Just like a rapper....

... I want to give a shout out to Amy, for introducing me to

www.thepioneerwoman.com !

I love this blog!

If you have not read it, then you must!

She is so whitty and just down-right funny, I can't stop reading.

She has such a way with words, I'm like a woman obsessed.

I was given the link to help me with some

photography issues(which helped, thanks again Amy;))

and to say this woman is an amazing photographer,

would pretty much be the understatment of the year!

Like I said, I can't stop reading it.

No joke.

I was up until midnight last night

enthralled with her story,

particularly the one of how she meet her husband

and how they fell in love.

They live on a cattle ranch and are,

pretty much, living out my childhood dream

(and I ended up with a highly scholastically inclined doctor...go figure.)

and I tried my darndest to convince Zach

that it was his dream too....

a no go.

Anyway, I figured that I'd share this little nugget of gold with others:)

Enjoy.

A few new additions....

So I figured out how to load some pictures to my mini laptop(non Mac) and now I can post a few shots for your viewing pleasure! I don't have the trip pictures on here, so these will have to do.

I've been working on a few projects lately, whenever I have the time.

I know that having just one child should allot me more time, but Aubrey has decided that she should start her terribe two's, so that cuts into sewing/project time. Awesome.

It's like the kid has split personalities, sweet one minute and crazed the next. Oh well, I guess I've been praying for patience recently and God is now giving me something to test it on:)

I've also held up with a few of my projects because of lack of supplies, also a fun thing. I forgot how much little stuff is needed for sewing, buttons, elastic, interfacing, bias tape, etc...

It really adds up $$ wise and I slowly have to filter these things in with the budget we have.

I've been lucky to find things at garage sales and tag sales lately, a nice heavy pair of metal sewing scissors and a big bag of notions, all for cheap~ the name of the game!

This is the bedding that I made for Aubrey.

It turned out great and she loves it so much!

Every night she askes, "Mama made it for Aubee? Ohhh! I yubb it Mama!"

So sweet:)

I know that it is not difficult, but it was a great project to get me sewing straight seams again.

A little dress for my niece's first birthday(made one for Aubrey as well). This is the first piece of clothing that I've made since highschool!

A litte curtain to cover up my unsightlies under my kitchen cart:)

My little sewing corner is slowly coming together. I need to paint the red bookcase and the desk(both garage sale finds and toally beat up) and it's all a little crammed, but I love it cuz it's all mine. Yup, that's right, the whole corner is mine. All five feet of it;)

{ also recovered and painted the chair and lampshade }


Just a little close up of the bulletin board I paited and recovered. Turned out so cute, I love it!


I still have about a gazillion projects in mind and
I just got a bunch of fabric in the mail today that I got for $2.49 a yard
(again, perfect for my budget!) so I should be busy for a while.
I'm also trying to revamp some of my clothes, old skirts and such, so I'll wear them again.
We'll see how those turn out....

Well, I'm off to play with my new fabric, I just love new fabric day!

The Lord is my shepherd....

Today I woke up to Aubrey being sick (had been since yesterday morning) and really dark and stormy skies outside. Two of my least favorite things.

I HATE thunder & lightning storms... have since I was small.

You would figure that I'd grow of it, but I think that it has gotten worse over the years.

Now it really doesn't help that we are currently on the East Coast, the place were these storms reign supreme(especially in summer).

So I woke up to one this morning and the thunder was just getting going... and so was my heart.... and I decided to do my devotions (I try to do them every morning, but I'm horrible at it) from the "Our Daily Bread" and it gave me Psalm 23 as the passage.

I could hardly believe it because that is one of my favorite ones from the Bible(also has been since I was a little girl) and as soon as I started to read it calm instantly surrounded me.

It was such an amazing feeling to have peace during a storm, hasn't happened to me before.

"He leads me beside quiet waters, He restores my soul."

Aubrey is feeling better now as well(after a four hour nap)!

"My cup overflows!"

I may not have pictures, but I'm back!

Zach has the computer with all the pictures on it, at work, and I've been using that as my excuse not to post, but I figured that I'd finally rip off the band aid and post something(even if there are no pictures, sorry).

We've been back from our England/Canada trip for a few weeks and a lot has happened in that short time.

We got back to NJ on the 7th of June(with a three year visa in hand!!!! Such an answer to prayer, thank the Lord!) and it has been a bit of a whirlwind ever since. As I said, we got back on the 7th, a monday, and on wednesday of that week, our friends Dennis and James came for Zach's graduation. On thursday, Zach's mom came and we had ourselves a full house! It all went great and there were no problems to speak of and it was a nice way to slowly wean ourselves off of family and friend from England and Canada:)

On saturday we all headed into NYC for the night. We spent the day shopping, the boys went to a Yankees game and we all had such a blast.

Sunday was the grad ceremony and it was short and sweet! One of the shortest and best grads I've been to. I can not believe that Zach is a doctor, it still is bazar to me. The ceremony made it feel more real though, I had the tissues ready and they were need on a few occasions!

By the next sunday, everyone had left and it was bitter sweet having our place to ourselves. It had been almost two months since we had time alone as a family and that part was nice. But trying to wean Aubrey off of the constant stream of people was hard. She constantly wanted entertained and I found myself missing Grammie like crazy(so was Aubrey)! Now we seem to have found our daily rhythm again.

The last few weeks we've been just laying low and Zach has started work at his research position. I got started on some sewing projects that I've been putting off for a bit. I made new douvet cover and pillowcase for Aubrey's bed and a new curtainy thingy for my kitchen island/cart thing(pictures to come). It felt so good to get back into a sewing groove again. I forgot how hard it is to sew straight! Aubrey is so excited for her new bedding, every night she askes if it's hers and if I made it and when I say yes to both, she just grins and says 'Thank you, mama!'.

This weekend we are heading up to our friends place in Connecticut for the 4th of July and we are so pumped! Donny and Lisa moved away a few months ago and we miss them a lot. It'll be great to catch up and have the kids play together. Elliot and Aubrey miss one another so much and every time we say Elliot's name in our house Aubrey goes and find the little blue chair he always sat in when he came to play and points out that it's his(with a sad look in her eyes)! Too cute. It'll be great to see them reunited!

Well, I'll try and do some catch up posts on the Canada/England trips here and there when I get a chance to steal the other computer away from Zach! I hope every one has an awesome 4th of July and to all my Canadian peeps out there, Happy Canada Day(yesterday)!!