family memories

yesterday was julies baby shower. 26 women and 5 children. in my little house.
but it worked. everyone had a good time
julie was happy.
thats what i was going for

her and ben were blessed with so many wonderful gifts
but more importantly time was spent with family and friends
and i was able to feed all of these people, plus the 8 men when they came back from their hiking--without stressing--i had a good time too!

 

and i couldn't have done it without my daughter in laws meghan and sarah. i thank them for helping me make the day special for julie

i had a lot of fun planning and crafting for this with pinterest for inspiration

                                                                  bubby & grammy

 

now we just sit back and wait for the babies to come

 

meghan is due on oct.24th.  everyone seems to think that baby lukas will come a bit earlier.

family is everything.

what i'm up to

crafting

a diaper wreath for the baby shower. i'm also working on a 3 tier diaper cake and little diaper babies to put in a basket.

we chicken sat for the neighbors over the weekend and this is one of the eggs (on the right, the one on the left is a grocery store large egg)

ouch!

the eggs were really good. i really need to get off my a** and get chickens

i'm going on a shopping trip this weekend down to massachusetts with a friend.  we are going to IKEA!!!!!!! can you tell i'm excited.  its a five hour drive so we are staying overnight. then we will shop our way back home through kittery and portland.  i've not been away from jeff in a really long time so i'm feeling excited and nervous at the same time. but it will be good to get away from things for a bit. 

anyway.....

otherwise all the pregnant ladies are doing great. and something else we've been waiting on for a while finally happened........

jeff turned 55 in august and his UPS pension started!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  first check came this week. we are still so amazed by it.  he worked there for 17 years and now they will pay him for the rest of his life.  its not tons of money by most people standards, but it doubles our income. sigh.......the teamsters union is good for something ;)

end of august already?

well i'm not going to lament that summer is over (or almost over) because we still have weeks of summer left.  but the goldenrod is blooming in full force and the crickets are chirping away and the sun is at that slightly tilted angle that makes the light look a little bit lazy.  the garden is winding down, but the cherry tomatoes are finally ripening! do i want to say that the colors in the leaves are already changing?  walking out back and along the driveway the early signs of fall are definitely there.  and the wood splitting is going full swing

 

grampa giving joey his first lesson in splitting and stacking

 

 



we had a new furnace installed this summer and we switched from oil to propane.  its a high efficiency forced hot air unit.  it should cost us way less to run, plus no worries about the oil line freezing up in the winter, or ever having to clean up an oil spill. nice!  so this winter we are hoping to not rely on the wood as much as we have been, but we'll still keep a couple cords ready.  once jeff is done splitting this wood (the trees were cut last fall and have been drying) then we will start cutting trees for next winters wood.  we plan on cutting less and i've got my eye on quite a few that are casting early morning shade on my garden, then we'll go further out back and pick up where we left off last year.

this summer ethan turned one and we had a party at his house.  "batman" was the theme and i went a bit crazy with pinterest projects! but it was fun and i love to create

this summer also saw joey turn two and we also relied heavily on pinterest for decoration and activity ideas for his "art" party.

now i'm throwing myself into planning for my daughter julies baby shower.  i've got all my ideas pinned and i'll be shopping tomorrow for all i need to make the decorations.  i'm trying to keep it simple, that's hard for me, but i've already been accepting offers of help--so thats a great improvement for me!


well, i have today all to myself and i want to make the most of it, but i also want to just "be" and enjoy this summer day.  here in maine summer doesn't end until the snow flies!