Wordless Wednesday ~Flag

Happy almost 4th of July everyone! I found this photo in one of my co-workers stuff, it was just too good to not pass on. Below is the text I found with it:

This is a beautiful photo of a giant American flag in Arizona. The photo is authentic, UN-touched and was taken on regular Kodak 35mm film. The person who took the picture couldn't believe the image created by the suns rays.

For those that prefer to think that God is not watching over us, look again!


For more Wordless Wednesday please visit: Go Graham Go, J. Leigh Designz or Jolly Mom

Take Me Back Tuesday ~Independence Day Edition

Happy almost fourth of July everyone! So, is this one a cutie or what? I loved this little American themed dress, it is still in my "keeper" pile in the closet. Most of the time this little girl is still this happy today (when there is no whining, drama or fighting with her brother!)

This is my Angel in August of 2004. Once again, can I say "Where does the time go"? While I miss this cute little 4 month old, I love the person she is becoming at 5.

Want to take a walk back in time? Just visit A Giveaway Addicted Mommy

for Take Me Back Tuesday!

Recipe Swap: Grilled S'mores-Stuffed Bananas!

I have not yet tried this recipe, but I promise I will before the summer is out. Believe it or not, hubby found this one in our local newspaper. That in its self tells me I have to do it, he never brings me recipes!


1/2 Cup mini chocolate chips
2 graham cracker squares, finely crumbled
4 unpeeled bananas, ripe but still slightly firm
1/2 cup mini marshmallows

Heat a gas grill to medium-high or prepare a charcoal fire.

In a bowl, stir together the chocolate chips and graham cracker crumbs.

Lay the bananas on their side on a flat surface. Cut a 3/4 inch slit from tip to tip along what is now the top side of the banana. Pry open each slit just enough to push in one quarter of the chocolate chip mixture into the banana. Stuff marshmallows into each slit.

Wrap each banana snugly in foil, making a seam above the filled opening.

Turn off one side of the grill. Place the bananas, seam up, over the cooler side. Cover and grill for 15 minutes, or until the banana feels very soft when squeezed with an oven mitt. Serve immediately with a spoon for scooping the mixture out of the peel!

Want some more great recipes?? Or do you have one to share? Visit the link below to join in!

Quotable Sunday ~Play and Fun

Ah Summertime! One of our family's most favorite time of year! We get to play outside, the days are long and the Carnival is here! The Greeley Independence Stampede to be specific. To the kids this means the carnival, but to us it also means a rodeo, concerts and all that weird food you never eat anywhere else! Deep fried Twinkies? I mean seriously who came up with that?

Today's quotes focus on play and fun. I hope you are enjoying your Summer as much as we are!

Life is playfulness... we need to play so that we can rediscover the magical around us. ~ Flora Colao

We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Fun inspires me. ~ Michael Jackson

It is a happy talent to know how to play ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

A three-year-old child is a being who gets almost as much fun out of a fifty-six dollar set of swings as it does out of finding a small green worm ~Bill Vaughn
(That would be this child!)

He who does not get fun and enjoyment out of every day needs to reorganize his life ~George Matthew Adams

Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one ~Dr. Seuss

You can do anything with children if only you play with them ~German Proverb

It is essential to our well-being, and to our lives, that we play and enjoy life. Every single day do something that makes your heart sing. ~Marcia Wieder

Want to post a few quotes of your own, or read some other great ones? Just visit A Daily Dose of Toni for more Quotable Sunday!

Wordless Wednesday ~Stress Relief

This pretty much sums up my week! Two of my very good friends resigned their positions at work a week ago, despite the large amount of work losing them has created, I miss them terribly!
Thanks to the lovely Dawn at Bee and Rose for this posting this picture yesterday. And yes, I really did print it out and put it on my wall at work!

Happy Wednesday.


For more Wordless Wednesday please visit: Go Graham Go, J. Leigh Designz or Jolly Mom

Take Me Back Tuesday ~Family

Yep, this is the family, circa 1981. So you thought I was only going to post baby pictures of me, nope, I have a huge photo album full of pictures! Well here I am in the Tween years, I was 12. Mom and Dad pictured here were the best ever, but gosh they look so young! My husband still calls them Ward and June Cleaver under his breath! I was blessed to have a Stay At Home Mom, working Dad and the text book ideal childhood. Blessed, yes! My brother still has this same smirk to this day. I hope at least one of his girls inherits it (Have I mentioned before he has 4 girls under the age of 8)? I will post them soon, they are so beautiful!

Want to play along with Take Me Back Tuesday? Just visit A Giveaway Addicted Mommy!

Why I Did Not Wish My Dad Happy Father's Day

Welcome to my family! This is my Father, my Mother, my son and my daughter. This picture was taken in September of 2006. I have more pictures from this day! Here is my favorite:

I simply adore the way that my Father is looking at my son! I have this picture on my desk at work because it does and always will remind me what is important in life.

Today is Father's Day. I did Quotable Sunday and yet did not mention my own father. Don't get me wrong...My husband is simply one of the best Fathers around. Yet I did not mention my own Dad.
Some things are just to painful to talk about, yet I want to share it here.

My Dad died in May of 2008 from Non-Hodgkin-Lymphoma (NHL). A very nasty form of Cancer... for him. Burketts to be specific. When you are young, you can beat NHL very successfully I am told, but my Father was not young. He was 76 and the Cancer Bastard beat him.

Death is hard to deal with, just ask my fellow blogger Fiona, who spelled it out way better than I ever could have here: I Name You, Grief. Get Off My Ass. Grief sucks!! Now you all know my deep dark secret too. Grief sucks, Death sucks, and yet despite baring my intimate feelings I have more. Do you see the super nice lady in the photo above? That is my Mother. Need I say more?? She lost her Soul Mate...Yes I believe in Soul Mates, I have one, so did my mother. I can't even begin to understand the depth of what she has lost. My grief is so pale in comparison to what she has to go through day in and day out. I just can't even fathom it.

I did not post this with the intent for sympathy, although I know I will get it. I just had to let the few that follow me know a little about me...Such as why I did not recoginze my dear, dear Dad on this day. Now you know why.

This quote came to me over and over today as I read other Quotable Sunday posts (I knew it would too)

Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes.
-- Gloria Naylor

Amen!

Recipe Swap: Real Good Cookies

This is my first time participating in this MeMe: but how can you go wrong getting awesome recipes from great bloggers? One of my favorite bloggers hosts this one so go, now! and submit your own recipe:

Our Chaotic Life:

This recipe is from my mothers files, and is still to this day one of the best recipes for Chocolate Chip Cookies around!

1 Cup (1/2 margarine 1/2 Criso)
1 Cup white sugar
1 Cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 Cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups dry oatmeal
1 6 oz. package chocolate chips

Cream together margarine, Crisco and Sugars, beat in eggs and vanilla. Sift dry ingredients together and add to creamed mixture. Then stir in oatmeal and chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoon on cookie sheet. Bake at 360 degrees about 7-10 minutes.

So you got the link above, may the cook be with you! (Yea, so not my picture, but this is what the cookies look like! Sorry, I have been blogging, not cooking).

Quotable Sunday ~Happy Fathers Day!

I wasn't sure I was going to to Father's Day. I figured that everyone was probably going to do it and maybe I should do something different. But then I thought about how it might be hubby's turn to get the shout out for being such a great Daddy! For being so patient about me blogging instead of cleaning, for working on Father's Day because he is in retail, and for being my Heart and Soul.

So Happy Father's Day Honey!

A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty. ~Author Unknown

"The heart of every child beats to the rhythm of a father's love," ~Steve Curley

Dads don't need to be tall and broad-shouldered and clever. Love makes them so. ~Pam Brown

The greatest gift I ever had came from God, and I call him Dad! ~Anonymous

When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry. ~Jewish Proverb

4 years: My Daddy can do anything!
7 years: My Dad knows a lot…a whole lot.
8 years: My father does not know quite everything.
12 years: Oh well, naturally Father does not know that either.
14 years: Oh, Father? He is hopelessly old-fashioned.
21 years: Oh, that man-he is out of date!
25 years: He knows a little bit about it, but not much.
30 years: I must find out what Dad thinks about it.
35 years: Before we decide, we will get Dad's idea first.
50 years: What would Dad have thought about that?
60 years: My Dad knew literally everything!
65 years: I wish I could talk it over with Dad once more.
~Anonymous

Now, go visit A Daily Dose of Toni for more Quotable Sunday!

Pour Some Sugar On Me ~Awesome Giveaway!

I don't honestly know if I have even looked at my own blog today! But I went to enter a giveaway at one of my way too many 151 Google Subscriptions and found this!

200 Followers Giveaway at:



Here is the direct link to the giveaway:
Pour Some Sugar On Me

So you know I don't usually post about giveaways because I just flat out don't have a lot of time to do that! But here is what is up for grabs:

*Car Scents Coronado Cherry (a fave of mine that I use in my house even though it's for the car)
*Bodycology Vanilla soap, lotion & mist sample
*King size SNICKER bar
*Vegas Playing cards
*Cobalt 5 gum peppermint
*Summer desserts recipe book
*Pillsbury Best Ever Chicken recipe book
*$15 Smiths (Kroger) Gift Card
*$25 Barnes & Noble Gift Card
*ChapStick SPF15 lip balm
*Altoids Chewing Gum peppermint
*Maybelline Great Lash very black

So yea, it's a ton of stuff from a great Mommy Blogger, so go....now...and enter her great giveaway!

Wordless Wednesday ~Through the Eyes of A Child

Courtesy of my daughter via my digital camera, we present:

Life through the Eyes of A Child

The tiger on the right is Grrr. Best friend since she was 8 months old!

Have to slip in the self portrait!


For more Wordless Wednesday please visit: Go Graham Go, J. Leigh Designz or Jolly Mom

Take Me Back Tuesday ~1970

Take Me Back to 1970! I got out the photo album I heisted, stole borrowed from Mom and asked hubby to pick a picture. He said I was a biker even back then! The bikes have changed some from the push model on the right! This is July and September 1970, I would have been about 1 1/2. Got to love the bowl hair cut on the left, and no, the duck is not real it was a lawn ornament my aunt had in her yard!

I learned something from a fellow blogger about how to make your pictures bigger and make them POP off your page! Visit Lolly at Better in Bulk to find out how!

Want to play along with Take Me Back Tuesday? Just visit A Giveaway Addicted Mommy!

I was Tagged, I was Awarded, I was honored!

I have been awarded and tagged 4 times and it is time to recognize some of them.
The first comes from one of the blogs I actually first started leaving comments on. The witty, funny and lovely Fiona from Bantering Blonde!


This award has this nice poem with it:

"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

So I don't have 8 people to pass this on to, but here are a few blogs I have really enjoyed, they are the ones that when there is a new post up in my reader, I jump to get that post read and enjoyed!

Anissa at Our Chaotic Life
Kari at A Giveaway Addicted Mommy
Dawn at Bee and Rose
Amy at Coffee with the Mrs.

Jennifer at EightyMPHMom
Nina at Juggling Mama

I do realize that as everyone has super busy lives this award may not be passed on. (It only took me 3 months). I just wanted you ladies to know how much I have truly enjoyed reading your blogs and getting to know you some!

I was also tagged today O.K. like a week and a half ago, by the lovely Anissa at Our Chaotic Life (she designed my button up there on the left! See it? Go ahead, take it).
Anyway, the tag is go to my picture folder pick the sixth folder and the sixth picture. Here is where I run into problems. I don't have folders, I have most of my pictures in one folder...(I know, I know great organization). So here is what I did to make up for this huge blunder. 6 x 6 = 36 right? So here is the 36th picture in my one huge picture folder.


Isn't she a little cutie? My daughter about 2 weeks shy of 2 years old. April of 2006, it was actually warm enough to go outside in the back yard that day, so we did and had a great time! I have no idea what the salute if for! I remember that I would have been about 8 months pregnant at that time and I took a ton of pictures of her that day.

So, you know there are more rules right?
1) Go to your photo files
2) Pick the sixth folder (open)
3) Pick the 6th photo
4) Write a story about the photo
5) Tag six people

Consider yourself tagged if you wish to play or are in the list that received the award (he he).

I have one more lovely award to pass on and one more tag to participate in....Maybe next weekend I will get caught up. Hope you had a lovely weekend!

Quotable Sunday ~Changes

It has been a trying, emotional and somewhat sad week for me at work. Two very good friends resigned their positions in my office and their last day was Friday. Their departure leaves a big hole not only at my work place but in my heart as well. As we are friends outside of work it is not like I won't ever be seeing them again but they will be sorely missed!

This weeks quotes focus on Change, which I do believe I am about to see a lot of!

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future. ~ John F. Kennedy

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. ~ Charles Darwin

Everything is transient. Everything is constantly changing. The only thing we have is now. ~ Jessica Lange


Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

In our lives, change is unavoidable, loss is unavoidable. In the adaptability and ease with which we experience change lie our happiness and freedom. ~Buddha

The only person who likes change is a wet baby. ~Roy Blitzer

Everything ends. But there are always new beginnings. ~Ralph Bellamy

Now, go visit A Daily Dose of Toni for more Quotable Sunday!

Wordless Wednesday ~The Face

This picture comes to me courtesy of Green Earth Journey:

Wild huh??
For more Wordless Wednesday please visit: Go Graham Go, J. Leigh Designz or Jolly Mom

Take Me Back Tuesday ~Fathers Day

I know we are all gearing up for Fathers Day, and funny enough I pulled out these 2 pictures from my mom's album and they are marked on the back "Fathers Day 1970".

I would have been 17 months old! Yes that is an original Sock Monkey, bet my Mom still has him somewhere.

The lovely man in this picture is my father. He was the best dad you could ever ask for. I remember him teaching me how to hammer nails when I was four, and letting us sit in his chair with him at night while he watched TV.

Want to play along with Take Me Back Tuesday? Just visit A Giveaway Addicted Mommy!