Some Very Exciting News....

Happy Wednesday everyone!

I am so happy to see the middle of the week! It has been one of those weeks where everyday you wish you were in bed! It's been busy, my house is under construction again so, I just feel a little fried!

O.k....So onto some really exciting news...Remember this girl.....

My niece Faith!

Well......

She is going to be a big sister!!

I am excited to announce that my brother Jared, and sister-in-law Holly are expecting their second baby!

Not only that but Holly's due date is on Faith's 2nd birthday, March 12th!

I am super excited to have another little niece or nephew!

So, since my brain has been fried if you don't mind I will not be doing a lengthy written post and instead smother you with pictures of my sweet niece Faith! Enjoy!




Have a great Wednesday, COME ON FRIDAY!

xo

Dare #49

Another weekend gone by way too fast! It was a great one though! Before I get to that here is your dare this week:

Dare #49:

In Lou of an upcoming Euchre tournament at friends, Sharon and Wayne's; some point this week get together with another couple or a group of friends and play a game of cards. It can be any game, Euchre, Poker, Go Fish, whatever. Just sit down, have a few drinks, laughs and friendly competition.

Friday evening I spend the night at Jill's for a book club meeting! We were discussing The Time Travelers Wife. We had yummy snacks, a great discussion and fun time catching up! Perfect way to spend a Friday evening!

Saturday morning I was off to Norway Bay with my mom and Jilly. We were going to a jewelry party hosted at a friend, Lisa at her house. I found some cute pieces for some upcoming birthday/Christmas gifts.

After the party we stopped by to see baby Charlotte. Ryan and I had a gift for the new mommy and daddy so it was a great excuse to stop in for another peek of the adorable baby girl!

Saturday afternoon Ryan worked on the living room destruction (ahhh more renovations!!) and I put out all of my fall/Halloween decorations, fun! We then got gussied up (yes, I was born in the 30's, ha ha) and headed to a wedding reception for friends, Courtney and Alex. We had a great time visiting there and having a couple of drinks.

Sunday Ryan had to work so I spent my morning baking things for his lunch. I made a few dozen chocolate chip cookies and banana bread. After Ry got home we get ready to head to the city to celebrate Ryan's birthday. Yes, his birthday is in March but his gift was tickets to see this guy.....

The Rodney Carrington concert was suppose to be in April but got postponed till September. We had a DELICIOUS supper at The Keg Steakhouse and then proceeded to laugh until our cheeks hurt during the concert! So fun!

How was your weekend? What did you do?

Hope everyone has a wonderful Monday!

xo

Babies, Babies Everywhere & TGIF

Weh! What a title eh? ha ha! Well it get's the point across so stick with me here.

It has officially been a CRAZY busy week! I feel like I haven't had a second to sit down! It makes the time go by really fast but I'm not really good at keeping stress at bay. So, when it gets busy, I feel stressed! I am the polar opposite of my brother! He is calm, cool and collected at all times! I have no idea how he does it!

Happy Friday everyone! I am so happy to see it come! A very exciting thing happened this week....a new baby!

Ryan and Graham have been childhood friends for a long time. In fact, a year ago this Sunday Ryan stood beside Graham while he married Sara. I met Sara through a mutal friend (Hi Jill!) years ago and we have been friends since. We were bursting with joy to hear the news that they had a healthy, adorable baby girl on Tuesday evening! Here she is:

Isn't she ADORABLE?

Excited to hold her.

Uncle Matt and Grandpa

Congrats Sara and Graham, you are both going to be amazing parents! Both Ryan and I look forward to being in Charlotte's life as she grows up. Lots of love!!

As for my dare this week here are my answers:

Favorite thing(s) about fall:

- Beautiful colors

- Thanksgiving

- Decorating

My least favorite thing(s) about fall:

- Super busy time at work

- Muddy ground

- Cold winds

I hope everyone has a wonderful fall weekend! Don't forget to take a second this weekend and just admire the trees that are full of beautiful colors while they last!

xo

Waste Not- Want Not

There is nothing that bothers me more then wasting food! I meal plan, grocery list, etc.. so that I don't have an excess of food that I have to throw away! It drives me WILD if something goes bad and we have to toss it. I know, get over it right? Well it's so hard, it feels like I'm throwing away items, a pair of shoes, T.V fund money, new movie. Because isn't that exactly what I'm doing? Throwing away money that could have gone somewhere else!

Well you wouldn't believe the ANGER I faced when a couple of weeks ago I bought a basket of fresh peaches and two days later they were already going bad!! BAH! What a waste of money or so I thought.

Fueled with anger that night I went to peeling, chopping and bagging all of these peaches. I then threw them in the freezer not too sure how it would turn out.

My HACK job at the peaches. Wasn't trying really hard (as you can see) since I was convinced it wasn't going to work.

Well it turned out great! I threw a handful in my oatmeal the other morning and once the peaches unthawed it was delicious!! Who knew?

Well, probably alot of people, but not me so I am very happy now that I can just freeze some "going bad" fruit for future use!

On an even happier note (is that possible when finding a way to save some money?) all week I have been looking at these BEAUTIFUL flowers on my kitchen table.

Not only are they my favorite flowers (hint hint Ryan, they are called Gerber Daisies) but they are also from one of my ALL TIME favorite people, Bekk! (Hi Bekk!)

Last week Rebekka and her hunny, Josh came over for supper and a visit. They live accorss the river and with busy schedules it is so hard to see each other.

Bekk and I met in the summer before University and quickly became friends. We spent the first year inseparable and decided the following year we were going to get a place together. We had an amazing time being crazy collage students and still laugh at all our great memories. Even ones that are a little unclear, stupid Strawberry wine.

I always get nervous before we see each other thinking "what if we have nothing to talk about". Every time I am completely wrong because we never seem to run out of things to say! I guess that just shows a true friendship.

LUMU Bekk!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week!

xo

Dare #48

Happy, happy Monday! It's amazing how much better my spirit is after a weekend of relaxation and recuperating! Literally, I feel like I did nothing, and as unproductive that is, I'm kind of thankful this morning. Not to mention I feel SOOO much better, no more stupid cold!

Here is your dare this week:

Dare #48:

Being that the official beginning of fall is this week, tell me;

1. What is your favorite thing about fall?

2. What is your least favorite thing about fall?

Friday night was quiet. Have you ever heard of Zip.ca? Well it's a place where you pay a certain amount every month for DVD rentals. Well we had three new movie's on hand that we wanted to watch. Friday seemed like the perfect time.

When I was a kid EVERY Friday was "Movie Night in Beechgrove" at my house. We would have spaghetti for supper and then go to Quyon with Dad to pick out a movie and a treat (chips usually). Then we (brother and I) would all snuggle into the basement and watch a movie. It was a great tradition with my parents. I would look forward to it every week! So, last Friday, Ryan and I had our own "Movie Night in Beechgrove".

Saturday was a day of doing nothing. A couple loads of laundry but that is it! I actually was wide awake in bed at 7:00 AM but there was no way I was moving so I picked up a book and read until 9:30...peaceful! I worked that night but the night went by fast.

I woke up late on Sunday morning and had some breakfast. Ryan got home from work early and was spending the afternoon golfing with my dad, brother and Pat (friend and co-worker). So, I found a REALLY girly movie to watch while he was away. Well not only did I watch one SUPER chick flick but two. First was Letter's to Juliet which turned out to be a really cute movie! It felt you with a sigh of happiness at the end of it.

Next, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was on next. Again, another movie perfect for a boyfriend-less Sunday afternoon!! I ate leftovers for supper so I didn't even have to cook. Like I had said; quiet, relaxing and lazy weekend....perfect!!

How was your weekend?

xo

Is it Friday yet??

I have never looked forward to a Friday so much as this one!! Being that I have felt awful this week, and yet still have to suck it up, pull up my socks and work anyways, I am especially happy to see Friday arrive. Tomorrow, will be the first Saturday in a month that I can sleep in. And by sleep in I mean past 6:00 Am. Yay!!

I'm anticipating a quiet weekend and I have to say that I am relieved to not have anything planned for once! Is it just me or does it seem like EVERY weekend seems like there is always something going on? I think this is my last free weekend until Christmas! Weh!

This was the last full week of summer! Wow! Next week is the first day of fall and guess what that means, I can start putting my fall decorations out! Woo hoo! I know I could have put them out ahead of time but being that I am weird I like to wait until the "official" start of a season.

So, I am doing pretty well on my 101 in 1001 days list! This past week Ryan and I harvested our vegetables out of our garden! I wasn't sure how our veggies would turn out since sometimes our garden would be neglected and weedy but low and behold we have food! Not that we will survive for the whole winter on our crop or anything but we were pretty proud to see that we could actually grow something! ha ha! (Turf is so much easier to grow!)

Here is our crops:

Potatoes from one hill (out of 4)

Carrots:

With our potatoes I made some chips in the oven with supper.

With some of the carrots I made some easy, pleasing carrot cake! Yum!

Here is the recipe (from Kraft):

Ingredients:

1 package of spice cake mix

2 cups of shredded carrots

(or if you are like me I use my slap chopper thingie instead)

1 can of crushed pineapple, drained

1 cup of chopped pecans

Then you can make your own cream cheese icing or if you are in a rush like I was just used bought cream cheese icing.

Heat oven to 350.

Prepare cake batter as directed on package. Stir in carrots, pineapple, and 3/4 cups of pecans. Pour into greased pan.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick is inserted and comes out clean.

Once cooked, ice, top with remaing pecans and enjoy!!

** I would have taken picture of the cooked carrot cake but it was too delicious to even stop to think to grab my camera! Yum!!

This is such a simple, easy, cheater recipe. Sure I love homemade, from scratch carrot cake just like the next person but sometimes you need you whip something up in a flash and this PERFECT for that!!

I hope everyone has a great weekend!! I can't wait to relax and finally kick this cold in the you-know-what!!!

xo

Bleh!

All week I have felt like this.....

It must be a sure sign that the weather is changing! I can't see to shake it! To make it worse I have completely lost my voice, so every time I answer the phone I get mistaken for a man...geez!!

Happy Friday Eve!

xo

Fire

When you see something like this in the distance, your heart sinks to your stomach. You rush to see what you can do to help. You feel sorrow for your hard working neighbor who put so much into his business.

Living in a small town isn't always easy. When running a business away from the city you have to work even harder to be competitive. L&J towing has been a local, successful company for years. Plus really great neighbors to us here at the farm. When we noticed yesterday that their new shop was in flames our hearts went out to them.

Quickly, we sent some of our guys to go aid in getting vehicles moved, water truck loaded, etc. All of the available bodies on the farm spent their lunch time directing, and filling the fire trucks with water from our pond.

As devastating as the fire was I was very encouraged at the sight of our volunteer fire fighters combating the flames. Other neighbors trying to console the family. It is truly the sight of a great community coming together to help those in need.

If that's not a reason to love my small town, I don't know what is!

xo

Dare # 47

Wow! That was one fast weekend! I have been running all weekend getting things done so it just flew by!

On Saturday morning, I ran to the city, got a WHOLE BUNCH of new plants for my new flower bed around the back of the house. I came home, planted them and then showered. When Ryan got home and we got supper ready because we were having his mom, dad, Aunt and cousin over. We had a great time visiting and after supper Ryan took them on a tour of the farm.

Sunday morning, I woke up bright and early and went to work with Ryan in the city. I helped him work in the morning and afterwards we had lots of errands to run. We went and picked out a new toilet for the bathroom upstairs, some rock for a new rock wall/accent wall we are building and new lights. My wallet was hurting but renovations will do that. We got groceries and spend the rest of our evening resting on the couch.

I have been running, and so busy for the last two weeks that it has finally caught up with me because now I have a cold....bleh!

How was your weekend?

Here is your dare this week:

Dare #47

Research some dogs and tell me; if you could own any dog, what kind would it be?

Hope everyone has a great Monday morning!

xo

What's Your sign?

I don't know about you but I have never been offered that (title) cheesy pick-up line. Thank goodness! I think I would just laugh in who's ever face said it. ha ha. It is however the first thing I thought of when I was about to start writing this post....I know I'm weird.

Anyhoo, it feels like EVERYONE around me is either pregnant, engaged, married or has kids! Seriously. I feel like the kid on the school play ground being picked last. I know, I know, my time will come.

This summer in particular (and year in general) has been crazy for pregnant friends. As we joke here at the office, it must be something in the water!

As you can tell from some of my past posts I have caught the craft bug. I see something in the store and think, I can make that! Or I see something that someone is about to throw away and think, I can make something out of this. It really is an illness.

Being that I have caught "craftalitis" I knew with the upcoming baby showers that I better get my butt into gear and start making some baby gifts!

I made these baby blankets for Hollie's twin girls and this diaper bag/changing pad for Sara's soon-to-be-born baby. And then I made these; Homemade signs!

First, I went to a hardware store and picked up some long boards of pine wood, untreated.

Being that I am UBER clumsy and wanted to keep all of my fingers, I then asked for help from my handsome assistant Ryan to cut the boards to be about 8x24. (Thanks again!!)

I then rounded and smoothed the edges of the boards with sandpaper.

After everything was nice and smooth, I applied 2 coats of white sealer paint (like BIN or 1-2-3).

Once that was dry I painted the signs in whatever color I had decided for what couple. I did three signs in total; 1 blue, 1 pink and 1 beige/brown.

**If you go to a local hardware store and pick out what colors you want and just ask for small sample containers they are great!! Small and available in any color you want.

After the paint was dry I had to decide on a cute saying for the board. I decided on;

"I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, As long as I'm living my baby you'll be." By Robert Muncsh for the blue and pink signs and....

"Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your hear". By Winnie the Pooh for the brown sign for my friend Sara (Hi Sara!).

Once I decided on a saying I printed out all the letters in a large font on my computer and cut all the letters out. (My fingers were soooo sore after this)

I layed out all the letters on the boards and traced around them in pencil.

Taking a small paint brush I carefully painted all the letters using my traces as a guide.

Again, asking help from my handsome assistant, we sprayed each sign with two coats of clear gloss finish. (Available at a hardware store)

Once both coats were completely dry (about 48 hours) Ryan measured the signs and screwed in hanging hooks.

Again, measuring to find the middle he also hammered in a alligator hanging clasp. We wanted to give the couples both options for hanging.

I then took some "country-ish" looking rope and attached it to the hooks.

Voila! A little gift for a growing family, made with love!!

Have a FABULOUS weekend everyone!!

xo

I know, I have been a bad blogger but for good reason! I had an amazing weekend. Too amazing because yesterday I was a pretty sick little girl. I guess it was from all that yummy fair food and lack of sleep!

I hope everyone had a great LONG weekend. Sorry about no dare this week but there was no way I was cutting out quality fair time to get on the net!

Well as I was saying; I had an amazing weekend. It wasn't overly relaxing but it was definitely eventful.

On the Friday night a bunch of us went out for supper to celebrate this lovely girls birthday!


It was a great way too start the evening chatting and chowing down on some yummy food with some great girlfriends!

After supper everyone loaded up and headed to the fair whereas I went into work at my weekend job at the local bar. I bartend every other weekend and I had the short straw and had to work the weekend of the fair! Bleh!

Saturday morning I slept in a bit after a long night at work. Ryan had to drive the big dump truck for a little while. I threw on some clothes and decided to go for a drive with him for the last load. We had a great visit in the truck and stopped for a quick pizza lunch. After we got home we headed downstairs to our new, comfy couches and fell fast asleep! The nap felt great and when I woke up I was ready for a night of work again. This time I wasn't so sad to be going to work because the weather for the fair was awful! Windy, cold and raining! Yuck!

Sunday morning I woke up pretty early and loaded up a truck with our old couches. We drove to Renfrew to drop them off to Ryan's Aunt. We then did groceries, got home, made lunch and again, went for a nap!

ha ha! I know, I know, we nap alot! ha ha But I am glad that we did for a late night at the Fair was the plan. We got ready to go in our wooly's since it was suppose to be a cold night and drove up to the Shawville Fair. Paul Brandt was performing and being the country music fan that I am I was pretty excited to hear him play!! Ryan, not so much.

I was not disappointed! It was great music and while enjoying the entertainment I also got to have my favorite treats, A Beavertail!! YUMMMMMMMY!!!

It was a great show but after it was over so was I. You see the majority of the people that Ryan and I hang out with leave after the show. The beer tent used to be the place to be at the fair. Now, I can't be bothered. I know I sound like an old "fuddy duddy" but I'm just not into parting at the fair anymore. I did take a walk through the tent on Sunday night and almost didn't make it through! The amount of people was scary, there was a cloud of smoke and when I stopped to give my cousin a hug, I pretty much got groped! Like I said, just not my scene anymore. But that's O.k because after two nights of working at Gavan's, I was ready for bed anyways!

Monday morning I woke up to a beautiful, warm, sunny day, perfect for the demolition derby!! We got all packed up and set out to Shawville early to get front row seats! The more we drove, the colder and cloudier it got. When we got to the fair grounds we were there for less then an hour and it started to rain!!

We decided to stay and watch our friends in the derby anyways. It was cold, wet and miserable but still a great show. All the boys (Kyle, Adam and Wiggins) did great and here are some pictures of the before and after.

Overall, it was a great fair! Even though I didn't get to go all the day's I normally do, it was still a great time. Shawville fair is the official last party of the summer and so now to me, it is officially fall!!

How was your long weekend?

I hope everyone is having a great week!

xo