First Day of Preschool

We decided to start Wyatt in a Coop Preschool this year. Yesterday was his first day of school. He was super excited and so of course I had to take some pictures. It all went really well. I think it will be a great year for him. Check out our big boy:

The Ranch

Last weekend we made a trip out to Eastern Washington to visit our friends that own a ranch. We all had a really great time playing cowgirl/ cowboy. Wyatt got to ride a horse with daddy, I got to ride my own horse and we all got to help move some cows on horseback. Wyatt made some new friends and we came back with lots of fruit and a box of the best tomatoes I've ever tasted. So I've got lots of canning to do... Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

Cabinet complete!!

This post is not to show off some crafty thing that I made, but rather to showcase the wonderful talents of my awesome husband. He's been working on this for quite some time and I'm sure that I've been nagging him for quite some time to finish it. He finally brought it home complete this week and I'm tickled! Now I just need him to bolt it down (so no toddler tries to climb it only to find it toppled over on him!) and I can start filling it up. This is super exciting because 1) I love to organize and 2) I feel like it's giving me more space to put stuff, which is often a problem here. So here it is, my new cabinet:

Beets and Tomatoes

So I finally harvested all the beets from our garden and canned them. I got a fabulous new canning book boasting 400 new recipes for me to try. So I made some sweet pickled beets. Here are the beets freshly harvested from the garden: And here they are canned. Don't you love the color of beets? I also decided to try and can some of the tomatoes from our garden. I'm not sure that I'll be doing it the same way again since it was a lot of work for a mere 2 pint jars! But I bet they will taste delicious!

Weekend Away Bag

I finally, finally got back to my sewing machine. And this time I actually made something for myself. Again, it was out of my Heather Ross "Weekend Sewing" book. Have I mentioned how much I love that book?? There are so many fabulous projects in there. But back to the bag. I had bought the fabric to make this back in June... and well, never got to it until last week. I'm loving the results. It's nice to have a new make-up bag, big enough for all my stuff and so nice and clean too. It doesn't hurt that there are some cute little fishies inside!

Baby Bird

I made this cute little outfit for my cousin's baby shower. She is having a baby girl and I was informed that there was to be no pink. So I thought this would work. Isn't it cute?? Don't you just love those little birdies??

Bad me

Dear Readers: I've been a bad, bad blogger. I'm sorry that I've been so absent for so long. Perhaps it's because I really haven't done anything creative lately and I've been enjoying my summer. Or I've just been really lazy. Or maybe a combination of both. A lot has happened since I last blogged, I just never got around to blogging about it. My husband and I celebrated 3 wonderful years together, we've been on 2 camping trips, completed a 20 mile bike ride and I've canned peaches and blackberry jam. Surely that counts for something, right? Anywho... thought I'd take the time to catch you all up on my garden. Oh and if you live near-by and you want some squash, cucumbers or kale - let me know. I've got plenty. Let's start with the tomatoes. They look out of control, oh wait, they are out of control. Next year I won't plant so many so close. But they taste really yummy. The only beef I have with tomatoes is that they don't all ripen together so I can't ever can them. But on the plus side I have a little bit of tomatoes for a longer period of time and did I mention they are yummy?! For the first time in 3 years, our Asian pear tree has produced pears. I'm so excited and they are so delicious. Wyatt quickly figured out how to pluck his own pear from the tree, so most of the time we are outside he has a pear in hand. My dahlia garden has done ok. I got some "surprise" bulbs at one of the plant sales I visited and was happy to see my surprise was not more pink dahlias. I got plenty of those. The rest of my garden is doing well. I've got tons of squash and like I said before - I'm willing to share. I'm still waiting on my butternut squash to ripen as I have plans to freeze it for the winter. And last but not least, my cabbage. I'm hoping to get back into a creative mode soon. Does anyone remember that owl I posted way back?? We'll I've started a quilt with it. I told you I was going to do something. Goodbye for now. I'll be back soon. Promise.