To Grandmother's House We Go

The kids and I are heading up to Kingsport for a visit to their Great-Grandmother today!

 In honor of the day,

here are some pictures of the last time Eleonora and I made Grandmother's biscuits.

Chris is the official gravy-maker.

 There are only three ingredients:

Self-rising flour, buttermilk, and lard.

Good luck with the proportions, that's all I can tell you.

We have made biscuits enough times to empty that lard bucket, if you can believe it.

The main aspect of the biscuit-making that I have yet to inherit from Grandmother is the ability to make them without creating a gigantic mess!

Craft Weekend

Our Crafty friend, Meagan, moved far away to Abu Dhabi and then to North Carolina, 

and she inspired us to have a Craft Night reunion.

Jennifer and I read the blog of a lady who hosts Craft Weekends all the time, 

so we have been hankering to try our hand at leading something of the sort for a while now.

We found this fun cabin at Norris Dam State Park that was a great deal - especially after the teacher discount!

There was Jennifer-made bunting galore and Amanda made beautiful hand-picked flower arrangements for every room.

Ashley led a devotion around Jeremiah 17:7-8, "Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.  They will be like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream.  It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.  It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit."

Amanda was matching sign on the bathroom door.

Jenn had decorations everywhere!

Jennifer led our first craft of chalk art.

We were excited!

And cracking up.

Of course we also had delicious treats.

And then we got down to the business of crafting.

Ta-daa!

Friday night we also decorated the little clipboards that you can see displayed on the mantle by Aunt Terry's head.

She joined us for our Saturday morning craft, a decorated pillow, let by yours truly.

There was much snipping and sewing and ironing.

Everyone's turned out super cute.

Here are our two expectant-mother friends.

Thanks to Meagan for inspiring such a wonderful weekend adventure!

Bunny & Baby

These two are growing!

Our Craft Night buddies are heading to a state park for a Craft Weekend tomorrow!im leading a craft or two and I'm getting excited!  These are little measuring taped. 

January Flash-back

Eleonora is my little helper. Here she is sharpening the pencils. 

She reminds me of Grandmother - always taking care of people. I've caught her finding the boys' clothes and shoes and bringing them to them before school, blowing Anna Kate's nose, trying to clean up a big after-bath time puddle on the bathroom floor with a teeny square of toilet paper. She is too much fun!

He is Risen

 I led a great Easter craft for my Sunday School class and a camp retreat.

First I cut this fun egg/cross shape out of the construction paper.

I used the Cricut to cut out the 'He is Risen' letters for each child.

Then they glued tissue paper to waxed paper for the 'stained glass' effect and glued on the letters.

Voila!

Mommy & Me

Eleonora and I had our last regular meeting of Moms4Moms last week and seeing as how we were ready a bit early and a little more dolled up than usual, we decided to do a little photo shoot.

 Eleonora is not like her brothers were at this age.

She loves the camera.

 

She is sitting on my lap as I type this saying, "CHEESE!" 

and pressing our heads together wishing for another picture.

 She is such a good time.

She had the boys playing 'Ring Around the Rosie' with her last night at bedtime.

They played over and over and were cracking up. 

 Self-timer.

Fancy. 

Ha.

 Here we are at the last time we took 'selfies' together with my big camera that I can remember.

We were headed to one of Eleonora's first Sundays of church.

We love Eleonora!

Planting Seeds

Happy Monday!

I am finally feeling fit as a fiddle this morning after being mostly puny since Thursday,

but the boys and I snuck in a little seed-planting this weekend anyways.

 Remember all the seeds I planted at Craft Night on Eleonora's birthday?

Those 80 happy seedlings perished when I accidentally left them out in the cold one freezing night.

Oops!

Major bummer.

So the boys and I planted four things this weekend - 

Two sorts of beans, cilantro and...

 see if you can decipher it...

 Pumpkins!

Our strawberries are coming along nicely.  

Probably time to get out the net so the birds don't peck them all.  

How do real live strawberry farmers do it?