The garden.

We have the compost in the bottom left corner.
The tomato plants are in line with the compost.
The sunflowers, onion, lettuce, rosemary, and thyme are in the back.
The square in the middle is 4 pumpkin plants and 6 cantaloupe plants.

This is my tallest of the sunflowers.

When it finally opened up I learned that it was a mutant.

There are acually three flowers all together.

This one is actually the shortest, but only because the stem of the flower grew in a weird shape...it didn't grow straight up.

My first Tomato!

My first Pumpkin!

Hopefully we will have a good harvest this year...didn't get as much in the ground as we would have liked...but if I get atleast one pumpkin and one melon I will be happy.

Moo Cow.

Chick-Fil-A had a promotion where if you dress like a cow you can get free food. So, Jamie and her four boys and Nate, Me and the kids all went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch. Ivy was dressed as a bull.

Ari wore a towel...we still aren't sure if the towel is of a cow or a zebra...but it passed as a cow.

Ivy was afraid of the big cow, so we took her picture with the cardboard cow...I told her to give me a sweet face, but she wouldn't take her eyes off the big cow.

Ari wasn't afraid...just curious.

Jamie and Addi (sorry if it isn't spelled right) with the big cow.

And just for those who don't know specific dates, Ari was born in March of 07.
I'm not pregnant in the picture on the left!!!

Caught by Skerrib. Here goes...

1. What did you do 10 years ago?

That would have been July 3, 1998...hmmm...Well I was probably playing ping pong in the basement, or swimming in the pool at my Aunt Valenta's house. Every 4th of July we would take a week of vacation to KY and have a family reunion...2 Grandparents, 12 Aunts and Uncles, 15 cousins...and random significant others and friends. Oh the good old days.

There is also a small possibility that I was in Wisconsin with my father.

2. Five items on your to-do list today:

1--Clean Kitchen (done)
2--Feed the children (done)
3--Work
4--Organize some of my stuff.
5--Get as much sleep as possible before the next day.

3. Snacks I enjoy:

Frozen grapes is a sumer time favorite.

4. What would you do if you were a billionaire?

--Buy a bigger car to fit the kids in that has power locks, AC, Heat, Power windows, and cruise control.
--Pay off all debt...and even pay my mom back for the Italy trip.
--Build an amazing craft room and invite my mom and sister over to play.
--Take my mother to dinner instead of her taking my family.
--Buy a laptop and a wireless router.
--Take my family...and whoever else wants to come...to Disney World.

Amy, Nathanael, Katie, and Heather your up!

I did these today.

I played a little today. Here are two of my creations. Hope you like them.

Update

Amy and Mom came an visited my family for a whole week...and here's what went on that week.

Aunt Mimi brought Barbie a house.
Aunt Mimi had a birthday.

Ari got a hair cut.

Nate got a belated birthday card.

I had a birthday.

We visited the aquarium.

I burnt my finger.

A sink ran into Ivy's head.

Mom, Amy and I went garage sailing.

We all had a great time. I will probably post more pics soon, but my head is killing me and it's time for bed. Hope you enjoyed the short version of the trip! :)

Recently finished...

These are my latest digital layouts.
Enjoy!

This first one I did around Mother's Day.

This was Ivy's First Easter!

Ivy just loves the garden!

What do you think?

I got this in an e-mail...not sure if it is true or not...I guess find out for yourself.

My truck's gas gauge was on 1/4 of a tank. I use the mid-grade, which was
priced at $3.71 per gallon. When my tank is at this point, it takes
somewhere around 14 gallons to fill it up. When the pump showed 14
gallons had been pumped I began to slow it down, then to my surprise it
went to 15, then 16. I even looked under my truck to see if it was being
spilled. It was not. Then it showed 17 gallons had been pumped. It
stopped at almost 18 gallons. This was very strange to me, since my truck
has only an 18 gallon tank. I went on my way a little confused, then on
the evening news I heard a report that 1 out of 4 gas stations had
calibrated their pumps to show more gas had been pumped than a person
actually got.

Here is how to check a pump to see if you are getting the right amount:
Whichever grade you are using, put EXACTLY 10 GALLONS in your tank, then
look at the dollar amount, if the dollar amount is not EXACTLY 10 times
the price of the fuel you have chosen, then the pumps are rigged. In my
case as I said the mid-grade was $3.71 9/10 per gallon, my dollar amount
for 10 gallons should have been $37.19. If I had only checked the pump.
It doesn't matter where you pump gas, please check the 10 gallon price. If
you do find a station that is cheating, contact your states proper
authorities.

Have you ever seen an Elephant fetch?

Weekend News

Yesterday after Nathanael dropped me off at work around 4pm, he and the children went to Chattanooga to go to a bible study that we normally all go to on Friday nights. When he returned home around 9:45pm, he was kidless.

I work today till 1pm and soon after I get home, we are going camping. This is our way of celebrating our Anniversary. A friend of ours is watching Ivy and Ari as of yesterday night until Monday late afternoon. I'm very excited about going camping...but it was weird to wake up this morning to a quite house. I didn't really get to give a good squeeze to the kids either before I went to work last night because they were both strapped in their seats. I'm sure they will be fine...just not so sure about myself. This is my first time away from Ari, and the longest time away from Ivy.

Maybe I'll be able to come up with some way of seeing them today...I'm sure we forgot to leave something of importance with them :)

Good Morning Grandma Rose

Grand Finale!

My last class was yesterday. We only had to bake one cake for course 2, but we put everything on it that we did throughout the course. However almost everything that you see was done yesterday because I didn't like the flowers I had made during the classes.

So here it is. The cake was supposed to be white, but I wanted a brown basket. If I were to do this again, I would probably make the top of the cake a different color than the basket...maybe white. However I do like how the basket weave turned out!I think this is my favorite part of the cake. I was trying to make a little vine down the side.
The bird is supposed to have a black dot for an eye and an orange beak...but I left those out. I was so happy with the way the bird turned out that I didn't want to screw it up by adding stuff. I had made two birds, but the other one the beak broke off when I was taking it off the wax paper.

This is the mound of flowers on the top left of the cake.
There is a MOUND of icing under those flowers...lol.
I didn't realize that was how it was going to all be attached.
Major sugar rush for whoever eats this piece.

Surprise!

Look what I can do!!

Simplicity

I bought a pattern today...we'll see if it holds up to the name!

It's home!

So if you read back a few posts, you will read about my latest 10$ purchase.

This 1st photo is actually a sewing machine that was given to me by my mothers boyfriend. He had bought it for his daughter and she didn't really (need, use, want) it. I'm so glad that he passed it on to me...just had a friend show me how to make it work correctly.

However, the sewing table you are looking at is part of my latest purchase and has a different sewing machine inside...you will see it in the next few picture.

This is her in her full beauty...nice!
So for those of you who are confused....this machine is acutally mounted to the table and when it is time to "clean up" the machine just drops down into the table and the top of the table (that is off to the left (with the sewing basket) ) folds up and looks like the first picture...confused more?

Here is an up close and person shot.
She came with an instruction booklet and many foot attachments.

This picture here shows that she is a knee press machine.

I haven't gotten to do any research on her yet, but a Heather looked up some info and things that she was created around 1928-1932. Hope to find out more info in the near future.

So we did it!

The family went to Wally World today and got some helmets. What do you think Aunt Mimi? The kids helmets came with elbow pads and knee pads.

I really like my helmet...
Very comfortable and on the back of it it the gray fades to red with a cute flower design.

The girlie girls.

The macho men.

Ari didn't like wearing his helmet...as you can see in the picture above. He kept trying to take it off which was basically choking him everytime that he pulled on it. Since we wouldn't be able to stop every 2 seconds to fix his helmet...we decided to take it off and just put it in the trunk of the cart...well, once we did that, Ivy didn't want to wear hers either. We are going to have to figure somthing out cause it would be better for them to have the helmets when we are riding around on the streets. It doesn't bother me so much when we are on the bike path, but with cars around, even though a helmet isn't going to do much if we get hit by a car, it would make me fell a little more comfortable for them to have a helmet.
Not to long after we got started Ari took a little snooze.
We bike rode to the library. Out side of the library was a tree with beautiful pink flowers. I took this opportunity to do a photo shoot with Ivy.


We had a great time today. I think we left around 2pm and finally returned home around 8:45. We will sleep well tonight!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Don't worry you didn't miss anything! It's not really our birthday...just our birthday present.

Here is a little background. Last fall (i think...maybe it was spring) Nathanael and I were in Ohio visiting for the weekend. My Dad and Vicky were garage sale shopping and bought our family a bicycle trailer for the kids to ride in. When we got home we found that our bicycle was stolen while we were gone. So we put the trailer in the shed and it's been there ever since...until today.

Since Nathanael's and my birthday are so close (17 days) I thought I would surprise him with a bicycle, and while I was at it get myself one too...Of course I was going for cheap but in decent shape. A few days ago I decided that since the weather was SOOO nice right now that I would tell Nate about it and we could go looking together...that way he would get something that he wanted.

Today was the day. We started out walking to the gas station that is just down the street. We picked up a Tennessee Trader and while we were walking back to the house I skimmed it for bicycles for sale...Not much to choose from. We decided to go to the local bicycle shop and see what kind of prices they had there. We piled the kids in the car and headed out. When we got there we started walking down a row of bicycles (the kind that you see really "fit" people ridding in marathons or what not) and happened to notice the price on one of them was $3,000 +!!! My heart skipped a beat and I began to wonder if we should just leave or look on the other side of the store. We walked over to the "mountain bike" looking ones and noticed that the prices were coming down but they were still between $600-$1,000 . This wasn't in our price range...or anywhere close. I had decided that we wouldn't spend anymore than $200 total for both bicycles. We were just about to leave, but then I decided to go ask the man at the desk. I started off saying "This might sound ridiculous" and then proceeded to ask if they had something for closer to $100...He didn't laugh at me! He said that they did have some used bicycles down in the basement and he asked an associate if he would go look. I don't think that we were top on the list of customers to help because the man started helping a woman that had just walked in the door after he was asked to go look for us. The man who was originally helping us came back and asked if he had found anything...

Here's where the story gets interesting. So the original man started to help us and told us that he had a bicycle Nathanael's size that was originally $600, but that he was asking $200 for it, but would drop it to $175. Since we were looking for 2 bicycles and didn't want to spend more than $200 total...we declined. The man told us to hold on and then brought out a bicycle that I identified to be a woman's bicycle. He began to tell us how it was originally $200 new, but that he had received two identical bicycles from a man in Knoxville who told him to find it a good home...He talked about how it needed some service done to it but that it was a very nice bicycle for what we were looking at...and that it was basically free. So I said, "So how much are you asking for it?" and he proceeded to tell me that it was FREE....I couldn't believe ( I started getting choked up) and thought to myself "my mother taught me nothing is free" so I asked the man how much the servicing was going to cost and he told me that he had already done it that that he wasn't going to charge for that either. WOW! Praise God!... I looked at Nate and said..."Do you want to see that one for $175?" So we looked at it and while we were talking to the man about it the man said..."I'll give it to you for $150" that was without us even asking! So there you have it, we have 2 bicycles for under $200 and the kid trailer works perfectly!

Enjoy the pics...we didn't take a picture of Nate's bicycle...but I'll try to get some of those soon.

That's my free bicycle and Ivy is sitting in the trailer.
We thought we would use her to test it out before putting Ari in.

The little cart is so nice. It has a little space in the back behind the kids seat like a trunk.
So if we go to the library or where ever we can cart stuff around. There is a screen (as you can kind of see) that goes over the front so the kids can get a breeze...but no bugs.
There is also a plastic cover that goes over the screen in case it is raining.

Nathanael wanted to take it out for a spin.

For those of you who look for details...yes I know that Ivy isn't completely buckled in...but we fixed that before we started riding. It is nice because 2 kids can fit and as you can see there are straps that go over their shoulders and one that goes across their bellies. Or if just one child is riding he/she would sit in the middle and use the two middle straps over their shoulder and then of course the one across their belly.

I know it was a long post, but defiantly something worth sharing. What a blessing!

So much to do, so little time.

Ok...so I'm in another cake class!! We only have to bake one cake this time and it is for the last class. We will spend about 70 min decorating it with all the techniques that we have learned this course...I'll post pics!

Took on the task of making bridal shower invites for Hadassah. I planned on having them done by now, but I ran out of printer paper, and didn't make enough invites the first time around...bummer. My plan is to have them finished and shipped by this afternoon.

Heather helped me operate my sewing machine! But I don't feel I have anytime to play with it now. I'm sure I will find time, but it's just been sitting on the record player since Friday night. Heather took me to the thrift store on Friday to show me a sewing table that they had there for sale. She thought it was going to be 20$ but when we got there we found it to be sitting and waiting for us for only 10$!!! It also had a sewing machine inside. We weren't sure if it actually worked...but I didn't care. It is a cast iron Kenmore which has a knee press to operate it, and after some research, Heather believes that it was made somewhere around 1928-1932. Pretty cool. We plugged it in and it actually works...might need a little tweaking, oil, and lots of cleaning, but I'm excited! It's not home yet...wouldn't have survived the car ride home with us, so Heather is going to bring it to our house for me sometime. I'll post pics when I get the chance.

Well I'm off now. Gots to go get crafting!

My new toy.

So I now have Storybook Creator Plus from Creative Memories.
Here is my first attempt at digital scrapbooking.

New addition to the Moss family.

This was the baby announcement that I put together for Melissa and Brendan.

Front of Card

Inside Top
(precious pic of Libiya Audrey)

Inside bottom

The pictures aren't the greatest but I think you get the idea.