A welcome to Autumn

A happy Sunday morning,

hearing the brisk wind

whistling around the corners of our cozy home.

Hot coffee (for Mike) and hot tea (for me)

with warm bagels for breakfast

as we dashed out the door to church.

Olivia in a black velor jumper with red roses on it

and her new red tights.

(She's had this dress picked out for 2 months now.)

Me, in my fabulous cords

without feeling like I was going to die from heat stroke.

And Mike fine in a short sleeve hawaiian shirt (go figure.)

A trip to the fruit stand so I could take pictures,

Just the right sort of day.

And here are the results.

Afterwards, home.

Delicious piping hot taco soup.

Then, cleaning.

Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.

Everything ready for baby.

A few tears along the way, but we're ok.

Clean bathrooms.

Clean bedrooms.

Clean FROG.

Cleaned off desk and cleaned out filing cabinet.

Even clean fans!

Bed for baby,

tucked in beside Mommy and Daddy's bed.

Diapers washed and stacked on the dresser.

Clothes all ready,

blankets and toy (picked out by big sister) at the ready.

God is so good.

We are so blessed.

Fell into bed at 10:30

Nice

Mike has been so sweet this week to help me out

around the house.

Today he vacuumed the entire downstairs,

the stairway, and the ceiling fan

and swept and mopped the kitchen floor and entry way.

After he was finished and putting away the vacuum,

I walked up to give him a hug and tell him

"Thank you."

I guess I got a little too close a little too fast

because when he raised his arm to put it around me,

he whacked me on the belly.

Felling bad about it, he offered me this apology,

"Sweetheart, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hit the baby!

It just sticks out there so far!"

Gee, thanks honey.

lol

Four little friends

We stopped at our local produce stand the other evening, ostentensibly to just pick up a jar of local honey. But, we got side tracked by the tables full of lovely pumpkins and beautiful (if unusual) gourds. (I left my camera at home, but we are going back this weekend so I will take a few pictures of our favorites then.) Olivia's favorites are the baby pumpkins and the miniture gourds. They always have been. Something to do with all the ginormouse pumpkins and then the itty bitty ones that fit in your hand. Just her size. So, her daddy told her to pick out a few.

She fell in love with two orange pumpkins (minis) and two identical gourds (minis again.) She held them all the way home and played "family" with them all evening. In the morning I was picking up the living room, but the pumpkins were no where to be found. I didn't think much of it, figuring that she had them tucked some place "safe" and sure enough, when I made her bed later that morning, this is what I found. :)

Four little friends, lined up on her window sill, right next to her pillow.

A new skirt for fall

Miss Olivia had a growth spurt last week that resulted in

none of her little skirts fitting any more.

So we made a quick trip to Walmart

(because our local Quilt shop has ONE bolt of corduroy and only in yellow)

and found several cute cord prints.

And Mommy set to work and 24 hours later

this is what was birthed from the machine.

She seems quite happy with it,

even though I had to bribe her with going to the park

to get modeling pictures. :)

I have a few more prints to work with

and since she seemed so happy with the results

I think I will make her another.

The directions (without my own tweaking)

can be found here.

On my mind

Blogger is having trouble with HTML this morning. So, I will try posting the credits again, later today, when blogger isn't have issues. In the mean time, you can visit my flickr photostream and view the credits here.

It may not be a crisp fall day

but we are certainly ready! All daily temperatures are still in the 80's during the day, but our minds are set on fall and all things autumn. So, we decided to make fall cupcakes to take to home group on Friday. Here are the results.

I also made a cake from the left over batter.

You can find the recipes for the cake here (I made the Golden Pumpkin Cake instead of the chocolate one. It let's the taste of the pumpkin and pecans shine through instead of being muddled with the Devil's food chocolate. Trust me, I've done it both ways and the Golden recipe always wins, hands down.)

and the frosting here. (I will not use this particular recipe of frosting again. It is way too sweet with it's 1/2 c. honey and 1/2 c. sugar and rich with it's 3 1/2 sticks of butter. Plus, it only stiffens up if you keep it refrigerated. Next time (tomorrow) I will make a plain cream cheese frosting and just add a little bit of cinnamon to it for the speckled look. ) Olivia had a blast putting all the little pumpkins on the top of the mound of frosting. And I had fun decorating the top of the cake with pecans and brown sugar. Both turned out very lovely in our opinion.

All the kids and every adult enjoyed this little taste of autumn. It got all of us humming about Thanksgiving plans. :) What have you done lately to herald in the new season?

C is for....

cupcakes!

1. cupcakes, 2. lovely.cupcakes, 3. Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes III, 4. cupcakes!, 5. 20050906-mini cup 8, 6. Cupcake Trials 1, 7. chocolate chai spice cupcake, 8. Ore Producing Cupcakes, 9. Paisley pink, 10. Clementine Cupcakes, 11. red fruits cupcake 1, 12. strawberry cupcake 2, 13. Mini Chocolate Cupcake with Chocolate Fudges.., 14. pink cupcakes, 15. Royal Iced butterfly, 16. coffee cupcake, 17. The Seas of Catan, 18. Maple Syryp Cupcakes, 19. sunflower cupcakes, 20. the pumpkin patch 1, 21. Michelle's Cupcakes, 22. floral cupcakes, 23. Cupcakes!, 24. cupcake jones, 25. royal iced paisley & rose, 26. Mini Rosettes_2, 27. Ricotta Almond Cupcakes with Blueberry Filling and Cream Cheese Frosting., 28. Mayan Chocolate Cupcakes (with recipe), 29. cupcake jones - coffee, 30. Coconut Birthday Cupcakes for Gala Darling, 31. Cookies & Cream cupcakes, 32. Spumoni Cupcakes, 33. Spring Swirl Cupcakes, 34. vintage tea set with cupcake, 35. cupcake, 36. Vanilla Cupcakes

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

clean. Clean face, clean mind, clean space, clean air, clean plate, clean house.

crafting. I try to do it all. But, I don't crochet, weave, bead, or scrapbook (yet.) Some day I will learn to use a loom, screen print, use a letterpress, make a collage, blow glass, weave a basket, metal work, and expertly decorate cakes. It's all on my to-do list.

Chinaberry. One of my favorite catalogs. I spend way to much money here.

Christmas. It's right around the corner! Have you made your list yet? I'm still working on mine. My sister's birthday is on Christmas. Talk about memories. I got to be there with my parent's when she was born and I was the first person to hold her, after my mom. Christmas will always be a very special time for my family because of my sister's birth, as well as our Savior's birth.

carousel. Who doesn't love a trip around on an old fashioned carousel?

conundrum. I just like the sound of it on my tongue.

crib. It's been on my mind lately and the days are ticking by. Hopefully this weekend we will find one, get it set up, and I can start putting all the sweet and lovely little things in it. Here is the picture of the one that I would like to have. Different bedding and such, of course, but I love the crib. The white, the beadboard, the scalloped bottom edge, and the curved top. Lovely.