it so much. Of course we each looked like we had been in fights with a gaggle of cats by the time we were done as the Virginia creeper vines were going strong back there but not enough of a deterrent to decrease my giddiness-not so sure my brother felt exactly the same but he was a good sport.

We are finally settled in back home for a bit and are getting ready for our Valentine weekend. Once again I am laying things out on the dining room table in preparation but I will admit that I have been so busy of late that I have not got a schedule, full menu or any samples done just yet. Guess I know what I will be doing today!

So here is what I have for now...the props from last year-may or may not use them again...we shall see, a few things for Minute-to-Win-It games, the start of the kids goodie bags and the M & Ms and recipe for some chocolate shortbread cookies. The kids will be here at different times this year because of football so we will be getting a bit of a later start. Usually we do lots of baking but this year we may only have time for this one cookie-we'll see how they react to not making their traditional "pink" chocolate chip cookies!

I love the way the two samples for these mugs turned out. On one, they color inside of the stencil and on the other, they "dot" outside of the shape. And then of course, there are a lot of variations on these themes so it will be fun to see what they come up with!

I'm really not too sure about this one. I always look for decor they can make as gifts that isn't too "cutesy". In all honesty, it will have a much better chance of surviving "the cut" by moms if it fits in with the other decor of their homes. I saw this canvas on Pinterest in a number of different forms. Most of them used a LOT more letters, but these letters were not inexpensive and I really didn't want to have to buy a bag of letters for each canvas so we are "downsizing". I am not happy with the sample and already think I may distress the edges of the letters in some way to get in a bit of color. I know everybody loves white and gray these days but, after all, it IS Valentine's Day. We shall see. Stay tuned.